03 – 28 – 2022
By. W. Yilma
“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others”
After the second world war, our world entertains various manmade and natural disasters. War is one of the manmade disasters, that challenges our world today. War has different causes, among which, ideological differences, Geo-political and economic interests, religion differences, the rise of nationalism and militarism, historical rivalry, formation of new alliance, and many other reasons could ignite war between countries and withing a country between different functions. If we scrutinize those wars active currently in many parts of our world, we can come to the conclusion that some of them could have genuine causes and some do not have any causes. Let’s see few of them. The United States (USA) war on Iraq is not only wrong, but USA does not have any cause to star the war with that country. The Bush administration exploited the anger and vengeance many Americans perceived after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack on American soil. The Osama Bin Laden fever is a pretext for the Bush administration to justify to go to war with Iraq. On the contrary, USA have a cause to go to war with Afghanistan to fight the terrorist Bin Laden where he was hidden. Although there is a conducive atmosphere (social, political, and economic problems) to provoke the societies to stand against their government in power, the war in Libya, Syria and Yemen was aggravated or instigated by foreign interferences. Because of the petrol dollar and seeking more resources, the Arabs countries together with big powers serves as a catalyst to instigate and aggravate these wars. None of these wars stopped through negotiation until today. Thanks to incompetent Ali, Ethiopia is now become a playground for some of those interventionist Arab countries. I do believe the conflict in Ethiopia is now the same as the 3 Arab countries mentioned above. Arab counties play the main role not only in changing the balance of the war, but also in complication of any peace process as well.
Because of geo-political and economic factors, the responses and engagements of the international communities and global organizations to solve conflicts or to deliver humanitarian and other assistances varies from country to country. At the start of the genocidal war against the people of Tigray (November 2020) by Ali and his foreign and domestic allies, the international communities and some media outlets has given some coverages and attention to this war. Unfortunately, because of the Russian illegal and unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, the world attention was completely diverted to this war, and the Tigray war become less priority. Because of this, millions are at the verge of sever starvation, and hundreds are dying each day because the cruelty of Ali government, and the less attentions given by the international communities to the problems. The reason I said this is because the Tigray war was started 15 months earlier than the Ukraine war, and the number of peoples killed, injured, and exposed to manmade starvation, and the level of crimes committed against the people of Tigray is by far higher than what has happened in Ukraine today. The number of countries involved in condemning of the aggressor, and the supports given to Ukraine people, the level of concerns, assistances, social and media outlets coverage and awareness building, participations, heavily varies between Tigray and Ukraine. If western countries paid the same attention to Tigray war, as they showed to Ukraine conflict, Tigray war would have been stopped long time ago.
What I want to clear here for the readers is that when I talk about the war in these two areas, it is not my intention to grade or weigh the war imposed on the people of Tigray and Ukrainians by the Ethiopian and Russian fascists governments respectively. No matter the types and the level, war consumed human life and waste resources. Although I did not live in Ukraine as I lived in my birthplace Ethiopia, Tigray regional state, I spend more than 6 years in the former United Soviet Socialist Republic (USSR), in the beginning of the 80’s and I deeply feel the pain many Ukrainians and Russians are feeling at this time as a result of the ongoing war between the two. It is heartbreaking to see the people with whom I lived and the towns I knew (Odessa, Kharkov, Kiev) are suffering, killed, their old, but beautiful buildings are indiscriminately bombarded, and demolished and change them to rubbles. I strongly opposed the action president Putin has taken to ignite this unjustified, unprovoked but very brutal war imposed on the Ukrainian people. I am sorry for him how he could not understand the repercussions the war he started could bring not only to the people of the two countries but also to the world population at large. It is sad to see in the 21st century Russia have this kind of president who committed crime against the people whom he knows very well. As history tells us, Russian people were a victim of many big wars of aggression by Napoleon, and Hitler. In both wars the Russian people together with the rest of the former Soviet republics badly defeated the Napoleon and the Hitler aggressions. The reason is they were a victim, not an aggressor as we are witnessing this time. I truly believe that if Russian people do not fully participate with heroism against Hitler fascism, our world would have been different than today. I do not think they will have the same moral or show heroism now when they are fighting the illegal war with their former counterparts. In short, Russians will be facing humiliated defeat by the brave Ukrainians resistance. Although the causes and the level of foreign direct participation to the war are different in Tigray and Ukraine, the suffering of the two peoples due to the war is the same.
