#Voice Of Supporting people of Tigray #GenocideAgainstPeopleTigray#StopTigrayGenocide #Voice Of Supporting people of Tigray We must be the voice of the heroic people of Tigray for #justice for the #victims of #genocide and identity-based genocide and genocide.The main purpose and mission of our media. As a voice for the people of Tigray, it broadcasts programs that it believes will benefit or educate all the people of Tigray by accepting events prepared by loyal Tigrayan sources as well as Tigrayan media outlets. woyanaytigrayan.com #WoyanayTigrayAppMedia #Ethiopia #Tigray #TMH #tigray #የኦሮሞ #woyanaytigrayappmedia #AbiyAhmed #የኢትዮጵያ #ethiopia #Jawar_Mohammed #ኤርትራ #Oromo #TigrayGenocide #የትግራይ #TigrayShallPrevail #share #following #tigrai #like #follow
Dozens of young Ethiopian men continue to gather at the Russian embassy in the capital, Addis Ababa, on Tuesday following rumours of soldiers being recruited to fight in the war in Ukraine.
But the embassy’s spokeswoman said no recruitment was being carried out in Ethiopia. More here: https://bbc.in/3JXWXT0 #BBCNewsAfrica
The Nobel Peace Prize That Paved the Way for WW7ar
This is the story behind how Ethiopia’s prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, won a Nobel Prize for making peace with his country’s longtime enemy — and then used the alliance to plan a war.
NAIROBI, Kenya — Secret meetings with a dictator. Clandestine troop movements. Months of quiet preparation for a war that was supposed to be swift and bloodless. New evidence shows that Ethiopia’s prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, had been planning a military campaign in the northern Tigray region for months before war erupted one year ago, setting off a cascade of destruction and ethnic violence that has engulfed Ethiopia, Africa’s second most populous country. Mr. Abiy, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate seen recently in fatigues commanding troops on the battlefront, insists that war was foisted upon him — that ethnic Tigrayan fighters fired the first shots in November 2020 when they attacked a federal military base in Tigray, slaughtering soldiers in their beds. That account has become an article of faith for Mr. Abiy and his supporters. In fact, it was a war of choice for Mr. Abiy — one with wheels set in motion even before the Nobel Peace Prize win in 2019 that turned him, for a time, into a global icon of nonviolence.
The Nobel win stemmed largely from the unlikely peace deal Mr. Abiy struck with Isaias Afwerki, the authoritarian leader of Eritrea, within months of coming to power in 2018. That pact ended two decades of hostility and war between the neighboring rivals, and inspired lofty hopes for a transformed region. Instead, the Nobel emboldened Mr. Abiy and Mr. Isaias to secretly plot a course for war against their mutual foes in Tigray, according to current and former Ethiopian officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid reprisals or protect family members inside Ethiopia. In the months before fighting erupted in November 2020, Mr. Abiy moved troops toward Tigray and sent military cargo planes into Eritrea. Behind closed doors, his advisers and military generals debated the merits of a conflict. Those who disagreed were fired, interrogated at gunpoint or forced to leave. Still dazzled by Mr. Abiy’s Nobel win, the West ignored those warning signs, the officials said. But ultimately it helped to pave the way to war. “From that day, Abiy felt he was one of the most influential personalities in the world,” Gebremeskel Kassa, a former senior Abiy administration official now in exile in Europe, said in an interview.
“He felt he had a lot of international support, and that if he went to war in Tigray, nothing would happen. And he was right,” he added.
Mr. Abiy’s spokeswoman, the information minister of Eritrea and the Norwegian Nobel Committee did not respond to questions for this article. The quick and easy military victory that Mr. Abiy promised has not come to pass. The Tigrayans routed the Ethiopian troops and their Eritrean allies over the summer and last month came within 160 miles of the capital, Addis Ababa — prompting Mr. Abiy to declare a state of emergency.
Recently, the pendulum has swung back, with government forces retaking two strategic towns that had been captured by the Tigrayans — the latest twist in a conflict that has already cost tens of thousands of lives and pushed hundreds of thousands into famine-like conditions. Analysts say that Mr. Abiy’s journey from peacemaker to battlefield commander is a cautionary tale of how the West, desperate to find a new hero in Africa, got this leader spectacularly wrong. “The West needs to make up for its mistakes in Ethiopia,” said Alex Rondos, formerly the European Union’s top diplomat in the Horn of Africa. “It misjudged Abiy. It empowered Isaias. Now the issue is whether a country of 110 million people can be prevented from unraveling.”
