Posted by addisethiopia / አዲስ ኢትዮጵያ on May 21, 2022
🛑 In The Cities of Paderborn and Lippstadt
Leaving 50 injured and ten seriously hurt by 80mph winds as trees are uprooted and houses lose their roofsIncredible storm left ‘path of destruction’, with people hit by falling roof panels‘Countless’ houses’ roofs were torn off and many trees remain on top of carsRainfall up to 25L per square metre each hour, with storms causing huge damageTorrid conditions set to hit east of the country overnight after assaults on west.
❖❖❖[Luke Chapter 21፡25-26]❖❖❖
“And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring; Men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken.”
❖❖❖[Lukas 21:25-26]❖❖❖
Und es werden Zeichen geschehen an Sonne und Mond und Sternen; und auf Erden wird den Leuten bange sein, und sie werden zagen, und das Meer und die Wassermengen werden brausen, und Menschen werden verschmachten vor Furcht und vor Warten der Dinge, die kommen sollen auf Erden; denn auch der Himmel Kräfte werden sich bewegen.
I spent the last week of February teaching Old Testament at the newly-formed Trinity Fellowship Pastors College in Addis Ababa. Ethiopia is by far the oldest nation I’ve visited, one of the few Old Testament nations still on the map. Its existence is a theological fact, testimony to the reliability of God’s promises.
According to the “primeval history” of Genesis, descendants of Cush settled the area that is now Ethiopia and Sudan soon after the flood. The Da’amat Empire was established in the tenth century B.C. by Menilek I, reputedly the son of Solomon and Makeda, queen of Sheba. According to the Kebre Negast (“The Glory of the Kings”), which was compiled in the fourteenth century A.D., Queen Makeda made a pilgrimage to Israel to learn statecraft from Solomon, who seduced her. Makeda conceived and went home to give birth to her son. As a boy, Menilek visited his father in Jerusalem, where Solomon anointed him as king of Ethiopia. As retribution for the humiliation of his mother, Menilek stole the Ark of the Covenant and levitated it across the Red Sea to Ethiopia, where it purportedly remains to this day. It’s a persistent national myth. Until Emperor Haile Selassie was overthrown in 1974, Ethiopian leaders claimed to be sons of Solomon, lions descended from the Lion of Judah.
There’s nothing of this legend in Scripture. To ancient Israelites, Ethiopia wasn’t an ally but an uncanny and terrifying threat. Cush’s son Nimrod founded Nineveh and Babylon (Gen. 10:8–12), cities that later conquered Israel. Aaron and Miriam objected when Moses took a Cushite wife (Num. 12:1). During the reign of King Asa, Zerah the Cushite came over the southern horizon to invade Judah with hundreds of chariots and a million-man army (2 Chron. 14).
Against this background, the heroism of Ebed-Melech is all the more notable (Jer. 38). Ebed-Melech was a Cushite eunuch who served in the court of King Zedekiah during the last days of Judah. The prophet Jeremiah counsels Zedekiah to surrender to Babylon. Enraged by this message, Jerusalem’s officials force Zedekiah to approve their plan to put the traitorous prophet to death. Like Joseph, Jeremiah is tossed into a muddy cistern without water, left to die of thirst.
Ebed-Melech bursts onto the scene as an unexpected deliverer. As the wonderfully-named Deusdedit Musinguzi points out in a monograph on the passage, Ebed-Melech is a model of compassion, justice, and courage. Though a foreigner, he charges Jerusalem’s leaders with “evil” in open court, and persuades the king to let him pull Jeremiah up from the pit. Ebed-Melech’s name, “Servant of the King,” indicates he’s Zedekiah’s servant, but he proves himself loyal to the King. As a Gentile deliverer, he foreshadows Nebuchadnezzar and Cyrus. He literally rescues Jeremiah from death, raising him from beneath the earth, a figure of the Spirit who brings a greater Prophet from the grave. In every way, Ebed-Melech is the antithesis of the corrupt Jewish courtiers, a Gentile without Torah who keeps the Torah written on his heart (Rom. 2:14–15).
