https://www.change.org/p/tufts-university-petition-to-revoke-alex-de-waal-from-the-world-peace-foundation-at-tufts-university?signed=true
We, concerned Africans and allies for pan-Africanism, are petitioning for the removal of Dr. Alex de Waal from The Fletcher School and World Peace Foundation at Tufts University for his derogatory hate speech against the Ethiopian people and the humanitarian crisis in Ethiopia. Alex de Waal is a researcher and professor who should be beholden to principles of academic integrity, but has instead used his platform to spew demeaning and divisive hate speech against the people of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia. As an organization who seeks to “provide intellectual leadership… to promote peace”, de Waal’s biased reporting and inflammatory comments incite and fuel ethnic tension, and explicitly calling for the collapse of the sovereign nation of Ethiopia; the only nation in Africa who has, throughout history, resisted the neocolonial destruction de Waal proliferates in his role as Executive Director of the World Peace Foundationat the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.
In his recent comments on the Northern Ethiopia crisis, it proves with no reasonable doubts that de Waal violates peacekeeping operation, fails to meet any standards for academic integrity or intellectual analysis, and furthermore jeopardizes the credibility of your organization in the following way:
1) De Waal misuses the power bestowed on him to promote peace and reconciliation by calling for TPLF to fight relentlessly against a legitimate government in his quote: “those angry and defrauded citizens of what is today the Federal Republic of Ethiopia, those who dreamed of becoming subjects of a revived great Ethiopian empire ….face your day of reckoning, face the collapse of those dreams, the exposure of those lies, face them”
2) He directly promotes human right violation and atrocities by encouraging terrorist insurgent groups [TPLF], as a consequence, several people have been killed, thousands of women are gang raped, hundreds of schools and hospitals are destroyed in Amhara and Afar regions of Ethiopia. Thus, he contravenes the roles and responsibilities given to him by public institutions like yours to promote peace and reconciliation by instead championing violent attacks on civilians, most of whom or local farmers in the region, women, and children.
3) He violates international laws requiring respect for the country’s sovereignty and democracy by promoting insurgency and violent coup, thus defying the UN’s rule of law and principle of sovereignty.
4) His disparaging and outrageous comments that reviving the Ethiopian Empire is a mere illusion, and calling for TPLF to fight hard and destabilize the Ethiopian government as a means to prevent reviving the Empire is against the spirit of an African national who is re-establishing its sovereignty after the TPLF’s authoritarian and genocidal dictatorship over Ethiopia for the 27 years before Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed. Though despite being an academic, de Waal is seemingly ignorant or willfully suppressing facts of Ethiopia’s recent history for liberation and nationwide protests against the TPLF, as he calls for TPLF to wreck havoc and dismantle the nation.
5) By encouraging conflict in his speech, de Waal proves a threat to peacebuilding in Ethiopia and globally.
We, Africans and friends of Africa, and the signatories of this petition, would like to ask the World Peace Foundation and the University of Tufts to revoke Alex de Waal as Executive Director for the aforementioned reasons, which we trust do not meet the standards of an organization “tasked with educating about the ills of war and promoting international peace.” Alex de Waal has been retrogressive, divisive, detrimental to peacebuilding, and inciting tribalist violence with his comments in a tense and defining moment for the people of Ethiopia, its democracy, and its sovereignty.
https://youtu.be/d0LbeOkeLTo
https://youtu.be/d0LbeOkeLTo