The Nobel Committee Takes a Chance
Accepting the Nobel Peace Prize in December 2019, Mr. Abiy, a former soldier, drew on his own experience to eloquently capture the horror of conflict.
“War is the epitome of hell,” he told a distinguished audience at Oslo City Hall. “I know because I have been there and back.” To his foreign admirers, the soaring rhetoric was further proof of an exceptional leader. In his first months in power, Mr. Abiy, then 41, freed political prisoners, unshackled the press and promised free elections in Ethiopia. His peace deal with Eritrea, a pariah state, was a political moonshot for the strife-torn Horn of Africa region. Even so, the five-member Norwegian Nobel Committee knew it was taking on a chance on Mr. Abiy, said Henrik Urdal of Peace Research Institute Oslo, which analyzes the committee’s decisions
Mr. Abiy’s sweeping reforms were fragile and easily reversible, Mr. Urdal said, and the peace with Eritrea centered on his relationship with Mr. Isaias, a ruthless and battle-hardened autocrat.
“My partner and comrade-in-peace,” Mr. Abiy called him in Oslo. Many Ethiopians also wanted to believe in Mr. Abiy’s promise. At a gala dinner for the new prime minister in Washington in July 2018, Dr. Kontie Moussa, an Ethiopian living in Sweden, announced to applause that he was nominating Mr. Abiy for a Nobel Peace Prize. Back in Sweden, Dr. Kontie persuaded Anders Österberg, a parliamentarian from a low-income Stockholm district with a large immigrant population, to join his cause. Mr. Österberg traveled to Ethiopia, met with Mr. Abiy and was impressed.
He signed the Nobel papers — one of at least two nominations for Mr. Abiy that year. In selecting Mr. Abiy, the Nobel Committee hoped to encourage him further down the path of democratic reforms, Mr. Urdal said.
Even then, though, there were signs that Mr. Abiy’s peace deal wasn’t all it seemed.
Its initial fruits, like daily commercial flights between the two countries and reopened borders, were rolled back or reversed in a matter of months. Promised trade pacts failed to materialize, and there was little concrete cooperation, the Ethiopian officials said. Eritrea’s spies, however, gained an edge. Ethiopian intelligence detected an influx of Eritrean agents, some posing as refugees, who gathered information about Ethiopia’s military capabilities, a senior Ethiopian security official said. The Eritreans were particularly interested in Tigray, he said. Mr. Isaias had a long and bitter grudge against the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, which dominated Ethiopia for nearly three decades until Mr. Abiy came to power in 2018. He blamed Tigrayan leaders for the fierce border war of 1998 to 2000 between Ethiopia and Eritrea, a former province of Ethiopia, in which as many as 100,000 people were killed. He also blamed them for Eritrea’s painful international isolation, including United Nations sanctions.
For Mr. Abiy, it was more complicated. He served in the T.P.L.F.-dominated governing coalition for eight years and was made a minister in 2015. But as an ethnic Oromo, Ethiopia’s largest ethnic group, he never felt fully accepted by Tigrayans and suffered numerous humiliations, former officials and friends said.
Tigrayans fired Mr. Abiy from his leadership position at a powerful intelligence agency in 2010. In power, he came to see the Tigrayans, still smarting from their ouster, as the biggest threat to his burgeoning ambitions.
A Spy Chief Among the Singers and Dancers
Mr. Abiy and Mr. Isaias met at least 14 times from the time they signed the peace deal until war broke out, public records and news reports show.
Unusually, the meetings were mostly one-on-one, without aides or note-takers, two former Ethiopian officials said. They also met in secret: On at least three other occasions in 2019 and 2020, Mr. Isaias flew into Addis Ababa unannounced, one former official said. Aviation authorities were instructed to keep quiet, and an unmarked car was sent to take him to Mr. Abiy’s compound.
Around that time, Eritrean officials also regularly visited the Amhara region, which has a long history of rivalry with Tigray. Crowds thronged the streets when Mr. Isaias visited the ancient Amhara city of Gondar in November 2018, chanting, “Isaias, Isaias, Isaias!”
Later, a troupe of Eritrean singers and dancers visited Amhara. But the delegation included Eritrea’s spy chief, Abraha Kassa, who used the trip to meet with Amhara security leaders, the senior Ethiopian official said. Eritrea later agreed to train 60,000 troops from the Amhara Special Forces, a paramilitary unit that later deployed to Tigray.
Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in February 2019, Mr. Abiy advocated an effective merger of Ethiopia, Eritrea and Djibouti — a suggestion that dismayed Ethiopian officials who saw it as straight from the playbook of Mr. Isaias.
Aides also saw the remarks as further proof of Mr. Abiy’s impulsive tendencies, leading them to cancel his news conference during the Nobel ceremonies in Oslo 10 months later.
Irreconcilable Visions Lead to War
Mr. Abiy viewed the Tigrayans as a threat to his authority — perhaps even his life — from his first days in power. The Tigrayans had preferred another candidate as prime minister, and Mr. Abiy told friends he feared Tigrayan security officials were trying to assassinate him, an acquaintance said. At the prime minister’s residence, soldiers were ordered to stand guard on every floor. Mr. Abiy purged ethnic Tigrayans from his security detail and created the Republican Guard, a handpicked unit under his direct control, whose troops were sent for training to the United Arab Emirates — a powerful new ally also close to Mr. Isaias, a former Ethiopian official said.
The unexplained killing of the Ethiopian military chief, Gen. Seare Mekonnen, an ethnic Tigrayan who was shot dead by a bodyguard in June 2019, heightened tensions. The rift with the Tigrayans was also driven by profound political differences. Within weeks of the Nobel Prize decision, Mr. Abiy created the Prosperity Party, which incarnated his vision of a strong, centralized Ethiopian government. But that vision was anathema to the millions of Ethiopians who yearned for greater regional autonomy — in particular the Tigrayans and members of his own ethnic group, the Oromo. Accounting for about one-third of the country’s 110 million people, the Oromo have long felt excluded from power. Many hoped Mr. Abiy’s rise would change that.
But the Prosperity Party catered to Mr. Abiy’s ambitions, not theirs, and in late 2019 violent clashes between police officers and protesters erupted across the Oromia region, culminating in the death in June 2020 of a popular singer.
Against this tumultuous backdrop, the slide toward war accelerated. Ethiopian military cargo planes began to make clandestine flights at night to bases in Eritrea, said a senior Ethiopian official.
Mr. Abiy’s top aides and military officials privately debated the merits of a war in Tigray, the former official said. Dissenters included Ethiopia’s army chief, Gen. Adem Mohammed.
By then the Tigrayans were also gearing up for war, searching for allies in the Northern Command, Ethiopia’s most powerful military unit, which was based in Tigray. In September the Tigrayans went ahead with a regional election, in open defiance of an order from Mr. Abiy. Mr. Abiy moved troops from the Somali and Oromia regions toward Tigray. In a video conference call in mid-October, Mr. Abiy told governing party officials that he would intervene militarily in Tigray, and that it would take only three to five days to oust the region’s leaders, said Mr. Gebremeskel, the former senior official now in exile. On Nov. 2 the European Union foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell Fontelles, publicly appealed to both sides to halt “provocative military deployments.” The next evening, Tigrayan forces attacked an Ethiopian military base, calling it a pre-emptive strike.
Eritrean soldiers flooded into Tigray from the north. Amhara Special Forces arrived from the south. Mr. Abiy fired General Adem and announced a “law enforcement operation” in Tigray. Ethiopia’s ruinous civil war was underway.
Chief Obasanjo was in town as part of his efforts to seek peaceful solution to the war in Ethiopia.He had extensive discussions with #PresidentDebretsion on ways forward. It’s our hope&expectation that there is now a clearer understanding of what the ppl &Army of #Tigray are after in their advance on the Capital #AddisAbaba.
#Debretsion has also outlined to #ChiefObasanjo what he thinks it takes to get the #Abiy Regime to realize that he cannot shoot his way out of the crisis he has landed the country in. They both agreed to continue to engage in the pursuit of peace and stability in the country. #PresidentDebretsion expressed readiness to continue to cooperate with President Obasanjo in the latter’s bona fide efforts towards peace& stability in the Horn. #TigrayShallPrevail!
Explained most simply, family law involves legal matters that impact families. It includes the legal situations that people related by blood, marriage, or adoption may face. Here are five types of family law issues:Read more…
Divorce/Dissolution of Marriage
Ending a marriage is never easy, and getting divorced doesn’t have to be hard. There are many approaches to resolving divorces with unbundled legal help such as meditation, collaboration and uncontested divorce. Speak with your provider attorney about the approach best suited to your goals and legal needs.
