Un informe de Amnistía Internacional y Human Right’s Watch denuncia una operación sistemática y altamente organizada para vaciar la zona de ciudadanos tigriñas. Se calcula que unas 700.000 personas han sido expulsadas de su tierra en esta región de Etiopía
Las masacres de civiles, el hambre obligada, las violaciones en grupo. Lo ocurrido en el oeste de Tigray trasciende los horrores de cualquier guerra: esa violencia extrema sedimentada en el caos y los círculos viciosos de crueldad y venganza. Más que producto de la impunidad y la sangre caliente, los excesos encajan en una campaña diseñada para expulsar a los tigriñas de su tierra. Para limpiar étnicamente esta fértil área y repoblarla con oriundos de Amhara, extensa región al sur de Tigray. Este es el principal hallazgo de un reciente informe con título explícito: We will erase you from this land (Os borraremos de esta tierra).
Los investigadores de Amnistía Internacional y Human Rights Watch fueron atando cabos mientras entrevistaban a los tigriñas que, poco después del inicio del conflicto, empezaron a llegar a Sudán. Vetadas en Etiopía, ambas organizaciones han tenido que conformarse con los testimonios –recogidos durante más de un año– de 400 refugiados que abandonaron su país rumbo al oeste. Material suficiente para concluir, sin fisuras de duda, que en Tigray occidental se ha orquestado una operación sistemática de limpieza étnica. “No son solo crímenes de guerra, sino crímenes contra la humanidad, los más graves, según la legislación internacional. Es otro nivel”, afirma Jean-Baptiste Gallopin, investigador de Amnistía Internacional y coautor del estudio.
La intrincada red de culpables –y las dificultades para tejerla con precisión– revelan la complejidad de la guerra en Tigray, un conflicto que ha ido congregando, en un campo de batalla ilimitado, a ejércitos regulares (de Etiopía, pero también de su vecina Eritrea), unidades paramilitares regionales y milicias variopintas. Todos ellos con sus respectivas cabezas pensantes, dando órdenes en la retaguardia. Y azuzando rencores identitarios, con frecuencia en torno a disputas fronterizas sin zanjar.
La investigación apunta directamente a las fuerzas especiales de Amhara y los milicianos de Fano, un grupo político-militar originario de la misma región. Pero su estrategia de terror, especifica el estudio, ha contado “con la aquiescencia y posible participación del Ejército etíope”. No se ha podido probar, hasta el momento, que los gobiernos (federal de Etiopía, regional de Amhara) hayan dictado desde sus despachos el desplazamiento de tigriñas. Aunque las férreas medidas para silenciar Tigray entero invitan a la sospecha.
“La región lleva 17 meses sin internet, y sin teléfono desde junio del pasado año. También se ha cortado la electricidad para que la gente no pueda cargar sus dispositivos y grabar o tomar fotografías”, detalla Laetitia Bader, directora de Human Rights Watch en el Cuerno de África, quien añade una lógica consecuencia: “Cuando nos reunimos con refugiados en Sudán, esperábamos que tuvieran fotos o vídeos de lo que habían presenciado; no tenían nada”. Bader explica que el Gobierno etíope sigue sin permitir el acceso de periodistas a la zona. Y da largas sine die a las peticiones de una investigación independiente sobre el terreno. “La constante es negarlo todo en un marco de minimización sobre lo ocurrido”, señala.
Posted by addisethiopia / አዲስ ኢትዮጵያ on May 7, 2021
👉 በትግራይ የሚካሄደው ጦርነት ሲጋለጥ | የዘር ማጽዳት ዘመቻ
Massacres, gang rapes, forced famine – the list of atrocities being reported in Tigray, Ethiopia is long and growing. Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed declared the military intervention officially over in November, but the situation on the ground clearly does not reflect that. And there are concerns that the situation is starting to resemble a campaign of ethnic cleansing.
👉 Please read the following sad and mind-blowing‘Reuters’ report. Tigrayans are finding themselves like Jews in Hitler’s concentration camps. Woow! Evil Abiy Ahmed’s Oromo regime just designated the so-called „Oromo Liberation Army“ „ as a terrorist entity. So, the question now is, are we going to see Oromo-lead Abiy Ahmed’s Oromo-lead regime’s crackdown on Ethnic Oromos? Are they going to arrest, suspend, dismiss and summon Oromos to camps? No! Oromos against Oromos? This will never happen, as long as they have common enemies in Tigrayans!
