Awasa Guardian (AG) categorically condemns the European Union (EU) Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid agency’s reckless claim that our media’s quote, of their officer contradicting TPLF leader Tedros Adhanom, is “fake news.” Our independent and private media team takes pride in cross-checking and verifying information as we report on the ongoing insurrection in northern Ethiopia. Accordingly, we condemn EU’s attack on independent media.
The partisan and inaccurate comments by the TPLF official and current WHO director Dr Tedros continue to become a subject of controversy. Last week, after being quiet while his TPLF rebels killed thousands, looted and destroyed healthcare facilities of millions of ethnic Amhara & Afar people; TPLF executive Dr. Tedros falsely claimed there has been a complete blockade of medicine to Tigray “for over a year.”
A simple online search of comments by EU aid officer Mathias Eick will provide evidence that what Dr. Tedros said about complete medicine blockade of Tigray is inaccurate. Our social media account reported on these facts and we have been attacked for sharing this discrepancy between facts on the ground and comments by TPLF leader Tedros.
Sky News previously reported from the ground, even in the midst of brutal TPLF attacks on Afar region, the Afar-Ethiopians continued to allow aid into Tigray. All Ethiopians (especially our Afar brothers and sisters) know how much sacrifice they paid to get humanitarian aid into Tigray while the TPLF invades, massacres and shells dozens of Afar towns and civilians, including those who are on aid transport routes like Abala town. However, for western media consumption “black/Ethiopian sources” are often perceived inaccurate, while “white sources” are deemed to be automatically credible. Due to this prevailing racist system and school of thought amongst the western media & diplomatic community complex, facts reported by us Ethiopians are deemed to be facts only when we quote white or European men. As the result, Ethiopian media outlets like ours is forced to research and identify white sources like Mathias Eick who discredited claims by TPLF leader Tedros (or other supporters of the ongoing insurrection in Tigray.)
Accordingly, on October 16, 2021, EU officer Mathias Eick said “EU humanitarian aid reached Mekelle via Humanitarian Air Bridge on 6 October with food supplements and medical supplies.”
Mr Mathias Eick posted his comments on twitter directly under an AP link of another false sensational report by AP’s Cara Ana about a nonexistent “blockade” claiming “no medicine” arrived into Tigray.
His conscience would not let him ignore that fake news by AP and Mr Mathias fact-checked AP on real time on Twitter and as of this writing, his comments are still available online. Mathias’s comments alone discredit the partisan comments by Tedros that no medicine has been delivered for over a year. Just last week, the UN OCHA reported that it is sending two flights per a week from Addis Ababa to Mekelle with medicine, money, fuel and food as well as aid staff passengers. Ofcourse, more aid needs to reach Tigray but it is important to state facts as we all advocate for humanitarian delivery and the end of the insurrection. Tigray was a region with over a million Tigrayans dependent on food-aid just to survive, for decades, long before TPLF elites started the 2020 insurrection. Ethiopia alone spent over a billion on aid & budget for Tigray since the war began while international organizations spent millions more. While Tedros was using his WHO podium to lie about a year long “blockade,” his TPLF was simultaneously pillaging Afar civilians in Abala and creating more humanitarian crisis at this exact moment. Mr Tedros needs to tell his forces to stop attacking Afar and to let aid into Tigray immediately.
It is unlikely Tedros will condemn his own TPLF rebel’s insurrection because, under his own active leadership, TPLF has been committing atrocities for nearly three decades. Again, even past US State Department statements have documented the endless extra-judicial executions, mass atrocities and ethnic cleansings during the quarter of a century of brutal rule of his group. As a health minister alone, even the New York Times noted how Tedros covered up epidemics in Ethiopia, while human rights activists condemned misuse & diversion of aid into Tigray for years and the selective sterilization programs under Tedros that allegedly reduced Amhara population by over a million. After Prime Minister Abiy sent an alive branch and initially supported Tedros, the obvious conflict of interests above is the main reason why the Ethiopian-UN embassy last week demanded Tedros to “immediately recuse himself from all matters concerning Ethiopia” during this TPLF insurrection. Important to note that This was the same Ethiopian institution that previously worked tirelessly whipping up votes at the African Union to help Tedros get the Director-General job at the WHO.