Child Custody and Visitation
Following legal separation or divorce, the court designates which party will be the custodial parent – the parent with whom the child primarily resides. The non-custodial parent will have the child in his or her care for a specific period of time for visitation. It some cases, the court will order joint custody, where both parents have the children for an equal amount of time.
Your unbundled provider attorney explains for you what your child custody and visitation options are and helps you put together a game plan to identify the best parenting arrangement for your children. Once you approve the parenting plan, your attorney then will work with you in preparing a concise written argument for filing and presentation to the judge.
Child Support
In divorce and child custody cases, the court determines each parent’s financial responsibility for the children involved based on each party’s finances. Then the court establishes the amount of money to be paid by one party to the other with a schedule for those payments. Usually the parent earning the most money will pay the other parent to help equalize their financial contributions towards the needs of the children. Remember, although your family unit is changing both parents retain moral obligations to support their children financially.
Your provider attorney will give you an idea of the standard amounts for child support given your circumstances and together you can decide the best course of action to ensure that your child is receiving the lawful amount of child support necessary.
Adoption
In some cases, the court may determine that a biological parent is unsuitable to provide for the needs of the child, and will terminate parental rights. This can also occur should a parent voluntarily give up rights to the children. Adoption and foster care are processes by which new parents are assigned legal rights to take over parental responsibilities for caring for the needs of a child.
Legal Help with Resolving Your Family Law Issue
Nearly all Americans are faced with at least one family law issue at some point in their lives; many will be effected repeatedly. Because family law issues are uniquely personal and very often emotional in a way that other areas of law are not, the insight and guidance of a knowledgeable and compassionate family law attorney will be invaluable for helping you to eliminate unnecessary stress from the unknown
Thank you 🙏 #AmnestyInternational Amhara regional security forces and civilian authorities in Ethiopia’s Western Tigray Zone have committed widespread abuses against Tigrayans since November 2020 that amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch said in a new report released today. Ethiopian authorities have severely restricted access and independent scrutiny of the region, keeping the campaign of ethnic cleansing largely hidden. https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/04/ethiopia-crimes-against-humanity-in-western-tigray-zone/
The warning signs are there for genocide in9 Ethiopia – the world must act to prevent it | Helen Clark, Michael Lapsley and David Alton
The country has been scarred by violence on all sides, but there may be much worse to come as Tigrayan civilians are targeted‘Five warning signs for mass, ethnically targeted violence are flashing red.’ Supporters of Ethiopian prime minister Abiy Ahmed at a rally in Addis Ababa this month. Photograph: AP
Genocide happens when warning signs are not heeded. The world looks away, refusing to believe that mass ethnic killing is possible. We hope that the worst will be avoided. But to prevent genocide, we must sound the alarm before we arrive at certainty.
Rarely before has the danger of genocide been so clearly signalled in advance than in Ethiopia.
No side to this conflict is angelic. All sides in Ethiopia’s conflict have committed violations. But only one side has committed violations on a scale and nature that could credibly qualify as genocide – and that, we regret to say, is the coalition of the Ethiopian government, under the prime minister, Abiy Ahmed; the Amhara regional government; and the state of Eritrea.
Twice in the past year, the world has stood by while this coalition has perpetrated international crimes against civilians of Tigrayan identity – including murder, rape, torture and starvation.
We may now be facing a third atrocity, even larger and bloodier than what has gone before: a possible mass killing of interned civilians in Addis Ababa and elsewhere.
Five warning signs for mass, ethnically targeted violence are flashing red.
First, figures in the Ethiopian government and their allies have promoted hate speech against Tigrayan people as an ethnic group. They have stoked violence in language that identifies all Tigrayans as enemies. This hate speech is escalating – Tigrayans have been referred to as “cancer”, “weeds”, “rats” and “terrorists”.
Second, the government has mobilised the instruments for mass atrocity, in the form of militias and vigilante groups, organised on an ethnic basis and with an ethnic agenda. It has armed them and granted them impunity.
Third, the government is eliminating any middle ground. It has silenced independent and critical voices. It has prevented media access to Tigray, closed down or censored independent national journalists, and intimidated foreign reporters and their local counterparts. Individuals who try to protect Tigrayans are also attacked. People who try to remain out of politics are condemned as “fence-sitters”.
