Ethiopian Public Diplomacy Task-Force:  Why Ethiopia’s Cause Is Just

The Ethiopian Public Diplomacy Task Force (EPDTC) is a coalition of civic groups and concerned individuals from diverse ethnic and religious backgrounds.  The impetus for EPDTC was the unprovoked attack on the Northern Command of the Ethiopian National Defense Forces (ENDF) on November 3. TPLF, which orchestrated that attack--and its supporters--have waged a relentless propaganda campaign to deflect blame for their crimes.  Well-funded and adept propagandists, they have flooded the media with fake news, projecting their crimes on the victims of the brutal acts.  EPDTC aims to lay these abuses bare, clear up misperceptions, and show why Ethiopia’s response is measured and just. We hope you agree. 

The root of the current crisis can be traced to the constitution TPLF imposed on Ethiopia in 1991.  Largely concocted by a tight clique of university dropouts, and based on ethnic bigotry, this divisive document enshrined ethnic discrimination.  Birthed out of a toxic narrative which harkens back to the colonial days of divide-and-rule, it blames Amharas for all the imagined or real ills that have bedeviled Ethiopia over the past century. This document pigeonholes the tens of millions of ethnic Amharas as ‘naftagnas’ (armed marauders), who deserve to be oppressed with impunity.  Taking such irrational hostility to its logical conclusion, the TPLF saw to it that no Amhara representative would play any role in reviewing and commenting on the document, which has been the law of the land for nearly 3 decades.  

The TPLF constitution converted provinces into ethnic regions, with far-reaching ramifications.  At the heart of this document was the TPLF’s ambition to create, by means of a brazen land-grab agenda, a Greater Tigray, annexing huge slices of territory from the former provinces of Begemidir and Wello to the former province of Tigre.  Likewise, the TPLF created an entirely new regional state, Beni Shangul-Gumuz, by taking away the most fertile and mineral-laden parts of the former province of Gojam to a sliver of territory in Wellega.  This sinister land-grab has had tragic aftermaths, most notably the deaths and displacement of hundreds of thousands of former inhabitants of Welqait, Tsegede, and Raya in the former provinces of Gondar and Wello, and their illegal replacement by hundreds of thousands of people from the former province of Tigre.  Likewise, the newly-created Beni Shangul-Gumuz state has been defined by perennial ethnic violence, leading to the massacre and displacement of thousands of Amharas.  

The new law saddled Ethiopia with a federal structure which is nothing short of ethnic-apartheid!  This law summarily abolished every Ethiopian’s basic right to work, travel and live freely in any part of the country, confining him/her to what amounts to an ethnic/linguistic Bantustan!  Just as during apartheid-era South Africa, everyone has to carry an identification card which prominently identifies one’s ethnic identity, making him/her vulnerable to identity-based attacks.   Moreover, under this law, a non-ethnic resident of a given region is subject to arbitrary arrest and imprisonment, and sometimes even worse, as shown by the summary execution of Amharas in Shashemene, Gurra Ferda, etc. Finally, this brand of apartheid makes a mockery of holding national elections, since, as articulated by a prominent leader of a regional state, a non-member of a particular ethnic region cannot campaign freely in that region.  

The constitution gave the TPLF warlords unparalleled sway over all Ethiopian affairs for 27 years! Much to the detriment of all other regions, this harmful document anointed Region 1, Tigray, as first among equals, with the unique privilege to do as it pleased. Using this exclusive right, the TPLF-controlled leadership established shining industrial parks, high-tech ago-businesses, wind-mill farms, and state-of-the-art airports, etc.—all at national expense!  The TPLF also poured immense resources to gouge multiple tunnels out of ragged mountains and erect multiple bridges over deep canyons to build wide-laned highways—not to speak of the almost completed railway line to Jibuti.  Moreover, under the cover of a notorious “mutual endowment organization,” EFFORT, the TPLF fraudulently diverted billions of dollars, not only from the Ethiopian budget it controlled for 27 years, but also from aid money and loans from international organizations, and allowed EFFORT-controlled companies to mushroom all over Tigray.  These companies, armed with no-bid contracts, tax-free import/export licenses, and speedily granted permits, enjoyed a lopsided advantage in distributing products and services, thereby driving other investors into insolvency.  While we do not begrudge the people of Tigray for what little benefit may have trickled down to them, we contend that this criminal enterprise benefited mainly the warlords and their henchmen.  In effect, this relegates non-Tigrayan investors to second-class citizens, bereft of a level-playing field.  Predictably, such a hierarchical arrangement, which allows one region to prosper to the detriment of all the rest, spawned instant millionaires and billionaires, triggering widespread resentment!  

