This is an important piece for the sober-minded. Jeff Pierce, the author of the book - Prevail - deplores, in this inspiring article, the behaviour of those who are tarnishing the image of the country. He writes, "This wrappings and perversion of history robs a young population of its own posterity..." Today, extremists may propagate every invented malicious story, yet tomorrow they will reap the fruits in their children as they get confused with whom to associate with.
A country’s soul is more than its borders, its current government, its debt and exports.
You won’t kill its soul with false narratives, academic journal articles and insults on social media.
Ethiopia is ancient, bigger than the whispers and the noise, replenished by its own resources and faiths, its people’s remarkable ingenuity and courage, its diversity and its unity.
Ethiopia goes on because its people believe in it.
**
I have now read my umpteenth article that pushes an alternative reality that one of the oldest nations in Africa is somehow a fiction.
You could fill up a whole day, just checking articles online, both from major Western media and smaller sites geared for diaspora audiences, that predict the imminent doom of Ethiopia. In some scenarios, it eats itself alive through ethnic genocide, in others, its conflict in Tigray spreads to a wider, horror-filled war that engulfs most of the Horn of Africa. Meanwhile at the same time, we get a lecture on auto-repeat that Ethiopia never really existed. It never was, and yet somehow it’s still some kind of threat, and so its critics will still use its name and call it evil.
A young woman recently posted on Twitter: “When I see someone’s profile pic or page with these colors [meaning the Ethiopian green, yellow and red], it makes me want to vomit.”
The only upside to this was the tide of brilliantly comical responses she received and probably never expected, but I want you to think about the spite that went into her message, the indoctrination that must have fueled it.
Whatever legitimate grievances a specific region may have, it is something else altogether to spread this kind of toxic hate speech. It’s not against a political creed. It’s not the equivalent of saying, “I hate Nazis” or even “I hate conservatives” or “I hate liberals.” Okay, you can throw all the rationalizations you want my way about the oppressive legacy of the Ethiopian imperial system that prompted this supposed frustration, blah, blah, blah, but in this tweet, you are basically still saying you hate a whole country. And you feel entitled to say so.
And somehow people get away with this [deleted].
How did things get this far? Contrary to what you may have been told, the grievances haven’t built up over the centuries and suddenly exploded. No, this wasn’t all thanks to the last 100 plus years and the supposedly blood-soaked creation of the modern Ethiopian state (whoops, we’re not supposed to acknowledge there is one — my bad). It’s come to this because of an ideology.
Weeds flourish when there’s good manure, and it certainly had lots of it. Like a weed, the ideology has grown where it can, taking advantage of this space or that, conveniently bending itself to where it will get the most light and attention.
In some versions, we’re told Ethiopia was a cruel hoax that its rulers played on the people for thousands of years. It’s the “Abyssinian Empire,” which we’re supposed to believe was an Amhara-dominated clique, even though one of its greatest emperors was from Tigray. Even though one of this mythical country’s greatest heroes and patriots was another fellow from Tigray, Ras Alula. Even though as Richard Greenfield noted, Shoa rulers occasionally married into Oromo families. Even though its most celebrated emperor had mixed-heritage and negotiated submission from many Oromo groups. Even though its last emperor had partial Oromo ancestry.
The custodians of this poisonous garden don’t care about inherent contradictions. As with Trump cheerleaders, the advocates of this defeatism like to change their tune when under pressure. If Ethiopia is more theory than real country, then their pet theory can change whenever they need it to, and it can be whatever they want it to be.
What is the point of all this relentless, contradictory slander? The goal is destruction.
Sixty, seventy years ago, if you were called an “Ethiopianist,” it meant you studied Ethiopian history. But today, we’re supposed to buy the idea that “Ethiopianism” is a politically-loaded dogma you should either be ashamed of or embarrassed by, that if you happen to believe in the country as a whole (never mind where you stand on the political spectrum, left, right, whatever), you must take on the spiritual baggage of monarchist nostalgia.
