Abiy praised for a ceasefire that isn't and continued fighting

 with the more stubborn proxies

 

Kalayu Abrha

12-30-21

UN Chief and US Envoy to the Horn heard what they desperately wanted to hear: the withdrawal of TDF from the Amhara and Afar. They praised the Tigray Leadership just like a good boy and are gone for their Christmas cum New year vacations. Getachew Reda is a genius who could have been a UN chief if not a US envoy. He finds himself in the valley bottoms and mountain tops every other hour not to earn top-ups and allowances in a lucrative UN office, but to save his people from death by man made starvation those able to stop it seem to be enjoying it. They are busy chewing synonms of words of sympathy while their arms remain tightly folded. Getachew Reda is typically reserved in the sharpness of his terminology; but he had an outburst at the UN a day or so ago. Some media considered his statement on the UN as a “lashout”. In fact, to the UN, what he uttered is much less than it deserves. While on a happy vacation I am sure that they will never tell their kids that in a far away land, in Tigray, children like them are starving to death. This is a matter considered routine to be attended to during office hours. Do I really want a job in the UN and be a money grabbing monster like them? God fobid!

We were delighted by the withdrawal of the TDF because we trusted the UN and the US that they needed a political working space to end the invasion of Tigray and the humanitarian blockade by more peaceful means. These were the two key reasons why TDF had to push to the edges of Addis Ababa. It was felt by all Tegaru, who were understandably disappointed by the withdrawl of the TDF, that the decision was acceptable if Tigray's key demands are to be taken care of by the UN and the US once Tigray takes the initiative for a less costly peaceful settlement. Tigray's decision was meant to be win-win for Tigray and for Abiy who was in his final few days to leave or face the inevitable. Under normal humane circumstances the UN and the US are expected to tale action to save millions of people not one individual. Unfortunately, it seems to me (I am entitled to my own opinion) that for the UN and the US the withdrawal of TDF from Amhara and Afar was an end in itself not a means to move more freely towards the more critical humanitarian objective. Prof. Kjetil Tronvoll warned that if TDFs good will is not reciprocated the war will most likely be endless. The huge problem truth is facing is the UN and the US are biased with the sources and don't mind scrutinizing statements. They prefer to believe the Abiy side however outrageous the statements it makes against Tigray are. What matters most to the UN and the US is the retention of Abiy in power at all costs; in spite of the enormous embarrassment, he caused them he remains to be their brainchild they will never betray. Hence, for the UN and the US the bitter reality in Tigray is a real “ant in the butt”, an inconvenient truth! This is the main reason why the UN and the US procrastinate effective actions looking for lame excuses most of which are their own making.

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Lame excuse No. One is: “Humanitarian aid is interrupted due to drone strikes on the aid destinations”. USA has never been silenced or prevented by any other world state or power if it decides to take action. Did Russia stop it when it invaded Congo as a UN force? Patris Lumumba was a Soviet puppet. Did Russia come to the aid of Sadam Hussien when US and UK bombed the hell out of Iraq? We are told on several occasions that the Security Council could not reach firm decisions on Tigray because of Russia and China. How convenient!! We know when it comes to retaining Abiy at Arat Kilo UN, US, Russia, and China have no difference. Their only difference is how blatant their respective support for Abiy should be. Russia and China, led by dictatorial regimes, have decided to be totally oblivious to the tragedy in Tigray and are backing Abiy in whatever brutal actions he takes against it. They don’t mind fishing for profits even from a pool of blood. They don't flinch for genocide because they have more than enough in their own back yards. The UN and the US on the other hand are obliged by the democratic guidelines on their shelves to deal with international issues from the humanitarian perspective. The corporate capitalist world they are sworn into crosses their paths towards the supremacy of moral values over greed. Hence, one finds the UN and the US in debilitating dilemma more often than not. The consequences of such inaction have always been disastrous. This is what is exactly happening in the Tigro-Ethiopian war.

