BY AKLOG BIRARA (PhD)
For decades, I was a fan of the Washington Post. For decades, I subscribed to the noble idea that a free, independent, and impartial media is a pillar in democratic governance. When applied in an impartial, non-partisan, truthful and transparent manner, international media including the Post can serve the global common good: justice, respect for human rights irrespective of any distinction, human worth and dignity, peace, and stability etc.
The Post’s one-sided and biased reporting concerning crimes committed by the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) that include treason, ethnically motivated and targeted killings of hundreds of innocent Amara civilians in Mai Kadra, the Amhara region, “war crimes” by TPLF troops for “gang raping 71 Amhara girls and women” in the town of Gaint after the Government had declared a unilateral ceasefire last June and other episodes of terror constitute a plethora of evidence that the TPLF poses an existential threat to Ethiopians and Ethiopia. This same terrorist group and its ally the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA) have also announced publicly that they are determined to dismember Ethiopia.
Compelling evidence of human atrocities and the deliberate and massive destruction of social and economic infrastructure in the Afar and Amhara regions by the TPLF and the underreporting of the cycle of murders of Amhara in Benishangul Gumuz as well as Wellega by the mainstream media including the Post force me to conclude that Western media is playing a substantial role in the relentless assault of Ethiopia.
Ethiopia is in peril from multiple angles. By not demanding that the TPLF and OLA stop their insurrection without any preconditions, Western media and Western Governments have become enablers of Ethiopia’s menacing forces. I suggest that behind proxy wars on Ethiopia from different directions is also Egyptian determination to avert the completion of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD); and to disable Ethiopia to the point that it will not have the resources to build additional dams.
Western media and human rights groups can help mitigate the peril Ethiopia faces by being truthful, fair, and even-handed.
In this regard, I commend Amnesty International’s latest report on the warfare targeting Amhara females. I urge the Post to provide due coverage to TPLF’s ethnicity based and targeted “crimes of war by the TPLF” that Amnesty says is incontestable. Thus far, the Post and other Western media are hardly pursuing the global common good embedded in democracy. If the Post cannot help Ethiopia by providing a balanced report on the crisis; at least it should not do more harm by taking sides. If it is not willing and ready to challenge the TPLF, why not leave Ethiopians resolve their problems without gross interreference and without emboldening terrorists?
I tried to persuade the Post’s Editorial Board to publish this Op-ed in its entirety and enable the American public to understand an Ethiopian American’s perspective on the matter. I have modified slightly and updated it I recognize that the concert of Western media and other actors against Ethiopia has been relentless and is highly synchronized. A Lecturer at Harvard Christopher Rhodes wrote a blistering Op-ed under the title “How Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed tore Ethiopia apart” https://www.washingtonpost.com that the Post published. It places the blame for the current crisis squarely on the Ethiopian Prime Minister. By doing this, it gives cover to the TPLF and the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA) that are conducting a countrywide insurrection to dismantle Ethiopia.
The war in Ethiopia is between those who have coalesced in defense of their country’s territorial integrity and sovereignty on the one hand; and terrorists, jihadists, ethnonationalists and agents of foreign governments on the other. The fight is nothing less than for the soul of Ethiopia.
Western media including the Post propagate Western Government policy rather than the truth. Misinformation helps terrorists and the truth helps Ethiopians who are dying each day to preserve Ethiopia. It saddens me that there is minimal reporting on the massacres, rapes, destruction of investment property and infrastructure by the TPLF since June. There is no reference to the diversion and the potential destruction that the formation of a newly minted alliance of nine ethnic liberation fronts in Washington DC will cause. There is no challenge posed by the Post or other Western media why this alliance formed in America’s capital while America’s Special Envoy for the Horn of Africa, Ambassador Jeff Feltman was on a mission to Ethiopia?
In my assessment, the mayhem and destruction that engulfed the Afar and Amhara regions since June has only been eclipsed by the TPLF insurrection that the Post’s inflammatory Opinion seems to embrace if not justify. If left unchallenged this Opinion undermines US national security and erodes the advancement of democracy in Black Africa. While it is not flawless by any means, the Post failed to recognize that Ethiopia had concluded a free, peaceful, and competitive election.
The Post owes it to its readers to concede facts on the ground: to avert the current asinine war, Ethiopian spiritual leaders and elders, mothers, and civic leaders made valiant efforts for peace and national consensus. The TPLF rejected this gesture. The TPLF and not the Government of Ethiopia started and then expanded the war. The TPLF and not the Government of Ethiopia deployed child soldiers; instigated rapes of Afar and Amhara women; mauled cattle and camels; destroyed clinics, schools, and other infrastructure; burned churches and mosques; plundered properties of peasant farmers; and vowed to disintegrate Ethiopia.
