A recent report by The Washington Post alleges satellite-based evidence of graves at Enda Mariam Shewito church, near the town of Adwa, in northern Ethiopia is indication of indiscriminate killings of civilians by Eritrean troops in the recent conflict. The post says ‘it reviewed two-dozen satellite images provided by Planet Labs, which also remotely interviewed witnesses. It also says, ‘seven independent experts were consulted’.

Considering the nature of the recently concluded conflict in northern Ethiopia, it is wise not to discount the real suffering of victims on all sides. But to properly honer them, it is important to provide an objective and wholistic account, one that does not discriminate based on a political calculous of who we consider to be a worthy or an unworthy victim. In that sense, this latest report by the post is in line with several prior reports, coming mainly from mainstream news, making big claims with remotely sourced and sparsely corroborated evidence about a distance place in Africa.

Conversely, mainstream news outlets in the West continue to dismiss the exceedingly worse atrocities committed by the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF). This is cause for continued doubt in Ethiopia and beyond. Indeed the persistent bias and selectivity of mainstream media coverage of the recently concluded conflict in northern Ethiopia is ground for loss of public trust.

My experience in stumbling across a far larger and far more cut and dried (in terms of its raw evidence) mass grave site in Alamata zone of Ethiopia at the end of 2022 was straightforward. It was undeniable. Yet it needed more forensic investigation- to examine it properly. I had the same conclusion when visiting Gehaneb near the Tekeze river in what locals refer to as the Welkait region. It was a site of an alleged torture and death camp where in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the TPLF imprisoned and tortured its political opponents, many of whom were the Amhara locals of Welkait.  It is one of Twenty-one similar sites strung across the Welkait-Humera region of Ethiopia. These sites have yet to receive a fraction of the acknowledgment they deserves.

To my knowledge, none of these sites have had international news focus on them. In April 2022, Gonder University in Ethiopia excavated the mass grave sites in Welkait. I along with other journalists were witnesses, and it was soon after reported on local media. In his report, American photo journalist Jemal Countess reflected on these atrocities. Unfortunately there has not  been any interest to investigate and report these crimes by international organizations, including Human Rights Watch (HRW) or Amnesty International.

In my assessment local law enforcement in Ethiopia do not currently have the forensic capacity needed to carry out this work. HRW and Amnesty International are similarly not resourced for such work. And this creates a major problem for justice. Especially given that what I found in Alamata was not only a mass grave but a mass grave that appeared to have been created for propaganda purposes to try to legitimize the “Tigray genocide” narrative that the Washington Post has been extensively involved in pushing over the past three years.

My report on the Alamata mass graves summarizes what I witnessed during my visit in early November 2022, immediately after talks on the roadmap of the Cessation of Hostilities (CoH) agreement between Ethiopia’s government and the TPLF were held in Nairobi, Kenya. Unlike the mass grave site the Washington Post is reporting based on satellite imagery analyzed in retrospect from thousands of miles away, my visit to the mass grave sites of Alamata took place before fighting had finished and before anyone could have had an opportunity to interfere with the site. When the stench of death was still fresh in the air.

Alamata had been under TPLF control continuously at that point since they retook it in June 2021. I do not know the details of the chain of custody regarding the Mariam Shewito site discussed in the Washington Post investigation, but I hazard to guess with considerable confidence that it has been in TPLF control for most, if not the entire period since the CoH.

Forensic inquiries into the events in multiple localities in northern Ethiopia are needed/required for the sake of the victims and for the sake of the truth. However, at present, most in Ethiopia have little trust in the objectivity of Western agencies or organizations – whose record on such matters during the war, and more recently with the International Commission of Human Rights Experts (CHREE) has been dreadful –to conduct investigation into crimes committed during the war.

