THE PARADIGM SHIFT IN WORLD ORDER AND THE RED SEA By Abiy Gebresilassie (Defend Ethiopia)
The Red Sea has been one of the world’s prime trade and military routes since its opening in 1869. In the last few decades, the world’s powerful nations (USA / EUROPE and RUSSIA – now CHINA) has been using it to ensure their access to Africa, South East Asia and Australia for Resources, Markets and Strategic ‘Security’.
Ethiopians with a wider field of geopolitical vision, empirical analysis and diplomatic maturity has always identified Ethiopia’s access to the Red Sea as one of the key factors, which will be increasingly shaping Ethiopia’s national security strategy, internal stability, economic development and diplomatic posture.
Countries from as far afield as Asia, Europe and North America have been aggressively engaged in determining the geopolitical shape of the Red Sea and the Horn of Africa as long as it existed, affecting the lives of Billions of Africans. Therefore, it must not be surprising that Ethiopia (Using the Re Sea for 85 – 90% of her imports / exports) to raise her peaceful voice to claim a just, lawful and collectively beneficial share of access these Asian, European and north American countries are vying for, at times violently.
The resulting posture of Ethiopia with such ambition, as a matter of course, has always been and will always be inextricably linked to the countries that are in the Red Sea and Horn area as some of the key parameters long before now.
- EGYPT – Commands Choke Point at SUIZ CANAL / BRICS Member / Middle East & Arab Political anchor / strong economy / Dependent on Nile / Strong ally to ISRAEL.
- SUDAN – Made Perennially Unstable by foreign interference / weak economy
- ERITREA – Staunchly independent & against West’s Policies / Suffers immeasurably by the West’s Sanctions
- DJIBOUTI – Military base for world’s powerful nations / ‘Commands’ Choke Point at Bab-el Mandeb / Economic dependence on Ethiopia trade and Western aid
- SOMALIA & SOMALILAND – Unstable / Security Risk / Weak economy
- YEMEN – Made Unstable / ‘Commands’ Choke Point at Bab-el Mandeb
- SAUDI ARABIA – Most influential in Middle East / BRICS member / Oil Rich economy / Archenemy to IRAN / Significantly normalising relations with ISRAEL / Moving away from dependency on USA
- ETHIOPIA – BRICS member / Great untapped potential / Great influence in Africa / None-aligned Diplomacy / Internal conflicts.
With the current evolving global paradigm shift away from the USA / EUROPE dominated global unipolar system vis-a-vis the increasing competitiveness of the world’s largest
countries / developing economies (including CHINA, INDIA & RUSSIA); it is improbable that the above 8 countries will be in any current list of most favoured and / or strategic allies to USA & EUROPE (Most probably except DJIBOUTI).
To complicate the ever-present tension around the Red Sea and raise the stakes even higher, SAUDI ARABIA and IRAN are at each other’s throats for regional and religious influence of the Islamic Middle East. In the meantime, ISRAEL is capitalising on this quarrel by normalising her relations with SAUDI ARABIA and a host of Middle Eastern nations isolating and significantly challenging IRAN’s influence within the Arab / Islam nations, which pivots on the PALESTINE question.
Oil rich nations such as KUAIT, BAHRAIN, UAE, OMAN & QUATAR are impossibly handicapped by the choke point at the STRAIT OF HORMUZ, which is effectively controlled by IRAN. In turn, this makes the Red Sea an even more indispensable trade route leaving nations that are not strong, independent and / or have a stronger strategic ally to be dangerously vulnerable. Hence, this demonstrates IRAN, from afar, has a key role in the overall geopolitical calculus.
At this juncture, USA / EUROPE are desperately seeking to get out of this evolving nightmare scenario where they will most likely lose controls / influences of the key Red Sea trade route with its so-called choke points at their mercies.
ISRAEL’s Prime Minister has presented one of their much-publicised solution to mitigate this possible loss of full influence in / around the Red Sea trade, at the United Nations on September 22, 2023. The route that is being keenly explored by ISRAEL and the WEST is an alternative passage avoiding the Red Sea and its double choke points, viz. over land linking the ARABIAN SEA & INDIAN OCEAN cutting through OMAN, SAUDI ARABIA, JORDAN & ISRAEL to the MEDITERRANEAN SEA accessing Europe and North America. If this becomes a reality, it will be such a game changer that none of the above three key world choke points at SUIZ CANAL, BAB- EL MANDEB & THE STRAITS OF HORMUZ will be as vital as they are now, making all the countries involved, including IRAN, with less to none leverage. Arguably, the question whether IRAN will take this lying down remains to be seen. Intriguingly, the following questions may not sound as fantasy as they seem – Did IRAN use HAMAS as a Trojan horse to disrupt this plan by attacking ISARAEL thereby demonstrating the project’s fallibility and weakness? Did USA / ISRAEL knowingly allow HAMAS’s attack so that certain area of GAZA could be cleared / controlled for this project?