In contrast to the frenzied pace of development in Tigray, in many of the other regions, especially in the targeted Amhara region, neglect and uneven development were the order of the day. TPLF applied the law capriciously and arbitrarily.  To illustrate:  It stripped Addis Ababa, the multi-ethnic metropolitan capital of over 5 million people, of the right to administer its own affairs.  With regard to the Amhara region, TPLF felt free to appoint its own stooges and run the region’s affairs.  TPLF neglected development projects, and allowed existing roads, hospitals and schools to deteriorate.  It also, shuttered airports, such as the vital lifelines to Debre Tabor, Motta and Debre Markos, airports which had been operating since as far back as the reign of Haile Selassie I.  More tellingly, rather than green-lighting new projects and facilities, in some cases, TPLF went as low as dismantling equipment and shipping it to Tigray, a case in point being an old rock-crusher which had been creaking along since the Italian invasion!

In terms of the current conflict, although the TPLF wishes to frame it as one between two equivalent entities, this’s not the case: What unfolded in recent weeks has been an operation by a sovereign nation’s leader to curb lawlessness in one of the constituent regions of that country.  More importantly, contrary to TPLF assertions, this is not a war against the Tigrayan people, but a campaign to rein in the criminality of outlaws, among whose victims are the people of Tigray themselves.  In reality, Ethiopians have a high regard for the industrious people of Tigray: Tigray is the cradle of their civilization, and all Ethiopians take pride in the glories of Axum and the exploits of Emperor Abraha, who ruled over not only Ethiopia but also Arabia. The hills and plains of Adwa, in Tigray, are littered with the bones of non- ethnic Tigrayans, who came from all parts of Ethiopia to defend that region from Italian invaders. The Victory of Adwa in 1896 is a source of pride not only for Ethiopians but also Black people everywhere.  Above all, Ethiopians would never confuse the long-suffering people of Tigray with the sleaze-drenched TPLF warlords! 

The reform-minded federal government of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has wide popular support.  Dr. Abiy’s accession to power was greeted with widespread demonstrations of support. The Ethiopian people had been oppressed for so long that they treated his arrival as a breath of fresh air, hence the ecstatic demonstrations of support not only throughout Ethiopia but also when his entourage visited several cities in Europe and the U.S.  Despite this, the TPLF, which was ousted after 27 years of corrupt and brutal rule, has worked tirelessly to derail this fledgling government’s reform plan. It has waged this campaign in a bid to reclaim its widely reviled reign of plunder and terror.  In fact, we believe that the people of Tigray themselves will breathe a sigh of relief, since they will benefit the most from its ouster.  

The TPLF has relentlessly stoked ethnic hostility and promoted ethnic cleansing throughout Ethiopia.  Ethnic conflict has been the bane of Africa since before the advent of slavery and colonialism, yet fanning ethnic animosity and organizing, and financing, such conflicts in the Somali, Amhara, and Beni Shangul regions has been the TPLF’s stock in trade.  The TPLF saw this brand of apartheid as its ticket for clinging to power indefinitely, but all decent people should see such a toxic agenda as a serious threat to all Black people.  Africa can never attain its immense potential so long as anyone can dredge up even minor slights and blow them up into all-out ethnic warfare. To paraphrase President Obama, “tribalism” is Africa’s festering sore, and we certainly do not need a repeat of the Rwanda massacre of 1992—in fact, one magnified many times over--since Ethiopia has not two, but over eighty distinct ethnic groups! 

TPLF’s hegemony over Ethiopia has been characterized by a history of “abuses and usurpations”! 

Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed is not a war-monger who recklessly plunged Ethiopia into the current conflict.  In fact, it was the TPLF which forced his hand by attacking the ENDF.  As the Commander-in-Chief of Ethiopia’s armed forces, he has the legal and political mandate of the federal government to maintain law and order and safeguard Ethiopia’s territorial integrity.  Ironically, Dr. Abiy had been roundly criticized for coddling the TPLF for too long: TPLF detained federal personnel sent to relieve a team in charge of security at Mekelle Airport.  TPLF’s hooligans blocked the Mechanized Division from relocating to another region to quell unrest, and they forced the soldiers to park their heavy military equipment at a school. The TPLF also rebuffed peace overtures initiated by faith and community leaders. Likewise, in September, TPLF carried out an election which not only excluded two local Tigrayan political parties but also was illegal, since it usurped the central government’s prerogative to oversee elections.  Observers regarded such repeated provocations as brazen insubordination, yet Dr. Abiy chose to downplay them rather than take hasty steps.  In short, he had shown the patience of Job in the face of flagrant provocations, but his hand was forced on November 3, he had no choice but to act decisively, and that is what he did!  

