Tag Archive for: Politics

Biden Administration Faces Mounting Pressure to Act in Ethiopian Conflict

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The Washington Free Bacon | Millions in peril of starvation in Ethiopia’s Tigray region

Hundreds of protesters gathered outside the State Department Thursday to demand the Biden administration take immediate action in Ethiopia to combat a humanitarian crisis that has left thousands dead.

The protesters called on newly confirmed secretary of state Antony Blinken to prioritize the deteriorating situation in Ethiopia where troops from the federal government—as well as troops from neighboring Eritrea and Somalia—have cracked down on the Tigray region. Protesters said immediate aid is necessary to prevent millions of Tigray residents from starving to death, presenting the days-old Biden administration with its first international crisis. Attendee Makea Araya said the crisis has placed millions in danger and displaced millions more.

“We need international actors, we need the Biden administration to take action and allow humanitarian access into the region,” Araya said.

The conflict puts millions of lives at stake and threatens the religious and cultural heritage of the world’s largest religions. Tensions between Tigray, a region in northern Ethiopia, and the federal government came to a head when Tigray’s leading political party refused to join the Ethiopian government’s new coalition in 2019. In early November, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed sent troops into the region, sparking violent clashes with the region’s militia force. While the crisis has been raging for months, limited information has emerged about its true scale since communications have been cut off in the region and foreign media and human-rights watchdogs have not been able to access the region. Reports of the massacre of religious worshipers in a famous Oriental Orthodox church and violence across the region are mounting, however.

Selome Girma, a protester, told the Washington Free Beacon that 4.5 million people are in dire need of humanitarian aid and are being cut off from the outside world. Tigray has been plagued by several communications blackouts during the months-long conflict, which the government has blamed on cyberattacks. Girma said the United States should lead the way to break the embargo and allow outside observers into Tigray.

“We are asking the United States to please humbly try to get some sort of international investigation of what’s going on in Tigray,” Girma said.

She said religious and cultural history is also in danger of being destroyed in the conflict. The region is home to several major Christian and Islamic historic sites, including the site of the massacre in the Oriental Orthodox church, which is reputed to be the location of the Ark of the Covenant.

The State Department, which did not return a request for comment, has remained vague on how it will approach the crisis. The department has released a statement calling for foreign troops allied with Ethiopia to leave the region immediately. The administration, however, has yet to lay out a strategy in the event that foreign troops remain in the region. The statement also called for “full, safe and unhindered humanitarian access” to the region, but the administration did not elaborate on how it would ensure this access.

Blinken also tweeted about the conflict in November and briefly mentioned the issue during his confirmation hearing, saying that the United States needed to do more in Africa. He called for more humanitarian access and said he was concerned that the violence could destabilize the region.

Ferez Timay, a longtime Washington, D.C., resident who was born in Tigray, said the Biden administration must do more than issue public declarations.

“We want the Biden administration to act soon because as the hours go, the minutes go, it’s the difference between life and death for the people of Tigray,” Timay said. “We want the Biden administration to act right away.”

The White House did not return a request for comment.

“They Have Destroyed Tigray, Literally”: Mulugeta Gebrehiwot speaks from the mountains of Tigray

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Transcript Call between Mulugeta Gebrehiwot and Alex de Waal 27 January 2021

Additional background information and audio are available on the WPF blog, “Reinventing Peace.” For more information: worldpeacefoundation.org

Listen to the interview

[The first minute of the call was not recorded. Mulugeta started by describing the onset of the war.]

Mulugeta: … and the damage it inflicted on the enemies, it’s difficult to express, it was a sort of miracle. Tigray only had 23 battalions, and 42 divisions of Eritrea and twelve divisions of Ethiopia, were all here. This is without including the special forces of the Amhara region, which is beyond, over 10,000, and also special forces of Oromia, Somalia, and other forces as well. The first month’s resistance was with this level of asymmetry.

And then the Emirates came. The Emirates effectively disarmed Tigray. They started killing tanks, then howitzers, then fuel, then ammunition. Then they started hunting small vehicles, targeting leaders, [indistinct] all over. This created [unclear: risk?] and sort of dislocation, and this is part of the weakness of the preparation. So many people moved out of the cities of Tigray towards the rural other areas following the army, some including their families.

So, we were caught in between, you know. Are we going to defend these people who flocked out of the cities with their families or are we going to fight, I mean the army was caught in between. So, the organization has to make a decision. You know, it prioritized continuing the resistance, and then it advised many of us who were not in active duty in the resistance to remain in some remote areas which finally resulted in the type of sad news you heard.

You know, the result became—they have destroyed Tigray, literally, all of them, EPLF, the Eritrean forces and the Ethiopian forces. They literally destroyed all the wealth that it had accumulated for thirty years, and burned schools, clinics, they have ransacked each house. They moved in. They have started looting the produce of the peasants, from all the villages beyond the black road that crosses Tigray towards Eritrea. And they kill whomever they find in whichever village they get in. In the village I was in yesterday—it’s a small village— they killed 21 people, out of which seven of them were priests of that small village.

And that’s what they do, wherever they go. So they literally destroyed the wealth we accumulated for thirty years in Tigray. And, no peasant is staying at home when these forces move around, and therefore we can consider the whole Tigrayan peasantry as dislocated.

It’s an effective destruction of Tigray but that’s not the only thing. It’s also an effective destruction of Ethiopian defense forces. Ethiopia has remained without an army now. Our evaluation initially reduced the Ethiopian army by [to?] about 85 percent. Seventeen percent of the army was immediately reduced by Abiy because 17 percent of them were Tigrayans.

