In October 2022, the negotiating teams from the Ethiopian federal government and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) met in Pretoria, South Africa, to make peace.Our meeting and talks took place amidst a raging war that was wreaking havoc on our home country. Given the circumstances, our South African hosts were justified in taking some precautions to keep the two negotiation teams apart and at some distance. It was as if the protocol and security officers assigned by the host country were afraid that the negotiation teams from the two warring parties would get into a fist fight in the middle of the conference hall if they were not shepherded to steer clear of one another. But soon, our hosts were pleasantly surprised to see that being civil to one another was not going to be difficult for anyone in the room.Relieved by the unexpectedly cordial tone set by the delegation heads from both sides, our hosts and mediators allowed the negotiators to engage directly, in a smaller room and in a less formal setting, dispensing with the need to use English as a medium of communication. With the mediators closely following o …
