Posted by addisethiopia / አዲስ ኢትዮጵያ on May 6, 2021
Biden’s Brewing Problem in Ethiopia
War broke out in the Tigray region of Ethiopia in November. Five months later, the scale of the carnage, destruction, and destabilisation is becoming evident.
The spark for the fighting was an attack on army bases by soldiers loyal to the region’s ruling Tigray People’s Liberation Front which was at odds with the federal government headed by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed. But wars don’t happen overnight: the European Union, International Crisis Group, and many others issued warnings. Most worryingly, Eritrea — with whom Prime Minister Abiy had made a much-heralded peace agreement in 2018 — had a scarcely-hidden war plan.
Abiy’s initial goal was cutting the TPLF down to size. But his coalition partners’ war aims appear to go much further. For Eritrea’s President Isaias Afwerki, the aim is nothing less than the extermination of any Tigrayan political or economic capability. For the militia from the neighboring Amhara region it is a land grab — described by the U.S. State Department as “ethnic cleansing.”
For the first month, the Trump administration endorsed the war, backing up Abiy’s depiction of it as a domestic “law enforcement operation” and praising Eritrea for ‘restraint’ — at a time when divisions of the Eritrean army had poured over the border and reports of their atrocities were already filtering out.
The Biden administration is building a sensible policy — but is hampered by the slow process of putting its senior team in place. Secretary of State Antony Blinken made reasonable demands. President Biden dispatched Senator Chris Coons to convey how seriously Washington is taking the crisis. A special envoy for the Horn of Africa — reported to be the senior diplomat Jeffrey Feldman — is due to be appointed, short-cutting the process of confirming an Assistant Secretary of State for Africa. The new USAID Director Samantha Power, a passionate advocate of action against mass atrocity, is awaiting confirmation.
The Ethiopian government is providing just enough of a plausible impression of compliance to postpone or dilute effective action
But Biden’s approach is not working. To be precise, the Ethiopian government is providing just enough of a plausible impression of compliance to postpone or dilute effective action.
Blinken’s first demand was that Eritrean forces should withdraw. This pushed Abiy — after months of dissembling — to admit that the Eritrean army was actually present and that he would request Pres. Isaias to pull them back. Abiy’s problem is that if Eritrea withdraws, he loses Tigray: the Tigrayan resistance would overwhelm his depleted army. Isaias is a veteran operator and he has prepared for this: his security agents and special forces are now so strategically placed inside Ethiopia that Abiy’s fragile government would be endangered if he withdrew.
Second, the U.S. insisted on a ceasefire and political negotiations. This is essential to stop the battlefield slaughter — thousands were killed in combat in March—and the ongoing scorched earth campaign that is reducing Tigray’s economy to the stone age. But Abiy rejected this. He and Isaias appear determined to try one more offensive to vanquish the Tigrayan Defense Forces. What they fail to see is that inflicting atrocities only stiffens the resolve of the Tigrayans to fight back. Speaking on April 3 Abiy belatedly conceded that a “difficult and tiresome” guerrilla war is in prospect — but he has made no mention of peace talks.
Third, Blinken demanded unfettered humanitarian access for international relief agencies to provide food and medicine for to the starving. He might have added, without a pause in the fighting, farmers cannot prepare their lands for cultivation. The agricultural cycle brooks no delay: ploughing needs to begin soon, before the rains come in June. If there’s no harvest this year, hunger will deepen.
The World Food Program and international agencies are reaching about 1.2 million of the 4.5 million people estimated to need emergency relief. But there are reports that as soon as food is distributed, soldiers sweep through and take it from civilians at gunpoint. The aid effort is, at the moment, too little and too late.
Last, there should be an independent investigation into reports of atrocities, which the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights has begun, but in partnership with the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission. This has the drawback that it’s unrealistic to expect the staff of an Ethiopian government body—whatever their personal integrity—to withstand the personal pressure that the authorities will put on them. And many Tigrayans will automatically reject their findings as biased.
The United States has other policies in this complicated mix too. Last year, the Treasury took on the task of trying to mediate in the Nile Waters dispute between Ethiopia and Egypt. Abiy inherited a huge dam, under construction on the Blue Nile, from his predecessors. It’s a point of national pride, the centrepiece of Ethiopia’s development. Egypt sees any upstream state controlling the Nile waters as an existential threat.
To protect the “Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam” project, Ethiopia’s ministry of foreign affairs had constructed a coalition of African riparian states, which isolated Egypt and minimised the danger of direct confrontation.