Alternatives have been proposed – a multinational task force of investigators for example – working perhaps with the Federal Police and Human Rights Commission of Ethiopia – however there is no funding available for such a project and it will be expensive. More broadly there does not seem to be willingness on the part of the Western countries to push for this kind of an investigation, whereby a broader team of investigators, including those from Africa and Asian countries take the lead.

In the meantime, a warning. All reports from Tigray claiming to have found mass graves containing evidence of massacres and human rights violations need to be read in the light of the fact that there is very clear evidence in Alamata of an active effort by the TPLF to create fake evidence of massacres. I cautioned this possibility at the completion of the report from Alamata in November 2022. This included a cache of documents found in Alamata (linked in my report) from a “Tigray Genocide Commission” headed by General Tsadkan (one of the TPLF’s generals as well as peace negotiators). The documents appear to be part of a Tigray wide plan by the TPLF hierarchy to fabricate physical evidence of a genocide using bodies of civilians and soldiers killed in Amhara during “Operation Mothers of Tigray” (June-December 2021) – the name of which appears to be in reference to the operation being revenge mission against fellow Ethiopians.

These documents were published back in November 2022 with my report, for history’s sake.

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The public relation launch of the well-coordinated #TigrayGenocide online campaign accompanied the unprovoked surprise attack of Ethiopia by the armed insurgents of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), on Nov 4, 2020.

Whilst U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo initially responded to the attack in horror, the ruse worked, and as the world was distracted by the high stakes U.S. election contest between Trump and Biden, #TigrayGenocide exploded on social media and was swallowed without discernment by the Government Elect of President Biden that came into office on January 20, 2021.

Everything that has happened since in Ethiopia has rested on this big lie – the most successful disinformation campaign in warfare since the fake “Weapon’s of Mass Destruction” pretext that led to the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Most unfortunate of all was the adoption of this lie by the incoming – and culpable – Democratic Party administration. The party had a long history with the TPLF. Clinton inherited them in 1992, and Obama worked closely with them fro m 2008-2016. To a much lesser extent the Bush administration also depended on the TPLF’s highhanded, and gloves off tactics in its counter terrorism efforts in Somalia as well as the Somali region of Ethiopia.

Moreover, the information warfare tactics used by TPLF in its war were modeled on those used by the U.S. in Iraq & Libya. Which is far from surprising as the TPLF enjoyed close ties with the U.S and the U.K throughout its tyrannical 27-year reign in Ethiopia from 1991 to 2018.

The war in Ethiopia is indeed a tragedy of monumental size and moral turpitude, but it isn’t the tragedy that has been reported in international media for the past 2 years. It is much worse. And the facts directly implicate Western Powers as accomplices of a dirty war.

A dirty war involving – numerous massacres, routine extrajudicial executions (of men of fighting age) use of sexual violence, looting and destruction of schools and hospitals – all by TPLF forces. During their long, albeit overextend march towards the capital, Addis Ababa, the TPLF deliberately and maliciously destroyed hundreds of schools and health facilities throughout the Amhara and Afar regions. All this, after the group had launched several long range missiles targeting Eritrea’s capital, a reckless act, which was correctly condemned by out going Secretary Pompeo as a desperate attempt to internationalize this conflict.

While this was going on, the Biden administration tacitly turned a blind eye. Despite a flurry of disinformation, the closure of the humanitarian aid routes through Afar throughout 2021 was largely a sinister sabotage by TPLF rebels seeking to exacerbate the suffering of the population, to bolster their victimhood media push. Likewise, the consistent diversion of humanitarian aid for the purposes of war making are some of the flagrant violations of the rebels. Several interviews and testimonies suggest the insurgents used food aid as bait for coercively recruit solders, some of whom as young as fourteen.

When the TPLF retook Tigray following an insurgency offensive which accompanied the first real democratic election in Ethiopian in June 2021, Western supporters and the mainstream media outlets such as the New York Times applauded, instead of backing Ethiopia’s long awaited transition to democratic rule.

