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Warning: Stop Criminal Act against Tigrayans!
Yiha Selomon 06.08.21
Those who are involved in perpetrating, collaborating or condoning murder and other cruel offences against Tigrayans, including drowning human beings into the Tekeze river, targeting humanitarian agencies and violating the right to life and security of Tigrayan military officers and others through a kangaroo court martial proceedings must be forewarned that they will definitely be held accountable for their crimes as individuals. It does not matter whether they are lay soldiers or (police) officers, militia members, local officials, prosecutors, judges, ministers or the republic’s president.
The dying regime of Abiy Ahmed and his cronies will not protect them nor can it be used as an excuse for what they are doing against the law and human decency. They are also risking the wellbeing and security of their loved ones as a result of their direct or indirect involvement in such serious war crimes and grave violations of human rights of Tigrayans. Aggrieved family members and other emotional victims might take the law in to their hands sooner or later, especially if a state collapse occurs. At that point the bravado of Abiy Ahmed and Demeke Mekonen will not come to a rescue of anyone.
Today, the world knows that the Abiy regime in coordination with his Amhara and Eritrean partners in crime has perpetrated countless and horrific international crimes in, or in connection to, the Tigray conflict. This encompasses mass atrocities, systemic sexual violence, wanton destruction of property, mass starvation and ethnic profiling and cleansing against Tigrayans. This note highlights three recent events and crimes.
First, following the series of military defeats that the Abiy regime and his partners are sustaining in the last few months and weeks, the Amhara militia and their federal and Eritrean collaborators are committing heinous war crimes in western Tigray. Despite their campaign of disinformation and denial, international media outlets and Sudanese officials have confirmed the recovery of dead Tigrayan bodies that were flouting tied and abused by their abductors.
Common Article 3 to the Geneva Conventions explicitly prohibits murder, torture and other inhumane treatment of civilians or combatants during, or in connection to, armed conflict. The Statute of the International Criminal Court has also criminalised such acts as war crimes whether or not committed by state or non-state-actors.
These victims will be identified and a thorough investigation conducted when the time comes. Everyone who was in charge of the illegal and brutal concentration camps in and around Humora and Amhara and federal security/military officials will have to answer many questions and take full criminal responsibility for their actions.
It has to be noted that the mass arrests of Tigrayans, killings in some parts of the Amhara region, closing their businesses and other acts of collective punishment, including rounding up Tigrayan children and using them for propaganda purposes, are serious breaches of Ethiopia’s legal obligations under international law and constitute serious war crimes and crimes against humanity. They therefore entail individual criminal responsibility.
Secondly, Abiy’s army officials have announced that the many Tigrayan military officers who have been arbitrarily detained for the last nine months have been sentenced to death and life time imprisonment for their alleged crimes of ‘attacking the northern command’. There is no doubt that the officers have not received a fair trial as they have become subject to many physical and mental abuses by the regime in Addis. They were not seeing their families, the proceedings were not attended by independent lawyers, the charges are sham and not substantiated. In short, this move is purely part of the ethnic cleaning project of the Abiy and Amhara elites against Tigrayans. Targeting leaders or known figures, such as military officers, of any community is one salient future of ethic cleansing and genocide.
Anyone who is involved in such grave abuses of the right to life and security of Tigrayan military officers must know that they are committing war crimes and ethnic cleansing. Common Article 3 to the Geneva Conventions 1949 requires:
‘humane treatment for all persons in enemy hands, without any adverse distinction. It specifically prohibits murder, mutilation, torture, cruel, humiliating and degrading treatment, the taking of hostages and unfair trial’.
Article 6 of the Rome Statue of the International Criminal Court prohibits murdering of causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of an ethnic or national group with intent to destroy a group in whole or in part. When the arbitrary death and life-time imprisonment passed on Tigrayan military officers are seen in the wider context of what is happening against Tigrayans, they would most likely constitute the crime of genocide.
Apart from the dangerous political and security repercussions of such dreadful sentences on the officers who have served Ethiopia and other countries (as peacekeepers) for more than three decades, those who are involved in organising and administering the fake charges, sentencing and execution of the ‘judgements’ would be held individually responsible under national and international laws. This people include: the prosecutors, judges, military officials, political figures and the president of the republic, if she endorses the death sentences. Make no mistake, such people will be targeted and haunted for the rest of their lives.
Finally, the Abiy rouge regime has targeted humanitarian organisations at various levels. Some have been accused of delivering weapons to the Tigray forces. Others have been targeted for speaking the truth about atrocities and abuses by the criminal forces in Tigray. As a result, three humanitarian actors have been targeted so far by the regime. They include MSF Holland and the Norwegian Refugee Council, and the legendary ICRC. The first two have been expelled from Ethiopia, while the ICRC has become subject to false propaganda. The regime in Addis has also disseminated false information against UN agencies.
International humanitarian law imposes duties on parties to any conflict to allow unfettered humanitarian aid and the operations of humanitarian actors. Hindering such assistance is clearly a violation of humanitarian law as it constitutes using starvation as a weapon. Article 8 (2) b of the Rome Statute criminalises such a behaviour. Also, aid agencies need equipment and cash for their operations. Most importantly, targeting such agencies is not only shameful to Ethiopia but also constitute the crime of extermination as defined under Article 7 of the Rome Statute to include: the intentional infliction of conditions of life, inter alia, the deprivation of access to food and medicine, calculated to bring about the destruction of part of a population” as part of crime against humanity.
The various state and security officials who are targeting humanitarian actors and thereby starving the people of Tigray by expelling reputable aid agencies and hindering aid delivery to Tigray must be aware of the criminal consequences of such actions and omissions. It does not matter whether the decisions are state-sponsored; they should either reject such illegal and immoral measures or face individual consequences. The death of every Tigrayans caused by hunger will be recorded so that those who have made such starvation a reality would take individual responsibility.
To that end, the Tigray administration, activists and human rights groups must start identifying the fugitives and name and shame them so that they cease their crimes or refrain from being involved in criminal activities before it is too late.
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