It is a well-known fact that the WEST believes in HUMAN rights, WOMEN and Children rights, DEMOCRACY and so on. These are golden principles if implemented properly. But the WEST contradicts its principles daily, and it has become the HYPOCRITE of the 21st century in most of its engagements. By WEST we mean the civilization that tries to lecture and dictate to others about these values in this age. They preach about Equity, Access, SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS, and so on, but they are the ones who are misrepresenting or abusing these valuable guiding agendas for the world. That is why we say they are hypocrites. Let us give evidence in connection to their ill-fated collaboration with terrorist TPLF from Ethiopian perspective.
Election.
On the 21st of June 2021, Ethiopians headed to polls and elected their representatives in government for the next 5 years. The election was peaceful in most cases, and the Ethiopia PM Abiy’s party won a landslide victory. However, the reaction of the WEST to the election and even to the PM party victory via its media was/is negative. The defender of DEMOCRACY, the WEST fails to recognize and comprehend the people’s vote in the country. Instead, they are conspiring to remove the government elected by the people and set up another shadow government that can follow their orders as the now terrorist, but former ruling party that led the country for more than a quarter of a century with iron fist, TPLF. It is ironic that the one who advocates for election despises them.
Silence over Child Soldiers.
Another example that displayed how the system in the west has become clearly and deliberately one sided and flawed was evidenced by the most powerful newspaper on the planet, The New York Times. It published and then deleted pictures showing TPLF deploying child soldiers in the conflict in Tigray. What does the UN convention of the rights of the child state about involving them in war? Nobody is trying to explain this convention for the WEST. It is them who wrote all these laws. The Convention defines a child as any human being under the age of eighteen, and these minors should not be recruited as soldiers to be involved directly in an ongoing war. The New York Times knows better, but it glorified the actions of terrorist TPLF’s usage of children as soldiers to do the ultimate fight. Think about this, AL Qaeda or ISIS fighters using child soldiers, and The New York Timespublishing pieces by exalting these terrorist groups engaging children of age 14 or 15 to win the war with the western forces in the midst of the war. We all know what will happen the next day. The government will put that author in custody by accusing him/her as a sympathizer or supporter of a terrorist group or even stop such news agencies by quoting the same law stated by the UN convention, and even list them as terrorist organizations engaged in supporting hostilities against their interests. Ethiopians all over the world witnessed the same thing. But no one criticized The New York Times. This, once highly respected news outlet did the unthinkable. No one in the WEST uttered a word against it. What a shame? What a hypocrisy? We believed the good values the WEST has been preaching to us for many decades. Now the WEST is defying them before our own eyes. Exposed!
The WEST: Enablers of the destruction of Tigray People
TPLF is destroying the people of Tigray in a meaningless brutal war. And the WEST is enabling them to do that. The systems of the WEST, like WFP, OCHA, Amnesty International, and so on, every day notice the colossal loss of life and the destruction going on in the region. But they deliberately chose to keep quiet. The very people and institutions who advocate for the protection of human rights, the spread of democratic values and extricating poverty through sustainable development are silent when an entire region is turned to a machine of destruction. The rebels in Tigray are engaging minor children in thousands (if not in ten thousands) in this bloody war by giving them drugs. In these few days only thousands of minor kids were forced to be at the forefront of the war. This is the strategy TPLF used in Tigray in recent weeks against the Ethiopian government forces. Since they know that the army is a world class disciplined army who is not going to shoot at kids. Hence they use them as a shield. That is what The New York Times published in those weeks.
Why did TPLF use kids, women, and older people in the conflict? The reason is simple. After they lost the pre-planned and meditated war in November 2020 in a few weeks, they became powerless on the ground. The only place they had strength was/is in the western corridors. They have built a strong relationship with the western media, international organizations, politicians and lobbyists in the past three decades using the power they had and the money they stole from Ethiopian people. They still dominate the narrative about the conflict using all these entities. And one group of people: the Tigray people in the diaspora is serving as a TWITTER WORRIER, using the technology of the western system. Remember, in the past two decades, many tens of thousands of Tigray people have got residence in the western countries by registering as Eritrean refugees or by seeking political asylum (protection).
Those who seek asylum, as if their government is persecuting them, got the necessary evidence provided by the same government they claim they are fleeing from. Now, these people are engaged day and night in fighting via the social media platforms like Twitter. These is not only a willful participation but even it is an obligation. They are trained on how to tweet, retweet, and use hashtags. The messages and the well-crafted lies are prepared in almost coordinated manner. They tweet and retweet in a synchronized manner. They managed to get the attention of the western media, international organizations, politicians and population significantly. Literally they won the digital war in dominating the narrative about the conflict in their favor. The WEST has no clue about it, or it willfully allows such descent to happen on their watch.
However, the strength of TPLF at the ground in Tigray was deteriorating at an alarming rate and they were on the verge of being neglected by their masters, the WEST. They have to create something that shows they are still in the game. Hence, in the so-called Alula Aba Nega operation, they told the kids, the women and the old people to line up and face the military: to stab it in the back again.
Many horrible stories happened. The westerners knew all about it. They kept quiet. They even provided them with satellite communication systems that were supposed to be used by the aid workers mentioned in this piece. Ask those people, so-called workers of WFP and OCHA. Then the government of Ethiopia decided to withdraw the military so that the people of Tigray get time to reflect. Now, horror stories are being heard in Tigray. Anyone who is not cooperating with these terrorists is being slaughtered in daylight. Families are forced to give their kids. Aids are diverted to fund the war. Tigray is losing its population. Needless to say, Ethiopians are agonizing watching the suffering of their Tigrean fellow citizens. In short, the west is enabling all these human massacres and disasters. Time will reveal it. Enablers will be exposed.
Of course, these people are crafty liars. They will soon display the corps of Tigreans they killed and the corps of the people who died in this bloody and meaningless war as if they were killed by Eritrean and Ethiopian armies. They soon will display such propaganda using their collaborators and paid promoters. They will dig out several hundreds of corpses and send the video for consumption to the western media. The twitter army of the TPLF and their western sympathizers will amplify it as soon as they receive it. Those who have direct connection with western media will pay the necessary payment to get airwaves and platforms. Those who are in the corridors of the upper echelons of the west will send those videos to the lawmakers and legislators in the west so that further sanctions on the Ethiopian government and people will be imposed. That was how the cycle of mis (dis or mal) -information against Ethiopia was orchestrated and displayed the past 6 months.
As usual, their enablers will keep quiet so that the blame will not haunt them back. But for 110 million Ethiopians the truth is clear. The good news is that the hypocrisy and complacency of the west and the blatant lies of TPLF and their cruelty are uniting Ethiopians all over the country. The WEST has turned into a hypocritical agent of mass massacres. Of course, when we say the WEST, we mean those who are involved in the affairs of the other countries, not the mass majority who may have not got the facts right and at the depth given the complexity of the matter.
Editor’s Note: The views entertained in this article do not necessarily reflect the stance of The Ethiopian Herald
BY DEJEN RAS & GHIONAWIW BEDILU
The Ethiopian Herald 23 July 2021
