Tag: tigray genocide

Why is the world not holding Isaias Afwerki accountable for the Ethiopian crisis?

Passive support even admiration of the cruel tyrant Isaias Afwerki does not help the cause of African development

When will Africa learn that protecting evil dictatorships like Eritrea will always be an impediment to building a better and stronger Africa? Passing the one year mark of the human caused catastrophe of the Ethiopian war what most strikes me is the lack of discussion of the role Eritrea has played. 

The 1995 movie, The Usual Suspects, has a quote that has become iconic  “The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist “. This most aptly describes the tyrant of Eritrea. While we hear constant commentary about Ethiopia and Tigray we hear next to nothing on how the most notorious master manipulator Esaias Afwerki masterminded not only what is going in Ethiopia but adding to chaos in Sudan.

Even though Eritrea competes with North Korea as to who is most egregious violator of human rights among the countries of the world it shamefully was elected to the United Nations Human Rights Council mostly by endorsement of other African nations. The faulty notion that protecting African sovereignty and prominence in international affairs means accepting cruel and vicious leadership is allowable contributes significantly to much of Africa’s human rights struggles.  The situation is so bad in Eritrea that a special envoy to follow it was created by the UN.  Mohamed Abdelsalam Babiker, Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Eritrea, presenting his oral update, said this year he had seen no concrete evidence of progress or actual improvement in the human rights situation in Eritrea. 

If one wants to be generous to Abiy Ahmed that initially he had better intentions toward building Ethiopia this assumption can only be defended by pointing the finger to his naivete to the mal-intentions of the diaspora clerico-fascists and Isaias Afwerki. Yet these two entities remain obscured  in the discussions of how this cataclysm developed. 

Making media the message and avoiding real issues hastens Abiy Ahmed’s fall

Even though Ethiopia has been thought of a religious country filled with pious Christians and Muslims activists now promote blasphemous suspension of morality

Twitter has seen so many posts advocating escalation of ethnic violence against the Tigray in Ethiopia that they shut down their mechanism for collecting posts with similar topics for readership. In the face of a great epic tragedy occurring in Ethiopia the supporters of Abiy Ahmed have decided that their best strategy in midst of a military debacle is to attempt to deflect the real issues and realign them to emotional ones unrelated to the current reality.

Amhara activist promotes savage behavior

Over the past few years I have had an interest in the use of language and neuroscience related to how it functions to establish human interactions. We have been using this to help develop teaching methods for students training for futures as executives in business in Africa in how they relate to clients. This neurobehavioral science gives some insight to what we are seeing in Twitter and Facebook.

Modern media is about the short sound bit or 125 character phrase that creates a “Wow” visceral response without contemplating the whys? Hows? Where is it going? Where did it come from?

Whereas decades ago all massively distributed media was created by professionals with supervisory editing dictated by agreed norms of civility today we see a change to media made for sensationalistic emotional immediate response.   In the 1960s Marshal McLuhan, a Canadian philosopher, coined the phrase “the media is the message”. The concept is a bit complex but importantly relates to the idea that sensational content in its presentation draws the observer away from thinking about things like why is it presented, what were the circumstances that lead to it, etc. In his work Understanding Media:The Extensions of Man he gave the example of a “burglar carrying meat for the watchdog of the mind”.

The problems of starvation, deprivation, imprisonment, and violation will not be solved by sound bits or catchy phrases. History is replete with many instances of times when leaders let personal glory drive them to make decisions prolonging suffering of those in their charge with avoidable predictable catastrophe.

Will Abiy Ahmed’s ministers flee to avoid responsibility for the Tigray horrors?

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.

Ethiopian desire to obliterate Tigray existence becoming more public

Yohannes Buayalew, a top Amhara government official warned that one of the key factors to win a war was to foster and internalize hate of the enemy

Once claiming Tigray as fellow  mislead Ethiopians, Ethiopian leaders now proclaim absolute hate for them. Yohannes Buayalew, an Amhara government official now proclaims a key factor to win a war was to foster and internalize hate of the enemy. “Artists should help promote hate among the people against the enemy. Hate is power needed to defeat an enemy.  He called on Ethiopian artists and writers to make hate sink in the people. Previous denials by Ethiopian officials that their war against the Tigray was an intended genocide but was only a “law enforcement operation” are now changed to bold proclamations of the need to develop absolute hate of everything Tigray. Of course the reality is that this hatred has been present since Abiy Ahmed began planning his Tigray obliteration after his alliance with Ahmara expansionists.