Ebed-Melech is firstfruits of a great harvest from the land of Cush. According to Orthodox tradition, Christianity came to the country in the late third century through two shipwrecked Syrian boys, the brothers Aedisius and Frumentius, who were brought to the court of the Axum emperor. Through their faithful service, the boys rose to high positions, and their witness convinced the emperor to become a Christian. In 305, the emperor’s successor sent Frumentius to Alexandria to ask the patriarch—none other than Athanasius—to send a bishop to Axum to promote evangelism and church construction. Athanasius ordained Frumentius, who returned to baptize Emperor Ezana, who made Christianity the official religion of his empire. Ethiopia is among the oldest of Christian nations.
In Acts, Luke tells us that Christianity arrived in Ethiopia already in the early first century. The first known Gentile to be baptized was another Ethiopian eunuch, a latter-day Ebed-Melech, who meets Philip in a Spirit-arranged encounter on the road from Jerusalem to Gaza (Acts 8). Though “cut off” like the Suffering Servant in the text he reads, the Ethiopian eunuch becomes fruitful, with a place in the house of his God (Isa. 56:1–8; Deut. 23:1–5).
Already in the old covenant, when the very name “Cush” could send chills down Israelite spines, the Lord promised he would one day adopt Ethiopia as a “home-born” son and a child of Zion (Ps. 87:4). One day, he promised, Cush would bring tribute to Jerusalem (Isa. 45:14). These promises form the story arc of Ethiopia’s long history. Every time you see Ethiopia is still on the map, you’re seeing real-world proof of the faithfulness of God.
👉 Peter J. Leithart is President of Theopolis Institute.
💭 Abune Mathias is an Ethiopian patriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church since 2013. His full title is “His Holiness Abune Mathias I, Sixth Patriarch and Catholicos of Ethiopia, Archbishop of Axum and Ichege of the See of Saint Taklehaimanot”.
Posted by addisethiopia / አዲስ ኢትዮጵያ on March 3, 2022
👉 The Ukraine war shows us:
😈 United by their Illuminist-Luciferian-Masonic-Satanist agendas The following Edomite-Ishmaelite entities and bodies are helping the genocidal fascist Oromo regime of evil Abiy Ahmed Ali:
☆ The United Nations
☆ The European Union
☆ The African Union
☆ The United States, Canada & Cuba
☆ Russia
☆ Ukraine
☆ China
☆ Israel
☆ Arab States
☆ Southern Ethiopians
☆ Amharas
☆ Eritrea
☆ Djibouti
☆ Kenya
☆ Sudan
☆ Somalia
☆ Egypt
☆ Iran
☆ Pakistan
☆ India
☆ Azerbaijan
☆ Amnesty International
☆ Human Rights Watch
☆ World Food Program (2020 Nobel Peace Laureate)
☆ The Nobel Prize Committee
☆ The Atheists and Animists
☆ The Muslims
☆ The Protestants
☆ The Sodomites
☆ TPLF?
💭 Even those nations that are one another enemies, like: ‘Israel vs Iran’, ‘Russia + China vs Ukraine + The West’, ‘Egypt + Sudan vs Iran + Turkey’, ‘India vs Pakistan’ have now become friends – as they are all united in the anti-Christian, anti-Zionist-Ethiopia-Conspiracy. This has never ever happened before it is a very curios phenomenon – a strange unique appearance in world history.
✞ With the Zionist Tigray-Ethiopians are:
❖ The Almighty Egziabher God & His Saints
❖ St. Mary of Zion
❖ The Ark of The Covenant
💭 Due to the leftist and atheistic nature of the TPLF, because of its tiresome, foreign and satanic ideological games of: „Unitarianism vs Multiculturalism“, the Supernatural Force that always stood/stands with the Northern Ethiopian Christians is blocked – and These Celestial Powers are not yet being ‘activated’. Even the the above Edomite and Ishmaelite entities and bodies who in the beginning tried to help them have gradually abandoned them
✞✞✞[Isaiah 33:1]✞✞✞
“Woe to you, O destroyer, While you were not destroyed; And he who is treacherous, while others did not deal treacherously with him. As soon as you finish destroying, you will be destroyed; As soon as you cease to deal treacherously, others will deal treacherously with you.”
