Ethiopia : The Specter of Rwanda

By Addissu Admas

The TPLF is literally treading on the blood of the Tigrean people. It has decided that no Tigrean, young, old, woman, man, able, disabled, Muslim or Christian will be spared in its attempt to force its way down to the Capital. In this campaign of total massacre, we have not yet heard any voice among Tigreans who have asked the simple question:  to what end? Do they really believe that the TPLF, even with the other fringe liberation fronts can re-take the central government and lead a pacified nation? Or, have they bought into the notion that the Tigrean people are the victim, and the TPLF is their avenger? Or, perhaps, is it hoping that with its most destructive campaign the TPLF would be in a stronger position to negotiate a much better deal for a probable future independent Tigray? Virtually all Tigreans appear to have bought TPLF’s completely warped, deceitful, and paranoid depiction of the intention of the federal government. Let me repeat what we know without an inkling of doubt: Yes, the war was triggered by a seditious act of the TPLF. It murdered in cold blood the soldiers of the Northern command to rob the best-furnished weapon’s warehouse in the country. It refused to allow the federal government to arrest its most corrupt and murderous members. The Federal government had every legitimate reason to restore order in the Killil, as the constitution would allow it. It did try to do so. Since the TPLF has been masterful in misinforming not only its own people but also the West, it was able to gain the favors of this latter in divulging its lies far and wide.  In effect, thanks to the West always-questionable intentions, the TPLF started with a huge advantage in the disinformation war. Soon Ethiopia became a quasi-rogue state, accused among other things of genocide. A total and unforgivable fabrication. The irony now is that we are on the cusp of a veritable genocide if the TPLF ruling cadre does not stop its crazed escalation of this war. Let us pause for a moment and ask with clarity of mind the following basic questions: Is this TPLF march to Addis Ababa, with all its progress and regress, to reconquer the power it once held? Or, is it motivated by the desire to never stand trial for the multitudinous crimes it perpetrated not only against other Ethiopians but against its very own people? Is it to cover up the vast corruption and the ill-gotten wealth of its members, their families and relatives? Is it to unleash its never-concealed hatred for the Amhara people and contempt for the rest of Ethiopians? Or, to give it the benefit of the doubt, a war of ideology on federalism as it conveniently wants to portray it? 

Let me answer these questions in the order I asked them. If the TPLF believes in anyway and with any level of conviction that it can regain its considerable former power, it would be setting itself for a rude awakening: Ethiopians have always seen through its blatant use of “divide and rule” principle. It came to power and stayed through all the 27 long years to do only one thing: to establish the hegemony of itself and its people in every sector of government and the economy through a crude use of this principle. I say to it, rest on your glory, a second attempt would only be a Greek tragedy. Ethiopians are now at a boiling point. They are outraged not only that the West has sided with an oppressive, murderous party, but it also seems to watch with complete nonchalance the destruction of Ethiopia. The TPLF instead of being content in “liberating” Tigray, it is wreaking havoc and mindlessly killing untold number of Ethiopians without any protestation from Western media. Which, quite disconcertingly, seems to be applauding TPLF’s wins and the destruction of Ethiopia. What has never penetrated the tribalist psyche of the TPLF is that Ethiopians tolerated it for such a long time not because they were intimidated by its formidable military prowess, not for its tight security system, but because they chose peace at any cost. Now that it is unleashing its ill-equipped, ill-fed, ill-clad hordes of poor Tigrean peasants on the byways and towns of Amhara, we can only conclude that it is opening the floodgates of genocide. 

Besides the real fear of losing the hegemony it built for itself and its people, the TPLF has realized since it lost power in April of 2018, that the time of reckoning had finally arrived. Since it knew very well that its corruption, persecutions, imprisonments and assassinations would very soon be exposed for all to see, it had prepared remarkably well its exit. It seems that it had vowed secretly to neither stand trial for years like the hapless Derg officials, nor part with its vast ill-gotten wealth. It instead retreated to Tigray to avoid accountability, and plot its next rebellion.

What this current TPLF campaign reminds us anew is the level of cruelty it is willing to inflict not only on the Amhara people but maybe even more on its own people. Badme, a wasteland that the UN decided it belonged to Eritrea, saw tens of thousands of poor Ethiopian soldiers lose their young lives, not for the territorial integrity of Ethiopia, but the “realization” of a fantasy called “Greater Tigray”. A similar tragedy is unfolding today as tens of thousands of Tigreans are being slaughtered and countless innocent Amhara country folk being violated and displaced from their ancestral lands. To what end one may ask? Does the TPLF think that it can establish a colonial state with the connivance of disgruntled fringe groups in Ethiopia? Does it really believe that it can continue to use its people residing in Amhara and the rest of Ethiopia to establish its “rule”? If such is its intention, then it should – supposing a scintilla of reason and humanity is left in it – realize that it is egging the country towards a genocidal war the extent of which has never been seem in Ethiopia’s long history. 

Ethiopians have had it! They will not take it lying down! What is it going to be? Another Rwanda? The US & Company are very much responsible for emboldening this rogue party and the predicament in which it has plunged Ethiopia. Rather than shoring up a budding democracy and the rule of law, they chose to support and empathize with a rogue party whose sole ambition is to restore the hegemony of itself and its people at any cost whatever. I say to Ethiopians to never put credence in the US, or the West in general. Just as the Clinton administration, with all the information it had, let Rwanda plunge into a horrific genocidal war while it instead intervened vigorously in the Baltic wars, we will see the Biden administration, just like the Carter administration in the mid-seventies, watch Ethiopia being destroyed by siding with a rogue party. At this juncture, all Ethiopians, including Tigreans, must come to see through the pure madness of the TPLF and save this ancient nation from the brink. 
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