💭 Special Report-Ethiopia’s Crackdown on Ethnic Tigrayans Snares Thousands
☆ A priest, two women with small children and a beggar were among the detainees, the health worker said. They were arrested after showing police an identity card issued by Tigray authorities.
Police arrested Tigrayan street trader Nigusu Mahari last year as he strolled along the traffic-clogged streets of Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa. He says he was speaking on the phone in the language of his homeland, a distant region in the north.
Officers accused the broom hawker of planning a bombing, trying to overturn the constitution and working with Tigrayan rebel fighters. Nigusu professed his innocence. Six weeks later, a judge released him on bail without charge, court records show, after Reuters began inquiring about his case.
Nigusu is among thousands of Tigrayans swept up in a nationwide crackdown that started last November, when fighting erupted in Tigray between federal forces and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), the party that dominated the national government until three years ago. Tigrayans themselves are a small minority in Ethiopia’s mosaic of more than 90 ethnic groups and nationalities.
“They arrested me from the street because I spoke Tigrinya,” Nigusu, 25, told Reuters. He said he was just one of three dozen from his home region in the same jail. “I saw 35 Tigrayans, and I told myself that this is not about the TPLF. It’s about the Tigrayan people.”
Authorities did not respond to questions about Nigusu’s case. Federal police spokesman Jeylan Abdi told Reuters that if innocent people are detained, they are swiftly released. Police have caught many TPLF supporters “red-handed with firearms and ammunition,” he wrote in a text message.
Tigrayans say the government’s efforts to crush a TPLF rebellion have unleashed an ethnic witch hunt against them. Across the country, Tigrayans have been arrested, harassed, sacked or suspended from their jobs, or had their bank accounts temporarily frozen, according to bank records, letters from employers and interviews with government officials, rights groups and lawyers.
Reuters spoke to more than two dozen Tigrayans who said their careers and personal lives have been upended because of their ethnicity. They included families of Tigrayan soldiers who’ve been rounded up and put in detention camps; Tigrayan diplomats dismissed or suspended from their postings; academics barred by their universities from lecturing; Tigrayan civilians who say they were arbitrarily detained, and Tigrayan peacekeepers who sought asylum in South Sudan, fearing arrest if they returned home. Most spoke on condition of anonymity, citing concerns over their safety.
The allegations come in the wake of reports of major rights abuses in Tigray – including mass killings of civilians and gang rapes of Tigrayan women. In April, Reuters detailed accounts of women tortured and raped in conditions that a regional official described for the first time as “sexual slavery.”
Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, whose parents are from Ethiopia’s two biggest ethnic communities, has stressed that his government’s fight is with the TPLF and has called on his countrymen not to discriminate against Tigrayans as a group. His spokeswoman, Billene Seyoum, told Reuters the prime minister “spearheads a vision of a united Ethiopia with zero tolerance for discrimination based on ethnic identity.” To insinuate that suspects are arrested because of their ethnicity “is interfering in upholding the rule of law and purposely fomenting divisions,” she added.
Attorney General Gedion Timothewos said there was no government policy to “purge” Tigrayan officials. He conceded, however, that some state organizations “may have overestimated their exposure or vulnerability” to penetration by the TPLF.
“The TPLF had a huge network in Addis, so we had to err on the side of caution,” Gedion said. “I would not rule out that innocent people might be caught up in this situation.”
The at times heavy-handed response is fueling Tigrayan anger and complicating Abiy’s efforts to end the conflict in Tigray. Thousands of people have been killed and more than 1.7 million displaced.
Fighting started on Nov. 4 when, according to the government, forces loyal to the TPLF, the then-governing party in Tigray, attacked army bases in the region. The violence followed months of deteriorating relations between the TPLF and the federal government over what the party sees as discrimination against Tigrayans and attempts to centralise power – accusations the government rejects. A TPLF spokesman has denied that the group made the first strike.
Tigray is the most dramatic example of ethnic and regional tensions that are surfacing across Ethiopia, imperilling the multiethnic democracy of Africa’s second-most populous nation and a regional linchpin. Ethiopia hosts the African Union headquarters. Its security services work closely with Western intelligence against Islamist extremists. And its peacekeepers serve in Somalia, Sudan and South Sudan. More than 60,000 Tigrayan refugees have fled into neighbouring Sudan, where a long-simmering border dispute is heating up.
