Ethiopia’s Air Force Has Killed At Least 28 Civilians in an Airstrike | #Alamata Massacre

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✞ Alamata Massacre /የአለማጣ እልቂት ✞

✞ Togoga Massacre, June 2021/ የቶጎጋ እልቂት፤ ሰኔ ፳፻፲፫ ✞

‘Like a hell’: Survivors recall massacre

Ethiopia’s air force has killed at least 28 civilians in an airstrike on a town in the troubled region of Tigray, according to the Tigray People’s Liberation Front. A total of 76 others were wounded in the attack on the market in the town of Alamata, regional Tigray TV reported in the evening. Both military aircraft and drones were involved in the attack. TPLF spokesperson Getachew Reda confirmed on Twitter that the victims were all civilians. The central government in Addis Ababa did not comment at first. Human Rights Watch had earlier said Tigrayan forces battling the Ethiopian government executed civilians in two towns located in the country’s Amhara region earlier this year. In a report released Thursday, the rights group said the killings took place between Aug. 31 and Sept. 9.

💭 My Note: Of course, this barbaric strike comes ahead of a U.N. Human Rights Council session Friday on Ethiopia. Is CIA agent-war-criminal Abiy Ahmed Ali paving the way for this?::

👉 ‘EVERY OPTION IS ON THE TABLE’: US PREPPING FOR LIBYA-STYLE INTERVENTION IN ETHIOPIA

While many in the Horn of Africa clearly need help, the Biden administration’s idea of “help” might not be exactly what they had in mind.

Amid a bloody civil conflict and increasing great-power competition between the United States and China, there are a number of alarming signs that Ethiopia will become the next Libya—an African nation where the US intervenes militarily under the pretext of stopping an impending genocide.

A considerable military buildup is now underway. Last week, the US military announced it was sending over 1,000 National Guard members to nearby Djibouti. This is on top of the special operations forces already sent in November. Perhaps most notably, a government official told CNN that the aircraft carrier USS Essex⁠—along with two other large amphibious vehicles⁠—was steaming towards the Horn of Africa and standing by for further orders.

For weeks, the drums of war have been growing louder in our nation’s media. “Ethiopia’s civil war is a problem US troops can help solve,” Admiral James Stavridis, former supreme allied commander of NATO, wrote in Bloomberg and The Washington Post. “Sending peacekeepers to the pivotal nation of East Africa wouldn’t be popular domestically, but may be the only way to stop the conflict,” he added. Meanwhile, former Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Jendayi Frazer argued that the West should establish a “no fly zone” across Ethiopia⁠—a country of 115 million people and twice the size of France.

When it comes to Ethiopia, said head of USAID Samantha Power, one of the architects of the US intervention in Libya, “every option is on the table”⁠—using a phrase that has long been understood to be a threat of war. Secretary of State Antony Blinken also refused to rule out sending troops into Ethiopia when directly asked.

Given its bloody record, the talk of a “humanitarian” invasion has many Ethiopians worried. “The US is looking for a pretext for military intervention in Ethiopia. The play books of interventions in Iraq, Syria, Yugoslavia, and Libya are being referred to,” Dr. Berhanu Taye, an Ethiopian physician and member of the Global Ethiopian Advocacy Nexus, told MintPress.

The military buildup comes on the back of economic actions already taken. In September, President Joe Biden labeled Ethiopia a national security threat as he imposed sanctions upon government officials. Last month, the US also placed sanctions on Eritrea, whose troops are also heavily involved in the fight against the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF).

The White House is currently withholding over a quarter-billion dollars of aid from Ethiopia and has ended the country’s special trade status under US law, which had allowed it to export goods freely to the United States. Critics say that this could have the effect of crashing the already shaky economy, threatening over a million jobs.

Last week, a number of Western governments (including the US) signed a statement condemning the Ethiopian government for its human rights violations while fighting the TPLF, which they did not censure. The State Department is reportedly considering labeling the actions in Ethiopia a “genocide,” a word that would have considerable implications, given NATO’s self-declared “right to protect” doctrine, whereby it claims it has the right to intervene anywhere in the world to stop ethnic cleansing.

A YEAR OF DEADLY FIGHTING

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