In addition to holding the Tigray people hostage, the terrorist TPLF group has continued committing atrocities with impunity in the Amhara and Afar states. Just like always, the group has been getting itself fully wrapped up with misleading the international community sticking to a double standard approach. Dejectedly, the deceitful group has long been known for mystifying the international community by saying it is at the ready to get to the bottom of the problem in an atmosphere of calm despite the reality on the ground is far from the truth.
The terrorist group has been closely connected to extreme looting, property destruction, and moving the country into uncharted waters. On the other hand, the group has been bewildering the international community saying it is committed to peaceful settlement of the problem while launching intensified offensive against the Amhara and Afar states.
The terrorist group has been intensifying the stakes of its criminal behavior against civilians residing in both states. As the international community stands idle and remain tightlipped in the face continued terrorist TPLF’s atrocities.
When the terrorist group suffers huge blow, the terrorist group points its finger at the government for civilian casualties. But the truth is in an act of desperation, the vanishing terrorist group has been inextricably linked to exterminating thousands of civilians at various points in time, displacing millions, and doing away with possessions.
Sad as it may sound, nowadays; the terrorist group has been committing extrajudicial killings and destructing properties of the peoples in the occupied areas. Against this background, the numbers of displaced people who need humanitarian assistance are on the rise.
In its first briefings on current affairs, the newly formed Government Communication Affairs Service Minister Leggese Tulu (Ph.D.) said that taking advantages over the government’s unilateral ceasefire, the terrorist group has extended war to Amhara and Afar states using human wave. The terrorists have continued deploying children, women, elderly people and the war-disabled ones in front lines in Amhara State of north Wollo and Ambassel as well as in Afar State of Chifra.
The Minister went on to note that the groups have invaded four Woredas in Afar and some areas in Amhara State and have committed inhuman acts against innocent civilians in these areas. On top of that the terrorist TPLF has attacked civilians in Wuchale town, Southern Wollo zone of Amhara State and those of Chifra in Afar State using heavy artillery. Following the attack, at least 30 innocent people died, he said adding that citizens are displaced; their property has been looted and damaged including crops ready for harvest.
Lately, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement on Monday denouncing the terrorist group’s latest offensive against civilians. The Ministry said that the TPLF is once again crying wolf to cover up its fresh attacks on civilians” which reads as setting aside all the empty rhetoric for its calls for negotiations, the TPLF has continued to prove its utter disregard for peace in Ethiopia. The Unilateral Humanitarian Ceasefire declared by the Ethiopian Government on 28 June 2021 could not be reciprocated by the group. The TPLF has failed to appreciate the importance of peace to civilians and farmers who were yearning for relief to engage with their farming activities.
As to the statement, the terrorist group has replicated its failure to safeguard the wellbeing of the people of Tigray through unabated attacks against the people of Amhara and Afar. Reports of extrajudicial killings and damage to properties in occupied areas have reached unprecedented levels. The number of displaced people who need humanitarian assistance in the occupied areas has also dramatically increased lately.
The TPLF has been crying wolf in the past week, calling on the international community to save it from the ‘’planned” government attack against it. However, it was the TPLF that has launched wide-scale unwarranted attacks against innocent civilians.
Realizing that it could not choke the Djibouti-Addis route, TPLF has resorted to targeting civilians in neighboring regions out of desperation. The TPLF has recently launched fresh attacks on Amhara and Afar regions plundering property and starving children, mothers, and the elderly to death. They have indiscriminately targeted and shelled civilian villages namely Chifra and Wuchale lately and killed more than 30 civilians at Wuchale alone. The terrorist enterprise has continued using human waves in hundreds of thousands of young and the elderly, as well as unarmed civilians, swarming cities and villages to loot cattle and ready-to-be-harvested crops and destroy the livelihood of neighboring regions. Due to such atrocities, it is no wonder that the flow of humanitarian aid is severely curtailed.
The Government of Ethiopia is deeply dismayed by the reticence of the international community to condemn the perpetuated atrocities of the TPLF. Adding salt to our injury is the seemingly pro-TPLF resolution of the European Parliament and the utterly biased statement issued following the US and its partners’ high-level ministerial meeting over the situation in Northern Ethiopia.
The US and its partners put the lifting of restrictions on humanitarian access to civilians in Tigray as their top priority condemning the Government of Ethiopia for obstruction of aid. They have demanded the Government of Ethiopia to immediately re-establish communications, banking, and other vital services within Tigray and fully restore transport corridors and air linkages to Tigray. Putting all the blame on a single party in the conflict, while whitewashing the wrongs of the other, is not only biased but also unacceptable by any standard.
As the Government of Ethiopia has repeatedly said, the diversion of humanitarian resources by the TPLF for its military purposes has sputtered the delivery of humanitarian aid in the region. The US and its partners should not have taken the TPLF’s incessant killings of several civilians who had worked to re-establish services in the Tigray region lightly. It would be challenging for the Government of Ethiopia to force these workers to operate in Tigray devoid of security for their lives and amid the continued impunity of the TPLF.
“It is absurd to expect unrestricted flow of humanitarian aid to the Tigray region while the TPLF is actively attacking neighboring areas and provoking the people to obstruct the process. The Government of Ethiopia would like to request the US and its partners not to be swayed by the crying wolf TPLF and downplay the suffering of people in north Wollo, Gonder, Wag Hemera of Amhara, and Afar regions.”
The Government of Ethiopia would like to request the US and its partners to stop their unbalanced treatment of the conflict in Ethiopia with their oversized sympathy and attention to the TPLF. They should also stop downplaying the suffering of people in areas outside of Tigray at the hands of the TPLF. The TPLF should not be allowed to wave the flag of peace when it senses defeat on military fronts and dupes the international community for its commitment to unconditional negotiation.
On the government side, our commitment to peace has been consistent since the war on impunity was started on 04 November 2020. The Government of Ethiopia also remains committed to forge an all-inclusive national dialogue. The government, therefore, calls upon the international community to support Ethiopia’s overtures for peace.
BY ADDISALEM MULAT
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD OCTOBER 19/2021
