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Ethnic Cleansing and Crimes Against Humanity in Ethiopia’s Western Tigray Zone

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What is Happening in Ethiopia’s Western Tigray Zone?

Many reports of ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity have emerged in Ethiopia’s Western Tigray zone. The Ethiopian civil war is now entering its 16th month of brutal conflict. Under the rule of the Prime Minister of Ethiopia, Abiy Ahmed, the Ethiopian military, ethnic militias and Eritrean troops are fighting to oust the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (T.P.L.F.) from Western Tigray.

Mr Abiy tried diminishing the T.P.L.F.’s power and influence which has dominated Ethiopian politics for almost thirty years. The prime minister declared a state of emergency in November 2020 when Tigrayan fighters surged toward the capital in revolt against the government. Nevertheless, Mr Abiy forced the Tigrayans back to their northern homeland, but the conflict continued. Armed forces from the neighbouring Amhara region, who entered Tigray to support Mr Abiy, are “deliberately and efficiently rendering Western Tigray ethnically homogeneous through the organized use of force and intimidation”.

Also Read: Ethiopian Crisis: What is Behind the Worsening Humanitarian Crisis?

Killings, Rape and Crimes Against Humanity in Western Tigray Zone

Armed forces have been waging a campaign of ethnic cleansing against the Tigrayans. Furthermore, Ghent University has estimated that more than half a million people died in the war. Furthermore, more than two million people are displaced, pushing parts of the region into famine-like conditions. Ethiopian authorities have severely restricted access and independent scrutiny of the region, which has resulted in any reports of ethnic cleansing mainly kept concealed.

Furthermore, these widespread human rights violations include killings, rape, mass detentions, and forcible transfers. In April 2022, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch (H.R.W.) stated in a joint report that these abuses amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity. This comprehensive report contains information from 427 interviews with survivors, family members and witnesses. In addition, the World Health Organization’s Director-General, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, an Ethiopian, stated that there is “nowhere on earth where the health of millions of people is more under threat than in the Tigray region”.

Also Read: Ethiopian Crisis: What is Behind the Worsening Humanitarian Crisis?

What is ‘Ethnic Cleansing’?

International human rights law for not formally define ethnic cleansing. However, the United Nations Commission of Experts investigated violations of international humanitarian law in the former territory of Yugoslavia. During this investigation, ‘ethnic cleansing’ was described as a “purposeful policy designed by one ethnic or religious group to remove the civilian population of another ethnic or religious group from certain geographic areas by violent and terror-inspiring means.”

The United Nations consistently uses ‘ethnic cleansing’ in resolutions, reports, judgments and indictments of individuals accused before international courts and tribunals.

Ethnic Cleansing in Western Tigray Zone

Hundreds of Thousands Expelled From Their Homes in Western Tigray Zone

Amhara forces, militias, and recently appointed authorities began a coordinated campaign of ethnically targeted persecution against the Tigrayans in late 2020. Moreover, Tigrayans were instructed to leave through signs posted across the Western Tigray zone. Shockingly, 24-hour or 72-hour ultimatums to leave or be killed were issued to local civilians forcing thousands of Tigrayans into long-term overcrowded detention centres. Additionally, human rights groups believe that thousands remain in these centres facing life-threatening circumstances. There are reports of security forces using gang rape, abduction, sexual slavery and physical and verbal abuse against Tigrayans.

wo displaced Ethiopian women live in a tent after being forced to flee their homes in the Western Tigray region due to ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity.
Caption: Two displaced Ethiopian women live in a tent after being forced to flee their homes in the Western Tigray region due to ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity.

Ethiopian paramilitaries have systematically expelled several hundred thousand Tigrayan civilians from their homes. There are reports of unlawful killings, sexual violence, arbitrary mass detention, pillage, forcible transfer, and the denial of humanitarian assistance by Amhara forces. The map below shows the region of Western Tigray.

The image depicts a map of the Western Tigray Zone in Ethiopia.
Caption: The image depicts a map of the Western Tigray Zone in Ethiopia.