“With the conflict in Tigray set to continue, and many people there supporting armed resistance and even secession, the pressing challenge for the prime minister is holding the country together rather than how to further unify it,” said William Davison, an Ethiopia analyst at the International Crisis Group, a research organization that seeks to prevent deadly conflicts.
A NEW WAVE OF ARRESTS
Although a minority of nearly 6 million in the country of 109 million, Tigrayans used to dominate Ethiopia’s government, armed forces and economy. Over nearly three decades, the TPLF ruled with an iron grip. Surveillance was all pervasive – there was said to be a government informer in every street – and dissidents lived with the constant threat of arrest.
When Abiy became prime minister in 2018, he pledged democratic change and released tens of thousands of political prisoners. The intelligence apparatus was an early target for reform. Former intelligence chief Getachew Assefa, a Tigrayan, was charged with torture and killings. He has evaded capture and hasn’t publicly addressed the accusations. His whereabouts are unknown.
Other Tigrayan intelligence agents faced similar charges or were fired. Many more left the agency. Most of the few Tigrayan intelligence officers who remained were suspended in November when the fighting broke out, said two sources familiar with the agency. The intelligence agency didn’t comment for this article.
There are no national statistics on the number of Tigrayans detained on suspicion of supporting the TPLF. Gedion, the attorney general, said the number in custody in Addis Ababa peaked at around 700 in November but fell to around 300 by mid-December. He didn’t respond to a request for a more recent figure.
Tigrayans interviewed by Reuters said there was a new wave of arrests in the capital in April this year. Around 300 Tigrayans were held in a warehouse-style building on the southern outskirts of Addis Ababa, according to a health worker who said he was detained there and a lawyer with friends and family inside.
A priest, two women with small children and a beggar were among the detainees, the health worker said. They were arrested after showing police an identity card issued by Tigray authorities.
Conditions were miserable, the health worker said, with 28 to 30 people in a room. The only food was brought in by the prisoners’ relatives or by guards in return for payment. Detainees were allowed to use the bathroom only twice a day, he said, and “had to pee inside the empty plastic container of water we used.”
The health worker said he was released without charge after eight days, on April 22, along with more than 100 others. They walked free hours after Reuters sent the attorney general an email asking about the arrests and conditions inside the building. The attorney general and police didn’t respond to a request for comment about the facility.
Reuters couldn’t determine the number of people detained in Tigray itself. Regional officials said they don’t know because many people are being held by the federal police or military. The military and police didn’t respond to requests for comment.
One flashpoint for violence is the western part of Tigray, which neighbouring Amhara region claims as its own. West Tigray residents described roundups that continued into this year, in which Amhara gunmen searched for people with Tigrayan IDs and imprisoned unknown numbers of them. Amhara sent regional forces into Tigray in November to help the military fight the TPLF. Amhara authorities didn’t comment for this article. The Amhara-appointed administrator of western Tigray, Yabsira Eshetie, has said previously only criminals were detained.
TIGRAYAN SOLDIERS SUSPENDED, SUMMONED TO CAMPS
Thousands of Tigrayan soldiers have been suspended from the Ethiopian military, amid accusations that some participated in the Nov. 4 attack. Redwan Hussein, the head of a government taskforce on the Tigray crisis, said that the suspensions were to prevent sabotage and to protect Tigrayan “brothers and sisters” from possible revenge attacks.
“Because there is that mutual suspicion, it is good to let these Tigrayan forces and soldiers stay at home – for their own safety” and “for the safety of the entire esprit de corps,” he told Reuters in November. He didn’t comment on the matter further when approached for this article.
Some Tigrayan servicemen were ordered to report to camps at locations across the country, where their phones were confiscated, half a dozen soldiers and military families told Reuters.
One man told Reuters his cousin is being held at a camp in southern Ethiopia along with more than 1,500 other Tigrayan soldiers. He showed Reuters a copy of his cousin’s military identification card and a list of 12 other camps where he said soldiers are being detained. Conditions in the camps are poor and there is little food, according to relatives. The army and the government didn’t respond to requests for comment about the camps.
Brigadier General Kiddu Alemu, a Tigrayan military attache at Ethiopia’s embassy in Nairobi, was caught up in a sweep that netted 162 senior Tigrayan officers, said his lawyer, Desta Mesfin.
When the fighting erupted in Tigray, the 62-year-old general was summoned back to Addis Ababa.
