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Tigray’s Holy War: What should the objectives be? Part I
Retie Keneo 25.06.21
The popular struggle of Tigrayans is a just fight against internal and external genocidal criminals and oppressors; and it must aim to stop this alien occupation, the on-going and future genocide and crimes against humanity in all their aspects, hold those criminals accountable, compel the Ethiopian and Eritrean states to compensate fully for the human and material damage they have caused, and to safeguard the unqualified right to self-rule of Tigrayans under national and global laws.
Why? It is nearing eight months since the Ethiopian, Eritrean and Amhara forces (hereafter ‘the axis of evil) launched their genocidal war against Tigrayans inside and outside the region. Their serious war crimes and crimes against humanity are well documented and real. Their objectives go beyond such crimes. It is to ‘wipe out Tigrayans for 100 years’ as recently exposed by the European Union envoy to the Ethiopian/Tigray conflict, Pekka Haavisto.
As the high ranking US Republican law maker, Michael McCaul, accurately states, the use inter alia of starvation and systemic rape as weapons of war and the destruction of ‘the reproductive health of Tigrayans’ pose credible questions of the crime of genocide.
The eminent scholar, humanitarian and former UN official, Mukesh Kapila has recognised all patterns of crimes in Tigray as genocide.
The deliberate and enforced displacement of over a million people from western Tigray is also a well-established case of ethnic cleansing against Tigrayans committed by the Amhara and federal elites and their cronies.
As a result of the heinous offences perpetrated by the axis of evil in Tigray and elsewhere, thousands of civilians have lost their lives inside their homes, villages, towns and religious centres; in addition to the Axum, Maryiam Denglat, Mahbere Dego and Hawzen and other confirmed massacres, the Ethiopian air force recently bombarded a civilian market in the Town of Togoga 25 km away from Tigray’s capital, Mekele and killed and maimed large numbers of civilians, including women, children and the elderly. The wounded and ambulances were barred from traveling to the hospital.
Tens of thousands of women and girls have been subjected to gang rape, grave bodily assaults and vile acts in front of loved ones by the Isaias, Abiy and Amhara forces as part of the on-going genocide. A leaked report from the provisional authority of Tigray, for example, revealed that more than 400 women have suffered rape and nearly 500 civilians have been killed in the Mai-Kinetal district alone.
The United Nations has reiterated that more than 5 million Tigrayans have been made hungry and hundreds of thousands have faced famine in Tigray. Shamelessly, Abiy Ahmed and Co. continued to cover up and deny that such a dire situation exists. Dictator Abiy Ahmed appears to be prepared to completely block relief in Tigray under the pretext of defeating the Tigray forces. In his recent interview with state media, he said that the TPLF defeated the military junta called the Derg because of foreign aid.
The Tigray famine and starvation is clearly man-made, and is said to be comparable to the Great Ethiopian famine of the 1980s that took the lives of one million Ethiopians. The difference between the current and the old famines, is that the former is being brought about deliberately by multiple alien and domestic actors.
The axis of evil have deliberately and systematically destroyed and plundered private and public property, including crops, health and education facilities and infrastructure without mercy. They have taken private and public factories, machineries and vehicles to Eritrea and the Amhara region. They have also barred farmers from ploughing their farms and prepare for the next season, on top of inhibiting humanitarian assistance to Tigrayan civilians.
Tens of thousands of Tigrayans have also been ethnically profiled, discriminated against, collectively arrested, tortured, killed and harassed by the Abiy criminal regime in other parts of Ethiopia.
The objective of the Eritrean, federal and Amhara forces’ has been to totally destroy and demonize the Tigray population through a well-coordinated military campaign in Tigray and against Tigrayans. These destructive criminal forces have already destroyed the population in part by committing atrocities, rape, starvation and ethnic cleansing. The so-called ‘law and order’ slogan of Abiy Ahmed is just a smokescreen to allow him to continue his crimes against the Tigrayan people.
The world community’s failure For various geo-political and national interest reasons, the world community has failed Tigrayans. The UN has been prevented from formally discussing the Tigray tragedy at the United Nations Security Council. This will be remembered as a historic failure to stop genocide and ethnic cleansing in the Horn of Africa.
Yet several countries, including EU and G7 members, have gradually begun to boldly condemned the axis of evil for their horrendous crimes in Tigray. They have made demands, including Eritrea and Amhara’s forces withdrawal from Tigray, ceasefire and unfettered relief delivery but to no avail.
The U.S. and a few European democracies are leading the global effort to stop the mass crimes being committed against Tigrayans. The U.S. has imposed travel and economic sanctions against the Ethiopian and Eritrean regimes. The EU has also imposed economic sanctions.
While the Chinese and Russians and their (African and Arab) collaborators have noticeably sided with the criminal regime of Abiy Ahmed, the west have also been complicit in the genocide and crimes against humanity at different levels.
Firstly, the Trump administration and their (British) friends appear to have given their blessing to Abiy and Isaias’s military campaign against Tigray’s authorities thereby contributing to the appalling universal crimes, including to the inhumane and cruel sexual abuses, perpetrated against Tigrayan women and children.