If you like your country, it must mean that you somehow condone massacres committed in a past century, or that you’re a naïve simpleton. Poor you — you just don’t “get” these sophisticated underpinnings of political theory.
I’ve written this before: there is no denying that Ethiopia had an empire. But to argue or claim that its empire was equivalent to the horrors of colonialism by Western empires in the 19th century, or was even in the same ball park, is a farcical notion at best and more akin to a Fascist propagandist’s pipe dream.
While current and some past histories emphasize the competition between the ethnic peoples of Ethiopia, I believe it’s time for a fresh interpretation that recognizes a more collaborative aspect to the history, noting how all the peoples played a role in building the country.
This is not wishful thinking. There is evidence to support this, and I plan to write a whole book on it.
I have touched on the roots of the poison before in another article, how some Western scholars liked to treat Africans the way entomologists treat bugs under slides — they talked about Ethiopians as if they were small children in the background of a room. Like some Western journalists today, they hardly ever talked to them, let alone for them. They could afford to spin this bullshit, because quite often, who was reading their rubbish printed in obscure journals except their own peers? They enjoyed their “exotic” sabbaticals in a distant African country and went back to their teaching positions in universities in America and Europe.
Along the way, radicals in academic circles and Ethiopian politics found this malleable mythology useful. After all, it already had the validation of university “scholarship.” Forget whether it’s factual or grounded in reality, it would serve their purpose. And besides, who bothers to look up the critical reviews that ask, Where’s your evidence, what you are basing this stuff on? Nope. If you pile up enough articles and cite them in screen-shots, you’ll look clever enough.
It is time to banish this nonsense once and for all. Because you see its toxic fruits everywhere. Notice how many “analyses” we get every day, hammering again and again on how Ethiopia must be on its last legs?
Here are a few samples of the typical gobbledygook that tries to pass itself off as historical summary and analysis: “For instance, as the Amhara inherited the Tigrayan thesis of Ethiopianism and wrote their antithesis, similarly, the Oromos synthesize the modern-day Ethiopia of the Menelik II mold. Maybe Abiy is infusing new Oromo energy into the synthesis again so that what Oromos lost could be reclaimed, mutating Ethiopia into a new Oromo-tinged kaleidoscope.” Then there’s this: “The shift of power from the north to south Ethiopia would contribute to the early retirement of the Abyssinian empire.” And this lovely ethnic slander disguised as observation: “The Amhara, the self-proclaimed custodians of Ethiopia’s empire state, are nervous…”
Frankly, I really wonder whether the authors of such drivel ever expect their articles to be read. I think they must hope, as with students cramming for midterms, that their articles will be scanned. Affirmative nods, maybe a second glance for another screen-shot useful in one more interminable Twitter debate.
At this point, I have to bring out my standard disclaimer. I don’t have an opinion on the Abiy government. I’ve never offered a public opinion, nor do I feel entitled to make one. I’ve said little as of this date on social media about the most recent events unfolding in Tigray because I simply don’t know enough and there is so much that we still need to learn about the evolving situation (but how the war began with the TPLF’s “pre-emptive strike” is now a matter of historical fact). Ironically, in assigning me the dubious “honor” of making me one of their targets for goading and hounding, the trolls have encouraged me to actually take a stronger stand.
My position is not aligned with any Ethiopian political entity, let alone the government. But it is partisan to the extent that I believe in Ethiopia. It extends sincere good wishes for whatever political remedy Ethiopians come up with themselves to solve their own problems, whether that answer winds up being a secession referendum or a rewriting of the constitution or whatever they want. Let them sort out their own politics.
But the stakes behind the disinformation campaign waged by the TPLF on the run and other extremists are too big. They will have repercussions long after the current conflict ends. This warping and perversion of history robs a young population of its own posterity. It must be fought, just as truth always needs to be fought for.
I can’t think offhand of another recent example where the political situation in a country has deteriorated so much that its people at home and abroad are inundated on a daily and hourly basis with propaganda deliberately designed to make them hate who they are and feel ashamed of where they come from. It’s not just about pitting one ethnic group against another — we’ve seen that before many times in Europe and Africa. This seemingly endless toxic wave, developed by those who should be their brothers and sisters, says: Hate your ethnic group and your country. Hate all of it. Hate your heritage and nation. Hate your flag. Hate your past.
