Stand With Tigray: Intervene to Prevent Tigray Genocide and Restore Peace and Security in Ethiopia
I am writing to you as a member of your constituent—who cherishes the American values of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness—to request your urgent intervention in relation to the unjust war and looming genocide that is taking place in Tigray, Ethiopia.
Unjust War on Tigray:
The war on Tigray started on Nov. 4, 2020 and it is still raging. Ethiopia’s National Defense Forces, Amhara Militias, Oromia and Somali Regional Forces, UAE Drones and Eritrean Armed Forces are indiscriminately massacring Tigrayan civilians and destroying and looting Tigray’s infrastructures.
According to U.N. human rights chief Michelle Bachelet, Ethiopia’s situation is “spiraling out of control with appalling impact on civilians and urgently needs outside monitoring.”
Bachelet told reporters: “We have corroborated information of gross human rights violations and abuses including indiscriminate attacks against civilians and civilian objects, looting, abductions and sexual violence against women and girls”.
“There are reports of forced recruitment of Tigrayan youth to fight against their own communities.” (Link: https://apnews.com/article/international-news-coronavirus-pandemic-ethiopia-massacres-united-nations-e6f32b038f6d6a27b6a3be59a9d3343f)
Though Ethiopia’s unelected Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed had recently announced that the war on Tigray was over — after the Ethiopian National Defense Forces and Eritrean Armed Forces allegedly took control of the capital city Mekelle — Tigray is still inaccessible to NGOs and UN agencies to operate in the entire region.
On Dec 8, 2020, the unelected federal government’s spokesman openly admitted to foreign media that soldiers had fired at UN personnel that attempted to gain access to Tigray. (Link: https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-12-08/ethiopias-forces-shoot-at-detain-un-staffers-in-tigray).
The government has also rejected independent investigation into the conflict that has displaced over 1 million people and has caused mass starvation, information blackout and massacres of thousands of civilians. (Link: https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/ethiopia-rejects-independent-probes-tigray-conflict-74620693).
There is a critical shortage of food, water and medicine for the entire region. 2.3 million children need humanitarian assistance. War crimes across Tigray are causing massive displacements and humanitarian crisis. Mekelle, a city of a half-million people, is “basically today without medical care,” the director-general of the International Committee for the Red Cross, Robert Mardini, told reporters on Dec 08, 2020.
“The Ayder Referral Hospital has run out of supplies, including fuel for generators,” reported the Associated Press. (Link: https://apnews.com/article/international-news-coronavirus-pandemic-ethiopia-massacres-united-nations-e6f32b038f6d6a27b6a3be59a9d3343f)
Foreign Countries Involvement:
Ethiopia’s regime is attacking its own people in Tigray with support from foreign countries including Eritrea and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). UAE’s drones, are bombing Tigray’s villages, towns and cities from its base in Assab, Eritrea. Prior to the war on Tigray, UAE had been using its Assab base for the disastrous war on Yemen.
The United States government has reluctantly acknowledged the presence of Eritrea’s armed forces in Tigray, a fact which has been reported from day 1 of the conflict. It is an open secret that Ethiopia’s PM Abiy Ahmed and Eritrea’s President Isaias Afewerki have been planning the war on Tigray since 2018.
Here is an exclusive report from Reuters confirming Eritrea’s involvement: https://www.reuters.com/article/ethiopia-conflict-eritrea-idUSKBN28I1OX.
Another detailed report by Eritrea’s former defense minister documenting Eritrea’s role in the ongoing war on Tigray: https://africanarguments.org/2020/12/04/eritreas-role-in-ethiopias-conflict-and-the-fate-of-eritrean-refugees-in-ethiopia/.
The testimonies of Tigrayan victims of the Tigray war also reveal that Amhara militias from the neighboring Amhara Regional State are committing ethnic cleansing, sexual violence and unimaginable destruction while annexing Tigray’s territories as “Amhara lands.” This has transformed the nature of the conflict into a civil war and genocide.
Refugees in Sudan:
There are currently over 50,000 Tigrayan refugees in Sudan that fled from the civil war in Tigray. Over 1000 refugees who walked for days to Sudan are pregnant women. According to the UN, the majority of the refugees from Tigray are both women and children.
But Abiy Ahmed blatantly lied to the rubber-stamp parliament of Ethiopia that there were neither children nor women in the refugee camps.
CNN reported:
“The UN expects as many as 100,000 people to flee over the next six months, describing the situation as a ‘full-scale humanitarian crisis.’ International leaders have repeatedly expressed grave concern for the disruption of humanitarian access and for violence against civilians.” (Link: https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/08/africa/ethiopia-tigray-refugees-sudan-border-intl/index.html)
The New Humanitarian (TNH) also reported:
“The UN’s emergency aid coordination body, OCHA, said tens of thousands of people have been displaced inside Tigray, though few are likely to be receiving aid, given restrictions on the roads in and out of the region.”
