Posted by addisethiopia / አዲስ ኢትዮጵያ on September 27, 2022
💭 My Note: We Christians are in sadness these days. And we should be deeply saddened. While we were rejoicing in the victory of distance running stars like Letesenbet Gidey, we should be very sad as well that the suffering mothers and fathers of Letesenbet Gidey and Co. are not able to celebrate the Meskel festival due to the weekly drone fire coming down on them. There is time for everything!
❖ But:
✞✞✞ [Romans 8:18]✞✞✞
“For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.”
The shadow of war hung over Ethiopia’s Meskel festival in Addis Ababa on Tuesday, with high security, low turnout and Orthodox Christian priests calling for peace and forgiveness in their sermons.
The event – usually a joyous affair where huge crowds gather around bonfires – marks the moment when the 4th century Roman Empress St Helena found Christ’s cross in Jerusalem.
As they do year after year, hundreds of priests, musicians and singers clad in white robes came together on the vast expanse of the capital’s Meskel Square.
But the mood was much darker and the clergy kept turning to the conflict raging again in the northern region of Tigray.
“Truly speaking, this year, we Ethiopians are not celebrating the festival in full happiness,” said Archbishop Abuna Markos, resplendent in a white robe with gold trim and embroidered silver crosses and blue floral designs.
“Just like the mothers were crying under the cross, our mothers in the North are also crying. They are suffering. This suffering is common to all of us. It’s our own,” he said, holding a gold cross encrusted with red gems.
The war in Tigray, which broke out in November 2020 and has spilt over into other regions, has killed thousands of people, displaced many more and left an estimated 13 million people in desperate need of food aid.
The conflict has pitted Ethiopia’s federal army, its regional allies and the Eritrean military against forces loyal to the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), the party that controls Tigray’s regional government.
The central government and its allies accuse the TPLF, which long dominated Ethiopia’s ruling coalition, of seeking to reassert its dominance, while the TPLF accuses the central government of abusing its powers and oppressing Tigray.
Both dismiss each other’s accusations. After months of relative quiet, fighting flared again in August.
“On this day, my prayer for the new year is that God says ‘enough’, because he is the owner of peace and he declared peace through his cross by denouncing hatred,” said deacon Haileyesus Meleku, holding an ornate silver staff.
☆ Today and tomorrow Ethiopian Christians celebrate ‘Meskel’. Today’s Meskel celebration includes the burning of a large bonfire, or Demera. Iranians protest in front of their London embassy Iranian & Ethiopian embassies are neighbors. Wow!
☆ President of the fascist Oromo regime of Ethiopia, Sahle Work Zewde was in London for the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II.
This lady is one of the most cruel beings Ethiopa ever has seen. In the past four years, under her presidentship, over a million innocent Ethiopian Christians have been massacred, the whole region of Tigray besieged and starved, over 200.000 women and girls even monks were brutally raped. And this by the evil Oromo regime of Abiy Ahmed Ali she works for. Yet this lady has never spoken about this sad and serious matter. No condolences, no remorse, no regrets, no in fact this callous ‘woman’ made a mockery of her fellow girls and women by continuing to work for the criminal regime. We in Ethiopia are surprised that she was allowed to travel to Britain – then she and her genocider boss Abiy Ahmed Ali must face either the International Court of Justice, or after death they will have to face the divine court of justice over the genocide of Northern Ethiopian Christians.
💭 A “Feminist” Government: And It’s Repulsive Rape Cover-ups.
In 2018, Ethiopia appointed it’s first & Africa’s only serving female head of state. It also got the first female Supreme Court president. A female politician was now a chairperson of National Election Board. It even created a brand new ministry, named it Ministry of Peace & handed the leadership over to a woman. Out of 20 cabinet members, 10 of them were women. A notably male dominated post, the Defense Ministry, was also to be lead by a woman for the first time.
Ethiopians rejoiced, the rest of the world applauded and media covered this change with flying compliments. Representation mattered. This was seen as something that can level the gender field. Having a 50% women led cabinet was impressive by any standard since the global average for female government ministers is 18.3 percent . More than a dozen countries have no women cabinet members at all.