Such is the devilishly complicated geopolitical, diplomatic and economic landscape, in and around the Red Sea, within which Ethiopia must conduct its geopolitical calculus to determine the modalities of her foreign policies, choosing her strategic allies, determining her economic partnerships and adjust her diplomatic nuances amongst other considerations. In this complex geopolitical game of calculus, with so many moving parts, where does ETHIOPIA fit? How should she play this game, navigate its high and low waters to create new opportunities and maximize all available possibilities to exploit her full potential?
The world around Ethiopia, more to the point around the Red Sea and the Horn of Africa, is changing at a break neck speed. Hence, Ethiopia should be at that high table with her own interests. It is vital to bring this burning issue to this table sooner rather than later.
With all statistical projected indicators showing the Ethiopian population growth and expansion of the economy, it would be irresponsible to ignore the changes around the whole of the horn and unable to voice our share of the access to the sea. The fact that Ethiopians have always been collectively aggrieved at the treasonous and irresponsible acts of TPLF, which left Ethiopia without an access to the Red Sea, is an indicator of how most Ethiopians’ feel about the subject matter. The Red Sea and an access to it is, for Ethiopia, one major part of a jigsaw puzzle to solve a conundrum in unleashing Ethiopia’s full potential.
However, we must also learn to resolve our internal differences peacefully, eradicate the endemic constitutional causes for them and set strong institutional frameworks to ensure law & order, to enable us engage with other priorities with sobriety. As it is inevitable that the tricky question of access to the sea would come to the fore, it is prudent to study, analyse, debate & explore the possibilities and options with all stakeholders now. This is essential to weigh alternatives and test available possibilities with all our neighbours in view of finding a peaceful, the most optimal, mutually agreeable / beneficial and expedient solution to the accessibility question whether through available frameworks or peaceful bilateral agreements.
The vision for a stable and strong Ethiopia, its neighbouring allies and partners, is vastly impactful on the Red Sea and Horn of Africa projecting the region’s independent narrative and serves as an additional African voice on trade and security of the region. An economically strong Ethiopia and neighbouring African countries, which will be vastly augmented by a direct access to the Red Sea, will play a great role to help develop a new, assertive, independent and true African voice / narrative, which has been suffocated for hundreds of years.
This may eventually reshape the Red Sea’s geopolitics & will ensure Ethiopia and her neighbours share the opportunities and bounties of it rather than the current cross border quarrels, terrorism, contraband and poverty, which are the agendas of Africa’s detractors. It is no longer just a whimsical possibility that Africa may become the next global resource and market centre for trade. It is actually happening right now and all the so-called superpowers are fighting for it. To claim a stake in this vast regional / global market place and help lift millions of Africans out of poverty, the infrastructures to fuel it are indispensable necessities. Access to the open sea is, and thereby the world, one such vital infrastructure.
An expression of partnership and mutual development is not tantamount to provocation for conflict as some propagandists lead us to believe (NB: As members of the public, we are not privy to discussions, agreements and / or disagreements that are happening behind the closed doors of the Ethiopian and her neighbouring Governments).
For the same reason, resolving Ethiopia’s internal conflicts peacefully is even more urgent. Left unresolved peacefully, worsening conflicts would cause even more destruction, erode confidence and inflict more suffering on our people making all the gains so far meaningless and future possibilities unattainable. None the less, this does not mean Ethiopia cannot deal with more than one issue at a time. It may be important to remember that the successful wheat self-reliability effort, the building of GERD and the Green Legacy projects are all developed and executed (continue to flourish) whilst Ethiopia was at war with TPLF and the WEST for her very survival.
Therefore, Ethiopia’s expression of peaceful ambition for an access to the Red Sea with her neighbours, as expressed by our Prime Minister’s speech to Parliament members, could turn out to be the most Pan African vision and consequential Ethiopian ambition yet.
Stand for Ethiopia against Western Aggression
THE MORAL DILEMMA OF INTERNMENT: THE CASE OF TPLF SLEEPER CELLS
Wondimu Mekonnen, England, 12/11/2021
INTRODUCTION
This paper briefly examines internment as a confinement of a group of individuals belonging to the belligerent parties for military reasons to avoid threats of sabotage during the eminence of war[1]. It doesn’t have to be foreign nationals. It can be applied to own profiled nationals belonging to a section of the society posing a potential threat (Malkin, 2004). The study concentrates on internment for the period between 1940 to date in the United Kingdom and the United States and draws lessons from them for Ethiopia. It checks if the experience of the two countries can be safely applied to Ethiopia, to avoid Tigrayan People’s Liberations Front (TPLF) sympathizing saboteurs from harming other citizens and even panic attacks on themselves by the alarmed community.
