Are the AU and UN Granting Impunity in the face of the Tigray Genocide?
By Daniel Zemichael, staff member
A group of families, most of them women, wail while walking through the gate of Ayder Comprehensive Specialized Hospital. The rushes of physicians here and there, the constant clamor, the weeping of the children, and the ambiance of the ambulances have all become a ‘new normal’.
The eighth round of airstrikes by the Ethiopian government on Thursday 28th October 2021 resulted in severe casualties of civilians, with 10 dead and 30 injured reported so far. There are still people missing, as the airstrike demolished many residential houses in the 05 Vicinity of Mekelle City.
Yadel Haftu, a 5 year-old girl, is one of the victims of that Thursday’s airstrike. She was playing at her home, when she was hit in the head by debris. Her father, Haftu Gebrehiwet, states: “I was downtown when the jet hit the neighborhood. I immediately hurried back home after I was informed of the airstrike. I found my daughter injured on the head. Her injury is comparatively light, given that I have seen chopped bodies being searched in destroyed rooms.”
11-year-old Hermela Kahsay, who sustained injuries on her hand and leg, was quoted as saying: “I was playing with my friend in the corridors of our home. I fell to the ground, as our house was hit and suddenly collapsed around us. I remember that the car which was parked in our compound was ablaze.” Now, Hermela’s concern is beyond the suffering of her injury. She states: “My mother and my sister were also hit by the airstrike. I still don’t know where they are.”
Forensic Expert of Ayder Comprehensive Specialized Hospital Tiblets Meresa reports that they were unable to identify many bodies. “We only have one woman’s full body, we had no choice but to simply collect the body parts. We have identified the bodies of two children.”
Mrs. Yodit Haile cries, “Oh, my family,” as she is being treated at the emergency room of the Ayder Hospital.
Another of the critically injured civilians, Binyam Tesfay, does not yet know that his son was killed. His wife told us that she brought their other son to the bedside, hoping this might somewhat lessen the trauma that her injured husband is experiencing.
Mr. Kiflom Hadush, who sustained a head injury in the airstrike, sobbed uncontrollably, and was unable to say anything, except the words, “I lost my mom in the airstrike.”
Chief Nursing Officer of the hospital, Tedros Kahsay, states: “All the victims of the airstrike being treated here are civilians. This is a clear violation of international law. I wonder whether the ‘concern’ statements of international organizations, characterized by inaction, are contributing to the Tigrayan genocide.”
A resident of the neighborhood targeted by the airstrike, Mrs. Mihret Brhane, states: “Many people are still missing. We are still searching for bodies in the demolished homes. There were 12 households in each of the [?] fully demolished compounds.”
She adds: “I feel sorry to say it, but the international community is cooperating with Abiy’s genocidal siege and airstrikes. Some are cooperating by providing weapons, others by being reluctant to take action, as we civilians are being targeted.”
So far, fifteen civilians, including five children, have died of Abiy Ahmed’s indiscriminate airstrike, and 57 are injured.
Since June 2021, there has been a total siege of Tigray. This means that food, medicine and medical equipment have been blocked from entering. Consequently, people have been dying of starvation and lack of medicines. The airstrikes are adding yet more fuel to the fire.
Chief Director of Administration and Business Development of Ayder Hospital, Mr. MussieTesfay states: “The whole health system of our hospital has failed, as it ran out of food, medicine and medical equipment.”
He compares the crowd of patients at the Emergency Unit of the hospital to that which once filled the Kedamay Woyane mall, the region’s largest – though, since the start of the war on Tigray, the market itself has lost its beauty and appeal.
At the hospital, the corridors and rooms are now overcrowded with chronic, malnourished and emergency patients. Life and death compete for seconds; although the latter already has the upper hand, as food, medicine and medical equipment have run out.
Engineer Awet Haileyesus, among the staff of Mekelle University, is yet another of the victims of the airstrike carried out on 22nd October 2021, which hit the Main Campus of the university, and the Aynalem Vicinity.
“I was in my office, and the windows shattered, after I heard the blow of the airstrike. My blood splashed across the floor. I had been hit in the leg by shrapnel of the weapon [from the airstrike].” he recalls.
“The international community is witnessing a clear violation of law, as we civilians are targeted by a series of airstrikes in broad daylight”. Mr. Awet cannot help wondering.
“I don’t know why blatant violations of international law, like siege, sexual violence, destruction, and airstrikes, are granted impunity.” He asks: “How many of us must be cleansed, before the international community intervenes in this genocidal war?”
