Terrorist TPLF is contributing to the starvation of children at this season of food gap committing international crime. What are the legal implications of TPLF’s obstruction of food aid.
Christa Rottensteine the former employ of the ICRC has one of the best explanations on withholding food from a needy population also applicable for terrorist TPLF in Tigray.
“Throughout history, starvation has been used as a method of warfare. The foremost goal of sieges and blockades was not to inflict suffering on the civilian population, which was seen as an inevitable “by-product”, but to bring about the surrender of the enemy army. In today’s wars, however, humanitarian assistance is increasingly denied as part of a deliberate policy to target civilians, in particular during internal armed conflicts. The often-discussed change in the nature of warfare might be one reason for this development. The other reason might be the change in the nature of humanitarian operations. In the 1990s, there has been an increasing tendency to use them as a substitute for effective political or military action. Besides, the number of relief operations has risen steadily. This has led to a situation where humanitarian assistance is often used as a bargaining chip in political dealings and is therefore regularly impeded. Because the international media is giving more attention to the matter, the withholding of aid has also become more obvious than before.”
Rottensteine continues, “The prohibition to starve civilians as a “method of warfare” is included in Article 54 of Protocol I and Article 14 of Protocol II. “To use starvation as a method of warfare would be to provoke it deliberately, causing the population to suffer hunger, particularly by depriving it of its sources of food or of supplies.” [50 ] Starvation is not specifically mentioned as a grave breach in Protocol I. However, the Appeal Chamber of the ICTY confirmed in the Tadic case that even if the Geneva Conventions and Protocols do not explicitly stipulate that a prohibited act constitutes a crime, it is still possible to establish criminal responsibility for such an act.”
The Statute of the ICC explicitly mentions the denial of humanitarian assistance as an example of an act that may lead to starvation. According to the relevant provision, “ intentionally using starvation of civilians as a method of warfare by depriving them of objects indispensable to their survival, including willfully impeding relief supplies as provided for under the Geneva Conventions” is a serious violation of the laws and customs of war [52 ] . However, starvation has been included in the jurisdiction of the ICC only in respect of international armed conflicts, although there has been a considerable amount of lobbying for its inclusion in the list of crimes committed in non-international armed conflicts as well.
According to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, the intentional use of starvation of civilians as a method of warfare by depriving them of objects indispensable to their survival is considered a war crime in international armed conflicts.
From the perspectives of the 1949 Geneva Convention, on gross violation of international law as provided in the Geneva Convention, TPLF terrorists have perpetrated crimes against humanity by not only blocking the smooth supply of food aid provided by the Ethiopian Government, the WFP and other international and local NGOs from reaching needy children and their mothers, it has helped to artificially escalate public starvation of children which resulted in malnutrition and extremely high level of stunting. By blocking the smooth transmission of hundreds of convoys from Djibouti via Afar Regional State, TPLF has now become a major cause of starvation and possible death of hundred thousands of children and lactating mothers in Tigray.
Terrorist TPLF bandits boozed up by marijuana have looted food stuffs from poor families in almost all the districts in Amhara region leaving them with no access to their badly earned food resources. The terrorist TPLF forces carried away the grain seeds they intended to sow during the harvest season and looted their household kitchen utensils they use to cook food for children. This has been a common incident in all the districts that were temperately occupied by terrorist TPLF forces.
Terrorist TPLF commanders rationed huge amount of narcotics to their child soldiers who have been going for days with no food and water. They were devilishly engaged in damaging their brain and mental capability as a means of destroying their future life as long as terrorist TPLF’s interests are met.
A couple of days back, terrorist TPLF forces destroyed a grain store worth more than 30,000 quintals to be supplied for IDPs in the Afar Region. This clearly indicates that they are to be accounted for a constellation of crimes against humanity as provided in the Geneva Convention.
It is heartbreaking to notice that the international community of nations, so called democratic western countries along with their human rights organizations have chosen to keep silent when innocent children and their mothers are dying from starvation.
While he fact on the ground totally clear and in spite of the repeated complaints by the WFP, on the obstruction of the road transport by terrorist TPLF, western media outlets and Terrorist TPLF promoters have shamelessly continued to accuse Ethiopia or the crimes that they have committed. Again and as usual western powers and their media companies kept silent when terrorist TPLF is busy multiplying the agony of children in Tigray. UNICEF, International, Human Rights Watch, UN Commission for Human Rights and have chosen to sit on the fence when children and mothers in Tigray are being made to suffer under terrorist TPLF.
Remaining committed to its national and human responsibilities, the Ethiopian government ha continued to supply food to more than 4 million needy population in Tigray by setting aside more than 400,000 quintal of food. However, terrorist TPLF cadres have continued to steal food from poor farmers in Amhara Region putting minors and school children ant the brink of starvation. If all these crimes are not punishable in line with the Geneva Convention, what else is punishable?
BY SOLOMON DIBABA
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD 15/2021
