Academic Neurosurgeon, Neuroscientist, Christian humanitarian
Author: Professor Tony Magana
Professor Tony Magana is Head of the Department of Neurosurgery, School of Medicine, College of Health Sciences at Mekelle University in Mekelle, Ethiopia. He directs a neurosurgery residency and training program as well as neuroscience research.
Samuel Ghebhrehiwet an example of former freedom fighter who became disillusioned with Isaias Afwerki
I have friends and acquaintances who are Tigray, Amhara, and Eritreans living in other African countries who I have been in primary contact or indirectly the past few weeks. As their lives are now mostly tied to where they live economically it allows for a certain amount of objective detachment although there is still love of homeland and concern for family still living in their country of origin.
The Eritreans have high hopes that the course of events will finally lead to the fall of the Isaias Afeworki. At the same time they see him as having a superb sense of survival. They note that in his current absence in attempting to save Abiy Ahmed he is betting some protection by the international community against future Tigray invasion.
For the Amhara they initially bought into the dream that Ethiopian prominence might allow them more opportunities to expand their business maybe into a growing Ethiopia but now they see that the ostracization of Abiy Ahmed with the international community is a negative that could not be easily overcome so perhaps it is time for a change.
For the Tigray it actually creates a dilemma. Many Tigrayans have complained that they spent too much time developing Addis Ababa (Finfinne) which added to the dependency of Mekelle and Tigray on central services derived from Amhara. The isolation from electricity, internet, international air services, ground transportation to ports, etc. is now clearly seen as an unacceptable strategic weakness that must be corrected. Whether Ethiopia remains unified state or a loose confederation this vulnerability must be eliminated.
Will the USA offer a safe exit for Abiy Ahmed as it did for Mengistu Haile Mariam to save needless fighting and death
Will the United States help facilitate the exit of a defeated tyrant, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, from Ethiopia once again as it did in 1991? Jeffrey Feltman is coming to Addis Ababa tomorrow. Clearly the Tigray Defense Force and Oromo Liberation Army will not settle for peace talks when they are so close to almost certain victory. This may prevent prolonged bloodshed and misery that is otherwise destined to occur. It is interesting that Abiy Ahmed was considering allowing the still exiled Mengistu Haile Mariam to return to Ethiopia.
On May 21, 1991 President Mengistu Haile Mariam fled the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, after 12 years of war fighting the Tigray Peoples Liberation Front. At the time Alex du Waal said the only language Mengistu knew was brute force. He sapped the Ethiopian economy trying to overcome the rebel resistance. Upwards of 500,000 were killed and millions displaced in the bloody war which draws consequential similarity to the crisis under Abiy Ahmed.
Detention of political opponents is a key element in Abiy Ahmed’s arsenal of oppression
Since Abiy Ahmed came to power he has imprisoned more civilians, built more jails, and passed more detention laws without due process then his predecessors since the Derg. While the United Nations discusses the incomplete and biased human rights reports where is the outrage over the ongoing imprisonment without any reasonable justification of tens of thousands of ethnic Tigrayans, Oromos, and others. Where is the demand to know where they are and for their release?
At this moment tens of thousands of ethnic Tigrayans and even some whose names sound Tigrayan but are not are detained in unknown locations inside and outside of Addis Ababa. News sources have reported house to house sweeps by Addis Ababa police and other authorities of many neighborhoods including Hayahulet, Semet and Bulbula. Those illegally apprehended include not only men but elderly, sick, and children as young as infants.
While many high ranking officials call for citizens to stand their ground at risk of losing their lives these same “patriots” have gone to Kenya as other countries have refused their visas. The Hitler analogy of Abiy Ahmed becomes complete as he is giving his own “Nero” decrees.
An end stage battle involving common people of Finfinne will serve no purpose to improve their lives but only bring more misery and death
The prospect of an end of a year of war in Ethiopia which saw insufferable loss may be upon us yet there will be no time to celebrate. I pray a bloody conflict in vain is avoided. Attempts to turn back time to the Zemene Mesafint solution of the past has failed. Jesus said war will always be with us recognizing the fallibility of man to solve his problems reasonably.
As Winston Churchill said about the Battle of Britain when the Royal Air Force though outnumbered managed to defeat the Luftwaffe by superior tactics it was not the end but the end of the beginning so it is for Ethiopia.