“I advised him against coming back,” said Desta, “but he told me, ‘I am old, and I did nothing wrong, so I don’t have anything to hide.’”
Kiddu flew home from Kenya on Nov. 10 and was immediately put under house arrest by members of the Ethiopian military, Desta said. No explanation was given.
Then, one night in early December, six soldiers turned up at the general’s home, the lawyer said. They took Kiddu to police headquarters, where he was held in solitary confinement. Over the next two months, Kiddu made seven court appearances. On each occasion, police sought, and were granted, permission to extend his detention. Accusations levelled against him by the police included that he participated in the Nov. 4 attacks. That charge was “absurd,” said Desta, because the general was in Nairobi at the time.
On his fifth court appearance, police accused the general, without supplying evidence, of having convinced the European Union (EU) to stop funding Ethiopia and having persuaded the Ethiopian diaspora not to donate money to law enforcement operations in Tigray. The EU suspended budget support to Ethiopia worth 88 million euros ($107 million) in January over the Tigray crisis. An EU official with direct knowledge of the matter dismissed the allegations as ‘bizarre.’
Finally, on Feb. 18, a judge ruled there was no prima facie evidence against the general and granted bail for 50,000 birr ($1,237). The general’s wife paid the bail the same day. But instead of walking free, the general was transferred into military detention, at a facility outside Addis Ababa. There he remains, with the 161 other high-ranking Tigrayan military officers, according to Desta.
“I haven’t been allowed to see him or to talk to him,” said Desta. “He hasn’t appeared in a military court, even though by law he should have been brought before a judge within 48 hours of his transfer.”
None of the Tigrayan prisoners in the jail had been brought before a judge, he added. “The aim is not really to prosecute them but to prolong their detention indefinitely.”
Ethiopian authorities didn’t respond to requests for comment about Kiddu or the other officers.
A high-ranking Tigrayan military officer, with three decades of service, told Reuters he had gone into hiding to escape arrest. He said that on the day after the TPLF attack on government forces in Tigray, his superior called him to tell him he was suspended. Reuters was unable to independently confirm his account. He said similar instructions were relayed to the around 20,000 Tigrayans serving in Ethiopia’s military.
The officer said he became increasingly alarmed in the days that followed. He was disarmed, his military-issued vehicles were taken away, and Tigrayan friends began to disappear, without explanation. He was told to report to a camp on the outskirts of the capital. Afraid, he moved his family and began sleeping at a different location every night.
On Feb. 22, 15 Tigrayan peacekeepers serving in a United Nations mission in South Sudan refused to board a flight to Ethiopia when their unit’s rotation ended and requested asylum in South Sudan, according to the U.N. One of the peacekeepers told Reuters he’d served in the military for 33 years and had never been a member of the TPLF. “I feared that would happen to me if I went back. I feared for my life.” Reuters couldn’t determine whether he was granted asylum.
The peacekeeper said he’d refused to board the plane, but 17 of his colleagues had been pushed aboard. Some of them were beaten, he said; it was unclear by whom. The U.N. confirmed there had been a “scuffle” but didn’t elaborate. Ethiopia’s government and military didn’t respond to a request for comment.
A U.N. spokesman told Reuters that a further 120 Ethiopian peacekeepers with a joint African Union-United Nations mission in Sudan’s Darfur region sought international protection earlier this month before they were due to be repatriated. Most are Tigrayan, he said.
TIGRAYAN DIPLOMATS DISMISSED
The crackdown is not limited to soldiers. Tigrayan diplomats, professors, journalists and business people said they too are feeling the backlash. Some said the crackdown predates the outbreak of fighting in November.
Yohannes Abraha, an ethnic Tigrayan and former director of southern and western European affairs at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said he was dismissed several months before, part of what he described as broader moves to sideline Tigrayans. He provided a list with the names of 54 Tigrayans who he said were suspended or fired by the foreign ministry since the conflict erupted. Reuters reached three people on the list who confirmed they had been dismissed.
Redwan, the head of the government taskforce on the Tigray crisis, is also the state minister for foreign affairs. He told Reuters many Tigrayans still work for the government. Other Tigrayans hold senior posts in the judiciary and in state run enterprise.
“If there are TPLF individuals whose story seems to have a grain of truth, it won’t be because their ethnicity is from Tigray. It must be because they were suspected or found guilty of colluding with the criminal gang,” he said, referring to the TPLF.
