 See a good number of people have joined us. So let's start. Good afternoon everybody. And welcome to this webinar, Understanding the Crisis Integrated, a panel discussion. My name is Flavia Gasbarri. I am a lecturer in the World Studies Department at King's College, London, and I am the co-chair of the Africa Research Group, which has organized these events. So welcome. Today's event is, of course, about the current crisis, a discussion to try to understand what is going on, what are the causes of this crisis, and how the situation may evolve in the next future. We have three panelists. So we are going, of course, to first hear from them, and then we will open the floor to questions and comments from the public. In this regard, please, I would kindly ask you to post your questions and comments on the Q&A chat that you can find at the bottom of the screen. Don't use the chat function, because this is not working for now. So just click on the Q&A and you can post your comments and questions. So let's move to our speakers. I'm going to briefly introduce them in the order which they will speak. Starting with Patrick Jilx, who was an advisor strategic planning in Ethiopia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs from 2004 up to 2019. He previously worked as a senior research analyst on the Horn of Africa in the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office in 2002-2003, and he also worked as a political consultant on the Horn of Africa for several international organizations. He has broadcasted and written extensively in Africa for magazines and newspapers both in the United States, and he also worked for the BBC World Service from 1974 up to 1993, reporting on Africa, particularly on the Horn of Africa. Then we have our second speaker, who is Martin Plauth, who is a journalist and visiting senior fellow at the Department of World Studies at King's College. He has worked on Africa since the 80s, particularly on the Horn of Africa and Southern Africa. He worked for many years for the BBC World Service. He reported from many parts of Africa, and he was appointed Africa editor for the BBC World Service News in 2003. He is also a member of the Royal Institute of African Affairs at Chatham House, and he has advised the British and the US governments in the past. And then our last speaker, Silam Kiden, who is a systemic psychotherapist and PhD candidate at the University of the Netherlands. Her research focuses on trauma and collective trauma in post-conflict and crisis communities. She's also known for her work as a human rights activist. She's the founding member and the director of a human rights charity release, Eritrea, which is based here in the UK. So welcome to our panelist. Thank you for joining us today. And so I leave the floor to our first speaker, Patrick. Thank you very much. I hope I'm now audible. Thank you, Dr. Kastafari. Thank you very much for that introduction and for this opportunity. Now, there are a number of ways of looking at the crisis integrate and the conflict that's been taking place there over the last few months. The origins of it, the present situation, different narratives that have been created about it, ranging from the federal government of Ethiopia's law enforcement operation to the TPLF's genocidal civil war, or understandably partial, to put it politely, and difficult to follow because of the constraints against journalistic activity and the overall lack of transparency. In that context, I think it's worth emphasizing that social media is not a satisfactory alternative. But all these narratives and the reality of what's actually happening on the ground do rest on existing elements in the Ethiopian polity. And I want to look first briefly at the historic origins of some of these and then perhaps the current future implications for the region, which again are very much rooted in the past. I'm going to largely ignore the current situations. I think others are going to cover that. Now at one level, all this goes back over two centuries to the time of the Zemin Mesopotamia between 1760s and 1850s, the era of the princes in Ethiopia, when for 100 or more years warlords fought for control of the imperial throne at Gonda. And at one stage in 1800, I think, there were actually six crowned emperors alive at different parts of the highlands, all supported by different warlords from the Amhara, Aroma and Tigrayan peoples. And it's these three peoples who've remained the central elements in the current problems of the state today. In the second half of the 19th century, effective imperial control was re-established by a Tigrayan and then a Shoe and Amhara emperor. And it was the latter, Menelik II, famous for defeating the Italians of the Battle of Adewa in 1896, who also established the current is still contested boundaries of the country. Menelik was also responsible for largely including or re-including much of southern Ethiopia into the empire. And his methods are still remembered and not fondly in Aroma histories and by other peoples that were conquered at the time. And this is still something that is remembered and that's important. People have not forgotten. In the last half century, Ethiopia has also gone through major changes of governance and ideology. These have ranged from, as it were, genuine imperial rule by Haile Selassie to a workers party government. The last emperor, Haile Selassie, was overthrown in 1974 by a military coup. The committee of a hundred or so junior officers and soldiers under the influence of student Marxists, whose leading quality perhaps was their inability to actually cooperate. The attempt to impose a socialist ideology failed. The military regime, the der, collapsed in 1991 under the pressure of its economic failure. The successful erotria and liberation struggle for independence. And the activities of opposition groups, several of which were ethnically based, leading one being the Tigray people's liberation front. Both the emperor and the der, ran highly centralized regimes with little time for the peripheral lowland areas of the state. Both fought long and hard to keep erotria within Ethiopia. The erotria and struggle for independence was launched in 1961. And the erotria and people's liberation front, headed by Asai Safforki, destroyed rival movements before eventually achieving its de facto independence in 1991. And is your independence after the referendum in 1993. The TPLF took power in Addis Ababa in 1991 as the leading and controlling element in an ethnically framed coalition, the Ethiopian people's revolution and democratic front. And that implemented an ethnically based constitution of nine states. In theory, the states are constitutionally equal, though, in fact, and in practice, the Tigray MParty, the TPLF, remain the controlling element of the ruling four-party coalition, the EPRDF. The others being the Amhara, parties representing the Amhara and the Aroma, and the party for the southern region, which actually covers officially, I think, 56 different nations, nationalities and peoples. Now, the decision to to base the constitution on ethnicity grew out of the belief of Tigrayans, Orovos and other groups that under the previous regimes, the Amhara had predominated marginalizing other groups. And many of these took up arms to oppose the military. And by 1991, there were actually numerous ethnic, based armed groups that needed to be satisfied or dealt with. Equally, of course, ethnicity also provided a method to ensure continued Tigrayan control of the administration. And that was manifested, most obviously, in control of the electoral processes that took place in the 1990s and the 2000s. And in the merging of the party in government and administration to the effect of actually controlling the situation. But it's worth noting that despite the concerns about this, among other nationalities, and these concerns led to the, as it were, the overthrow of the TPLF in 2018, the concept of federalism has remained welcome to almost all the ethnic groups in the country. A central element, as is done here in the 1995 constitution, was Article 39, which provides the self-determination up to and including secession. There's actually little reason to believe the TPLF would ever have intended to implement this. It was drawn from the Soviet model. But for the critics of ethnic federalism and supporters of the idea of a unified unitary state, it obviously appears to be something of a threatening option. Now, the states after 1991 were organized, the federal states were organized on the basis of language and