🛑 The ethnic cleansing is openly and clandestinely coordinated by:
😈 The Fascist Oromo Regime of Abiy Ahmed Ali
😈 The Fascist Arab stooge Iaias Afewerki in Eritrea
😈 The Fascist Amhara Fano Militia
😈 The Marxist TPLF
😈 The United Nations
😈 The Biden-Harris Administration of The U.S
😈 The European Union
Roughly a year ago, on Mar 10, 2021, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken described violence in Ethiopia’s Tigray region as “ethnic cleansing”. What has been done since then? Nothing! In fact, they continue encouraging and indirectly supporting those perpetrators of genocide, ethnic cleansing and war crimes.
🔥 Imagine the reaction around the world if the site of this horrific ethnic cleansing was in Ukraine!
On a January day in 1900, Russian traveler and military officer Alexander Bulatovich was having a conversation with Emperor Menelik II of Ethiopia, during which he laid out his thoughts concerning public governance, the army and defending Ethiopia’s northern and northwestern borders. Bulatovich expressed his thoughts in the blunt manner of a military man, making many openly critical remarks. Bulatovich eventually allowed himself one criticism too many, causing the emperor to exclaim: “Why are you telling me these frightening things? What kind of advice is that? Just give me some advice, and leave that aside.” “ETHIOPIA THROUGH RUSSIAN EYES” “Russia Needs To Embrace Ethiopia…Now!”
This episode from the history of Ethiopia’s relations with the outside world is reminiscent of the current state of affairs. The conflict between Tigray national regional state (kilil) and the federal government continues unabated. The United States and Russia are calling on the parties to sit down and talk, citing the dire humanitarian consequences of the conflict. In its statement on the current situation, the UN Security Council also mentioned possible negative effects and risks, since the conflict directly or indirectly impacts Eritrea, Sudan, Djibouti and Somalia. However, the deafening calls by the leading powers and international organisations to strike a compromise (just like the “frightening things” above) remain unanswered by Tigray.
Everyone doubled down
The parties to the conflict were unmoved by the increase in external pressure, which was quite expected. The Tigray Defence Force (TDF) conducted major operations outside the towns of Dese and Kombolcha in Amhara regional state, which were controlled by the Tigrayans from October 30 to December 6, 2021. Even though these towns are more than 400 kilometres away from Addis Ababa, the capital of the country, the strategic situation has changed dramatically. Much of Ethiopia’s overland export/import supply line passes through Dese and is part of the direct route to Djibouti. Although the road leading to the capital has an alternate route, the Mille-Awash highway, as a result of operations that have been carried out, the Tigray Defence Forces (the military wing of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front) managed to significantly limit the federal government’s ability to bring in foreign currency, not to mention the necessary imported supplies.
The strategic situation has changed not only because of the takeover of these two towns, but also the imminent defeat of a significant portion of the federal forces and militia from southern and eastern regional states. On October 6, 2021, the federal authorities announced the start of the “last offensive” on Tigray. We know now that it failed. Instead of its “final retreat,” the Tigray Defence Force announced the formation of a political alliance with other ethnic rebel organisations (primarily the Oromo Liberation Front). On November 4, in an interview with the BBC, member of the Central Committee of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) Getachew Reda upped the stake considerably when he said they are not interested in taking the capital, though…
Faced with these setbacks, the federal government introduced, on November 2, a six-month state of emergency. Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed took to social media to accuse the TPLF and its new allies of destroying the country and seeking to repeat the mistakes of Libya and Syria. Meanwhile, his posts on Facebook and Telegram revealed that he understands the complexity of the situation: “It would be foolish to expect the army which is all alone (without the active support of society – author’s note) to declare victory.” Clearly, for several days the federal government was at a loss of what to do next, limiting itself to thorny philippics against the TPLF and calls for more victims in the name of victory. In the following weeks, soldiers and officers were called up by the Ethiopian National Defence Force – the federal authorities were able to stop the offensive from the north. But the very fact that the TDF is taking strong action in key areas shows that the previous strategy to contain the Tigray issue within certain geographical boundaries has failed, and the federal government has yet come up with a new strategy.