Fourth, the government has begun large-scale detention of Tigrayan civilians in areas it controls. One year ago it interned at least 15,000 ethnic Tigrayan members of the armed forces, whom, we understand, it continues to keep in detention camps. It has interned Tigrayan civilians in western Tigray. In recent weeks it has interned more than 30,000 ethnic Tigrayan civilians in Addis Ababa and unknown numbers elsewhere.
Fifth, the international community is divided, confused and indecisive. The government has protectors at the UN security council. The African Union listened deferentially to the government’s denials and obfuscations. The main European powers have dithered. The US has toned down its condemnations, perhaps for fear of being diplomatically isolated. It also has conflicting priorities, including trying to facilitate humanitarian assistance and initiate negotiations for a ceasefire and political settlement – an agenda that can preclude calling out one party to the conflict for atrocity crimes or genocide.
” Articles The Tale of Two Autocrats: Power, Struggle, and the Similarities Between Mengistu Hailemariam and Abiy Ahmed Colonel Mengistu Hailemariam, the now exiled previous military junta leader of Ethiopia (1977-1991), and Colonel Abiy Ahmed, the current Prime Minister of Ethiopia, have more in common than their time leading Ethiopia. More than sharing the same military rank, these two leaders have similar traits, authoritarian ambitions, and visions for Ethiopia. Mengistu Hailemariam The military regime, which later had Mengistu at its head, came to power in 1974, hijacking a student-led revolution that aimed to overthrow the Ethiopian monarchy. The student protests that demanded Emperor Haile Selassie relinquish his power for failing to address a wide range of issues, including the famine in northern Ethiopia, triggered a larger social movement. This larger movement included protests by various groups, such as taxi drivers, Muslims, teachers, and landless farmers. At the same time, military officers led a mutiny in Negele Borena (Southern Ethiopia), asking for better wages. They obtained support from army personnel in Asmara (Eritrea’s capital), and the mutiny, led by a group of mid-level military officers, reached Addis Ababa shortly after. What started with the military asking for a higher salary ended with the formation of a committee that overthrew Emperor Haile Selassie: the Provisional Military Administration, which quickly transitioned to the Derg. Previously a powerful Deputy, it was not until February 1977 that Mengistu violently rose up the ranks and consolidated his power by eliminating his opponents and comrades. Mengistu started on his path to power when he was a major serving in Ethiopia’s Third Division in Harar, a strategically important southwestern market town. Because of his oratory prowess, Mengistu was selected as the Third Divisions representative to the newly formed Provisional Military Administration. His ease with the public and politics proved important in his rise to the top of Ethiopia’s military government, going from a military officer unknown to the public to the chairman of the Derg and Ethiopia’s dictatorial leader. He also later created and led Ethiopia’s Socialist Workers Party. Ultimately, Mengistu’s time as Deputy and Chairman of the Derg lasted 17 years before he fled into exile in 1991 after allied forces— including the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), Oromo People’s Democratic Organization (OPDO), Amhara National Democtratic Movement (ANDM), and Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (EPLF)—overthrew the military regime. Abiy Ahmed Much like Mengistu, nobody knew who Abiy was before a social movement led to the conditions conducive for his rise to power. In Abiy’s case, it was the Qeerroo movement, an Oromo youth-led movement which started in 2017 and lasted through 2018. The Oromo youth, frustrated by the leadership of the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democtratic Front (EPRDF), were effective in catalyzing a larger movement that forced the EPRDF to reshuffle its leadership and place Abiy, an ethnic Oromo and Amhara, as the leader of the party and interim Prime Minister of Ethiopia. During the EPRDF’s reign, Abiy Ahmed served in the Ethiopian National Defense Forces (ENDF), achieving the rank of lieutenant colonel. In 2007, he became the head of the Information Network Security Agency (INSA), the Ethiopian government’s organization responsible for cybersecurity. After leaving the military and his post of Deputy Director at INSA, Abiy was elected to the House of Peoples’ Representatives as a member of the Oromo People’s Democratic Organization (OPDO) in 2010. The OPDO was one of the four parties that formed the EPRDF ruling coalition. In October 2015, Abiy was appointed Minister of Science and Technology under the EPRDF but held the post for only a short while, leaving that position to serve as the Vice President of the Oromia regional government. Within the OPDO, Abiy was elected head of the Secretariat in 2017. At the same time that Abiy was rapidly moving through numerous roles in the EPRDF and OPDO, Ethiopia’s political unrest was