Ethnic bias and methodology that Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch used for the report are some of the concerns that the government of Ethiopia expressed
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The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ethiopia on Wednesday reacted to a joint report from Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch regarding alleged “Crimes Against Humanity” in what the organisations called the “Western Tigray Zone.”
While the Ethiopian government did not dismiss the report entirely in the sense that it has committed itself to “carefully examine it”, it has expressed concern that it was based on “alleged testimonials.”
One of the concerns is, from a statement that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ethiopia released on Wednesday, is that it could “strays into making recommendations unhelpful for any peace effort.”
The biased ethnic undertone of the report from organisations that paint themselves as defenders of human rights and the implications of reckless misrepresentation of facts on the ground did not go unnoticed.
“The Government is also concerned about the ethnic undertones of the report that seem to apportion blame disproportionally while trying to exculpate others. This fuels hatred and makes reconciliation and healing more difficult. Responsibility is individual. All those responsible for the alleged violations will be held accountable. Sensational and journalistic reporting discredits the bulky report. Simply blaming one group does not serve the cause of human rights and peace. Other weaknesses in the report are also very apparent. They rely largely on alleged testimonies from certain groups. The Government investigation team will examine this report despite such fatal weakness and unfair attack against the gallant forces of ENDF and allied forces,” said the statement from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch made allegations that ethnic Tigreans were targeted for ethnic cleansing in what they called the “disputed Western Tigray Zone of Ethiopia,” and that the crimes committed are tantamount to “war crimes and crimes against humanity.”
The report from these organisations came just a day after a research team from Gondar University released findings from a year-long study in the Wolkait region, which Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch called “disputed,” regarding crimes committed by Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) against unarmed civilians.
As many as 59,000 civilians were either massacred or tortured between 1983 and 1990, according to research from Gondar University.
Some Ethiopian activists, who expressed resentment toward Amnesty and Human Rights Watch in connection with the report, tend to believe that the timing of the report is deliberately intended to whitewash TPLF crimes.
The United States and its allies, and several organizations in the west, have been tacitly supporting the TPLF – which the Ethiopian parliament designated as a terrorist organization in view of the brutal and unexpected attack on several military bases of the Northern Command of the Ethiopian Defense Force.
Amnesty and Human Rights Watch are linking the alleged “war crimes and crimes against humanity” to the Ethiopian Defence Force and regional Ethiopian Forces in the Amhara region who played a crucial role in reversing TPLF attacks.
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Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch are also political organizations which tune their reports to the foreign policy and politics of the US and west. Their biased reports which overlook the egregious crimes of the TPLF are in line with the the geopolitics of the US and west.
Any idiot even with rudimentary knowledge of Ethiopian history and geography knows that there IS NO SUCH AREA. CALLED WESTERN TIGRAY. Hello, duplicitous and wanna be imbecilic PM Abiy, for once in your miserable 4 years chaotic Oromumma crazed pipe dream, at least teach your ensnaring, no good PP sycophants and Oromo militants to respect the history and culture of Ethiopia. It is not for lack of knowledge and documentation of the 40 plus years of the actual ethnic cleansing, torture and murder of the original inhabitants of Welkait, the Amhara people by the criminal TPLF gang, that the Abiy regime and his PP cadres appear to play dumbfounded here. None other than the original founder of TPLF, Dr. Aregawi Berhe’s testimony would suffice on the forceful annexation of part of Gonder proper into a hitherto unknown region in Ethiopian history or geography, and the forceful birth of the oxymoronic term Western Tigray, laughable and ridiculous by any standards. However, the treacherous Abiy and his sycophants, once again, miscalculate that by weakening the centers and pillars of Ethiopian unity, as in the case of the calculated attack of defenseless Amhara people, defenseless Afar people and many others, they will advance the causes of Oromumma. The poetic justice in all this saga is that the Abiy regime is imploding from the inside. Now having lost the support and trust of the majority of the Ethiopian people, his Oromumma at any cost hallucinations have been exposed bare for all to see. His psychopathic thirst for power, for control and his enormous self love and grandiose self importance have divulged his inner core as an inhumane, pompous fool with no moral compass, no ethics and not even an iota of compunction, heart and feelings for the marginalized, for the defenseless and for the voiceless.The inevitable downfall of this sociopath and relegation to the dustbins of history will be a moment of glory for all Ethiopians.