What the war is all about
Abiy Ahmed was awarded the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize, following his ‘initiative’ of the Ethio-Eritrean reconciliation. But understanding the context, and considering the statements Isayas Afewerki had made, and the elusiveness of the terms of the deal, should have saved the Nobel Peace Prize Committee and the international community in general from being instrumentalized as a pretext for Abiy Ahmed’s war on Tigray.
On the eve of the opening of the Ethio-Eritrean border, on 13 July 2018, Eritrean President Isayas Afewerki, in his seminar with graduates of the military school at Sawa – who now are participating in the war on Tigray – was quoted as saying: “Woyane’s political game is over; we should relentlessly work to conduct a political washout of its remnants.”
The international community’s anticipation that Sawa’s dictator, Isayas Afewerki, would have been sanctified overnight by Abiy, and the rewarding of their relationship, ultimately, had disastrous consequences. This much instability over the Horn of Africa would not have been tolerated, had it not been for the West’s misguided perception of Abiy and his motives.
Isayas’ ‘game over’ comment complemented Abiy Ahmed’s ‘daylight hyena’, ‘man slayer’ and ‘marauder’ slurs against the Tigray people. Ethiopian media have been participating in dehumanizing Tigrayans using fabricated narratives, presented in pseudo documentaries, with titles like ‘የፍትህ ሰቆቃ’ (literally translated as The Agony of Injustice) and ‘ሺዎች የተሰውለት የግንቦት 20 ድል የቀለበሰው የግፈኞች በደል’ (literally translated as The Brutality that Resulted in the Heartless Manipulation of the May 28 Victory) – while the international community had unquestioningly accepted Aljazeera’s ‘Abiy – Africa’s Youngest Leader’, BBC’s ‘reformist’, and CNN’s ‘Abiy – Man of Political Diversity’.
It would not be long before ethnic Tigrayans all over the country would become targets of murder, looting, and mob justice. The position of the people of Tigray was clear: No matter their view of the EPRDF, they were not willing to handover Tigrayan party members to selective justice and breaches of the constitutional order, which had become obvious with the arrest of many Tigrayan high-ranking military officers, including Gen. Kinfe Dagnew.
The lack of due process and transparency in the investigations of the murders of the manager of the GERD, Engineer Simegnew Bekele, ENDF Chief-of-Staff Gen. Seare Mekonnen, and Gen. Gezae Abera were evidence enough that the Ethiopian government was engaged in dehumanizing and expunging the fingerprints of Tigrayans.
All this indicates that, in a sense, the war on Tigray had already begun in 2018, when the federal government was comfortable with Amhara forces blocking roads to Tigray. The justification of the Ethio-Eritrean ‘reconciliation’ and of the war on Tigray were clear. It would soon become evident that Abiy and Isayas had agreed to cleanse the people of Tigray, in order to establish and maintain autocratic regimes in the Horn of Africa.
The attack on a military base as a pretext
Abiy’s claim of the attack on the military base on the 4th November 2020 as a justification for him to declare war on Tigray has been proved false by the maps from Fire Data Satellite, which show the ENDF and Eritrean Army incursion roots to Tigray as early as 1st November 2020.
Deputy of the Tigray Communication Affairs Bureau, Hadush Kasu, is convinced that Abiy Ahmed, in alliance with Eritrea, had been plotting actual war strategies, along with psychological warfare by their media for years. He states that the war had already begun three years ago, as, by then, the blocking of routes to Tigray, stoking of anti-Tigrayan sentiments – war propaganda essentially – had become routine.
He recalls that the government of Tigray issued various requests for a peace deal to 70 countries and UN agencies before the armed conflict began. Mr. Hadush was quoted as saying: “12 divisions of the ENDF took up positions on the Kobo and Agew borders of Tigray, weeks before November 4.”
He clarifies that the North Command of the ENDF had been on a mission to capture the leadership of Tigray, and stresses that Eritrean forces were firing shots on the “Zalambesa and Gerhu Sinay borders.”
“What the government of Tigray has done is to defend itself.” he adds.
There is also evidence that ethnic conflict and instability have intensified since the ENDF has left the southern parts of Ethiopia for areas bordering Tigray. A former militia [?] of the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Party, Mr. Yared Tibebu, was quoted by Reioyt Media as saying: “The Weliso Massacre that ensued on Sunday 1st November 2020, three days before Abiy’s declaration of the Tigray War, was the result of the 17th, 21st, 22nd, 24th, and 25th division of the ENDF being posted from Welega to border areas of Tigray, on standby for the war.