ethnicity. But politics also played a major role and the results left numerous peoples and areas to satisfy. Tigray regional state, for example, was expanding at the expense of the Amharo region. So what is now, what's more recently been called Western Tigray was taken away from essentially from what had been Amharo control previously. And this expanded the Tigray at the expense of the Amharo and allowed Tigray an international border with Sudan. This did not please the Amharo. And this partly explains the enthusiastic involvement of the Amharo militia in the recent operations in Tigray. And indeed, after 1995, the Amharo were left with claims on parts of Tigray, parts of Benish Angle, Oromir, and Afar regions as well. The Oromos have claims on parts of the southern region and along the interface with the Somali region. There are a total of around, I think it's 10 nationalities in the southern region that has expressed their interest in having their own regional state, one the Saddamer achieved the status last year. Under the constitution, having a regional state offers considerable economic benefits. It's worth mentioning too that, of course, how long the constitution is going to actually last now is a question. Overall though, after 1995, as might be expected, if you like, there were numerous conflicts over land and who should control it. And equally predictable, perhaps in circumstances, the Tigray and controlled EPRDF turned more and more to repression under Prime Minister Meles, who became steadily more autocratic in the decade before his death in 2012. And the result was growing opposition to the EPRDF and within the front to the TPLF and to the way it had manipulated and did manipulate the constitution. To be fair, there were some efforts at trying to make reform in the period after 2015. But Prime Minister Haile Maria, who came from the southern region and succeeded in Meles, was seen as a surrogate TPLF appointee and was unable to muster sufficient support from other parties in the EPRDF to implement any reform agenda or any serious reforms. This had to be left to Prime Minister Abe Ahmed, who was from the Aroma region, who took over as Prime Minister in April 2018 after Haile Maria resigned a month earlier. Now, Abe was chosen as Prime Minister on the basis of a tactical alliance with the Aroma and Amhara parties within the EPRDF. It was driven by the failure of the EPRDF to provide any satisfactory response to the widespread Aroma unrest that broke out in 2015 and to the concerns, widespread concerns over corruption and incompetence and violence, economic failings and, if you like, the TPLF's disdain for democracy. The Amhara and the Aroma parties, and most of the southern party as well, certainly agreed on the need for reform and the removal of the TPLF from control of government and even on the need for an Aroma to take office. But they did have very different views of the future. Many Amhara who see themselves having been the main victims of Tigrayan rule identify ethnic federalism as the basic problem of governance and look much more to unified structures and greater central control. They support the creation of Abe's single national prosperity party in 2019 and Aromas and Southerners and, in general, almost all other ethnic groups want more effective implementation of a federalism undistorted by TPLF control. And this remains the basic division underlined, if you like, by what Aroma parties now see as a political shift by Abe. He had their original support in 2018. They now are regardings having moved away from his Aroma support to support Ethiopia when it, Ethiopia in this unified rather than a devolved policy. Now, if I forgot time, I want very briefly to drop that and look a little bit more at a look at external issues of foreign policy, because central to Abe's policies towards the TPLF and Tigray and the implementation of his law enforcement has been his alliance with President Issaas of Eritrea. That's a major development in Ethiopian foreign policy after 20 years of no war, no peace between the two nations. And it's also involved a number of other significant policy changes for Ethiopia's foreign policy and the region. And some of them also appear to pose threats to regional security, I think. Abe made his visit, historic visit to Asmara and signed a peace accord with Issaas in July 1918, 2018. And that was widely welcomed, not least by Tigrayans who live on both sides of the border and make up 50% of the population of Eritrea. He'd also earned Abe the Nobel Peace Prize, of course, in 2019. Now, the original accord was later elaborated, if only slightly in a couple of months later, at the formal signing of a peace agreement in React under the auspices of the Saudi Arabians and the UAE, both of which essentially funded the peace deal. And it's worth mentioning that the accord and the agreement offered very little, apart from generalities, and no details of what the two leaders agreed on have ever been made public or elaborated. It's also worth emphasizing, I think, that the agreement and the whole deal with Eritrea was done without actually talking to the Tigrayans, to the TPLF. And a large part of the Ethiopian border of Eritrea is actually fronted by Tigrayan. And the TPLF had major concerns about any agreement with Asias, because Asias has often made it clear over the last 20 years, his wish is determination to destroy the TPLF. And inevitably the TPLF has been nervous of Asias's intentions. This was actually underlined almost immediately after the agreement was signed when Asias visited the Amhara state, which was already making claims against some of Tigray's alams. And that visit produced, I think, quite genuine fears of encirclement in Tigray, Eritrea to the North Amhara region to the South. And it seems clear in retrospect that Asias and Abbey probably agreed, either in 2018 or certainly shortly afterwards, that they would cooperate in dealing with the TPLF. Abbey was concerned that the TPLF was plotting a comeback. There was an attempted assassination in July 2018, which was blamed on the former Tigrayan director of security, Gatatu Asfa. And the hand of the TPLF was being seen in many other government problems. And Asias, regardless of the TPLF as the architect of the humiliation he suffered being defeated in the 1998-2000 war and the later sanctions on Eritrea, his virtual isolation after 2007. And the agreement in 2018 provided a way out of the U.S. sanctions to open up Ethiopia's isolation, not that that was ever very effective, but also provided a way to influence and even balance, to some degree, Ethiopia's regional aspirations. And from that point of view, both Abbey and Asias were clearly in agreement that something needs to be done about the TPLF. Another major series of developments are rising out of the agreement. And these have already involved wider changes in Ethiopia's foreign policy, in particular, relate to the regional organization, the IGAD, the Intergovernmental Authority for Development. Asias walked out of IGAD in 2007 and refused to rejoin the organization because he regarded it as an instrument to provide for Ethiopian hegemonic claims in the region, and therefore threatening to eat Eritrea. Ethiopia, in fact, retained the chair of IGAD between 2007 and 2019, despite the fact that chair was supposed to change annually. Asias is actually opposed to organizations which he regards as limiting Eritrea's freedom of operation. But he moved quickly after 2018 to draw Abbey into joining in the creation of a Horn of Africa Council, which is now being described as an Eritrea-Ethiopia Somalia axis. And he appears to see this as a future alternative to IGAD. And indeed, Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Somalia are now working to bring South Sudan into the council. Abbey is a strong advocate of regional peace and integration, as he underlines in his book Madema, which is interesting reading, if you want to find out what his philosophy of governance is. And he welcomed the idea. But Somalia's involvement in the council meant of another significant change in Ethiopian foreign policy. Previously, this had been centered on constraining Ethiopian, sorry, constraining Islamic extremism, supporting Amazon in Somalia, but also favoring Somalia federal states, Jubilan, Puntland, and Somalia, which is not a federal state, but at the expense of the federal government in Mogadishu. This was aimed really to limit any possible threat from any resurgent, nationalistic Somalia in the future. But now, since 2018, Ethiopia, along with