The list of 54 Tigrayans includes Kassa Gebreyohannes Gebremichael, former deputy head of mission at the Ethiopian Embassy in Moscow. Kassa showed Reuters a Dec. 21 letter from the foreign ministry informing him he was being dismissed after failing to respond to three summons to return to Addis Ababa and present himself at the ministry. He told Reuters he feared arrest if he went home.
Kassa said he had a disagreement with the Ethiopian ambassador to Moscow over the war in Tigray, and was suspended after sharing on the embassy’s Facebook page a Russian government post calling for a peaceful solution to the conflict. The deputy military attache in Moscow and a Tigrayan driver at the embassy were also suspended, Kassa said. Reuters confirmed the suspensions with both men, neither of whom was on the list. The embassy did not respond to a request for comment.
Another diplomat on the list said he and two Tigrayan colleagues were suspended from the consular section of an Ethiopian embassy in a Western nation. The diplomat, who asked that neither he nor his embassy be identified, shared bank records showing he had not been paid since Oct. 30. A diplomat in Europe said he was fired after refusing a summons to return to Addis Ababa days after the conflict broke out. He showed Reuters a letter that said his contract ran until 2023.
Even some Tigrayans who actively opposed the TPLF lost their jobs. A university lecturer said he was fired by his supervisor despite having stood as a candidate against the TPLF in local elections in Tigray last year. Education officials didn’t comment.
Tigrayans working at state-run agencies — including the tourist board, state-affiliated media and local municipalities — were also suspended or dismissed from their jobs, said a Tigrayan lawyer. He told Reuters a dozen such people had sought his advice. He shared documentation connected to two of these cases that supported his account.
Despite the TPLF’s former dominance, many Tigrayans are poor. Among them is Nigusu, the young broom-seller. An eighth-grade dropout, he left the family farm in Tigray three years ago to eke out a living in Addis Ababa.
He sold handmade brooms amid the traffic fumes in a market neighbourhood, where ancient Lada taxis nicknamed “Blue Donkeys” inch past men hawking bundles of mildly narcotic qat leaves.
Police stopped Nigusu on Nov. 7, three days after the fighting started in Tigray. Nigusu said he was frantic with worry about his family back home. All phone and internet connections were down. He told Reuters that when he was arrested, he was speaking to a relative who also lives outside Tigray. He said officers seized the 2,000 birr ($50) cash he was carrying and beat him.
The police accused him of being a terrorist, court documents show. They said he was overheard discussing planting bombs.
“I told them I know nothing about bombs, and everything is a fabrication,” Nigusu said.
He tried to put on a brave front. During one of seven brief court appearances, Nigusu waved to his elder brother, Berhe Hadera, then put his hands over his heart.
Berhe borrowed 6,000 birr to pay for bail, according to a receipt seen by Reuters. But the police refused to free Nigusu, who said he was held in a small cell without a window. He said he saw three dozen other Tigrayans in custody at the same time.
Nigusu was freed in December. He has since left Addis Ababa to stay with family in Tigray, preferring to take his chances in a war zone than remain in the capital.
“I came here (to Addis Ababa) to beat poverty and change my life,” Nigusu said. “But now I would rather lose my hand than live here. After this, I am not an Ethiopian.”
Just last week, 20 French Military Generals said ‘a MILITARY COUP MAY BE NECESSARY to Save France From Islamic terrorism. Similar calls should be made to save Ethiopia from Terrorist Abiy Ahmed Ali.
Can the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia keep it together? Change has become increasingly bloody it seems since the 2012 death of longtime leader Meles Zenawi, Meles a Tigrean whose home region is now in open revolt against the central government. There, conventional fighting is morphing into guerrilla warfare with reprisals against civilians fueling a vicious circle. Elsewhere, regional and ethnic tensions are also on the rise.
Posted by addisethiopia / አዲስ ኢትዮጵያ on April 3, 2021
“Esto es nada menos que una campaña de exterminio. Es una crisis humanitaria de proporciones bíblicas
El primer ministro Abiy Ahmed será recordado para siempre como un hombre que destrozó el tejido social de Etiopía, un comerciante de paz que comerciaba con masacres.”