They were torn out of their ranks, put in camps like Dedessa [etc.] under custody 17,000 Tigrayans. So, that was literally approximately 20 percent. And this is not only numbers, but its also critically—a critical part of the army, mid-level commanders, most of the technicians, and also, you know, skilled people who used to work in artillery, engineering, and all sorts of departments. And they literally lost something like 60 percent of [indistinct, call breaks] …they sent the commanders of the Eritrean forces, which they were just using as cannon fodders, you know, they send them first, and then once they’re finished, they start sending their army. So, Ethiopia is effectively without an army now. If the Eritrean forces left Tigray…

[BREAK IN CALL]

[The call resumed with Mulugeta saying that if the Eritrean forces left Tigray, the Ethiopian army would not be able to stay there, even for a few days. The recording resumes:]

Alex: Tell me, what is the condition of the people? Are you able to eat? Do you have any medical facilities? What are the essentials of life?

Mulugeta: Not much. You know, there has been this locust infestation, and the harvest also much interrupted because of the war. The crisis started at the beginning of the harvest period, and particularly, the Eritrean forces have deliberately burned crops while they are on the ground or before the harvesting is completed. So there is a reduction of produce as well. The [aid] logistics that was prepared initially by the government was disrupted, so there are drops, these problems of supplies, food, medicine, and so forth. Hunger, among peasantry, is crippling [indistinct] in those remote areas, bordering areas Eritrea. They are massively, massively ransacked by the Eritrean army. Whatever produce they have is taken by them. So, it’s tight. Soon, we might see a serious humanitarian crisis.

Alex: The government is saying it controls 85 percent of the access, and that it can provide humanitarian access to the great majority of people. Is that correct, do you think?

Mulugeta: The great majority of people. Even the government, even the humanitarian organizations, are estimating the people who need food to around 4.5 million. That’s even conservative.

Alex: And how many of those people can be accessed from the government’s side, and how many of them are in areas that are controlled by Tigray forces?

Mulugeta: Literally people on the towns of the main road. Because there is conflict all over. You know, a certain part of people, or the southern part of Tigray, around Maychew or Alamata… the rest of it is not accessible for humanitarian aid, unless some arrangement can be made. [Until] some sort of preliminary agreement to allow humanitarian assistance to [indistinct] has been reached, I don’t think a majority of Tigray is accessible to any humanitarian aid that comes through the government.

Alex: But we are not hearing anything—we have heard nothing from the TPLF leadership about what—

Mulugeta: I know, that’s a major problem we have. They’re just dislocated, and [sighs], that’s a critical impediment, we know that.

Alex: Because—as you might have heard today, well yesterday—the [U.S.] State Department demanded, first of all the withdrawal of Eritrean forces, but then also said there needed to be talks towards a political resolution. But how can any talks be conducted under the current circumstances?

Mulugeta: I think they’re in contact through telephone with some people there, but I don’t really understand why they shy away from coming public and talking publicly. I know there is a limitation of communication. They have lost their V-SATs, they only have these Thurayas, and they’ve really been without any radio transmitter. They brought a television station, which was not possible to run it without having a permanent base. I know that there is this limitation of communication, but the problem they have is more than that. I am telling them, people are telling them, we hope that they will soon come out and start being public. It’s even a problem here in Tigray.

Alex: Because also we are not hearing anything about any political demands. I mean, what is the agenda, what is the political program? I mean if there were to be negotiations, where would be the starting point? We don’t know any of this at the moment.

Mulugeta: Yeah. I know.

Alex: Anyway, just the news we get every day is so desperately sad. I think many people were shocked, especially by the news of the deaths of Seyoum and Abay and Asmalesh. I think that touched a lot of people around the world. As you may know, I wrote a tribute to Seyoum, which was widely circulated, but we still don’t know anything about the circumstances. Did you learn anything about that incident— ?

Mulugeta: They just found them in a village. They were staying in a village, and they didn’t have an army. They were just in a secluded area. They caught and killed them. It was the EPLF that killed them.

Alex: So, this story about a shootout, et cetera, is not—

Mulugeta: No, no, no. It’s completely rubbish. You know, they, the TPLF could have done so many things had they forecasted that level of violence which was not difficult to forecast. You know, it was very obvious that this war would be a war against Tigray, which Abiy is going to run alongside Isaias. And once you expect Isaias, you shouldn’t expect it to come less than any devastating force it could mobilize. Therefore, for those who will not have participated in active resistance in the field on the military side, there were lots of options. You know, moving them to Sudan or somewhere else. So many things could have been done, but there were no preparations at all.

Alex: It seems there was just a terrible miscalculation about this, and no political strategy, no communications strategy, no protection strategy.

Mulugeta: Not at all, yeah, not at all. Extremely poor. People were begging them. They didn’t have any [indistinct]. People were literally coming up with plans and asking them do this, do that. But they brought Tigray to their size anyway, what can we say.

Alex: The mood of the people now must be desperate, angry.

Mulugeta: Angry, angry, extremely angry, extremely angry. They are left with one option: just fighting. And the war is only beginning. It’s the same in the urban centers, and much worse in the rural areas. Wherever you go, you get dozens of youngsters asking you to be mobilized, to be trained and armed. The TPLF doesn’t have any shortage of manpower when it wants to mobilize. So it’s anger, and they’re left without option, with that option only, they don’t have an option.

They [i.e. Ethiopian and Eritrean forces] are not even [indistinct] they’re not trying to appease them, they’re not trying to get the buy-in of the people. They’re not attempting anything. They’re just out here, and it’s literally genocide by decree. Wherever they’re moving, whomever they find, they kill him or her. [It’s] an old man, a child, a nursing woman, or anything.