From what has been observed for over a year under TPLF’s insurrection, almost all Ethiopians now know that pro-TPLF comments by TPLF leader Dr Tedros and his misguided enablers inside the World Health Organization (WHO) leadership are not only false, but are also coordinated with TPLF warlords on the ground for maximum propaganda and pressure. Unfortunately, we have to go out of our way to find “white sources” to uncover the big lies promoted during this insurrection, because, otherwise, African media like Awasa Guardian are inherently perceived to be discredited. According to the “international community,” reports, claims and evidence only from white/western sources, western institutions & media outlets are regarded as accurate and reliable when it comes to covering events in Africa.
We are not the first to highlight Dr. Tedros’s obvious conflict of interest as well as the pro-TPLF bias among Westerners. Non-Ethiopian UN whistleblowers Maureen Achieng and Dennia Gayle had previously uncovered how Tedros empowered a network TPLF members who played the role of Tigrayan “aid workers,” doctors and civil servants distributing false narratives to western media, submitting inflated data and often criminalizing entities opposing TPLF’s insurrection.
These UN whistleblowers were fired by Dr Tedros’s allies in Geneva last year.
So we are not the first victims of the pro-insurrection camp. But our independent media, Awasa Guardian, is not and will not be intimidated by supporters and defenders of the TPLF insurrection, which continues to hold innocent Tigrayans hostage.
ABALA CRISIS
Since the Ethiopian government declared ceasefire in December and stopped pursuing Tigrayan rebels into central Tigray, the TPLF has showed its displeasure that fighting was suddenly ending. After-all, the TPLF triggered the war in November 2020 to restore its power in Addis Ababa, or else, create a humanitarian crisis that will hurt Ethiopia to enable it to win leverage thru a hostage situation.
Since December, TPLF has unprovokedly attacked Afar state, specifically Abala town of Zone 2. As this town was the vital path that humanitarian aid was passing thru into Tigray, starting conflict in this town is reported to be a strategic and diplomatic decision by TPLF and Dr. Tedros. In the last two weeks, thousands of Afar women and children have been displaced by TPLF due to repeated indiscriminate shelling of Abala. Dr Tedros must tell his TPLF forces to stop the hostilities at Abala and immediately let aid continue to enter Tigray.
PATTERN OF AID BLOCKADE
After disturbing and ambushing aid convoys working in Tigray between December 2020-June 2021 (when TPLF was on the run); the TPLF was accused of diverting aid supplies and UN trucks for its soldiers and logistics since July 2020 (when TPLF regained territories in Tigray)
After United Nations and WFP spokeswoman Gemma Snowdon said TPLF diverting aid trucks was “the primary impediment to moving humanitarian aid into Tigray,” Ethiopian authorities scaled up air delivery of medicine and aid because they realized a humanitarian disaster only benefits TPLF, not the government. Consequently, only a few days after EU’s Mathias Eick reported that his agency has also distributed medicine via an “air bridge” flight, the TPLF quickly banned all humanitarian aid flights into Tigray. UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said the UN “received instructions to abort landing by the Mekelle airport control tower,” referring to personal of the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) controlling the airport at the capital of Tigray. This blockade of aid flights by TPLF was not a humanitarian decision, it was a military decision. As usual, Dr. Tedros did not condemn TPLF’s decision, for the obvious reasons that he is the leader of TPLF organization himself.
This conflict needs and must stop. For long, Western media has recklessly and unethically attempted to hide or downplay the fact Tedros is the leader of the TPLF organization. Just like other Ethiopians, Tigrayans have suffered in this senseless war. It must end . TPLF must withdraw from Abala and other areas of Afar and let aid in as soon as possible. Most of the Tigrayans currently facing life and death situations are the same ones who were on life support and dependent on food aid the last 30 years even when TPLF was in power in Addis Ababa. This means, the brutal TPLF organization remains a collection of elites who prey and exploit innocent Tigrayans. After pro-democracy forces took over in 2018, TPLF’s insurrection has been emboldened by Western governments. This must stop. One way is to stop portraying TPLF as innocent bystanders and by fact-checking the big lies disseminated by the insurrectionists. Organizations like the (EU) Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid agency must play a constructive nonpartisan role.
Many notable Horn of Africa experts, including US-based Atlantic Council’s Bronwyn Bruton, Canada’s BSIA Director Ann Fitz-Gerald and Europe’s top African researcher Jon Abbink have all suggested the only solution to this conflict is promoting peace and the disarmament of the rebels in Ethiopia. If not for the millions of Amharas and Afars who have been displaced and denied healthcare by Dr Tedros’s TPLF; this war must end at least for the sake of TPLF’s Tigrayan hostages.