But despite this series of setbacks, it remains determined to destroy the TPLF and its allies. Federal media liberally use epithets like “rats,” “terrorists,” or “forces of destruction” to describe the federal government’s opponents. Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s call to “stop, reverse and bury the terrorist TPLF”, which was deleted by Facebook, was widely covered by national and international media. The country’s government is still capable of doing this since it enjoys absolute air and troop superiority.
Ghosts of 1991
After several defeats suffered by the federal government, many analysts recalled that in May 1991, the TPLF had already taken over Addis Ababa, which was also preceded by bloody clashes with the government. On the surface of it, the conflicts look similar: in the 1980s, the government of socialist Ethiopia bombed areas outside of its control, and the TPLF gradually liberated rural communities and recruited the war-weary rural poor into its ranks.
First, the TPFL enjoyed broad support among regional players, such as Somalia, Sudan and the Eritrean separatists. Political assistance was no less important than financial assistance and supplies. In 1991, the Eritrean and Sudanese leaders mediated contacts between the TPLF and the Oromo rebels in the first weeks of forming the new government in Ethiopia, when the sheer number of differences in the victors’ camp threatened to lead to a new round of clashes.
The current realities are starkly different, since Somalia and Sudan are preoccupied with internal problems and lack strong consolidated governments capable of taking any of the possible position on the conflict between Tigray and the federal government. Eritrea took the side of Addis Ababa, not the rebels, from day one of the conflict.
Second, in recent months, however, military luck has turned away from the Tigray Defence Force. Operation Sunrise failed in August 2021. Its goal was for the Tigray units to access Lake Tana (located to the west along the Weldiya-Wereta highway) and cut off direct transport links between the Amhara state and the central regions of the country. With great difficulty, the TDF units reached the town of Debre Tabor which is located 30-40 kilometres away from the final destination, but were then forced to retreat almost 100 kilometres to the east. The failure of Operation Sunrise had little to do with the federal troops’ actions. The expert resistance offered by the Amhara state security forces, the militias and youth brigades of the Amhara ethnic group was enough to get the job done.
Third, in 1991, the attitude towards the TPLF in Ethiopia was more neutral. Even though socialist Ethiopia’s state propaganda did quite a lot at that time to demonise this organisation, the population did not always trust information from official sources. Today, the TPLF is, in fact, a former ruling party, which has been leading the country towards a brighter future for 27 years.
A huge number of complaints against the TPLF have piled up over this period, especially in large cities in southern and southwestern Ethiopia. After Abiy Ahmed came to power in 2018, a new campaign to demonise the TPLF began, this time marked by broad-based social support.
Taken together, these factors make the federal government’s position more stable, despite military setbacks and greater diplomatic pressure from outside players.
Playing chicken?
Game theory offers a wonderful model called “chicken,” when players threaten to inflict maximum damage on each other until one eventually backs down. The point of “chicken” is to create extreme tension which causes one side to make a mistake. We can understand the situation in Ethiopia through this lens. On the one hand, the federal authorities have outlawed the TPLF, destroyed almost the entire business network operated by the Tigray party functionaries and are waging war with them to the bitter end. On the other hand, Tigray and its new allies are accusing its opponents of genocide, gradually cutting off the federal centre from international trade, and making statements about the need for a constitutional overhaul. Winning this game is possible only in the case of mutual concessions. Any other scenario will imminently lead to the defeat of one or both sides. Since the federal and Tigray governments are raising the stakes and rejecting compromise, only the worst-case scenarios remain on the table.
Three factors suggest that Tigray’s southward offensive is likely to fail.
First, the TPLF detachments are spread to the south from Tigrayan motorway towards the capital for tens of kilometres, which makes them extremely vulnerable to a possible attack from the west. Even if this attack is carried out by a contingent of the Amhara state security forces without the support of federal troops, it could stop the advance of the Tigray Defence Force and, provided favourable circumstances, cut off a significant portion of the units from the parent state in the north.
Second, the TPLF allies can be extremely unreliable. Among the nine organisations that formed the United Front of the Ethiopian Federalist and Confederalist Forces , there is no clear understanding of the ultimate goal of the confrontation – it can be either a transitional government or talks with the current government. Moreover, in addition to the TPLF, the new alliance includes the powerful Oromo Liberation Front (OLF), which has a similarly long history of guerrilla warfare, including under TPLF rule.