President Sahle-Work Zewde said in her first parliamentarian address vowed to be a voice for women — famouslytelling MPs that if they thought she was talking too much about women, that she had only just begun.Not only was this move symbolic, many believed it would open the door for gender parity. Who wouldn’t want that?
Mrs. Ashenafi, the Supreme Court President, was the founder and executive director of the Ethiopian Women Lawyers Association. A woman in a high court could do wonders. So this too was welcomed as a much needed step to move Ethiopian women’s agenda forward.
About two years into this gender reform, the country found itself in a political turmoil. The Prime Minister, a 44 year old Nobel Peace Prize recipient who was behind these gender reforms, announced a start of what would be a deadly conflict. This was followed by a complete black out of an entire state, Tigray, where this armed conflict was happening. The state housed over 6 million people. Women, children, elderly were trapped in a a highly secretive war operation. It is a well known fact that women pay dearly during armed conflicts especially a conflict of this kind were absolutely no media was allowed in.
Pressure was mounting on the The Prime Minister to ease up the black out. As the state opened up ever so slightly, horrific stories of war crimes started surfacing. Rape being on the top of the list.
The stories were gruesome to say the list. The Prime Minister defended his “operation” that happened in total darkness. “No women & children” he said “were harmed during this operation”. The families of the people of the state that were attacked begged to differ.
Most accounts detailed rape cases of Ethiopian woman by Ethiopian & a foreign army.Ethiopian Soldiers expressed their concern to Reuters. A soldier who refused to be identified said women were being raped, after the city fell to federal forces. The Prime Minister had allied with the neighboring country to defeat his political rivals. In doing so, he seemed to have no say in controlling the erratic behavior of the soldiers.
On an audio account, a witness told a reporter how “At the beginning of the war, soldiers would have their way with any women they wanted but after they were told to be careful of AIDS, they started raping little girls whom they believed to be safe from this disease”.
Desperate for answers, concerned citizens turned to the gender reformed government & its women “Leaders”. Surely they are here to speak for their sisters, mothers and children. They said so. The world thought so.
Days, weeks, and months passed. The ladies in high places chose the the age old technic of avoiding responsibilities related to rape & women grievance — Silence. There was no direct or indirect addressing of such horrific victims account. There was no urging of an immediate investigation into the matter. There was no expression of absolute outrage. There was no message to families of alleged victims to stay calm or that they are with them.
The last time the Press secretary mentioned rape was back in 2018 – right after she was appointed. The post was of a generic lip-service type she had come to be known for.
Four months into this war, The President decided to travel to the war torn region. Part of her photo-op visit was to include a stop at a hospital were rape victims were also being treated. At the entrance, the President was politely asked by doctors and other stuff members to not go in with military men who accompanied her. The victims were traumatized & the sight of men in uniforms was additional trauma. The president took a personal offense to being morally lectured. So she refused. She demanded that the military men be allowed in with her. The hospital stuff reported that on catching sight of the soldiers, the victims began screaming, crying and shaking with fear. The president had to remove herself from the spot immediately since no amount of comforting or assurance could calm the victims down. She left — leaving the victims a little worse than she found them.
Her office then released statements & pictures. Showing her interacting attentively & kindly with locals. This would surely get her boss the good PR he very much needed. Still no mention of rape allegations. Continued silence. The president warned at the beginning of her term that she will exhaust the men by speaking up for women issues. Two years into her seat & tested with real life challenge, the world could see she has no intention of delivering on that promise.
It has become obvious now that the ladies in position of influence and power in Ethiopia have chosen to politicize the suffering of women. They too have decided to utilize the same weapon of covering up rape allegations just like men in history had. If you don’t talk about it, it has not happened. Some of their supporters believe them. Many more others are left wondering if this gender reform was genuine or if it was implemented merely to strengthen the power of the men behind this reform.