Alex: The stories we’ve been hearing most recently are especially that it’s the Eritreans. Is it everybody, or is particularly the Eritrean forces?

Mulugeta: It’s everybody, but the worst ones are the Eritrean forces.

Alex: So tell us, are you able to remain abreast of how this has been covered by the rest of the world? Are you able to pick up anything from the news, from the radio, from internet sites or anything?

Mulugeta: Yeah, I have an old radio transistor which I bought it from a militia [laughs]. That’s what connects me to the rest of the world.

Alex: It’s back to those old days.

Mulugeta: It’s extremely difficult. Sometimes the battery gets, you run out of battery and therefore run out of communication for two, three days. It’s difficult.

Alex: So, we have been doing our best to just draw attention to what’s been going on, because as you know, there was an attempt to have this war conducted in conditions of total secrecy, and even to pretend that it was not a war. There was the U.S. administration, the last one, was very much complicit in that. The African Union completely failed. But the news is now coming out.

Mulugeta: Everything is fine. But one thing is you could push more on this humanitarian intervention. There has to be either some sort of monitoring.

And the Eritrean forces will remain here. They had a meeting last week, it’s some information we got from them, among the senior commanders of the army. There was a request from some of the army commanders on how long they are going to stay in Tigray. The response they gave them was, “Once we leave Tigray, PP [Prosperity Party] will not stay for one week in Tigray, and therefore we will leave Tigray to Woyene [TPLF] again and it will revive. And therefore, we have to remain there up until PP can pick it up which might take several months to come back.” That’s the answer that they gave them.

And therefore, this declaration from State Department—it might even come later from the UN Security Council—might not force the Eritreans to leave Tigray, unless it is supported, either with some humanitarian intervention, as much as they did in Kosovo, some armed intervention that reinforces things, or at least some sort of monitoring on the ground.

Alex: What about the Emirates? You mentioned the Emirates. Presumably, you meant the drones?

Mulugeta: Yeah. Now we don’t have any targets. We don’t have tanks. We don’t have [indistinct]. We are not big targets. We are just human beings moving around. I think that’s the only thing that brought it [i.e. the recent decline in drone attacks]. Otherwise, they have been here in full force, in just full force. They deployed their drones with their operators, and they’re the ones who effectively disarmed us.

Alex: There was one thing that I didn’t quite catch earlier on. You said the Eritreans would stay until something had been achieved. What is the Eritrean war aim, as you see it?

Mulugeta: They don’t know when PP will stand on its foot to fight against Tigray. That’s what they’re saying. They’re saying we have to stay there until PP comes up in a position to fight against the Woyenes. That’s what they’re saying. They don’t know when it will happen. It will never happen, actually. They way I see it, it will not happen here. It might not even happen in the rest of Eritrea. We’re seeing them in the field. Wherever confronted…

You might have heard of a small operation that happened two weeks ago around Edaga Harbi. There was a full brigade, support brigade of the 33rd division, which was fully mechanized, a support brigade is a mechanized support to the rest of the division. It only took 15 minutes to destroy it. In 15 minutes, six 107mm rocket launchers were taken, six 120mm mortars were taken, four 122 howitzers were taken, several vehicles were taken, and 167 of them were taken prisoners, in just 15 minutes.

Alex: What is happening to these prisoners of war? Where are they being kept? How are they being kept?

Mulugeta: We sent them back. We can not carry them around. What we did was, we gave them a sort of political education for two, three days, and then we sent them back to Mekelle and Adigrat. It’s only the commanders—one colonel, one lieutenant colonel—who declined to return back. They said, “they will kill us, so we will remain with you.” We told them, “you cannot be our soldiers, and that’s not what you are asking us, and we shall not provide you shelter, but you can remain in the liberated areas.”

So, they are just moving around. So that’s where we are Alex.

Chinese ambassador, Ethiopia capital mayor agree to enhance economic partnership

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ADDIS ABABA, Jan. 29 (Xinhua) — Chinese ambassador to Ethiopia Zhao Zhiyuan and Mayor of Ethiopia’s capital city Adanech Abiebie agreed on Friday to enhance the economic partnership between the two countries.

In a press statement, Abiebie said she has reached an agreement with the Chinese ambassador to Ethiopia on the need to add new Chinese built projects that improve the economic and social lives of Addis Ababa city residents.

Abiebie also said her office discussed with the Chinese ambassador to Ethiopia on the need to further enhance cooperation in road projects in Ethiopia’s capital city.

Addis Ababa, a city of an estimated five million-plus population is Ethiopia’s main social, economic and political hub.

Chinese firms are engaged in various infrastructure projects in the city aimed at meeting the social and economic needs of Addis Ababa’s big population.

These include the multimillion U.S. dollars expansion infrastructure in the Addis Ababa Bole International Airport and the landmark “Beautifying Sheger” project.

“Beautifying Sheger” is a personal initiative of Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed who envisions creating a clean, livable environment for the residents of Addis Ababa.

Were Orthodox Christians massacred in Ethiopia?

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American Magazine | The Jesuit Review | Kevin Clarke

With journalists, aid workers and U.N. officials largely cut off and local internet and mobile services blocked, much remains unknown about what has been happening in Ethiopia’s Tigray region over the last three months, but accounts emerging from farmers and villagers escaping the fighting between Tigrayan militia and central government forces are not encouraging.

U.N. officials have received multiple reports of sexual assaults and the executions of unarmed men and boys, and they report the discovery of at least 300 unaccompanied or separated children among the more than 57,000 people who have fled into neighboring Sudan. They believe hundreds more will be found among the hundreds of thousands of people displaced by fighting in the Tigray, Amhara and Afar regions.

