ADDIS ABABA – Ministry of Peace (MoP) noted that the country will not face significant conflict amid election 2020.
The ministry made the announcement after Foreign Policy had recently issued a report entitled: ‘Ten conflicts to watch in 2020’. As to the report, Ethiopia is ranked 3rd among the world nations that will face destructive conflicts in 2020.
The report mentioned the national election that Ethiopia scheduled to undertake this year among the major conflict inducing factors noting that political campaigns will grab sensitive disagreements pertaining to argument between tribalism and individualism.
However, MoP does not agree with the report since it is irrelevant and not evidentially supported. Approached by The Ethiopian Herald Ministry Early Warning and Durable Solution Director Migbaru Ayalew said that the possibility of a damaging conflict occurrence during election is rare as per country’s experience and ministry’s current assessment.
“We take the FP report as an opinion than evidential analysis. It is a far cry from the people’s culture of tolerance and togetherness. That’s why we call the report a mere desire to see Ethiopia as battleground for various sinister agendas.”
Migbaru is pretty sure that Ethiopians will not engage in ethnic or religious conflicts aftermath of the election.
Of course, there is conflict resource or causes in the country. However, the tolerance culture of the people plus its diversity is not suitable to such crisis, he said.
Nevertheless, it is expectable the existence of minor conflict as election by nature invites disagreements between opposing parties, he noted.
Thus, the ministry will organize special security during the election. In addition, regular government security system in cooperation with international partners will be designated to control any conflict during the election before significant damage is caused, he noted.
The ministry is closely inspecting country’s situation and working from now to combat possible conflicts that might be escalated from minor incidents, he stated.
In many countries, post-election conflict is common. And the ministry is undertaking assessment to point out spots of conflicts to possibly manage incidents on time, according to Migbaru.
He disclosed that the ministry is undertaking an early warning and conflict management system as a pilot project which is currently well undergoing from infrastructural facilitation, data collection, analysis reporting and responding levels.
It is also working to scale up the pilot project at national level following the functionality of the pilot project within a month, he noted.
According to Migbaru, the collected data on incidents indicated that all of the reported conflicts are solved at zonal and kebele level. “As the system is automated we are cognizant of the resolved incidents right away,” he mentioned.
Thanks to the active participation of the public, each incident was easily controlled before escalation, he says. “The people regardless of age sex and religion have been participating in notifying incidents to security bodies so as to ensure peace in its locality.”
As to him, the early warning system allows the people to inform the government about conflict inducing incidents via text message, phone call and online data submission.
The ministry will be solid and capable of managing conflicts when the pilot project gets operational across the country, he disclosed.
Currently, the ministry is planning the phases of the installation and functionality of the upcoming national early warning and conflict management system, he unveiled.
The government has been undertaking system and institutional reforms in the national security where most of the reforms are mainly aimed long term solutions to conflicts, he said.
Accordingly, the legal and structural reforms have been undertaking to build an ethical and capable security stand by for the constitution and national interest.
Country’s security system plus the people’s strong stance for tolerance will enable the nation to undertake peaceful election and other consequential events without any significant hindrance, Migbaru believed
The Ethiopian herald January 14/2012
BY YOHANES JEMANEH