“The government and even the opposition parties were misleading the public with a false narrative that the war broke out as a result of the attack on the military base.” Rather, he justifies: “Abiy and Isayas’ armies were on standby, encircling the borders of Tigray.” He believes that the people of Ethiopia must come together and demand answers from the government, that “the truth must be disclosed, so that a realistic political solution can be found”.
While Eritrea has been the main ally of the war on Tigray as part of the deal between Abiy and Isayas Afewerki, the international community, including the US, has been misled by Ethiopia. In fact, the communication ban was one of the instruments of Abiy’s war propaganda.
When Eritrean and Somali forces, alongside the ENDF and Amhara militia, were massacring the residents of Humera, Adigoshu, Sheraro, Shire, and Zalambesa, the BBC reported“The US said it admired “Eritrea’s restraint”, which the State Department said had helped “prevent the further spreading of the conflict” (https://www.bbc.com/news/topics/cr2pnx1173dt/tigray-crisis).
This statement by the US government, which has no basis in reality, from 18 November 2020 was then taken as a “go on” signal by both the Eritrean and Ethiopian governments, to unleash their campain of mass killings, gang rape, looting and destruction, while the people of Tigray were dumbfounded that the international community was actually encouraging the actors of atrocities, crimes against humanity and genocide.
It took the US government almost a month to learn Eritrean troops were deeply involved in the Tigray War. Although there were other ways of verification, such disinformation might be taken for granted as a result of the communication ban by Abiy’s government so as to suppress Tigray’s voices. On the 11thDecember 2020 Reuters revealed news “U.S. says reports of Eritrean troops in Ethiopia’s Tigray are credible” (https://in.reuters.com/article/ethiopia-conflict-eritrea-usa-idINKBN28L07J). Nevertheless, Abiy Ahmed misled the UN Secretary General, Antonio Gutierrez, that Eritrean forces were not involved in the war.
But it took another four months for the international community to pressure Abiy’s government into confirming that Eritrean forces had been involved in the war, even after the US had publicized the reality on the ground. Abiy Ahmed has still not been questioned about his deliberate attempt and actions to mislead the UN; instead he is granted impunity.
The sum of such disinformation has resulted in a full-scale genocidal siege and encirclement, blocking the humanitarian corridor, which threatens the life of Mrs. Tirhas Gebreslassie and 6.5 million other Tigrayans. Mrs. Tirhas was one of the self-reliant farmers in the Hadnet Vicinity of the Ganta Afeshum District.
She brought her malnourished baby boy to Adigrat Hospital. But the child was referred to Ayder, as the Adigrat Hospital was first demolished by Eritrean soldiers, then the medical equipment was taken away, as the siege and encirclement continues. She reports: “Our harvest was destroyed and looted by Eritrean forces on 13th December 2013 [Geez Calendar]. How can I breast-feed, when I have nothing to eat?
“Every facility is destroyed. Our health posts, schools and the like are destroyed. Eritrean soldiers ransacked more than 300 sheep from a single Zomala community in the Hadnet Vicinity.”
Mrs. Tirhas had hoped that her child would get the necessary treatment, as Ayder Hospital is a specialized one. But she says: “I am worried that my child’s life is at risk. The medicine I am prescribed is not available in Mekelle, either.”
The African Union Commission even openly supported Abiy’s genocidal war on Tigray, with the Commissioner, Moussa Faki Mahamat, saying in his speech at the 38th IGAD Summit: “In Ethiopia, the federal government took steps to preserve the unity, stability and respect for the constitutional order. The Ethiopian Government’s efforts of the restoration and humanitarian support following the law and order enforcement in Tigray should be supported by IGAD and other countries.”
After the African Union was heavily criticized for its reluctance to address the war in Tigray, the then-Chairman Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa sent three special envoys to help end the war through political negotiation. But the Ethiopian government has rejected the frequent calls for negotiation by former Nigerian President Obasanjo, Sudan, Kenya and South Sudan.
Although its status is as yet unknown, the African Union’s Commission for Human and People’s Rights has said that it began its investigation of the atrocities in the war on Tigray.
But the AU has not pressured Abiy’s government further. It did not even choose to issue a statement condemning the insane atrocities (including sexual violence and starvation) as weapons of war, ethnic cleansing, war crimes (including the use of white phosphorus against civilians), massacres, crimes against humanity, airstrikes targeting civilians, and genocide in general. These are clear and present indicators that the African Union has chosen to grant impunity to the Ethiopian federal government, Eritrean forces and Amhara forces, all, with their particular interests, involved in the Tigray War.