Secondly, the west has also contributed to the atrocities and rapes through installing dictator Abiy Ahmed (as Trump impliedly and publicly affirmed) as leader of Ethiopia and by empowering him to commit crimes through their reprehensible peace prize award to him. They refrained to rescind their award to this (suspected) criminal. Tigrayans and their friends won’t forget all these acts of direct and indirect complicity in the genocidal war waged against them.
Thirdly, the west has also compromised on justice by allowing the Abiy rouge regime to be part of an investigation on its own crimes in the name of a joint criminal investigation to be carried out by an Ethiopian institution and the UN human rights body.
US changing course but not Britain The Biden administration has changed the course of the U.S.A. away from complicity, while other western powers have sadly continued to portray genocidal Abiy as a reformist. For example, the British prime minister has never uttered a word about the widespread sexual violence, atrocities and starvation in Tigray.
His (Johnson’s) foreign office ministers have continued to implicitly support Abiy Ahmed, despite his involvement in hideous state-sponsored universal crimes.
UK parliamentarians, civil society organisations and the media (excluding the BBC) have, however, intensified their call for an urgent and decisive action against the Abiy and Isaias regimes to stop systemic rape, starvation and atrocities in Tigray.
Africa’s role The African Union has miserably failed to uphold its values, including to stop the war and international crimes in accordance with the terms of its Constitutive Act. The block’s commissioner openly backed Abiy Ahmed at the beginning of the conflict. Sadly, this kind of cronyism and inaction is common on the continent.
Recently, however, the Union dropped a bombshell statement regarding the fact that the Tigray war was started by the Ethiopian regime, while affirming that Tigray acted in self-defence. This denounces the much publicised narrative that the war began as a result of Tigray’s forces attacking a federal military base in the region.
For its credit, Rwanda (and its head of State), has called time and again for international intervention to end the collective punishment in Tigray, but has not been listened to by fellow African and non-African states.
Summary To recap, despite the untold harm inflicted upon Tigray’s civilians, which amount to serious international crimes, comparable to, or worse than, the Rwandan, former Yugoslavia and Darfur genocide cases perpetrated against Tigrayans, the international community has disastrously failed to undertake its responsibility to protect the people of Tigray.
This is not to deny the generosity shown to provide and deliver aid, treat victims and oppose crimes by some countries, humanitarian actors and the role of the western media in exposing Eritrean, federal and Amhara mass crimes. These, unfortunately, won’t guarantee an end to the pain and suffering of Tigrayan civilians.
Hence, the survival and future of Tigrayans, as a people, is primarily reliant on their justified fight against the forces that are killing, raping and starving them en masse. But, in order to do so the Tigrayans must have clear and realistic objectives.
Part II Objectives for the Tigray struggle
Under such circumstances, the following interconnected objectives are proposed to guide the Tigrayans’ armed, political and diplomatic struggle, as appropriate.
Objective No 1.
First and foremost, the people of Tigray must be liberated from an Eritrean occupation and subjugation without delay.
In addition to being invaded by Somalian and Emirates troops and armed drones respectively, the Eritrean army has used brute armed force against the Tigray people and their societal and historic institutions in breach of international norms. The Tigray people’s prime objective must therefore be to free themselves from such a foreign force. This is a morally and legally justified objective.
Objective No 2.
Tigrayans must be free from the two state and the Amhara elite-sponsored genocide and other grave universal crimes. The systemic and extreme repression imposed on them by the axis of evil ought to end, including extra-judicial killings, widespread rape and all forms of sexual violence against women and girls, starvation, systemic destruction of livelihoods and ethnic profiling, and abuse against Tigrayans.
The eminent British jurist, judge Lauterpacht, affirmed in the Bosnian Genocide case, that ethnic or national groups have the natural and legal right to arm and defend themselves from genocide. The right to self-help of a population under such situations is thus unquestionable. In the Tigray context, professor Mukesh Kapila has recognised the right of Tigrayans to stop the on-going genocide from being completed.
Objective No 3.
The over a million civilians who have been forcibly evicted from western and northern Tigray by the Amhara and federal authorities, as part of their ethnic cleansing campaign, must be returned to their homes and communities without any restrictions. These people, who are living under extremely dire conditions in the streets of cities and towns of Tigray have the right to return home.
Objective No 4.
The political, military and security officials from Eritrea, Ethiopia and the Amhara region, who have planned, ordered and led mass atrocity crimes in Tigray must face justice. What they have done, and are still doing, constitutes universal crimes that offend humanity. There have to be consequences and justice must be served to victims, survivors, loved ones and the population at large.
Objective No 5.
The Ethiopian and Eritrean states must compensate the people of Tigray and their regional government for the callous and deliberate looting and removal and destruction of private and public property they have caused. The two states and the Amhara regional state must return to Tigray control all looted factories, machinery, trucks and vehicles, medical and educational equipment, etc. A combination of compensation and restitution (i.e. recovering losses in kind or payment) should be considered.