Mis Notas: En los ultimos cinco meses se han cometido todo tipo de actos de genocidio en Tigray de odio por motivos étnicos y religiosos. Los días 28 y 29 de noviembre de 2020 Tropas eritreas que combaten en el estado etíope de Tigré mataron sistemáticamente a miles de civiles desarmados i cristianos ortodoxos en la ciudad santa de Axum. Los Tigres son un pueblo auténtico del Tigray que cuenta como la cuna del cristianismo en Etiopía – Axum tambien es la cuna de la civilización etíope. La legendaria Arca de la Alianza está en Axum, Tigray. Gracias a CNN!
La semana pasada, después de meses de desmentirlo, el primer ministro Abiy Ahmed admitió que soldados de la vecina Eritrea han estado combatiendo junto con sus fuerzas federales en la región de Tigray. ¿El blanco? Miembros del Frente de la Liberación del Pueblo de Tigray. Ahmed reconoció lo que testigos y víctimas han estado diciendo desde hace tanto tiempo: que soldados eritreos fueron responsables por las atrocidades en Tigray, a pesar de desmentirlo. Ahora, CNN en colaboración con Amnistía Internacional, ha investigado un video estremecedor que está circulando en redes sociales que muestra a soldados etíopes llevando a cabo ejecuciones extrajudiciales de hombres desarmados. Debemos advertirles que el video que está por mirar es perturbador. Este es el informe de Nima Elbagir.
👉 Opinión pública / የተመልካቾች አስተያየት፤
☆ INHUMANO ! 😔 SIENTO MUCHA TRISTEZA
☆ Atrocidad humana! Estos son crimines de guerra
☆ Siglo 21 y siguen ocurriendo estas cosas, una locura.
☆ ¿ La ONU, cascos azules? Ah verdad que Etiopía no tiene petróleo.
☆ Qué salvajada, pobres personas.
☆ Esos no son militares son asesinos cobardes🤬🤬🤬
❖ Que pena dios mío el ser humano es el más malvado del reino animal
Rock-Hewn Churches Mark Old ‘new Jerusalem’ In Ethiopia | Toronto Star
I’m in Lalibela, a small town cradled in the mountains of northern Ethiopia and home to 11 rock-hewn churches. Commissioned by King Gebre Mesqel Lalibela back in the 13th century, these places of worship had been created as a new Jerusalem for Ethiopian Orthodox pilgrims. Now recognized and protected as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, they continue to pull in people by the thousands from around the world, drawn to the biggest attraction in a country where tourism is on the rise.
I start the day at the largest of them all, Biete Medhane Alem, or House of the Saviour of the World, descending from ground level and circumnavigating the structure before we enter. Melkamu explains the basics as we go. We pass portraits of devotion — an impossibly elderly woman with a red-crossed hat reciting prayers, a man folded in behind the pillars of the church, doing the same — and Melkamu notes that Ethiopia had been one of the first countries to adopt Christianity. Actually mentioned in the biblical Book of Acts, Ethiopia adopted Christianity as its official state religion in the fourth century.
The churches here had been constructed at the direction of King Lalibela after the sultan Saladin captured Jerusalem in 1187. Carved from grey basalt and volcanic red scoria, “these were built by Ethiopians — with the help of the angels, of course,” Melkamu says.
It seems wherever we go, we see the faces of angels — Ethiopian ones —with beautiful round faces flanked by wings, staring at us from the ceiling, or from frescoes on the walls.
At Biete Maryam (House of Miriam), Melkamu pauses to kiss the doors before entering, then shows us the icons inside, which include ancient frescoes depicting the Holy Family’s flight to Egypt.
We also see priests everywhere, their heads wrapped in turbans and a wooden staff always at the ready. They gather together and walk past, reading and talking and, like everyone else, praying.
We see deacons, too, clustered and crouched against the round wall of a traditional tukul, with mud walls and a thatched roof, a mantra falling from their mouths like a sort of song, a stream of foreign words being lifted from the little scripture books held before them to the heavens above. “They’re speaking in Ge’ez, the ancient language of Ethiopian liturgy,” Melkamu explains. “These boys are considered deacons. If they pass the exams and get married, they will one day be priests in the church.”
In single day, we tour all 11 churches, clamouring up and down stone steps and crouching through tunnels and even once climbing up on a roof for a panoramic view of Biete Golgotha Mikael, which is said to contain the tomb of King Lalibela himself. We cross the Jordan River, now at the end of the dry season, just a sliver of green, filmy water. We make our way through dark tunnels and even visit Biete Lehem — literally, Bethlehem — the House of Bread, where loaves were baked for Holy Communion.