The Federal government under Abiy Ahmed’s Prosperity Party now on the final step of defeat by Tigray and Oromo forces still has managed to destroy the economy in its last gasp. Means of manufacturing in not only Tigray but also Amhara have been destroyed by carpet bombing, artillery barrage, and intended ransacking. This has resulted in default of repayment of billions of dollars in loans made by Ethiopian banks to build these factories and businesses.
Discussions with knowledgeable sources in Addis Ababa reveals that government coiffeurs are now empty with almost no payment to government employees. The Ethiopian federal government is broke.
The airport for now remains open but thousands are fleeing the country. Inflation will hit 50% up and the birr will hit 50% down in value. Millions are displaced and without employment. Food stocks and crops are sparse. Hope for the future is fragile at best.
Victory will bring a new challenge for the whole country but will only be the end of the beginning of new era which will take time. Addis Ababa will be named Finfinne as it should have been all along. Tigray more then another region has been devastated and will have to rebuild its infrastructure, health system and economy from scratch. The Oromo region, the most fertile land of Ethiopia, and her people deserve to finally have their say and I hope they will be heard. Their concept of gadaa, that is learning from the past about the right use of resources for the community as a whole in consultation with elders, should be respected.
Once again the area we call Ethiopia will have to persevere to find a way to live together in mutual benefit and peace.
The awarding of the Nobel Prize to Abiy Ahmed was a diplomatic con game
How Abiy Ahmed fooled the world and caused it to do nothing in the face of genocide.
Abiy Ahmed was just an ordinary politician with nothing outstanding in his background or education. He was not the first choice for an Oromo Prime Minister but because he was a member of Parliament where others with more seniority and experience were not and could not legally be Prime Minister Abiy was chosen as a compromise. His flamboyant speeches about equality and modernization of Ethiopia caught world attention but not examination. They sounded good so the Western democracies accepted them as authentic.
Little notice was made of his turn from being “Oromo” to “Amhara” after his United States tour. He started the tour with Jawar Mohammed the American Oromo diaspora whose Qeerroo movement created the civil unrest that brought government change which facilitated Abiy Ahmed’s rise to power. Yet sometime during the tour and continuing after Abiy Ahmed decided to dump his Oromo identity and throw his lot in with Amhara expansionists. Where once he denied his mother’s heritage it then become a a badge he wore proudly. It would be soon after the tour that Jawar Mohammed would go to jail as a terrorist.
Soon after his appointment Abiy Ahmed began to spend more and more time in private and in public with extremist Christian groups both Protestant and Ethiopian Orthodox. Much of the Orthodox influence was from unauthorized diaspora Synods in the West while those in Ethiopia including the head of the church faced house arrest . They planted the concept that Ethiopia was once again in the Era of Princes, Zemene Mesafint, when the country was foundering without a strong king in the 18th century. The switch from Tigray kings to Amhara kings happened at the end of this period. Under the Amhara monarchy the greatest expansion of Ethiopia began in the last 2 centuries. Abyssinia changed to Ethiopia capturing land and enslaving Oromos, Somali, Afar, and the Southern Nations to Amhara rule.
Abiy and his conspirators dreamed up that God had ordained him to be the next Amharic king to rule Ethiopia. They wanted to reverse this trend of confederation to return to Amharic domination. This clerico-fascism interestingly mimicked the conditions in Italy that produced the Mussolini lead invasion of Ethiopia in the 1930s.
The world wanted to believe that Africa finally had a democratic leader that would lead reform intent on creating a Western style democracy in Africa. Abiy was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for making “peace” with Eritrea which the world failed to realize was really a defense pact to carry out genocide. It was all a part of great of great diplomatic con game to convince the world a better Africa was coming to fruition. Instead the gullible Abiy made Ethiopia the pawn to the crafty tyrant of Eritrea, Isaias Afeworki.
Even as it become clear that the Ethiopian Tigray conflict was not a “law enforcement operation” but a carefully well planned military operation of civilian slaughter, rape, deprivation, theft, and destruction with the goal of wiping the Tigray from existence the United Nations and western democracies made only weak statements of disapproval but did nothing.
The Tigray Defense Force has not carried out a perfect war. Such a thing does not exist. At its own expense, however, it has shown sympathy for civilians and combatant prisoners in how it administers conquered areas. The towns of Woldia, Alamat, Sekota, Dessie, and Kombalcha were taken with very little artillery barrage. Compare this with Ethiopia’s carpet barrages of many Tigray cities including Mekelle and more recently bombing of Amhara towns where more civilians were killed then Tigray fighters. Today many Amharic supporters in the name of religion are calling for Ethiopian civilians to sacrifice themselves for Abiy Ahmed.