Lame excuse No. two is: “Both Ethiopia and Tigray are committing atrocities on civilians; so if the war is to come to an end both must stop fighting”. The UN and the US don't want to buy the truth that both did not start the war! It has already become an open secret that the war was planned ahead of time by Ethiopia and Eritrea and an opportune moment was being awaited. This fact is too huge to cover and hide. But AU, the UN and the US were initially certain and relaxed that the war was just a brief policing of a regional state. The convenient propaganda about the attack on the northern command was fanned into a prairie fire which engulfed even what were thought to be sober and sane minds. As a logical outcome of the fabrication about the cause of the war the sick UN mantra of “noninterference in internal affairs of member states” was at full swing leading potential support for Tigray astray. The UN and the US were “corrected” into calling the TDF as the “rebel group” in “northern Ethiopia” (no more “in Tigray”). While politicians in Ethiopia have already de-patriated Tigray in words and deeds and are treating it as if it is a foreign state the UN and the US have become more catholic than the pope and decided on the matter as a domestic affair. Inside them they know very well that Tigray is ostracized from mainstream Ethiopian society in every possible way. That is not all! Ethiopia invited/hired Eritrea to do the dirty job for it in Tigray. I want the UN and the US to answer these: Do you two have any evidence at your disposal that proves Tigray is a de facto part of Ethiopia? Does it fit into your definition of “non-interference in sovereignty when a sovereign state allows/invites/hires a neighboring state to destroy a province within its jurisdiction? Would you invite or hire Mexico to devastate Texas, and prevent sympathetic Canada from intervening to save innocent Texans? What kind of Sovereignty is this? What is happening in Tigray has no precedence in world history as far as my knowledge of the subject goes. Nations normally make war against their own citizens; but they don't allow other states to do it for them. When the UN and the US are faced with such unusual circumstances, they have the responsibility to revise the old editions of their law books to fit new situations. This is the difference between civilization and barbarism.

Because the UN and the US don't seem to take the pains to put new wine in new bottles, they are putting the unique case in Tigray in an old and rotten bottle. When Abiy Ahmed declared that he has ended hostilities with Tigray soon after TDF completed withdrawal from the territories it had occupied, the UN and the US were too quick to thank him for that. They were sure about TDF because its statement came after the completion of withdrawal. However, they had no proof of Abiy's ceasefire enough to shower thank on him. They knew who the boss really is that can decide the end of the war. Abiy's decision to stop fighting does not hold water as long as Fano and Isaias don't. It is the eagerness of the UN and the US to add some space to the comfort zone of Abiy so that he does not fester them by his anachronistic “No more Western Colonialism in Africa”. While bare faced colonization is being done by China in Africa, Abiy and his support base are trying to intimidate the West to be indifferent or drag its feet on the Tigray predicament. Emboldened by the readiness of the UN and the US to turn a blind eye towards Tigray Abiy is using a more effective proxy to re-invade Tigray. Now Eritrea has invaded Tigray and is fighting on several fronts. The official version of the war in Tigray in the UN and the US is that there is a cease fire on “both sides”. This has become a thick smoke screen for Abiy to continue fighting by supporting Fano and Afar in the south, east, southwest, and west and by letting Eritrea to do as it wishes in the north, west and east. It has become a boring evening prayer for the UN and the US to warn Eritrea to withdraw from Ethiopia. Eritrea is wary of the toothless tiger. Since Tigray is not considered to be Ethiopia no one seems to care if Eritrea does not withdraw from Tigray. After all, by now Isaias is considered to be the elder brother of Ethiopians. Who cares about sovereignty and who cares about Tigray? Considered by AU, the UN and the US as a poor and inconsequential territory not worth the pains! Ethiopia is a much bigger pie not to be exchanged for unprofitable humanitarianism.

The President of Tigray honestly felt that peace for Tigray is at hand as long as Tigray drops many of its preconditions and focused on what appear to be acceptable to the International Community. Who would object to a humanitarian corridor and a return of the cartography of Tigray to its pre-war extent? Dr. Debretsion sent a four action-point message to the UN Chief confident that he was doing the right thing most appropriate for the new state of affairs. The way the action-points were articulated was amazing. No UN Chief with a sober mind would be expected to scrap them as if he never read them. One would stop and ask: What is it these people want from Tigray? Do they want to be passive spectators of a genocide by starvation and territories of Tigray to be annexed by another region and a foreign country in gross violation of the Constitution that is still the supreme law of the land in Ethiopia? The President of Tigray thought that he was making sense, as we all did, by requesting for a demilitarized corridor for humanitarian aid. How else is he going to feed his starving millions? Is this something that UN Chief fails to take seriously? TDF lived up to expectations of the International Community by undertaking a mammoth withdrawal from several hundred kilometers away. This was a logistical nightmare for the young fighters exhausted by war. All this was not due to defeat, as the ungrateful beneficiaries of the withdrawal dare to portray. But it was out of respect for the International Community which was not duely reciprocated. As Abiy's ceasefire is being praised the war has continued. The war continued not because Abiy is strong enough to defeat the TDF, which has remained intact after withdrawal, but because he is using high tech weapons which are beyond the capability of Tigray to defend itself. Drones have become the new ENDF, and in practice TDF is fighting against Turkey, UAE, Iran, and China. If the UN and the US really want the war to stop and save Tigray from starving to death in millions it is easy. They can stop the arms shipment to Ethiopia not from the source but at the destination (Ethiopia). President of Tigray requested for an arms embargo on Ethiopia. Even this was brushed away by the UN Chief. Well, he may say “I am hired to be a diplomat not to be a Samaritan”. I know, but our job descriptions do not flush out our being human from our soul.