John Shumlansky, the country representative for Catholic Relief Services, returned to Addis Ababa in mid-January after visiting the capital of Tigray, Mekele. He found thousands there who had fled the fighting with little more than what they could carry and the clothes on their backs, but he said some normalcy was at least returning to the city itself as banks and shops reopened.

Violence is continuing in Ethiopia’s Tigray state. Can Catholic Church officials bring their diplomatic skills to bear to promote a peaceful resolution to the conflict?

“But clearly people are a bit traumatized by what happened,” he said, “and they’re trying to get their lives back…living with host communities at the moment, trying to figure things out until they can feel safe to go back to their homes.

“A lot of the big needs now are food, making sure they have shelter and that there is clean, safe water for people, hygiene.” Complicating the immediate relief effort, he added, is “the Covid issue.”

“People are still separating and trying to socially distance,” but that “isn’t always possible in these kinds of situations.” Tigray, a largely agricultural region, was already a hunger hot spot before fighting broke out between government troops and Tigrayan militia in November. The region has been afflicted by the worst outbreak of locust swarms in more than two decades, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization. Officials worry that millions in Tigray now face food insecurity and hundreds of thousands could be at risk of starvation. C.R.S. will be part of a consortium of relief agencies charged with feeding as many as 1.5 million in Tigray over the coming months, Mr. Shumlansky reported.

There have been allegations of massacres of civilians by all sides in an escalating conflict that has included the Ethiopian and Eritrean forces joined against the Tigray People’s Liberation Front. Among the most shocking are still unconfirmed reports of a slaughter of as many as 750 to 1,000 people on the grounds of the Cathedral of Our Lady Mary of Zion in Axum.

Laurie Nathan, the director of the mediation program at the University of Notre Dame’s Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, describes the report of a massacre in Axum as credible, though unverified. Accounts of the killing of noncombatants on the compound around the cathedral were first reported by the Europe External Programme with Africa, a Belgium-based peace building and refugee protection advocacy, on Jan. 9. The reported attack took place on Dec. 15.

Our Lady Mary of Zion is an especially sacred site to Tigrayans. According to local tradition, its Chapel of the Tablet is believed to house the biblical Ark of the Covenant. Accounts from witnesses report that community members went to the compound concerned that an approaching armed group intended to loot the chapel and remove the ark. After a confrontation, scores of these unarmed people were fired on by that armed group, composed, according to survivors, of Ethiopian federal troops and Amhara militia.

“It really does look like there was an atrocity and a massacre, but precisely the motivation and the details, I think we need to suspend judgment at the moment,” Mr. Nathan said.

There have been allegations of massacres of civilians by all sides in an escalating conflict that has included the Ethiopian and Eritrean forces joined against the Tigray People’s Liberation Front.

“We’re not going to know” what happened in Axum, he said, “until it’s the United Nations or reputable human rights groups that are doing a proper investigation.”

Though other African states have experienced such violence as a result of tension between Christian and Muslim communal groups, Mr. Nathan believes the killings in Axum are the result not of interreligious strife but of the ethnic and political crisis that has engulfed Tigray.

Ethiopia is about 62 percent Christian, mostly members of the Ethiopian Tewahedo Orthodox Church, and 33 percent Muslim, but “it’s not likely at all” that Our Lady Mary of Zion “was targeted because of its Christian orientation,” Mr. Nathan said. “What you’re seeing with this church massacre is a reflection of the armed conflict between the Ethiopian government and ruling party on the one hand and the people of Tigray and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front on the other.”

C.R.S.: “A lot of the big needs now are food, making sure they have shelter and that there is clean, safe water for people, hygiene.” Complicating the immediate relief effort is “the Covid issue.”

Violence broke out in Tigray in November, when government forces sought to suppress the T.P.L.F. Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed moved against the militia and the governing class in Tigray after local officials there went ahead with a popular vote in contravention of the central government’s decision to postpone national elections because of the coronavirus pandemic.

The prime minister justified the incursion as a response to an alleged T.P.L.F. attack on an Ethiopian army installation. According to Mr. Nathan, the eruption between government forces and the T.P.L.F. is a reflection of growing tensions within Ethiopia between the central government and ethnic and regional power centers seeking greater autonomy. The T.P.L.F. is the military wing of a political bloc that had wielded considerable power in Ethiopia for decades, part of the reason Eritrea was eager to join forces with Mr. Abiy to take on its former adversaries in the border region.

Since Eritrea joined the offensive, its troops and associated militia have been accused of summary execution, rape and looting. Among the issues that remain to be sorted out when humanitarian access to the region is restored is the fate of thousands of Eritrean refugees in Tigray who were among the targets of the Eritrean incursion.

“It really does look like there was an atrocity and a massacre” in Tigray, “but precisely the motivation and the details, I think we need to suspend judgment at the moment.”

U.S. State Department officials told The Associated Press that they have directly “pressed senior levels” of Eritrea’s government to immediately withdraw from the embattled region. There were no details on how officials in Eritrea, one of the world’s most secretive countries, responded to the Biden administration demand.

If a massacre is confirmed at Our Lady Mary of Zion, Mr. Nathan believes that Ethiopian government forces remain the likeliest suspect. “The attackers want to destroy Tigrayan culture,” said Mr. Nathan, “and to pick on such a high-profile religious and spiritual target sends the message of terror, which is what was intended here.”

Based on his experience during similar armed conflicts, militias “don’t conduct themselves in this way without the consent of whoever provides [them] with weaponry.”

Mr. Nathan advises the United Nations on conflict resolution and previously worked as the director of the Centre for Mediation in Africa at the University of Pretoria in South Africa.