Moreover, human rights groups have highlighted the Ethiopian government’s complicity in these violations against the Tigrayan people in their recent investigations.

“Ethiopian authorities have steadfastly denied the shocking breadth of the crimes that have unfolded and have egregiously failed to address them”

Kenneth Roth, Director of Human Rights Watch.

Tigrinya Language Banned Across Western Tigray Zone

Since November 2020, there has been a ban on the Tigrinya language across the Western Tigray zone. Signs across the region tell locals that they must speak Amharic. This can be difficult for Tigrayans when dealing with administrative work or accessing essential services. Tigrinya music is prohibited, and Amhara forces physically beat those who use this language for any purpose.

New Identification Cards Issued and Personal Documents Confiscated

The Amhara region has selectively issued new identification cards across Western Tigray. Consequently, this has limited the rights of those who have not received a new card. Hence, many Tigrayans are refused identity cards, as authorities claim “they do not deserve it”. The new identification cards grant civilians free movement throughout the region. Additionally, they provide access to essential services and the right to submit complaints. Many locals have no access to life-saving health services and medicines due to these discriminatory restrictions imposed.

Also Read: Ethiopia: millions still cut-off from the urgent humanitarian aid.

Therefore, this is the Amhara forces’ way of forcibly removing the Tigrayan civilian population from the Western Tigray region. Hence, Amhara forces confiscated and destroyed many of the Tigrayans’ documents. This severely hinders Tigrayans’ ability to access services and continue to live everyday life in the region. Amhara forces are implementing these measures of ‘ethnic cleansing’ to support Mr Abiy in his pursuit of eliminating the T.P.L.F. and the Tigrayan ethnicity from the region.

Dozens of Civilians Killed by Suspected Crimes Against Humanity

The Ethiopian government has carried out many airstrikes killing thousands of people throughout the conflict. In January 2022, an airstrike hit a school compound at Dedebit, where thousands of displaced Tigrayans were staying. There were no signs of military targets at the compound, which strongly implies that this was not an accidental attack. The airstrike killed 57 civilians, mainly women, children and older adults, sleeping in tents.

The number of government airstrikes in Tigray increased dramatically in December 2021. Approximately 304 people died and 373 injured in attacks between November 2021 and February 2022. Any violations of the laws of war committed with deliberate or reckless criminal intent are classified as war crimes.

What Happens Next?

H.R.W. has held that the Ethiopian authorities should ensure that humanitarian organizations have immediate access to the region to deliver aid and essential services.

It is imperative to release all those arbitrarily detained and investigate and appropriately prosecute those responsible for abuses such as ethnic cleansing, war crimes and crimes against humanity. If the two parties reach a consensual agreement, then the African Union should deploy international peacekeeping forces to the region to ensure everyone’s safety.

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Muslims have more reasons to hate the US than the other way around

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Muslims hate the US

I don’t think that most Muslims hate ordinary Americans who believe in the general principle of “live and let live.” Moreover I don’t think that most Americans would unhesitatingly embrace Israeli Nazism if they had the chance to know the truth about Israel e.g. that it is a criminal state par excellence based on ethnic cleansing land theft and racist and religious discrimination.

Unfortunately most Americans are spoon-fed Jewish propaganda from early childhood. This creates a virtual reality in America’s collective mind about Israel a virtual reality that is nearly completely disconnected from the real reality in Israel-Palestine.

For example many Americans are made to think that Israel and America have much in common in terms of democracy. However the truth is that democracy in Israel is more or less confined to Jews while non-Jews are systematically discriminated against. Their land is confiscated their homes are demolished and their rights and dignity are trampled upon.

And when they seek redress at Jewish courts they discover that non-Jews can’t possibly hope for true justice and equality under Jewish rule. Ask non-Jewish Americans who have been living in Israel and you will hear a lot of hair-raising stories about the Israeli “democracy.”

Some Americans are so brainwashed that they are willing to claim that Muslims hate America for its freedoms.  This is what Georg W. Bush probably the most ignorant President America has ever had once claimed.

