BY WOSSENSEGED ASSEFA
I was at a church the other day and I heard a young female student who came from Mekele University via the mediation of international aid organizations witnessing how God miraculously protected her life using one Tigrean family as a shield. Right after the Ethiopian National Defense Force left the city of Mekele declaring a unilateral humanitarian ceasefire and the TPLF forces took control of the city, students of Mekele University who came from other regions of the country were in terror, she said.
One particular family that felt the fear of the students brought her to their home. As she witnessed, that family shielded her for more than a fortnight with a very special treatment that she said she wouldn’t forget till her death day. Out of their poverty, that family managed to slaughter three goats to serve for her during those fifteen days she stayed within their home. In addition to their wonderful hospitality, they gave her five thousand birr upon her departure to her family in Addis Ababa. Every one listening was amazed as she told us her story crying out loud. What a humble, civilized, humane and blessed family!
In fact, most people who have spent some time in Tigray would tell you same story about the society. The biggest question that arises here is, ‘how did a group of rebels with full of hatred and atrocity came out of such a generous society with a firm religious background?’ Well, that remains an unsolved irony up in the North. A group of rebels that regard themselves as a liberator of the Tigrean people are positioned at the exact opposite of the people’s belief and moral. This particular group has been a tumor for the people it claims to represent, for the nations and nationalities of Ethiopia, and for the entire region of Eastern Africa.
If TPLF rebel group stands for the people of Tigray as it claims, why is it then the rebel group forcing children to go to war? Why is taking away children from their mothers? Why is it making Tigray devoid of the young generation? Why is it making the Tigray people get into a war with the Ethiopian people? Why is it interrupting the transportation of food aid to the region? Why is it using the starvation of the people for propaganda and to win the hearts of the international community? Why is it demanding that parents should send their child to a war front in return for the food aid the parents receive? Why is TPLF bringing a conflagration over the very people it claims to protect and represent? TPLF has not, does not and will not represent and protect the people of Tigray. It is just a group of war mongered, egoistic, and evil-minded personalities.
There are unspeakable acts of violence committed by this blood sucking group since its very establishment half a century ago. What it did commit in the last few months are though incomparable to any of its evil deeds. Mai Kadra and Afar massacres are of course the climaxes of TPLF’s atrocity.
It is hard to find such atrocities committed on civilians in the history of Ethiopia as witnessed in Mai Kadra and Afar. TPLF, with its hatred indoctrinated coercive apparatus’ murdered unarmed civilians (hundreds of children included) in a broad day light just because they are ethnically different from them. The Mai Kadra and Afar massacres are unparalleled atrocities committed on our land in the modern history of our country. We may find a kind heart that would forgive, but not a mind that can forget. It is of course a fact that our history as a nation is more of a bloodshed within ourselves and with foreign conquerors. However, we have had a superlative moral standard when it comes to the care and treatment we provide to civilians and even to captives of war. Case in point, the Italian soldiers who were held captives at the battle of Adwa could be taken as a primary historical witnesses’ for the noblest Ethiopian way of handling captives of war.
It should however be noted that during the law enforcement campaign in the Tigray region, few individual members of the Ethiopian National Defense Force (ENDF) and the Eritrean soldiers have committed crimes and these acts of violence should not be left unpunished. The point here is not however to compare the degree and scale of atrocities committed by each side. Rather, the news coverage given by the International media outlets for the crime that the Ethiopian and Eritrean soldiers committed against the people of Tigray and for the TPLF crime against the civilians in neighboring Amhara and Afar regions raises question. Besides to the deliberate ignorance of these broad day light atrocities, the West is trying to interfere in the internal affair of our country in the name of humanitarian crises and food aids. Well, we may not be politically and economically powerful to tackle the Western powers, but we know what is going on and we are always ready to stand against any power that comes to interfere in our sovereignty. We Ethiopians have lived through decades of starvation and famine, we have lived through internal wars and coup d’états, but one thing we have never lived with and will never live with is foreign interference and aggression. It is not just in our blood!
There are several occasion where the West is seen to give no attention and concern about the humanitarian conditions in various regions of the world. What matters for the West is their sole national interest. They of course use humanitarian crises as a window to interfere in other sovereign nations internal affairs. Taking the story of Libya and its long term dictator Muammar Gaddafi as an example, we can see the level of interference of the West and the final state of the country after he was overthrown. Gaddafi ruled Libya from 1969-2011. For 42 years this man was in power, he was a dictator, he killed a lot of Libyan citizens who opposed him and did a lot of unspeakable things; and all along leaders of the West were willing to overlook what he did, they were willing to be silent and continue strengthening their foreign relations with the government he led. They turned a blind eye to every human rights abuse and the countless number of Libyan citizens he tortured and killed.
All of a sudden, when a mass protest broke out in Tripoli, nations of Western Europe and the United States began involving themselves, reporting the situation in Libya through their respective media and calling Gaddafi a dictator in the name of Responsibility to Protect (R2P) the Libyan people from his dictatorship. They sold firearms to the rebels to support them in overthrowing Gaddafi and they froze his bank accounts and his assets in the west claiming that he was a dictator. Why after 42 years? What changed? What were they not telling us? As some experts say, Gaddafi told the West that they were giving them paper money in return for the black gold (oil) they took from Libya and other oil rich countries. He said that the paper money that is now widely accepted in the world, which the Western nations use to support their economies, would soon devaluate; and that when it does, the economic power would shift from the West as well. So he demanded the trade of real gold for black gold rather than paper for gold. He not only said that, but he also began spreading the same idea to other countries which are rich in mineral and oil. This is what led the West to be involved in the internal matters of the country in the name of R2P. The aftermath of his overthrow serves to show us that they never cared about Libya and its people which are in a far worse state than before.
Saddam Hussein is another example of leaders who were killed by the plot of Western governments and their media. The media including CNN and BBC reported at the time to the whole world about Saddam Hussein and his Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD). Even CIA informed the American government that Saddam had no WMD under his control, but they weren’t willing to listen. Why? Because the United States wanted to exploit the oil in Iraq; and thus, they needed an excuse to invade the country. The Bush family had their own oil extraction company ready to consume Iraq’s oil and Saddam was standing in the way of it all. In fact, George H.W. Bush was criticized for his effort in trying to exploit Iraq’s oil, and his son George W. Bush was not only fulfilling his father’s initial plans but also avenging his father when he executed Saddam and exploited Iraq’s oil. By the time Saddam was executed, the whole world was glad; but to this day it is clear that he had no WMD, although it was the cause of his death.
Taking these two of many stories as a sample, how many times do you think the West and their media have been lying to us? How many times have they distorted the facts to overturn governments and exploit the riches of nations as they did with Iraq’s oil and as they are doing with Libya’s right now?
If there is one thing we need to learn from it all, the Western media stands for the National interest of their own regardless of the facts on the ground. It is unethical to ignore the massacre in Mai Kadra and Afar, but ethics is not in the list of their guiding principles. The Ethiopian people, the Diaspora and the Federal government have to create means of delivering and exposing the facts to the international community. Having the facts is in vain unless it is presented. We are of course watching that few international bodies are getting the raw facts of what is going on but we need to do more in showing the facts to the international community at large.
May Peace Prevail on Our Land!
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD AUGUST 24/ 2021
