Posted by addisethiopia / አዲስ ኢትዮጵያ on September 28, 2021
💭 Your Words Not Mine: A Message to PM Abiy in His Own Words
This is a slightly modified version of the message sent by PM Abiy Ahmed in December 2018 to the people of Yemen, re-worded to address him and the people of Ethiopia amidst the ongoing war on Tigray.
To the people of the Land of Origins,
To the people of the Land of the thirteen months of sunshine
To the people who pioneered civilization and are the descendants of the architects of Axum and Lalibela
To the people of wisdom since the rule of the Queen of Sheba
To the people of a country like no other. A country that was mentioned over 40 times in the Bible and which is called the land of origins, the cradle of humanity, and the source of Blue Nile.
To you, the people of Happy Ethiopia, to whom the Prophet Muhammad once sent his earliest followers seeking refuge safe haven because he believed the Negashi of Ethiopia would not “wrong anyone”
To the owners of gentle and soft hearts, and the people endowed with wisdom.
To the people of faith. . The bloodshed between your people is haram and immoral.
Why do you drain your resources, and destroy your country, and the lives of each other?
Why do you destroy your civilization, your progress, and your glory?
Why abandon your families?
Why do you turn your own children into orphans, and deprive them of enjoying a calm and serene life in a country that has always been lauded as a happy one?
Everyone, I refer to all the parties fighting in political and on devastating battlefields, is a loser in war as war brings nothing but destruction, loss, devastation, hatred. and riots. War causes scourge and separation to spread. So how can this happen between the people of one land and one nation? War destroys your foundations, your relationships, and your kinship, causing nothing but destruction and ignorance.
What Ethiopia are you fighting for when you’ve destroyed every corner of your country? Why don’t you use reason, when you are the ones who were described as wise? Why do you teach the language of war and fighting rather than the language of dialogue, when you are the owners of eloquence? Why don’t you sit at a table and talk, negotiate, and discuss what is best?
You should agree and disagree without bloodshed, and without wars, as the people of one home.
Brought together with affection, familiarity, love, and the interest of one united nation. Offer yourselves and your children a future that is built on the foundation of science, knowledge, and development. Plan your growth and progress and keep up with the civilization that you were once at the forefront of.
You are all responsible and accountable for the state that your country is in; the county we care for and love and are concerned about its security and stability. You are the first to shake hands, so shake each other’s hand and meet each other with hearts full of love. Let your wisdom guide you.
Think about what your country has come to from separation, fighting, and killing. Think of the common good rather than personal interests, and renounce sectarianism and fragmentation.
Come to a common conclusion that you agree on, in the interest of your honorable people who have suffered so much from the scourge of this useless war; the war that will only leave behind destruction and ruin.
Pull all your differences on the proverbial table of dialogue, reason, wisdom, and equity.
Agree among each other as a family and as loved ones and then surrender to peace and enter it with all the forces you can muster as it is in the benefit of your country and the future of your civilization that flourishes like a garden as you enjoy the goodness of the land and the forgiveness of God.
With all love and pride, we look forward to the certainty that wisdom is rightful. And we are ready to do all that is needed to achieve reconciliation and stop the bloodshed and return to the peace and prosperity of your beloved country.
We, the undersigned organizations, write to urge you to demand publicly that the parties to the conflict in northern Ethiopia end ongoing violence and dismantle the blockade preventing relief assistance from reaching millions of people on the brink of starvation. We ask you to use your to respective platforms to focus on the crisis in Tigray at the United Nations Security Council, at the African Union, and at the upcoming session of the UN General Assembly, and to actively engage the parties to the conflict to prevent growing famine and suffering on a scale not seen in Ethiopia since the great famine of 1983-1985.
Since fighting erupted in November 2020, civilians have been trapped between the parties to the conflict, largely cut off from assistance and communications, and displaced to other parts of Tigray, other regions of Ethiopia, and into neighboring countries. The fighting has been marked by widespread human rights abuses including sexual violence, starvation as a weapon of war, and ill-treatment of the displaced. Investigations initiated into these violations of international human rights, humanitarian, and refugee law must be independent and credible and those responsible held to account. The UN Security Council, UN General Assembly, and African Union must put this growing threat to international peace and security at the top of agendas.