The truth of the matter however is that most Muslims hate the US government for embracing tyrannical Arab and Muslim regimes that torment their own people by denying them natural freedoms and civil liberties as well as the right to freely elect their own governments. This is in addition of course to backing and supporting Israel’s Nazi-like policies including ethnic cleansing and settlement expansion at the expense of the native Palestinians.

It is really scandalous that while Americans boasts bout their First Amendment freedoms successive American governments have consistently embraced despotic regimes abroad. In many instances the US intervened either brazenly or behind the scenes to destabilize or overthrow democratically elected governments such as in Iran Chile and the occupied Palestinian territory.

Of courser America’s days of infamy are too numerous to be counted. For example we all tend to view Adolph Hitler as the ultimate embodiment of evil. However it is historically true that the US its allies Stalin Mao murdered more people than the Third Reich ever did.

America wanted to be looked upon as a moral example to be followed. But the beacon of light eventually turned into a ruthless beastly power where military might took priority over moral power.

Take for example America’s stand over Israel. For decades the United States enabled Israel to violate every international law and norm and commit every conceivable crime under the sun including murdering children by raining on them White phosphorus.

This is the same America that allows herself to judge the world for human rights violations while enabling Israel diplomatically politically and mainly militarily to pursue decidedly Nazi-like policies against the Peoples of the Middle East.

Watch the ongoing genocidal onslaught which against our helpless and unprotected people in the Gaza Strip. Some of you might be prompted to think that I am indulging in excessive exaggeration when I speak of a genocidal onslaught.

But I am not. Otherwise, how else can we describe a condition where hundreds of ultra-advanced war planes rain missiles and laser-guided bombs from high altitudes on apartment buildings, homes, and civilian neighborhoods packed with men, women and children? Yet, this is exactly what Israel has done¸ murdering , maiming and incinerating thousands of innocent Palestinian civilians and utterly destroying tens of thousands of buildings.

Read Also: Jewish Nazism is reality not fiction

Israel effectively destroyed Gaza, murdering and maiming untold numbers of civilians. Gaza, more or less, became the Dresden of Palestine. And the whole world looked on rather passively as if the killing-field and the shockingly pornographic destruction of life and property were occurring on a distant galaxy. we are not really talking about war, even an asymmetrical war. We are actually talking about a real massacre, a massacre that is reminiscent of the time when the Nazis ganged up on European Jewry 70 years ago.

The macabre scenes of decapitated and badly-mutilated children were too shocking to be described in words. Reporters at the site of the carnage lost their composure and collapsed as they couldn’t cope with the gruesomeness of the pornographic bloodbath.

In 2006, the Nazi government of Israel dropped 2-3 million cluster bomblets over Lebanon enough to kill or maim 2-3 million Lebanese children. And instead of denouncing the manifestly nefarious act the US government declared that “Israel has the right to defend itself.”

Today there is an anti-Islamic hysteria in the United States. The main reason for this hysteria is the fact that the United States can’t live normally with itself without an external enemy. In short there has to be an enemy in order to keep the American psyche intact. There has to be an enemy in order to keep the military industrial complex functioning. In short capitalism can’t function without war.

In fact Muslims don’t view themselves as enemies of the United States as the vast bulk of Muslims are peaceable people who are mainly interested in the pursuance of their daily life enhancing their daily living improving their standard of living and making ends meet.

Yes there are violent groups here and there but these are tiny groups which in no way represent the Muslims of the world.

I think many Americans are ignorant of these facts. I also think that many other Americans would condemn Muslims right or wrong. I am  talking about people who would burn the Muslim Holy scripture the Quran in order to highlight their hatred of Islam a religion with more than 1.6 billion  people.

Well to those I say one thing: the dogs will keep barking and the caravan will keep going.

Besides if you have one reason to hate us we have a thousand reasons to hate you.

None the less unlike you we are not willing to allow our primitive impulses to decide our behaviors. Our religion the source of our morality and behavior doesn’t allow us to behave the way they do.

This is why we will not burn copies of the New Testament we will not attack churches and we will not call Christianity bad names.

