Mulugeta Gebrehiwot Berhe is a

peace research Peace and conflict studies is a social science field that identifies and analyzes violent and nonviolent behaviours as well as the structural mechanisms attending conflicts (including social conflicts), with a view towards understanding those pr ...

er holding the position, , of a senior fellow at the

World Peace Foundation The World Peace Foundation or WPF, created in 1910, is a philanthropic foundation for research into peace processes affiliated with The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. Alex de Waal is the director , having become director ...

Tufts University Tufts University is a private research university on the border of Medford and Somerville, Massachusetts. It was founded in 1852 as Tufts College by Christian universalists who sought to provide a nonsectarian institution of higher learning. ...

. He was a rebel of the

Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front The Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF; am, የኢትዮጵያ ሕዝቦች አብዮታዊ ዲሞክራሲያዊ ግንባር, translit=Ye’Ītiyop’iya Ḥizibochi Ābiyotawī Dīmokirasīyawī Ginibari) was an eth ...

(EPRDF) when the EPRDF was a guerilla army. He led the

disarmament, demobilization and reintegration Disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration (DDR), or disarmament, demobilisation, repatriation, reintegration and resettlement (DDRRR) are strategies used as a component of peace processes, and is generally the strategy employed by all UN Peacek ...

program of the 380,000 armed rebels after the EPRDF gained control of Ethiopia in 1991. Mulugeta was a mediator in the

Darfur Peace Agreement The Darfur Peace Agreement may refer to one of three peace agreements that were signed by the Government of Sudan and Darfur-based rebel groups in 2006, 2011 and 2020 with the intention of ending the Darfur Conflict. Abuja Agreement (2006) Th2006 ...

negotiations that led to the 2006 Abuja Agreement and the 2011 Doha Agreement during

peace process A peace process is the set of political sociology, sociopolitical negotiations, agreements and actions that aim to solve a specific armed conflict. Definitions Prior to an armed conflict occurring, peace processes can include the prevention of ...

for the

War in Darfur The War in Darfur, also nicknamed the Land Cruiser War, is a major armed conflict in the Darfur region of Sudan that began in February 2003 when the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) rebel groups beg ...

. He was founding Director of the

Institute for Peace and Security Studies Established in 2007, the Institute for Peace and Security Studies (IPSS) of Addis Ababa University (AAU) was created as a centre for teaching, research and outreach activities. It received further stimulation when the African Peace and Security P ...

in 2007. In January 2021 during the

Tigray War The Tigray War; ; . was an armed conflict that lasted from 3 November 2020 to 3 November 2022. The war was primarily fought in the Tigray Region of Ethiopia between the Ethiopian federal government and Eritrea on one side, and the Tigray Peop ...

, Mulugeta, telephoning from the mountains in

Tigray Region The Tigray Region, officially the Tigray National Regional State, is the northernmost regional state in Ethiopia. The Tigray Region is the homeland of the Tigrayan, Irob, and Kunama people. Its capital and largest city is Mekelle. Tigray is ...

, described the killings of civilians by the

Eritrean Defence Forces The Eritrean Defence Forces (EDF) () are the combined military forces of Eritrea composed of three branches: Eritrean Army, Eritrean Air Force and Eritrean Navy. The Army is by far the largest, followed by the Air Force and Navy. The Commander- ...

(EDF) and the

Ethiopian National Defense Force The Ethiopian National Defense Force (ENDF) ( am, የኢፌዲሪ መከላከያ ሠራዊት, Ye’īfēdērī mekelakeya šerawīt, lit=FDRE Defense Force) is the military force of Ethiopia. Civilian control of the military is carried out t ...

(ENDF) as "genocide by decree".