Our concerns about the worsening crisis in northern Ethiopia include:
Gross human rights violations
As the conflict expands and affects civilians in other areas of the country, ethnic demonization and hateful rhetoric reminiscent of crises in Rwanda, Burundi, and Darfur threaten to tear at the country’s fragile social fabric. For more than nine months the world has watched in horror as parties to the conflict commit unspeakable crimes, with millions of civilians facing grave human rights violations, forced displacement and loss of livelihoods, arbitrary arrest and detention, and widespread destruction of civilian infrastructure. This compelled the U.S. Government to launch an investigation into whether war crimes, crimes against humanity, and even genocide have occurred. As you know, this investigation is taking place in parallel with the ongoing joint UN Human Rights – Ethiopian Human Rights Commission investigation.
Denial of relief assistance
The blockade put in place by the government of Ethiopia on June 28 has caused the number suffering from extreme hunger to increase dramatically. Ethiopian troops withdrew from the region and banking facilities were closed, preventing access to money to purchase food. Communications were cut, denying people trapped inside Tigray the chance to report on their well-being to family members outside the region. And trade was denied, collapsing local markets for fuel or electricity. Primary and secondary road routes were blocked, forcing the aid operation on to a tertiary route via Afar. Between July 1 and August 31, fewer than 400 trucks of relief supplies were permitted entry to Tigray along a circuitous rural road, despite the UN declaring more than 6,100 trucks (or, 6 percent) were required to stem the tide of famine.
Growing humanitarian crisis
On August 9, the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWSNET), published its food security outlook for Tigray revealing that 5.2 million men, women, and children now face extreme food insecurity. That number includes people who are now experiencing starvation which results in severe malnutrition, starvation, disease, and high death rates. Violence that has spread into neighboring Afar and Amhara region has displaced some 400,000 people and potentially threatens lives and livelihoods of millions more.
Famine has already set in for hundreds of thousands in Tigray. But this does not need to be the fate of millions more at risk. The parties to this conflict can cease hostilities and save the lives of their own people. The blockade can be lifted for relief workers to reach those in need before a repeat of the tragedy of 1983-85 famine, which took the lives of as many as 2 million Ethiopians. The UN Security Council and African Union can put the crisis on their formal program of work and demand action to prevent further needless suffering and loss of life.
Recommendations
We call upon members of the UN Security Council and the UN Secretary-General to take concrete action to address the crisis in Tigray and to put its resolution at the top of the agenda during the UN General Assembly. In particular, here are four actions you can take to help the people of northern Ethiopia:
Call for a humanitarian cease-fire that includes a withdrawal of all forces from Tigray and surrounding regions;
Demand that the government of Ethiopia remove the humanitarian blockade and bureaucratic obstructions to the aid effort;
Press for the deployment of international monitors and independent investigations into allegations into war crimes and other abuses of international human rights and humanitarian law, and;
Encourage a national dialogue that includes opposition groups such as the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front.
UN leadership matters. We call on you to press for global action to curb this threat to international peace and security and prevent foreseeable mass suffering and the worst of outcomes for Ethiopia and its people.
Sincerely,
Access Books
Alliance for Peacebuilding
Association of Concerned Africa Scholars (ACAS-USA)
Bread for the World
Civil Society Action Committee
Disciples Refugee & Immigration Ministries
Educators’ Institute for Human Rights (EIHR)
Ethiopian Community Development Council
Faiths for Safe Water
Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect
Global Ministries of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and the United Church of Christ
HIAS
Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights
Jewish World Watch
Karuna Center for Peacebuilding
Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns
Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies
NAVA / Niue Australian Vagahau Association
NGO Committee on Migration
PacificwinPacific
Partners Global
PAWA / Pacific Australian Womens Association
R-SEAT
Refugees International
San Felipe Humanitarian Alliance
Scalabrini International Migration Network (SIMN)
The Center for Victims of Torture
The Sentry
The United Methodist Church – General Board of Church and Society
U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI)
Posted by addisethiopia / አዲስ ኢትዮጵያ on May 19, 2021
An Open Letter to HE Mr. Joseph R. Biden, Jr., 46th President of the United States of America
From Goitom Aregawi (Ztseat)
Tigray’s grandchildren shall not wait for a century to even get recognition of what their forefathers went through, like what happened to the generations of Armenian survivors.
