Tigrayan Global
Advocacy Group (TGAG) Statement on the Abiy Ahmed
War on the Regional State of Tigray
To: United
Nations Security Council, the African Union (AU),
and the European Union (EU)
November 28, 2020
Excerpt:
The central theme of this statement reflects the
current situation of the ongoing conflict in
Ethiopia, and more specifically on the Abiy-Isaias
war on Tigray and the overall reality on the
ground in Tigray, especially in regards to the
bombardment of civilian areas and the destruction
of institutions, hospitals, industries, and farms,
and the subsequent humanitarian catastrophe,
including the influx of more than 40,000 Tigrayan
refugees to Sudan that is corroborated by
international media.
We
members of the Tigray Global Advocacy Group (TGAG),
US citizens and residents of Tigrayan Ethiopian
origin, are greatly concerned by the war on Tigray
that was initiated and provoked by the so-called
government of Ethiopia, spearheaded by Abiy Ahmed,
whose term in office has expired on September 25,
2020, but is governing the country by political
fiat, typical of an autocratic regime that rules
by decree and arbitrary decision making process
and by trampling over the constitutional order and
the rule of law.
Given
the nature and characteristics of the regime,
thus, it would not be surprising if Abiy Ahmed
could rally the rubber stamp parliament, some
government officials, members of his Prosperity
Party (PP), and the armed forces and declare war
on Tigray on November 4, 2020. In due course, the
regime mobilized the entire military forces, i.e.
all divisions and brigades, to the war front while
at the same time began profiling Tigrigna speaking
Ethiopians in the military and the larger
Ethiopian society, and as a result the Tigrayan
officers who were enlisted and serving in the
Ethiopian Air force (they comprise 52% of the air
force) were forced to leave their jobs; in effect,
they were fired; in a similar fashion, as part of
this profiling mission, prominent generals and
colonels of Tigrayan origin, over seventy of them,
were either put under house arrest and imprisoned
or some of them forced to retire; some 51,000
Tigrayan people in the civil service were
literally kicked out from their jobs, and a
significant number of Tigrayan businessmen and
women were harassed and intimidated and their
property confiscated. Hundreds of Tigrayan
residents in Addis Ababa were picked up from their
homes and workplaces by the police and detained at
Sendafa, Didisa, and Tatek military training camp.
We
have now come to conclude that the war on Tigray
is not just against the TPLF leadership as the
Abiy regime falsely claims in order to hoodwink
Ethiopians in particular and the world community
in general but it is aimed at committing genocide
on the people of Tigray . Also, now we know that
all the fanfare of Abiy’s peace accord with
Isaias of Eritrea, signed between the two leaders
two years ago and that earned Abiy Ahmed a Nobel
Peace prize, was in fact a window dressing and a
smokescreen for their joint agenda to conduct war
against Tigray.
Long
before Abiy came to power, however, diaspora
Ethiopians who opposed the EPRDF government,
including media outlets like the Ethiopian
Satellite Television (ESAT), had been beating
their war drums against the TPLF and the people of
Tigray, and some of them without a shame and
remorse whatsoever have even proposed the
extermination of the Tigrayan people by
attributing the Rwanda genocide experiment of 1994
as an example that could be tried in Tigray.
Beginning
2016, thus, a combination of protestations in the
Oromia Regional State and the clamor and uproar of
the Ethiopian diaspora chauvinists and ex-Derg
(military government 1974-1991) members who were
granted asylum in the United States, led to the
prelude of the downfall of the EPRDF government;
the incident was followed by a smooth transition
of power that subsequently gave rise to Abiy Ahmed
at the very top echelon of the government
apparatus.
But
as soon as Abiy assumed the premiership on April
2018, Ethiopians throughout the nation encountered
internal displacement unheard of in their history;
tumult and turmoil were everywhere and “unknown
armed gunmen” had begun attacking Ethiopians,
mostly in the rural areas and sometimes in the
urban areas; they burned public properties,
private houses and farms, and wantonly destroyed
churches of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church; the
pattern of their terrorist operations was almost
identical wherever the mayhem was conducted.