Amidst such horrifying moment, they all found time to stay connected on social media discussing everything but the war and war crimes. The Supreme Court President posted a glossy picture of herself with other women “leaders” of the country in the President’s office. She said she was so proud. Proud of the recognition the president had secured from Forbes as the only African woman to be listed “The World’s Most Powerful Women 2020” were the likes of
Vice President Kamala Harris, Stacey Abrams, Sheikh Hasina Wajed & Rania Nashar were featured. The picture was clean. The office was modern. The ladies were smiling. On the pictures they share and topics they chose to discuss — Their male colleagues don’t need to be nudged, everything is under control & all is well in the land of the feminists.
Jihad vs The World’s ancient Christians of Armenia & Ethiopia
💭 Historical adversary of Armenia & Ethiopia; Turkey – which is waging a NATO green-lighted Drone Jihad everywhere – is unleashing again war crimes and genocide against the two most ancient Christian nations of the world: Armenia and Ethiopia.
👹 Muslims Take Christian Woman, Saw Her Legs Off, Cut Her Fingers Off, Put Her Severed Finger Into Her Mouth, And Strip Her Naked. One Muslim Man Says: “Look At The Bitch… She Became A Rock.’
On Friday, the Armenian Ministry of Defence confirmed that the woman in question was killed during the clashes on 13–14 September along the Armenia-Azerbaijan border.
The footage, ostensibly filmed by a Muslim Azerbaijani soldier, shows a number of bodies of Armenian soldiers, including two women.
One of the women has been stripped naked with text written across her breasts and stomach. A stone has been placed in her eye socket and a severed finger in her mouth.
The man filming the scene comments in Azerbaijani: ‘look at the bitch, there are two women. She became a rock.’
The Chief of the General Staff of the Armenian Armed Forces spoke about the footage during a visit by foreign diplomats to the resort town of Jermuk in the southern Vayots Dzor Province on Friday. The town was subject to Azerbaijani shelling, with Azerbaijani troops taking control of positions near the town during the fighting.
‘They committed atrocities in our combat positions against our service members, including women service members’, Edward Asryan told the diplomats. ‘I can’t find words to describe how they dismembered a female soldier, cut off her legs, and fingers, stripped her naked, this is the ultimate level of cruelty’, he added, promising to show the video to them.
😠😠😠 😢😢😢
💭 Historical adversary of Armenia & Ethiopia; Turkey – which is waging a NATO green-lighted Drone Jihad everywhere – is unleashing again war crimes and genocide against the two most ancient Christian nations of the world: Armenia and Ethiopia.
👹 This appalling attack shows once again the depths of cruelty and barbarism to which Muslim societies will sink.
Since 2018 We in Ethiopia saw this sort of cruelty and barbarism on such a massive scale when Turkey-Azeirbaijan allied soldiers of the fascist Oromo regime of Ethiopia begun their Jihad against Christians of the Tigray region of Northern Ethiopia.
The Tigrayan people of Northern Ethiopia are still facing an even greater threat. Turkish and Arab agent evil Abiy Ahmed Ali has rallied his supporters around a campaign of blatant ethnic hostility. They portray the Tigrayans as a “cancer,” “weeds,” “daylight hyenas” and “rats.” On several occasions, many of Ahmed’s Oromo soldiers were videotaped saying that they should be destroyed with the “utmost cruelty.” Even Pekka Haavisto, Finland’s foreign minister and EU envoy attested: „Ethiopian leadership vowed to ‘wipe out’ the Tigrayans for 100 years, this looks for us like ethnic cleansing.”
500 years ago the Ottoman Turks, together with the Somalis and Oromos of Africa massacred more than three million African Christians of Ethiopia. 300 years later, the Turks slaughtered as many as 1.5 million Armenians in the #ArmenianGenocide. Today, the Turks massacred Armenians in Azeirbajan, they even travelled accross Africa to work together with their natural allies — Somalis and Oromos– and are again bombing and starving to death millions of ancient African Christians of Ethiopia in the # TigrayGenocide.