Eritrea, is supporting President Mohammed from Agia and the federal government in Mogadishu. In effect, that actually mirrors what Prime Minister Abbey wants to see in Ethiopia, a stronger central authority. And both Ethiopian Eritrea do now appear to be supporting for Magio's efforts to actually manipulate the electoral process in Somalia. The election is due theoretically, and it was overdue now, should have taken place in February. That says it were the plus side of the Council, of the Horn of Africa Council, but it has concerned other members of EGAD. Djibouti, for example, is still at odds with Eritrea over a border problem with Rastimera. Kenya is at odds with Somalia over their maritime border and over Kenyan support for Jubilan, and the Kenyans' involvement in Jubilan. And neither Sudan nor Uganda have welcomed it either. And in fact, the creation of the Horn of Africa Council threatens to divide EGAD. The most serious element of all this at the moment, of course, is Sudan, which is currently embroiled with Ethiopia over the congested Alpha Shack border area. I don't want to go into any details about that now, because I'm running out of time. But only two years ago, Abbey had close relations with the Sudanese authorities. He helped to get talks started between the military and civilian elements after the overthrow of President Bashir. Sudan was firmly allied to Ethiopia in terms of negotiations over the GERD, DAM, the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance, DAM. Now it's aligned itself. Now Sudan has aligned itself with Egypt in the tripartite negotiations. It's even held joint military exercises with Egypt, which has assured Sudan of support over Alpha Shack. And this is certainly affecting the chances of getting an agreement in the discussions over the DAM. The last round of talks was this week under A.E. Orspuses. They appear to have made no progress. And Egypt is expressing increasing frustration over Ethiopia's determination to launch the second filling of the DAM in July, as is Sudan. They've even been claims surfacing in a cartoon, that it's not only Alpha Shack that belongs to Sudan, the disputed border area currently, where the conflict, some conflict is taking place. But Sudan, some Sudanese have also been claiming that the GUMUs inhabited area of Benish Angkor further south along the border. And it belongs really to Sudan. The GUMUs live on both sides of the border. And this is an area, of course, which hosts the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance, DAM. And if Sudan is going to try and claim that, it will cause undoubted problems to put it mildly. It's also perhaps relevant to notice this week that Uganda signed a security agreement with Egypt too, possibly indicating a change in Ugandan policy towards the Nile-based initiative and any support for Ethiopia's position. There are in fact other changes in foreign policy arising out of the conflict in Tigray, ranging from the deliberate encouragement of improved relations with Saudi Arabia and UAE, and I think a much more unintended but unfavourable effect on the way Abbey and Ethiopia are now regarded by the US and in Europe. And this is something that's going to have to be taken into account by the government in that it's for quite some time to come, I think. But I think I've probably gone well beyond my time and it's now time for others to say something. Thank you. Thank you very much, Patrick. I'll move to our next speaker. Martin, please, the floor is yours. Thank you very much. And my apologies for appearing as a Eritrea focus, which I am not. And I would ask the host not to switch off my video again. I'm going to try and deal in the brief time I have left with three issues. The first is, I would suggest that the situation is the result of a series of calculations and miscalculations. Secondly, I'll go very briefly through the fighting and the aid situation and finally on to the state of the current diplomacy. The calculations really come, the miscalculations are on both the side of the Tigrayans and the Ethiopian government. The Tigrayans believe that they could hold elections, which they were told they were not allowed to do, by the central authorities, because one of the interesting things is that both Eritrea has never had elections. The Ethiopian government is way beyond its mandate and has no mandate to exist in. And the Somalis, as Patrick was pointing out, also have gone beyond them and therefore had no legitimacy. One legitimate government, in fact, with the Tigrayans, because they held their own elections despite being told they should not undertake this. But this certainly got up the nose of the Ethiopians and of Prime Minister Abbey. The second thing they did was that they refused to allow the army to move its heavy ammunition, heavy armaments and ammunition away from the front line with Eritrea. They believed that there was a possibility there could be another conflict and how right they were. So the Northern Command retained its weaponry right on the border, which is where the Tigrayans believed it was necessary. And they did this by organizing mass protests to prevent its removal. The third issue that they made a miscalculation with, in a sense, was sending back the newly appointed commander of the Northern Command back to Addis Ababa just before the war began, saying that he was unacceptable. And clearly from the point of view of the center, this was a real violation of their rights. So those are their mistakes. I think on the part of Prime Minister Abbey, his mistake was assuming that if he attacked in coordination with the Eritreans, the Amhara and the National Army, the Tigrayans would be incapable of responding. And six months later, it is clear that the Tigrayans certainly can. I think that the Tigrayans were taken by surprise. They were not ready for the attack, although until a few days beforehand, when it was clear that it was coming. And so that was, in a sense, the miscalculations on both sides. The one person who really calculated, in a sense, was President Issaas, who I think is the guiding hand behind what we see now. He began thinking about what kind of state he should have long before any of this took place. And I think the relationship that he built with Prime Minister Abbey was one in which he thought that they would have a confrontation with the Tigrayans. And there have been long suggestions of that he plans to have a federal structure with Ethiopia again. Now, this can't be proved because, of course, there's no freedom of information inside Eritrea. But there were suggestions that, prior to the war, there was a senior meeting of all of President Issaas's closest associates outside of Asmara, and that they agreed with his suggestion that the Ethiopian Navy would be given access to the Eritrean port, something the French have suggested they would help with, and that in due course, some kind of federal structure would be established. We'll see whether that is proved to be right in the end, but that is what one hears. And that, in a sense, and that in a sense, he thought that this war would remove the Tigrayans, as Patrick pointed out, his enemies from way back from the 1970s, in fact, where he loathed them. And for President, for Prime Minister Abbey, it was also an opportunity to crush the Tigrayans whom he thought were behind all of his troubles. So for both of them, they may have operated and they brought in, allegedly, some Somali troops as well. So between the Somali, the Amhara, the Eritreans, and the federal thoughts, they thought they would crush them. And what I'm going to try and do is show you briefly the state of the fighting that is going on. Let me just see if I can do it. Here we are. So this is just a front page. This is the map of the current state of fighting, as best as we can see it. The yellow areas, the areas controlled by the Ethiopians and the Eritreans, and the pink and orange areas, or the areas held by the Tigrayans, or are contested. And you can see this, how serious the war is. Yes, there are North-South links, and that the Eritreans and the Ethiopians control large sections of the center and of the North and West, but the Tigrayans are far from being crushed. The origin of this map is Ethiopia maps, which exists online. Exactly who they are is not clear, but they seem to have a fairly good idea of where things are going on. And what I would particularly suggest you look at is the areas in the far north. So around what is marked Shirara, which is up towards the Bad May Triangle, and the other one just south of