Before Ethiopian, Amhara, and Eritrean forces even entered the Ethiopian Tigray war they were told by commanding officers and political leaders that this war was about permanently removing the Tigray people from not only existence but history. We now know that specific orders were given to kill all male children over the age 4 at least and if more the better. Tigray women were to raped to bear Amhara children or their wombs rendered sterile by mutilation.

Schools, hospitals, farms, electricity, water, internet, and banking were to be destroyed that no vestige of society remained. Even before the Ethiopian invasion the Ethiopian Federal government had already changed the budgets of universities and other facilities to zero. Factories built by foreign interest which were financed by the Ethiopian government were to be destroyed.

Almost no prisoners of war from Tigray and minimally from Oromo fighters have been taken. Most were just killed on the spot and left for the hyena.

There are even some reports of Amhara FANO removing limbs from both combatants and civilians leaving them disabled. I saw innocent mothers shot in the back running from enemy soldiers and then their babies semi-decapitated. 

The hatred of the Abiy Ahmed and his followers has been so intense that Ethiopian Air Force bombing along the A2 Highway was allowed to kill many Amhara civilians as they could be sacrificed for the goal of genocide of the Tigray.

Tigray administrator exposed Eritreans and wish to preserve borders flees

Although Gebremeskel Kassa ,Chief of Staff for the Interim Tigray Administration appointed by Ethiopian Prime Minister, Abiy Ahmed, supported Ethiopian action to take over the Tigray Regional state from the TPLF he  would soon become critical of Ethiopian, Amharan, and Eritrean actions in the region leading to his seeking refuge outside Ethiopia.

Gebremeskel Kassa  complained during the Ethiopian occupation of Tigray that Eritrean troops should have withdrawn from Tigray and that the violent expulsion of ethnic Tigrayans from Western Tigray was wrong. At the time the Tigray Interim Administration took power he stated emphatically that their goal was to maintain the current borders of Tigray previously ruled by the Tigray Peoples Liberation Front and not to give Western Tigray to Amhara.  He and others also pushed unsuccessfully for the Prime Minister to seek talks to resolve the crisis.

In January 2021 he told Reuters News Service that 2 million people were displaced in Tigray but Mitiku Kassa of the Ethiopia’s National Disaster Risk Management Commission contradicted his pronouncement with a lie that it was only 110,000. Then in March 2021 in an interview with BBC he complained that Eritrean and Amhara military authorities blocked the Tigray Interim Administration from setting up local civilian services and also blocked action to provide any law enforcement protection, health care restoration, food aid, or investigation of violations of human rights which he admitted had been done by the occupying forces.

Kassa left Tigray when the Tigray Defense Force resurged in June 2021. He joins other former Tigray Interim Administration officials who have grown increasingly critical of the Abiy Ahmed directed policy of lies, abuse, deprivation, and genocide toward the Tigray state and its population. Now he has fled Ethiopia and asking for asylum in an unnamed country after he became the subject of an inquiry blaming him as well as other officials for the military defeat. 

The public beating of Tigray mother shows the moral fall of Ethiopia

 

The public beating of a mother and child by police shows Addis Ababa once the shining city of  divergence and enlightenment now has a very dark soul of malevolence and nihilism. 

I cannot get a video posted today from Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia out of my head. Two big Addis Ababa policemen find a small Tigray woman with her child of about 1 and 1/2 years on side walk street vending. Upon hearing her speak Tigrinya they viciously kick her feet out from under her and begin pummeling her head.

One has to understand that no Tigray would be out in the street of Addis Ababa where they are subject to such abuse or even disappearing without a trace in a detainment center where extrajudicial killings have happened according to prosecutors from Addis Ababa.

No doubt she was poor and needed money to feed her child. We don’t know the exact story of why she was there but losing her family to marauding death squads of Ethiopian or Eritrean soldiers, or starvation, or just being isolated because of the communication block could be one or all  contributing to her desperate current plight.