Abiy upended this: 18 months ago he went into direct talks with Egyptian president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who invited the United States to mediate — confident that the Trump administration would lean his way. Sudan, the other party to the talks, had no option but to line up with Cairo and Washington. By the time he had realised his error, Abiy was stuck, and the scenario foreseen by his diplomats was unfolding: Ethiopia was the one isolated as Egypt pressed home its advantage and the United States suspended some aid. Since then the talks have repeatedly broken down, with each side escalating its rhetoric.
The African peace and security order lies wrecked
To compound the error, in preparing for his assault on Tigray, Abiy antagonised Sudan. A few days before the war, he asked Sudanese leader General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan to seal the Sudanese border. He hadn’t anticipated that this would trample over a delicate live-and-let-live border agreement, whereby the Sudanese allowed Ethiopian farmers to cultivate land inside their territory. They were ethnic Amharas. In sealing the frontier, the Sudanese troops drove those villagers out — enraging the powerful Amhara regional government and igniting a needless border conflict.
To complicate the picture still further, Isaias’s planned axis of autocracy extends through Ethiopia to Somalia. A painstaking process of stabilising and reconstructing Somalia is imperiled by President Mohamed Farmajo’s failure to agree an electoral timetable with the opposition, and refusal to step down when his term of office expired in February. Farmajo’s special presidential forces have been trained in Eritrea and many Somalis believe that he plans to use them to impose a military solution on his rivals.
The African peace and security order lies wrecked. The African Union has failed to act. Ethiopian diplomacy and pressure (the organisation’s headquarters are in Addis Ababa) has kept Ethiopia’s war and Eritrea’s destabilisation of the wider region off the AU agenda. Abiy rebuffed African mediators and convinced enough of his fellow African leaders that it was a purely domestic affair to prevent an African consensus position against the war.
At the centre of the chaos is Abiy, at every turn he has blundered
In turn, Africa’s inaction gave a green light to Russia and China to threaten to veto any resolution at the UN Security Council. Last month, the U.S. tried and failed this route. This passes the baton to the U.S. and Europe acting alone — at the G7 last week and next week at the Spring meetings of the World Bank and IMF.
At the centre of this chaos is Abiy. At every turn he has blundered. He has overpromised, mistaken image for reality, made needless enemies and locked himself into dangerous alliances. Those who once embraced his rhetoric of reform and peacemaking are looking naïve at best. He’s not a consensus-builder, rather an agent of polarisation. Perhaps most significantly for the incoming U.S. diplomatic team, the Ethiopian leader has demonstrated an explosive combination of hubris and poor judgement that make him an unreliable interlocutor — sitting atop a fragile country of 110 million people in a volatile region.
There’s no obvious solution: it’s a problem from hell.
Posted by addisethiopia / አዲስ ኢትዮጵያ on May 6, 2021
Delegation members have met some of the refugees who have fled across the border to escape the conflict in neighbouring Tigray at Um Rakuba camp in Sudan’s Gadarif state.
Posted by addisethiopia / አዲስ ኢትዮጵያ on April 25, 2021
With the humanitarian crisis in Tigray getting worse every day, humanitarian organizations and leaders of the western world (US, EU, Germany, etc.) and world bodies (G-7, UN, etc.) have been despairing to find a workable solution to the problem. Torn between taking too strong an action against Ethiopia and meeting the demands of the people of Tigray in their suffering, they have yet to find the elusive balancing act they are seeking. While all the balancing act does is provide the illusion of a coming resolution, it neglects the fact that in this humanitarian crisis time is everything.
Sadly, the three partners-in-crime (Ethiopian, Eritrean and Amhara leaders) are maximally exploiting the time ‘in between’ to execute their mission: first by delaying the withdrawal of Eritrea as much as they can; and, second, by conducting an all-out assault within that extended but limited time. The first requires diplomatic maneuverings to convince the West that they are complying with its demands; and the second requires an expedited, enlarged and widened war-and-famine campaign on the ground.
What is odd about the West’s response so far is that even as it puts pressure on Ethiopia, it completely bypasses Eritrea in its punitive approach—that is, even when the main issue is the withdrawal of its troops. Odd as it may seem, it has outsourced that task to Ethiopia, the partner-in-crime of Eritrea. There is no doubt more should be done in pressuring Ethiopia to make it comply with the West’s demands, but the shortest route to resolving this crisis happens to be through Asmara. And this is not meant to seek the Isaias regime’s agency, but to enforce the denial thereof.
Eritrea remains to be the most indispensable party in the military and humanitarian crisis in Tigray as well as in the wider regional crisis. Thus, forcing out Eritrea of the tripartite alliance would be the beginning of peace not only in Ethiopia, but also in the region.