And when TPLF forces got close to the capital Addis Ababa in November, 2021, Western observers cheered, then when they were pushed back later in the month the U.S. Senate Introduced sanctions legislation to threaten the Govt and People of Ethiopia to immediately ceasefire.

And after TPLF was finally defeated and pushed back into Tigray at the end of December 2021, the Biden Administration sanctioned the GoE by removing its AGOA preferential trade status, punishing thousands of women employed in factories, making clothes for mostly European and American markets.

And still TPLF did not stop, they invaded the Afar region of Ethiopia again in January 2022, once again blocking the aid corridor, and recommenced their “blockade” “seige” starvation #TigrayGenocide information offensive – this time led by Dr. Tedros Adhanom, General Director of the World Health Organization from his pulpit during a Covid briefing. Dr. Tedros, a long-time senior leader of the TPLF before becoming head of the WHO had once been groomed to take over the helm in Ethiopia, until his party’s fate crumbled in 2018, following a series of popular nationwide protests.

Indeed, this war has always been first and foremost an information war. And as it now comes to an end, we are seeing a surge disinformation by the TPLF, enabled by Western mainstream media, diplomats, political institutions who once again seek to rescue the TPLF from defeat.

This time however things are different. The TPLF is defeated. And Ethiopia has learned how to fight back effectively in the information war both politically inside the U.S. through diaspora engagement & diplomatically. But escape for Western Actors involved in all of this is difficult, they are caught in a bind, due to their mistakes which they cannot admit. And so, the circus continues for now.

The Western International Community has thus returned to form, using the diplomatic formula: “there is no military solution”. Which whilst technically true in all conflicts is now deeply misleading, as TPLF have been defeated again, for the third time – in three wars they started, on November 4, 2020, again on July 15^th 2021 and most recently on August 24, 2022.

But this formulaic phrase misses the point of what is now happening. – The TPLF’s forces are in disarray. – The Ethiopian National Defense Force (ENDF) is engaged in an operation to secure hearts and minds in Tigray – and Africa is fully backing Ethiopia in its quest for peace and an end to this war.

Peace talks in South Africa are very important but take place in circumstances more like the Armistice talks at the end of WWI than those in other intractable rebel conflicts – because TPLF is spent, defeated. And its support among certain Western elites is finally fading.

TPLF spokesman, Getachew Reda could not hid his bitterness at this perceived betrayal in his most recent English language briefings, which can be found on YouTube. Certainly, the Economist publication was quick to point out the Rebel’s recent undeniable defeats, much to the chagrin of the rebel leaders currently seeking a ceasefire Peace Talks happening in Pretoria, South Africa.

But perhaps most important of all, TPLF’s rebel and military leadership has now left the Tigray region and it is difficult to understand how they might return to Mekelle when talks finish on Sunday, and if so, what they might do once there, as most of Tigray is fast becoming ENDF territory

The TPLF’s political leadership left for the talks last Sunday, the day after a massive show of unity by millions of Ethiopians in the streets across the Ethiopia calling for the full and unconditional surrender of TPLF and for an end to the continued Western interference.

So, the group of 12 named, mostly elderly, male TPLF leaders – which some rumors suggest may have been accompanied by their families on their US Airforce flight – must have known they would be unlikely to be able to return to Ethiopia.

While there are still many loose ends this war seems to be coming to an end – the AU, African nations and leaders involved in this end game appear to have a plan – albeit unclear at this stage.

Biden’s policy and objectives- for which Special Envoy to the Horn of Africa, Mike Hammer is at the talks in South Africa to represent – appears a little incoherent as some Senators threaten a new even harsher round of sanctions on Ethiopia to rescue TPLF, despite discernable change of course by seasoned diplomats familiar with the issue.

The UN, also represented at the talks, is staying out of the public debate, and the subject of the end of this protracted war had barely come up in recent briefings. Europe -embarrassed by the racist remarks of High Representative Josep Borrell, is not there and saying nothing.

