Ethiopia’s AU-facilitated Peace Accord Signing

November 12, 2022   

In the lens of Pan-African media practice

BY WORKU BELACHEW

Part I

The African-Union-led Permanent Cessation of Hostility Agreement (PCHA) formally signed on November 2, 2022, would not only set the way for peace to reign in Ethiopia, but the entire process has once again branded Africa as a continent that is gifted with the wisdom and capability to translate the buzzword ‘African solution to challenges facing the continent.’

The critical questions here are: To what extent have African media houses that have a relatively wide online circulation practiced Pan-African journalistic practices to eventually achieve the aspirations of Africans? And do African media approach sensitive issues such as peace and security in a different way as compared to so-called global media? This piece of work attempts to give a bird-eye view of news reporting of some global media and certain notable African media houses concerning their framing of news stories on the PCHA event.

The news items of the media houses that also have high online visitors are observed in relation to some key aspects that have also become patterns in the media reporting of the conflict in Ethiopia. For instance, the phrases “unhindered access,” “communication shutdown,” and “starvation” have been appearing in most media reporting of the conflict. On the other hand, “African solution to an African problem,” “AU-led peace talks,” and “Silencing the guns” have frequently been mentioned. Many mention the latter in the context of fulfilling Africa’s aspirations expressed resolutely in Agenda 2063.

It requires a rigorous study to determine as to why the patterns appear in the media outlets but let’s see some theories related to issue in discussion.

Mass communications theory have it that media houses make conscious decisions in choosing what to report and how to report a kind of event which take us to the concept of “Media framing”. They frame a kind of event deliberately to influence public opinion, as to available literature, see more on https://masscommtheory.com. But one cannot overgeneralize the fact that the framing is the sole decision of the media houses.

A comparative media study by Hallin and Mancini (2004) suggests that there are four “dimensions” that play a part in influencing the media’s decision. Hallin and Mancini’s dimensions are: Political parallelism, Journalistic Profession, Media market and Role of the State. Political parallelism has to do with whether there is link between media houses and political parties or journalists political affiliations and so on. Journalistic Professionalism on the other hand is about the degree of autonomy of the journalists. According to their study, there are internal and external forces that exert influence on the journalists, not to mention journalists’ ethics …: What is more, Media Market delves into the circulation of newspapers or the outlets. Last but not least is the role of the state – restrictive or supportive.

The Pan-African aspirations

It is important to attempt to see what the aspirations of Africans are clearly and succinctly. Of course, some of them are expressed in black and white in the popular document of Agenda 2063. The rest comes under various topics. As regards the latter, the Pan-African Vision of 2063 says it all: “An integrated, prosperous and peaceful Africa, driven by its own citizens, representing a dynamic force in the international arena. Here one can easily see that we Africans have a vision of achieving peace through the efforts of our own citizens.

The document, Agenda 2063, #8, also under ‘African Aspiration for 2063’ states the confidence in the people of Africa in dealing with conflicts using African wisdom. Part of the aspiration reads: to “realize her [Africa’s] full potential in development, culture and peace and to establish flourishing, inclusive and prosperous societies.”

Concepts such as “peace” and “realize […] full potential” may stand out in the aspiration. And this tells us that Africans have the determination to unlock their full potential and take peace and other matters into their own hands. Or put it this way, though war and conflicts are not unusual in Africa, the initiative and practice of acting proactively and reactively to deal with the problems should be a matter of Africans and their institutions. This calls for the struggle to lessen, if not completely avoid, foreign meddling. Often, people use the catch-all phrase “African solution and African problem”—a term that African scholars are highly debating on claiming that it fails to properly reflect the challenges Africa has been facing. Somehow, the “African Solution” works despite the direct and indirect influences on the decision of Africans and their institutions.

But the term “African problem” raises many questions. Do African problems really originate only from the conflict of interest among people of a given nation? Yes, conflicts are unavoidable. But there are potential causes of conflicts. Say for instance, interstate border wars in Africa, in most cases, are related to colonial demarcations. Geopolitical interests and actions to dominate the big market and other resources of Africa at least play a great part as well. Last but not least, aspiration #4 of Agenda 2063 explicitly argues and puts mechanisms to fend off potential and actual challenges of peace and security in Africa.

ASPIRATION 4. A peaceful and secure Africa

Mechanisms for the peaceful prevention and resolution of conflicts will be functional at all levels. As a first step, dialogue-centered conflict prevention and resolution will be actively promoted in such a way that by 2020 all guns will be silent. A culture of peace and tolerance shall be nurtured in Africa’s children and youth through peace education.