The most complex challenge Tigray is facing, as it tries to put its story on the table of the International Community for a more concrete action, is the massive propaganda cyclone that is set in motion by the Abiy loyalists at home and abroad. The intensity and persistence of the operation of the propaganda machine is clouding Tigray so much that the International Community has become intentionally or unintentionally forgetful of the grave situation in Tigray in the first half of the year. The eyes and ears, the sympathies as well, of the International Community was on Tigray. The genocide, the gang rape, the destruction of livelihoods, by the joint invading force was unacceptable and everyone was overwhelmed by the news of the humanitarian crisis. The invaders admitted that they were defeated in the diplomatic front. As the International Community fatigued by its own words of sympathy but no concrete action; the TDF was evolving to take the security of Tigray into its own hands. So came the liberation of most parts of Tigray and the march into Amhara and Afar regions. Unfortunately, the anti-Tigray Ethiopia used the opportunity and massively engaged in what is known as “mirror propaganda” or “accusation in a mirror”. This kind of propaganda is so confusing that it becomes hard to identify who the real culprit is. If a thief enters your house and calls you a thief the police that come to the crime scene will have to do a lot of work later on, but for the time being they arrest both. It is a court that solves the problem when the owner gets his papers for house ownership. The propaganda that is spread by all available media, presented skillfully and persuasively, is not easy to counter check for veracity.

Let me start with the examples of mirror propaganda from cases outside Ethiopia. By the end of the example what I mean by mirror propaganda in Ethiopia will be clear to everyone involved. Arshaluys Barseghyan, November 19, 2020 (notice the date), told a case story of mirror propaganda used in the Armenian-Azerbaijani war. I will mention the most typical: Azerbaijan was accused of hiring Turkish-backed mercenaries from Syria in the war against Armenia. This was proved to be true by reputable international media. A few days later Azerbaijan accused Armenia of using Kurdish mercenaries in the war against Azerbaijan. “This was a complete fabrication but played perfectly into the ‘both sides' blame game” according to Barseghyan. In the last few months, the media in Ethiopia is overcrowded with make-believe accusations against the TDF for raping women, destroying infrastructure, summarily executing civilians, etc. in the Amhara and Afar regions. The wordings or phrasings have no difference with what was in the world news about what happened in Tigray a few months before. Tigray was estimating that the restoration from the destruction could take over 30 years. The same number of years were used to describe the damage in the Amhara region by the TDF. An astronomic sum of 280 billion birr was tabled for the central government as war reparations. This was the total national budget of Ethiopia only a few years back. The TDF had no intention of revenge on the Amhara people. It had a goal which had nothing to do with the ordinary Amhara people. The propagandists know very well that nothing of that sort happened; but they are determined to escape responsibility for what they did in Tigray a few months ago. They are working hard 24/7 to divert the attention of International Community away from Tigray. The “No more movement” reinforced by mirror propaganda is a thick dark curtain to obscure the reality in Tigray. As the “No more” movement is rallying Africa against the West, its attention has been almost effectively diverted out of fear of losing Africa. Once they lock Africa and the West in unending squabble genocide perpetrators in Ethiopia will get the respite from the specter of ICC haunting them.

The UN has consolation for its failure in its customary regrets. Antonio Gutierrez has four more years in the UN. I hope he does not fail Tigray at this time of need for the sake of “UN working procedures”! UN is serving human beings; so, it has to wear more a human face than a strictly diplomatic one. It is of no use to regret afterwards as Koffi Anan did. After a decade of the Rwanda Genocide Annan said: “Rwanda Genocide must leave us always with a sense of bitter regret and abiding sorrow”. He had no genocide on his head like his successor, but Boutrous Ghali realized his failure only after he was replaced. He said: “The failure of the UN- My is may be, in retrospective, that I was not enough aggressive with the members of the Security Council.” I hope Antonio Gutierrez will not emulate the two African failures in UN leadership. It is my belief that the UN Chief will unleash his humanitarian instinct and visit Tigray after the New Year vacation.