So where has the West gone wrong? The idea that somehow it would be easier to convince Abiy than Isaias is the faulty premise upon which the West has been building its diplomatic edifice. To the contrary, it is easier to convince Isaias to withdraw his troops, if it only knows how to speak his language. He would comply with the demand of the West if the threat happens to be real. The problem is, through his dealings with the West for the last 30 years, he is able to sense when such a threat is harmless, late-coming or bogus.
Genocide to the rescue of Abiy and Isaias in their failed war campaign
Ethiopia seems to be dead set not to let aid reach the neediest people in Tigray. Now that it has realized it cannot win the war against TDF (Tigray Defense Forces) any time soon, it has put all its hopes on the emerging genocide to deliver it a victory. Already, at the initial stages of this genocide, massive ethnic cleansing, the displacement of millions and the killings of tens of thousands of civilians have taken place. The almost total destruction of the health system is meant to guarantee, at minimum, tens of thousands more victims. And the impeding famine is meant to deliver hundreds of thousands more victims in the final stage of that genocide.
Among Ethiopian nationalists, cooperating with the outside world to alleviate the suffering of the people of Tigray is taken as self-defeating. If even millions have to die for ‘Ethiopia to continue’ (as Abiy and Amhara nationalists love to put it), then the people of Tigray would have to be sacrificed—so goes the convoluted logic of the genocidal mind that is tragically dominating the political discourse in today’s Ethiopia. Sadly, the Ethiopian elite are becoming comfortable with the necropolis state they have been building; and death and displacement in huge proportions are getting normalized among the general population.
Similarly, the Eritrean government is unwilling to withdraw from Tigray without a fight. It is willing to test the will of the world, in general, and that of the US, in particular, before it relents. It too has put all its eggs in the same basket as Abiy’s. Isaias keenly realizes a premature withdrawal from Tigray will be the beginning of his end. Having gambled big time in this war, now he is afraid that Eritrea itself may soon turn into a battle ground. As the Isaias regime’s ‘last and final’ military offensive in Tigray seems to go nowhere, it too is counting on the genocide to deliver it a victory.
As the world is catching up in getting the greater picture of the Tigray crisis, it has become louder in demanding Eritrea’s withdrawal from Tigray. At least on that point, a consensus across the Atlantic seems to be emerging. But the incremental pressure on Ethiopia to enforce such a withdrawal it has adopted is not working. And this is mainly due to the West’s poor understanding of the nature of the genocidal beast they are dealing with; namely, Abiy.
A wedge between Abiy and Isaias that doesn’t exist
So far, the West’s strategy seems to be based on a false premise: on a distinction between Abiy and Isaias.
Various versions of this alleged distinction have been aired: that Isaias has been a bad influence on Abiy, but that the latter freed from the influence of the former would still be salvageable; or that Abiy is childish, but not the monster that the war and the humanitarian crisis portray him to be; or that he is comparatively young leader and still impressionable, but one that, with enough pressure, could still return to his reform days; or that he has blundered a number of times, but still remains indispensable to the unity of Ethiopia; etc. The Nobel Peace Prize has added one more layer—that of a ‘man of peace’—to an already multi-layered confusion.
This untenable distinction happens to be invoked both among dubious analysts, who strain to find a vindicating angle whenever writing about Abiy, and among sincere ones, who otherwise are appalled by the humanitarian crisis in Tigray.
The strained attempt to humanize Abiy is to be seen in almost every report the ICG (International Crisis Group) produces. Legitimizing the above mentioned distinction, it writes, “Getting Eritrean forces out may not be easy, given Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki’s apparent determination to crush the Tigrayan leadership, but Ethiopia’s foreign partners should hold Abiy to his pledge that these forces will leave.” Notice how Abiy is made to lack “the apparent determination to crush the Tigrayan leadership” despite him being loud and clear about it being his top priority a number of times. The ICG needs that fabricated distinction to make Abiy’s ‘pledge’ plausible.
Further, in its reports, ICG’s worry over what may happen if Eritreans troops leave Tigray remains as palpable as any Ethiopian nationalist’s, betraying the sincerity and purpose of the distinction between Abiy and Isaias it invokes. In one of its reports, it has suggested that the Abiy government “should curtail [instead of total withdrawal] the Amhara and Eritrean troop presences and let aid flow”. Another deceptive phrase it uses in the same briefing is for the government to “roll back Eritrean deployments”, hinting that it should be gradual rather than immediate.