Media around the events is also incoherent, blindsided by the total communication lockdown around the talks being held at an undisclosed location. The stage is now set for a dramatic conclusion to all of this, possibly as early as this weekend.

Meanwhile Ethiopians & close observers wait with a sense of hope and growing confidence that this long running nightmare may soon be over.

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On the contrary, this latest video by a TPLF central committee member and now Director General of the World Health Organization, Dr Tedros Adhanom, echoing a phrase used by the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres is exactly the sort of thing that needs to be avoided, as it emboldens the TPLF to continue their lethal insurgency.

Some will doubtless counter saying TPLF is entitled to continue to defend the Tigray people.

But the truth is TPLF has never protected its people in this war, it has been using them as hostages, soldiers, and civilian human shields, whilst aggravating the aid situation for propaganda purposes. The diversion of IC funded humanitarian aid by TPLF towards war efforts has been a consistent feature of this war, one which has now been publicly acknowledged by the IC, yet which appears to not be fully understood given its serious implications.

In this war the UN’s principles of humanitarian independence and impartiality have been used as a cover to facilitate the continuation of the war. Evidence shows aid shipments to TPLF controlled territory have been commandeered and used as TPLF decides – outside of their purported humanitarian purposes.

A weight of evidence suggests that aid shipments to Tigray are taken control of by TPLF, and sold to produce funds for war, that fortified foods intended to be used for malnourished children has been used by soldiers. More and more we are learning TPLF has been using aid as payment to recruit soldiers from reluctant families in Tigray. Some of these new recruits have been child solders as evidenced by confessions and testimonials given by the war captured.

During this entire saga, we have come to expect ad nauseum information operations by TPLF media and cyber teams – repeatedly calling the war a “genocidal siege” and a blockade, all with intent of triggering the UN’s Responsibility to Protect clause, a move which would foster bolder action against Ethiopia, be it sanctions or other measures. This would also include demanding more IC access to Tigray, and repeating the previous pattern of prolonging the conflict whereby Western humanitarian and diplomatic appeasement continues to embolden the insurgency.

Right now, it seems unlikely that TPLF leaders will be able to get to South Africa to attend talks scheduled for Monday, October 24, 2022 – unless they are already there as they would likely have to transit ENDF controlled airports. But if previously organized secret negotiations are an indication, there could possibly be a way to make this work. Evidently, U.S. diplomats had orchestrated secret talks between the two sides in Seychelles and in Djibouti between June and August 2022. Perhaps Djibouti could be used as stop over for TPLF negotiators headed to South Africa. If this were to happen will the GoE allow their return is a big question on everyone’s mind.

Therefore – raising the insurgency issue in South Africa Monday may not be an option. 

So, the war is not “spiraling out of control” as Tedros and Guterres say – what is happening is that it has reached a critical juncture at which it can either peacefully end, or transform, mutate and continue to plague the people of Ethiopia. The West led IC, who are embroiled in it from the beginning have a responsibility to help end it genuinely 

So, what is to be done then?

“If you break it, you’ve bought it” is a phrase used in the second Gulf War. And in this case one might think that this rubric applies now to the Government of Ethiopia (GoE), and this is certainly true per the real politics of the situation.  However, the GoE cannot readily address the issue of ending this war alone if it once again becomes a guerilla insurgency with foreign backing – which cannot be ruled out at the moment. They will need the support of the IC in dislodging/pacifying the TPLF. 

In recent months many have argued, including me, that for peace to return to Ethiopia – arguably for the first since the removal of Emperor Haile Selassie in 1974 – TPLF’s top brass leadership needs to be exiled. And Tigray and its 6 million inhabitants need to be carefully rehabilitated and re-integrated into the new, finally truly democratic ancient state of Ethiopia. 