Education

Mulugeta graduated with a bachelor of arts from the

Amsterdam Business School Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the capital and most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population of 907,976 within the city proper, 1,558,755 in the urban area ...

in 2002, a master of business administration from the

Open University The Open University (OU) is a British public research university and the largest university in the United Kingdom by number of students. The majority of the OU's undergraduate students are based in the United Kingdom and principally study off- ...

in 2003, a master of public administration at

Harvard Kennedy School The Harvard Kennedy School (HKS), officially the John F. Kennedy School of Government, is the school of public policy and government of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The school offers master's degrees in public policy, public ...

in 2005. He obtained his PhD at the

University of Victoria The University of Victoria (UVic or Victoria) is a public research university located in the municipalities of Oak Bay and Saanich, British Columbia, Canada. The university traces its roots to Victoria College, the first post-secondary instit ...

in 2018 with his thesis, ''From left-wing liberation army into a government: the challenges of transition and the case of TPLF/EPRDF'', on the history of the

Tigray People's Liberation Front The Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF; ti, ህዝባዊ ወያነ ሓርነት ትግራይ, lit=Popular Struggle for the Freedom of Tigray), also called the Tigrayan People's Liberation Front, is a left-wing ethnic nationalist paramilitar ...

(TPLF) and the

starting from their role as rebels through to their transition to and running of the government of Ethiopia.

Rebel fighter

Mulugeta was active in the EPRDF in 1976, shortly after it was created as a rebel movement, and became a founding member of the EPRDF Council in 1990. He remained an EPRDF member through to 2002.

Transition to democracy

Disarmament and demobilisation commissioner

Mulugeta headed the '' Disarmament and Demobilization Commission'' (DDR commission) for the first ten years of TPLF/EPRDF's control of Ethiopia, starting in 1991. According to Mulugeta, the Commission successfully integrated 78,000 short-term conscripted soldiers from rural areas; 170,000 long-term rural conscripts; 100,000 urban soldiers; and 30,000 disabled veterans. Mulugeta argued that the DDR program was larger and more successful than similar programs following other armed conflicts in Africa.

Constituent Assembly

He was elected to the 1994 Ethiopian Constituent Assembly that drafted the

1995 Constitution of Ethiopia The Constitution of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (), also known as the 1995 Constitution of Ethiopia, is the supreme law of Ethiopia. The constitution came into force on 21 August 1995 after it was drawn up by the Constituent Asse ...

International mediator

Mulugeta advised the chief mediator in peace negotiations for the

that led to the 2006 Abuja Agreement. He worked with

United Nations–African Union Mission in Darfur The African Union-United Nations Hybrid Operation in Darfur (known by its acronym UNAMID) is a joint African Union (AU) and United Nations (UN) peacekeeping mission formally approved by United Nations Security Council Resolution 1769 on 31 J ...

(UNAMID) in the negotiations that led to the 2011 Doha Agreement, the second major agreement of the Darfur peace process.

Peace research

Mulugeta was the founding Director of the

in 2007. In 2014, he negotiated a research and training cooperation agreement with

Rwanda Peace Academy Rwanda (; rw, u Rwanda ), officially the Republic of Rwanda, is a landlocked country in the Great Rift Valley of Central Africa, where the African Great Lakes region and Southeast Africa converge. Located a few degrees south of the Equato ...

. He is a senior fellow and former program director at the

Research and views

Mulugeta saw the TPLF/EPRDF, after taking power in Ethiopia in 1991, as being successful in initiating the creation of the institutions typical of a democratic state, including a judiciary with some degree of independence, a local and national electoral system, minority rights and a constitution. However, according to Mulugeta, the leadership of the EPRDF became less egalitarian than during its role as a revolutionary movement, and more bureaucratised, with a weakening separation between the EPRDF as a political party and the Ethiopian federal state, and strengthening top-down control of the state. The result by 2017 was "rent seeking and corruption" within the elite and the appointment of party loyalists to state institutions. Mulugeta saw the parliament as having

rubber-stamp A rubber stamp is an image or pattern that has been carved, molded, laser engraved or vulcanized onto a sheet of rubber. Rubber stamping, also called stamping, is a craft in which some type of ink made of dye or pigment is applied to rubber ...

role in confirming new laws, the judiciary as "far from independent", and the media as "below the standard to serve as a fourth pillar of check and balance of power". In February 2020, Mulugeta argued that by the end of

Hailemariam Desalegn Hailemariam Desalegn Boshe ( amh, ኃይለማሪያም ደሳለኝ ቦሼ; born 19 July 1965) is an Ethiopian politician who served as prime minister of Ethiopia from 2012 to 2018. He also previously served as deputy prime minister and Minister ...