Alex de Waal, who is earnestly worried about the developments in Tigray, also writes, “Abiy’s initial goal was cutting the TPLF down to size. But his coalition partners’ war aims appear to go much further.” No such distinction has ever existed; Abiy desperately wants what his partners-in-crime want: the total destruction of Tigray and the ethnic cleansing of Tigrayans from Amhara-annexed areas. When it comes to Tigray, Abiy has shown his genocidal tendencies soon after he came to power. His hate over everything Tigray or Tigrayan has been on exhibit from his early days as Prime Minister, something that the Amhara elite quickly realized and latched onto. How is it that Western analysts who know the region fail to see now what the Amhara nationalists saw early in the game?
Based on this faulty premise, Western governments (especially the EU and US) have adopted a strategy of creating a wedge between Abiy and Isaias. Their entire effort has been on how to convince Abiy to abandon Isaias—to evict Eritrean troops from Tigray—and to work for the return of peace not only in Tigray, but also in the wider region. The US has adopted the most quixotic approach: every time it fails in getting its message through, it keeps changing the messenger. This way, it has managed to keep its faith in Abiy intact.
But Abiy is not a fool when it comes to maintaining his political interests. He knows that his fate is now irrevocably tied to that of Isaias; if the despot of Asmara goes, so does he. If Eritrean troops withdraw from Tigray, he knows the Ethiopian army will find it hard to keep fighting for long. Under such a scenario, his only choice would be to settle for peace, one that would probably require his eventual resignation. But there is no such nobleness in him that would make him abandon his ambition for the sake of the nation. The only way he could end up doing that is if he is forced to, either through defeat at the battle ground or through the forced withdrawal of Eritrea by the outside world.
Thus, the world has gotten the logical order wrong. Per impossible, the world is trying to convince Abiy to agree to the withdrawal of Eritrean troops from Tigray. Instead, what it should do is enforce the withdrawal of Eritrean troops on its own and then ask Abiy to come to the negotiation table. That is, it is necessary to weaken Abiy first before he is made to accept a truce. Those who are proposing a ceasefire now may have goodwill on their side, but not good judgement; for they are attempting to do the impossible.
It is not surprising then that Abiy has been plotting with Isaias to make it seem as if such a wedge does indeed exist—that is, as if he is salvageable.
Consequences of US statements if not followed by action
President Biden doesn’t seem to realize his mere being in the White House, let alone his statements, has unintended consequences on the people of Tigray. The main reason why the two leaders—Abiy Ahmed of Ethiopia and Isaias Afwerki of Eritrea—are rushing to finalize the war in Tigray is the change of leadership in the White House.
Anticipating the Biden administration’s move, Abiy and Isaias finalized a ‘last and final’ offensive they hoped would deliver a knockout blow to TDF just after Biden moved to the White House. With Eritrea’s expanded presence, that final offensive is now being waged all over Tigray. And as Eritrea finds itself bogged down in all fronts, it has been increasing its presence by tens of thousands. The influx of soldiers from Eritrea to Tigray has not stopped till this day, with the mobilization of the last kind—women, child-soldiers, and retired men included—being scraped from the hollowed-out population of Eritrea.
It is by that much then that the Isaias regime has been heeding Biden’s warning.
But the point is that this expedited, enlarged and extended campaign is coming with huge consequences to the people of Tigray. Besides the usual ravages of the war, the unusual brutalities of the three armies mean daily massacres, thousands of rapes, burnings of villages, large-scale lootings, massive displacements, etc. Isaias is a desperate man; hence, his kitchen sink approach, throwing everything he has at the TDF (and the people of Tigray)—and all of this because he feels the Biden administration will not tolerate it for long.
So, it is essential to understand that for Isaias and Abiy this is a do-or-die mission. The total war conducted against Tigray with genocide as its ultimate goal is the wish of these two leaders. Any measure that the West entertains should take this as given.
Expedited ethnic cleansing
Another unintended consequence is the Amhara forces’ reaction: alarmed by the US’ warning for them to withdraw from Tigray, they have been expediting their ethnic cleansing at a massive level.
Secretary Blinken’s demand that the Amhara forces move out from Tigray was made with the aim of stopping the massive ethnic cleansing that has been going on in West Tigray—hundreds of thousands—in the four months since the start of the war. Yet, that very demand became a further reason to evict tens of thousands of Tigrayans more. These evictions are always accompanied with gross atrocities, not only with the intention of chasing out ethnic Tigrayans but also Tigrayan ethnicity from that area. Mass rape and the prohibition of Tigrinya language are meant to put a final dagger at the heart of the Tigrayan identity. Those who have been evicted have been repeating the glee with which the Amhara nationalists have been forcing them out of their homes, “Now we will see if America is going to save you!”
