News: US special envoy Hammer to meet Ethiopian diaspora communities to discuss current affairs
Addis Abeba – U.S. Special Envoy for the Horn of Africa (SEHOA) Ambassador Mike Hammer is scheduled to meet members of Ethiopian Ethiopian diaspora community in Los Angeles, California where he will engage on topics related to “developments in Ethiopia, including implementation of the Pretoria Cessation of Hostilities Agreement (CoHA) signed on 02 November last year, which brought to end Ethiopia’s two years war, during his travel between 10 and 19 May, according to U.S. Department of State.
In Los Angeles, Ambassador Hammer will meet representative groups from across the Ethiopian diaspora, including members from Amhara, Oromo, Somali, and Tigrayan communities. “He will also have a conversation with the American-Ethiopian community as a whole, in a town hall event at Bob Hope Patriotic Hall hosted by the United Women of the Horn, an inter-ethnic coalition of women leaders from the region.”
The event will focus on promoting peace and women’s empowerment, the dispatch dais, adding Ambassador Hammer will also meet Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and speak with students at the University of Southern California’s (USC) Center on Public Diplomacy, in partnership with the U.S. Africa Institute. In Santa Fe, New Mexico SEHOA Hammer will be engaging in domestic outreach and has speaking engagements with Global Santa Fe and the Santa Fe World Affairs Forum.
In late April, Ambassador Mike held a discussion with United States Institute of Peace (USIP’s) Red Sea Study Group, where he spoke about how the cessation of hostilities agreement between the federal government and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) “came to fruition, and the latest U.S. efforts to ensure a lasting peace in Ethiopia through humanitarian assistance, accountability for human rights violations and a host of other avenues for bringing stability back to the region.”
Speaking at the event, Ambassador Mike said that the silencing of the guns has improved “efforts to have humanitarian assistance delivery to northern Ethiopia, to the affected regions of Tigray, Afar and Amhara, to meet the needs of the people, restoration of services and now to move to other issues of importance including ensuring that Eritrean troops are completely removed from the [Tigray] region, and that you deal with other the Amhara special forces and Fano groups that are active in the area.” AS