Helen Girmay, whose tragic story shocked the world when she spoke to CNN, recalling how she was gang-raped by Eritrean and Ethiopian soldiers for ten days.
“They killed my 12-year-old son, Million Mehari.
“I saw a 10-day-old infant being slaughtered by soldiers, they were saying: ‘We will never allow the junta Agame to grow up’, after his mother was gang-raped until she died.
“I am unable to forget these things, which have made me depressed and anxious.”
Helen, sleeping on a thin mattress in the corridors of Ayder Hospital, is quoted as saying: “I am the victim of both sexual violence and starvation as a weapon of war. But what worries me most is that I couldn’t get the medicine prescribed for me; the soldiers burned my womb.”
Although it is under-reported as a result of cultural norms, for Helen and another 28,000 victims of gang-rape and sexual violence, the suffering is still not at an end. The Ethiopian government’s siege and encirclement complements indiscriminate airstrikes.
A teacher from Adwa, Mr. Aregawi Weldemariam, has been having dialysis at Ayder, the only dialysis service provider in Tigray, for the past three years. The hospital offered dialysis service thrice a week. As the hospital is running out of dialysis equipment and medicines, the service had to be reduced to just once a week, as the siege and encirclement undermined the possibility of provision of equipment.
Mr. Aregawi states: “If there is no dialysis kit. This would be my last dialysis, unless the siege is reversed.”
Head of the Dialysis Unit, Dr. Efrem Berhe, is quoted as saying: “In Ayder’s eight years history of dialysis, we closed the Dialysis Unit on Monday 27th October 2021, as we have no catheter and five other basic pieces of equipment.”
Mr. Aregawi Weldemariam says: “We might have been trying to save our life by traveling to Addis Ababa. But both inland and air transport have been blocked since June 2021.
“I have 500 thousand Birr in the bank, which was from my family, for my dialysis. But it’s blocked in the bank.”
Mr. Aregawi wonders: “Why is such madness of a few individuals who declared genocide on the people of Tigray permitted to destroy a member of the global citizenry with full impunity?
“My days are numbered. I have already stopped dialysis. So, my death is not a big deal. But I am afraid of how I will die my agony.”
Mr. Aregawi, and 31 others lying sideways are waiting for a miracle that might end the siege and the blockade of a humanitarian corridor into Tigray, to save their endangered lives.
It is understood that the United Nations is a union of its member states. But what if a state sets its citizens on fire, as is observed in Ethiopia? More than a million people are starving to death. As many as 2.2 million people have been displaced from their villages. 6.3 million people are in need of immediate food assistance. According to a report from [?] the UN OCHA, only 10% of humanitarian support has been delivered to Tigray.
More than 450 thousand children are already facing acute malnutrition. According to Dr. Mehammed Mustofa, Head of Child Health Unit at Ayder Comprehensive Specialized Hospital, the number of malnourished children admitted to Ayder reached an alarming 300% increase, compared to the data from two years ago.
In the latest trend of indiscriminate airstrikes by the Ethiopian government, 15 civilians, including six children, have died, and 51 are injured. But why quote numbers, unless they serve as an alert to the international community? And still, the world is busy playing the word game: “a famine-like situation”, “starvation”, “concern”, statement after statement, resolution after resolution. Still, nothing is actually done in practice to keep the people alive!
WFP President Emeritus Robert Rotberg was quoted as saying: “Abiy is starving Tigray. It’s time to invoke the Responsibility to Protect.”
The Responsibility to Protect was enshrined as a UN policy in the 2005 Outcome Document of the UN Millennium Summit (G.A. Res. A/Res/60/1, Oct. 24 2005). It allows intervention of the UN, as clearly stated by the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS), in conditions such as: large-scale loss of life, actual or apprehended, with genocidal intent or not, which is the product either of deliberate state action, or state neglect or inability to act, or a failed state situation; or large-scale ‘ethnic cleansing’, actual or apprehended, whether carried out by killing, forced expulsion, acts of terror or rape.
At the time of the Rwanda Genocide, the international community sought to justify its failure to act, saying it had not been aware of what was occurring. Given that the extent of the Tigray Genocide is being disclosed by the international media, what justification can the international community offer for its failure to protect Tigrayans from genocide – including sexual violence, massacre, looting, siege, indiscriminate airstrikes and brutal ethnic cleansing of Tigrayans in western Tigray by Amhara forces, which the Tekeze River reveals?