BY SOLOMON DIBABA
Pictures of gun tottering minors are all over the place in international media. The New York Times came up with children from Tigray being mobilized to fight against forces of ETDF who are out to protect them from the savagery being perpetrated by TPLF. New York Times never condemned this inhuman action of TPLF but in fact tended to admire the move.
Recently, The UNHRC has adopted EU sponsored resolution on violations of human rights in Ethiopia but surprisingly failed to mention and condemn TPLF’s inhuman activities on recruiting and deploying child soldiers for battle fronts. Silence on this contrary to the international law is no less than endorsing the inhuman action. Besides, the global human rights organization has become a tool for serving EU political objectives shrouded by a false commitment to human rights.
Deafened by the false propaganda of TPLF and its supporters in the diaspora as well as its paid lobbyists across the power corridors of western powers and individuals serving in the UN Systems, the international community did not care to at least verify on what is happening to children in Tigray as they are being forced to be recruited as child soldiers.
While the western powers are busy blaming Ethiopia for everything under the Ethiopian sky, they seem to openly forget the issues surrounding child soldiers in Tigray by prioritizing their political objectives in the Horn of Africa.
The USA listed Ethiopia in the category of countries in which genocide is conducted without mentioning the role played by TPLF in the genocide it conducted in Mai Kardra, Setit Humera and its massacre of 600 Ethiopian soldiers who were serving in Tigray for more than 20 years. The State Department recently issued a statement inn which has time and again called for peace, ceasefire and dialogue with TPLF without even slightly condemning the violations of international law that this terrorist organization for which it is not being accounted for It is saddening to know that apart from the EU which has just sponsored a resolution on human rights violations in Ethiopia, the USA, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, ICC, international religious organizations like World Council of Churches as well as global media outlets chose to keep deaf ears on the international criminal act that TPLF has committed in endangering the lives of minors and children by deploying them to war areas to use them as child soldiers and human shields.
It appears that by keeping silent when the UN Convention on the Rights of Children is violated by TPLF, the international community would never care if these children are dead at the front as long as they help to protect TPLF officials from being captured and taken to courts by the ETDF.
But what does the international law provide for such a heinous crime that the TPLF is committing? Suffice it to mention an article in the UN Convention on the Rights of Children which reads.
Article 38 1. States Parties undertake to respect and to ensure respect for rules of international humanitarian law applicable to them in armed conflicts which are relevant to the child. 11 2. States Parties shall take all feasible measures to ensure that persons who have not attained the age of fifteen years do not take a direct part in hostilities. 3. States Parties shall refrain from recruiting any person who has not attained the age of fifteen years into their armed forces. In recruiting among those persons who have attained the age of fifteen years but who have not attained the age of eighteen years, States Parties shall Endeavour to give priority to those who are oldest. 4. In accordance with their obligations under international humanitarian law to protect the civilian population in armed conflicts, States Parties shall take all feasible measures to ensure protection and care of children who are affected by an armed conflict.
Although ousted from power and labelled as a terrorist organization, TPLF still claims that it runs it own government and is therefore naturally accountable for the crimes it has committed in the past and currently.
Children in Tigray are paying the sacrifices need to keep TPLF officials who are criminals to be taken to court for crimes against humanity. TPLF is also conducting systematic human rights violations regarding its atrocities on Eritrean refugees in Tigray which also include children.
One may think that this was the only time that TPLF is recruiting child soldiers for its terroristic activities in Ethiopia. Right from its formative period and later on, TPLF organized its forces based on child labor and child soldiers who were forced to serve for this organization.
Unless the international community takes actions in condemning and investigating into the use of child soldiers by TPLF and if the ICC keeps on its silence on international crimes of the highest caliber, TPLF will only be emboldened to continue violating the rights of Ethiopian children in Tigray
Editor’s Note: The views entertained in this article do not necessarily reflect the stance of The Ethiopian Herald
The Ethiopian Herald July 18/2021