At this moment there is no doubt that except for the exceptional heroism and perseverance of the Tigray and Oromo resistance, Abiy Ahmed would have secured himself in perpetual barbarism. As has been the case since its inception, the United Nations failed to take any meaningful action to stop genocide. Current statements from the UN and other western democracies for the Tigray to stop their advance to self-determination which is guaranteed in the UN charter which also bars genocide are an insult to humanity.
An Eritrean warplane attacked Ayder Elementary School in Mekelle in 1998. The Tigray tracked down the pilot.
The Tigray have a strong tradition of identifying those who have committed atrocity against them and a long memory to facilitate justice. They are taking note and following those who have committed atrocities to the people of Tigray just have they done in the past.
The Tigray government has identified the Ethiopian Air Force pilots who have bombed civilians most recently including the SU-27 (Under both Single Sweater and Dual Seat) Pilots who are bombing Mekelle and other towns in Tigray
1) Colonel Biruk Seifu (Leader of the Operation)
2) Colonel Jambo Azage
3) Major Solomon Bekele
4) Major Million Atnaw
5) Colonel Abebe Legese
The drone team is led by Captain Tadesse Abreha (who was captured last November at Tembien and sent home) as well as Captain Abiyot.
When I first came to Ayder Hospital in Mekelle in 2015 I soon learned about the story of the Ayder Elementary School which was just across the street and pre-existed the hospital by many years. It was the scene of a horrible war crime against school children and their would be rescuers when on June 5, 1998 an Eritrean warplane dropped a cluster bomb on the school. As parents and teachers rushed to save the children the plane returned and dropped another. Sixty were killed and 158 were injured. The case was presented in an international court and Ethiopia was partially compensated. Still the Tigray identified the pilot as Habtom Kahsay and tried to have him sent to Ethiopia when he sought asylum in Djibouti in 2014.
When the Derg regime fell to the Tigray Peoples Liberation Front in May 1991 two high ranking Derg officials, Berhanu Beye and Addis Tedla, clearly involved in mass killings sought refuge in the Italian Embassy to escape justice. Tedla died at the embassy years later but Abiy Ahmed forgave Beye his crimes, Beye was an Amhara, and let him leave Ethiopia without punishment in December 2020.
The Ethiopian Federal Cabinet appointed in October 2021 did nothing to protect innocent civilians from death, deprivation, and violation
With Oromo and Tigray forces certainly coming to Addis Ababa (Finfinne) will Ethiopian ministers leave the country? Now almost a year since the Ethiopian and Eritrean invasion of Tigray which had been planned for months prior the world has seen convincing evidence from many sources of unparalleled inhumanity, murder, and deprivation. Yet even though Abiy Ahmed claimed to have a medemer cabinet including many women in “powerful” positions” nary a one of them stood up against the killing and violation of thousands of innocents.
Even though Abiy Ahmed and his Prosperity Party tried to maintain a complete communication black out witness was born by many on the horrors suffered by the Tigray population. Tegaru and Irob refugees to Sudan gave accounts of widespread rape, murder, theft, and destruction. Journalists entered the war regions secretly to record stories and images that alerted the world that Abiy Ahmed’s “law enforcement” operation was really an intentional Tigray genocide. Even officials who were appointed by Abiy Ahmed to be in the Interim Tigray Administration after the temporary fall of Mekelle have now themselves proclaimed against the wrath of Abiy Ahmed the lie that Ethiopia had no evil or even benign intentions.
Does Abiy Ahmed feel safer in Bahir Dar then Addis Ababa? Here he is seen with his wife who now has been sent to Switzerland
Yesterday Abiy Ahmed held a day long meeting with military and other government officials in Bahir Dar, the capital of the Amhara region where he stated according to the Addis Standard the Tigray military mission cannot be defeated by the Ethiopian military. Now that the Tigray Defense Force has captured Dessie and soon will have Kombalcha which will allow them to join forces with the Oromo Liberation Army no doubt the next step is to topple the government.
The Bahir Dar meeting ended with a call for all citizens of Ethiopia to rise up in an effort to stop the Tigray. No doubt Abiy Ahmed feels his strongest support is in the heart of Amhara. Geographically Bahir Dar is farthest from the Tigray Defense Force and has considerable untouched ground defenders as well as an airbase west of the city well protected which could hold drones and fighter aircraft. The lake to the north of the city is a natural barrier to invasion. The Oromo surround Addis Ababa but not Bahir Dar.