becoming a serious concern for the EPRDF. The unrest was caused by structural issues including but not limited to the expansion of Addis Ababa, the dispossession of Oromo people from their ancestral land, and the suppression and arrest of opposition political parties from Oromia. As a result, the EPRDF sought out an Oromo leader to bring stability and peace. To this end, Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn, who came to power following the death of former Prime Minister Meles Zenawi in 2012, resigned in 2018. In an attempt to be an eligible contender to replace Desalegn as Chairman of the EPRDF, Abiy immediately swapped positions with the President of Oromia and Chairman of the OPDO at the time, Lemma Megersa. His ambitions came to fruition in April 2018 when Abiy was nominated by the EPRDF to serve as the interim Prime Minister of Ethiopia. The Similarities of the Two Leaders Both Mengistu and Abiy exploited the existing political conditions of their time to rise to, and stay in, power without leading or playing an integral role in the uprisings that created the conditions conducive to their political success. It was not until both sought to consolidate their power that their true authoritarian nature and brutal modus operandi were revealed. Much like Mengistu, Abiy sees himself as the only and inevitable leader of Ethiopia, assuming that Ethiopia would fall into disrepair without him, while in reality precisely the opposite is true. Also, like Mengistu, Abiy often swears that he would live and die for Ethiopia and pretends to speak on behalf of Ethiopia’s honor and unity, when in fact he speaks on behalf of his personal apprehensions or megalomania. During his reign, Mengistu brought Ethiopia to the brink of collapse because of his authoritarian ambitions to consolidate power by any means necessary. The same is true of Abiy today, though some commentators suggest that this time the Ethiopian empire might not survive. Much like Mengistu did, Abiy has labeled his strongest political challengers as terrorists, detained or killed the most prominent of them, and used propaganda to deceive the Ethiopian population. Their approaches towards potential contenders within their own governing structures also share similarities: they eliminate individuals or groups who question their ability, ideology, or ambition. Mengistu secured his position at the helm of Ethiopia using harsh methods to eliminate comrades he suspected would endanger his authority, often labeling them reactionaries, anti-revolutionaries, and enemies of Ethiopia. Abiy Ahmed has similarly maintained his stronghold in Ethiopia by eliminating or sidelining his initial collaborators, mentors, and opponents. Abiy has either pushed them to exile or assigned them to positions far outside his center of power. Abiy, as Mengistu did during his time, is using violence and oppression against his people to maintain his power and control over Ethiopia. Abiy’s administration is committing countless human rights violations, as Mengistu did during the Derg regime. One of the bloodiest periods of Ethiopian history was during Mengistu’s military dictatorship when he attempted to quench any opposition he faced with violence. This period from 1976 to 1978, in which tens of thousands were killed by the Derg in mass murder sprees, is termed the Red Terror. Organized youth were killed across major cities and towns in Ethiopia and current day Eritrea, with the most killed in Addis Ababa, Asmara, Jimma, Gonder, Mekelle, Dessie, Assela, and Harar. Under Abiy, the oppression has taken a different form. Unlike during the Derg time, most of Addis Ababa supports their dictatorial leader today, while those who do not support Abiy remain silent out of fear. This fear comes from Abiy’s policies and strategies employed throughout the rest of the country where his opposition, and civilians branded as opposition, are extra-judiciously killed, tortured, and raped en masse. Of all the offenses committed by Mengistu Hailemariam and Abiy Ahmed, their biggest miscalculation was getting involved in a protracted war against the people of the north. Mengistu was at war with Tigray and Eritrea for most of his time in power, as he sought to squash resistance to his centralized rule and assured access to the Red Sea. Mengistu put all his efforts into winning a war against the TPLF and Eritrean People’s Liberation Front, who sought to protect the interest and self-determination of their respective communities. Like Mengistu, Abiy is at war with the people of Tigray in an effort to squash resistance and assure and consolidate his authority— which the TPLF and Tigray as a whole threaten. While Mengistu’s protracted war eventually ended in the victory of the TPLF and other allied movements, and the formation of the EPRDF, the outcome of Abiy’s war against the TPLF and Tigray is yet known after more than seven months. The Lesser Evil Although both leaders have committed heinous crimes against their citizens, Mengistu never waged systematic attacks targeting specific ethnic groups with the intent to destroy a people. Abiy is employing numerous tools of war that amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity, and