“It’s possible that you have completely criminal bands that act as militia that have no motive other than pillage and profit, but that is not what’s going on in Tigray right now,” he said. “A militia that attacks a church in Tigray is doing so in alliance with the government or Ethiopian Defense Force.”

Ironies abound in the apparent eagerness of the prime minister to press the fight against the T.P.L.F. Mr. Abiy won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019 because of his successful efforts to bring years of conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea to an end. By most accounts, he is a devout Christian, and he was awarded a doctorate by the Institute for Peace and Security Studies at Addis Ababa University.

But he seems to have forgotten whatever he learned about conflict resolution the closer he has come to achieving the goal of suppressing Tigrayan autonomy. The prime minister has brushed aside offers to negotiate an end to the fighting. The once imposing T.P.L.F. militia—with as many 250,000 members it had been considered one of Africa’s most formidable forces—has been dealt a serious blow by the central government’s campaign; and members of the region’s ruling class have been killed, arrested or thrown into flight, Mr. Nathan said.

“The attackers want to destroy Tigrayan culture and to pick on such a high-profile religious and spiritual target sends the message of terror, which is what was intended here.”

Despite those apparent government successes, Mr. Nathan worries the struggle in Tigray may be nearer to its beginning than to its end.

“The Ethiopian defense has prevailed; they have effectively suppressed the revolt. They have decimated the Tigrayan forces,” Mr. Nathan said. “But that’s not to say that they’ve won the peace because the people of Tigray supported what their political party was doing. I think their level of hatred now towards the Ethiopian government is vastly greater than it was previously.”

Even if the fighting can be quickly brought to a halt, he describes the conflict as “a manifestation of the deep crisis of the Ethiopian state,” a struggle to achieve a “balance between central control and regional autonomy [that] has not been resolved adequately.”

Now local and regional leaders call for a national dialogue to rethink the Ethiopian Constitution, according to Mr. Nathan, but “you can’t have a national dialogue in a situation of acute instability, and certainly you can’t in one of violence.”

“For a national dialogue to proceed,” he said, “individuals, groups, political parties need to be free to move, to assemble, to speak without fear of intimidation or repression or violence, and they’re not close to that.”

He worries that the violence in Tigray could be a harbinger of more to come.

Mr. Nathan suggested that as the international community presses for a cease-fire and the creation of humanitarian corridors to reach displaced Tigrayans and refugees, regional and international religious leaders should step up to take the lead in seeking a long-term solution. Even the Catholic Church, which has a small but vibrant footprint in Ethiopia, could make a stronger effort to promote peace beyond the usual issuing of appeals for calm and security, Mr. Nathan said.

He urged Vatican diplomats to reach out to contacts in the Orthodox Church and within the Eritrean and Ethiopian diplomatic corps. Christian groups have been historically perceived as dependably neutral in mediating such conflicts, and the Catholic Church in particular has had past successes in Africa, he said, noting its role in bringing an end to years of civil conflict in Mozambique.

“When a country is gripped in conflict and there are deep divisions, the church is one of the institutions that is capable of transcending those divisions,” Mr. Nathan said. “The church is always able to say, ‘We speak on behalf of all humankind, or at least all our constituents, regardless of their ethnicity.’”

As for immediate humanitarian aid, Mr. Shumlansky is confident that once the security conditions improve, C.R.S. will be able to tap into a reliable network of Catholic parishes and health services to distribute food and other emergency aid to help Tigrayans survive this catastrophe. “It’s really a good network of people that we can work through,” he said.

Joint NGO Letter call for a Special Session on the deteriorating human rights situation in Ethiopia

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The Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect saves lives by mobilizing the international community to act in situations where populations are at risk of mass atrocity crimes. | R2P

28 January 2021 | OPEN LETTER |

To Permanent Representatives of Member and Observer States of the United Nations Human Rights Council, Geneva, Switzerland

Your Excellency,

We, the undersigned human rights non-governmental organizations, strongly support the call for a UN Human Rights Council (HRC) special session on the deteriorating human rights situation in Ethiopia and urge your delegation to support such a session without further delay.

Since 4 November 2020, fighting between federal government forces and affiliated militias with forces and militia allied to Tigray’s ruling party, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, have reportedly killed hundreds of civilians and caused more than one million people to flee their homes, including at least 57,000 refugees who are now in Sudan. There have been widespread reports of serious violations of international humanitarian law and human rights violations and abuses including possible atrocity crimes, including indiscriminate attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure, unlawful killings, widespread looting, and rape and sexual violence against women and girls. There have also been reports of massacres committed along ethnic lines within Tigray, as well as ethnic profiling, discrimination, and hate speech against Tigrayans both within and outside the country. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees has also expressed alarm for the “safety and well-being” of the 96,000 Eritrean refugees in Tigray, given the unconfirmed but “overwhelming number of reports of Eritrean refugees in Tigray being killed, abducted and forcibly returned to Eritrea,” where they could face persecution. Access to independent humanitarian aid continues to be limited in Tigray despite an agreement reached between the federal government and the UN on 29 November. Journalists critical of the government have been arrested, exacerbating existing restrictions on communication and information from the region.

Given the gravity of these alleged violations and abuses, we believe that a Human Rights Council special session on Ethiopia is essential to ensure international scrutiny of the situation and to adopt measures to prevent any further deterioration of the crisis.

While the Council should pay particular attention to the situation in Tigray, it should not restrict itself to addressing only one region of Ethiopia. It is important that the Council acknowledges the general deterioration of human rights in other parts of the country, particularly in the last year. This includes reports of deadly violence along ethnic and communal lines; allegations of abuse by security forces in Oromia, Benishangul-Gumuz, Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples’ and Amhara regions; and fighting along the borders between the Tigray and Amhara regions, the Oromia and Somali regions, and the Afar and Somali region.