The Emirates and Somali states must also pay compensation for the incalculable harm they have caused to the people of Tigray.
An international trust fund, preferably administered by the United Nations, should be established to manage compensation and restitution claims from individuals and the Tigray regional state. Victims of mass atrocities, rape and grave bodily assaults must be compensated for both the physical and psychological injury they have sustained.
Objective No 6.
The reconstruction of Tigray must begin as soon as the Eritrean forces and internal repressors are defeated by force or through a negotiated withdrawal of the forces.
Objective No 7.
The inalienable right of self-rule of the people of Tigray, as enshrined under the 1995 Ethiopian Constitution and international laws, must be reinstated and the region’s interim (and military) administration must be dissolved without any pre-condition. In understanding this objective, the fact that a foreign state has illegally occupied Tigrayan territories, and committed acts of extreme and cruel repression of the entire population, must be taken into account.
This objective, in this author’s view, implies neither establishing an independent state nor predicting/determining future allegiance of Tigrayans to the Ethiopian state. Trying to determine either options at this point in time would be both undemocratic and untimely.
Nevertheless, the outcome of the Ethiopian national elections, held in 2021, in which Tigrayans have not been permitted to participate, should not be recognised by Tigray unless a negotiated settlement is reached once most, if not all, of the above-described objectives are met.
How are these objectives to be achieved?
In principle, the people of Tigray are entitled to use all available and reasonable means, including political, diplomatic, civil disobedience and military, to free themselves from genocide, systemic and widespread rape and starvation and ethnic cleansing. Because the world community has utterly failed to come to their aid, the Tigrayan’s survival as an ethnic and national group, rests in their own hands.
However, a peaceful or negotiated settlement of the crisis would be preferable to deter further human and material loss. This is the best option for regional peace and security too. The Tigray leadership must extend their hands for a peaceful resolution of the conflict provided that the objectives outlined above are either realised or nearing realisation, through real action and honest and verifiable acceptance by the aggressors.
If, however, a peaceful means is not possible, the defensive action of Tigrayans must be strengthened without any internal or international boundary/territorial restraints, provided that all aspects of the struggle, including the armed resistance, continues to be necessary and proportionate. The Tigray forces, activists and ‘diplomats’ must respect domestic and international norms at all times, and should only aim to achieve the aforementioned and other legitimate objectives. Nothing more nothing less.
Tigrayans and their friends should therefore sustain their bitter struggle within and outside Tigray, using all means of resistance, to achieve their goals.
What role for the world community?
In the first place, the international community must reverse its reluctance to act now before the Tigray genocide is completed. They should spare lives and livelihoods of millions of Tigrayans. They must do so to mitigate human suffering and halt extreme and systemic sexual violence and imminent deaths from man-made famine. These should not be tolerated in 21st Century international order. The world community must be reminded of its responsibility to protect the people of Tigray. They must therefore act now beyond ‘condemning’ mass rape, starvation and civilian bombardments and killings by the Ethiopian, Amhara and federal forces.
Secondly, as the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) is deadlocked on the Tigray crisis because of geo-political reasons, the United Nations General Assembly (and other regional organisations) must formally recognise the people of Tigray’s holy struggle, their self-determination, freedom from genocide, crimes again humanity and serous war crimes more specifically. The Assembly should invoke its Uniting for Peace Resolution 1950 to establish a UN peacekeeping mission for Tigray (UNPMT) to protect civilians and humanitarian aid delivery and maintain regional peace and security in the Horn of Africa.
It has to be said that the Tigray situation is worse than the South African apartheid and colonisation in terms of the level of violence perpetrated against the civilian population and the intentional destruction of private homes, farms, health, education and other crucial infrastructure in Tigray.
The crimes perpetrated against Eritrean refugees, aid workers, women and children and the sick and disabled in internally displaced camps and hospitals, in addition to the heinous crimes committed by the three forces, deserve immediate international action, while morally and legally supporting the people under attack—the Tigrayans. Trying to sabotage and put pressure on the people of Tigray’s struggle would amount to immoral and unlawful, and should be rejected without hesitation.
Conclusion
It brings great shame upon the international community that they have allowed this genocide to continue, on their watch, for eight long and bloody months. Even those who have condemned the blatant atrocities have in no way changed the course of this violent oppression. Not one Tigrayan life has been saved, not one rape victim spared, by the international community during the past eight months. The impotence of the international community in the face of blatant and preventable genocide, yet again, is embarrassing and calls into question the strength of those who like to think of themselves as being on the right side of history. If they wish to help but cannot, then they are not as powerful as they like to believe, if they can help but choose not to, what does this say of their humanity?
The international community must act and end complicity in the Tigray genocide and crimes against humanity. If the failure of the world continues, Tigrayans and their friends all over the world should continue to step-up their efforts to achieve the aforenoted and other objectives -freeing Tigray and Tigrayans from foreign occupation, genocide, ethnic cleansing, rape, starvation and extreme repression.
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