Thursday, July 24, 2014

Seeking Peace in Ethiopia's Ogaden

The Rift Valley Institute in Nairobi recently published a lengthy study titled "Talking Peace in the Ogaden: The Search for an End to Conflict in the Somali Regional State in Ethiopia" by Tobias Hagmann, a professor at Roskilde University in Denmark. 

The author explains that the conflicting parties were preparing for a third round of talks early in 2014 when two Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) representatives were forcibly relocated from Nairobi to Ethiopia.  It is not clear that the talks will resume, but the author suggests the ONLF has been diminished militarily and politically over the past five years and is under pressure from its constituency to chart an alternative course.  The author questions the sincerity of Ethiopia in seeking a negotiated peace.