- Paper pejoratively looks Africa
BY TSEGAYE TILAHUN
ADDIS ABABA – The New York Times (NYTs) has dedicated to whitesplaining the start of the conflict in Ethiopia ignoring the voices of majority Africans (Ethiopians) in the Horn, the renowned journalist Hermela Aregawi said.
Heremela stated that from the beginning of the TPLF’s insurgency war against the government and people of Ethiopia, the NYTs’ Declan Walsh has been dedicated to whitesplaining the story of the conflict, ignoring the cries of the majority of Africans in the Horn. Walsh was the first to accuse the government and its supporters of ethnic cleansing of the people of Tigray, without citing any evidence.
Walsh referenced CNN’s Nima Elbagir, who has made consistent allegations of the atrocities in Tigray by employing the sensationalist words of TPLF officials and ignoring the numerous atrocities the latter committed in Amhara and Afar states, she added.
“The Times ignored who started the war, that the TPLF insurgents attacked their fellow soldiers during the early hours of Nov 4, 2020 in what they called a pre-emptive ‘lightning strike’ to incapacitate and destroy the ENDF and take control of the country’s largest military base and armaments, located The journalist further noted that the NYTs has a pejorative standard for an African government and its right to defend itself and its people from an internal attack. “In its neocolonial approach Declan Walsh accused Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed of planning a military campaign for months before the war erupted last November.”
As to Hermela, there is ample evidence that TPLF has been mobilizing and preparing ethnic Tigrayan people for war by rejecting negotiation efforts by the government, unwilling to take any offer less than ruling the country again.
In its 27 years of leadership, the faction rigged elections and killed protestors and it had its own regional elections last September in an unprecedented act of defiance against the government. The TPLF controlled much of the army for the 27 years that it ruled. “How else would you be able to hold on to power when you are a minority group allegedly representing a minority ethnic group?”
It is to be recalled that the late TPLF senior member Seyoum Mesfin called for the early removal of Prime Minister Abiy and President Isaias Afwerki because it will complicate rather than improve the whole situation of the country.
Noting NYTs’ obsession with Abiy’s Nobel Peace Prize, Prime Minister’s Press Secretary Billene Seyoum stressed that the paper has been largely engaged in crafting and disseminating a narrative to facilitate international intervention. “I guess some unhealthy obsessions are hard to die of.”
Eritrea’s Information Minister Yemane Gebremesekel said for his part that whenever the military tide turns against the TPLF in its War of Insurrection, chorus of ‘expert opinion’ and ‘recommendations’ that float in the U.S.-EU circles follow a familiar pattern: advocacy for more harsh unilateral coercive measures against Ethiopian and Eritrean government.
The Ethiopian Herald December 18/2021