The TPLF’s recent assault on the Northern Command Post of the ENDF was chillingly premeditated:  One week prior to the onset of the conflict, the TPLF invited the commandant of the Northern Command to eat luncheon with some members of TPLF, which he accepted.  Sadly, as soon as he tasted the food, he fell violently ill, for, apparently the TPLF warlords had poisoned him.  He was instantly incapacitated, and although a month has passed since this act of treachery was committed, he’s still barely clinging to life!  Following this, the ENDF sent another general to take the place of the stricken commandant, but the TPLF warlords refused to recognize his legitimacy, thereby rendering the Northern Command Post leaderless!  This done, the TPLF infiltrated the multi-ethnic ENDF with TPLF cadres and systematically set out to disarm the entire division.  It then chose the day a cargo-plane-load of new bank notes--sent to replace the discontinued notes--was delivered to Mekelle airport, to disrupt power and phone lines and butcher ENDF soldiers brutally.  So far, no trace of the billions of new bank-notes sent to Tigray has been found.  

The TPLF carried out unimaginable acts of barbarity against the gallant ENDF members, soldiers who had selflessly devoted 21 years of their lives to serving the Northern Command, tasked with protecting the people of Tigray.  After cutting power and phone lines, the TPLF proceeded to perpetrate the most blood-curdling attack on fellow members of the Northern Command.  TPLF, Tigray Militia, and Tigray Special Forces used ethnic-Tigrayan plants in the ENDF to target ethnic Amhara soldiers and officers.  Then, on the night of November 3, in an act of chilling savagery, these monsters crept on the trusting non-Tigrayan soldiers, comrades who had shared the same fox-holes with them for over 21 years.  Unaware of the treachery, the doomed soldiers were sound asleep--following a long day of helping the local people harvest crops--when the assassins executed them at point-blank range--or cut their throats--stripped them naked, and tossed their bodies out into the open, to be feasted on by hyenas and vultures! 

Despite such acts of barbarity, Ethiopia has done its best to minimize the death of innocent civilians.              Shocked into action by such an instance of abominable betrayal and barbarity, the Ethiopian National Defense Forces advanced at lightning speed on all battle fronts of Tigray’s ragged terrain until they reached the gates of Mekelle in a matter of three weeks!  Despite their grief at the brutal treatment of their fallen bunk-mates, they were not consumed by hate and hunger for vengeance.  Rather, when they were commanded to halt, halt they did, because they knew the horrors of urban warfare and would not subject the people of Mekelle to house-to-house combat.  Dr. Abiy gave the rebels 72 hours to come to their senses and prevent all out urban combat, although his soldiers had total superiority in terms of the relevant tools and rigorous training for urban combat.  In addition, although his country was at war itself, and-strapped for resources, Dr. Abiy has been making a concerted effort to provide humanitarian assistance to internally displaced citizens, as well as to repatriate those forced to seek refuge in Sudan. Finally, it is worth noting that Dr. Abiy signed an agreement with the U.N., allowing it to provide relief.

The TPLF coordinated its attack on the ENDF with a foreign power intent on destabilizing Ethiopia! In a Faustian pact with Egypt, which has poured hundreds of millions into TPLF coffers, TPLF has caused the deaths of thousands of people in ethnic conflicts throughout Ethiopia--except in Tigray.  It was no coincidence, therefore, that President Al Sissi of Egypt was visiting South Sudan, the closest point to Ethiopia’s Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), the day Mekelle fell to the ENDF. In addition to helping fuel ethnic conflict, Egypt has also tried to tarnish Ethiopia’s external relations, through an intense misinformation campaigns in Western capitals.  More ominously, it obtained President Trump’s blessing to bomb the GERD.  Thus, Egypt is a serious threat to Ethiopia because it wants to incapacitate the Dam, and TPPLF’s treacherous collusion with Egypt puts Ethiopia’s stability and sovereignty in serious jeopardy!

The TPLF’s unholy alliance with Egypt will also doom Ethiopia to economic purgatory indefinitely.  For millennia, the Blue Nile has scraped every ounce of fertile topsoil from Ethiopia’s highlands and deposited it onto the wastelands of Egypt, enabling Egypt to build flourishing civilizations even as Ethiopia has remained stuck in a subsistence economy.  In 2013?, for the first time in its history, Ethiopia started work on the GERD, a project which promises ample water for large-scale agricultural projects and to supply water to one of the biggest hydro-electric plants in Africa.  This power plant would fuel ambitious industrial parks and provide surplus power for the lucrative export marked.   For these reasons, the TPLF’s collusion with Egypt is a clear and present threat to the GERD, which is designed to usher in an era of prosperity and pull Ethiopia’s 110 million people out of the poverty they have been mired in for millennia. 

