Priming Peace, Integration
&
Livelihood Security in the
Horn of Africa
The Greater
Horn of Africa ‘Manifesto’
A Horn of Africa dialogue Primer - RL Vol XIII No
374 MMXIX
Costantinos Berhutesfa
Costantinos, PhD
Professor of Public Policy & Sustainable Institutional Reforms
Abstract
Leaders of Somalia, Ethiopia and Eritrea who have never come face to
face to build peace in the Horn have now been invited by the charismatic Premier,
Abiy. Now that the Horn of Africa nations have pledged to make peace, this
paper builds the case for building a peace constituency for in the Greater Horn of Africa nations that share the same history. Regional
integration involves hard infrastructure - large physical networks necessary
for the functioning of modern industrial nations and soft infrastructure refers
to all the institutions, which are required to maintain the economic, health,
and cultural and social standards of a sub-region. Recently, people of the Horn of Africa, have been
engaged in debates about new bold ideas of reform presented by the new
populist, energetic leader of Ethiopia Abiy who has embarked on a wide-ranging
transformative reform in Ethiopia and a regional integration initiative in the
Horn of Africa region. Nonetheless, questions arise. Which model of
confederation, timing, actors, governing rules and institutions will be established?
Will the populations of the three states have a say in this? Is the proposed
confederacy owned and led by the three countries or are there other actors who
move the levers of power behind the scenes? The paper recommends the
development of a code of practice. The guiding principle of the code
hence is that concrete processes need to be established to enable politics to
be transparent, accountable, predictable and exercise a level of excellence
transcending personal motives and boundaries. It also recommends Alternative
conflict management approaches derive from several basic premises about the
nature of conflict, change and power. While most Horn of Africa conflicts are
state driven, the Somalia case presents itself for ACM where the author argues
for creating avenues for speaking to al Shabaab as potential partners in peace.
PM Abiy has thrown a blowlamp into the heart of Horn of Africa and Ethiopian
society and polity, nerve-wracking the terms of engagement of martial titans
and thrown the centre of gravity of the Red Sea arena of war into unprecedented
peace trajectory. The way he deconstructed the power monsters of the Horn
region is purely ontological. This strategy of conjectural rise of political
liberalisation in a rough neighbourhood of the Horn is going to be a seminal
lesson in international relations and in political science for a long time to
come. To reduce this action to some power mongering aim on behalf of the PM, as
constructed by the supermen of the Horn, is too simplistic. There was a sense
of aggravation among the citizens of the Horn that have not seen peace in
decades and he seems to be tending to
this vexation with gales that are fuelling the inferno of political
transformation. There are costs to be paid but as is usual with such change, it
enters politics and society in relatively abstract and plain form, yet pundits
expect it to land itself to the immediate and vital local polity's
socio-political experience. It suggests itself, and seems within reach, only to
elude and appears readily practicable only to resist realisation (Costantinos, 2018).
Key words: Horn of Africa, Abiy, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia, peace, integration, confederation,
See the Horn of Africa dialogue primer
here or https://www.academia.edu/38326095/Priming_Peace_and_Integration_in_the_Horn_of_Africa_RL_Vol_XII_No_374_MMXVIII
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