TNH stated that the refugees’ accounts of the conflict is “that killings at Mai-Kadra — the scene of a massacre in western Tigray widely blamed on TPLF-aligned militia — were the work of Amhara militia aligned with the government. Tikhlai Abraham, a 40-year-old woman from Mai-Kadra, said the area came under ‘continuous attack’ from warplanes, tanks, and militia fighters from the neighboring region of Amhara, which is supporting the government’s offensive.” (Link: https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/news-feature/2020/11/19/ethiopia-tigray-conflict-sudan-refugees)
Violation of International Law and Human Rights Conventions:
Ethiopia is a signatory of the Geneva Conventions, African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights and other key international human rights conventions.
According to experts of international law:
“There are several instances in which Ethiopia could have already violated these conventions. For instance in the denial of humanitarian aid and if civilians were attacked. Serious violations of these laws can be considered war crimes and can be prosecuted in national or international courts, such as the tribunals established to investigate violations of the law in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda and the International Criminal Court. Victims of humanitarian blockade could also sue the government in Ethiopian courts.”
(Link: https://theconversation.com/did-ethiopias-attack-on-tigray-violate-international-laws-151381)
It is clear that the unelected PM of Ethiopia is not following any international principles of war to protect civilians in Tigray. The international community has responsibility to protect Tigrayan civilians.
The Ethiopian regime is invested in total destruction of the Tigray region until the elected regional leaders surrender or are decimated and the population kneels down to subjugation and dictatorial rule, reversing the alleged reforms brought since Abiy Ahmed’s rise to power in 2018. The Nobel Prize for Peace winner has unfortunately become a war criminal.
I, therefore, urge you to demand:
- U.N. agencies and NGOs must have unfettered and neutral access to Tigray
- Armies of Ethiopia and Eritrea must stop intentionally destroying and looting development infrastructures in Tigray including universities, hospitals, pharmacies, farms, bridges and factories
- Telecommunications, internet, banks, electricity and other essential services must be restored immediately
- Independent journalists must be given full access to the region
- Independent investigations of war crimes on the ground must be carried out
- Abduction of Tigrayan people and Eritrean refugees must be stopped
- UN peace keepers must be deployed along the Tigray-Eritrea border
- Amhara militias, Eritrean soldiers, UAE and other invading forces must be removed from Tigray
- Ethnic profiling of Tigrayan civilians outside Tigray and ethnic cleansing must end
- The rights of women and children must be protected
- a comprehensive discourse and negotiations to begin immediately
I thank you for your serious consideration of my concerns and recommendations and look forward to your response and actions.
Unjust War on Tigray:
The war on Tigray started on Nov. 4, 2020 and it is still raging. Ethiopia’s National Defense Forces, Amhara Militias, Oromia and Somali Regional Forces, UAE Drones and Eritrean Armed Forces are indiscriminately massacring Tigrayan civilians and destroying and looting Tigray’s infrastructures.
According to U.N. human rights chief Michelle Bachelet, Ethiopia’s situation is “spiraling out of control with appalling impact on civilians and urgently needs outside monitoring.”
Bachelet told reporters: “We have corroborated information of gross human rights violations and abuses including indiscriminate attacks against civilians and civilian objects, looting, abductions and sexual violence against women and girls”.
“There are reports of forced recruitment of Tigrayan youth to fight against their own communities.” (Link: https://apnews.com/article/international-news-coronavirus-pandemic-ethiopia-massacres-united-nations-e6f32b038f6d6a27b6a3be59a9d3343f)
Though Ethiopia’s unelected Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed had recently announced that the war on Tigray was over — after the Ethiopian National Defense Forces and Eritrean Armed Forces allegedly took control of the capital city Mekelle — Tigray is still inaccessible to NGOs and UN agencies to operate in the entire region.
On Dec 8, 2020, the unelected federal government’s spokesman openly admitted to foreign media that soldiers had fired at UN personnel that attempted to gain access to Tigray. (Link: https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-12-08/ethiopias-forces-shoot-at-detain-un-staffers-in-tigray).
The government has also rejected independent investigation into the conflict that has displaced over 1 million people and has caused mass starvation, information blackout and massacres of thousands of civilians. (Link: https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/ethiopia-rejects-independent-probes-tigray-conflict-74620693).
There is a critical shortage of food, water and medicine for the entire region. 2.3 million children need humanitarian assistance. War crimes across Tigray are causing massive displacements and humanitarian crisis. Mekelle, a city of a half-million people, is “basically today without medical care,” the director-general of the International Committee for the Red Cross, Robert Mardini, told reporters on Dec 08, 2020.
