BY ALMARIAM
PART THREE
Methodological flaws, failure to adhere to UN evidentiary standards and its own terms of reference render the ICHREE report useless
In light of the thorough rebuttal of the Ethiopian Government, I shall focus on some of the major methodological and technical legal issues concerning the ICHREE report.
1) The ICHREE asserts it conducted its investigation and prepared its report “with limited time, staffing and access to sites and documents” and had “to select a specific and manageable preliminary group of incidents and themes” in its investigation.
The ICHREE also claims to have applied the evidentiary standard of “reasonable grounds to believe” and conducted its investigation “in accordance with the practice of United Nations fact-finding and investigative bodies.”
As a technical evidentiary matter, the threshold “reasonable grounds to believe” standard is problematic but applies in considering 1) whether a crime has been committed, and 2) whether the defendant is criminally liable. The standard further applies to infer mutually exclusive reasonable conclusions that a crime has been committed, and equally another reasonable conclusion a crime has not been committed.
The ICHREE’s report provides little or no explanation on its application of the “reasonable grounds to believe” standard and the specific investigative methods it used to collect and analyze evidence. It offers no indication on how to test the credibility of the “evidence” it collected and expects its vague and unsubstantiated conclusions to be accepted ex cathedra as infallible.
The Ratner-Murungi-Coomswarmy hit team reports it applied the “reasonable grounds to believe” standard in a “select specific and manageable group of incidents and themes for which it could complete investigations in two months with limited resources.”
The fact of the matter is that ICHREE only gives lip service to application of “reasonable grounds to believe” standard as the Ethiopian Government Response has shown in its meticulous rebuttal.
The ICHREE report fails to meet the minimum threshold for “reasonable grounds to believe” as it provides little or no explanation on the circumstances of the crimes, the time and date or duration of alleged crimes corroboration or verification.
The glaring omissions and methodological flaws of the ICHREE can best be seen in comparison to the work of the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission (EHRC)/Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) Joint Investigation.
That investigation involved field work of nearly four months in various locations throughout Ethiopia under challenging circumstances with nearly 270 confidential interviews with victims and 64 meetings with a variety of stakeholders.
The governments of Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States “commended OHCHR and EHRC for their impartial and transparent work.”
Indeed, the Ethiopian Government accepted that report and is implementing its recommendations. The Ethiopian Government has rejected the Ratner hit team’s report in its entirety.
2) The ICHREE was mandated to “conduct a thorough and impartial investigation into allegations of violations and abuses committed since 3 November 2020 by all parties to the conflict, by building upon the report of the Office of the High Commissioner and the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission. The ICHREE failed to honor its mandate and ended up preparing a report that not only contradicts but also trashes the highly commendable 2021 joint OHCHR and EHRC report.
3) The ICHREE failed to honor its own terms of reference (the document which sets the objectives, scope of work, activities, task to be performed, respective responsibilities, etc) which provides the ICHREE will “build upon the findings, conclusions, and recommendations of the report of the JIT (2021 OHCHR and EHRC findings) in a way that adds value and avoids unnecessary duplication of effort without limiting the temporal or geographic scope above.”
In its rush to judgment, the ICHREE completely ignored the 2021 report and findings, choosing to re-investigate events already investigated rigorously and given conclusion.
4) The ICHREE’s admission that it conducted “most of its interviews remotely” (virtually) and used “satellite imagery, print and audio-visual material, and open-source information” as evidence that meets the standard of reasonable grounds to believe” is outlandish, outrageous and shocking.
The ICHREE’s random and causal use of satellite imagery, print and audio-visual material, and open-source information in clear disregard and flagrant violation of the 2015 UN Commissions of Inquiry and Fact-finding Missions: Guidance and Practice (see pp. 40-48). The “open source” information used by ICHREE is largely Western fake news and yellow journalism. The UN Guideline requires corroboration and independent verification of information obtained in an investigation, which the ICHREE report disregards.
5) In flagrant departure from the UN Guidance and Practice, the ICHREE allegation ENDF “soldiers committed extensive extrajudicial killings, arbitrary detention, and looting” and “used civilian objects for military purposes and restricted access to medical treatment” was unsupported by a single witness testimony.
6) The ICHREE aims to create moral equivalency by dignifying the TPLF terrorist group, declared as such by the Ethiopian parliament, militarily occupying Tigray as “the Regional Government of Tigray”. The ICHREE aims to lift the image of the terrorist group in the eyes of global public opinion by sanitizing it from a terrorist group to a “government.”
7) To add insult to injury and beyond the scope of its mandate and authority, the ICHREE dictates: “That the Inter-Governmental Authority for Development (IGAD), the African Union Peace and Security Council, and UN Security Council place the situation in Ethiopia on their agendas and take action aimed at restoring peace, stability and security in the region, thereby preventing further violations and abuses of international human rights law and humanitarian law.” (Boldface added.)