But this is not simply vindictive hate at work; there is a well thought out plan behind it. This is done with active collaboration from the Abiy government, with the intention of creating facts on the ground. Even as he claims that the incorporation of these lands into Amhara shouldn’t be done by force (meaning that he has no problem if it is done through ‘legal’ means), he has never opposed the actual ethnic cleansing—not even a word! And now, he has created a commission to eventually legalize the forced annexation. That is to say, it is with the full blessing of the Abiy government that the ethnic cleansing has been going on.
Having now established facts on the ground through terror and decrees, there is no doubt that eventually the Abiy government will claim that the Amhara forces cannot be asked to withdraw because these lands are officially located outside of Tigray. Part of the plan is, after having squeezed Tigray to a manageable size, to make it impossible for it to come to the negotiation table.
These new ‘facts on the ground’ will thus be a precondition for rendering Tigray as the belligerent party, and a sinister way of keeping the wedge theory alive. The ICG has notoriously proposed the land disputes between Amhara and Tigray should be assessed by “a federal boundary commission”—that is, literally by Abiy himself, since there is no such independent body that could adjudicate such a case in Ethiopia. To think that a nation at a time its genocidal hysteria has reached its highest level could be fair to Tigray could only come from an organization that is trying to save the Abiy administration no matter what.
Anyway, the point is again: if a statement made by the strongest nation on earth is not followed up with action, it creates unintended consequences to the very victims that statement is meant to help. If so, what is it that should follow up now, given the damage already done?
The answer is: focus on Eritrea. It would be a shortcut to all this mess.
Why focus on Eritrea?
Why should the world focus on Eritrea? Because Eritrea is the linchpin that holds it all together, be it in the military, humanitarian or regional crisis.
First, there is no way the Abiy government could defeat the Tigray forces without Eritrea’s help since it remains the backbone of the tripartite alliance. And now, with tens of thousands of Eritrean troops spreading to all corners of Tigray, the Abiy government’s dependence on Eritrea has become complete. Yet, even with all this support, the chance of winning the war is getting slimmer by the day. So, the best way Abiy could be coaxed towards the peace table is only if he sees the war option as impossible to attain; and that could be done sooner than later, and with certainty, only if Eritrea is forced to withdraw from Tigray.
Second, Eritrea’s share in creating the humanitarian crisis—this ongoing genocide—in Tigray is huge. That is to say, it is equally indispensable in creating the humanitarian disaster that is unfolding in Tigray; in fact, it pioneered all the atrocities used in generating and facilitating this genocide.
It is no surprise that the Eritrean troops’ main targets to destroy and loot happen to be health centers, food supplies, livelihoods, universities and schools, worship places, historical sites and factories and businesses. Nothing should be left to chance: the totality of Tigray—its body, mind, spirit, history, industriousness, continuity and material possession—should be attacked. Within five months, this total war has achieved a spectacular success in creating the conditions for genocide. Already, there are 2.5 million IDPs and 4.5 million are believed in dire need of food aid, a huge share of this being accomplished by Eritrean troops. Already, 50 to 100 deaths per day due to starvation are taking place, these numbers being hints of the coming famine.
The absurdity of the West’s response to the humanitarian crisis without factoring in Eritrea’s (and Amhara’s) genocidal behavior can be seen in the ever-worsening crisis, as exemplified in the increasing number of IDPs. As the West is trying to meet the needs of the displaced and impoverished people, the three armies are doing their utmost to increase those numbers. With the Eritrean army now spreading all over Tigray, it is repeating all the horrors it has accomplished in northern Tigray. Lately, it is getting bolder: it is blocking trucks loaded with food aid from reaching their destination areas. It becomes a futile game where the West increases its help while the Eritrean army does its utmost to increase the misery, thereby creating a crisis that needs further help. USAID’s ever-increasing help follows this pattern.
But that is not all; while the world is preoccupied with addressing this crisis, Eritrea is already planning ahead for next year’s famine. The Eritrean troops have been killing and looting oxen and donkeys and destroying all kinds of farming tools (yoke, plough, etc.) everywhere they go, depriving peasants of the means with which to plough their farmlands. And, lately, they have been more brazen about their evil intention: they have been directly preventing farmers from ploughing or working on their fields—again, with the making of next year’s famine in mind. To talk about helping these peasants (as the West is doing) while a diabolical enemy is undoing what is being done and plotting to undo the future is the height of absurdity. First, that diabolical enemy will have to be removed from Tigray’s landscape for any aid to make a difference in the lives of Tigrayans, be it now or in the near future.
Thus, with the withdrawal of Eritrean troops, the huge humanitarian crisis the Eritrean occupation has generated would come to an end. And if done in time, the apocalypse of the genocide—at least, to the scope the three partners-in-crime have in mind—might even be averted. That, by itself, would be a monumental achievement.