And then it lies to the Western world and asks it to add fuel to the bonfire. It lies and claims others elsewhere in Ethiopia don’t care about Tigrayans when they so clearly do. It lies and insists that all Tigrayans must naturally side with the TPLF, and it’s been so successful that lazy Western journalists conflate the two and talk about them as if they’re interchangeable.
It lies and ignores the millions of Ethiopians of mixed heritage, who can be Amhara and Tigrayan, Oromo and Gurage and Amhara, and again I ask, Who speaks for them?
The lies go on and on…
I say: No.
I am a foreigner. I have no rights here, in this context. It’s not my country, not my race, not my people. But I will love its people and the country anyway, because there are those from this land who have given me such sincere, gracious support that I owe them. I owe them more words. And even when I try to decline, muttering that it’s not my place, they tell me no, please stick with it, please stand by us, remain an ally. Please.
And so I write: A country’s soul is more than its borders, its current government, its debt and exports.
Ethiopia goes on because its people believe in it.
But to nourish that belief, to fight the relentless poison, new methods are needed. Endless debates on Twitter won’t turn the tide. Even when more facts emerge over the current conflict, it won’t stop the crisis merchants, the academic vampires and the prophets of doom. New tools are needed to preserve the soul of a nation.
I have a humble suggestion on that score.
Whether it’s in the diaspora or in Ethiopia itself, there must be a clever young man or woman who remembers the examples of Gandhi and Martin Luther King, who recognizes the power of a nonviolent, spiritual grass-roots movement. It doesn’t have to be — indeed, it shouldn’t be — political in nature, aligning itself with one of the current parties. Its goal would be to revive a spirit of collaboration, of appreciation for all the peoples of the country with the goal of recognizing each other’s worth. Its tangible expressions can be in cultural events and in scholarship that sees things as they are in history, the truth, neither the varnished lie or the revisionist propaganda.
After Italians invaded Ethiopia, after they bombed and dropped poison gas on the country, people from all over rose up and formed an insurgency. They were heroes, and they called themselves Patriots.
It is time for Patriots to make their presence known again. Not with weapons or violence but armed with ideas.
A Patriot in this context is someone who gently, quietly sees the worth in their brother or sister from miles away and sees the potential in them building a nation together. A Patriot speaks out over incidents of ethnic cleansing, whether it be with Tigrayans as victims or Amhara, Oromo or another ethnic group. Whatever political form Ethiopians decide for the future or who they elect, these new Patriots would build a movement that believes in Ethiopia for itself.
Somewhere, I’m sure, there must be young Ethiopians who have such a vision, who will lead others. How they develop that vision is up to them. It’s just a suggestion…
There may be those who hate the Ethiopian flag. I say it is the banner of a nation’s soul.
Oh, something else worth thinking about with the flag. Consider one of its earliest designs — from Tigray. A nation is more than the sum of its parts.
While the conflict in Tigray winds its way down, the battle for the soul of Ethiopia goes on.
But there must be Patriots somewhere, ready to defend it with a fresh, new spirit of inclusiveness and unity.
WRITTEN BY
Jeff Pearce
Writer person. Books - Prevail, The Karma Booth, Gangs in Canada; in June 2021, Winged Bull, a bio of Henry Layard, the Victorian era’s Indiana Jones.
https://jeffpearce.medium.com/ethiopia- ... 9027c914c4
Re: Ethiopia, Without shame
This is a commentary [THE TRUTH, and THE WHOLE TRUTH] on the report "Ethiopia’s leader must answer for the high cost of hidden war in Tigray" published on the Guardian by a certain Simon.
Dear Simon - I read your January 24th article about the tragic security crisis in Ethiopia’s Tigray region with interest.