Emperor Haile Selassie I wrote:
“In all civilized world if one state wants to wage war against another, it announces its intention of doing so. After such an announcement has been made, the diplomatic representatives of the two sides return to their home countries. If their citizens so desire, they may also leave.” (Selassie, 1976)
This protocol exists between modern countries. For example, Japanese residents of the United States of America did not get that chance in advance to leave, as Japan launched a pre-empted strike at Pearl Harbour.
The same thing happened in Ethiopia when Italy launched a surprise attack on Ethiopia in 1935, however, Ethiopia didn’t act against Italians living in the country. To this day, it has been a longstanding tradition that strangers should not be harmed, but looked after, no matter what. Ethiopians were naïve and God-fearing people. As a result, Ethiopia paid dearly.
The justification of confinement of people for security reasons during the war has been debated. Advocates of internment during war justify the action under the primary protection of the safety of citizens and possible passing of information to the enemy or even attacks from sympathetic individuals to the invading force. However, the opponents of the idea argue that it violates human rights. Categorizing people according to their race, colour, faith, or origin is discrimination. Is it?
Malkin (2004) strongly suggests that a balance must be drawn between civil liberties and national security.
INTERNMENT IN THE UNITED KINGDOM
The archive of World War II memories gathered by the BBC states, “Internment of civilian nationals belonging to opposing sides was carried out, in varying degrees, by all belligerent powers in World War II.” (BBC, 2014)
The BBC sounded like: “The UK was not the only one interning citizens of alien origin.”
BBC Fact File estimates that “at the outbreak of war [against Nazi Germany] there were around 80,000 potential enemy aliens in Britain who, it was feared, could be spies, or willing to assist Britain’s enemies in the event of an invasion.”
The UK gave a legal veil to its actions in dealing with the issue. It brought all German and Austrian citizens over the age of 16 before special tribunals dividing them into three groups.
- High-security risks – numbering just under 600, who were immediately interned,
- Doubtful cases – numbering around 6,500, who were supervised and subjected to restrictions,
- No security risks – numbering around 64,000, who were left at liberty. More than 55,000 of category ‘C’ were recognized as refugees from Nazi oppression. The vast majority of these were Jewish.
However, Group B was rounded up in 1940 after the failure of the Norwegian campaign, noticing the insurgence of spies and the people’s agitation against these aliens. This group included Germans and Austrians. The Italians were also included in this group when Italy became a potential threat aligning with the Nazis. These people were seen as the security risk of the nation. Later, even Group C was also affected due to tabloid press scaremongering articles about foreigners. This led to a public call to do something about the aliens in their midst. That could have been where things gone wrong had the British Government did not have interned the potential threats.
The government decided to round up all male enemy aliens, regardless of classification, between 16 and 60 years of age and all women in category B, sometimes with their children (Pistol, 2020).
Category ‘A’ interned in camps erected across the UK, the largest settlement of which was on the Isle of Man. Category ‘B’ and some in Category ‘C’ were held in camps in major cities throughout the country.
Pistol estimates Up to 30,000 Germans, Austrians, and Italians were arrested during May and June 1940 and sent to temporary holding camps (Pistol, 2018)
Another internment was brought about in the UK in August 1971 due to IRA and Loyalists’ tit-for-tat disturbances. It is called “Operation Demetrius”. It involved the arrest of more than 340 people from Catholic and nationalist backgrounds who were kept in safe places away from the population (Moriarty, 2019). Some might argue that Britain did not consider internment of the Irish as an option to round up some of the Irish who was held in confinement because they were a threat to the peace, security, and safety of Britain. However, Moriarty (ibid) still considers them internees because they were not formally charged for any crime, but confined for fear of the safety of citizens. That action by the UK Government qualifies the steps taken as an intern.
INTERNMENT IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
The United States was a neutral country during the Second World War up until 07 December 1941. However, on one Sunday morning before 08:00 a.m., everything was changed. Imperial Japan launched a surprise attack on Pearl Harbour (PRUITT, 2018). This is outside the protocol of conducting war in the civilized world, as Emperor Haile Selassie mentioned. The actions of Imperial Japan subjected American nationals of Japanese origin and Japanese living in the United States to be caught in between. It was a pre-emptive surprise attack where the USA did not expect anything like that would happen. With that, the USA was dragged into The Second World War that ended up with the hydrogen bombardment of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
If we draw a parallel, the pre-emptive attack of the Japanese air fleet was like the recent Tigray People’s Liberation Front’s (TPLF) “lightning attack” on the Northern Command of the Ethiopian National Defence Force (ENDF). The justification given by both actions is the same: the latter would launch an attack sooner or later anyway. That was cowardice.