the town of Senefe in the east, so around Adigrat. And if you see those areas are clearly marked as under the control of what it shows, Eritrea and Ethiopia, but it's effectively under the Eritreans who control that whole area. Now look at this map, and this is a map of the situation at the end of February of what could be aid could be delivered to. And in reality, you will see that the area around Bad May and around what is called Zalambessa, which is the sort of area that I was pointing to earlier, the other area, is inaccessible. And the real question is why is it that the Eritreans are refusing to allow aid to be distributed in those areas, which are areas that they are controlling. And one of the questions for the aid community is can they possibly get in through Eritrea rather than just through coming in through Ethiopia? It's something that hasn't been tried yet as far as I know, but it's something that could be considered. The last point I want to make is just how serious this is. And I'm going to point to a quotation from the US Institute of Peace, which was made at the very beginning of the war. And it was made by Johnny Carson, the former Secretary of State for Africa in the US, and by Herman Cohen. And they point out that this could lead to dangerous vulnerability across the whole of the of the Horn of Africa. And I think that is the really most serious issue that is facing the Horn right now. And this is in a sense why it has been so important that we see a determination by the United States and the European Union to try to end the conflict. And it has really been quite stark how much President Biden and his Secretary of State have how much energy they have put into a conflict which after all is only of limited concern for the United States. I think that they are aware of the danger for the whole region and of course, with it, the relationships with people like the Saudis and the UAE who are also involved in all of this that is all of the of the conflict now. You will of course be aware of the that Senator Coons was sent, a very close associate of President Biden was sent to Ethiopia and tried to negotiate a ceasefire and the withdrawal of the Eritrean forces. Eventually, after all the idea of a ceasefire was rejected out of hand by Prime Minister Abbey as were attempts by the African Union to mediate in this conflict where he again refused to accept any mediation said he was going to win this war and crush the the Tigrayans. But they did he did eventually finally agree that indeed the Eritreans were involved in the fighting and that they would leave. The suggestions we have now is that far from leaving, they are being either reinforced or rebadged that they're being given Ethiopian uniforms and they are just being integrated into the Ethiopian army that certainly sections of the Eritrean forces are. Of course, one shouldn't forget that parts of the far north of of Ethiopia and Tigray actually are legitimately Eritrean because they they were given to them by the Boundary Commission, which was established after the 1998-2000 war. So the areas like Badme from which Eritrea has no reason to leave. This brings us to the to the final element in all of this, which I just wanted to draw attention to, which is the role of Pekahavisto, the Finnish Foreign Minister, who is currently on a mission to try to resolve these issues. And interestingly, he went to the UAE, he went to Saudi Arabia before he arrived in Addis Ababa. He also held meetings with the in Cairo, with the Arab League. And really interestingly, what he was what he's been talking about is a link. He's trying to resolve all of the questions that Patrick raised in the beginning, not just the war in Tigray, but also the Nile Dam and perhaps the the Alpha Shaga issue. So is there a way that that this can be resolved? Of course, it has to be resolved in a sense between the United States and the European Union without going through the Security Council, because of the Security Council, the Chinese and the Russians would be unlikely to develop things. We will know much more on the 19th of April when the when Mr. Havisto is due to report to the Foreign Affairs Council of the European Union. And perhaps we will get some idea then, whether this diplomatic initiative will succeed, or whether we're in for a long, long war. And we should not forget that the last time there was a war in the Tigrayans were involved, it began in 1975. It didn't end until 1991. And if that is what we're in for, then the future of Ethiopia is very grim indeed. And the suggestion or the prognosis by the Institute of Peace might of a collapse of the Ethiopian state becomes increasingly possible. Thank you very much. I'll leave it there. As I say, please do not switch off my video. Thank you very much, Martin. By the way, nobody can see your video when you're off, so don't worry about that. So I would leave the floor to our last speaker. Thank you. Yeah. Can you hear me? Shall I? Yeah. Yeah. We hear you very well. All right. Okay. I'll start my video as well. Good afternoon. I will just go a little bit into focus on Eritrea. I am Eritrean, and that's where my understanding of the whole situation comes from. And I think it's a very important focus as well. Patrick and Martin have done a good job of painting kind of the regional and also the wider global context of this. I really do believe that Eritrea, and specifically President Isasa for a key place, a crucial role in this, in that not only has he impressed the war itself currently, but also the region's recent history. I will start from 2018 where President Isasa declared that he was going to accept the peace deal with that Abiy Ahmed offered, and it was specifically on a specific day, a crucial day. It was Martyr's Day in Eritrea, and he was making the annual Martyr's Day speech. And central to his declaration was that the fact that it was game over for TPLF. And the reason why that was important was Eritreans and Eritrea have put up with quite a lot, quite a lot of unimaginable situation. They were putting in unimaginable positions because we were in this no war, no peace situation and everything that was happening to Eritrea, which was there was no elections, well elections haven't been held in Eritrea at all since independence. But the last time parliament met in Eritrea was in February 2002. President Isasa arrested 11 of his top officials in September 2001 because they demanded accountability for the war with Ethiopia in 1998 to 2000. Newspapers were shut, there was no other media outlets than the government affiliated media. Eritreans were put under this situation, under this situation where every able bodied Eritrean person child was required to finish a high school education at the age of 16, 17 to 18 at the National Service Training Center. Effectively they become soldiers from that age and there was no, it was an indefinite, it was open-ended. And all of this was because there was that no war, no peace situation. Ethiopia was a threat, TPLF had it in for Eritrea and it could only happen in the context of this perpetual enmity. And so when the peace deal was accepted and when specifically when President Isasa accepted it, it had to make sense in that, within that context. President Isasa is, we have painfully come to know as Eritreans, it's somebody who is so focused to the exclusion of any other focus on what he wants to achieve and at this point in his history what he wanted to achieve was the demise of TPLF because he saw TPLF as a cause of humiliation in 1998 to 2001 as a cause of the political strife that he had in 2001 and also the, you know, what followed in the years between between 2018 the sanctions, the isolation and all of that. So for him, TPLF was the orchestrator of all of this for Eritreans inside the country who don't have access to information other than what is fed to them from the government. Also, you know, there's no university, high school education is strictly controlled by the government. So the information that Eritreans have is that TPLF is causing all the hardship inside Eritrea. So when it was, you know, when he declared game over, it was important for him to effect that, to make that declaration a reality. And in Ethiopia's situation, it was looking impossible, if you like, because Ethiopia was a state. It had a parliament. Abiy Ahmed was a Nobel Peace Prize recipient. There was quite a lot at stake. So, you know, doing away with the TPLF wasn't as straightforward as all of that. So President Isas has been orchestrating this since that time, because it's