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Failing moral of Tigray elites concerning what TPLF did to Amhara
By Mesganaw Mihiret
Sensible morale values once again proved to be completely absent from the mindset of Tigray elites. Million Amhara have vanished at the hands of Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) since 1976. From the onset the TPLF defined their movement as a struggle of an anti-Amhara “system of oppression”—underlying the rhetoric that Amhara were oppressing Tigray and every other ethnic group in Ethiopia.
As guerrilla insurgents they mass-murdered Amhara in Wolqait-Tegede, places the Derg regime did not control. Cleansing these areas from Amhara had two purposes. To connect Tigray’s border with Sudan (in the case of Wolqait-Tegede), and to expand Tigray’s territory—then emerging incipient plan of creating Tigray republic. Advancing their sphere of influence, they controlled the whole land from Eritrea’s border (Teekze River, natural border of Amhara and Tigray) through Telemt and Tegede. They indiscriminately killed the Amhara elders living in these areas. Killing their husbands, they took women as breeding machine. They made women give birth to babies from Tigray fathers—an artificial demographic change.
Once the TPLF overthrew the Derg regime in 1991, Tigray was formed as a regional state made up of these confiscated lands (including Raya territory from formerly Wollo Province)—doubling its proper size. They did not stop there. They went further to incorporate the entire Gondar. They taught to their elementary graders, for example, Ras Dashen mountains were found in Tigray. They updated this area with the GPS mapping system to be located in Tigray. They steadily created the impression that Gondar was almost swallowed in the ever-expanding map of Tigray.
While annexing these fertile areas, they at the national level devised political, cultural, and economic policies that targeted ethnic Amhara all over the country. They set up Ethiopia’s cultural, economic, and political systems as traps to Amhara’ life. The party’s electronic and print press productions designed to debilitate, blackmail, blame, and psychologically traumatize Amhara in every possible way. The party’s ideology made Amhara cultural values, national views, historic heritage, language, religion, and literary products as enemy entities to be resisted, and eradicated if possible.
As a biproduct of this ideological campaign, Amhara became susceptible group, fallen as easy preys to the various ethnic elites backed by TPLF and awarded the state machinery to attack them. As a result, the past three decades made Amhara the most insecure ethnic group in the entire Ethiopia. Ethnically motivated large-scale displacements incrementally continued from the start to this day. Mass-murders became the norm, and eventually ceased to be news at all. The whole nation has been a blood bath of Amhara. Besides brutal mass-murders, ethnically profiled barricade from upward mobilities, termination from jobs, intentional unemployment, confiscation of properties, destruction of markets and farmlands became the routine activities of the state machineries. Being an Amhara became a death sentence. Many Amhara languished in prison sells with horrible tortures. The tortures were both verbal and physical. The verbal torture includes dehumanization, ridicule, and curses by Tigray persecutors with an incitement of the prisoners’ Amhara name. The physical torture includes electrification, cutting of breasts and genitals, suspending on roofs, locking behind dead-cold and dark rooms, locking behind in rooms full of snakes that were alive and biting, locking behind in rooms full of human corpses, locking behind in rooms full of antes that were biting, and suspending heavy materials on men’s genitals. While executing these horrible and inhuman acts, the securities and persecutors would brag about Tigray’s invincibility and Amhara cowardly surrender at the mercy of their hands.
By divine judgement, TPLF’s dominancy ended three years ago. But, throughout the years all the atrocities perpetrated by the TPLF did not call attention of the Tigray elites. No credible authority or affiliate ever denounced these atrocities even though their impact reached unto the heavens. Even after TPLF was removed from federal power by Amhara and Oromo protests, not only Tigray elites but also other ethnic elites as well as the traditionally unity-leaning elites failed to show any sympathy to the plight of the Amhara. Neither did the government, now and then, intended to admit that the Amhara deserve at least a moral compensation.
