Photo: YouTube
In the glare of television cameras and the international press, a well-choreographed signing ceremony was held on November 3, 2022 in Pretoria bringing Ethiopian Federal and Tigray Regional officials together shaking hands and heralding the end of hostilities between them. This was trumpeted as triumph for the African Union (AU) finding African solutions for African problems.
The cessation of hostilities agreement was met with cautious optimism within the Tigray Diaspora community hoping that the two year ordeal of the people of Tigray who have been subjected to an unprecedented government sponsored genocidal siege- blocking food, medicine and fuel would finally be over.
The mediators led by former president of Nigeria Olusegun Obasanjo under the direction of the AU Commission Chairman Musa Faki Mahamat who have often in their public statements expressed support for the position of the Ethiopian government, behaved more like a party to the negotiations rather than genuine mediators as reflected in the document that was produced-deeply flawed and deliberately ambiguous especially as it relates to the Eritrean troops occupying Tigray nor was there mention of Amhara forces in Western Tigray by name.
It must be noted that Western Tigray has been emptied of its Tigrayan inhabitants (estimated 800,000 to a million) through massacres, forceful expulsions, abductions and expropriation of their properties. Unspeakable acts of brutality and gender based violence and other atrocities were committed as was documented in the joint statement of Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.
https://www.developmentdiaries.com/2022/04/ethiopia-ai-hrw-document-crimes-against-humanity/
Some 200,000 Amharas have moved in to settle in Western Tigray in an attempt to change the demographic makeup of the region through ethnic cleansing.
The only hopeful aspect of the agreement was the expectation that there would be access to food and medicine and that communications and other essential services in Tigray would be restored immediately. It is now close to two months since the agreement was signed. The Ethiopian National Defense Forces (ENDF) and the Tigray Defense Forces (TDF) have continued to abide by the terms of the cessation of hostilities agreement and TDF has stayed out of the major towns in Tigray. The hoped for immediate access to humanitarian aid has yet to be fully implemented.
“There is no supply, we can’t offer medicine to our pharmacy branches all over Tigray, there is no access to bank and telephone communication and we don’t know in what situation our branch offices are,” says the head of the Ethiopian Red Cross, Berhanu Mekonnen. https://addisstandard.com/news-ethiopian-red-cross-unable-to-deliver-services-in-tigray-due-to-lack-of-medical-supply-logistic-challenges/
Children are the most impacted by lack of medicine and have been dying in alarming numbers. Those that still survive are critically malnourished as the gut wrenching case of Habtom in the BBC report indicates: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-63994851
The elephant in the room however is the continued presence of Eritrean and Amhara military forces who have used the lull in the fighting to expand their occupation of Tigray. Eritrean president Isaias Afeworki’s troops have intensified their campaign of extermination during this period with daily reports of massacres, looting and raping. In a recent tweet, the Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO), Dr. Tedros Adhanom who hails from the region says his uncle was murdered by Eritrean troops along with 50 other inhabitants of the village.
Similar horror stories are coming from other Diaspora Tigrayans who made contact with their families for the first time after two years of communications blackout.
The Asmara ensconced dictator, Afeworki, has turned Eritrea into a virtual prison with tens of thousands of its population herded in shipping containers scattered in concentration camps across his country. Men and women age 18 are forced into SAWA, a national service military training that seems to have no term limit. An estimated 12% of the population, mostly the youth have fled Eritrea to avoid what the UN Commission of Enquiry has labeled a “slavery-like” condition. .. https://www.hrw.org/report/2019/08/08/they-are-making-us-slaves-not-educating-us/how-indefinite-conscription-restricts
Mr. Afeworki is now reported to have trained up to 19 divisions of Amhara troops to fight in Tigray and also Oromia State where the Ethiopian government and the Prosperity Party-led Oromia regional government are waging an all-out war against the Oromo Liberation Army. The introduction of these Eritrean-trained Amhara troops into Oromia is likely to worsen the already poisoned relations between two of Ethiopia’s largest ethnic groups.
Some political analysts hint that the long term policy of Afeworki and perhaps Abiy is the dismemberment of Tigray with chunks of it going to Eritrea and Western Tigray being incorporated into Amhara State. Needless to say, people of Tigray would not allow such a plan to materialize.
The campaign to empty Tigray of its inhabitants is well underway, with the sponsors of the cessation of hostilities agreement (AU, US) seemingly indifferent or unwilling to push the federal government to live up to its obligations to ensure the immediate withdrawal of Eritrean and Amhara troops from Tigray. It must be remembered the call for “immediate withdrawal” of these troops has been heard for over two years now from the US, AU, EU and UN thus rendering the word “immediate” bereft of its meaning.