important, you know, for all of what he's done to make sense, TPLF have to have to go. And he hasn't, it doesn't care what price he pays for the previous 20 years. He had practically gambled away the entire generation of Eritreans who have been subject to the National Service. And everything was worth it. And it still seems to be worth it. And so that brings me to what he used, who he used. These are the army that we talk about in Tigray, the army that we unfortunately talk about in relation to the crimes against humanity, the rape, the looting, the burning down of factories and institutions, the desecration of religious ancient historic religious institutions. This is the National Service Army that has been recruited, most of them from the age of, as I said, 17, 18, some of them even younger. We're finding out a lot of them would be forcibly recruited. A lot of them would have spent pretty much their entire youth in, you know, in those trenches or as National Service recruits. Their education is very limited. The information they've got is next to nothing other than the information that the government feeds them. And the hatred, the animosity or the, you know, what the sentiments of Isayas Aforki is the policy in the country, basically. And this is what is fed to them. And this is what is maintaining the, you know, that's what they're fighting against. They're fighting against what they've been told is the enemy of Eritrea, the cause of Eritrea's decline, the cause of Eritrea's situation currently. I was listening to an interview by a 16-year-old who has been captured, who was giving an interview to the TPLF media outlet recently. And what he was saying was that one of the things that they got told was that the TPLF spent the last 20 years building buildings, factories and institutions. But they, as the PFDJ, were building people or people's brains. And so yeah, and I believe that I see that they built an army that would do anything for them. And unfortunately, they're using them to make this happen. We talked a lot about what the international community has been doing, all the efforts that are undergoing. I believe that without dealing with the Eritrea situation, without understanding the influence of Isayas Aforki and without taking that into account in a major way, we will not see ourselves out of this predicament piece. It's the only solution for that region. And particularly worrying is the cycle of violence. The cycle of violence that comes from way back, as Patrick was saying earlier on. But even in recent history, if we don't find a way where the people of that region, the different ethnic groups, but also between Eritrea and Ethiopia, if we don't find a way that sees both of these countries come out of this with a robust arrangement, with clarity and with a peace deal that tells the people what they can expect and work towards that makes the people of that region stakeholders in their own piece, in the piece that has come for them. We will not see ourselves out of this for a long time to come and it will, yeah, has taken generations and it will continue to do so. Thank you very much. Well, thank you very much, Silan. Thank you to the three panelists for very interesting talks. We can now open the floor to the questions and comments. We have already several questions and comments. Let me first of all specify that this event is being recorded, so I want to make this clear to the public. So we have already several questions. I will start reading the questions loud to you and then you can answer accordingly. Some of them arrived while you were still talking, so maybe then you covered some of those points already, but if you want maybe to elaborate a bit more. So first question, what is the status of and outlook for food systems, markets, and access in the short and medium term integrate? Who do you want to answer? Whoever, I mean, this is an open question to the whole panel, so Martin, if you want to go, please. Well, I'll just say one thing, which is obvious, which is that the situation in Tigray, like in many parts of Ethiopia, is always precarious. I mean, many people do not produce on their farms sufficient to actually keep their families going for a full year and require food aid even in good years. But the worst part about the current situation is that the current fighting came just as the harvest was supposed to be coming in and much of it will have been lost. So that's together with the looting that has been described, it means that people are an incredibly precarious situation and one study that came out last week suggested that between 50 to 100 people a day already die of starvation. Thank you very much. Of course, if anyone else wants to join or add something, feel free. I would move to the next question. This is for Patrick. Recently, the spokesman of the Ethiopian MFA said that the Eritrean people did not celebrate independence. He then walked this back, but was this a true error or did he reflect a more widely held government view or even a trial balloon? So he said that no, Patrick has told that. Is I sometimes being equivocal about full independence for Eritrea? Well, I think the spokesman, no, yes, I think the spokesman obviously felt that he had overstepped Mark in some respect. He said he did walk back from the statement and it certainly is a view that would not be a whole widely held, I think, in Eritrea. In Ethiopia, there are those certainly who believe that it will be a good thing if Eritrea returned to Ethiopia, but they are a very small minority. I think of now a very small minority, but there are a much larger element of Ethiopians who believe that it would certainly be very satisfactory if Ethiopia, the largest landlocked country in the world, was able to use ASAP freely or to have ASAP, to get ASAP. One of the criticisms is made of Mela Sinawe. I'm sorry, at the end of the Ethiopian war in 2000, he had not made any effort to actually not make a serious enough effort to capture ASAP and use it at least as a bargaining counter or for Ethiopia to keep it. But I don't think this represents the mass of Ethiopian views. On the other hand, there certainly, as Martin said, there have been these suggestions that President Asaias would be interested in some sort of federal structure and it is possible that a comment by the spokesperson was a trial balloon of some kind. In 2018, when Abby and Asaias were meeting in Addis Ababa, when Asaias came to Addis Ababa, there were a number of comments about we're all together. Asaias saying, I now defer to Abby as the head of the region and so on. And Abby has said that when he was at Davos in January 2019, I think, that Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Djibouti and it didn't really need to have separate armies. They should all have one army who was going to control it, he didn't actually mention. So there are ideas floating around and Abby certainly has made it clear that he supports the idea of regional integration quite strongly. This is something that comes out very strongly in his book Madema. And there is a, it's all part of the wider African Union move towards the unification of Africa, which is scheduled for 2063. So there are some suggestions in that direction, but it would certainly be, I think, premature at the moment. And I would think that this could be no more than the very fragile trial balloon, if it was even that. Right, thank you very much. There is another question for you, Patrick. Do you think Abby could go to war with Sudan, Egypt, as a way of diversion from the internal pressure is facing, especially the tension between the Amara, and Tigrayans, and the Romans, and Amara? It would be quite difficult, I think, for Ethiopia to go to war at the moment because of the fact that there is still a lot of conflict going on in Tigray, among other things. And Abby said the other day there are eight fronts, I think, of conflict actually active in Tigray. And the Ethiopian army does appear to have problems, or to have had problems, because of what happened in Tigray. The issue of what happened to the Northern Command on the night of November the third, and the difficulty that Abby has had, if you like, in dealing with the issue in Tigray, the Ethiopian army was not sufficient to resolve the problem from his perspective. The Eritrean army has had to be involved on a massive scale, and that still hasn't resolved the problem. Ethiopia has said to have withdrawn some troops from Amesong in Somalia, to generate from active duty in Somalia in order to participate in Tigray, which again suggests