How some global media framed PCHA

The 10-day peace talks held between the delegation of the GoE and TPLF started on October 24/25, 2022. The world had eagerly been waiting for whether the talks resulted in closing the two-year deadly chapter of war in Ethiopia. November 02, 2022, was the date scheduled by the African Union Panel to announce the results. Media houses representing both international and domestic ones were on the alert to break the news, no matter what. But the announcement scheduled at 4:00 in the afternoon was postponed by a few hours. Time had been ticking and the scheduled hour finally came. On and after the conclusion of the event, media houses reported about the PCHA in various ways but two frames were highly observable— the so-called “pressure frame” and the “pan-African frame”.

CNN- Its headlines read ‘Warring parties in Ethiopia agree on ‘permanent cessation of hostilities. The story was published on November 3, 2022. CNN’s story properly named the parties as the “GoE” and “TPLF.” The first paragraph of the story that media practitioners rather call it as a “lead sentence” is framed from the perspective of Disarming, Demobilizing and Reintegrating (DDR).

“Ethiopia’s Tigray rebels will eventually “disarm” and “reintegrate” with national forces, according to the statement. “We have also agreed on a detailed program of disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration for the TPLF combatants, taking into account the security situation on the ground,” it read. The phrase “will eventually” is important here. It is a public knowledge that the CNN has not been impartial in the two-year war in the north. And maybe, “eventually” could mean, after all the bloody events, the result is “DDR”. For anyone who contemplates the CNN’s barrage of disinformation campaign, it wages against Ethiopia, the final Pan-African solution of resorting to peace might not be welcome. The story actually quoted the statement made by the AU High Representative for the Horn of Africa Olusegun Obasanjo. Obasanjo’s statement is —minutes long. But only the “DDR” perspective was picked by the CNN.

On the same day, the accord was signed, Aljazeera published a story headlined: ‘Ethiopia: Government, Tigrayan forces agree to end two-year war’. The organization of the story that the media used was just a mix of “DDR” and “pressure-framing”. Here is its lead story: “The parties in the conflict in Ethiopia’s northern region of Tigray have agreed on a “permanent cessation of hostilities”, the African Union mediator said, just more than a week after formal peace talks began in South Africa.”

It continues: the parties agreed on “orderly, smooth and coordinated disarmament” along with “restoration of law and order”, “restoration of services” and “unhindered access to humanitarian supplies”. The usage of the frame, whether intentionally or unintentionally tells us that most media are more interested in reporting on the dichotomy of winner/loser.

One can get a relatively different framing in a report published by Reuters. While it broke the news of the signing of the PCHA, describing it as a “dramatic diplomatic breakthrough.” it also highlights the fact that the process was an AU-led one—a fact that other media outlets shied away from mentioning.

In the second paragraph of its story, Reuters wrote this: “Just over a week after formal peace talks mediated by the African Union (AU) began in the South African capital Pretoria, delegates from both sides signed an agreement on a “permanent cessation of hostilities”.”.

Yet, DW’s news presentation seemed to have zoomed in on the “Pan-African framing. “The first three paragraphs of the news story, not to mention the lead story, in one way or another, had mentioned the role of the African Union. Both the headline and the lead sentence attempted to give due credit to the AU-led efforts.

CGTN’s news story as well could be described as a “Pan-African framing” of the event. The presentation of the entire story is quite mesmerizing for any reader who wants to get a different perspective, the writer believes. Let’s have an overview of the news story. The media house itself has a motto that goes: ‘See the difference. But, is there really a big difference?

The news is headlined ‘Ethiopian government and TPLF sign peace agreement in South Africa and presented with a nine-paragraph story highlighting some key concepts that have become a pattern in the media reporting of the northern conflict. Some of these are; “Cease hostilities;” “African Solution to African Problem;” “orderly, smooth and coordinated disarmament;” along with “restoration of law and order,” “restoration of services;” and “unhindered access to humanitarian supplies;” “AU High-level Panel;” “communications shutdown of internet and telephone services in Tigray region has been among world’s longest”.

One can irrefutably say that only two phrases or patterns appear as pan-African issues—“African solution to African problem;” and “AU High-Level Panel”. The rest of the five phrases/terms are often used by most western media houses and one middle-eastern media mentioned above.

If we take a look at one of the terms, we can infer the purpose of the framing, whether or not the media house did it intentionally is still debatable. But the news story tells us this: “…communications shutdown of internet and telephone services…” The thing is that the story informs the reader that the government has shut down communication and the internet at all. The argument is exactly the “blame term” that most western media and rights-based institutions have widely used. On the flip side, the government of Ethiopia says communications infrastructure was damaged by the antagonist force in what could be described as a strategic move to weaken the central government’s capacity to control the tragic event.

For its part, TRT World published a story under the headline of ‘A New Dawn.’ It also did a follow-up story of ‘Excellent News’. In both stories, the media house neither reproduced the western media narrative nor did it have a Pan-African perspective.

The Ethiopian Herald November 12/2022