Contrary to Ukraine-Russian war, the war in Ethiopia is a war of ethnic cleansing and genocide targeted the people of Tigray to deprive them from all aspects of life, which includes political, economic, social, education, sports and cultural activities. The war is instigated by the central government against its own people, without any cause. What was mentioned by the government in power as a cause of war is not only a fallacy, but also a fabricated lie. What make the Tigray war the most brutal and cruel is that although the definition of the war is “internal” labeling with different names, many foreign countries are directly involved in supporting of Ali governments to commit crimes against the people of Tigray, which are still “considered” as a citizen of that unfortunate country, Ethiopia! The world communities knew the level and the extents of these foreign country’s involvements in the ongoing ethnic cleansing and genocides against the people of Tigray. To mention the few, the entire Eritrean military and security apparatuses are directly involved in Tigray conflict; the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, Iran, Somalia, China, and Russia also cooperated in supplying of Drones, weapons, and military advisors and technicians in the process of killing Tigrians. This indicate that it is not only the Ali government who is committed war crimes on his own citizens, but also the above-mentioned foreign countries who openly supported him. In every war crime that are committed in Tigray, the role of these countries is well known and documented. It is vivid that in Tigray everyday people are dying in thousands, due to starvation and lack of medication. Those Tegarus living outside Tigray are arbitrary sent to jail, burned alive, their properties are confiscated, and looted; thousands of Children’s left orphans; millions of people are starving to death; tens of thousands of Tegarus become handicapped due to the war; many people are psychologically traumatized because their families or close relatives either raped, killed or both in front of them by the beast invading armies; women in tenth of thousands are deliberately infected with HIV by the invading armies and now left without any medical follow-up. In short in Tigray many heinous crimes are committed, but very few comes to the surface. I do believe this does not happen in Ukraine in the same fashion as it happened in Tigray. What is true though is in both areas people are dying, and illegally evicted from their home due to the illegal war imposed on them, and their infrastructures are deliberately destroyed. It is only in Tigray where people are dying because of manmade starvation. The cruel, the Devil government in Addis not only selfish and jealous, unwilling to deliver food and medical supplies from its own reserve for the people of Tigray, but also, he denied the international communities to enter to Tigray to deliver lifesaving supplies to the needy people. This is because Ali is using starvation as a weapon of war. Knowing these atrocities in both war zone areas, Ukraine, and Tigray, why the European and USA governments failed to pay equal attentions, and take necessary punitive measures against the warlord, Ali and his foreign associates to save the life of millions of Tigrians who are at the verge of extinction as a result of unjustified war and manmade starvation? Why westerns media outlets (I gave credits to some printing medias in western countries and the Aljazeera cable TV) failed to give equal media coverage to Tigray war the same way as they covered the Ukraine war? The role of media is enormous in creating awareness among the public, and help the public to participate actively both in delivering aid and in solving problems. For the information, I asked only 50 individuals from different backgrounds to tell me if they knew the major war going on actively at this time in our world. While 42 of them knew about Ukraine war, 7 of them denied my request and only one person told me there is a war in Africa, but he could not correctly recall the place. Although the sampling size, and method is not scientific, the result could speak for itself. The war imposed on the people of Tigray is a hidden war, except politicians, it is unknown by the ordinary world communities. Whenever there is no public awareness, there will be no hope to stop the war. It is natural that you help first to extinguish your neighbors burning house before you jumped to extinguish the house flamed with fire, located far from your neighbors. But when it comes to human life this approach does not have place.
To me the action taken by the international communities to the ongoing ethnic cleansing and genocide in Tigray is not only a double standard, but also not to the level of the atrocities and crimes committed by Ali and his domestic and foreign associates. The reasons I said this is the following. First, when we look the Ukraine crisis, the western nations took every necessary measure against Russia which includes political, diplomacy, and economic measures that could crimples Putin war machines and other resources that could support Putin’s war efforts. Second, they took measures against those oligarchs who directly or indirectly supporting Putin. Third, they isolated Russia from international arenas, including sports which is considered as a “no politics activities”. Fourth, they supply Ukrainians with necessary propaganda campaigns using different media outlets, finance, military weaponries, and military logistics. This active and coordinating engagements by the western countries (I appreciate the yesterday 2022 Oscar award ceremony for remembering Ukraine people) to create a worldwide public awareness which effectively forced world population to support Ukrainians causes. This public awareness also encouraging individual volunteers from western countries to flock to Ukraine to fight against the Russian aggressors. Taking all these measures will undoubtedly crimple Russia ability to continue war with Ukraine for a long period of time. In this war, Russia is an aggressor, and Ukraine is a victim of the war. The war is between to independent countries. What is vivid though is that Tigray start burning way before Ukraine war! My concern here is, why the world communities equally concerned about human life, no matter where it happened, who are the victims, and by whom the crimes are committed.? What is wrong if I expressed my feeling by saying the following, “All humans are equal, but some humans are more equal than others”
Finally, people may think that peace will come through negotiation with Ali to solve the ongoing war in Tigray and other parts of the country, in particular Oromia. I wish if it is possible, but knowing who started the war, who is behind it, and the foreign countries direct involvements, I do think peace is far out of reach. How could we anticipate peace, while Ali is stubbornly denied humanitarian access to Tigray, and some parts of Oromia knowing that people are dying in thousands? Saying this, it doesn’t mean the possibility of bringing peace is completely dead. By the active engagement of the international communities with string attached, can stop this savage war that consumed millions of lives each day. In Ali and his government lie is considered as truth and the same thing, cruelty is considered as compassion or kindness. The crimes committed against the people of Tigray and other parts of the country by Ali are not an incidence or an isolated one. It is institutionalized and supported by many Ethiopians who are intoxicated with hate against the victims, in particular the people of Tigray. This is due to the unstoppable government sponsored propaganda campaigns going on against the people of Tigray. Understanding this, and the danger looming in Ethiopia, the international communities have the responsibility to stop the human suffering in Tigray as well as in other parts of the country. The western media outlets have journalistic responsibilities to deliver balanced and equitable information to the public, regardless of where the story happened, or who are the victims. Both in Ukraine and Tigray, innocents’ people are dilly dying, children’s and women are suffering, people are forced to leave their place by dictators who does not give value to human being. The responsibilities of removing dictators from their power should be rest on the shoulders of the international communities.
I pray for peace
Я молиться для мирa