GETFact ET started this petition to Tufts University and 1 other
We, concerned Africans and allies for Pan-Africanism, are petitioning for the removal of Dr. Alex de Waal from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and the World Peace Foundation at Tufts University for his derogatory hate speech which goes against the mission of the foundation and for insinuating a humanitarian crisis in Ethiopia. Alex de Waal is a researcher, a professor and an executive director who should abide by the guiding principles of the foundation and academic integrity. Sadly, he continuously misuses his platform to sow discord amongst Ethiopian people. As a head of the foundation that seeks to “provide intellectual leadership… to promote peace”, de Waal’s biased reporting and inflammatory comments incite and fuel ethnic tension by explicitly calling for the collapse of the sovereign country.
Ethiopia is the only nation in Africa that has resisted colonial and neo-colonial destruction. Dr. de Waal’s ever proliferating articles and speeches in his capacity as foundation’s executive director do not help the cause of peace. In recent comments on the Northern Ethiopia crisis prove that de Waal fails to meet standards of academic integrity or intellectual analysis. Contrary to the avowed commitment the foundation to the principles of peace and reconciliation, Dr. de Waal jeopardizes the credibility of your organization in the following ways:
1) Instead of promoting peace and reconciliation, Dr. de Waal misuses his office to sow discord amongst brothers and sisters. For example, here is a direct quote from De Waal. “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, thousands of people have been killed, hundreds of women were gang raped, many schools and hospitals were destroyed in Amhara and Afar regions of Ethiopia.
3) He violates international laws requiring respect for the sovereignty of a country and democratic principles by promoting insurgency and violent coup 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. 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 wreak havoc and dismantle the nation.
5) By encouraging conflict in his speech, de Waal proves a threat to peace building among Ethiopians.
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 peace building, and inciting tribalist violence with his comments in a tense and defining moment for the people of Ethiopia, its democracy, and its sovereignty.