questions about just how organized the army is. And indeed, since 2018, Abby has carried out some fairly substantial purges of the senior Tigray in the army, and has talked a lot about the need to restructure it and redo its training and so on, which suggests that there would be no real enthusiasm for any kind of conflict. And one of the reasons why the Sudanese may have taken this opportunity to take over Al-Fashakh, for example, is simply because they are aware that Ethiopia is in really no position to go to war. The danger, though, is of course that with the Sudanese pushing, if you like, with Egypt prepared to support Sudan, and with the whole question of Egypt's view of what should happen with the dam, with Gerd, it will be fairly easy for a conflict to arise, which neither side are actually in any real enthusiasm to have. I don't think Abby would want to go to war with Sudan at the moment, and I don't think it would be very wise for him to do so. And I think all the statements that Ethiopia has been making have been actually less provocative in that sense, they've been fairly moderate in tone. And I think Abby would prefer to have a deal, but it's going to be difficult. Thank you very much. Next question is about the British foreign policy in the region. If each of the panelists can comment on UK foreign policy on Tigray, whether or not this has been a failure, has ended up in a failure successful, what should it be? Well, I can say something about it, if you like. I mean, I think that the, in a sense, Britain's become far less influential because of its, although it has a role on the UN Security Council, I mean, it was much more influential when it was part of the European Union, but the leaving the European Union and Brexit has left Britain with a far less important voice in the world. Having said that, Britain has taken, I suppose, what is its traditional role, which is to say, well, let's maintain links. Yes, they have quietly asked for the Eritreans to leave, and they have suggested that there should be a resolution to the conflict, but it's been very much less public than the role that is being taken by the United States and by the European Union. And I suppose that is, in a sense, exactly what one would expect from the foreign office, which definitely does not try and get involved in things unless it absolutely has to. Thank you, Martin. Anyone else, Salam or Patrick, you want to add anything on this? Really, no, I would agree with the UK's influence and in this sort of situation, because it was really not very real. If it is expressing its view, this will be her, as it were, but I don't think there's very much it can do at this point. Thank you. So, another question for the whole panel. The former Soviet Union had a substantial involvement in Ethiopia during the Cold War. Is there any strong evidence that Russia is now getting involved diplomatically, militarily, or economically in the Ethiopian conflict, or, generally speaking, in the Horn of Africa? Same question applies to China's possible involvement. Thank you. Do you want to do that, Martin? No, I'll leave it to you, Patrick. The question is for everybody. There are clearly Russian and Chinese interests in the region. China, of course, has a military base in Djibouti, and this is something that, whereas, for example, the Americans quite substantially, and have been suggestions that the Chinese, the Americans will be quite interested in possibly moving to Eritrea, moving their base to Eritrea to get out of, to remove Camp Lemonia out of reach of the Chinese. The Russians have shown some interest in trying to set up, to have a base in Port Sudan, no, in Suakin, or Port Sudan, originally under President Bashir, and have been also talking to the new regime more recently. They've also, the foreign minister has also had meetings with the Eritrean foreign minister recently. Neither have, I think, shown any sign of, as it were, any active role. But both have, as Martin mentioned, both have taken a position in the Security Council, broadly speaking, supportive of Prime Minister Abbey and Andesai in terms of the Eritrean, in terms of the Tigran situation. And there's no reason to suppose that they will change that. The general view of both is that the Security Council should keep out of internal affairs of this kind. And I would imagine they will continue to do that. They have an interest. I mean, the Red Sea is becoming far more of a security issue in international terms, partly because of the whole issue of Iran and relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia, or Iran and the Gulf. And both are continuing to take, will continue to take an interest undoubtedly. But neither, I think, appear to be actively involved in the internal politics at the moment. Thank you very much. Next question, if you can discuss any of you, the Amara genocide. I don't know, Selami, if you want to comment on. Yeah, I mean, one of the things that worries me about what's been going on in the region, in this war, and what's been going on in Ethiopia since, you know, for the last three years, is the fact that the cruelty with which people have been dealing with each other and addressing their concerns and being, you know, making their concerns known. And part of that is, has been the killing of Amhara, that have Amhara people settled in different parts of Ethiopia, other than the Amhara region. And that is as worrying as the genocide against Tigrayans as well. And is what is at stake for Ethiopia here. The fragmentation of Ethiopia becomes visible when things like this can happen. And it's not just the Amhara, it's also the Oromo that also claim that they are being treated with the same, you know, the Oromo genocide is also something that Oromo people complain about, and so on and so forth. So there is something deeply worrying about what's happening in Ethiopia and how grievances are being dealt with and how weak the system has become. And I think it's the influence of what has been going on and how things haven't been dealt with at junctures when they should have been dealt with. Thank you very much. We have a lot of questions, so I'm trying to cover sometimes several questions all together if they are on the same topic. So I just want to make the public aware that sometimes I'm just putting together different questions on the same topic. So if I'm not reading correctly, your question is because I'm just trying to put together different questions on the same topic in order to cover as much as possible, considering that we have a limited time. Okay, so we have just one moment. We have questions for Patrick and Martin in terms of the reconciliation of two different interpretations. On the one hand, Isaias is firstly committed to guarding Eritrean independence. On the other, there is this concept of a bigger federation confederation in which Eritrean and Ethiopia wouldn't come together again. So if you can elaborate a bit on this type of this kind of opposition or contradictions between these two different views. Well, on the face of it, it is extraordinary because one shouldn't forget that President Isaias did lead the Eritrean struggle for the best part of 30 years, which led to independence. So why on earth would somebody with that kind of background then consider anything that reduced Eritrean sovereignty or independence? It would seem contradictory. And yet, as Patrick pointed out, when he went to Addis Ababa for the first time after when Peace broke out in 2018, he then started talking about, you know, you are my leader, he says to Prime Minister Abbey. And there are all these suggestions that perhaps federalism is back on the agenda. And I think if you have to, if you look behind what is happening, you begin to understand it because President Isaias has always seen himself as the primus inter pares, to use a Latin phrase, that he was by far and away the most important influence in the whole of the region. And the fact that he leads a nation of perhaps, you know, four million, five million people and they're far more in Ethiopia has never stood in his way. And he sees himself as really running the show behind the scenes. And I mean, for example, he warned Mela Zanawi many years ago, when the Tigrayan leader was still running Ethiopia, he said, if you ever, you know, come up against us, you will see you will be in huge trouble. Your holdover Ethiopia will collapse. And so the idea that he would go for federation is not that impossible. But of course, it will probably be a federation that he thinks that he can control, not one in