It took the USA authorities some time to wake up from the shock and think straight to decide what steps it should take next. Retaliation was imminent. Japan awoke a sleeping giant. However, you don’t just go to war driven by emotions. So, the US took stock of residents that belong to Japanese heritage. By the time Pearl Harbour was attacked, 127,000 Japanese was living in the United States. The Government of President Franklin Roosevelt was instructed by Executive Order 9066 to send 120,000 men, women, and children of Japanese origin to a concentration camp (Roosevelt, 2018). Two-thirds of them were US citizens. They stayed there until the war was over.
There were huge arguments about the legal implication of that action at the time by the US Government, but the safety of the country outweighed the risk of being accused of racism. Setting them free before the war was over was considered a national threat since they could sympathize with Japan. The USA Government cited national security as justification for this policy although it violated many of the most essential constitutional rights of Japanese Americans.
THE ETHIOPIAN EXPERIENCE
The Ethiopian situation was totally different. Interment was rarely considered during the war, perhaps because of cost and the logistics it involved. For example, In May 1998 war broke out between Ethiopia and Eritrea over a piece of land called Badme. As Eritrea was part of Ethiopia up until 27 April 1993, a great number of Eritreans had been living throughout the country. The moment the war broke out, the TPLF authorities considered those Eritreans as “national risks,” making the case the first in Ethiopian History. The Eritreans were not interned. However, the then Prime Minister of Ethiopia, Meles Zenawi decided to expel them from the country. When challenged, he shrugged his shoulders and said, “if we do not like the colour of their eyes, they had to leave”. As a result, 75,000 Eritreans were rounded up, evicted from Ethiopia to Eritrea (Solomon, 2018). The Prime Minister could have put more convincing arguments than that, referring to security risks.
On the other hand, the regime of The Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), which was dominated by the TPLF, for example, used frequent internment as a means of removing young people is considered a threat to its power. After months of detention, which it calls the training period, it used to release dressing them up with a T-shirt that read “Never again” (አይደገምም), which meant “I would never protest against the government again”. The following picture depicts Amhara internees in 2016 after TPLF sent its soldiers to burn down the Gondar marketplace[2].
That was a brutal crackdown by the TPLF. Such brutality, however, didn’t save it from being ousted from power by a popular uprising. Right now, intending to come back to power, the same group of terrorists has plunged the country into a conflict that is threatening the whole region of East Africa.
Because TPLF’s and its supporters sabotage the war, it wages in Ethiopia, internment is currently brewing in the country. On the night of 03 November 2020, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) Special Forces, militia, and Tigrayan ethnic officers launched a surprise attack on the ENDF barracks in Tigray. The attack resulted in 36,000 members of the ENDF being unaccounted for (Mekonnen, 2021)
On 04 November 2020, the Federal Government sent law enforcement troops to Tigray to apprehend those who were behind the massacre. It succeeded in capturing some of the ring leaders of the attack, some were killed, some remain at large.
In June 2021, the Government of Ethiopia declared a Unilateral Humanitarian Ceasefire and withdrew its troops from the Tigray region to give peace a chance. The leadership of the TPLF that was on the run returned to Mekelle, the regional capital, and called back its disbursed army. One would expect them to use the opportunity for peaceful activities. However, the belligerent TPLF leadership decided to fight outside its territory to replace the Federal Government. It immediately launched an attack on Afar and Amhara regions with the intention come back to power. So far, hundreds of thousands are killed and around 850,000 people are displaced from the two regions.
In its 27 years of brutal rule of Ethiopia, the TPLF had armed the majority of Tigrayans to support the regime and defend themselves in case of any resistance of the non-Tigrayan citizens. Leave alone Tigrayans, even loyal “opposition” party members and those non Tigrayans who worked for the TPLF were armed, as the recent court case revealed (Fasil, 2020). Literally, the TPLF supporting Tigrayans behaved as if they owned the entire country, and the rest of the citizens were marginalised to second class.
As of 31 October 2021, the TPLF waged a bitter battle to capture two strategic and industrial cities of Dessie and Kombolcha in Wello[3]. In the city of Dessie alone, there were more than 30,000 people of Tigrayan origin living peacefully until the attack on the city started. The ENDF and the Amhara Special Force defended the city for more than a week keeping the invaders at bay. However, the ethnic Tigrayans citizens of Dessie came out of their residences and attacked the soldiers from behind, which changed the game of the war. As a result, the TPLF forces entered the two cities and are now stripping the city of its belongings. The following KPR Radio conversation between journalists Jemal Countess and Ann Garrison reveals how the TPLF sleepers in Dessie were instrumental in enabling the TPLF to overrun Dessie.