Like the vast majority of urban and mixed heritage Ethiopians, I don’t identify with any ethnicity, just Ethiopian, and I feel the pain of all Ethiopians regardless of their ethnicity or political inclinations. That outlook has always defined urban Ethiopians - and really the majority of Ethiopians as well.
Genuine concern for fellow Ethiopians in the Tigray region who are caught in the cross-fire of the current conflict abounds amongst all of us, and we strongly support the advocacy by people from inside and outside the country to get them the help they need as fast as possible.
When it comes to the politics of the conflict in Tigray, all of us despair over the severely biased and unscrupulous reportage by many western journalists including sadly, by experienced ones like yourself.
It is absolutely necessary to hold PM Abiy and his government accountable for any type of willful atrocities that may be happening in the course of the conflict (provided the reporting on the atrocities comes from credible sources), but that is quite different from wholesale blaming his government for the war itself, and especially to present the TPLF leaders as benevolent victims who have done good... That is a grievous insult to all Ethiopians.
If you care enough about the credibility of your reporting, it would take very little effort to establish the facts.
1)The TPLF regime of which the now deceased former foreign minister you eulogize in your atricle was among the top honchos, have been committing horrendous mass human rights abuses, large scale extra judicial killings, torture, economic dispossession, dislocation, and all sorts of atrocities that you can think of, including brazenly pillaging the poor country’s coffers for 27 years non-stop.
No one is ululating Seyoum Mesfin’s gory death, and in fact most would have liked to see him face a just trial so that the truth is established and the country can move forward with transparent justice.
Seyoum and his TPLF buddies used the age old divide and rule method by carving up the country into a never before seen ethnic bantustan system (copied from the short-lived Italian occupation of Ethiopia 1936 - 1941) in the name of federalism, that helped them extend their minority dictatorship for a long and painful 27 years (and became the cause of so much ethnic-mayhem that has been widely reported for long now). The vast majority of Tigreans who lived in a police state were not spared from the TPLF’s abuses.
The TPLF’s extensive atrocities have been constantly reported by all human rights defenders on the planet throughout those 27 years.
They have also done some good on parts of the economy, especially on the infrastructure front - largely funded by China, but also amassed a massive fortune for themselves and their cronies in the process. According to many credible reports, they have stolen a whopping $30 billion dollars from the desperately poor country they governed with an iron fist for 27 years - including in this report by Forbes in 2017 that references the UN’s own 2015 report on “Illicit financial outflows“ https://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2 ... -game/amp/
2) You will not find anyone in Ethiopia who would shed tears for the TPLF (other than the extremely few who have for long benefited from the TPLF’s egregious dictatorship and corruption). And most importantly in the context of the current conflict, there is not much doubt on the genesis of the war.
The TPLF junta who were facing heightened mass protests against their dictatorial and corrupt rule, unexpectedly lost power in 2018 to PM Abiy and his supporters within the then so-called governing coalition - in an open election in their own rubber stamp parliament. They were terribly mad because they lost their 27 years exclusive reign, they left Addis and camped out in Tigray.
For two years between 2018 and 2020 they tried to openly destabilize PM Abiy’s government, organized and trained what they openly boasted on their local TV is the largest army in Eastern Africa - a special force and militia (reportedly numbering a quarter of a million). They finally in early Nov 2020 suddenly and brazenly attacked the Northern command of the Ethiopian federal army that is based in Tigray and took over most of its armaments, that by their own admission accounted for 70% of the mechanized armaments of the entire Ethiopian federal army. They brutally killed hundreds of federal soldiers, disarmed and disbanded thousands more, captured large quantities of heavy armaments (including rockets they subsequently repeatedly fired on densely populated cities like Gondar, Bahir Dar and Asmara, which was widely reported by western media including in the Nov 14, 2020 edition of your newspaper the guardian. It was also openly gloated about a few days later by the TPLF spokesman Getachew Reda on Tigray TV). The fact that they started the war by attacking the northern command was openly and boastfully stated in detail by one of the top TPLF leaders, Sekuture Getachew, on Nov 14, 2020 on their then daily broadcast on local Tigray TV. I quote “we the TPLF in Tigray have the largest army in east Africa...we conducted a pre emptive lightning attack on the Northern command...". You can check out the broadcast for yourself with a translator https://youtu.be/gsPP-m6Jwzw.