A Special Session would enable the HRC to receive information from the High Commissioner for Human Rights and others on the gravity of the ongoing crisis, including how long-standing grievances and structural issues have contributed to the overall deterioration of the human rights situation, and to take appropriate action, in line with the Council’s prevention mandate, to prevent further violations and abuses.

We believe that supporting calls for action by the heads of various UN agencies, including through holding a special session, is necessary to uphold the HRC’s founding principles of the promotion and protection of human rights. On 7 December the UN Secretary-General expressed his concern about the situation in Tigray, calling for full respect for human rights and the guarantee of unfettered humanitarian access. On 22 December the High Commissioner for Human Rights described the situation as “heart-breaking as it is appalling” and emphasized the urgent need for “independent, impartial, thorough and transparent investigations to establish accountability and ensure justice” for grave violations. Furthermore, on 12 November the UN Special Advisers on the Prevention of Genocide and the Responsibility to Protect warned that if escalating ethnic tensions in Ethiopia are not urgently addressed the “risk of atrocity crimes in Ethiopia remains high.”

We respectfully urge you to recognize serious concerns expressed by the UN Secretary-General, High Commissioner for Human Rights, High Commissioner for Refugees and the Special Advisers on the Prevention of Genocide and the Responsibility to Protect by:

  • calling, without delay, for the convening of a special session of the UN Human Rights Council to discuss the situation in Ethiopia, with a focus on the human rights violations and abuses that continue to take place in Tigray and throughout the country;
  • presenting for adoption a resolution to ensure independent and impartial investigations into alleged violations and abuses of international human rights law and violations of international humanitarian law, some of which may amount to atrocity crimes, committed by all parties to the conflict. The findings should be reported to the Human Rights Council, including recommendations to prevent further human rights violations and abuses and ensure accountability.

Respectfully yours,

  1. African Centre for Democracy and Human Rights Studies (ACDHRS)
  2. CIVICUS
  3. Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect
  4. Global Justice Center
  5. Human Rights Watch
  6. International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH)
  7. International Service for Human Rights (ISHR)
  8. Southern African Human Rights Defenders Network (SAHRDN)
  9. Women’s Refugee Commission (WRC)
SOURCE | Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect and other NGOs

Retired US Ambassadors to Ethiopia write an open letter to Prime Minister Abiy

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Ethiopian Reporter | Four retired US ambassadors to Ethiopia write an open letter to Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed (PhD) stating their concerns about recent political developments in the country.

The letter sent exclusively to The Reporter is signed by Ambassadors David Shinn, Aurelia Brazeal, Vicki Huddleston, and Patricia Haslach.

The full content of the letter is presented below.

Open Letter to Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed from retired U.S. Ambassadors to Ethiopia

January 21, 2021

Dear Mr. Prime Minister:

We are former ambassadors who have served in Ethiopia during various political crossroads, and each of us are forever inspired by the resilience and principles of the Ethiopian people. At present, we are deeply concerned about the stability and future of Ethiopia, and so have taken the liberty to write to you about our concerns.

We have watched the conflict in Tigray with grave unease as, according to the United Nations, nearly 60,000 refugees have fled to Sudan, 2.2 million people have been displaced, and 4.5 million people need emergency assistance, many of whom are without adequate food. We are also worried about the reported presence of Eritrean troops in Tigray, which could jeopardize Ethiopia’s territorial integrity.

We are concerned about the worsening ethnic tensions throughout the country, reflected in the proliferation of hate speech and rising ethnic and religious violence. Based on our time in your country, this growing violence seems to us to be contrary to Ethiopia’s long-standing tradition of tolerance for diverse religions and ethnicities.

It is our hope, Mr. Prime Minister, that your government will ensure the protection of civilians, the independent investigation of human rights violations, and unrestricted access for the United Nations and other relief agencies. We would like to repeat the advice we often heard during each of our tenures in your country: Ethiopia needs a national dialogue designed to bring together all sectors of society. We wish you and every Ethiopian the very best.

Sincerely,

Hon. David H. Shinn
Ambassador: July 1996-August 1999

Hon. Aurelia E. Brazeal
Ambassador: November 2002-September 2005

Hon. Vicki J. Huddleston
Chargé d’Affaires: September 2005-November 2006

Hon. Patricia M. Haslach
Ambassador: September 2013-August 2016

‘Choose – I kill you or rape you’: abuse accusations surge in Ethiopia’s war

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 Reuters | The young coffee seller said she was split from family and friends by an Ethiopian soldier at the Tekeze river, taken down a path, and given a harrowing choice.

An Ethiopian woman who fled the ongoing fighting in Tigray region, carries her child near the Setit river on the Sudan-Ethiopia border in Hamdayet village in eastern Kassala state, Sudan, 22 November 2020. | Reuters

“He said: ‘Choose, either I kill you or rape you’,” the 25-year-old told Reuters at the Hamdayet refugee camp in Sudan where she had fled from conflict in Ethiopia’s Tigray region.

The doctor who treated her when she arrived at the camp in December, Tewadrous Tefera Limeuh, confirmed to Reuters that he provided pills to stop pregnancy and sexually-transmitted diseases, and guided her to a psychotherapist.

“The soldier … forced a gun on her and raped her,” Limeuh, who was volunteering with the Sudanese Red Crescent, said the woman told him. “She asked him if he had a condom and he said ‘why would I need a condom?’”

Five aid workers for international and Ethiopian aid groups said they had received multiple similar reports of abuse in Tigray. The United Nations appealed this week for an end to sexual assaults in the region.