Similar behaviours were observed in 1991 when the joint army of the TPLF and Eritrean People’s Liberation Front were fighting to overthrow the military regime of Col. Mengistu Hailemariam. However, in those days, the sleeper cells were not armed like these days. Nobody touched the Tigrayans or Eritreans at that time and yet they were instrumental in supporting the rebels both financially and provision of information.
WHAT SHALL BE DONE?
Tigrayans are living in large numbers throughout the country. Now, the Government of Ethiopia is facing a dilemma. Most of them are armed as indicated above. Shouldn’t the Government of Ethiopia deal with the threat posed by these sleeper cells, given the lessons learned from Dessie and Kombolcha? Holding them somewhere in camps throughout the country may be a violation of their constitutional rights. Leaving them at large is, however, allowing them to hit from behind as they did in the city of Dessie and Kombolcha. Just as the United Kingdom does not want the Irish Republican Army (IRA) to take over Westminster, the Ethiopian government does not either wish the separatist brutal TPLF to overrun the capital city, Addis Ababa. Everywhere the TPLF went, they killed people and farm animals, raped women, and children looted everything they came across, no matter how big or small the value of the war spoils could be. Amnesty International says: “They defy morality or any iota of humanity.” (Callamard, November 9, 2021).
The Ethiopian government needs to take lessons from the United Kingdom, the USA, and other countries on how they dealt with the German and Japanese or even the IRA potential threats. No country has any moral upper ground to accuse the Government of Ethiopia of taking the same action to protect their own citizens. Taking the right decision is paramount to safeguard the safety and security of the citizens. Internment is a temporary measure to protect the Defence Force from being backstabbed yet again. It might also be found necessary to protect the Tigrayans themselves from an angry mob. If TPLF supporters are isolated, the internment of the sleeper cells is second to none solution.
In conclusion, here is the advice suggested by Malkin (Ibid). It is important, especially in times of war, that governments should consider nationality, ethnicity, and religious affiliation in their homeland security policies and engage in what she calls “threat profiling.” These steps may entail bothersome or offensive measures, but she argues, they are preferable to “being incinerated at your office desk by a flaming hijacked plane”. Desperate times call for desperate measures.
References
BBC, 2014. WW2 People’s War. An archive of World War Twp memories, s.l.: s.n.
Callamard, A., Nomember 9, 2021. Ethiopia: Survivors of TPLF attack in Amhara describe gang rape, looting and physical assaults, s.l.: Amnesty International.
Fasil, M., 2020. Addis Standard. FEATURE ANALYSIS: OROMIA PROSECUTORS CHARGE VETERAN OPPOSITION PARTY LEADER LIDETU AYALEW WITH CRIMES ON ILLEGAL POSSESSION OF BULK FIREARMS, 17 September.
ICRC, 2014. Internment in armed conflict: Basic rules and challenges, s.l.: s.n.
Malkin, M., 2004. In Defense of Internment: The Case for ‘Racial Profiling’ in World War II and the War on Terror. s.l.:s.n.
Mekonnen, W., 2020. Wondimu’s Blog. [Online]
Available at: https://wondimumekonnen.blogspot.com/2021/11/the-lemmings-of-tigray.html
[Accessed 11 November 2021].
Mekonnen, W., 2021. WONDIMU’s BLOG. [Online]
Available at: https://wondimumekonnen.blogspot.com/2021/11/the-lemmings-of-tigray.html
[Accessed 11 November 2021].
Moriarty, G., 2019. The Irish Times. [Online]
Available at: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/internment-explained-when-was-it-introduced-and-why-1.3981598
[Accessed 11 November 2021].
Pistol, R., 2018. From World War II ‘enemy’ internment to Windrush: Britain quickly forgets its gratitude to economic migrants. The Conversation.
Pistol, R., 2020. Refugees from National Socialism Arriving in Great. GALE, A Sengade Company.
PRUITT, S., 2018. Why Did Japan Attack Pearl Harbor?, s.l.: s.n.
Roosevelt, F., 2018. U.S. National Archives and Records Administration. [Online]
Available at: https://www.archives.gov/global-pages/larger-image.html?i=/historical-docs/doc-content/images/japanese-relocation-order-l.jpg&c=/historical-docs/doc-content/images/japanese-relocation-order.caption.html
[Accessed 11 November 2021].
Selassie, H., 1976. My Life and Ethiopian Progress. Volume 1, Translated by Edward Ullendorf ed. s.l.:Frontline Books.
Solomon, S., 2018. They are Going to Come for us: A Teenage Girl Caught in a War’s Riptides. The New York Times Magazine, 2018 November.
[1] [1] The International Committee of Red Cross (ICRC, 2014) defines Interment as deprivation of liberty – detention – is a common and lawful occurrence in armed conflict that is governed by many provisions of international humanitarian law (IHL). Like other bodies of law, IHL prohibits arbitrary detention.
