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Tigray: A Genocide as the World Watches in Real Life & in a Broad Day Light! By Hailemariam Abebe 11-24-20
For the past three weeks, a combined force of the Ethiopian and Eritrean armies, a total of some thirty-eight divisions (about four hundred thousand), have been committing a campaign of extermination in Tigray! And yet, if there is any coverage by the major international media outlets, it is just about a regurgitation of what the Ethiopian dictator’s ultimatums. To date, although the Ethiopian dictator have made it known to the world that he has sent the army into Tigray to supposedly bring about “law and order,” the world powers and international media have not said anything, let alone about the Amhara invasion, they have said nothing about the Eritrean invasion of Tigray! They have said nothing not only about Abiye Ahmed’s collaboration with a foreign power (Eritrea) against his own people (Tigrayan people) but also they have said nothing about the UAE’s drones and Isayas Afewerki’s invasion against the peaceful, faithful, lawful and a people with an elected government the likes never seen on the African continent! Where in Africa has the world seen a televised debate of contesting and competing political parties of varied political platform? As everyone who is familiar with Ethiopian political scene knows, ever since the ascent of Abiye Ahmed to the help of power, of the nine administrative regions or Kilils, it has been until about three weeks ago, only Tigray which has been so peaceful, lawful and in fact, a sanctuary for the citizens from elsewhere in Ethiopia! Ever since Abiye conned everyone to the helm of power, as the eight administrative regions engulfed themselves in ethnic, religious and political fires so set by the Abiye regime, it was only Tigray which had become the safe heaven for Ethiopians fleeing the quagmire in their own Kilils! So, much so that, Tigray has been dubbed for the last two or three years as the microcosm of Ethiopia of Meles Zenawi, complete with people from every ethnic, religious and political groups which make up the Nations and Nationalities of Ethiopia!
As the rest of Ethiopia burned in an inferno of hell, it was only Tigray which devoted itself not only into fighting the scourge of underdevelopment but also as it fought against COVID and an onslaught of locust of biblical scale at a time when the crops were about to reach the harvest stage but also Tigray was busy organizing a democratic election both quantitatively and qualitatively in par with the experienced democratic countries of the West! Moreover, the state of Tigray did not invade anyone, or made claim against anyone! And so the question for the big powers and the international media is why is it that there is no outrage as a peaceful, and lawful people with an elected government, a government of what Webster called "made for the people, made by the people, and answerable to the people" or what the greatest President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln, called a “Government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the Earth!” Why are the democratic Superpowers allowing the democracy so born in the heart of this ancient land of Tigray, Tigray which, as the seat of the Axumite Empire, has contributed so much to the world, to die at the hands of Abiye Ahmed and Isayas Afewerki? Is it that we are seeing this mother of Ethiopia whose belief in faith and independence inspired the likes of Martin Luther to bring about the Reformation revolution, whose architectural wonders which dazzle the world, its culinary innovations which not only serenade the senses like no other on the planet but the first Nation in the world to write the greatest music with notes of spices, whose paintings and jewelries so designed not only to reflect the divine nature of its people but also to capture the deepest rim of all humanity the world over, and as a nation of great past not only with its own alphabet, music, its own calendar and time but also philosophy on life, with lenses of “Shithole?” It had to be through the lenses of “Shithole!” Tigray has in fact become a collateral damage, for it has never been such in the past, never now and can never be one in the future! That was why when Ethiopia was in the grip of that communist thug, Menguistu Hailemariam, Tigray, despite its meager material resources, fought and prevailed against that Godless dictator backed by the entire Warsaw Pact, China and Cuba! And it is because Tigray has always been a land of faith, peace, law and a people with a premium on independence, that Professor Erlich Hagai of Tel Aviv University said when the brown, yellow, black and even white people of different part of the world accepted European domination, Tigray fought bullet with bullet to guarantee its independence! Yes, it was Tigray, the mother of Abyssinia/Ethiopia who was the first country on the African continent to defeat a modern European army (Italy’s) at the battle of Dogali in Jan 24, 1887! It was also Tigray which defeated the Egyptians on multiple fronts and defeated too, the Turks! People of this caliber, a people so rich in humanity and ones who have contributed so much to humanity, deserve to be thought of, just as did Martin Luther, with reverence