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Ethiopia

Getting Ethiopia Dead Wrong

Danish journalist Rasmus Sonderriis has spent seven of the last nineteen years living in Ethiopia, beginning in 2004. He just published “Getting Ethiopia Dead Wrong ,” a free Substack e-book, in which he gets it dead right. This is his account of Western media and officialdom’s disgraceful and deeply damaging deceptions and distortions about the November 2020 to November 2022 Ethiopian civil war, which is now commonly known as the Tigray War. Cutting straight to the chase, he notes that the war began when the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) attacked the Northern Command base of the Ethiopian National Defense Force on November 3, 2020, and the government responded, as any government would, by sending in troops to reestablish its legitimate monopoly on the use of force.

Western Media Glorifies TPLF Mob Violence Against Eritrean Festivals

For 40 years, Eritrean Festivals have been held around the world to sustain the diaspora community’s connections to their homeland and to one another. But this year, a violent, well-coordinated international campaign of sabotage left festival goers badly injured and property damaged. Major Western media reported the pogrom-style attacks as “clashes,” “riots,” “fights” and “violence” in a way that implied these had broken out between two sides, masking the reality – that hooligans had attacked peaceful festival goers. They also implied that the violence was warranted because Eritrea is run by a “repressive” government on the wrong side of the new Cold War.

Escaping Debt Slavery: Ethiopia, Africa, And The IMF

Washington is well aware that the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) tried to regain power militarily and failed. The TPLF has essentially been Washington's proxy in the region. This was a two-year war, and in war, unfortunately, atrocities are committed, but most of the documentation that I have seen places the atrocities on the TPLF side of the fence, and they have been, quite frankly, horrific. Having failed to overthrow the Abiy government and bring the TPLF to power, the United States tried to control the outcome diplomatically, through the Pretoria peace agreement, which Washington orchestrated from the sidelines to save the TPLF from complete defeat. The pressure that is being put on them through this IMF agreement is an example of that.

Ethiopia: The Tigray Famine Narrative Was A Total Fabrication

Stephen Were Omamo served as Director of the World Food Program in Ethiopia from 2018 to 2021. From that viewpoint he saw the international community misrepresent facts on the ground in the two-year Ethiopian civil war in service to what he called the “good-guy TPLF vs. bad-guy Government story line that was already fully developed and circulating globally” shortly after the war began in November 2020. The US and its Western allies had designated Tigrayans and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) as the good guys, what Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman called “worthy victims” in Manufacturing Consent.

Targeting Eritrea And Ethiopia

United States plans for aggression and disruptions abroad are developed by current and former officials whose names may not be well known. They often leave government positions to become fellows at a plethora of think tanks that are connected to high level policy makers. It is important to know what they are saying, as their words have an impact on US foreign policy decisions. Michael Rubin is currently a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) , the rightwing think tank in Washington, DC, that mostly disseminates a neoconservative interventionist agenda, and where Rubin spends his time churning out misleading information and lies about the Red Sea State of Eritrea and the Horn of Africa. Rubin was a Pentagon staffer from 2002 to 2004, and an advisor to the Coalition Provisional Authority during America’s disastrous invasion of Iraq in 2003.

You Wouldn’t Ask Hannibal Lecter To Stop Mass Atrocities

As someone who spends a lot of time studying African conflict, I often witness and find myself drawn into discussion with groups  demanding that “the international community” do something to stop genocide and mass atrocities in their country. Of course I sympathize with any community under attack because of their racial, ethnic, clan, national, class, or political identity, but why would anyone in Africa or elsewhere in the Global South expect “the international community”—meaning the US-dominated West—to stop genocide and mass atrocities? The US dropped a nuclear bomb on Japan even though the Allies had already won WWII in the Pacific, turned Korea and Vietnam into human barbecue pits during the 50s and 60s, and overthrew or attempted to overthrow 47 governments between 1949 and 2014.

Ten Surprisingly Good Things That Happened In 2022

Continuing the wave of progressive wins in 2021, Latin America saw two new critical electoral victories: Gustavo Petro in Colombia and Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in Brazil.  When President Biden’s June Summit of the Americas excluded Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela, several Latin American leaders declined to attend, while others used the opportunity to push the United States to respect the sovereignty of the countries in the region.

The US Is Determined To Drive A Wedge Between Ethiopia And Eritrea

Western officials and pundits never stop trying to drive a wedge between Ethiopia and Eritrea. Their screams that Eritrea must get out of Ethiopia have grown louder and louder every day since  Ethiopia and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) signed a peace agreement to end the two-year civil war. The US should get out of Europe, Africa, Asia, Latin America, and outer space before it brings an end to life on earth, but of course that’s not on the table. Instead we hear that the Ethiopian peace agreement is likely to collapse if Eritrean troops don’t leave Ethiopia. Biden, Blinken, and rabid pro-TPLF Congressmen like Brad Sherman, D-CA, continue to threaten Ethiopia, but even more so Eritrea, with sanctions.