[2] [2] https://borkena.com/2016/09/16/ethiopia-gonder-fire-entire-market-with-420-stores-reduced-to-ashes/
[3] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/nov/01/tigrayan-forces-claim-control-of-two-cities-on-road-to-ethiopias-capital
THE MASTERS OF DECEIPT ARE AT IT AGAIN
By Wondimu Mekonnen, UK
The Tigray Liberation Front terrorists[1] are repeating their 1985 style deceit once more. In 1985, Sir Bob Geldof brought together British and Irish musicians to help famine victims in Ethiopia, mainly in Tigray and Wollo Regions. Hopefully, everyone remembers the song “Do they know it’s Christmas.” The charity personally distributed the food aid in the affected regions. However, the TPLF approached Bob Geldof and moaned. The people in the territory it controlled could not get the help. The Charity gave them £25,000,000. The TPLF claimed the food would be bought from the Sudan and transported into Tigray to feed the starving. However, as per Gebremedhin Araya, one of the defected rebel leaders of the time, no penny was delivered to the starving people of Tigray. Some were spent to purchase of weapons while rest were used to enrich themselves by investing it in “The Endowment Fund for the Rehabilitation of Tigray (EFFORT), private property of the TPLF. Marin Plaut wrote about it and presented on the BBC in 2010[2]. Now it is 2021. The TPLF is playing the same game. They think they can always fool everybody all the time.
It is to be recalled that the TPLF who administered Ethiopia for 27 years with gross violation of human rights. It looted the whole country and moved billions of dollars abroad. It was removed from power in 2018 through popular uprising. The USA and UK were the ones who helped them to power in 1981. During the 27 years TPLF’s administration of Ethiopia under the banner of EPRDF, there were bloodshed everywhere. The Amharas were branded enemies of the Tigrayan people in their manifesto and slaughtered and thrown of off the cliffs in thousands. Their lands were taken away and evicted from ancestral territories. Metekel was taken away from Gojjam. Welqait Tegede and Humera were taken away from Gondar. Raya was taken away from Wollo. Blood shade continued in those regions, but no single Western power protested about it. They turned blind eyes to the gross violation of human rights in Ethiopia by the puppets they installed to pillage the country. Ironically, now when the Amharas regained their rightful ancestral lands over these areas, western powers lament and call for the withdrawal of Amhara Special Forces. This really is a double standard. The Amharas are now in areas where they were brutally evicted thirty years ago. Once TPLF was removed from powers, Ethiopia started getting the attention of Western powers, thinking that it is getting away from their grips. They West wanted to keep Ethiopia underdeveloped living on handouts. The TPLF proved to be their tools to control the land and the people. TPLF enriched itself by selling vast fertile lands to the international agro-conglomerate by evicting indigenous people. As soon as the TPLF lost its grip on power, rather than joining in the reform, its leaders chose to move back to their Tigray enclave and started preparing to relaunch attack to regain power in Ethiopia. No amount of pleading, mediation would make them change their minds. They boasted they had the weapons and human power to overthrow the Federal Government. They went on to execute their plan to come back to power by force. They badly gambled and lost.
On the night of 03/04 November they attacked the Ethiopian National Defence Force and slaughtered almost 36,000 unsuspecting soldiers in their beds. The defence force was stationed there to protect the people of Tigray from a possible attack by the Eritrean forces, for the last 23 years. The Federal Government of Ethiopia moved its forces into Tigray to establish law and order. Within just three weeks, the TPLF attack was halted, some of its leaders surrendered, others killed in the battle, and few escaped to the ragged mountains of Tigray to continue guerrilla war. Their Western mentors panicked because they never expected that would happen. While on the run, the TPLF massacred 600 civilians in a matter of hours at a small town called Maikadra, bulldozed airfields, blew up power stations, destroyed bridges, cut of telephone wires, and plunged the region into darkness. Their spokesperson, Getachew Reda was heard on the video[3] vowing to continue with the destruction of big infrastructures, particularly bridges and roads to make the people of Tigray miserable and encourage them to join the fight. In the meantime, all the destruction caused by the TPLF had to be blamed on the government, so that the Western media bought their lies. The so-called Tigray refugees (interestingly most of these refugees migrated to the Western world by the TPLF itself while still in power) came out on the streets of cities of the Western World (USA, UK, and Western Europe) and rolled on the pavements (እምበር ተንከባላይ) claiming “the Ethiopian Government was massacring Tigrayan people, raping Tigrayan women, starving to death the entire population”.
Now, there is a big question. How did these Tigrayans eded up in the UK, USA and Western Europe? When they did arrive in these countries? They did not arrive in the last seven months for sure. They came over the last 30 years, while the government of their liking had been in power. I bet these are bogus asylum seeks, who ended up here claiming either as Eritreans or just like all of us claiming to be persecuted by the Government that the TPLF was leading.
