😢 What a shame; the UN is doing nothing but count the dead.
💭 The UN human rights office said on Tuesday that 306,887 civilians had been killed in Syria during the conflict since March 2011 in what it said was the highest estimate yet.
Syria’s conflict sprung out of peaceful protests against President Bashar al-Assad’s rule in March 2011 and morphed into a multi-sided, protracted conflict that sucked in world powers.
For all the latest headlines follow our Google News channel online or via the app.
The frontlines have been mostly frozen for years but violence is ongoing and the humanitarian crisis grinds on with millions still displaced within Syria’s borders.
UN human rights chief Michelle Bachelet said its latest analysis would give a “clearer sense of the severity and scale of the conflict”.
The toll included those killed as a direct result of war operations and not those who died from lack of healthcare or access to food or clean water. Nor did it include non-civilian deaths.
The top cause of civilian deaths was from so-called “multiple weapons” (35.1 percent) which includes clashes, ambushes and massacres, a U.N. report that accompanied the statement showed. The second cause of death was by heavy weapons (23.3 percent).
Posted by addisethiopia / አዲስ ኢትዮጵያ on December 9, 2021
The Oromos/Gallas who are unfortunately now in power in Addis, are a nomadic and pastoral people, who 500 years ago were living in what is present day Kenya and Tanzania, were on the move looking for greener pastures for their cattle, which were the backbone of their economy. The Oromos, contrary to current popular belief, were not organized into a single unitary state, but were a fractured society of nomads organized into Gadas. Each Gada had a leader and operated according to the interests of the Gada and not as part of a bigger entity or an Oromo nation. Some of the Gadas moved Westward from present day Kenya, past Lake Victoria and ended up in what is now Rwanda and Burundi (they may have been the ancestors of the people currently known as the genocidal Hutus, who have very close cultural ties to the Oromos that live in present day Kenya and Ethiopia).
Those nomad Gadas that moved north into Ethiopia did so in staggered waves. According to the Portuguese, the Oromos first set foot in Ethiopia in the year 1522. But their advances were checked by the Ethiopians. Only after 10 years of destructive wars between Adal and Ethiopia, which weakened both nations, were the Oromos able to move deeper into Ethiopia and Adal unopposed. Some may not know this, but the reason that the Adals built the wall of Harrer, which still stands today, was to defend the capital from the advances of the Oromo. A very interesting point that I would like to make here is that, it was because of Gragn that the Oromos got what is now largely perceived as a derogatory name – Galla. From my understanding, when Gran realized that the Ethiopians were turning the tides of war against him, he needed allies quickly and approached the Oromo Gada that had settled closest to Adal, seeking a military alliance.
💭 The Gallas had little to contribute to the Semitized civilization of Ethiopia; they possessed no significant material or intellectual culture, and their social organization differed considerably from that of the population among whom they settled. They were not only the cause of the depressed state into which the country now sank, but they helped to prolong a situation from
which even a physically and spiritually exhausted Ethiopia might otherwise have been able to recover far more quickly.
➡ Edward Ullendorff – “The Ethiopians: An Introduction to Country and People.” Oxford University Press, 1960
Posted by addisethiopia / አዲስ ኢትዮጵያ on December 8, 2021
👉 From The Washington Examiner, by Michael Rubin
“To Be a Tigrayan in Abiy’s Ethiopia is to be a Dead Man Walking.”
“በአብይ ኢትዮጵያ ትግራዋይ መሆን ማለት በእግር የሚሄድ የሞተ ሰው ነው።”
“Turkish-backed forces pursued a similar strategy of demographic transformation as they sought to pursue an ethnic cleansing in Syrian districts along the Turkish frontier of their native Kurdish populations”
💭My Note: This was exactly what has happened to the Christians of Northern Ethiopia 500 years ago – and the Turks plus their Adal and Oromo Muslim allies are trying to achieve the same today by pursuing ethnic cleansing of Christian Northern Ethiopians.
Let’s remember, The Oromos/Gallas who are now unfortunately in power in Addis, are a nomadic and pastoral people, who 500 years ago were living in what is present day Kenya and Tanzania, were on the move looking for greener pastures for their cattle, which were the backbone of their economy. The Oromos, contrary to current popular belief, were not organized into a single unitary state, but were a fractured society of nomads organized into Gadas. Each Gada had a leader and operated according to the interests of the Gada and not as part of a bigger entity or an Oromo nation. Some of the Gadas moved Westward from present day Kenya, past Lake Victoria and ended up in what is now Rwanda and Burundi (they may have been the ancestors of the people currently known as the genocidal Hutus, who have very close cultural ties to the Oromos that live in present day Kenya and Ethiopia).