That the preservation of the Abiy Ahmed government has all along been the main goal of the US policy makers can be surmised from the speed with which the US-dominated World Bank released $745 million in grants although essential services and unfettered access to humanitarian aid on which the World Bank help depended have yet to be implemented. https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2022/12/14/vulnerable-ethiopians-to-benefit-from-745-million-in-grants-for-improved-access-to-health-services-and-flood-management
Ethiopian airlines which has been ferrying troops and materiel from Addis Ababa the capital to Asmara, the Eritrean capital, in contravention of the Chicago Convection has not only been taken to task but has in fact been rewarded by extending credit of $281 million from the US Export-Import Bank for the purchase of passenger and cargo planes from Boeing despite the strong objections of House of Representatives’ Brad Sherman, Ilhan Omar and James McGovern citing the airline’s contempt for the Chicago Convention and that Ethiopia has not as yet lived up to the terms of the Pretoria agreement fully.
One can be forgiven for wondering if there was a conspiracy of the AU, UN and the US to keep Abiy, the Nobel-winning genocidaire in power at any cost in the name of unity, even if it took the extermination of the people of Tigray whose only crime is demanding the right to self-determination and exercising their right to self-defense against a government which waged a genocidal war against them in alliance with an invading foreign power. These rights are enshrined in the Ethiopian constitution as well as the UN declaration of Human Rights. The Ethiopian government is in flagrant violation of practically every article of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Articles 1-3, 5-14, 17, 19-23, 26, 28-30) in its conduct of the genocidal war. https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights
Noting the ambiguity of the so called peace agreement, I expressed my concern in an op-ed article in Black Star News on Nov 3, 2022 “The world’s deadliest conflict and worst humanitarian catastrophe has now entered its most perilous and unpredictable phase”.
https://www.blackstarnews.com/others/extras/%E2%80%9Cworlds-deadliest-conflict%E2%80%9D-ethiopia-%E2%80%9Cpeace%E2%80%9D-deal-legitimizes.
That concern has only been heightened since then. The civilian population of Tigray remains unprotected and civilians are being massacred by the invading Eritrean and Amhara forces who were not a party to the Pretoria agreement. The Amhara militias (Fanno) are reported entering the northern Tigray towns of Adi Ghebru and Debaguna and killing innocent civilians, looting private and public properties and trucking their plunder to their region just as Eritrean troops have been doing throughout the two year duration of the war on Tigray. Like master like servant, so to speak.
Amidst all the gloom and hopelessness, there is a glimmer of hope in the arrival in Mekele, capital of the Tigray regional state, of the high level Ethiopian delegation headed by the speaker of the federal House of Representatives and including the chief Ethiopian negotiators at the Pretoria meeting–Prime Minister Abiy’s security advisor as well as the minister of justice. The delegation also included officials from Ethio-telecom, banking and Ethiopian airlines. They were received by the Tigray regional administration officials including Dr. Gebremichael Debretsion, the president and party chief and the regional government and party spokesman Getachew Redda. The meeting was relatively cordial. The delegation heard an earful from the Christian and Muslim leaders who spoke about the atrocities endured by the people of Tigray. Debretsion indicated that humanitarian aid was coming in but not anywhere near what is needed. Telephone and banking services are still unavailable in most parts of Tigray and above all reminded the delegation that Eritrean troops continue to terrorize the population and urged their immediate withdrawal as a priority.
The parliamentary leader responded to each of the issues raised by Dr. Debretsion but did not at all mention Eritrean troops. The next few days to weeks will tell us how much of the goodwill shown at this meeting will translate to tangible measures to restore essential services in Tigray.
The failure to mention Eritrean troops in Tigray and lack of commitment to ensure their withdrawal does not inspire confidence in the Ethiopian government’s ability or willingness to kick the Eritrean and Amhara troops out of Tigray. Failure to accomplish this is an invitation to resumption of armed hostilities–perhaps worse than we have witnessed over the last two years. If the Abiy government is indeed unable to do so on its own it should seek the help of the AU and the UN and establish a peace-keeping force mandated by the United Nations Security Council (UNSC).
The AU and UN also should see to it that an independent investigation of the war crimes and crimes against humanity perpetrated in this conflict be established and bring the perpetrators to account. Without this measure, the international community would be leaving a festering wound that would not heal for generations to come and would be setting a precedent, an invitation to any future psychopathic mass murderer to commit crimes against humanity without fear of accountability and punishment.
A Luta continua
Mohammed A Nurhussein MD
