Farce and Reality on Alleged Genocide in Tigray

BY SOLOMON DIBABA

The make-believe story on genocide in Tigray Regional State that was part of the conspiracy on Ethiopia drafted by a member of the US Congress has just collapsed before the entire world.

The notorious terrorist TPLF who is the co-author of this false propaganda and its supporters in the State Department had to bow down to the decision made by the US Congress to annul the “Declaration of Genocide from Tigray Amendment” which was a political move with no justification for a crime that the authors thought would help to incriminate the Federal Government of Ethiopia.

But what exactly is genocide? Genocide is a legal criminal act against humanity. The international legal definition of the crime of genocide is found in Articles II and III of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide.

Article II describes two elements of the crime of genocide:

1) the mental element, meaning the "intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such", and

2) The physical element which includes five acts described in sections a, b, c, d and e. A crime must include both elements to be called "genocide."

Article III described five punishable forms of the crime of genocide: genocide; conspiracy, incitement, attempt and complicity.

The UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide provides two articles which clearly define genocide.

"Article II:  In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

(a) Killing members of the group;

(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;

(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;

(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

Article III:  The following acts shall be punishable:

(a) Genocide;

(b) Conspiracy to commit genocide;

(c) Direct and public incitement to commit genocide;

(d) Attempt to commit genocide;

(e) Complicity in genocide. "

The Convention related genocide to deliberate intent and to five actions that are set as standards to designate any criminal act as defined above.  The infamous Amendment 555 to H.R. 4350 - National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2022 introduced by Congressman Tom Malinowski requesting the US administration to determine whether genocide or crimes against humanity have occurred in Ethiopia’s Tigray region was indeed not about concerns for violations of human rights or crimes against humanity. It was meant to exert a global political pressure on Ethiopia to assist terrorist TPLF by attempting to provide a casus belli for further sanctions on Ethiopia and to accuse its government for a genocide which may force the ICC to intervene in the prosecution process.

Let us have a deeper look into the legal standards set by the Convention relating to genocide. The Ethiopian government is a legally elected government which was forced into war with terrorist TPLF as the result of the well planned attack on the Ethiopian National Defense Forces (ENDF) Northern Command stationed in Tigray.

In this context, it was the terrorist TPLF who is the culprit in the crime and which should have been reprimanded, accounted and prosecuted. There could be no legal reason to accuse Ethiopian Government for genocide against its own citizens with no existing reason. This makes the bill put forward before the US Congress legally nil and void.

In addition, none of the provisions of Article II provided in the Convention could be applicable to the Ethiopian Government because the government has no reason to target citizens in Tigray which were provided with wide range of assistance by the ENDF in building schools, clinics and other infrastructure facilities which were used by the population which it also assisted on the prevention of COVID-19, prevention of swarms of locust that plagued the region and helped farmers to harvest their crops.

To the contrary, it was terrorist TPLF which conducted the most atrocious ethnic massacres targeting the areas it temporarily occupied in Amhara and Afar regions including Mai Kadra, Setit Humera, Dansha, Mersa, Kombolcha, Dessie, Agamsa, Chena, Antsokia Gemza, Kemmise, Alamata, and several other zonal towns in Amhara region as well as Galikoma, Fenti Resu and other district towns and villages in the Afar region. Here, media outlets in the west deliberately kept dead silent when terrorist TPLF conducted Amhara ethic group based killings, rape, distraction of public and private infrastructure facilities, vandalized Churches, monasteries and mosques, cultural and heritage sites and airports as well as service delivery institutions like schools, hospitals, clinics and government offices in the region.

Considering the provisions of the international law on genocide, a careful researcher could easily determine that terrorist TPLF has fulfilled all the requirements needed to declare that it has conducted genocide in the Amhara and Afar regional states.

It is impossible to conclude that the US government with all its satellite gadgets and intelligence services that operate at the global level have not been able to observe a catalogue of crimes against humanity and violation of human rights that are committed by terrorist TPLF. Why did the US embark on trying to incriminate the government of Ethiopia on genocide? As stated above, this is a false product of terrorist TPLF propaganda and western media misinformation that was heeded by the US with the slightest concern for verification to determine whether genocide was conducted in Ethiopia. The truth is it was terrorist TPLF that should have been reprimanded for genocide but regrettably, the US betrayed Ethiopia by going to the extent of trying to accuse the government for genocide that has never happened.

Name it one by one, terrorist TPLF has committed criminal  acts that qualify for genocide that are yet to be fully researched by the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) from the International Human Rights Commission and the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission in zones temporarily occupied by the terrorist organization in its devilish desire to destroy Ethiopia.

Nevertheless, it is very important to consider the 8 months long investigation by the JIT which clearly concluded that genocide has not been conducted in Ethiopia. It is clear that the US, in the context of its totally wrong policy on Ethiopia has blindly supported terrorist TPLF on its terroristic acts abhorred by the international community of nations, policy researchers and activist, investigative journalists and human right groups.

Moreover, US multiple sets of pressures on Ethiopia including  the draft bill on genocide in Tigray hints the extent to which the US Administration is biased on the people and government of Ethiopia in utter disregard to the 126 years during which the two countries enjoyed amicable, respectful and mutually beneficial diplomatic relations.

Here, it is important to accord the highest level of respect and recognition to the Ethio-American Development Council and the #NoMore Movement  in which millions of Ethiopians here and in the diaspora, leaders of Africa and the world, Afro Americans, renown journalists across the world have accented  the truth about Ethiopia and the current situation in the country.