which he would personally be necessarily the leader, but there are ways of that he would have of manipulating the situation from rear. And that is in a sense, one of the perceptions that he has portrayed for many, many years is of the, you know, eminence grieves of the of the Horn of Africa. And, you know, he certainly has outlasted many, many other leaders. And whatever one thinks of him and, you know, the dictatorial regime that he leads, he certainly has had a long foresight, great foresight and great ability to see things in the long term and sacrifice short term gains in it to achieve that. I think it might also be worth mentioning that in a sense that back in the 1990s after the independence, the Jura independence of Ethiopia, Eritrea in 1993, Eritrea played a very African role. Asias or the Eritreans were providing training, arms training in Congo. They were involved militarily in Sudan. And they were also providing training in Chad. And Eritrea certainly saw Asias and Eritrea certainly saw himself as being an important, very important player in Africa. This didn't stop him being extremely critical of the African Union, for example. And I think Martin's right in the sense that if he's going to involve himself in any multinational organization, it is only if he is in a position to essentially control what is happening. If he thinks that Eritrea is getting a bad deal, as it were, he will walk out immediately. But if he thinks that it's something that he can in effect control or take the senior position in, then there is no problem about Eritrea's involvement. Thank you very much. Another question for Martin. Do you expect this will spill over into a regional reconfiguration, particularly the Balkanization of Ethiopia, as many have predicted? It seems that Ethiopia is going to return into conflict ever generation, basically. I certainly hope not. But if I may, could I suggest that it's perhaps something that Salam would like to respond to, just because I think after all this from the region has lived a long time, although an Eritrean has lived a long time in Ethiopia, I think it's in the better position to comment. Yeah, thanks Martin. One of the worrying trends is precisely that. To personalize a bit, I've got lots of two grand friends who were very proud of being Ethiopian. A very, if your case, a significant and important part of their identity has been a very significant and important part of their identity. And that has been completely eroded now. They have become, in the last five, six months, they have transformed themselves into, you know, they have begun envisaging an independent state. And they're no longer, they don't consider themselves Ethiopians. They have been done hard by everything that has happened. Of course, we all have come across the Oromo struggle for so long. And even that has, you know, in 2018, there was a hope that with an Oromo in the helm of power, maybe some of their grievances would be addressed. Maybe they would finally begin to feel stakeholders of this centralized Ethiopia. Well, this notion of Ethiopia, but I mean, that Ethiopia as an empire state that has got to be dismantled has become a very strong rhetoric amongst the Oromos. In the rest of Ethiopia, of course, the marginalization has been longstanding with the southern nationalities, with the Somalis, with the Afaris. So that stakeholdership has been quite fragmented for a long time. But even with the strongest elements of the union, which is the Amhara, the Oromo and the Tokrayans, already we see the listening of the Oromos and the Tokrayans. Thank you very much. There are also several questions concerning the attention of the international community, what's the degree of the attention of the international community is devoted to these crises, what we can expect in the future as well. And first of all, if there are any chances that a case being compiled and brought forward to the ICC? Well, let me have a go at that briefly. And then perhaps Patrick, it could only be referred to the ICC by the UN Security Council because it hasn't gone through an individual state. And I see no indications that the Security Council is about to do that. So I think that is unlikely. I think that we are at an extremely important moment because the, let's be honest, there are so many crises in the world. I mean, there's a brewing one in Ukraine. There's one in Myanmar. There's the ongoing war in Syria. The Horn of Africa will only get a limited period, a limited window of opportunity when it really has the attention of the world. And let us not forget that a few years ago, Darfur was the cause which everybody was concerned about film stars, pop stars, they all went there. Who mentions Darfur now? The situation is still as bad as it ever was, as far as I can see, or at least not very much improved, and nobody cares. And so frankly, unless there is a rapid development and settlement of this, then it will just be left to rot and the war will continue unless the Ethiopians and the Eritreans manage to crush the Tigranians. There's no suggestion at the moment that they are going to. But if they do, then that would finish the war. Other than that, we will just be left with yet another localized conflict which Africa has to live with and draining Eritrea, draining Ethiopia, and draining the region and putting these tremendous strains on the whole of Ethiopia. And that is the real danger. There's only limited attention from the world and it will soon be over. Thank you. Selam and Patrick, do you want to add anything or anything to add on the international communities? Well, the international community only does act when it thinks it's in its interest to act. And there is reason to do so. And given the differences in the Security Council on what is happening in Ethiopia and Eritrea, and as Martin says, there are a number of other problems around, not least one he didn't actually mention, which I think was Yemen might have been mentioned. The humanitarian side of things is something that does take people's attention rather more than anything else. One of the difficulties with any situation like this is that there is a massive amount of material that comes out or comments that come out on social media. They're very difficult to evaluate. And certainly there have been these allegations of killings on abuses on all sides, as it were. But it's very difficult to persuade people to act. And it's very difficult to see what exactly they can do anyway if they are interested in acting. I mean, we mentioned earlier the question of whether the UK has any influence from the bear. And the answer to that is absolutely none in terms of it can complain. One of the things that was very evident, I think, in terms of international response to the original problem, the fighting that started in November, was that has been a consistent amount of concern or deep concern expressed by Europe and America of the United States. And several commentators have made the point, the concern is not very helpful to what's happening in terms of the humanitarian problem. It may satisfy you to satisfy the government of, say, the UK to express deep concern, but it doesn't do anything at all. And that, I think, is a problem. It's one of the issues that really the African Union from time to time does consider. I mean, it's, I think, not irrelevant to notice that 2020 was a specific year in Africa, the year when they, I think, the year to bring to silence the guns and the amount of effort that was put into that in theoretical terms, in terms of the discussions in the EU and in terms of the African Union Peace and Security Council were considerable. It didn't actually do very much in terms of silencing the guns. This is something that is extraordinarily difficult to do. It's something, in fact, of course, though, this is not the business, in fact, in many ways of the outside world. This is something that is African leaders make a lot, two of African solutions for African problems. Certainly, that is what ought to be carried out. It is not the business or should not be the business, really, or should not have to be the business of the international community. This is an issue for Ethiopia and Eritrea. It's not, I mean, we can make, outsiders can make some comment, and they can offer advice if they like, but it is for the people involved to resolve the problem, not us. Thank you. Another question for Patrick, if you can please say more about how the Horn of Africa Council is a threat to the Intergovernmental Authority on Development. Threat is perhaps the wrong word