The former foreign minister Seyoum Mesfin himself whose death in battle you mourn, was amongst the decision makers of this attack and has given several interviews on live TV declaring their intentions to deligitmize and destabilize PM Abiy’s government - that has without a doubt the widest level of popular support across ethiopia a leader has ever had since the demise of Haile Selassie’s govt in 1974. Even if some of that support may have soured due to the widespread ethnic based security breakdowns in many pockets of the country (that are rooted in the TPLF’s nearly 30 years reign of divide and conquer), his earlier reforms are still very popular.
Like any leader, Abiy has his faults and mistakes (some of which are harder to forgive than others), but he and the federal army (while needing to be held accountable for avoidable targeting of civilians if true), actually deserve to be commended for preventing Ethiopia from descending into another Somalia, Yemen or Syria - which was exactly what the vindictive leaders of the TPLF had intended to do by attacking the federal army with the aim of dismantling it and driving the country into chaos. Statements to the effect of “Ethiopia will become the next Somalia Syria... and even the Rwanda of 1994, unless we continue to indefinitely lord over it with our ‘vanguard party"...”, were made openly and repeatedly on live TV by senior TPLF leaders including specifically by Seyoum Mesfin himself. You can easily find those pronouncements if you bother to check their interviews on Tigray TV, over the last two years and even before.
In lamenting the battlefield death of TPLF leaders in a war of their own making, you should also not forget the widely reported horrific massacre of hundreds of non-tigrean civilians, mostly daily laborers who were stabbed, hacked and bludgeoned to death, in the town of Mai Kadra in western Tigray on the night of Nov 9, 2020 by a TPLF militia that was fleeing from advancing federal troops. https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/ ... ray-state/
The gut wrenching civilian casualties in the rest of the war zone aside (many of whom were reportedly being used as human shields by the TPLF and no doubt many others were very sadly avoidable or unavoidable casualties of war), PM Abiy actually deserves kudos for his decisive actions to save ethiopia from the fate of Syria, Somalia and Yemen, which the TPLF cabal had openly intended for it to become.
This commentary may sound to you like it comes from PM Abiy’s avid supporters. No, that is not the case. The truth is, many of us urban Ethiopians who oppose the politicization of ethnicity in Ethiopia, continue to reserve judgment on PM Abiy. We commend his many positive reforms, but we are not rushing to support the rest of his politics that has yet to be tested at the ballot box. We are not a herd or purveyors of a zero sum mentality, as some condescending journalists portray Ethiopians.
We can tell what is good and bad for our country and some of us don’t agree with PM Abiy on key issues, but not about his earlier positive reforms, and his decision to decisively respond to the TPLF’s openly intentional and gruesome attack on the federal army with the devilish intention of plunging the whole country into chaos and civil war. An army that has paid in tens of thousands of lives repulsing Eritrean aggression in Tigray in 1998-2000, has been there sharing the lives of poor Tigreans for the last 20 years when your ‘friend’ Seyoum Mesfin was elsewhere, too busy with his opulent life and pillaging and persecuting poor ethiopians - and yes also making the good sounding speeches you mentioned on international forums that may have impressed gullible observers (similar to his previous boss Meles Zenawi, the brutal and conniving dictator who successfully hoodwinked the west for many years).
The TPLF junta was a chronic cancer to our country and Ethiopians across the spectrum, including Tigrayans (excluding those who have been living in luxury locally and in the diaspora with stolen money - including offsprings and extended families of the TPLF leaders) are relieved the TPLF will never lead Ethiopia again. I dare you to randomly interview anyone on the streets of Mekele or any city in Ethiopia and find any tears for the TPLF.
Sincerely
An ordinary Ethiopian
Dear Simon - I read your January 24th article about the tragic security crisis in Ethiopia’s Tigray region with interest.