Posted by addisethiopia / አዲስ ኢትዮጵያ on September 23, 2022
💭 Ethiopia’s government has rejected a report by U.N. investigators who accused the government of ongoing crimes against humanity in Tigray, starvation, rape and sexual violence and extrajudicial killings. For more insight, VOA’s Esther Githui-Ewart spoke to journalist Zecharias Zelalem.
👉 It is very important that this report is from Africa – because it’s unusual.
👉 ይህ ዘገባ ከአፍሪቃ መሆኑ በጣም አስፈላጊ ነው ፥ ያልተለመደ ስለሆነ
💭 Courtesy: The Nation Africa, Kenya
Africa and the world are staring at a genocide in the Tigray region of Ethiopia similar to that in Rwanda in 1994, UN investigators, local and regional observers have warned.
The groups say the Ethiopia National Defence Forces (ENDF), Eritrea Defence Forces (EDF) and allied militias on one side and the Tigrayan forces have separately committed atrocities against civilians that violate international human rights, humanitarian and criminal law populations, with Tigrayans bearing the brunt of the attacks.
A report from the United Nations International Commission of Human Rights Experts on Ethiopia released at the UN General Assembly on Thursday reveals that rights violations have been committed since fighting erupted in Tigray in November 2020.
“The report concludes that there are reasonable grounds to believe that violations, such as extrajudicial killings, rape, sexual violence, and starvation of the civilian population as a method of warfare have been committed in Ethiopia since 3 November 2020,” the report says.
“The Commission finds reasonable grounds to believe that, in several instances, these violations amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity.”
The continued blockade of the Tigray region by the ENDF that has blocked access to essential services such as food, healthcare, telephone, banking and restricted humanitarian assistance, and the shelling of farmlands have left more than 20 million people in need of assistance and protection, the investigators said.
The UN commission was convinced that the blockade was deliberate, and that the denial of food and healthcare to the Tigray population violates the prohibition against the use of starvation of civilians as a method of warfare, as well as the obligation of each party to a conflict to allow and facilitate the delivery of impartial humanitarian relief.
UN chairperson of Ethiopia Commission Betty Murungi describes the humanitarian crisis in Tigray as “shocking, both in terms of scale and duration”.
“The widespread denial and obstruction of access to basic services, food, healthcare, and humanitarian assistance is having a devastating impact on the civilian population, and we have reasonable grounds to believe it amounts to a crime against humanity,” she said.
In an attempt to uncover what is going on in Tigray, a region closed to local and international media since the war started, Nation.Africa on Thursday hosted a Twitter Space discussion with researchers, human rights activists, the media, and security experts on the challenges facing Ethiopia.
Since the war resumed on August 24 after five months of a humanitarian truce, most of the speakers concurred that the world does not know the exact suffering of the people of Tigray.
“What the world is listening to is basically from the government side, which exposes only what it believes favours them. Not much is known about the war in Tigray,’ said Basha Desta, a Tigrayan human rights activist.
Local militias
“For two years, the people have experienced intense war waged against them by the federal government, the Eritrean army, and the local militias from Amhara. The Tigray people are fighting to defend themselves and their survival, which they are entitled to.”
The federal government under Prime Minister Ahmed Abiy initially allowed international journalists into Tigray, only to kick them out after they exposed widespread human rights violations, said According to Meaza Gebremedhin, an independent human rights researcher and advocate.
“The government has intimidated both local and international media by insisting that the Tigray region is a war zone and they could not guarantee their safety. What we are seeing is an intended genocide, where Eritrean has joined hands with the federal government in an effort to exterminate the people of Tigray.”
She added: “They now want to invade all parts of Tigray and are using drones to attack even hospitals and kindergartens on top of the hate speech that is being spread around against the people of Tigray including national television stations.”
She argued that the government used the five-month humanitarian truce to regroup.
While those from Tigray, such as Mr Desta, insist that the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) is a political party that has no military capabilities, those supporting the federal government argued that TPLF is a criminal organisation that triggered the war by attacking the ENDF in the northern command on November 4, 2020.
“Calling TPLF a criminal and vile organisation does not amount to hate speech, because TPLF is not the people of Tigray, who are our sisters and brothers,” said MIMI, an Ethiopian national.
