💭 I wouldn’t envy anyone fighting in that terrain against a tenacious, vigorous people defending their beloved homeland.
Tigray, Ethiopia’s most northerly region, makes its presence felt all the way down in Addis Ababa, about 430 miles to the south. Even before the current fighting, the prettiest beggars in the rambunctious and strangely endearing Ethiopian capital tended to be the Tigrayan single mothers. They made that daunting journey to escape a rural existence that struck me, during my trips around Tigray, as not dissimilar to European life during the Middle Ages.
When I lived in Ethiopia, I reported from all over Tigray on humanitarian projects, tensions with Eritrea and the influx of Eritrean refugees, even on a brave British expat who was trying to establish a milk farm. I developed a soft spot for the Tigrayans’ vigor and friendly boldness, a contrast to the polite but taciturn Amhara people in Addis Ababa. It’s Ethiopia’s equivalent to the ebullient Irishman versus the stiff-upper-lipped Englishman. The two-year-old daughter of the mother who begged on a street near where I lived in Addis personified Tigrayan spirit. Whenever I passed them in their dirty clothes, that wild little imp would be dancing to the music coming from the stores or running around like a dust devil while her mother smiled indulgently.
Last November, Ethiopia’s prime minister Abiy Ahmed launched a military offensive against Tigray’s regional government. Nine months of atrocious conflict followed. Numerous massacres included the killing of hundreds sheltering at the Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion in Axum, a city that was once the hub of the Axumite Empire, a maritime trading power that at its apogee during the early Christian era was northeastern Africa’s greatest market.
The first time I visited Axum, I made a beeline for Our Lady Mary of Zion. Ethiopian Orthodox Christians claim it houses the Ark of the Covenant. In classic Ethiopian style (understated and underfunded), the church wasn’t much to write home about. The repository of this fabled treasure that has bewitched imaginations and inspired the first and arguably best Indiana Jones film, Raiders of the Lost Ark, was even blander: a small, dome-shaped side chapel guarded by a querulous old monk. My Indiana Jones pretensions deflating, I derived consolation from a nearby field of mysterious-looking and intricately carved memorial obelisks from the third to fourth centuries AD. The largest, some 108, lies wrecked where it fell, like Ozymandias.
At Addyegrat, a key city taken by federal forces as they closed in on the regional capital of Mekelle last November, I got to grips with ti’hilo, Tigray’s answer to Swiss fondue. Barley balls are pierced by twin-pronged carved sticks, dipped in a fiery-looking sauce and placed atop a large plate of injera, a giant gray spongy pancake-like bread whose rubbery surface serves as the platform for most Ethiopian meals. Like most meals in Ethiopia, a ceremony involving a comely young maiden attends this Tigrayan specialty: she sits by your table, rolling little balls of barley between her hands.
Federal troops also took the historic town of Adwa, the scene in 1896 of a climactic battle against the invading Italians, whose defeat made Ethiopia the only African country not to be colonized. The battle became a symbol of pan-Africanism and remains a source of enormous pride to Ethiopians. On its anniversary, I’ve seen drunken Ethiopians in the bars of Addis Ababa becoming so impassioned that foreigners take note of the nearest exit.
And then there is poor Mekelle. Many of its buildings are now pockmarked by bullets or smashed by artillery. Once lovely to visit, Mekelle’s wide, palm-lined avenues and cobbled central area of cafés and frisky bars had the feel of a laidback Mediterranean oasis. Its people embodied Garrison Keillor’s famous opening to his Prairie Home Companion radio show: ‘Welcome to Lake Wobegon, where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average.’ Those Tigray women! So stylish and bold in delicate, ankle-length white dresses with brightly embroidered patterns down the center and edges, set off by gold jewelry, hair tightly braided from the forehead in neat parallel lines that frizz out explosively beneath a white netela shawl.
Not forgetting Tigray’s topography, let me tout the haunting mesas, intimidating escarpments and barren valleys that during antiquity helped keep out foreign intruders and meant, in the words of Edward Gibbon, that ‘the Ethiopians slept near a thousand years, forgetful of the world, by whom they were forgotten’. Amid those cliff-top monasteries and rock-hewn churches I once visited there have now been further scenes of massacre. This formidable landscape, which provides endless mountain redoubts for the Tigrayan resistance, cannot be underestimated. Tigrayan forces have lately taken back the region. Having had my own crack at dealing with insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan, I wouldn’t envy anyone fighting in that terrain against a tenacious, vigorous people defending their beloved homeland. But who knows what comes next?
“The severity and scale of the sexual crimes committed are particularly shocking, amounting to war crimes and possible crimes against humanity.”
“All of these forces from the very beginning, everywhere, and for a long period of time felt it was perfectly OK with them to perpetrate these crimes because they clearly felt they could do so with impunity, …. it is intended to humiliate both the women and their Tigrayan ethnic group but described the violence as some of the worst she had ever seen.”
Hundreds of women and girls have been gang-raped, subjected to genital mutilation and weeks of sexual slavery by Ethiopian soldiers, Amnesty International has revealed.
Drawing from interviews with 63 survivors, the report sheds new light on a scourge already being investigated by Ethiopian law enforcement officials, with at least three soldiers convicted and 25 others charged.
Some survivors said they had been gang-raped while held captive for weeks on end. Others described being raped in front of their family members.
And some reported having objects including nails and gravel inserted into their vaginas, ‘causing lasting and possibly irreparable damage’, Amnesty said.