Like the vast majority of urban and mixed heritage Ethiopians, I don’t identify with any ethnicity, just Ethiopian, and I feel the pain of all Ethiopians regardless of their ethnicity or political inclinations. That outlook has always defined urban Ethiopians - and really the majority of Ethiopians as well.
Genuine concern for fellow Ethiopians in the Tigray region who are caught in the cross-fire of the current conflict abounds amongst all of us, and we strongly support the advocacy by people from inside and outside the country to get them the help they need as fast as possible.
When it comes to the politics of the conflict in Tigray, all of us despair over the severely biased and unscrupulous reportage by many western journalists including sadly, by experienced ones like yourself.
It is absolutely necessary to hold PM Abiy and his government accountable for any type of willful atrocities that may be happening in the course of the conflict (provided the reporting on the atrocities comes from credible sources), but that is quite different from wholesale blaming his government for the war itself, and especially to present the TPLF leaders as benevolent victims who have done good... That is a grievous insult to all Ethiopians.
If you care enough about the credibility of your reporting, it would take very little effort to establish the facts.
1)The TPLF regime of which the now deceased former foreign minister you eulogize in your atricle was among the top honchos, have been committing horrendous mass human rights abuses, large scale extra judicial killings, torture, economic dispossession, dislocation, and all sorts of atrocities that you can think of, including brazenly pillaging the poor country’s coffers for 27 years non-stop.
No one is ululating Seyoum Mesfin’s gory death, and in fact most would have liked to see him face a just trial so that the truth is established and the country can move forward with transparent justice.
Seyoum and his TPLF buddies used the age old divide and rule method by carving up the country into a never before seen ethnic bantustan system (copied from the short-lived Italian occupation of Ethiopia 1936 - 1941) in the name of federalism, that helped them extend their minority dictatorship for a long and painful 27 years (and became the cause of so much ethnic-mayhem that has been widely reported for long now). The vast majority of Tigreans who lived in a police state were not spared from the TPLF’s abuses.
The TPLF’s extensive atrocities have been constantly reported by all human rights defenders on the planet throughout those 27 years.
They have also done some good on parts of the economy, especially on the infrastructure front - largely funded by China, but also amassed a massive fortune for themselves and their cronies in the process. According to many credible reports, they have stolen a whopping $30 billion dollars from the desperately poor country they governed with an iron fist for 27 years - including in this report by Forbes in 2017 that references the UN’s own 2015 report on “Illicit financial outflows“ https://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2 ... -game/amp/
2) You will not find anyone in Ethiopia who would shed tears for the TPLF (other than the extremely few who have for long benefited from the TPLF’s egregious dictatorship and corruption). And most importantly in the context of the current conflict, there is not much doubt on the genesis of the war.
The TPLF junta who were facing heightened mass protests against their dictatorial and corrupt rule, unexpectedly lost power in 2018 to PM Abiy and his supporters within the then so-called governing coalition - in an open election in their own rubber stamp parliament. They were terribly mad because they lost their 27 years exclusive reign, they left Addis and camped out in Tigray.
For two years between 2018 and 2020 they tried to openly destabilize PM Abiy’s government, organized and trained what they openly boasted on their local TV is the largest army in Eastern Africa - a special force and militia (reportedly numbering a quarter of a million). They finally in early Nov 2020 suddenly and brazenly attacked the Northern command of the Ethiopian federal army that is based in Tigray and took over most of its armaments, that by their own admission accounted for 70% of the mechanized armaments of the entire Ethiopian federal army. They brutally killed hundreds of federal soldiers, disarmed and disbanded thousands more, captured large quantities of heavy armaments (including rockets they subsequently repeatedly fired on densely populated cities like Gondar, Bahir Dar and Asmara, which was widely reported by western media including in the Nov 14, 2020 edition of your newspaper the guardian. It was also openly gloated about a few days later by the TPLF spokesman Getachew Reda on Tigray TV). The fact that they started the war by attacking the northern command was openly and boastfully stated in detail by one of the top TPLF leaders, Sekuture Getachew, on Nov 14, 2020 on their then daily broadcast on local Tigray TV. I quote “we the TPLF in Tigray have the largest army in east Africa...we conducted a pre emptive lightning attack on the Northern command...". You can check out the broadcast for yourself with a translator https://youtu.be/gsPP-m6Jwzw.