Incidents of such havoc
abound in Ethiopia from 2018 to present,
but suffice to mention some like the Ethiopian
Somali and Oromo conflict, Oromo-Amhara
confrontations, ethnic cleansing of the Qimant in
Gondar and Benishangul by Amhara militia, the
command post wars on the OLF in Wellega, and the
violent attacks of Tigray people in the Amhara
regional state. It is this Abiy sinister bequest
that has now culminated in the war against Tigray.
After
Abiy came to power and established the Prosperity
Party (PP), the TPLF retreated to its base in
Tigray, and while the instability continued
unbated and created massive destruction,
desolation and depredation in all Ethiopia, Tigray
enjoyed relative peace, but the tranquil and
serenity in the regional state was threatened and
is on the verge of being obliterated, and worse
genocide hovers over the people of Tigray now,
while the TPLF fights on four fronts with Abiy and
Amhara militia on the western, southern, and
eastern front, and with Eritrean troops on the
northern front.
Since
the war began, wherever Ethiopian and Eritrean
troops managed to penetrate into the villages of
Tigray, creeping ethnic cleansing have been
conducted by the criminal perpetrators of the Abiy
army; the Amhara militia, the most vicious and
cruel of all the fighting forces, were engaged in
the butchering of Tigrayans including the
beheading of young boys and surgically cutting the
fetuses from pregnant women. The same Amhara
militia is also responsible for the Mai Kadra
gruesome massacre of 600 innocent Tigrayan
civilians; they were bayoneted and hacked by
machetes, but the Abiy government that staged the
massacre blamed the TPLF for conducting the
massacre and international organizations like the
Amnesty International were quick to say that the
Tigray Regional State should be responsible for
the massacre. At any rate, the impending
full-fledged genocide, thus, is imminent; it can
happen as we dispatch this piece to the UN
Security Council, the African Union (AU), and the
European Union (EU).
We
Tigrayan Ethiopians have great appreciation to the
initiatives taken by the AU, including the
three envoys, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of
Liberia, Joaquim Chissano of Mozambique, and
Kgalema Motlanthe of South Africa; the UN Security
Council for expressing concern about the
inevitable violation of international law and the
influx of Ethiopian refugees into Sudan; and the
EU resolution of November 24, 2020, which is a
very comprehensive peace proposal that also
includes the establishment of an independent
committee by the European Parliament in order to
look into the war in Tigray. We also appreciate
the EU Parliament intention of working with the AU
in mitigating the impending humanitarian
catastrophe in the war zone, and for its plan to
use its massive aid to Ethiopia as leverage to
pressurize the Abiy Government to stop the war and
accept international mediation
We
are aware that bombardment of civilian areas is
prohibited by international law; more
specifically, we are aware that the 1977 Protocol
I was adopted as an amendment to the Geneva
conventions, prohibiting the deliberate or
indiscriminate attack of civilians and civilian
objects, even if the area contained military
objectives, and the attacking force must take
precautions and steps to spare the lives of
civilians and civilian objects.
On
top of the 1977 Protocol I, Article 25 of the
Hague Convention of 1907, which reads, “The
attack or bombardment, by whatever means, of
towns, villages, dwellings, or buildings which are
undefended is prohibited” is also relevant to
our present appeal to the UN Security Council.
We
are also aware that the Security Council is
entrusted, first and foremost, to maintain peace
and security, and more specifically to undertake
investigation and mediation, dispatch a mission,
appoint special envoys, and request the
Secretary-General to undertake action in the
peaceful resolution of the conflict. The UN
Security Council in our opinion, must also
dispatch military observers or peacekeeping
forces; the UN Security Council, the AU, and the
EU must move fast in order to avoid carnage,
genocide, and humanitarian crisis.
Sincerely,
Tigrayan
Global Advocacy Group (TGAG)
United
States of America (USA)
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