Mr. President,
I am writing this appreciating Your Excellency’s historic decision to recognize the Armenian Genocide, and with hopes in appealing to your administration to stop the ongoing genocide in Tigray, Ethiopia -a conflict with distinctively similar features to the Armenian Genocide.
Mr. President,
Last year you promised Americans and the world that you would make human rights a central guidepost of your foreign policy. You said that you would pursue a values-based foreign policy. You also said that ‘failing to call the atrocities against the Armenian people a genocide would pave the way for future mass atrocities. Calling the atrocities on Armenians “Genocide” in the first 100 days in your office shows your commitment to human rights.
Mr. President,
I salute you for this historic declaration and your principled position, with hopes that it will right the wrong done to all those Armenians who perished in the state-sponsored genocide 106 years back by the Ottoman Turks, which exterminated an estimated 1-1.5 million Armenians(more than 90% of the Armenian population, by then). I also hope this extends to all parts of the world. In fact, your action cannot be more timely than now when it comes to the ongoing genocide in Tigray, in the Horn of Africa.
Mr. President,
As the House Speaker Nancy Pelosi stated, “History teaches us that if we ignore its darkest chapters, we are destined to witness the horrors of the past be repeated”; so, your declaration was an important milestone in history and instilled the hope that similar crimes will be prevented before being repeated.
Released by the Armenian Genocide Museum in Yerevan, this 1915 picture shows soldiers surveying the skulls of victims in an Armenian village
Unfortunately, the world has repeatedly failed to learn from its mistakes in the past and has repeated them time and time again over the years, as the Holocaust and the Rwandan Genocide showed.
In 1994, the world acted as a ‘bystander’, very much reluctant to act on time and stop the Genocide before its devastation plagued the nation. March 25, 1998, President Bill Clinton expressed “a deep regret” for failing to act on time and stop it.
After the tragic Rwanda Genocide, the international community, in one voice, echoed “Never Again.” Many of us hoped such horrors wouldn’t happen again – ‘Never Ever, again!’
Tragically, 27 years after the Rwandan Genocide, similar atrocities are being committed under Your Excellency’s watch in Tigray.
The Genocide in the Tigray region of Ethiopia, a genoicide that I have witnessed with my own eyes, could even be at a scale worse than that of the Armenian’s and Rwandan’s.
For more than 6 months now, Ethiopian and Eritrean armies, Amhara forces (Amhara Special forces, Amhara militias, Amhara Fano-an armed youth squad) have been committing a well-planned, deliberate, well-executed act of ethnic cleansing against the Tigrayan people. The international community once again appears to be embracing a spectator role, reluctant to act decisively and stop the genocide in Tigray which is unfolding before your very eyes. Many, including your senior officials, are issuing statements of concern, yet to this point there is a total absence of concrete action on the ground that can put a stop to this atrocious genocide against the Tigrayan people.
Between November 2020 and March 2021, more than 150 mass massacre sites have been identified by a team at the University of Ghent in Belgium. There have been numerous additional massacres since this study was conducted. Between 70,000-150,000 innocent Tigrayans are estimated to have been exterminated in these mass murders. The most notable massacres are as follows:
The Mai-Kadra massacre which according to a report by Amnesty International, took more than 600 lives
Axum massacre tallying more than 800 civilian deaths, according to AP’s Feb 18 report of witness accounts
Dengelet Massacre (a March 22nd report by the CNN put the figure at more than 100 casualties; Europe External Programme with Africa put the figure at 150; my witnesses put the figure to be 165)
Mahbere-Dego (a leaked graphic Video and witness accounts collected by CNN and BBC Africa suggest 39-73 young men to have been killed between Jan 15 and 16; my witnesses estimated 193 civilians to have been killed, including on the subsequent days)
Abi Adi- an April 7th report by The Telegraph shows that 182 civilians were killed on February 10 alone]
Bora (more than 160 civilian deaths occurred, according to a March 19th witnesses report by Los Angeles Times)
The Zelambessa massacre, killing 56-72 civilians, according to reports by Tigray Television, and eepa.
In addition, there are multiple cases of massacres in Sheraro, Humera Dansha, Maykinetal, Selekleka, Irob, Debre-Abay, Idaga-hamus, Adwa, Shire, Humera, Idaga-Arbi, Adigrat, Hawzen, Edaga-Berhe, Miriena, Seglamen, Hagere-selam, Hitsats, Samre, Gijjet, Hiwane, Nebelet, Wukro,Workamba, Killele, Azeba e.t.c. These are just a few of the more than 150 massacre sites where Eritrean, Ethiopian, and Amhara armies systematically slaughtered civilians of all age groups (as young as 2 years of age, up to 93 years old).