The former foreign minister Seyoum Mesfin himself whose death in battle you mourn, was amongst the decision makers of this attack and has given several interviews on live TV declaring their intentions to deligitmize and destabilize PM Abiy’s government - that has without a doubt the widest level of popular support across ethiopia a leader has ever had since the demise of Haile Selassie’s govt in 1974. Even if some of that support may have soured due to the widespread ethnic based security breakdowns in many pockets of the country (that are rooted in the TPLF’s nearly 30 years reign of divide and conquer), his earlier reforms are still very popular.
Like any leader, Abiy has his faults and mistakes (some of which are harder to forgive than others), but he and the federal army (while needing to be held accountable for avoidable targeting of civilians if true), actually deserve to be commended for preventing Ethiopia from descending into another Somalia, Yemen or Syria - which was exactly what the vindictive leaders of the TPLF had intended to do by attacking the federal army with the aim of dismantling it and driving the country into chaos. Statements to the effect of “Ethiopia will become the next Somalia Syria... and even the Rwanda of 1994, unless we continue to indefinitely lord over it with our ‘vanguard party"...”, were made openly and repeatedly on live TV by senior TPLF leaders including specifically by Seyoum Mesfin himself. You can easily find those pronouncements if you bother to check their interviews on Tigray TV, over the last two years and even before.
In lamenting the battlefield death of TPLF leaders in a war of their own making, you should also not forget the widely reported horrific massacre of hundreds of non-tigrean civilians, mostly daily laborers who were stabbed, hacked and bludgeoned to death, in the town of Mai Kadra in western Tigray on the night of Nov 9, 2020 by a TPLF militia that was fleeing from advancing federal troops. https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/ ... ray-state/
The gut wrenching civilian casualties in the rest of the war zone aside (many of whom were reportedly being used as human shields by the TPLF and no doubt many others were very sadly avoidable or unavoidable casualties of war), PM Abiy actually deserves kudos for his decisive actions to save ethiopia from the fate of Syria, Somalia and Yemen, which the TPLF cabal had openly intended for it to become.
This commentary may sound to you like it comes from PM Abiy’s avid supporters. No, that is not the case. The truth is, many of us urban Ethiopians who oppose the politicization of ethnicity in Ethiopia, continue to reserve judgment on PM Abiy. We commend his many positive reforms, but we are not rushing to support the rest of his politics that has yet to be tested at the ballot box. We are not a herd or purveyors of a zero sum mentality, as some condescending journalists portray Ethiopians.
We can tell what is good and bad for our country and some of us don’t agree with PM Abiy on key issues, but not about his earlier positive reforms, and his decision to decisively respond to the TPLF’s openly intentional and gruesome attack on the federal army with the devilish intention of plunging the whole country into chaos and civil war. An army that has paid in tens of thousands of lives repulsing Eritrean aggression in Tigray in 1998-2000, has been there sharing the lives of poor Tigreans for the last 20 years when your ‘friend’ Seyoum Mesfin was elsewhere, too busy with his opulent life and pillaging and persecuting poor ethiopians - and yes also making the good sounding speeches you mentioned on international forums that may have impressed gullible observers (similar to his previous boss Meles Zenawi, the brutal and conniving dictator who successfully hoodwinked the west for many years).
The TPLF junta was a chronic cancer to our country and Ethiopians across the spectrum, including Tigrayans (excluding those who have been living in luxury locally and in the diaspora with stolen money - including offsprings and extended families of the TPLF leaders) are relieved the TPLF will never lead Ethiopia again. I dare you to randomly interview anyone on the streets of Mekele or any city in Ethiopia and find any tears for the TPLF.
Sincerely
An ordinary Ethiopian