Exhausted, we make one final descent into the carved rock, the sun casting long, warm rays on top of Biete Giyorgis, the Church of St. George, the jewel in Lalibela’s crown, named for the patron saint of Ethiopia. We make our way down a small path into the crevices that surround the cross-shaped and intricately hewn church, slipping our shoes off, one last time, as we ascend the steps. We enter a church devoid of tourists, the priest’s chants cutting eerily through the silent space.
As I sit down next to him, Melkamu calls out to the man, asking him to give me a blessing. And just like that — before I expect it — his cross is on my face. I react poorly, giving a quick start, before getting hold of myself and settling down. I thank the priest and, at his encouragement, slip him a small bill for his efforts. No, it wasn’t a good blessing, but is there such thing as a bad one? Slipping my shoes back on, I decide that, either way, I’m relieved — after all, now, there’s no way I will have to go (back) to hell.
When you go
Do this trip: A boutique firm based in Addis Ababa, FKLM Tours (fklm-tours.com), provides tailor-made itineraries all over Ethiopia. Using local guides who know the lay of the land, as well as top-notch equipment that includes luxury Land Cruisers, many of its itineraries include at least two days in Lalibela.
Get there:Ethiopian Airlines (ethiopianairlines.ca) provides the only direct air service between Canada and Africa. About 13 hours (flying east, from Toronto to Addis Ababa), the trip is undertaken in Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft, whose Cloud Nine business-class cabin includes spacious seats that fold into fully flat beds.
Stay: With both traditional rooms and large, rather luxurious tukul with patios that overlook a valley, Sora Lodge (soralodgelalibela.com) in Lalibela provides comfortable nights and good meals at its on-property German-themed restaurant.
Eat: In Lalibela, try excellent local or international cuisine at Ben Abeda (benabeba.com). Crowning a small mountain with a structure that looks straight out of The Jetsons, lunch or dinner here comes with 360-degree views of the surrounding landscape.
Posted by addisethiopia / አዲስ ኢትዮጵያ on March 15, 2015
La escena es bíblica. Los rostros, el ropaje, los rezos, los cánticos, el fervor, el entorno grandioso de montañas peladas: uno se siente proyectado en medio del Antiguo Testamento. Los fieles, por millares, están esparcidos por todas partes, algunos sentados, otros de rodillas, otros tumbados. Casi todos, ellos como ellas, llevan un gran manto blanco que cubre por completo sus cuerpos escuálidos. Los hay que rezan, los hay que cantan y dan palmas, los hay que conversan en voz baja. Algunos vinieron en familia, con los niños correteando, otros en pareja, otros en grupos de amigos. Forman unos círculos concéntricos en torno a la carpa blanca que alberga lo más preciado, lo que vinieron a venerar: los tabot. Es decir, los cofres que encierran una copia de la sagrada Arca de la Alianza. Hechos de mármol, de alabastro o de madera de acacia, equivalen al tabernáculo de las iglesias católicas. Por la mañana, unas procesiones los han traído con gran pompa hasta aquí desde los diferentes templos de la ciudad. Y ahora, durante una larga noche de vigilia, toca venerarlos. Un vistazo furtivo al interior (una curiosidad excesiva provoca murmullos de desaprobación) permite divisar, debajo de la lona, los diferentes cofres, todos cubiertos herméticamente de telas adornadas de ricos bordados: y es que un tabot jamás puede ser visto por los ojos de los mortales.
En otra carpa, unos sacerdotes de pie en círculo cantan, acompañados de tambores y címbalos, una melopeya que parece no tener fin. A cada escalón de la jerarquía eclesiástica corresponde un vestido distinto: los hay con un manto blanco subrayado por bordados de un rojo intenso, con vistosas capas negras, con casullas de múltiples colores ricamente ornamentadas, con vistosos turbantes blancos, con tiaras espectaculares que casi parecen cascos de gladiadores. Varios llevan un cetro en el que se apoyan para aliviar esta larga vigilia. El ambiente es místico, intenso en medio de la suavidad penetrante de las voces. El canto acaba envolviendo al visitante, embriagándole.