Thousands of women and underage girls (as young as 6 years old) in Tigray have been gang-raped, in an intentional use of rape as a weapon of war; in some cases the rapists burn the victims genitaliaand uterus with hot iron rods, and insert foreign objectsto make them infertile. Various media outlets, UN bodies, including the United Nations Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict, in addition to other humanitarian organizations, have talked extensively about such acts of crimes on humanity. Ethiopia’s government has even verified these claims.
Tens of thousands of Tigrayan members of Ethiopian Defense forces are disarmed and detained arbitrarily in various unknown concentration camps. Many among them are feared to have been executed. Likewise, Tigrayans throughout Ethiopia are profiled and indiscriminately arrested for months; Tigrayan civil servants in Federal government bureaus have been fired from their jobs; Tigrayan businesses have been shut. Tigrayans in Ethiopia are enduring all kinds of humiliation and harassment for who they are. On April 29th, the Associated Press released a report detailing this ethnic profiling, arbitrary detention, and purging of Tigrayans.
To induce mass starvation and destitution of Tigray, Ethiopian, Eritrean armies, and Amhara forces are burning crops, seeds, cutting trees, destroying agricultural tools, burning grasses (food for the cattle), killing livestock, especially targeting oxen and donkeys, as well as destroying small dams and irrigation canals in a systematic campaign of crippling the agricultural sector. The World Peace Foundation produced a 58-page comprehensive report about such targeted attacks. According to reports by UN agencies and Tigray’s interim government, currently, more than 2.3 people in Tigray are internally displaced and 4.5 million people are in urgent need of humanitarian aid. 50-100 people have already died of hunger. Like the Turks, the Ethiopian government, the Eritrean Army, and Amhara forces have tried everything they can to block humanitarian aid from reaching the people that they have systematically starved, with the intent of decimating the entire Tigrayan population. Like the Turks, the Ethiopian and Eritrean armies as well as the Amhara forces are utilizing starvation as a weapon of war, and they want the effects to sustain for years to come if in case the international community steps up and provides life-sustaining humanitarian aid.
In addition, like in the Armenian Genocide, Ethiopia’s government and Eritrean and Amhara allies have enabled rape, sexual slavery, starvation, and the destruction of civilian livelihood as a weapon of war.
Ethiopian, Eritrean armies, and Amhara forces are destroying health facilities, clean water infrastructure, and water pumps so greater numbers of Tigrayans will die of water-borne illnesses and other communicable diseases, gun inflicted injuries, and non-communicable diseases; this is a damage maximization strategy to decimate the Tigrayan Civilian Population. For months, Tigray was left in the dark, with electricity and telecommunication services cut; banking services stopped; business transactions placed on hold; roads blocked; with much of these grave atrocities on humanity hidden from the world. By blocking access to the media and to rights organizations, these horrific crimes have been successfully committed in the dark.
Ethiopia’s government and its allies are destroying schools, roads, a variety of civilian infrastructures, heritages [including AlNejashi Mosque, Debredamo monastery, Dengolat St Mary monastery e.t.c], private houses, and factories for the sake of destroying Tigray, including its history and identity, and leaving it in indefinite destitution and humiliation. In order to erase Tigray, entire villages and small towns are indiscriminately shelled with heavy artillery, and bombarded with missiles from drones; private houses ransacked, systematically burnt, and destroyed; Some Villages and small towns are completely turned to ashes, erased.
Amhara militia, Fano, Amhara special forces are also committing ethnic cleansing and Genocide in Western Tigray. There is an estimated 1 million (A study by the Ethiopian Ministry of Health puts it at 1.2 million) Tigrayans who used to live in Western Tigray that are no longer there. They are either killed, forcibly displaced or kept in concentration camps. Some 700,000 Tigrayans accounted for so far have been forcibly evicted from their lands and homes empty-handed, now sheltered in many towns in Tigray and in Sudan. Tens of thousands are feared to be dying in concentration camps there. Their prosperities, their lands, their houses are confiscated by the Amhara regional forces.