Third, the mere presence of Eritrean troops everywhere in Tigray, and the genocidal horror that follows them wherever they go, has become a further reason why the Addis Ababa government doesn’t want to allow foreign entities (from humanitarian organizations to journalists) into much of Tigray. So far, the camouflages the Abiy government is coming up with are not working. It has been dressing up the Eritrean troops with Ethiopian military uniforms, even as their famous shida (sandals)—without which they can neither fight nor run—and their emaciated bodies keep betraying them. It has even tried to hide them, moving whole battalions around in a hide-and-seek game with journalists and aid workers. That is one of the major reasons why little of the aid has reached Eritrea-occupied areas.
Besides, even if food aid is allowed to enter areas occupied by Eritrean troops (and, in some cases, it already has), it doesn’t necessarily mean that the needy party will get it. The world can be assured the aid that reaches the most affected areas won’t be stolen only if the chronically looting Eritrean army is gone for good.
Thus, with the withdrawal of Eritrean troops, this bottleneck that is keeping millions on the verge of starvation would be totally gone.
And, last, this focus on Eritrea should also have a long-range aspect to it, since much of the problem in the region is instigated by its vindictive leader, Isaias Afwerki. For a long time now, Isaias has found out the only way he could remain relevant in the region is by involving the nation in multiple confrontations. Once, in a 2009 article, I wrote:
“The only good thing about Isaias is that he has never been a nationalist, but armed with his super-size ego this quality turns into a disaster for his ambition recognizes no borders. The problem with Isaias is that once he put himself in the nationalist straight jacket called ‘Eritrea’, he never managed to disentangle himself from it. He (and ghedli [the revolution]) needed to instill ultra-nationalism in his followers to be where he is now. Once he reached the goal of independence, that very ultra-nationalism became a hindrance to his insatiable ambition to be the most relevant leader in the neighborhood.”
With the coming of Abiy, Isaias found a rare opportunity to get out of that nationalist straightjacket to be relevant again; something that was eventually denied to him by Meles Zenawi. With the Tigray war, he has carved out the most indispensable role for the Eritrean army. Now, both Abiy and the Amhara nationalists depend on him for their morbid dreams to come true. If so, it is essential the evil man of Asmara be denied the relevance he actively seeks through endless confrontations—against Djibouti, Sudan, Yemen, Ethiopia, and now, Tigray—in the neighborhood. The forced withdrawal of Eritrean troops from Tigray would be the beginning of his downfall.
With that, the possibility of sandwiching Tigray between two mortal enemies (Eritrea and Amhara), a phenomenon that has been tempting genocidal elements from Ethiopia, would come to an end. Abiy (and the Amhara elite) would have never attempted to conduct total war against Tigray without having Eritrea on his side. Thus, any attempt at resolution that doesn’t include the end of the Isaias regime will fail, even if it succeeds in achieving a temporary truce between Ethiopia and Tigray. The genocidal elements will always attempt a comeback to wipe out Tigray so far as they believe Eritrea is on their side.
Time-sensitive action needed
What is needed is an action that takes the time frame within which the war-induced famine does its work into consideration.
All the steps that the world has been entertaining so far fail the time-sensitivity test. Cutting financial aid, imposing arms embargo or other sanctions, however harsh, won’t do the job because Abiy and Isaias believe they can weather any ‘sanctions’ imposed on them for a few months. They believe that is all the time they need for their dual war-and-famine strategy to deliver them a victory. After that, they believe the world would have no alternative but to accept the new reality on the ground, as usual prioritizing ‘Ethiopia’s stability’ in the region.
But the point is, whether they win or not, such an attempt is coming at a huge expense to the people of Tigray. If so, sadly, it is those who are wielding genocide as a weapon of subjugation that are heeding the time constraint, and not those powers that are alarmed by this humanitarian disaster—the EU, US, UN, G-7, etc.
What is needed is a tool that delivers in the shortest time possible. Any delay on Biden’s side to act would come at a colossal expense to the people of Tigray—as it has already done, to some extent—who will be massacred in enormous proportions because of the morbid calculations of Abiy, Isaias and Amhara leaders.
The gradual and incremental approaches that the EU and US are using to pressure Ethiopia are time-insensitive that do not take the war-and-famine strategy into consideration. So is it with the UN-led strategy: its procedural bottlenecks meant a lethal delayed action, if ever. Thus, there is a need for a strategic shift in both the enforcer and the target of the enforcement. The West (the US or EU or both—NATO) should act unilaterally to enforce the withdrawal of Eritrean troops by focusing mainly on Eritrea.