I agree that individual members of Ethiopia’s Defense Forces who committed war or other crimes must be held accountable “based on credible” evidence. However, I reject the allegation that the Abiy Government is conducting an “all out war against Tigreans.” Doesn’t’ the Post know that it is the TPLF that it had announced publicly that it will make the “Amhara pay a huge price?” Revengeful killing and rape is in the genetic make-up of the TPLF.
Doesn’t the Post know that in the cities of Dessie and Kombolcha Tigrean residents empowered and armed by the TPLF were part of the insurrection and ordered to murder non-Tigrean neighbors or friends? If not disarmed wherever they live outside Tigray, supporters of the TPLF will do the same repeatedly.
The Editorial emboldens the TPLF and the Oromo Liberation Army when it says, “There is a real chance that the TPLF could seize power, as it did in 1991, or at least plunge the second most populous country in Africa — a once economically booming nation of 115 million people — into total civil war.” This counters the public statement by the Biden Administration’s Special Envoy to the Horn of Africa, Jeff Feltman, who had said that the US would not “allow the TPLF to enter Addis Ababa or to seize power.”
The Post must entrain the notion that a 1991 scenario is not feasible. The current Government holds power through the electoral process. Most Ethiopians reject the TPLF and OLA. As popular demonstrations in Addis Ababa and in Washington DC showed, Ethiopia has a government that has the sole mandate to preserve Ethiopia’s territorial integrity. It is insurrection by the TPLF and its surrogates that will trigger a country wide civil war. So, why not demand that the TPLF and its surrogate the OLA stop fighting and declare peace?
Relentless misinformation, pro-TPLF narratives by Western media including the Post and the provision of satellite telephones, other technologies, and intelligence data by external forces to the TPLF and OLA against one of the most ancient, Biblical, and spiritual nations with a history spanning more than 3,000 years would destabilize the entire Horn and Eastern Africa. It will also threaten the lives of hundreds of thousands of Tigreans who live throughout Ethiopia.
Closing embassies or evacuating non-essential personnel are not the answer. I predict that despite the doom scenario by the Post and others, Ethiopia will not disappear. Tens of millions of Ethiopians across the country are fighting to defend it.
The Post decided not to report the massive protest in Addis Ababa on November 7 that Reuters reported. “Tens of thousands of Ethiopians rallied in Addis Ababa on Sunday to support Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s government as federal troops fight rebellious forces threatening to march on the capital.” Rejecting the bias, misinformation and pro-TPLF and relentless vitriolic against the Ethiopian state and Government “Some demonstrators denounced the United States, one of the foreign powers that has called for a ceasefire to a year-long war, which has intensified amid advances by rebellious forces in the past week.”
This anti-American sentiment is a chilling signal. America could lose a dependable friend. Ethiopians do not hate the American people. Most Ethiopians are saying that Western media and Government policy towards Ethiopia is a colossal mistake. I agree. They are saying they will defend Ethiopia as their ancestors have done multiple times before. I agree.
I also suggest that it is a huge strategic blunder to underestimate the will and determination of 120 million Ethiopians. If the Post and other pro-TPLF media and certain Western Governments refuse to support Ethiopia’s rightful cause, they should leave Ethiopia alone.
The Post’s Editorial could have helped the global common good had it affirmed the notion that today’s Black Africa is no longer a push over. Ethiopia is a pioneer of African independence. No donor Government or agency should threaten it to accept its own destruction by withholding humanitarian or other forms of aid too,
Why parity?
I find it tragic that the Post treats the TPLF that both the US and the Government of Ethiopia identified as terrorist on par with the Government of Ethiopia. Would the Post give the same legitimacy to Al-Kaieda?
The Opinion “Though a gross violation of human rights, such behavior is consistent with Mr. Abiy’s general approach to the conflict, which has been to treat it as a war against all Tigrayans; hence, his policy of denying humanitarian aid to reach potentially millions of starving Tigrayan civilians in the countryside” is a colonial perspective. Targeting Tigrean nationals that commit treason, rape women, destroy property and vow to dismantle Ethiopia is not the same thing as “a war against all Tigreans.” The Post ignored the fact that members of Ethiopia’s Northern Command were serving Tigrean farmers fighting locust infestations, harvesting crops, building shelters, and defending the region from external aggression. They were attacked and slaughtered by the TPLF in the wee hours of November 4, 2020. Is this treasonous act acceptable in any Western nation?