Eritrea re-entered the war after allegedly withdrawing last year but experts say its forces never actually left the Tigray region.
There are questions about the real interests of Asmara in the Ethiopian civil war. Some analysts believe Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki is taking advantage of the situation to take revenge against his arch-enemy, the TPLF, which frustrated him during the two-year war with Ethiopia between 1998 and 2000 over the border town of Badme.
When Dr Abiy made peace with Eritrea after coming to power in 2018, many of the Tigrayans saw this as an ominous sign, said William Davidson, a senior researcher on Ethiopia for the International Crisis Group.
“President Afwerki saw this as a good opportunity to [take] revenge against TPLF. What we are seeing is that Tigray nationalism cannot coexist with Eritrean nationalism. Many in Tigray see Eritrea as the real threat and the power behind Dr Abiy,” he said.
The presence of Eritrean troops in Ethiopia only serves to complicate matters and to inflame an already tragic situation, Mike Hammer, the US Special Envoy for the Horn of Africa told a digital media briefing on September 20.
Despite the release of the UN commission report, Mr Davidson said, the Ethiopian government is highly resistant to any investigation or judicial process, given that the government has been implementing a siege regime and using starvation as a weapon.
“There will be no form of cooperation, even if the government said they had said they will cooperate with independent investigations,” he said.
“We are seeing lip service to the concept of accountability, which also extends to the Tigray regional administration, which has also been accused by the commission of committing atrocities. The only hope is if the UN agency comes back with the intention to bring the culprits to book.”
Dr Abiy has set up an inter-ministerial task force to investigate allegations of crimes against humanity.
He has also established a National Dialogue Commission to resolve the “difference of opinions and disagreements among various political and opinion leaders, and also segments of society in Ethiopia on the most fundamental national issues … through broad-based inclusive public dialogue that engenders national consensus”.
However, UN investigators and speakers in the Nation Twitter Space forum concurred that the steps taken by the Addis Ababa administration appear to be mere “PR exercises”, with the UN team punching holes in their composition and the execution of their mandates.
On the inter-ministerial commission, the investigators said: “The Commission was not able to corroborate the number of interviews, prosecutions, trials, and convictions; nor that the redress measures regarding victims are under way.
“The draft new transitional justice policy, while a potentially important initiative, is not public nor was it shared with the Commission. The Commission was also unable to confirm that the training of investigators or military personnel is in progress”.
The transitional justice process, which should be transparent and open to the public is opaque, the team found.
It its report, the Commission said: “The IMTF did not include critical information regarding transparency in the presentation of its work, such as information about the ethnicities and genders of interviewees or convicted persons; the methods by which it obtains preliminary information about events in Tigray; and how it is obtaining information from victims and witnesses who have left the country”.
Dr Muliro Nasongo, who lectures on international relations and security at Technical University of Kenya, said the continued conflict in Ethiopia bodes ill for the stability of the Horn of Africa.
He noted that Ethiopia is not just any other African country as it hosts the headquarters of both regional and continental bodies, including the African Union.
If Ethiopia disintegrates into small states, he said, it would have a domino effect on countries that are federal states such as Somalia.
Secondly, it could exacerbate the problem of refugees in the region and see a rise in transnational crimes such as money laundering, and human and drug trafficking that feeds into terrorism.
“There had been hopes that stability in Ethiopia and Kenya would consolidate Somalia and South Sudan because Khartoum is already fragile. Instability in Ethiopia will contribute to violent extremism that contributes to terrorism,” he said.
Dr Nasongo’s main concern is that the region should address the issue of the regional interests of global powers scrambling for resources in Africa, given that Ethiopia is one of the epicentres in the scramble.
He says the US, China and countries in the Middle East have a hand in what is going on in Ethiopia.
“While we might handle Ethiopia with kids’ gloves because it is a major ally in the war against terrorism, there is the challenge which most African countries suffer from, because to the global players, the state and the stability of the country are more important than anything else, so other aspects such as human rights abuses might be neglected,” Dr Nasongo said.
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