Sec. 3. Findings
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Congress makes the following findings: The United States and the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia share an important relationship and more than a century of diplomatic relations. Ethiopia is the second most populous country in Africa and plays a key role in advancing security and stability across sub-Saharan Africa, including as a top contributor of uniformed personnel to United Nations peacekeeping missions and as host country to the African Union. Amid proliferating popular protests in 2018, against decades of authoritarian rule, Ethiopia’s governing Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) selected Abiy Ahmed as Prime Minister, who upon taking office embarked on a program of political and economic reform that was soon encumbered by widespread inter-communal conflict, political assassinations, and democratic backsliding.
Tensions between Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and the leadership of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), who, until 2019, were EPRDF coalition partners, deteriorated significantly throughout 2019–2020, with the EPRDF’s transformation into the Prosperity Party (PP), the Federal Government of Ethiopia’s postponement of the 2020 elections, and the TPLF’s decision to hold elections in Tigray Regional State of Ethiopia despite Federal objections, all serving as major catalysts.
In the early hours of November 4, 2020, Prime Minister Abiy ordered a military offensive in response to an attack by the TPLF on the Northern Command of the Ethiopian National Defense Forces (ENDF), which TPLF officials have asserted was an act of self-defense in the face of an imminent invasion by Federal forces. Throughout November 2020, hostilities between the ENDF and forces loyal to the TPLF evolved into a large-scale armed conflict that also involved the Eritrean Defense Forces
(EDF)and Amhara regional forces and militia fighting in support of the Federal Government. Despite repeated calls from the United States and its international partners for a full and verifiable Eritrean withdrawal from Ethiopia, which date back to November 2020, Eritrean forces remain in Ethiopia. Fighting between TPLF aligned forces and the ENDF and its allies persists in parts of Tigray, and has spread to Amhara and Afar, and is estimated to have resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of individuals, prompted more than 61,000 Ethiopians to seek refuge in Sudan, and internally displaced over 2,000,000. The war has disrupted harvests, livelihoods, markets, and banking, and critical public infrastructure was systematically looted and destroyed during the course of the conflict, including health centers and schools, with the majority of the reports implicating the ENDF, the EDF, and allied militia. Supply chains and food were allegedly looted by ENDF, EDF, and allied militia, which collectively contributed to conditions that have resulted in 400,000–900,000 Ethiopians living in famine-like conditions and a further 1,800,000 close to that threshold, according to an analysis issued in June 2021. Interruptions in electricity, internet, and telephone services imposed by the Federal Government of Ethiopia continue to hamper humanitarian relief efforts and enable impunity from armed actors on all sides of the conflict by restricting the flow of information about human rights and humanitarian conditions in the region. Despite repeated assurances from the Federal Government of Ethiopia that it would allow unfettered humanitarian access to Tigray, it continues to impose wide-ranging bureaucratic obstacles that impede the relief efforts of international humanitarian organizations, and encourage and deploy hostile rhetoric toward international humanitarian organizations that endanger the safety and security of their staff on the ground. Twenty-three aid workers have been killed in the course of the conflict in northern Ethiopia, including an aid worker employed by a United States Agency for International Development implementing partner, who was reportedly executed by Ethiopian and Eritrean forces in May 2021, and 3 Doctors Without Borders employees in June 2021, by unknown armed actors. Parties to the conflict in northern Ethiopia have been accused of extra-judicial killings, rape, and ethnic cleansing that may amount to war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide. Two Eritrean refugee camps in Tigray, Shimelba and Hitsats, were attacked and destroyed by armed actors in November 2020 through January 2021, and refugees subjected to killings, abductions, and forced returns. As of October 31, 2021, total United States Government humanitarian assistance in fiscal years 2020 and 2021 for the northern Ethiopia crisis response totaled $617,387,662, making it the single largest donor of humanitarian aid to the humanitarian crisis in northern Ethiopia since the conflict began. In July 2021, TPLF aligned forces launched military operations into some occupied portions neighboring Amhara and Afar regions, displacing hundreds of thousands of Amhara and Afar civilians, and giving rise to allegations of serious abuses by Tigrayan