The Post refuses to acknowledge the genesis of the problem. The TPLF had declared repeatedly that it planned to score points by massacring “the Amhara.” It just did it again in Gaint. The TPLF had vowed to dismember Ethiopia. The assertion that the “war is against all Tigreans” reinforces a false and Rwanda-like genocide scenario that no Ethiopian espouses. In addition to gang rapes reported by Amnesty, theTPLF has been herding dozens of Amhara youth
and murdering them in Northern Gondar, Dessie, Kombolcha. So, why not differentiate those who commit war crimes from those who defend human life and country?
Doesn’t the Post have a moral responsibility not to put aside these atrocities and the murders of Afar, Amhara, Oromo and other non-Tigreans by the TPLF? Doesn’t responsible journalism dictate that the Post does not impute that Abiy’s Government is out there to “kill all Tigreans?”
The Post bestows truth for the humanitarian disaster and for the lack of unfettered access to humanitarian aid to the TPLF that had consistently paraded the notion that Tigreans and no one else are the victim. Why did the Post fail to report that Ethiopia had spent more than 100 billion Ethiopian Birr (70 percent of the requisite aid) in support of Tigray?
The Post should have reviewed the joint report by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission that concludes that “all warring factions in Tigray are responsible for human rights violations.” The Government of Ethiopia intends to act, while the TPLF rejects it. This report does not include atrocities singularly attributed to the TPLF after it expanded the war to the Afar and Amhara regions. It is time that the Post deploys a journalist to the Afar and Amhara regions and report the truth to the American people.
Does not the Post have an obligation to demand accountability by the TPLF or to report on the hundreds of thousands of displaced Afar and Amhara forced to leave their homes? Why did the Post refrain from reporting on the millions of Amhara who face famine and an estimated one million displaced since June?
“TPLF troops have committed their share of atrocities in the current counteroffensive” is liberalism gone wild. The TPLF and not the Government of Ethiopia, Eritrea, or Amhara Special Forces initiated this tragic war. The TPLF committed Mai Kadra and other Mai Kadra-like killings since June. The Government of Ethiopia declared a unilateral ceasefire without reciprocity from the TPLF that expanded the war.
Why then did the Post fail to demand that the TPLF reciprocate? Why did the Post fail to demand that the TPLF withdraw its troops from the Afar and Amhara regions at once and unconditionally? Why did the Post fail to demand that the TPLF stop advancing towards Addis Ababa and avert a blood bath?
The Post does not mention that Ethiopia’s status as a pillar of stability dissipated once the TPLF initiated its treasonous act by assaulting Ethiopia’s Northern Command in the wee hours of November 4, 2020.
Instead of emboldening the TPLF, the Post could have served a unique public purpose if it had supported a way out of the crisis. The Post could have called on the international community to support the mediation led by the former President of Nigeria, Olusegun Obasanjo, currently in Ethiopia. The Post could have declared its support for Ethiopia’s territorial integrity and sovereignty.
Finally, the Post could have pointed out the notion that economic sanctions do more harm than good. It is ordinary Ethiopians mostly females, who pay a price. The Post could have also opined and gained respect if it had questioned punitive measures by the Biden Administration. Whether it is the suspension of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) or cuts in other forms of aid to Ethiopia, the USA must be careful that it does not lose a dependable friend.
I find it hard to believe that Western democracies would pressure a sovereign Black African country on the rise, and the home of the African Union by leveraging their immense resources to force the Federal Government to accept Ethiopia’s demise. It seems to me that what happened to Ethiopia during the Second World War is being repeated.
I would like the reader to appreciate the fact that I had urged the Post to publish this Op-ed in its entirety. It would have served a public purpose by informing the American public that always appreciates the truth.
The writer, Dr. Aklog Birara is an Ethiopian American. He retired from the World Bank after 30 years of distinguished service. He is currently President of the Ethiopian Dialogue Forum (EDF), and Chairman of the Ethiopian Waters Advisory Council (EWAC). He is affiliated with other civil society organizations.
Ethiopia Shall Prevail!!!
November 11, 2021
- https://youtu.be/cENpFLMxPE4
Millions demonstrate against the TPLF
- https://twitter.com/i/redirect?url=https%3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2Fi%2Ftopics%2Ftweet%2F14574693
November 11, 2021
Editor’s Note: The views entertained in this article do not necessarily reflect the stance of The Ethiopian Herald
The Ethiopian Herald November 13/2021