Among a “high number” of allegations, particularly disturbing reports have emerged of people being forced to rape relatives or have sex in exchange for basic supplies, the UN Office of the Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict, Pramila Patten, said in a statement on Thursday.

Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s government and the military did not immediately respond to questions from Reuters about the reports of rape. On Saturday, Ethiopia’s ambassador to the United Nations, Taye Atske Selassie, told Patten that Ethiopia has a zero tolerance policy on sexual violence, according to state-affiliated braodcaster Fana TV.

Ethiopian authorities have previously denied rights abuses, pointing the finger instead at the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), the region’s former ruling party whose forces they accuse of insurrection.

“I call on all parties involved in the hostilities in the Tigray region to commit to a zero-tolerance policy for crimes of sexual violence,” UN special representative Patten said in the statement.

Women and girls in refugee camps within Ethiopia appear to have been particularly targeted, and medical centres are under pressure for emergency contraception and tests for sexually-transmitted infections, the statement said.

Reuters could not independently verify the accounts of rape. Media have been largely banned from Tigray, aid agencies have struggled for access, and communications were down for weeks.

Abusers in uniform.

The 25-year-old woman who spoke with Reuters said her abuser wore an Ethiopian federal army uniform.

The five aid workers said other women described their alleged assailants as being militia fighters from Ethiopia’s Amhara region or Eritrean soldiers, both allied with Abiy’s troops. Reuters was unable to determine the identity of the woman’s assailant.

Abiy’s spokeswoman, Tigray’s interim governor, the mayor of the regional capital Mekelle, Eritrea’s foreign minister and Ethiopia’s army spokesman did not immediately reply to requests for comment on rape allegations. Reuters could not reach TPLF representatives.

“I don’t have any information about that,” Amhara regional spokesman Gizachew Muluneh told Reuters by phone.

Ethiopia and Eritrea have both denied that Eritrean troops are in Ethiopia, contradicting dozens of eyewitness interviews, diplomats and an Ethiopian general.

‘Why is a woman raped?’

At a meeting of security officials in Mekelle broadcast on Ethiopian state TV earlier this month, one soldier spoke of abuses even after the city had been captured by federal forces.

“I was angry yesterday. Why does a woman get raped in Mekelle city? It wouldn’t be shocking if it happened during the war … But women were raped yesterday and today when the local police and federal police are around,” said the soldier, who was not identified.

Local authorities did not immediately respond to efforts to seek comment on whether any soldiers might be investigated or brought to justice.

Tewadrous, the refugee camp doctor, described two other rape cases he had handled. One woman, who said she had escaped from Rawyan town in Tigray, told of three soldiers she identified as Amhara special forces knocking at her door, the doctor said. When she refused them entry, they broke in and assaulted her.

An aid worker in the town of Wukro told Reuters victims had recounted how a husband was forced to kneel and watch while his wife was raped by soldiers they identified as Eritrean.

A medical worker in Adigrat said he treated six women who had been raped by a group of soldiers and told not to seek help afterwards. They found courage to come forward days later, but there were no medicines to treat them, the medic said.

In Mekelle, one man was beaten up after begging soldiers to stop raping a 19-year-old, according to a medical worker who treated both victims. Mekelle charity Elshadai said it has prepared 50 beds for rape victims.

Sudanese patrol shelled by Ethiopian forces. Ethiopia asks Sudan to pull troops out for border talks

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Sudanese patrol shelled by Ethiopian forces.

Tension has escalated between Sudan, Ethiopia along their borderline.

A Sudanese patrol came under shelling from Ethiopian forces on Sunday near the border with Ethiopia, according to local media.

Sudan Tribune news portal, citing a military source, said mortar shells were fired by Ethiopian forces at the patrol in the eastern Al-Gadaref province.

No injuries were reported and the Sudanese military has yet to issue an official statement.

The attack came amid rising tensions between Khartoum and Addis Ababa over their borderline.

Last week, Sudan’s Prime Minister Abdullah Hamdok informed UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres that Sudanese forces were deployed within the country’s borders. Hamdok stressed that Khartoum was not seeking war with Addis Ababa.

Sudan accuses Ethiopia of supporting militias that attack Sudanese army forces in the border area, an accusation denied by Addis Ababa.

Ethiopia asks Sudan to pull troops out for border talks

Ethiopia on Tuesday reiterated its call for Sudan to pull back from disputed territories its troops have been in since late last year.

In late December, Sudanese soldiers reportedly moved up to 40 kilometers (25 miles) into Ethiopian-held territories, including the contested fertile agricultural region of Al-Fashaga, which Ethiopia called an act of blackmail by its western neighbor.

Ethiopia then launched a diplomatic effort to get Sudanese forces out of the territories to promote a return to the normal mechanisms of dialogue to resolve the century-long border dispute.

“Ethiopia is committed to a peaceful resolution of the border differences with Sudan,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Dina Mufti told a weekly news briefing.

Any possibility of mediation would require Sudan to pull its forces to positions prior to late December, when Ethiopia first signaled a breach of its borders, he added.

“We have had mechanisms, technical and political committees,” he said, adding that the two countries need to get back to those resolution mechanisms through dialogue.

Asked how long Ethiopia would maintain a diplomatic stance while Sudan remains in the contested territories, Dina said: “We will cross that river when we come to it.”

Sudanese military leaders have not shown any sign of heeding Ethiopia’s call, though, and reiterate they reclaimed their own territories.

The Horn of Africa nation decries how Sudan, otherwise considered a friendly neighbor, took the move when Ethiopia’s defense forces were busy dealing with the outlawed Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) after it stormed the federal army’s Northern Command last year, killing soldiers and looting military hardware

Departing US Envoy Warns Ethiopia Against Violence

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VOA News | ADDIS ABABA – Calling Ethiopia “the critical actor in Horn of Africa stability,” outgoing U.S. Ambassador to Ethiopia Michael Raynor voiced confidence in a strengthened bilateral relationship but warned that violence – especially in the northern Tigray region – threatens the country’s progress.