's prime ministership, the Ethiopian political system had become a competition for domination with too little cooperation. With

Abiy Ahmed Abiy Ahmed Ali ( om, Abiyi Ahmed Alii; am, አብይ አሕመድ ዐሊ; born 15 August 1976) is an Ethiopian politician who has been the 4th prime minister of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia since 2 April 2018. He won the 2019 ...

becoming prime minister in 2018, Mulugeta saw this as a result of competition rather than consensus-building, and worried that Abiy had amplified the competitive aspect of Ethiopian politics, "alienat ngkey players in the coalition", leading to a risk of a "complete collapse of the state". In September 2020, Mulugeta supported the 2020 Tigray regional election as fully justified. He saw the federal government as "fast approaching a failed state" and expressed hope that Ethiopian and international increased awareness of the depth of the crisis might lead to "key stakeholders" seeking a solution. In late January 2021, during the

, Mulugeta, telephoning from the mountains in Tigray Region, said that

United Arab Emirates The United Arab Emirates (UAE; ar, اَلْإِمَارَات الْعَرَبِيَة الْمُتَحِدَة ), or simply the Emirates ( ar, الِْإمَارَات ), is a country in Western Asia (The Middle East). It is located at th ...

(UAE) drones had been a key factor in destroying TPLF heavy weaponry, "disarm ngTigray". He described the TPLF leadership as being "dislocated" and stated that the

(EDF) and the

(ENDF) had "destroyed Tigray, ... burned schools, clinics, ... ransacked each house". He stated that the killing, the worst of which was done by the Eritrean forces, was against "whomever they find in whichever village they get in". He stated that in the small village that he had been in a day earlier, 21 people had been killed by the armed forces. Mulugeta described produce as have been "massively, massively" ransacked by the EDF, leading to a likely humanitarian crisis. Mulugeta described the killings as "genocide by decree", with the ENDF and EDF killing "whomever they find.

References

{{reflist, refs= {{cite web , title= Mulugeta Gebrehiwot Berhe (Security Arrangements) , website=

UN Peacemaker UN Peacemaker is a United Nations (UN) website for distributing information related to peace processes. The website, managed by the UN Department of Political Affairs (DPA), provides an interface to a database of peace agreements, guidance material ...

, year = 2019 , url = https://peacemaker.un.org/mediation-support/stand-by-team/Mulugeta-Gebrehiwot-Berhe , access-date = 2021-01-30 , archive-url= https://archive.today/61GYa , archive-date= 2021-01-29 , url-status=live {{cite web , last1 = Gebrehiwot Berhe , first1 = Mulugeta , author1-link = Mulugeta Gebrehiwot , last2= Butera , first2= Jean-Bosco , title= Climate change and pastoralism: traditional coping mechanisms and conflict in Horn of Africa , website=

University of Texas The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...

, date = 2013-04-05 , url = https://sites.utexas.edu/busby/files/2011/10/Climate-Change-and-Pastoralismbusby.pdf , access-date = 2021-01-30 , archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210130013728/https://sites.utexas.edu/busby/files/2011/10/Climate-Change-and-Pastoralismbusby.pdf , archive-date= 2021-01-30 , url-status=live {{cite web , title= Peace Academy, IPSS sign pact , website= The New Times , date = 2014-01-19 , url = https://www.newtimes.co.rw/section/read/91804 , access-date = 2021-01-30 , archive-url= https://archive.today/ioYAN , archive-date= 2021-01-29 , url-status=live {{cite web , last1 = Gebrehiwot Berhe , first1 =Mulugeta , author1-link = Mulugeta Gebrehiwot , title= From left-wing liberation army into a government: the challenges of transition and the case of TPLF/EPRDF , website=