more appropriately, genocide. The way Abiy has conducted the war on Tigray is entirely unique in the degree and extent of destruction and atrocities against innocent civilians. Abiy’s crimes are so grave that even Mengistu, who waged a barbaric war and weaponized famine, appears more human and less power-hungry than Abiy. The key difference between Mengistu and Abiy is that Mengistu did not have the intent to destroy a whole population. Furthermore, Mengistu never sought a neighboring country’s military support to attack his own people. Eritrea’s dictator Isaias Afewerki and Abiy masterminded the attack and current genocidal war on Tigray. In addition to deploying the Ethiopian National Defence Force (ENDF) and Eritrean military, Abiy and Isaias have found allies to support their mission. These include Ethiopia’s Amhara regional militias and special police, the Somali military, and United Arab Emirates drones. The fact that Abiy invited foreign invaders to attack his own people is the definition of an act of treason and must be considered and addressed as such. Again, despite the similarities between Mengistu and Abiy in their dictatorial nature, Abiy inviting or at the very least allowing a foreign country to invade Ethiopia is a treasonous act to a degree unheard of in Ethiopian history. The crimes primarily being perpetrated by the ENDF, Eritrean military, and Amhara militia to exterminate the people of Tigray are so unique in their barbarism and brutality that a number of grief-stricken senior international humanitarian officials have stated that they have never witnessed such heinous crimes over the course of their humanitarian careers. Similar to the war against the Derg, the war against Abiy and his collaborators is a fight against oppression and violence. Despite having one of Africa’s largest armies, and one of the most substantial weapon arsenals on the continent at the time, Mengistu was defeated by a popular front headed by the TPLF, forcing him to flee the country and seek asylum in Zimbabwe. This time under Abiy, the struggle of the Tigrayan people is an existential fight led by the Tigrayan Defence Force (TDF), which is composed of many civilians turned freedom fighters, whose goal is to defeat the orchestrators of the genocide in Tigray. With history as our guide, those on the side of humanity and justice will prevail”
Engineers in East Africa; Mesfin Industrial Engineering, one of the leading manufacturers of equipment and spare parts, was severely injured in today’s Mekelle air strike. This huge state-of-the-art industrial complex is designed for its products; It is a huge industry that produces and distributes its products by itself. Today’s airstrikes appear to be part of the destruction of key infrastructure and buildings in Tigray. Mesfin Industrial Engineering P.L.C (MIE) is the leading equipment manufacturing company in East Africa. It designs, manufactures and installs equipment and components. This vital industrial complex was severely damaged in today’s Mekelle air strike. Today’s airstrikes appear to be part of the destruction of key infrastructure and buildings in Tigray.
Ethiopia launches new air raids on embattled Tigray region
Ethiopia’s military has launched new air raids on Tigray, the second round of bombardments this week against rebel targets in the war-battered region.
The air raids mark a sharp escalation in the near yearlong conflict in northern Ethiopia pitting government forces and their allies against the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), Tigray’s once-dominant governing party.KEEP READING‘
The government said it bombed weapons caches in the regional capital Mekelle and the town of Agbe which lies about 80km (50 miles) to the west.
Government spokesman Legesse Tulu told news agencies that it targeted “facilities that TPLF have turned into arms construction and repair armaments sites”.null
At least 14 people were injured in the air attacks in Mekelle and three were in critical condition, Hayelom Kebede, the former director of Tigray’s flagship Ayder Referral Hospital, told The Associated Press.
TPLF spokesman Getachew Reda said Wednesday’s bombing raid on Mekelle had targeted a residential “causing injury to civilians and harm to property”.
Mekelle had not seen fighting since June, when Tigrayan forces retook much of the region in a dramatic turn in the war.
Since then, fighting has intensified in two other Ethiopian regions – Amhara and Afar – where the federal government’s military is trying to recover territory taken by the TPLF.
A humanitarian source in Mekelle told the Reuters news agency the air raid in the city was in 05 Kebelle, an area near a cement factory on the city’s outskirts.
Separately, the AFP news agency quoted a Mekelle resident as saying that an industrial site had been destroyed in the air raid.null
“It was heavy and the jet was so close,” the resident said. “It has burned the whole compound. We don’t know the casualties but now the whole company is burned to ash.
The attacks came two days after Ethiopia’s air force confirmed air raids in Mekelle that a witness said killed three children. The air force said communications towers and equipment were attacked.