After committing 100% Ethnic cleansing of Tigrayans in Western Tigray, which Secretary Blinken also repeatedly stated, the Amhara have brought hundreds of thousands of ethnic Amhara from Gojjam and Gonder, transferring them in to the houses and places originally inhabited by ethnic Tigray for Generations, making Western Tigray a “homogeneously Amhara” land. Men are not spared no matter what; thousands of women and under 7 children are forced to take the Amhara identity in order to remain in their homes. The women must be willing to be a concubine to an Amhara militia, though. Tigrayan traces have been erased. Recently the Amhara Regional Government has started illegally (yet officially) leasing farmlands that belong to Western Tigray to Amhara investors.
These are the same methods employed by the Turks on the Armenians 106 years ago.
Mr. President,
Today’s genocide against Tigray is the same as the hundred-year-old genocide against Armenia.
Our kids and grandkids shouldn’t wait 106 years to get recognition of what their forefathers went through, like what generations of Armenian survivors endured.
Mr. President,
With the cumbersome evidence on your hand, it must by now be clear to you and the international community that Ethiopia’s government and allies are on a campaign of completely destroying the Tigrayan population, erasing Tigray altogether, just like what the Turks did against the Armenians.
The international community has repeatedly witnessed the untrustworthiness and the Genocidal appetite of Ethiopian and Eritrean governments and allies.
Unfortunately, what we have witnessed over the past six months is an international mechanism failing to do anything tangible to avert the situation in Tigray.
Mr. President,
While the courageous decision you took to acknowledge the Armenian Genocide is to be commended on its own, what is the use of acknowledging historical genocide if it can not stop an ongoing genocide under your watch.
I urge you, Mr. President, to name an investigation commission composed of the experts that studied genocides including that of Armenia and Rwanda, and deploy these same experts to Tigray. I urge your administration and the Western world to name the Ethiopian and Eritrean states-sponsored Campaign of decimating Tigrayan population in Ethiopia with the proper descriptive name “genocide”. In the meanwhile, Your Excellency needs to do everything in your capacity to stop the ongoing Genocide in Tigray before it is too late. The United States of America is more than equipped to stop it. What it needs is your attention and your strong leadership.
Mr. President,
Now that the war is in its seventh month, Tigrayans do not think a solution will come from the UN Security Council given China’s transactional politics and Russia’s soft heart for dictators. Over 6 million people in Tigray are in imminent danger of extinction due to a paralyzed international mechanism of dealing with grave situations. They Rather look into you, the free world you lead, and the institutions of the free world for a decisive action to stop it.
Therefore, I appeal to you, your Excellency,
America and the Western world shall be bold enough to categorize the atrocities as “Genocide” and “famine” with regards to the crisis in Tigray.
America shall mobilize the Western world to use all the leverage and the existing diplomatic, economic, and military machineries at its disposal to put palpable necessary pressure on Ethiopian and Eritrean governments to put a stop to the ongoing Genocide on Tigray.
The United States government, and western allies includingEuropean Union, the UK government, the governments of Canada, Australia, New Zealand, shall sanction the governments of Ethiopia and Eritrea for the continued Civilian massacres, use of Sexual violence, induced hunger, and destruction of civilian infrastructures and livelihood as weapons of war;
A USA commission should be put in place to determine the genocide committed against Tigrayans.
It is time for AFRICOM and NATO to militarily intervene (by triggering Art 5) in Tigray
To provide rapid, unconditional, unfettered, and sustained delivery of humanitarian aid and items essential to survival, including establishing a “lifeline humanitarian corridor” from Sudan to Tigray under a demilitarized route designated for safe passage of humanitarian supplies.
To ensure the immediate and verifiable cessation of all forms of hostilities;
Ensure total withdrawal of all internal and external forces, including Eritrean armed forces and Amhara Special Forces and militia from all Tigray parts to their deployment lines before 4th November, 2020.
Enforce “No fly zone” across the skies of Tigray.
An immediate joint UN-USA-EU independent investigation in the war crimes and grave crimes against humanity in Tigray; and for the perpetrators to be held accountable.
America and other great powers need to scale up the humanitarian aid to a point that is necessary to avert the impending humanitarian catastrophe.
America and other western powers shall press on the United Nations with all the leverage they have to put Tigray under a UN-mandated international interim civil and security administration (Using the Kosovo model).
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