AFTER ALL IS SAID AND DONE, THE SINGLE MOST OUTRAGEOUS ELEMENT OF THE ICHREE REPORT IS ITS RECOMMENDATION OF R2P (responsibility to protect.)
KAARI MURUNGI FINALLY GOT HER WISH!
Million-dollar question: What will happen to the ICHREE report? What happened to the UNHCR report of Cambodia? What happened to the UNHCR Myanmar report? What happened to the UNHCR Sri Lankan report?
The ICHREE has requested a one-year extension of its term. It is said a decision could be made on October 6, 2022,
The fact of the matter is with the Government of Ethiopia’s complete rejection of the report along with many other countries including China, Russia, India; it will prove to be a flash in the pan.
The fact of the matter is also that the US, EU, UN and certain Western European countries established to pressure and embarrass the Ethiopian government and force it to negotiate with the terrorist TPLF. They also hoped they could use the report to advocate global sanctions against Ethiopia.
The fact of the matter is that the US, EU, UN and certain Western European countries wanted to use the report for R2P that is humanitarian military action in Ethiopia to protect the terrorist TPLF. None of the above seems likely.
Joe Biden, the Great War monger, seems to accept the reality of AFRICAN SOLUTIONS FOR AFRICAN PROBLEMS. The weaponization of the UNHCR as a neocolonial tool has not gone unnoticed by African leaders.
The weaponization of the UNHCR to criminalize African leaders as human rights outlaws with a long-term agenda to undermine African sovereignty, unity and territorial integrity is not lost on Africans.
Last month, South African Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor gave Blinken the dress down when he visited South Africa last month.
Because when we believe in freedom – as I’m saying, it’s freedom for everybody – you can’t say because Africa is doing this, you will then be punished by the United States…. One thing I definitely dislike is being told `either you choose this or else.’ When a minister speaks to me like that … I definitely will not be bullied in that way, nor would I expect any other African country worth its salt to agree to be [so] treated.
During the interactive dialogue in the General Assembly over the ICHREE, 32 countries delivered their statements. There were 13 countries that rejected the ICHREE report and 19 that supported it.
Countries rejecting the ICHREE report argued: The Council is using the opportunity to advance a particular political agenda. The report manifestly lacks neutrality, impartiality and rationality. The report is a significant trespass on Ethiopia’s sovereignty.
The Ethiopian Government’s peace initiatives are to be commended and solutions should be sought only through the African Union.
The international community should support the Ethiopian Government’s efforts find lasting solutions and not meddle in Ethiopia’s internal affairs.
The Ratner Mercenary Group and monetization of human suffering
The Ratner Mercenary Group is in it for the money! It is strictly business! They have a one-size fits all boilerplate human rights report which they will customize for their clients based on a narrative that is given to them.
They will cut and paste and modify their standard templates to deliver whatever report their clients’ demand of them.
A comparison of the Cambodia, Sri Lanka and Ethiopia reports shows how the Ratner Hit Team recycles the same template over and over to line their pockets.
The Ratner Mercenary Group is available for hire by anyone who is willing to pay them top dollar for their services.
Their motto, “Have law books, will travel anywhere in the world for a hit job in the name of human rights.”
Black ants, red ants, law book-toting hit teams and ants are a source of wisdom in African folktales as strong, hardworking, cooperative and determined creatures. “Two ants can carry one grasshopper.” “When ants unite, they can lift an elephant.” There is a putatively African folktale about ants that is apt to Ethiopia’s current situation.
It is said if you collect 100 black ants and 100 red ants and put them in a glass jar, nothing will happen. They will go about their business.
But if you take the jar, shake it violently and leave it on the table, the ants will start attacking and killing each other. Red ants believe the black ants are the enemy and vice versa. But the real enemy is the one who shook the jar. So it is in Ethiopia.
There are 120 million hardworking, prosperity seeking, cooperative and mutually supporting ants in Ethiopia. Then come the jar shakers with their hit men and women toting the gospel of human rights and preaching fire and brimstone to Ethiopians.
I find James Russell Lowell’s poem “The resent Crisis” appropriate in understanding the lies, damned lies and disinformation used by the new, new West to demonize Ethiopia, dehumanize, brutalize and polarize its people and weaponize human rights to keep Ethiopia in perpetual poverty:
When a deed is done for Freedom, through the broad earth’s aching breast
Runs a thrill of joy prophetic, trembling on from east to west,…
Careless seems the great Avenger; history’s pages but record
One death-grapple in the darkness ‘twixt old systems and the Word;
Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne,—
Yet that scaffold sways the future, and, behind the dim unknown,
Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above his own.
Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above his own ETHIOPIA!
We won’t back down. We will stand our ground.
Ethiopia shall prosper. Ethiopians shall live in peace.
Ethiopia shall persevere! Ethiopia shall overcome!
Ethiopia shall prevail!
Because Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above his own ETHIOPIA!
Editor’s Note: The views entertained in this article do not necessarily reflect the stance of The Ethiopian Herald
The Ethiopian Herald September 29/2022