It is only by taking these two measures that the West could escape the dilemma it has created for itself, and be able to deliver on a timely basis. Eritrea should be given an ultimatum to pack its armaments and get out of Tigray. Even as aid cuts, arms embargo and other sanctions for both Ethiopia and Eritrea are welcome, the latter nation should be singled out for additional punishment.
The West could start with a no-fly-zone imposed over Eritrea, to be extended to Tigray if Ethiopia does not comply with the demands of the outside world. A no-fly-zone would not be considered as harmless as the various forms of sanctions (not when time is factored in, anyway) and as invasive as outright armed intervention. Besides giving respite to the people of Tigray, it would be taken as a serious move to be followed up by further action if not adhered to.
And as a last resort, there is one acceptable target with the least collateral damage: Isaias Afwerki himself. Targeting one of his many hiding places (they don’t even have to kill him) would bring immediate results than any other aid cuts, arms embargo or sanctions would ever deliver.
Whatever action the West takes though, the main focus should be on Eritrea, and with a big stick behind it. That is the only way the world can avoid a genocide of epic proportion, one that could easily surpass that of Rwanda.
🔥 The United Nations Says The Conflict in Northern Ethiopia’s Tigray Region is Far From Over
The United Nations says the conflict in Northern Ethiopia’s Tigray region is far from over. This is despite a claim by Ethiopian Prime Minister Abey Ahmed that troops from neighbouring country Eritrea had withdrawn from the region. The UN says the vast majority of the region’s six million people have no access to humanitarian assistance. James Elder, the spokesperson for The United Nations Children’s Fund who has just returned from Tigray, where women and children gave harrowing accounts of rape and sexual violence is on the line for more.
My Note: With there coordinated protest and riot action the Amharas & Oromos want to block humanitarian access to Tigray. This two evil entities won’t stop playing the usual demonic games until they starve millions of Tigrayans to death. They did five times in the past.
☆„The four men took turns raping her. After they were done, the militiamen inserted into her genitals a hot metal rod that burned her uterus.“
Displaced people from Ethiopia’s western Tigray region report cases of rape, looting and extrajudicial killings allegedly perpetrated by Amhara forces.
Akberet* knew she was no longer safe.
The Amhara fighters in charge of her hometown of Humera and other disputed areas of western Tigray had just ordered all Tigrayans in her neighbourhood to leave their homes within 24 hours.
“The militiamen who have been terrorising us for months,” said the 34-year-old mother of three, “told us we are not allowed to live there anymore, because we are Tigrayans. They ordered us to leave empty-handed. They said all the properties we owned belong to Amharas, not to us.”
The Amhara forces entered western Tigray from neighbouring Amhara region in support of Ethiopian federal forces in November last year, when Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed ordered an offensive against Tigray’s then-ruling party, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF). Since then, the Amhara, who are Ethiopia’s second-largest ethnic group, have taken control of several areas in the region – land, they claim, that historically has been theirs.
Akberet wasted no time after the ultimatum.
The following morning, on March 8, she fled her home on foot, her six-month-old baby strapped to her back, and her two other sons – aged four and seven – and 14-year-old brother in tow.
Some seven hours later, as they reached a bridge on Tekeze River used by the Amhara forces as an informal border between what they say is now Amhara and Tigray, four Amhara militiamen stopped them. The Amhara men separated Akberet from her children and brother and took her into an abandoned farmer’s house, just a few metres away.
The four men took turns raping her. After they were done, the militiamen inserted into her genitals a hot metal rod that burned her uterus.
“I begged them to stop,” Akberet told Al Jazeera. “I asked them, crying, why they were doing that to me. What wrong have I done to you?
“You did nothing bad to us,” she said they told her. “Our problem is with your womb. Your womb gives birth to Woyane [derogative term used to refer to the TPLF]. A Tigrayan womb should never give birth.”
After the militiamen left, Akberet was left there unconscious. Her brother went to get her, and with the help of other displaced people took her to a town to the east. “The sexual assault made her infertile,” a doctor who treated her there confirmed to Al Jazeera. Her bleeding has now stopped but Akberet, currently recuperating at a relative’s house, cannot walk and has to keep her legs spread. Sleeping at night is hard.
Hundreds of women have reported horrific accounts of rape and gang rape since the start of the conflict in Tigray nearly six months ago. Medics have reported removing nails, rocks and pieces of plastic from inside the bodies of rape victims, while the United Nations said last week women and girls in the mountainous region’s remote areas are being subjected to sexual violence “with a level of cruelty beyond comprehension”.
Healthcare workers in Tigray’s few operational clinics document new cases on a daily basis, despite fearing reprisals and attacks, according to Pramila Patten, the top UN official on sexual violence in conflict. The cases reported have involved Ethiopian soldiers and allied Eritrean troops, as well as Amhara fighters and other members of irregular armed groups or aligned militia.