The TPLF is a terrorist group no less ruthless than Al Alqaeda, Boko Haram, or Al Shabab--if not worse.  As noted above, it poisoned the commandant of a command post and slaughtered the soldiers stationed to protect Tigray, defiled the bodies of the soldiers and fed them to wild animals, as well as fired weapons of mass destruction into densely populated areas, notably Gondar, Bahir Dar, and Asmara, the last of which was the target of four rocket attacks even on the day the TPLF warlords declared they were withdrawing from Mekelle.  The TPLF also bears direct responsibility for the brutal slayings of over 674 defenseless civilians by Samri, a band of ruthless teen assassins it trained and financed.   In Humera, a city illegally annexed by TPLF in 1991 and run by it until its liberation by ENDF, soldiers discovered mass graves with scores of bodies in a wooded area of the airport’s inner perimeter. We should note, also, that the TPLF, dogged by accusations of systematic killings of Amharas, admitted in 2000? that the Amhara population had inexplicably gone down by 2.5 million people, confirming the allegations of genocide!  

 

What do we need from you, and what can you do to further the objectives of this appeal?  

1. First, we wish to assure you that we are by no means all dyed-in-the-wool Ethiopian government backers; rather, we are a diverse group of people, from all walks of life, and various ethnic and religious backgrounds, united by the bone-chilling attack on the Northern Command of the ENDF.  

2.  We wish to make you aware of the fact that Ethiopia has been a net provider of stability in Africa, anchoring various peace-keeping forces in the continent.  Thus, an existential threat to Ethiopia is inimical to Africa’s stability.  Also, supporting Ethiopia’s cause is a sound policy because by fostering regional stability, we reduce the influx of political refugees streaming to the West.

3. Ethiopia is one of the fastest developing nations in the world, and, with the help of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), it is on the cusp of achieving tremendous growth, which will spur economic growth in the region. Thus, supporting Ethiopia’s cause promotes regional prosperity, reducing the flood of economic refugees to the West and other parts of the world.  

4. We wish to draw your attention to the effort by TPLF’s backers to frame the conflict in David-and-Goliath terms, with the TPLF seen as the David-like scrappy underdog, punching above its weight, and deserving everyone’s support.  Nothing could be more misleading, since the TPLF is a clique run by warlords who gorged on the people’s blood and treasure for nearly three decades.  A more apt characterization is to see the TPLF as the proverbial tail which wags the proverbial dog!

5. We also hope you will reject the toxic “both-sides-ism” being perpetuated by TPLF supporters, for nothing could be more unfair than treating the TPLF and the Ethiopian government as being equally deserving of support.  There is not perfect symmetry between the events surrounding the U.S. Civil War and the current conflict in Ethiopia; nonetheless, we hope that you will agree that a helpful way to frame the tragic conflict would be to view it in terms of the similarity between TPLF’s attack on the Northern Command Post and Jefferson Davis’ attack on Fort Sumter!

 To conclude, we wish to assure you that Ethiopia’s cause is just; TPLF’s cause is not!  We sincerely hope you will agree with us! May God bless you, and may God bless the United States of America!

የኢትዮጵያ ፐብሊክ ዲፕሎማሲ ግብረሃይል-ለምን የኢትዮጵያ መንስኤ ፍትሃዊ ነው

 የኢትዮጵያ ፐብሊክ ዲፕሎማሲ ግብረ ኃይል (ሲቪዲሲ) የሲቪክ ቡድኖች ጥምረት እና ከተለያዩ ጎሳ እና ሀይማኖት የተውጣጡ ግለሰቦች ናቸው ፡፡  የኢ.ፒ.ዲ.ሲ (ኢ.ዲ.ቲ.) ማበረታቻ እ.ኤ.አ ኖቬምበር 3 ቀን በኢትዮጵያ ብሔራዊ የመከላከያ ኃይል (ኢዴኤፍ) ሰሜናዊ ዕዝ ላይ ጥቃቱን ያልፈጸመው ጥቃት እና ደጋፊዎቹ - በወንጀሎቻቸው ላይ ጥፋተኛ እንዳይሆን ለማድረግ የማያቋርጥ የፕሮፓጋንዳ ዘመቻ አካሂደዋል ፡፡  .  በገንዘብ የተደገፉ እና የተዋጣላቸው የፕሮፓጋንዳ አራማጆች በአሰቃቂ ድርጊቶች ሰለባዎች ላይ ወንጀሎቻቸውን በማሰማት ሚዲያዎችን በሐሰተኛ ዜና ሞልተዋል ፡፡  ኢ.ዲ.ዲ.ሲ.  እንደምትስማሙ ተስፋ አለን ፡፡

 የወቅቱ ቀውስ መነሻ ህወሃት እ.ኤ.አ. በ 1991 በኢትዮጵያ ላይ በጫነችው ህገ-መንግስት ላይ የተመሠረተ ሊሆን ይችላል ፡፡በተለያዩ የዩኒቨርሲቲ ትምህርቶች ትምህርታቸውን ያቋረጡ በተጣበበ ቡድን የተዋሃዱ ሲሆን በብሄር ላይ የተመሠረተ አድልዎ በመሰረቱ ይህ ከፋፋይ ሰነድ ኢ.