“We remain concerned about ethnic violence around the country and the threat it poses to achieving the country’s potential,” Raynor said of Ethiopia, speaking at a press conference Monday in Addis Ababa, the capital.

It was Raynor’s final news briefing as ambassador, a post he has held since September 2017. He has focused on Africa for many of his 30-plus years as a diplomat.

Rivalries among some of Ethiopia’s 80 ethnic groups have spawned deadly violence, including the Jan. 12 killings of more than 80 civilians in Metekel, a town in the western Benishangul-Gumaz region, the Associated Press reported, citing information from the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission.

Raynor said the U.S. government also is “particularly alarmed by the ongoing situation in Tigray,” where Ethiopian federal forces launched a military operation in early November to put down a rebellion by regional forces of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front.  Ethiopia’s government said that it had regained control of the region by late November, but reports of extrajudicial killings and other sporadic violence have continued to filter out.

Since the conflict’s outbreak, more than 58,000 have fled northern Ethiopia for neighboring Tigray, the International Organization for Migration reported Monday. While thousands are believed to have been killed and many more internally displaced, numbers are difficult to verify because of limited communications with, and access to, Tigray. The United Nations estimates that roughly 4.5 million people in Tigray desperately need food, medicine and other basics, and U.N. agencies have criticized Ethiopian authorities for blocking humanitarian aid.

“After almost three months, we’re still not seeing enough humanitarian assistance reach the most vulnerable areas,” Raynor told journalists. “Much more needs to be done, and urgently, to ensure humanitarian organizations – both Ethiopian and international – have full and secure access to the region to provide lifesaving support to the millions of people who are suffering.”

The U.N’s special representative on sexual violence, Pramila Patten, last week released a statement that she was “greatly concerned by serious allegations of sexual violence” in the region.

Raynor acknowledged that concern, saying the U.S. government continues “to call on all parties to cease any hostilities, ensure the protection of all civilians in Tigray, including refugees and humanitarian workers, and to uphold international human rights and humanitarian law.”

He also brought up the U.S. assessment that soldiers from Eritrea were helping Ethiopian federal forces in Tigray, despite Ethiopian authorities’ denials.

“We continue to be troubled by the activities of Eritrean actors in the Tigray region,” Raynor said, “and we continue to call for an immediate halt to — and independent investigations of — all credible reports of atrocities. sexual violence, human rights violations of all kinds in Tigray and other places.”

Improved bilateral relations

Raynor said that when Abiy Ahmed became prime minister in April 2018, replacing Hailemariam Desalegn after 23 years and introducing an array of reforms, “there was a fundamental reset, a realignment of core values fully in sync with U.S. core values, both in terms of economic opportunity and job creation and in terms of political space and respect for rights. So that formed a strong basis for us to expand our engagement.”

During his tenure as ambassador, Raynor said, the U.S. government “brought well over $3 billion” to support Ethiopia’s governance, development and humanitarian priorities. These range from enhancing the country’s food security and health systems to reforming judicial activities and updating economic policies to encourage private investment.

Raynor also observed that Ethiopia’s ability “to focus on our areas of partnership has been strained by some degree due to the rate of ethnic tensions and Ethiopian-on-Ethiopian violence and certainly the current Tigray crisis. But by and large I feel very optimistic about the trajectory we have been on and that my successor will be able to build upon.”

A successor has not yet been named.

“This is a pivotal time for Ethiopia,” Raynor said. “What Ethiopia does in the coming months — particularly in promoting democracy, organizing free and fair credible elections this year, protecting basic human rights including freedom of the press and freedom of expression, resolving conflict and addressing ethnic tension, maintaining regional harmony and promoting economic opportunity — will impact this country’s prospects for generations to come.”

Sudan Responds with Force to Border Attack from Ethiopia

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Asharq Al-Awsat | The Sudanese military responded with artillery fire to an attack from Ethiopia against its forces deployed on a share border region with its neighbor.

Ethiopian forces struck the Jabal Abutiour border region on Sunday. The area is controlled by Sudan. No casualties were reported.

Amid the clashes, a military delegation, headed by chief of staff Mohammed Othman al-Hussein, headed to the border region to assess the latest developments and military operations.

The fighting took place despite statements from Khartoum and Addis Ababa that they wanted to avoid a border war. They instead stressed the need for negotiations to defuse tensions.

Ethiopia has, however, conditioned that the military withdraw from regions that were recaptured. Sudan has rejected any negotiations on the border, saying its forces are controlling their country’s territories.

It also says that the borders are recognized internationally and all that remains is to set the markers that have been removed due to the nature of the area. It urged the need to set the markers within close distances from each other whereby each point can be seen from the next with the naked eye.

Sudanese Defense Minister Yassin Ibrahim Yassin told Al Arabiya that Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s remarks about “disputed regions” prompted Khartoum to dispatch military units to impose their control over Sudanese regions on the border.

Yassin slammed the PM’s remarks over the alleged border dispute, saying the borders are “clearly demarcated according to international agreements.”

He also refused to link the border developments to the stalled negotiations over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD).

“The common factor in both these issues is Ethiopia’s stalling,” he charged. “We do not acknowledge a dispute in the first place so negotiations are not valid.”

Tensions have been high on the border since December after the Sudanese military redeployed its forces in the al-Fashqa region, expelling Ethiopian militias that were controlling it.

The move was prompted by an attack by the militias against Sudanese forces.