By now, you must be wondering. Right? Keep reading. The anti-Amhara sentiment of Ethiopian political forces never ceases to surprise us.
TPLF, after three years it lost control of the federal government, stationed in Tigray and has been preparing for a military offensive against the neighboring Amhara while eying to capture Addis Ababa once again. They launched their attacks on Gondar and Wollo provinces, especially targeting Gondar and Woldya, strategic locations to capably advance into Addis Ababa. Simultaneously with this military move, they annihilated the Northern Command army of the ENDF stationed in Tigray. They looted the armament and believed now they will easily traverse the Amhara mountains and capture Addis Ababa. In their eyes, there was no formidable power to stop them. And that was expected for they owned the greatest bulk of the nation’s military apparatus, including missiles that could attack as far as 500 kilometers.
The Tigray force’s unexpected, treasonous, and dangerous attack of the Northern Command at midnight in the absence of any awareness, came as a “November Surprise” to Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed. The prime minister at this time did not have any single regiment in this area to resist the advancing Tigray force. He called for the Amhara special force, fano-vigilantes, militiamen, and farmers to fight for the soul of the nation. One important point to note here is that TPLF had set up two plans when they launched the attack. If they succeeded, they would capture Addis Ababa and make sure their three decades-long control of Ethiopia’s resource continues unabetted. If the first plan did not work, they would capture Gondar and parts of Wollo, and establish a Tigray republic. It is to be recalled that prior to this time, they established the narrative that they were a de facto state. They, for instance, conducted their own election that gave the impression that they were more of an independent state than a regional state of the federal republic of Ethiopia. They even went to communicate with the international community as a separate state by surpassing the sovereignty of the Ethiopian government. It was for these imminent dangers that PM Abiy called for the Amhara fighters to rescue the nation. Note also that he latter on called for the Afar special force for similar mission.
Answering to the call of the prime minister, the Amhara forces took a swift action. They not only defeated the Tigray force advancing towards Gondar but also annihilated the one which was chasing after the survivors of the armies of the North Command. The Amhara forces, by decisively annihilating the Tigray force, rescued the survivor ENDF armies who were put into their death trenches. The Amhara forces, by effectively driving back the Tigray force and rescuing the ENDF survivors, bought time for Prime Minister Abiy to mobilize his army stationed in the distant parts of Ethiopia. Hard hit by Amhara forces, the Tigray force retreated to areas of proper Tigray. Then the national army chased them after all the way to Mekelle for 17 days when the war ended.
While the Tigray army fled from the war front being hard hit by Amhara forces, it was joined by a Tigray youth group called Samre, and in unison, wiped out the entire village of Mai-Kadra—killed every Amhara their hands reached. Although official figure is shying to 700, the local people are reporting thousands have been killed. Mass graves are being continually uncovered in the area, adding to the death toll. This Samre group and the leftover of the Tigray force fled to Sudan, reportedly numbering 40 000 more. This genocidal group is sheltered in Sudan in the name of war refugee.
Now this overarching tragic experience of Amhara keeps testing the nature of the moral of the Tigray elite. The Tigrians around the world, instead of regretting what TPLF did to the North Command and the people of Amhara, appeared to complain as they are the victims. Since the day the TPLF waged the war, they have been engaged in a large-scale disinformation and misinformation campaign obstructing the facts on the ground. They organized protests everywhere. They mobilized foreign lobbyists to make unmatched propaganda for them. They managed to mislead major media outlets which diverted the blame on either Ethiopian government or ethnic Amhara. Furthermore, without showing any sympathy to the Mai-Kadra genocide or atrocities before and after as stated above, they mounted their blame on Amhara. For the while, they painted a different picture of the reality by their effective large-scale disinformation and misinformation campaigns and with the aid from lobbyists.
In the end, it feels so worrisome that genocide-tolerant, genocide-insensitive elites, by contradicting the least of moral virtue, are blaming the victim.