‘It’s clear that rape and sexual violence have been used as a weapon of war to inflict lasting physical and psychological damage on women and girls in Tigray,’ said Amnesty’s secretary general Agnes Callamard.
‘Hundreds have been subjected to brutal treatment aimed at degrading and dehumanizing them.
‘The severity and scale of the sexual crimes committed are particularly shocking, amounting to war crimes and possible crimes against humanity.’
The BBC has heard new reports of ethnic cleansing in Tigray, in northern Ethiopia amid growing concern that the conflict is entering a dangerous new stage. Tigrayan forces are continuing to extend their control over the region, prompting the Ethiopian government to warn it may end its unilateral ceasefire and to mobilise forces from nearby Amhara and other parts of the country. The likely next flashpoint is in western Tigray, currently controlled by Amhara forces. BBC Africa correspondent Andrew Harding has this report from the border with neighbouring Sudan.
This is an English translation of the genocidal call that was broadcast by the Ethiopian Satellite Television (ESAT) on August 6, 2016.
Urgent call to the people of Ethiopia from the Entire Amhara people in Gondar
To the Ethiopian Satellite Television and Radio Washington DC, USA; Amsterdam, Netherlands, Oromia Media Network Washington DC, USA
Re: A call to reclaim our freedom, which we have been unable to regain peacefully, through whatever forceful measure necessary
On August 5, The Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) which the Ethiopian people have been struggling against for the past 25 years in the hopes that they would learn from their mistakes and injustices have on August 5, 2016, have deployed their usual ploy and crossed Soreka and Sanja passes at night, assigned their own cadres as guards, and launched a campaign to massacre and exterminate us.
The campaign aimed to frighten the people of Gondar, who have become a headache to them, and stop the struggle that is gaining momentum in the country. However, the heroic people of Gondar came out en masse to encircle the cadres and protect the people and their surroundings. We thank our region’s riot police and militia, who stood by our side by ignoring the orders of this brutal, oppressive minority group; it was a great source of strength for us.
Dear people of Ethiopia,
As you can see, our struggle is not like the typical struggle between a so-called oppressive government and oppressed people as occurs across the world. The struggle is between those who wish to destroy our race and rule over us and the rest of us Ethiopians whose misery has been unending. This is evidenced by the war waged against the people of Gonder by Tigrayan soldiers.
We have also received information that there is an arrogant and contemptful plan to use Tigrayan only forces to take control of Amhara, the vast Oromo, and Southern Ethiopia by controlling two roads:
starting from the Arassa Lasta through Belesa to the South Gondar and then West and East Gojjam using the Temben-Sekota-Lalibela road,
from Muketuri to Selalie using the Temben-Sekota-Lalibela road
North Shoa using the Dessie-Addis Ababa road
Dear people of Ethiopia,
This deadly plot is aimed at 95 million people by 5 million by using unconscionable villains and political sell-outs such as Hailemariam Desalegn and his likes. It is also unfortunate that the 5 million are serving and being used by ten or so leaders at the top and those close to 10,000 around them.
Ethiopians have been begging in various ways for these well-to-do Tigrayans to join the struggle and fight for peace. If that is not possible, we have been urging Tigrayans to distance themselves and show those at the top that they are on their own. However, instead of heeding our request, they have demonstrated their allegiance to them and engaged in psychological warfare to ridicule and humiliate us. What we have gained so far from this is death and humiliation.
Our 25 years of peaceful protests have not resulted in anything. So, what are we waiting for? Are we waiting for them to finish us off one by one? From now on, it is foolish and naive to expect any solutions through dialogue.
Whether we like it or not, there is only one option: pay them back in their own coin and use force to restore our freedom. One way of getting rid of rotten fish is to drain the sea.
Dear people of Ethiopia,
There is no doubt that pent-up frustration after patiently waiting for the right thing can only result in remarkable things. Therefore, we call on all of you, wherever you are – without any hesitation, – to start taking action as follows:
To all Ethiopians in the Amhara Region: You must block roads to Tigray to stop TPLF’s movements. First, Tigray to Addis Ababa road via Dessie. Second, from Woldiya to Wereta; from Shire to Gondar; from Humera to Gondar; and from Metema to Gondar, just like the now blocked roads around Gonder. All of you must come out and block every road to Tigray using stones and tree trunks to stop TPLF’s movement.
To our people in Afar: You must block the roads to Tigray, such as the Wiiha-Shekhit-Afdera road, as well as the roads that take to Asayita using stones and tree trunks to stop TPLF’s movements
To all Ethiopians serving in the army: We do not need to tell you that you did not join the military to serve ten or so tyrannical Tigrayan leaders, a few traitors from our region, to ensure Tigrayan hegemony. Therefore, if possible, take military action against those on the top of the command serving as your superiors. If not, stay at home until you’ve understood the truth because when you do so, we want you alive and to join us because you are our brothers and sisters. We understand your agony and dilemma.
To all Ethiopians: What we have gained through our peaceful struggle has been arrest, beating, death, and losing our race. Therefore, we have to collectively say ‘enough’ and decide that this should stop. Thus, the measures we take to protect ourselves are natural and legal. Therefore, we request Ethiopians to accept our call and stand with us.
💭 One of the worst massacres of the civil war in Ethiopia took place on sacred ground: precisely in a city where Christians believe the ten commandments given by God to Moses are kept.
Addis Ethiopia Weblog 