In November, millions of peace-loving people in Africa and around the world used the hashtag #NoMore in regard to the war on the Horn of Africa by the US-backed Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) and took to the streets to say “no more” to disinformation, division and war by imperial nations against all African and exploited peoples worldwide. This Pan-African movement led to almost instantaneous reprisals by some Western governments through unprecedented social media censorship and repression in the name of fighting “disinformation”.
We said #NoMore in November. They then tried to silence us, pushing war & deadly sanctions. Today, we declare the #BreakTheSilence campaign for the month of April, to make our suppressed voices heard & challenge aggression towards Africa. Time to BREAK THE SILENCE!
These same Western governments also started negotiating with African governments strongly influenced by #NoMore, seeking to force concessions, and began lobbying #NoMore organizers directly in the streets. They urged #NoMore leaders to soften their resistance (e.g. asking them to drop the slogan “no more”) while simultaneously engaging narrow ethnic and national segments of the movement to divide it along ethnic and national lines.
They sought to hinder and paralyze the movement, effectively engineering a momentary climate of silence, which in turn was used by demagogic opportunists and warmongers alike to co-opt or sully the name of #NoMore. However, members of the #NoMore movement were able to see beyond these machinations, regroup in spite of all hostilities and grow the movement in a more resilient form. Today, April 1, 2022, the #NoMore movement is calling all its members and allies worldwide to “break the silence” during the month of April not only on imperialism throughout Africa but also its proxies that employ—or are complacent with—disinformation, division and war against exploited people. During this month, we call on everyone to use the hashtag #BreakTheSilence to tell their stories.
In Mali, the French military presence since 2013, on the pretext of “fighting Jihadist”, has in fact led to greater insecurity and the conflict spilling over to Niger and Burkina Faso. The popular mass demonstration that advanced the military coup against former President Boubacar Keita in 2020 was a high point of Malian frustration with France’s neocolonial regional order; evidenced in January 2020 by President Emmanuel Macron’s summoning of Sahelian leaders (G5-Sahel) to the city of Pau in France where they were pressed to make public and embarrassing declarations in support of French military operations in their respective countries. Malians have had enough, they are proclaiming their truth, breaking their silence on foreign intervention in the Sahel!
In Ethiopia, 16 months after launching an unprovoked bloody insurrection to overthrow the Ethiopian government, the US-backed TPLF, emboldened by Western media and governments, has moved on to recruit Tigrayan child soldiers and go on offensives terrorizing innocent civilians in the neighboring Amhara and Afar regions killing thousands of innocent civilians, displacing hundreds of thousands more, using rape as a weapon of war and intentionally destroying infrastructure that includes over 3,000 hospitals. The TPLF continues to occupy five districts in Afar and four districts in Amhara with hundreds of thousands displaced and whereabouts unknown.
Western intervention masked as humanitarian concern has been weaponized in the form of multiple punitive draconian sanctions on the governments of Ethiopia and Eritrea for responding to TPLF terrorism while blatantly failing to sanction TPLF or any of their agents; emboldening the allied Oromo Liberation Army to carry out targeted mass killings of Amhara civilians in Western Oromia and Benshangul-Gumuz regions. Ethiopians stand more united today than ever in breaking the silence on foreign intervention and appeasement of TPLF and other armed groups waging ethnic terror on innocent civilians!
In Somalia, a country and people who know too well the pain of foreign intervention look on at the situation in Mali and cannot help but recall history repeating itself. Somalia similarly fell to Western foreign intervention manifesting through an illegal 2006 invasion by the US-backed TPLF-led government of Ethiopia who instead of eliminating the purported threat of extremism, spawned Al Shabaab, installed a clannist federal government system and further destabilized the region. For the past two decades, Somalia has been framed as a failed state by the very powers who are responsible for polarizing it on clan based politics, bark orders on who needs to govern them while simultaneously violating their territorial integrity. Somalia is far from “failed”. It is rising and realizing its rightful place in the Horn of Africa and her people are breaking the silence!
In Eritrea, covert and overt Western sanctions designed to cripple the economy, weaken resolve and trigger mass emigration have failed miserably. Frustrated with the spontaneous peace with Ethiopia, the Tripartite Horn of Africa Alliance and the emerging era of independence in the region, Brussels and Washington relentlessly pursue a scapegoat in Eritrea to excuse their failed and misguided policies in the region. Despite these circumstances, Eritreans are standing up again and breaking their silence on foreign intervention in the region!
In Africa, the most sanctioned continent on the planet, 17 countries are currently under US sanctions, all of which are cruel and unnecessary. People worldwide are breaking the silence on the US sanctions against Africa!
In Ukraine, African immigrants are currently trapped and being harassed by right-wing extremists. Western media and governments, in highlighting the plight of Ukrainian immigrants and fast-tracking their repatriation over darker-skinned immigrants, have exposed their contempt and racism against Africans and dark-skinned immigrants worldwide. People worldwide are breaking the silence on media racism and African immigrants trapped in Ukraine!
It is now time for all peace-loving people worldwide to come together in solidarity to uplift the muzzled and censored African voices and narratives in all their diversity. Therefore, the #NoMore movement calls on all members and allies to break the silence on all marginalized African issues emanating from imperialism and/or its willing or complacent proxies. Let us speak with the courage to have uncomfortable conversations and tell nuanced stories. Let us speak up for the voiceless while keeping in mind that our struggles are connected. Let us, together in solidarity, break the silence!
Source (#NoMore movement)
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD TUESDAY 5 APRIL 2022