forces against civilians in those two regions, as well as against Eritrean refugees residing in the Mai Aini and Adi Harush camps. The TPLF’s July 2021 offensive was followed by reports of escalating abuses against Tigrayan civilians in various parts of Ethiopia and the alleged killing of Tigrayans in Humera, all of which occur within a context of incendiary and ethnicized public statements from Ethiopian officials and media platforms. The Federal Government of Ethiopia responded to TPLF offensives in July through August 2021 by pursuing mass military mobilization, including the mobilization of regional special forces and ethnic militia from various parts of the country, in an effort to thwart and roll back TPLF operations. In August 2021, officials from the TPLF and Oromo Liberation Army (OLA), a rebel group engaged in armed struggle primarily in the Oromia region, publicly confirmed they had entered an alliance designed to coordinate their military operations against the Federal Government of Ethiopia, developments which occurred against the backdrop of TPLF advances in Amhara region and increased OLA activity in Oromia. In September 2021, the Federal Government of Ethiopia announced it was expelling seven senior United Nations officials, and in October 2021 commenced an air offensive on the Tigrayan capital, Mekele, which has further exacerbated the inability of international aid organizations to deliver food. In October, state-owned Ethiopia Television reported that Prime Minister Abiy stated that, [i]f we make sure that this thing called wheat [food aid] does not enter Ethiopia, 70 per cent of Ethiopia's problems will be solved, implying that he may stop the delivery of international food aid altogether. In October 2021, a United Nations Humanitarian Air Services flight that had been cleared by Federal authorities to land in Mekelle to deliver food aid was forced to abort landing due to air raids, threatening the lives of 11 United Nations and non-governmental staff on board. In the wake of military advances by the Tigray Defense Forces in late October 2021, Prime Minister Abiy urged citizens to take up arms to defend themselves, and on November 2, 2021, Ethiopia declared a 6-month state of emergency. On November 3, 2021, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights released the Joint Investigation into Alleged Violations of International Human Rights, Humanitarian and Refugee Law Committed by all Parties to the Conflict in the Tigray Region of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, which found that attacks on civilians and civilian objects, as well as indiscriminate attacks by ENDF, EDF, and TSF Tigray Special Forces] in violation of international humanitarian law … may amount to war crimes, and that these groups and affiliated militia committed acts in violation of international human rights law and international humanitarian law . The escalating conflict between the Federal Government of Ethiopia and its allies and the TPLF and OLA occurs in the context of a broader deterioration of political conditions across the country, including persistent inter-communal violence, expanding repression against journalists, opposition parties, and dissident voices, and highly contentious national elections conducted in June to July 2021 that did not meet internationally accepted standards. Ethiopia’s crisis is nested within a complex regional environment, the most important dimensions of which are three-way tensions between Ethiopia, Egypt, and Sudan over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam border tensions between Sudan and Ethiopia over Al Fashaga, Eritrea’s muscular regional engagement, and increasing geopolitical competition in the Horn of Africa that involves the Gulf, Turkey, Iran, Russia, and the People’s Republic of China. Working in conjunction with its international partners, the United States has consistently called for a political solution to the crisis, unfettered humanitarian access, an end to human rights violations, full accountability for all atrocities committed during the course of hostilities, and a broader all-inclusive national dialogue, and has taken a number of actions to encourage and incentivize a peaceful resolution to the conflict in Ethiopia, including reductions in development and security assistance, visa sanctions, and high-level diplomatic engagement. On September 17, 2021, President Joseph R. Biden signed Executive Order No. 14046 Imposing Sanctions on Certain Persons With Respect to the Humanitarian and Human Rights Crisis in Ethiopia, which authorizes the United States to target parties responsible for or complicit in actions or policies that prolong the conflict in northern Ethiopia, and those that commit human rights abuses, or obstruct humanitarian access and a ceasefire with respect to the conflict. The Federal Government of Ethiopia has rejected all offers to facilitate a diplomatic solution to the conflict, including those extended by African Union Chairman Cyril Ramaphosa in November 2020, and Intergovernmental Authorities on Development
(IGAD)Chairman Abdalla Hamdok in August 2021, to mediate talks with the TPLF.
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