Read Also: The futility of counting on the U.S. to pressure Israel

It is often claimed that the religion Jesus founded is based on Love. But any fleeting view of your “religion” caricatures a hate-based cult that has very little to do with Jesus and the authentic messages he preached.

Did Jesus ever call children “murderers” as you did recently in Texas? In fact I dare say that you and people who subscribe to your cultist hatefulness are a cancer upon the conscience of Christ.

So you hate us because of the 9/11 events. Well 99% of Muslims condemned in the strongest terms these terrorist acts. And we are sorry for the umpteenth time for the death of dozens of hundreds of innocent Americans including Muslims in these terrorist attacks.

None the less your democratic elected government has been responsible for the death of millions of Muslims. In Iraq alone the United States has killed or caused the death of at least two million Muslims in the past two decades. Hundreds of thousands of other Muslims have been killed in Afghanistan. These are just two examples of America’s genocidal wars against the Muslim world.

Hence if you have the right to cite one 9/11 we can cite hundreds and thousands of 9/11s. And don’t you ever think that your lives are worth more than our lives. All human beings were created by the same God and are equal if only because there is no such a thing as a lesser God.

One day the oppressed will have their day and there will be no spin no hasbara and no propaganda.  And the New York Times and Fox News  and AIPAC and all other organs of lie  will have been evaporated into nonexistence.

God is just.

Khalid Amayreh is a Palestinian journalist and political commentator , we lost him on account of natural reasons on 12th of July last year in the Occupied Palestine

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Jewish Nazism is reality not fiction

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Jewish Nazism

I realize that the title of this article might offend and provoke many people, especially those adhering to the Judaic faith. I do know that Jews, like everyone else, are not carbon copies of each other. There are many conscientious Jews who believe in fairness and basic human equality regardless of color, race and faith, and strongly reject racism and chauvinism in any form. Also, I will no longer be using euphemistic language in reference to Jewish Nazism especially in light of the latest Dresden-like bombing of Gaza by the Judeo-Nazi state also known as Israel.

Read Also: No forgiveness for Jewish Nazism

These people I salute for their rectitude, humanity and morality. They are our natural partners for peace and a better tomorrow for our children and their children.

But there are numerous other Jews who don’t believe in human equality and justice for all. Indeed, there are many Jews, e.g. followers of the hateful Chabad sect, who don’t even ascribe full humanity to people who are not members of the Jewish faith.

Needless to say, the venomous ideology adopted by these racist fanatics has much in common with Aryan Nazism.

Read Also: The futility of counting on the U.S. to pressure Israel

What else can be said to describe an ideology that teaches adherents that the life of a non-Jew has no sanctity and that goyem can be murdered without the slightest compunction or feeling of guilt?

The shocking reactions by the Israeli government, rabbis, and community leaders to the latest abduction, murder and subsequent burning of a Palestinian kids in Gaza are very telling.

In a certain sense, these reactions and attitudes can be compared to the reactions and attitudes of many Germans to the pogroms carried out against Jews by the Nazis prior to and during the Second World War.

The gleefully despicable embrace of the brashly hideous crime by the bulk of the Israeli Jewish society underscores the fact that millions of Jews in Israel and abroad do harbor certain Nazi tendencies, especially against the Palestinian people. These tendencies are too real and too tangible to be overstated.

However, we must call the spade a spade, even at the expense of upsetting the huge Zionist propaganda machine which habitually alters the black into white and the blatant big lie into a “truth” glorified by sheepish westerners who have long been brainwashed into believing that Israel is a modern, civilized and democratic state.

In the final analysis, when Jews (or anyone else) think, behave and act like the Nazis thought, behaved and acted, they simply become Nazis. Pure and simple.

Today, there are numerous Jews who openly call for the physical annihilation of Palestinians as retaliation for the abduction and killing of three Jewish settlers in the West Bank.

Saber-rattling rabbis speak menacingly of the need to adopt “the Biblical way” to combat the Palestinians.

For those not versed in Jewish phraseology, “Biblical way” is euphemism for genocide.

Today, the Israeli media reported that some army personnel openly appealed to the government to “give us the green light to annihilate them.”!!!