There were many bystanders but not a single one defended her. Instead when they saw someone was filming the senseless brutality of police officers whose job is to protect the vulnerable they blocked the filming. What happened after that we do not know. Unfortunately though it is well known that for some time there has been no safe place for Tegaru in Addis Ababa.

If she goes to the Medhanialem Church near the wealthy social center of Addis in a neighborhood called Bole she would not find refuge now.  Always in the past this Ethiopian Orthodox Church was a sanctuary for all Ethiopians where they could sleep, find water, clothes or other hand outs from fellow Christians. Today the Tegaru rightful head of this ancient denomination is under house arrest while Amhara replacements preach a false Gospel of death rather then life in those sacred abodes which once proclaimed the charity and brotherhood of Jesus Christ  but now are replaced by hate even of a widowed mother and her small child. 

Maybe it is time to return Addis Ababa to its original name Finfinne and to it’s original peaceful owners, the Oromo, who are known for creating Africa’s first democracy, Gadaa,  before they were conquered and enslaved by Amhara expansion.

Martin Griffiths preserving Ethiopian state more important then famine

Martin Griffiths, UN Aid Chief, calls the current man made blockade a “stain on our consciousness” but lays no blame on Ethiopia

Is the primary agenda of Martin Griffiths preservation of the state of Ethiopia or relieving the horrific human suffering of the people of Tigray?Why does he only talk in vague generalities about why aid can not get to Tigray?

Martin Griffiths, the relatively new UN Aid Chief, has complained of worsening famine and deprivation in Tigray for months but has refused to assign any blame on Ethiopia and Eritrea. Instead he seems to consistently present a scenario that he has believed his personal conversations with PM Abiy Ahmed that the epidemic human catastrophe is not his fault but he will take positive action to help. Meanwhile the Ethiopian Eritrean “de facto” blockade as described by many in the UN remains at the forefront of their policy of genocide. In his final statement he said preserving the Ethiopia state was of primary importance this week. While Mr. Griffiths spews his misguided and damaging optimism just today the Ethiopian government expelled seven more vital UN humanitarian workers.

Several months ago when it was clear that a growing famine was gripping Tigray as well as state directed genocide by Ethiopia and Eritrea against Tigray persons and property, Martin Griffiths, the new UN Aid Chief appeared quite naïve about the true intentions of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and his Amhara expansionist supporters. After speaking with the Prime Minister he proclaimed that Tigray should immediately join the ceasefire because Ethiopia had helped prepare a good harvest for Tigray.

How did he not know what the Ethiopian appointed Interim Administration of Tigray was saying that Ethiopia intended to block any planting? He said Ethiopia wanted a peaceful solution and that Tigray had extended the war.  Yet throughout Tigray during the so-called ceasefire businesses and factories were destroyed or dismantled then shipped to Eritrea. Elimination of male children was being carried on by Amhara militia and Eritrean forces in Western Tigray. A complete blockade of not only food but also medicine and fuel was begun. 

Then many weeks later Mr. Griffiths visits Tigray and finds that schools have been destroyed by Ethiopian and Eritrean forces and then asks why are they not rebuilt? He openly hints that somehow the Tigray are limiting aid and does not even mention any role of Ethiopia.

Now finally on September 28th this week he mentions that communication, power, water, food, medicine, and health care creating a nearly unprecedented man made famine. Finally he mentions that Ethiopian government allegations that international aid agencies are helping the Tigray is false. Yet again however he praises the talks he has had with Ethiopian government that now there is a “change” in government which will change direction. He continues to use language which places no blame at all on Ethiopia even though other high ranking UN officials have called the situation a “de facto” blockade by the Ethiopian Eritrean genocide attempt on Tigray.

 

Ethiopia and Eritrea use Orthodox mystical beliefs to create fear and justify genocide

Many ancient cultures including Ethiopia see the hyena as a mystical creature of evil who can transform into a human form. The Ethiopian hyena plays role in the false depiction of the Tigray by Ethiopian religious leaders

Religious leaders, Esaias, and Abiy Ahmed together created a cruel plan for genocide incorporating common Ethiopian Orthodox Church folklore and belief of the Tigray people. The human atrocities committed by Eritreans and Ethiopians on the people of Tigray were part of a deeper psychological warfare to encourage Ethiopian and Eritrean soldiers to commit atrocity while creating fear and panic among the Tigray involving hyena and Christian resurrection.