“The Ayder Referral Hospital has run out of supplies, including fuel for generators,” reported the Associated Press. (Link: https://apnews.com/article/international-news-coronavirus-pandemic-ethiopia-massacres-united-nations-e6f32b038f6d6a27b6a3be59a9d3343f)
Foreign Countries Involvement:
Ethiopia’s regime is attacking its own people in Tigray with support from foreign countries including Eritrea and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). UAE’s drones, are bombing Tigray’s villages, towns and cities from its base in Assab, Eritrea. Prior to the war on Tigray, UAE had been using its Assab base for the disastrous war on Yemen.
The United States government has reluctantly acknowledged the presence of Eritrea’s armed forces in Tigray, a fact which has been reported from day 1 of the conflict. It is an open secret that Ethiopia’s PM Abiy Ahmed and Eritrea’s President Isaias Afewerki have been planning the war on Tigray since 2018.
Here is an exclusive report from Reuters confirming Eritrea’s involvement: https://www.reuters.com/article/ethiopia-conflict-eritrea-idUSKBN28I1OX.
Another detailed report by Eritrea’s former defense minister documenting Eritrea’s role in the ongoing war on Tigray: https://africanarguments.org/2020/12/04/eritreas-role-in-ethiopias-conflict-and-the-fate-of-eritrean-refugees-in-ethiopia/.
The testimonies of Tigrayan victims of the Tigray war also reveal that Amhara militias from the neighboring Amhara Regional State are committing ethnic cleansing, sexual violence and unimaginable destruction while annexing Tigray’s territories as “Amhara lands.” This has transformed the nature of the conflict into a civil war and genocide.
Refugees in Sudan:
There are currently over 50,000 Tigrayan refugees in Sudan that fled from the civil war in Tigray. Over 1000 refugees who walked for days to Sudan are pregnant women. According to the UN, the majority of the refugees from Tigray are both women and children.
But Abiy Ahmed blatantly lied to the rubber-stamp parliament of Ethiopia that there were neither children nor women in the refugee camps.
CNN reported:
“The UN expects as many as 100,000 people to flee over the next six months, describing the situation as a ‘full-scale humanitarian crisis.’ International leaders have repeatedly expressed grave concern for the disruption of humanitarian access and for violence against civilians.” (Link: https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/08/africa/ethiopia-tigray-refugees-sudan-border-intl/index.html)
The New Humanitarian (TNH) also reported:
“The UN’s emergency aid coordination body, OCHA, said tens of thousands of people have been displaced inside Tigray, though few are likely to be receiving aid, given restrictions on the roads in and out of the region.”
TNH stated that the refugees’ accounts of the conflict is “that killings at Mai-Kadra — the scene of a massacre in western Tigray widely blamed on TPLF-aligned militia — were the work of Amhara militia aligned with the government. Tikhlai Abraham, a 40-year-old woman from Mai-Kadra, said the area came under ‘continuous attack’ from warplanes, tanks, and militia fighters from the neighboring region of Amhara, which is supporting the government’s offensive.” (Link: https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/news-feature/2020/11/19/ethiopia-tigray-conflict-sudan-refugees)
Violation of International Law and Human Rights Conventions:
Ethiopia is a signatory of the Geneva Conventions, African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights and other key international human rights conventions.
According to experts of international law:
“There are several instances in which Ethiopia could have already violated these conventions. For instance in the denial of humanitarian aid and if civilians were attacked. Serious violations of these laws can be considered war crimes and can be prosecuted in national or international courts, such as the tribunals established to investigate violations of the law in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda and the International Criminal Court. Victims of humanitarian blockade could also sue the government in Ethiopian courts.”
(Link: https://theconversation.com/did-ethiopias-attack-on-tigray-violate-international-laws-151381)
It is clear that the unelected PM of Ethiopia is not following any international principles of war to protect civilians in Tigray. The international community has responsibility to protect Tigrayan civilians.
The Ethiopian regime is invested in total destruction of the Tigray region until the elected regional leaders surrender or are decimated and the population kneels down to subjugation and dictatorial rule, reversing the alleged reforms brought since Abiy Ahmed’s rise to power in 2018. The Nobel Prize for Peace winner has unfortunately become a war criminal.
I, therefore, urge you to demand:
- U.N. agencies and NGOs must have unfettered and neutral access to Tigray
- Armies of Ethiopia and Eritrea must stop intentionally destroying and looting development infrastructures in Tigray including universities, hospitals, pharmacies, farms, bridges and factories
- Telecommunications, internet, banks, electricity and other essential services must be restored immediately
- Independent journalists must be given full access to the region
- Independent investigations of war crimes on the ground must be carried out
- Abduction of Tigrayan people and Eritrean refugees must be stopped
- UN peace keepers must be deployed along the Tigray-Eritrea border
- Amhara militias, Eritrean soldiers, UAE and other invading forces must be removed from Tigray
- Ethnic profiling of Tigrayan civilians outside Tigray and ethnic cleansing must end
- The rights of women and children must be protected
- a comprehensive discourse and negotiations to begin immediately
I thank you for your serious consideration of my concerns and recommendations and look forward to your response and actions.
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