, date = 2018-06-06 , url = https://dspace.library.uvic.ca/bitstream/handle/1828/9427/Berhe%20Mulugeta%20Gebrehiwot%20PhD%202018.pdf , access-date = 2021-01-29 , archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20210129195204/https://dspace.library.uvic.ca/bitstream/handle/1828/9427/Berhe%20Mulugeta%20Gebrehiwot%20PhD%202018.pdf , archive-date= 2021-01-29 , url-status=live {{cite web , last1 = Gebrehiwot Berhe , first1 =Mulugeta , author1-link = Mulugeta Gebrehiwot , title= Transition from war to peace: the Ethiopian DDR experience , website=

, date = 2017-04-20 , url = https://sites.tufts.edu/wpf/files/2017/07/16.-Transitions-from-War-to-Peace-DDR.pdf , access-date = 2021-01-30 , archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20210129204153/https://sites.tufts.edu/wpf/files/2017/07/16.-Transitions-from-War-to-Peace-DDR.pdf , archive-date= 2021-01-29 , url-status=live {{cite news , last1= Gebrehiwot Berhe , first1=Mulugeta , author1-link = Mulugeta Gebrehiwot , title= Why Ethiopia is in deep trouble, and how it got here , date= 2020-02-02 , newspaper=

The Conversation ''The Conversation'' is a 1974 American mystery thriller film written, produced, and directed by Francis Ford Coppola and starring Gene Hackman, John Cazale, Allen Garfield, Cindy Williams, Frederic Forrest, Harrison Ford, Teri Garr, and Rober ...

, url= https://theconversation.com/why-ethiopia-is-in-deep-trouble-and-how-it-got-here-130711 , access-date=2021-01-30 , archive-url= https://archive.today/8MybV , archive-date= 2021-01-30 , url-status=live {{cite web , last1 = de Waal , first1 = Alex , author1-link = Alex de Waal , title= Ethiopia: Transition to what? , website=

, date = 2020-09-23 , url = https://sites.tufts.edu/reinventingpeace/2020/09/23/ethiopia-transition-to-what/ , access-date = 2021-01-30 , archive-url= https://archive.today/xAX3G , archive-date= 2021-01-29 , url-status=live {{cite web , last1 = de Waal , first1 =Alex , author1-link =Alex de Waal , last2= Gebrehiwot Berhe , first2= Mulugeta , author2-link = Mulugeta Gebrehiwot , title='They Have Destroyed Tigray, Literally': Mulugeta Gebrehiwot speaks from the mountains of Tigray , website=

, date = 2021-01-27 , url = https://sites.tufts.edu/reinventingpeace/2021/01/29/they-have-destroyed-tigray-literally-mulugeta-gebrehiwot-speaks-from-the-mountains-of-tigray , access-date = 2021-01-30 , archive-url= https://archive.today/cJJPO , archive-date= 2021-01-29 , url-status=live {{cite web , last1 = de Waal , first1 =Alex , author1-link =Alex de Waal , last2= Gebrehiwot Berhe , first2= Mulugeta , author2-link = Mulugeta Gebrehiwot , title= Transcript – Call between Mulugeta Gebrehiwot and Alex de Waal 27 January 2021 , website=

, date = 2021-01-27 , url = https://sites.tufts.edu/reinventingpeace/files/2021/01/Mulugeta-Call-27-Jan-Full-transcript1-1.pdf , access-date = 2021-01-30 , archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20210129211458/https://sites.tufts.edu/reinventingpeace/files/2021/01/Mulugeta-Call-27-Jan-Full-transcript1-1.pdf , archive-date= 2021-01-29 , url-status=live {{void, templates: {{cite news , last1= , first1= , last2= , first2= , pages= , language = , title= , trans-title = , date= , publisher= , newspaper= , url= , access-date=20... , archive-url= , archive-date= 20... , url-status=live {{cite web , last1 = , first1 = , last2= , first2= , author-link = , coauthors = , language = , title= , trans-title = , work = , publisher = , website= , date = , url = , format = , doi = , access-date = 20... , archive-url= , archive-date= 20... , url-status=live Living people Peace and conflict scholars Ethiopian academics University of Victoria alumni Year of birth missing (living people) University of Amsterdam alumni Alumni of the Open University Harvard Kennedy School alumni