William Davison, the International Crisis Group’s senior analyst for Ethiopia, said that the attacks “appear to be part of efforts to weaken Tigray’s armed resistance”, with the TPLF making gains in areas of the Amhara region to the south of Tigray.null
“Along with superior manpower, control of the skies is one of the few remaining areas of military advantage for the federal government.”
International pleas to stop the fighting, which has so far killed thousands of people and forced more than two million to flee their homes, have failed.
Tigray, a region of five million people, remains under a de facto blockade, with the warring parties each accusing the other of hampering the delivery of desperately needed aid.
“The bombing of urban areas … reinforces the impression that Addis Ababa is willing to risk civilian lives in Tigray as part of its military efforts, something also demonstrated by the continued federal constraints on aid flows and refusal to provide electricity, banking, and telecommunications services to the region,” the ICG’s Davison said.
“As such, the air raids may have the effect of strengthening the Tigrayan resolve to resist, rather than weaken it.
Ethiopian dictatorial government has launched air strikes today for second time in a week in Tigray’s capital Mekelle targeting industrial plant and civilians. TigrayGenocide
One year ago, no one expected this to happen. But it happened. Congratulations to the mother of Tigray and the #TDF justice seekers !! በወንጀል የተጨማለቀው የአብይ ሰራዊት ፍጻሜ እንዲህ ይሆናል ብሎ የዛሬ አንድ አመት የገመተ ማንም አልነበረም። ግን ሆነ። ከትግራይ እናት እና #TDF ጎን የቆማችሁ ፍትሕ ፈላጊ ታጋዮች እንኳን ደስ አላችሁ!!
Tigrayans and allies in different universities across the world should work with their faculties to create and provide platforms to raise awareness about the state-led genocide our people are enduring in darkness. A fellow Tigraweyti facilitated today’s panel discussion at the Macalester College and it was a perfect opportunity to bring our plight to an academic community’s attention who wouldn’t have heard of it had it not been for the panel discussion. Although the burden we bear is immense, we will not let them erase us in silenceㅡwe will use every privilege at our disposal to advocate for our people and fight back fascists!
Selamat from Sudan! Meet our founder Suzani (middle), a Tigraweyti & former refugee.
In 2014, she helped establish the Asmlash-Grant Foundation (AGF), which was one of the first responders in Sudan this year supporting refugees fleeing the ongoing crisis in #Tigray.
(Picture 2) She spent weeks hearing stories of #Tigrayans fleeing their homes, escaping unimaginable violence, & how they sustained life at the camps in Gedarif. Stories like Abraham’s, a widowed father of 4, who lost his wife in childbirth fleeing invading soldiers.
(Pictures 3-6) In Gedarif, #refugees said tents they were provided often collapsed due to wind, rain, and mud. AGF then provided material reinforcements and helped build over 275 weather durable homes. AGF continues to build/reconstruct homes to support their #wellbeing. #HousingisaHumanRight
To support our ongoing #humanitarianassitance efforts in #Sudan, follow us to learn more and visit us at asmlash-grant.org
We have always been consistent to a fault when it comes to what we are after: break the siege imposed on Tigray by the child-killer regime of #AbiyAhmed & Co.We are not after power, territory or anything of that sort. We need our children to be spared from senseless violence; our mothers to be free from the fear of gang rape or summary execution and more appealing crimes.
We need to ensure that our children & elderly have a decent access to basic amenities such as food or medicine. In short, we need to make sure our people resume living their lives as normally as they could.
That’s not too much to ask or so we we believe. We are willing to try& achieve these through peaceful means, if possible. In fact, that’s our preferred path. Let it be clear, however, that we will continue to do what it takes to break the siege come hell or high waters!
At the risk of infuriating #TadesseWerede, commander of #The TigrayanArmy and his fellow military command members, I am betting that #Abiy’s final offensive is, indeed, his final. They are slightly frugal in their assessment & they think we need to take care of the remaining units before making such judgement. We both agree the defeat is going to be total though.
I tend to believe the end is a matter of days or a couple weeks and they tend to believe it could take slightly longer. That #Abiy is losing big, there is no doubt whatsoever.
At the risk of infuriating #TadesseWerede, commander of #TheTigrayanArmy and his fellow military command members, I am betting that #Abiy’s final offensive is, indeed, his final. They are slightly frugal in their assessment & they think we need to take care of the remaining units before making such judgement. We both agree the defeat is going to be total though.
I tend to believe the end is a matter of days or a couple weeks and they tend to believe it could take slightly longer. That #Abiy is losing big, there is no doubt whatsoever.