Glaring Western Hypocrisy On Human Rights In Africa

On October 31st, thousands of Congolese in Goma, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo’s North Kivu Province, protested the war of aggression waged by Rwanda and Uganda’s M23 militia, which has reportedly tightened its grip on surrounding countryside. One sign read “Rwanda and Ouganda Is Killing in DR Congo,” and Congolese activists are using the hashtag #RwandaIsKilling. Mambo Kawaya, a civil society representative, told AFP, “We denounce the hypocrisy of the international community in the face of Rwanda’s aggression.”  Nowhere is this hypocrisy more vivid than in the contrast between the US/Canadian/EU engagement in the Ethiopian and Congolese conflicts. As Ethiopia nears victory in its war with the US-backed, insurrectionist Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), huge crowds of Ethiopians have taken to the streets to protest US intervention and demand respect for Ethiopian sovereignty.

Ethiopia Nears Victory In Its Civil War, US Scrambles To Control The Outcome

The Ethiopian and Eritrean armies now seem close to winning a two-year war with the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF,) a US-backed clique that ruled Ethiopia brutally for 27 years, from 1991 to 2018. As I write this, on October 24, 2022, Ethiopian and Eritrean forces are in control of most major cities in Ethiopia’s Tigray Region. They are reported to have surrounded Mek’ele, the Tigrayan Region’s capital, but it’s not clear whether or not they are inside. On Saturday, October 22nd, huge crowds rallied for Ethiopian sovereignty in Addis Ababa and across the country, holding up signs that read “No More to a Proxy War,” “USA Respect Ethiopian Sovereignty,” and “No Intervention in the Name of Humanitarian Aid.” Establishment outlets including the Associated Press and Bloomberg News felt compelled to report the rallies.

An Inversion Of Truth: The TPLF And Its Commitment To Peace

Events in Ethiopia continue to rapidly develop. Ethiopian federal forces have taken control of a string of major towns and cities in Tigray Region in recent days, and they are now reported be on the outskirts of Mekelle, the regional capital. The city’s airport, located some kilometers from the heart of the capital, was taken over by federal forces on Tuesday evening following fierce fighting. Meanwhile, high-level delegations from both the Ethiopian government and the TPLF have reportedly flown to South Africa for much-anticipated peace talks. Like all conflicts, the one that has been raging in northern Ethiopia during the past two years has been fought both on the ground and along the information front. Within the latter battle, a recurring, ever-present element has been disinformation.

Ethiopian Diaspora Groups Prepare To Protest West’s Support For TLPF

Ethiopian diaspora across the Western world is condemning the US and the EU for “emboldening” the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) which resumed the war in the northern part of the country on August 24, ending the truce initiated by the federal government in March. “Deploring the International community, in particular the UN, United States and the EU Member states, for their continued sympathy” towards the TPLF, the Ethiopian Advocacy Organizations Worldwide (EAOW) passed a resolution on Friday, September 2. The EAOW, a consortium of 18 organizations representing Ethiopian nationals in the US, Canada, UK, South Africa, and 11 European countries, condemned the TPLF’s alleged systematic large-scale forced conscriptions – including of child soldiers – in the northernmost State of Tigray.

Notes From Wartorn Ethiopia, Part Five

As I scroll through my cell phone snapshots, I come across one taken several days ago from the back seat of a bajaj, aka “tuk tuk,” one of the three-wheeled blue taxis in service all over Ethiopia. Drivers decorate these vehicles with their favorite decals, including the phrases “#NoMore” and “It’s My Dam,” images of Ethiopian Emperors Menelik and Tewodros, and the image of Bob Marley. The driver of this bajaj had affixed a red, green, and gold “RASTA” decal to one side of his front window and a red, green, and gold cannabis leaf decal to the other. Emperor Haile Selassie gave land to a Rasta community in Ethiopia, but smoking the sacred herb is still illegal. This is one of many things I still don't understand here.

Notes From Wartorn Ethiopia, Part III

The discovery of mass graves and underground prisons in Ethiopia has exposed the crimes of the Tigray Peoples’ Liberation Front or TPLF, the U.S. puppets who tyrannized Ethiopia for 27 years with divide-and-conquer ethnic politics from 1991 to 2018, when a popular uprising forced them from power. The TPLF then retreated to Tigray Region and, in November 2020, started the ongoing civil war by attacking the national army’s Northern Command. US officialdom and both state and corporate media in the US have since described the Ethiopian conflict as the government's persecution of the Tigrayan People’s Front and the Tigrayan people. Biden’s USAID Chief and arch warmonger Samantha Power warned of “Tigray genocide” and the usual humanitarian war scenario began to unfold.

Notes From Wartorn Ethiopia, Part II

Even the Embassy of Bangladesh is building new floors right across the street from my alleyway hotel. Mercedes drive in and out, and I wonder how such a poor country affords them, but Mercedes seem to be the ambassadorial vehicle of choice. Governments like Bangladesh, which don’t maintain embassies in many other countries, no doubt maintain them here because Addis Ababa is the seat of the African Union, and with the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam coming online, Ethiopia is emerging as a regional powerhouse, despite how much that dismays US policymakers. The European Union embassy flies its flag behind a concrete wall topped with barbed-wire several blocks around the corner from where I’m staying.
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