Their protest of mass killing, starvation or rape was totally baseless.. The Government was pursuing criminals, not the civilians. These prestenders knocked at every MPs’ offices and told them false stories. They enlisted lobbyists like Lord Alton, Alex de Waal and Kjetil Tronvoll; journalists like Martin like Plaut and William Davidson to spread their lies and confuse unsuspecting ordinary people of the Western nations.
Particularly among the journalists, Martin Plaut did not hide he was lying when it came to the TPLF. He justified that by saying: “Sometimes I lie. So, what! The end justifies the means”. In one of his lectures to the TPLF activists he taught them how to manufacture news[4]. If you don’t believe click on the link and listen to him.
Here is the latest fake story that is circulating over the last three days on Western media. The TPLF was parading some people claiming they were prisoners of war. Let us see the following three pictures of the same person. He is one of the TPLF fighters.
The young man wearing the purple towel in the first picture paraded as a prisoner of war is Daniel Yohannes. He is from Adwa, Tigray. He is a graduate of Welqite University. The third picture shows him working as a Public Health worker in Tigray. Now they are parading him as an Ethiopian captured soldier, prisoner of war for media consumption, while the truth is that he is their own fighter. That is how news can be manufactured. Thanks to Martin Plaut.
While the activists abroad are busy manufacturing fake news, the defeated TPLF criminalis hiding in the mountains and among the people made things difficult for the government to help the people of Tigray to get on with their daily lives. The USA, UK and EU were taken for a ride by the lobbyists in multiplying the fake news without verifying them, simply qualifying them as “unverified reports”. However, the verified news we would have liked the media to have was unacceptable. Their readers are cheated and deceived to know the truth.
The most blatant lie was delivered by the Finnish foreign minister and EU special envoy Pekka Haavisto. He did not blink when he said the authorities in Addis told him: “they are going to wipe out the Tigrayans for 100 years.” What? This was absolutely a hit below the belt. What kind of government leadership would tell a foreigner it would wipe out its own people? May be lost in translation? The reverse was the truth. The Government was doing everything to help the people. 70% of the humanitarian aid in Tigray was supplied by the Ethiopian Government and only 30% was supplied by the international aid organisations. While the government was helping the people, the TPLF was preventing help from reaching them. These facts were deliberately hidden from the ordinary people of the USA, UK, and EU residents. And we were not given a chance to tell the truth.
As per the account of the Russian and Chinese envoys at the UN Security Council on 3rd July, the Government of Ethiopia was trying to feed the people, restoring utilities, and helping to establish peace. However, the rebels were making it difficult for the people to get the basic needs. It became impossible for the government as the TPLF supporters were sabotaging everything that would make life for the civilians easier. The TPLF fighters would wear Ethiopian National Defence Force uniforms and rape their own women and blame it on the Ethiopian National Defence Force. Every crime it committed was staged and filmed and broadcast to the unsuspecting Western Media through Alex De Wall, Martin Plaut and William Davidson. The only true account came from a Polish-European anthropologist, Dr Natalia Paszkiewicz, European migrant advocate. She recently told us a horrendous story. The TPLF fighters raided an Eritrean refugee camp inside Tigray. They ordered 9 Eritrean refugee women to strip to the waist. Nine Eritrean refugee men were dragged out, ordered to wear Eritrean Defence Force uniform, given curved knives, and were ordered to cut off the Eritrean women’s breasts, under the gunpoint while filming. The plan was to show the Westerners how the Eritrean soldiers were mutilating Tigrayan women’s breasts. Barbarians! One of the men decided to run off with the knife and other also followed suits in different directions. All were killed except one lucky escapee to tell the story. Such staged crimes were happening all over Tigray. The TPLF released 10,000 hardcore criminals, including those on death row, from jail before it left Mekelle. Those were going around and robbing the people. That too was blamed on the government and Eritrean soldiers. The people of Tigray knew the truth. Moreover, the TPLF fighters inside Tigray would hide among civilians and shoot at the military, so that the military would shoot back at the people.
Such sabotages and accusations became too much for the Federal Government to help the people of Tigray. When shot at from among the civilians, the army could not shoot back because innocent people might be killed. That was becoming too much for the defence force. The West kept on exerting pressure on the Government of Ethiopia to stop the fighting, let journalists and aid workers free movement. Therefore, to meet the demand of the Western powers and to give some breathing space for the people of Tigray, the Federal Government ordered the National Defence Force to unilaterally ceasefire and withdraws in an orderly fashion from the region on 28 June 2021. This gave the TPLF to emerge from its hideouts. This was a step taken to save the people, not what the Finish minister claimed of wiping out. Although the gesture came as a surprise to the TPLF, it did not take time for its leaders that was begging to “stop the war in Tigray” to reject the ceasefire. They woke up one morning and there was no one to blame any more. They started boasting to the biased Western media as if they defeated the Ethiopian National Army.