Abiy Ahmed has also been called to appear before Parliament by many members to explain his failure and plan for finding peace. By staying in Bahir Dar he can avoid this requirement.
So far today no official statement has been made from Addis Ababa. Did Abiy Ahmed stay in Bahir Dar? Will Abiy Ahmed make his last stand in Bahir Dar? Does he feel safer in Bahir Dar surrounded by Amhara loyalists then in Addis Ababa which is long contested as really being Finfinne, an Oromo city. Is it likely that if he stays in Addis Ababa local spontaneous revolt by disaffected Oromos will start up?
The leadership of the Tigray and Ethiopian Federal Government
Whatever you might believe about the Tigray, the Oromo, or the Amhara the current situation has basically been about two armies and especially their leadership. The Ethiopian federal government under Abiy Ahmed had all the cards in his favor or so he thought. He professed that his intent with the invasion of Tigray was to do “enforcement”. His goal was to capture the rebel leaders to “liberate” the Tigray who like to be called the Tegaru.
I have never met Mr. Ahmed but I have had the pleasure many times to share airplane trips with Mr. Debretsion who is a quiet contemplative man who has an enormous intellect but at the same time understands the common man of Tigray. We always talked about what we were doing at the University and the hospital for the farmers.
The Tigray Defense Force has captured Dessie and now seems unstoppable while the Prime Minister of Ethiopia, Abiy Ahmed, says today from Bahir Dar that Ethiopia cannot win militarily over the Tigray. Rather than thousands dying in weeks of battle, the humanity of the Tigray Defense Force avoided extensive civilian causalities and offered humanitarian care of prisoners which encouraged the Ethiopian defense forces to surrender rather then die for nothing in Dessie. There is no doubt that what has happened in Tigray and northern Ethiopia is a human tragedy. Those who mostly suffered have been poor farmers whose lives are tied to a constant struggle to just survive even in times of peace. Years from now historians and political analysts will try to cast light on what lead to this catastrophe.
However, Abiy Ahmed’s hidden agenda, which was to annihilate the Tigray people soon become obvious. Instead of trying to compassionately motivate the people of Tigray that they had their interest by securing food, power, internet, medicine, education, and personal security they unleashed barbarous savagery of rape, thief, deprivation, destruction and hate.
In his mind and in his pronouncement to his followers, Abiy Ahmed, belittled the Tigray to subhumans incapable of doing anything well. He seemed to forget their history of being capable of elite light infantry campaigns in guerrilla and conventional warfare. The Prime Minister put his faith in military leaders who had previously been defeated by the Tigray in the Derg war. Finally, his cruelty to the Tigray people motivated her population to sustain a war effort not for domination but for survival. Meanwhile much of Ethiopia outside of the main combatants realized that the war was an instrument of destruction not unity. The old story of Amhara expansion that characterized the 18th and 19th century domination of Abyssinia over the Cushitic and Southern peoples is over. Medemer was exposed as lie. Apparently Abiy Ahmed has sent his family to Switzerland. I hope a new era will emerge.
Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed visited Turkey in August 2021 which was initiated by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Ethiopia purchased weapons including technology not allowed to be shared outside NATO.
As the Tigray Defense Force begins the final motions of capturing Dessie and Kombalcha international chaos affecting much more than Ethiopia is becoming evident. Turkey’s attempt to change the course of the Ethiopian Tigray war may in the end not only fail but cost it much in relations with other NATO members. The Ethiopian Tigray genocidal conflict has cost existing and future partnerships and investment with many Western democracies for Ethiopia and Turkey.
The expulsion of many Western diplomats from Turkey today in response to their public denouncement of the arrest and detention since 2013 of a prominent Turkish businessman and philanthropist, Osman Kavala, is the latest in a deteriorating relationship between Turkey and fellow NATO members. Through NATO confidential technology used in weapons systems including combat drones was shared with Turkey to allow them to share in producing NATO weapons. However Turkey has taken advantage of these technological secrets to sell weapons to participants in conflicts outside those normally allowed such as Ethiopia. Members of Congress in the USA have called for blocking further technology transfers.
Acquisition of weapons from Turkey, Iran, and possibly North Korea is also resulting in further deterioration of USA and other NATO members with those countries as well. Yesterday the Ethiopian Air Force tried to trick Mekelle Air Defense systems to mistakenly shoot down a UN aid flight. They did an airstrike on Mekelle while the UN flight was approaching to land. Although this did not happen, the Ethiopian government has caused the UN aid flights to be suspended. However, this flagrant and provocative action will only further increase calls for sanctions against the Ethiopian government.