Just read what thousands of Jewish youths have been writing on their Facebook pages! It is outrageous, disgusting and sheer evil.

To put it in a nutshell, Nazism is being regurgitated and exuded all over Israel. This is happening in broad daylight while professional liars like Binyamin Netanyahu are filling the ether with all sorts of shameless lies about Israel being victimized by the Palestinians.

Seventy-six years have passed since Kristalnacht. Today Jewish settlers in the west Bank, in close cooperation and coordination, with the Israeli army could very well carry out a huge pogrom against an innocent and helpless community which really finds itself very much in the same precarious and vulnerable position that European Jewry experienced prior to WWII.

I am not a prophet of doom and gloom, but the signs are unmistakably bleak.

A final point, the Palestinian people in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip are surviving thanks to the good-will of the international public opinion. Should the international community go into a brief slumber, God forbid, Israel and its own Wehrmacht, SS, Gestapo and Hitler Youth might embark on the unthinkable. Don’t you ever say Jews can’t carry out a holocaust against their victims, the Palestinians?

Words can kill; words do kill.

Unfortunately, the chilling words we are hearing from many Israeli Jews these days leave no room for optimism.

Khalid Amayreh is a Palestinian journalist and political commentator , we lost him on account of natural reasons on 12th of July last year in the Occupied Palestine

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I’m most definitely Palestinian!

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Palestinian

In-your-face brutality, unending genocide, unending atrocities, mass slaughter directed against one’s people, one’s brethren, causes the most strong and unimaginable reaction, in response to the oppressor’s horrendous and barbaric deeds. The autocratic, despotic, tyrannical Israeli-hand systematically and with pre-planned engineered precision, massacres, annihilates, eliminates the young and the old Palestinian alike – in the most inhumane and most despicable of ways. Slaughters men, women and children in broad daylight. Bares its blood-thirsty intentions, its monstrous objectives in the most unashamed of ways. Mercy to none – not to the living, not to the severely wounded and dying; no mercy even on the dead or their lifeless remains.

The constant fear of being bombed anytime, rained down with missiles and all manner of munitions from within the vast arsenal of the Israeli side; definitely stockpiled high, with enough buffer inventory of munitions, deadly and lethal stockpile, to blow the receiving side multiple times over; so as not to leave a “shred” of evidence of your original physical-self on the surface of the land, which your people, generations and generations of your ancestors, since time immemorial have dwelt on.

Read Also: The age-old Palestinian-fear (of the Israeli thirst)

The inexplicable terror of seeing Israeli drones constantly “floating about” unopposed, in the skies above your unsheltered head. Drones with eyes like that of a greedy dog. Electronic pixels wanting to cast an evil eye, an evil-spell upon your very being. Eyeing upon your existence, wanting to blow-up, tear-up your physical being, seemingly wanting to devour your flesh and body; all by way of a few computer clicks / even the manual computer-clicks now, seemingly, are being replaced by more automated ways of executing these most evil deeds. Software, coded software, written programs to execute on the most Evil-intentions. Evil-intentions of the most evil amongst the human race.

Everybody knows, the Israelis have exterminated with their weaponry, uncountable numbers of Palestinians across a 40, 50km stretch of land, in front of the whole world, over the past so many weeks and months. And retain the capacity, the ability, the power, the means to slaughter, devour many, many more innocent ones, day in, day out.

The Israelis possess American technology, American weapons – the bedrock of their faith, the foundation stone of their belief in their never-ending invincibility. The Palestinians have their faith in Allah; that Allah will redeem his faithful people, from the clutches of these war-mongers, who rain down terror, day and night on the most innocent, the most vulnerable.

Most definitely, the Moslem spirit in me, the Palestinian spirit in me is not defeated; quite to the contrary, it’s rekindled, stronger than ever.

I’m definitely Palestinian, in every sense of the word, and Allah will save us, Allah will have mercy on us, Allah will guide us.

(Note: Azhaar Amayreh is a marketer stuck in war-ravaged Rafah with her child.)The following article is part of a campaign to raise money to help MZEMO contributor Azhaar Amayreh and her family leave Gaza. Please give what you can.

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