In the regional capital, Mekelle, doctors at the Ayder Referral Hospital said the number of rape cases on April 1 stood at 272. Within one week, it had jumped to 330.
“Overall, 829 women have reported sexual assault to major hospitals of Tigray. The figure was 518 on April 1,” said Hayelom Kebede, chief executive director of Ayder Referral Hospital.
Doctors fear, however, the true number is much higher, suspecting there are many unreported cases as fighting continues and large parts of Tigray remain inaccessible.
Since December, three other women from the contested areas of western Tigray have reported suffering the same fate as Akberet, doctors said. In northern Tigray, troops from neighbouring Eritrea have also been accused of committing similar acts of gang rape and torture.
“On February 22, our hospital received an emergency call that a 21-year-old girl was gang-raped and found dumped in Edaga Hamus,” said Hayelom, who is currently out of Ethiopia but is in regular contact with his staff. “The report was that Eritrean soldiers had burned her external and internal genital parts using a match and hot metal rod. We could not send an ambulance immediately because of security issues. Later, the communication was lost. Perhaps the girl has died,” he added.
Thousands of people are believed to have been killed in the conflict, while some 4.5 million are in need of humanitarian assistance.
According to Tigray’s federal government-appointed interim administration, there are 1.7 million internally displaced people in the region, an estimated 60 percent of whom are from the disputed areas of western Tigray.
But Etenesh Nigusse, spokeswoman of the interim government, told Al Jazeera that displacement is ongoing. “On a daily basis, we are receiving new cases of forceful displacements from the contested areas of western Tigray,” she said.
In late March, the head of the interim government told Reuters news agency that western Tigray “is occupied by the Amhara militias and special forces, and they are forcing the people to leave their homes”. Mulu Nega also accused Amhara of taking advantage of the precarious situation in Tigray to annex the contested territories, saying “those who are committing this crime should be held accountable.”
Sixty-five-year-old Medhin*, a restaurant owner in Humera, was among those forced to flee. She said five Amhara militiamen broke into her house at night on February 27 and threatened to kill her if she did not leave the area.
But the men did not stop there, according to Medhin. They raped her two daughters, aged 24 and 28, in front of her.
“They beat my daughters after the gang rape. They beat them in their genitals,” she told Al Jazeera. “They ordered me to leave the place. They took everything I owned. They threatened me to write for them a money check.”
The account of rape could not be independently verified but other displaced people sheltering at the same place confirmed to Al Jazeera that Medhin’s daughters had difficulties walking.
Last month, United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken asserted that “ethnic cleansing” has taken place in western Tigray, and called for the withdrawal of Eritrean and Amhara forces from the region. According to a UN Commission of Experts, ethnic cleansing refers to a purposeful policy designed to forcefully remove a civilian population from certain geographic areas by violent and terror-inspiring means, including murder, torture, arrests, rape and sexual assaults.
Al Jazeera spoke to 11 people from western Tigray who described different methods used by Amhara militias and Fano – an Amhara armed youth group – in the western Tigray areas they control.
At times, they have involved the Amhara militiamen giving Tigrayans a 24-hour notice to leave. In other instances, Tigrayans were ordered to accept a new identity card marking them as Amhara instead of Tigrayans, or leave. Some also reported being arrested and arbitrarily detained.
“On February 16, they came to our house and told us we should leave the place; that Humera is under the Amhara region and that they don’t need Tigrayans,” said Negisti*, a 40-year-old displaced woman who used to live with her mother in Humera.
“They arrested my mother. She is a 67-year-old who already suffers from kidney disease. Before they began arresting, they were issuing Amhara IDs to some Tigrayans. But later they said they stopped issuing IDs,” said Negisti, who left Humera after her mother was released from her week-long detention.
Tsgay*, an Ethiopian Orthodox Christian priest, was arrested twice before he decided to flee Humera on March 24 after learning about the extrajudicial killing of four people he knew, including a neighbour whose slaughtered body he said he had seen.
“They looted everything these dead men owned,” the father of three told Al Jazeera. “I started to fear for my life. At night, they always come and fire guns. They don’t have a ruler. They kill, rape, loot and do whatever they like. I preferred to flee than live in terror.”
Al Jazeera reached out to Amhara regional state President Agegnehu Teshager and his predecessor Temesgen Tiruneh, now director-general of Ethiopia’s National Intelligence Security Service, for comment about the allegations against the Amhara militia in western Tigray. Neither responded.
Eritrea has denied the allegations of rape and other crimes levelled against its soldiers as “outrageous” and “a vicious attack on the culture and history of our people”.