Tras una noche de fervor empieza, de madrugada, la parte central de la ceremonia. Los sacerdotes, blandiendo unas grandes cruces griegas, se acercan con mucha ceremonia a una piscina cercana en forma de cruz. Le dan lentamente la vuelta, antes de bendecir el agua con un hisopo, en medio de los cánticos y entre olores de incienso. Y he aquí que el ambiente cambia de repente. Tras el letargo tranquilo, apacible de una noche de oraciones, tras estas horas de recogimiento, todos parecen agitarse al mismo tiempo. Se trata de ungirse como sea con esta agua ahora bendita. Todos se atropellan para llegar a la piscina sagrada, un bidón o una cantimplora en la mano para echarse el preciado líquido encima de la cabeza. Hasta que unos ayudantes vestidos con un chubasquero de un verde intenso cojan unas mangueras y empiecen a rociar generosamente a los fieles. Chicos o chicas, jóvenes o ancianos, se empujan para colocarse en el trayecto del agua. Los regadores parecen pasarlo en grande, tanto como estos grupos de jóvenes ya empapadas que corren detrás del flujo de agua para mojarse todavía más.
Estamos en Lalibela, en el corazón de las montañas etíopes, a 2.600 metros de altura: lugar famoso por sus iglesias rupestres y considerado como sagrado por todos los etíopes (la mayor parte de sus habitantes tienen algún pariente vinculado al clero). Y sitio ideal, por tanto, para contemplar, o más bien vivir intensamente, el timkat, la ceremonia religiosa más importante del año para la Iglesia ortodoxa del país, que celebra, a finales de enero, local.
Entre cánticos
Tras el caos alegre de las mangueras vuelve la religiosidad. Con gestos de un respeto extremo, los sacerdotes, que han ayunado durante 24 horas, empiezan a retirar de la carpa, uno tras otro, los tabot siempre ocultados a la vista por unas telas, y se los ponen sobre la cabeza. Es el momento cumbre de la ceremonia: de la muchedumbre emana una sensación de fervor intenso, mientras vuelven los cánticos. La voz de un sacerdote que amplifica la megafonía se hace lastimera, implorante: casi un lloro que parece contagiar de una irresistible tristeza a los presentes. Muchos leen la Biblia de manera frenética y ferviente (por más que algún que otro teclee el móvil al mismo tiempo), sin dejarse distraer por los niños que juegan a perseguirse en medio de la muchedumbre. Los sacerdotes de capa negra, alineados en filas, se balancean lateralmente, hasta que su línea ondulante empiece a alternar avances y retrocesos, en una progresión de una lentitud infinita. Más alegres, unos niños vestidos de un azul marino chillón o de amarillo abren el cortejo: cantan y baten palmas con entusiasmo mientras los reciben los ululatos de los fieles, los aplausos de la gente y los sonidos de unas pequeñas cornetas previamente distribuidas entre el público. Fervor y entusiasmo se mezclan cuando el cortejo se pone en marcha, bajo el sol abrasador del que los sacerdotes se protegen con enormes paraguas de todos los colores.
Con el adiós de Gebreselassie se marcha también un trozo del atletismo. Nunca nadie ha dignificado de esa manera este deporte y tardará mucho tiempo en salir una figura de tan enorme calibre. El mejor fondista de todos los tiempos triunfó en todo lo que se propuso, dejando momentos inolvidables en la historia del atletismo.
De la privilegiada estirpe de los etiopes Gebreselassie forjó su organismo a base de sufrimiento. De niño tenía que correr todos los días 10 kilómetros en busca de agua hasta transformar esa distancia en un simple paseo para él. En 1993, con tan sólo 20 años, subió al trono del fondo mundial, imponiéndose en los 10.000 metros del Mundial de Stuttgart.
Los récords empezaron a caer como la espuma y no tardó en convertirse en plusmarquista mundial de las dos distancias. En 1996, y tras volver a ganar el Mundial de los 10.000 en Suecia, tocó el cielo proclamándose campeón olímpico en Atenas con un superioridad aplastante. En sólo tres años Gebreselassie había revolucionado el atletismo. ¿Cuál era su techo?
El Jefe
Apodado ‘Neftenga’ (jefe en etiope) siguió repartiendo exhibiciones y alegría llí donde iba. En el año 2000 llegaría ‘la carrera’. En los Juegos Olímpicos de Sidney Gebreselassie llevó su leyenda a un punto jamás conocido después de protagonizar la que sería proclamada la mejor carrera de 10.000 de la historia. Después de dominar la distancia durante casi una década a Neftenga le salió un hueso y ‘para más inri’ tenía nacionalidad keniata: Paul Tergat.
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