The attempted complete conquest of Tigray involved devious input from Amhara religious leaders, Ethiopia, and Eritrea. Recent revelation about how Eritrean dictator Esaias Afwerki was the mastermind while Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed was the puppet on a string was revealed in Eritrea Hub. Esaias it is claimed is now directing all policy of Ethiopia towards Tigray as well as taking over intelligence functions and propaganda.

The Ethiopian Orthodox Church which makes up 90% of Tigray places great importance on the promise of the resurrection of both the soul and the physical human body after death by their faith in Christ. The start of Christianity in Ethiopia began in what is now Tigray but only after centuries of being Jewish. As a result in Ethiopia the Orthodox Church uniquely follows many Jewish customs.

Caravaggio classic painting of Jesus with Thomas who was shown and felt Jesus death wound

They believe that the dead must be buried in consecrated natural ground to allow it to return to dust. Remembering that Christ upon his resurrection showed Thomas his wound as told in the Gospel of John to prove his identity as well as the idea that the body is a holy creation of God there is a great fear among the common folk that disfigurement or dissacration of the body before or even after death will affect one’s resurrection. For example, in the hospital in Mekelle, many would refuse amputation even if it was necessary to safe life because they feared resurrection without a leg or arm.

The corruption of the body starting soon after death as well as the body being unclean makes it necessary to be interred quickly usually within a day or two after death. This is why you see, for example, the sense of urgency given by those recovering dead bodies from the Tekeze River in Western Tigray to bury them quickly.

Killing civilians or soldiers then burning them or leaving them unburied is done to convince the Tigrayans (Tegaru) that Ethiopia and her ally Eritrea have the unholy evil power to effect afterlife. This for what is commonly referred as the countryside people is quite terrifying. At the same time the Amhara and Eritreans are encouraged that they are killing a nonhuman entity.

The use of term hyena has two specific meanings when used in propaganda by Abiy Ahmed’s religious supporters. Many Orthodox believers see the world as having significant mystical components including evil and good magic as a part of their faith. The hyena is seen as a potentially supernatural being who can transform from beast to man and has evil magical powers called buda. Having lived in Amhara for almost two years some time ago, I witnessed how whenever a hyena was killed on the highway local people would often come to harvest its gallbladder which was is said to have magical powers.

The hyena is a powerful scavenger that finds it prey or carrion at night. The powerful jaws it possesses can easily crush bone so that it if finds a human corpse the whole body may be consumed without a trace. If the body is not placed in holy ground then folklore would say that resurrection may not occur. Hyenas can attack not only the body but the soul in Ethiopian folklore. Those attacked by hyena may require religious exorcism says local folklore.

In a recorded interchange between a captured Amhara soldier and the avenging Tegaru farmers in Hawzen in March of this year this exact fear was told to the farmers. The enemy soldier feared he would be executed and consumed by wild animals without burial. He requested at least to be killed by a church so he could be buried in one piece on consecrated ground. This also shows how the attacking Amhara where propagandized as well to see their enemy as unholy and evil. Ultimately the farmers did not kill the captured soldier but he was sent to a POW camp in Mekelle.

Referring to Tegaru as hyena is also dehumanizing them. Werehyena are hyenas that can camoflage themselves as man and carry out death and destruction. Convincing Amharas and others that Tegaru have an inherently evil nature that must be destroyed and can only be by death of the whole population. In other words they are giving an excuse for genocide. When they kill Tigray they are killing evil not men.

UN priority of preserving Ethiopian state over human rights makes it useless to find peace

The United Nations places preservation of the current Ethiopian regime over human rights and right to self determination of the Tigray and other ethnicities in Ethiopia

The United Nations is turning a blind eye to the suffering of the Tigray people by stating the preservation of the Ethiopian state is their first priority. Imagine if the Nazi Germany government sat as the judges of human rights violations against the 6 million Jews who suffered genocide! This is exactly the situation we are seeing now with the “joint” cooperation between the Ethiopian government who with its partner Eritrea has committed intentional starvation, rape, murder, displacement, withholding of health care, financial services, and communication very openly and publicly against the Tigray and other minority ethnicities in Ethiopia.