In a bipolar structure like that, the ethnic organisations may well get distributed between two centres of gravity where political associations of the Agaw, Afar and Kemant ethnic groups will gravitate towards the TPLF, while those of the Somalis and Sidamas will gravitate towards the OLF. Given the uncertainty over goals, the emergence of dividing lines in a new anti-government alliance is all but unavoidable.
Third, resistance to TPLF operations will grow as they get closer to the densely populated highlands in central Ethiopia. One gets the impression that TDF is most effective in mountainous and rural areas, while operations within a radius of 200 kilometres from the capital will require completely different material and organisational resources that the Tigray forces simply do not possess yet.
There is a number reasons the federal government may fail. Following a series of resignations and dismissals of high-ranking supporters of the former regime, the military command of the Ethiopian National Defence Forces was essentially incapable of military planning, namely, to concentrate the forces and means necessary to eliminate clear threats, or to set and pursue several objectives at once. The current federal government’s situation is a direct outcome of failures in military planning, and prospects for improvement are slim, since Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has no other staff to rely on.
The worsening socioeconomic situation in the country and weakening support for the current government are another reason. Amid the pandemic, GDP per capita dropped to 2014 levels, and inflation grew by 15 to 20 percent annually. [World Bank data. ]. According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, droughts and locust infestations in eastern and southeastern Ethiopia in 2019-2021 put at least 12.9 million people on the brink of starvation, or, in UN terminology, “are expected to face high levels of acute food insecurity.” In addition, Ethiopia is home to 4 million internally displaced persons, concentrated in the country’s central and southwestern regions. Many forced migrants have been unable to return home for years now and remain in tent camps, upsetting the locals. Disturbances between them have been quite commonplace for a long time now. Add to that the numerous disagreements and clashes between ethnic groups, and it appears inevitable that the current federal government’s base of support will continue to shrink, making it harder to mobilise resources and maintain numerical supremacy over the Tigray Defenсe Force.
The loss of both sides after inflicting maximum damage on each other is the worst outcome in the “chicken” scenario. Since simultaneous mutual destruction is unlikely, developments in Ethiopia may unfold as follows. The land between the town of Weldiya and Debre Birhan will turn into a zone of instability with a patchwork of areas controlled by the TDF, OLF and forces loyal to Abiy Ahmed’s government (mainly from urban areas). This will create something of a buffer zone between direct parties to the conflict and keep it localised. However, local conflicts tend to spread, and that would aggravate numerous pockets of confrontation in the states of Afar, Somali, Oromia, and Benishangul-Gumuz. In the worst-case scenario, the federal government will be able to maintain effective control only over the central or even southwestern part of the state of Ethiopia.
An outcome in which both sides lose would set Ethiopia back decades in terms of socioeconomic development. Amid limited access to international trade and capital markets (with the route to Djibouti blocked, air travel and an unfinished transport corridor to the Berbera Port in Somaliland is what remains operational), the federal government will be forced to significantly reduce its social obligations and infrastructure plans. In its zone of control, the TPLF on its own will not be able to rebuild infrastructure and help the regions impacted by the war, droughts, and locust invasions.
In place of a conclusion
Based on the above, this much is clear.
First, the defeat of at least one party to the conflict (and worse yet, two) is fraught with serious political and economic consequences for the Horn of Africa’s largest country. Second, the federal government and the Tigray authorities have so far continued to be uncompromising. In “chicken” game model, there is no pain-free way out. Much more perseverance, ingenuity and patience will be required from the international community and the African Union if they really want to influence the course of the conflict in Ethiopia. Space for compromise will have to be created where almost none existed prior. And this work cannot be postponed indefinitely.
More than a century ago, the Ethiopian emperor Menelik II turned away Bulatovich’s frank advice regarding war and territorial administration. But this does not mean that the emperor did not take similar ideas in. There was a Swiss man named Alfred Ilg at the Ethiopian court who was able to convey similar ideas in a softer and more convincing way. Perhaps all is not lost for Ethiopia today, either.