to have used, but it does offer an alternative, or appears to be moving in that direction. EGAD involves all the countries of the region, apart from Eritrea, which walked out in 2007 and hasn't returned. Despite the peace deal with Ethiopia in 2018, there were quite widespread expectations in 2018 that Eritrea might come back into EGAD. It showed absolutely no interest in doing so, and indeed, rather than do that, it has set up the Horn of Africa Council, and that involves three of the seven members of EGAD, or if you can't Eritrea, eight members of EGAD. If South Sudan is brought into it, which I think the council is looking to do at the moment, then you are in fact using up half the elements in EGAD. It doesn't mean to say that they are going to withdraw from EGAD, but their attention, if you like, is distracted, or their involvement is likely to be distracted. There's been a lot of consideration over the last few years about how far EGAD needs to be restructured and reorganized anyway, and back some years ago, I remember some papers floating around in Addis Ababa about the question of expanding EGAD or reorganizing it to incorporate the East African community, or vice versa, or trying to bring the two together in some respect. At the moment, EGAD is the regional economic community for Eastern Africa within the AU, and it has a function, an AU function in that respect. There's no reason to suppose it will collapse as yet, but the fact of the matter is, if you are setting up an alternative organization, and if it is going to be an organization and a structure provided and so forth, then it is going to weaken EGAD, it is going to have an effect on EGAD. And as I say, there are some questions about how far EGAD needs to be reorganized and restructured and so forth. Anyway, so there is a possibility of replacing EGAD in that sense, and I'm sure that has been under some sort of consideration, but whether it's likely to achieve that, I'm not so sure. As I say, half the other countries in EGAD seem to be less than enthusiastic and have problems with those that are already in the Horn of Africa Council. So it merely weakens the coherence of the Horn of Africa, which I think is a pity. Thank you very much. We have a series of three questions. First of all, what are the chances that the Security Council will pass a resolution on cessation of hostilities and then set up a commission of inquiry for the human rights abuses in the integrity? What are the possibilities, the chances that the degree can invoke Article 39 and break away from Ethiopia and form a de facto state? And in this case, what position the international community would take and whether Ethiopia is ready to run free for incredible elections on the 5th of June? I guess I have open questions to Sila, maybe you want to say. I'll skip my neck out to start with slightly. In terms of how far the election is going to be credible in June, this will depend to a considerable degree on security in Ethiopia, and the insecurity element is not confined currently to Tigray. There is quite a lot of insecurity elsewhere, and there have been these allegations of killings and so on in several other areas of the country. And it is if you're going to have a credible election, you do need to have as much security as possible. How far the National Electoral Board of Ethiopia currently thinks the situation is satisfactory in security terms, I'm not really sure, but certainly there have been problems. The part of the other aspect of it is that it doesn't really matter what the results will be. There will be people who will actually complain that it is not going to be a free and fair election. Is it respective or probably whether it is a free and fair election? Those that are opposed to Abbey will certainly maintain that it is not. There are going to be some difficulties with it because there have been a number of arrests of Roma part leading Roma politicians last year on various charges connected with the killing of the killing of a Roma singer and there have been other issues that have led to difficulties with some of the parties. But the National Election Board seems to think that it can currently go ahead. So there will be, I think, an election on June the 5th. I would expect Abbey's prosperity party to win it. The one area where probably there won't be an election will be an integral. I think that looks as though the security problems is unlikely to have succeeded by then. But it's still two months away, things may change. What were the other parts of the question? Should we leave them to Salam to pick up? Yeah, maybe if you want to say something. I was only going to add on the election anywhere most of them have said. Again, it's not just the security issues. It's who's not participating. Obviously, there won't be an election in Tehran. Of course, Tehran had its own election and it was visibly a popular election. But putting that aside, these Oromo leaders are in prison and two major parties have pulled out officially. And so, if we're talking about stakeholdership, the large swath of the Oromo population will not feel represented. There's a lot of contestations when it comes to Addis Ababa and with the arrest of continuing imprisonment of Senator Naga, there is a lot of questions that have been raised. There is questions about the parties that are running, which are more often than not seen to mirror what the prosperity party is saying, which makes it, you know, which leads to really disappointing discussions that are being had on serious major issues that are happening. And also quite severe situations in the Afar region where there is difficulties with the Somali region where borders have been moved and there's contests around where things should be. So I don't see any region, perhaps from the Amhara region, where people would feel like they're electing anything. So regardless of the outcome, it will not give the kind of legitimacy to Abbi that we had hoped it would be possible in 2018. The only thing I would add to that is this is unlikely to trouble either Africa or the wider community because quite frankly, Africa has been perfectly happy to have utterly rigged elections in Uganda and nobody has suggested that the Uganda elections should be ignored. So I don't think there's going to be any change. Just on the question of sovereignty for Tigray, I think there are enormous barriers in the way of that becoming an independent state. Whatever the constitution says, the African Union hates new states being being carved out of out of its territory. It took the Eritreans 30 years to fight for theirs. And the last one, if I remember correctly, that was officially recognized apart from South Sudan was of course the Saharwi, which the Moroccans loathed and detest. And so this is not a process that people really want to see, especially when you have people like the Nigerians who haven't forgotten the Biafra war. So there are a lot of obstacles in the way of that coming about. And I think it would be enormously difficult. One might also add that it's unlikely to be a very serious proposition in the sense that Tigray would be a landlocked state, an independent Tigray would be a tiny landlocked state. And its difficulties of dealing with, as it would stand at the moment, two enemies, Eritrea and Ethiopia, which are the two countries that surround it, would make it almost an insoluble problem in that sense. It's worth actually mentioning in this context though that the Horn of Africa appears to be the one region of Africa which likes the idea of having a multiplicity of states. It isn't just South Sudan, which has been able to successfully would break away. Eritrea of course was the other one. Somali land may not have been recognized, but it has actually managed to survive since 1991. And the question of state structures in the Horn of Africa obviously needs to have some additional consideration perhaps. Okay, thank you very much. I'm afraid time is over, the fact that I have on the chat more than 40 questions and I'm very sorry we have no time to answer all of them. We try to combine them, we try to answer as many as possible. I'm very sorry we cannot keep going answering all of them, but time is over. So I would kind of ask for a virtual round of applause for our speakers to thank them for this very interesting debate. I thank all the participants for your comments and questions and for your participation. Thank you very much and well, enjoy the weekend. Thank you very much and thank you to our speakers again. Thank you. Thank you. Bye bye. Goodbye.