Two weeks ago, the TPLF was lamenting were begging the international community to stop the war in Tigray. The Ethiopian Government stopped the war and moved out its force out of Tigray. The TPLF changed the tune. Now they singing to fight on, no ceasefire and would keep on going until they crash the Federal Government of Ethiopia and overthrow the Eritrean President. It means invitation of Eritrea once more to get involved in defence of itself, to internationalise the war. That would allow the USA, UK, and EU countries to get involved in the name of “Peace Keeping” all over again. As evidenced from Afghanistan, Iraq, Yugoslavia, Libya, and Syria, the involvement of the Western power would solve nothing but would worsen the situation. To obtain permission once more, the USA, UK, and Ireland called UN Security Council urgent meeting on 03 July. Luckily they failed to get what they wanted.
This week, to prevent aid reaching the people of Tigray, the TPLF destroyed the bridge on Takaze River, the main supply route. Then it put out a plea to the international community to bring assistance directly by air. Here we go again! The tactic they used in 1985 is resurfacing. In short, what does that mean? They did not want the aid to be brought by road as it would be checked by the Government of Ethiopia. The main reason behind that is to get weapons brought in by air without any problem to their possession. Well, Ethiopia is a sovereign state. It has the right to protect its air and land. Therefore, we do not think that the wishes of TPLF would be granted without violating the sovereignty of Ethiopia. If anyone attempts to fly over Ethiopian territory without the permission of the Government, then that is the violation of International Law and Ethiopia has the right to defend herself. In such provocation, the Ethiopia Government has the right to ask the support of any friendly nations, be it a country as small as Eritrea or as giant as Russia. Expect WWIII! Does anyone remember, actually WWII started in Ethiopia in 1935?
As per news reaching us from Mekelle, after the TPLF moved back, so many civilians are getting killed on daily basis. Conseil Africain des Mėdias reported “Renewed killings and massacres of civilians perpetrated by the TPLF troops have been reported in the Tigray region barely a day after the announced ceasefire by Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed[5]. In a place Mohoni, minority Muslims are reported have been slaughtered. Médecins Sans Frontières reported that the TPLF looted the food that donors brought to distribute to the people. Now they have no one to blame on.
It appears that something terrible might have happened to Debretsion Gebremichael, the TPLF leader. He is nowhere to be seen. Well, we had seen some old pictures claiming him entering Mekelle recently. However, when showing that old picture which was taken six months ago, they forgot editing out Tigray TV microphone. The West is now promoting the CIA man, former General Tsadkan Gebretensae, to emerge as the new leader. Mark my words. The next victims of TPLF will be Getachew Redda and Tsadkan Gebretensae. They both are not from the Adwan Dynasty. They are not even Tigrayans. They belong to the Raya ethnic group. Their kins were slaughtered by the TPLF in the past to take over the lands. Now the Rayas are masters of their own destination. Therefore, these two traitors will not last long within the TPLF.
The western media are reflections of their own governments. They never give us a space on their pages to set the score straight when they mislead their readers. Leave alone, independent writers like this one, even the Ethiopian Embassies are denied access to defend the position of their government whenever glaring truth were twisted and falsified. Therefore, we have no options but to use blogs, websites, and social media to expose the nature of the TPLF, the biased western media and one-sided crusade by the Western Governments to bring Ethiopia to her knees.
To conclude, I would like to refer to history. In 555 BC, our ancestors fought against the Roman Empire and saved our independence. That was followed by the Ottoman Empire. Our forefathers fought for 100 years to save what is known today Ethiopia. In 1886, after the Berlin Conference, when the West divided Africa among them, our grandparents fought against Italy and defeated and made them capitulate and pay compensation. From 1935 to 1940, our parents bitterly fought and defeated the Italians colonialists who came back for revenge. This time, once more, our country is facing another threat from the Western powers using internal traitors. Are we not the grand children of Ethiopian patriots? Are we going to surrender the country that is kept by blood shade of our ancestors? Not a chance! To start with, God is with us just like yesterday. Our people will resist united as always. Next, Russia, China, India, and African states (save the Sudan and Egypt who would like to prevent us from using the Blue Nile water) would not leave Ethiopia at the mercy of the West. We are not alone. Hands of Ethiopia!
[1] https://www.start.umd.edu/gtd/search/Results.aspx?search=Tigray+Liberation+Front&sa.x=47&sa.y=10
[2] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8535189.stm
[3] https://youtu.be/bDvakQiurjw
[4] https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10218962002147497&id=1427051338&sfnsn=scwspmo
[5] https://www.conseilafricaindesmedias.com/single-post/tigray-region-at-risk-of-becoming-a-terrorist-base