Those nomad Gadas that moved north into Ethiopia did so in staggered waves. According to the Portuguese, the Oromos first set foot in Ethiopia in the year 1522. But their advances were checked by the Ethiopians. Only after 10 years of destructive wars between Adal and Ethiopia, which weakened both nations, were the Oromos able to move deeper into Ethiopia and Adal unopposed. Some may not know this, but the reason that the Adals built the wall of Harrer, which still stands today, was to defend the capital from the advances of the Oromo. A very interesting point that I would like to make here is that, it was because of Gragn that the Oromos got what is now largely perceived as a derogatory name – Galla. From my understanding, when Gran realized that the Ethiopians were turning the tides of war against him, he needed allies quickly and approached the Oromo Gada that had settled closest to Adal, seeking a military alliance.
💭 The Gallas had little to contribute to the Semitized civilization of Ethiopia; they possessed no significant material or intellectual culture, and their social organization differed considerably from that of the population among whom they settled. They were not only the cause of the depressed state into which the country now sank, but they helped to prolong a situation fromwhich even a physically and spiritually exhausted Ethiopia might otherwise have been able to recover far more quickly.
➡ Edward Ullendorff – “The Ethiopians: An Introduction to Country and People.” Oxford University Press, 1960
💭 It has now been over a decade since Syria erupted into civil war. The uprising was spontaneous and spread like wildfire. Within weeks, President Bashar Assad had lost control over huge swaths of Syrian territory. The Assad family’s demise appeared inevitable. Rather than flee, however, Assad increased the brutality.
Neither fighting nor atrocities in Syria were random. Both sides fought for control over Homs, a small city literally at the crossroads of the country: Whichever faction controlled Homs could control commerce across Syria. Meanwhile, both Assad and the radicalized opposition sought to cleanse regions along sectarian or ethnic lines. The Syrian air force focused its assaults on Sunni population centers in order to change the demography of the Sunni heartland. Turkish-backed forces pursued a similar strategy of demographic transformation as they sought to pursue an ethnic cleansing in Syrian districts along the Turkish frontier of their native Kurdish populations.
While Russia, Iran, and Lebanese Hezbollah came to Assad’s defense and Turkey supported the radical Sunni opposition, moderate forces found no patron, especially as the Obama administration chose to sit on the sidelines. There was some support for the Syrian Kurds as they struggled against the Islamic State, but it was little, late, and undercut by former President Donald Trump.
Today, Assad has largely reestablished control over Syria. Moving forward, even if the United States follows the Arab lead to normalize relations with Assad, U.S. leverage over the Syrian dictator will be minimal. Assad now associates survival with intransigence and feels mass murder and ethnic cleansing pay off.
Today, Ethiopia is rapidly becoming the new Syria.
In November 2020, Tigrayan leadership rejected Ethiopian Premier Abiy Ahmed’s order to postpone elections. They feared that he sought to follow the path of self-described reformers who consolidate dictatorship . Abiy reacted with fury, sought to decapitate the Tigrayan military leadership, and then dispatched the Ethiopian army to Mekelle, the capital of the Tigray state. While Ethiopian officials insisted Abiy’s battle was just with the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, the army not only denied food to the entire Tigray Region but also closed Tigrayan businesses in Addis Ababa and rounded up ethnic Tigrayans in internment camps. To be a Tigrayan in Abiy’s Ethiopia is to be a dead man walking.
Initially, however, Abiy’s military assaults failed.
Last June, the Tigray Defense Forces recaptured Mekelle, and subsequently, they and other regional groups began to march on Addis Ababa. Just as the Syrian opposition sought to capture Homs, Tigrayan forces sought to cut off the Chinese-built railroad and highway between Addis Ababa and Djibouti, whose port is a lifeline for Ethiopian trade. Over the past week, the United Nations and various embassies began to evacuate their staff. Abiy’s fall appeared inevitable. It has not come yet.
Instead, the Ethiopian military has regained towns in northern Ethiopia that it previously lost. Tigrayan commanders said they made a tactical withdrawal to reconsolidate their lines. Given the press blackout, it is hard to know what is true. What is certain, however, is that while Washington has remained on the sidelines, other states, including Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, and China, have provided Abiy drones and other technologies to use against the rebels and control the population.
They took a gamble. If Abiy remains, their stock will rise while America’s influence will be zero. Meanwhile, refugee flows will accelerate, and ethnic minorities will radicalize. Abiy is a Nobel laureate, and it is possible that with foreign assistance, he can outlast the opposition. But like Assad, he will then rule over a husk of a country whose potential he has largely destroyed.
There is no magic formula to resolve conflicts, but sitting on the sidelines and acting only as a diplomatic scold will never work. It is time for the U.S. to do what it refused to do in Syria: offer meaningful support to those resisting a murderous dictator.
________
_______
__________
Addis Ethiopia Weblog 