and seen with the lenses of good and God! It is never too late! Open your eyes and see the current tragedy with your conscience and with the conscience of those citizens of yours who fell in defense of democracy! If you do, if you change your lenses, you can not miss it! At this very hour, there are thirty-eight divisions pummeling the people of Tigray; a people who have waged no war, invaded no one and declared war on no one, are being destroyed by the combined forces of thugs with utter contempt for democracy! You have known Isayas Afewerki as the terrorist who trained and financed Al-Shabaab (the terrorist organization with the blood of Americans in its hands)! So much so, the UN had put sanctions on this tyrant who is running a nation (Eritrea) which has been a virtual prison since its independence from Ethiopia! You know, you can not say you do not know, for your satellites have recorded and the records can show you, that Isayas has moved twenty divisions (200 thousand soldiers) into Tigray! There is no way you can escape from this truth! And you know too, together with Abiye Ahmed’s eighteen divisions, there are now thirty-eight divisions pummeling not only the developmental infrastructure of Tigray, destroying the UNSECO world heritage sites which dot the Tigrayan landscape but also, with total blockade of Tigray, not only people are dying from shortages just about everything but also almost four hundred thousand soldiers are conducting ethnic based revenge on a people whose crime is believing in democracy and independence! In his book, For Whom the Bell Tolls, the great author, Ernest Hemingway, once wrote “Each man's death diminishes me, for I am involved in mankind. Therefore, send not to know. For whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee!” Miss not that it is only when we view the entire human race as one entity and that we all are responsible for each other, that the sweetest idea of "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness," practically concurs with the divine laws in our faiths! But should we apply it whimsically or inappropriately or in violation of the Divine Design, as is the case on the Tigray predicament, if history is any guide, the idea “it is us today and it will be you tomorrow” so foretold at the League of Nations before the onset of WW2, may come to play for the second time! It is time for the democratic powers to come to their senses and see what is happening in the sparkling sunshine of Tigray! No doubt in the mind of every Tigraway, The U.S., the UK, France, Germany, Israel and many of those democracies know about the tragedy in Tigray! We know you have the satellite photos of the movements of the armies of Abiye and Isayas! You know too, the people of Tigray have done nothing wrong except standing for democracy, for the government they elected, and for their belief in who they are and what matters to them! They are being exterminated by two thugs with records of crimes decades in age! Isayas runs a country devoid of any press, college or university but prisons! His tyranny is so unmatched in the African continent, such that Eritrea has been dubbed as the country of the aged! The young have left the country! The tragedy is that Isayas has cloned himself in Ethiopia! His clone, Abiye Ahmed, has been devouring eight of the nine administrative regions of Ethiopia for the past two years, and now, he, along, with Isayas is exterminating the people of Tigray! One by one, as in the poem by Pastor Martin Niemöller (“First They Came for the Jews), and in as short as about two and a half years, he has brought, not the “reforms” so lauded by the West but transformed Ethiopia in to “Killing Fields” impossible for “reform” as it is unthinkable for democracy! He has used COVID as a fake pretext to postpone holding the national election as mandated by the Constitution but the very COVID he used to violate the Constitution did not stop him from declaring a war of genocide on Tigray which upheld the requirement of the Constitution even in the midst of COVID, locust invasion and Abiye mediated economic and ethnic strangulation of Tigray! These are the facts!
And the facts could not be clearer! What is happening in Tigray is Rwanda all over again! As was the case with Rwanda, the information is as clear as the sparkling sunshine of Tigray. There are thirty-eight, almost four hundred thousand soldiers of both Ethiopia and Eritrea, killing a peaceful, lawful and a people who elected their government with international standards! That, these armies are inside Tigray, bringing death and destruction never seen in the history of Africa, are in your files! And it is not the silence on the foreign involvement and the genocide underway but the other omissions too. When a power station, airports, churches and a university, clearly no military value/zone, are bombed by Abiye, what we hear condemned is only that Tigray’s, the victim’s self-defense effort! The democracies of the West may try to hoodwink the people of Tigray with lip services of calling for “cease fire” or “peace negotiations!” But we know such calls are not only false witness but an act of sin at a time when a genocide is in full swing, as the world watches in real time and in a broad day light!
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