This week we have witnessed how useless the United Nations as well as the African Union is when a member nation’s government becomes inhumane and unjust. Although the United Nations Charter says the “inherent dignity” and the “equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family should be protected and” upholding these human rights principles as “the foundation of freedom, justice, and peace in the world” is fundamental to every undertaking of the United Nations. The reality is the real priority is about preserving the current leadership of a corrupt or inhumane country.

Michelle Bachelete, UN Human Rights Chief stated “preliminary findings” as dictated by the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission were

  1. Government forces and their allies continue to be implicated in allegations of human rights violations.
  2. Reports also suggest that people of Tigrayan ethnicity have been detained by law enforcement officials on ethnic grounds, mostly in Addis Ababa 
  3. Incitement to hatred and discrimination were also documented targeting people of Tigrayan ethnicity, as well as attacks on journalists and the suspension of media outlets’ licenses and shutdowns of Internet and telecommunications in Tigray.

Ms. Bachelet added that Tigrayan forces have also allegedly been responsible for attacks on civilians, including indiscriminate killings resulting in nearly 76,500 people displaced in Afar and an estimated 200,000 in Amhara.

More than 200 individuals have reportedly been killed in the most recent clashes in these regions, and 88 individuals, including children, have been injured, she said.

There have also been reports of the recruitment of children into the conflict by Tigrayan forces, which is prohibited under international law.

However her answer to the situation was however that the priority of the United Nations was the preservation of the Ethiopian state and by extension of the current government of Abiy Ahmed. Even though the United Nations has previously stated that the Abiy Ahmed regime and partner Eritrea is carrying out a “de fact0” blockade against Tigray that is forbidden under the UN Charter she called for an immediate ceasefire without concern for its consequences.

No discussion was made about concentration camps or mass killings in Western Tigray or Aksum. No investigation at all about Eritrea who seems to be given a pass by the UN and the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission.

As I have previously written the history of the United Nations in dealing with genocide is poor. To put it bluntly it is always too little and too late as was seen in Yugoslavia, Burma, Rwanda, Darfur, and others. The Tigray have no choice but to continue to fight for their survival.

Ethiopia must atone for its immorality before any peace can come with Tigray

Ethiopia blocked aid groups in Tigray for saying there was starvation

The moral hypocrisy of Abiy Ahmed and his supporters is the greatest impediment to seeking a peaceful resolution to the Ethiopian Tigray conflict.

Now that the war has spread to include more than a one third of the Amhara region with millions being displaced and severe disruption of life the previous silence seen from most of the rest of Ethiopia towards the inhumanity and death in Tigray that has gone on for almost a year has been ignorantly replaced. Today this silent majority who once actively encouraged rape, mutilation, starvation, and killing without even a whisper of protest, who believed that they had rightfully killed a “rabid dog” mercilessly now contends that they are the victims. 

They bear no responsibility for enthusiastically even some would say manically obsessively demonstrating a clear intention to wipe out a whole ethnic group, the Tigray. Ethiopians fail to realize most importantly that they are the victims of their own nefarious intentions.

When the “elected leader” Abiy Ahmed makes fun of atrocities to women you laugh. When aid agencies want to feed the starving children you accuse them of a conspiracy and want them removed from the country. Now however that the crisis has spread to Amhara you complain that they left. You said “hands off” Ethiopia that Ethiopia should have Ethiopian solutions. Yet you invite a foreign  country with one of the worst human rights records on the planet to do your killing, maiming, and deprivation. You seek to get tools of destruction from Turkey and Iran to kill Ethiopians. Now you are begging for the Western democracies who you denounced to protect you from the natural consequences of your own actions.

A chance for peaceful resolution can only come when both parties begin to trust each other and show some basic signs of humanity. Ethiopia must admit it wanted to commit genocide and punish those responsible. Abiy Ahmed and his supporters have a long way to go before this can happen.