A recent Op-Ed from Bisrat L Kabata, very clearly argues the case as to why the TPLF’s exit is a necessary condition to enable a peaceful resolution of this conflict, for Ethiopia. I fully subscribe to the argument but will not go through the “why” here. Instead, I will begin to look at “how” this might be achieved – with the starting point being how to avoid a return to insurgency warfare inside a Tigray under interim federal control. 

In recent months significant diplomatic progress has been made by the GoE in addressing the issue of active foreign support for TPLF. The insurgents themselves hastened this pivot through their actions in delaying peace efforts back in June 2022 and then destroying efforts at peace mediation by invading the Wollo, in Amhara region on August 24, 2022. However, the pivot by the IC during the period since July has been largely passive, i.e. not publicly supporting the TPLF by accusing the GoE of being the cause of the conflict. A hopeful sign that relations could eventually improve.

But as the war seems to have entered its final stages over the past three weeks – a chorus of Western-led IC attacks on Ethiopia resumed, including notably at the European Parliament on October 5th, and soon after at the UNHRC. And this was the reason for the public demonstrations over the weekend on October 23, 2022, across Ethiopia condemning international interference in Ethiopian affairs. No doubt this stung in Western Capitals, who were disappointed that a closed UNSC meeting on Friday failed to issue a statement. I can well understand why Western powers may consider themselves blameless in this war, if only because it is their standard operating procedure.

But if the West honestly want this war to end (as it appears they do) then due to their actions, particularly in 2020-2021, they need to reconsider their current course of action.

Following the fall of Mekelle in June 2021 – during Ethiopia’s first truly democratic election – the IC media, some diplomats and TPLF’s fan-club of academics and journalists applauded the plucky rebel’s victory. But then when just a few weeks later TPLF invaded the Amhara and Afar regions of Ethiopia, under the cover of the Chinese Olympics, during the solemn Olympic Truce period – the IC was silent as TPLF raped murdered and looted their way to the gates of Addis Ababa. 

And after the re-deployed ENDF managed to push the TPLF’s army back up the A2 highway towards Mekelle in November, the US Senate introduced a punitive sanctions bill against Ethiopia. There is much more of this recent history, but this will suffice for now. In the end the GoE chose to allow the TPLF forces to retreat into Tigray and a 2nd un-reciprocated humanitarian truce was announced on December 21, 2022.

The forgotten phase of TPLF’s aggression immediately followed. A second invasion of Afar – blocking the aid-corridor to Djibouti – an event in which the TPLF in effect blocked their own aid corridor. Millions were displaced and hundreds of thousands are still living in dire conditions. This is the under-reported, unacknowledged, and constantly misrepresented recent history of the conflict in Ethiopia, the lived experiences of 110 odd million people, most of whom feel gaslighted by the Western lead IC.

We have 3 parties to this conflict.
1. The TPLF -the aggressors who started and continued the war;
2. The GoE – who miraculously managed to repel a repeated onslaught for 2 years;
3. The Western IC -who implicitly supported TPLF’s disinformation and turned a blind eye to their aggression, while tacitly providing diplomatic cover for them. 

Step one on the path to peace is for the Western IC to actively integrate this understanding into their views of this war.  While this is a tall order, it is also necessary. Absent a self-realization moment in the West about its active involvement in this war, I doubt a swift and durable peace solution can succeed. 

Why? Because the TPLF will not agree to exit Tigray until they are certain that they have lost the information & diplomatic war as well as the war on the battlefield. War is in their DNA and to think otherwise is to misunderstand the story of the scorpion and the frog. Therefore, ending the conflict requires Western appeasement of the belligerent group.

Ok so assuming this big “IF” is possible, what then should the IC do to assist in bringing peace to Ethiopia swiftly over the coming week? First, they need to immediately make clear public statements in support of the legitimate Government of Ethiopia, insisting that there be no return to a terrorist insurgency war, and that the TPLF’s forces be disarmed and demobilized to facilitate a path towards peace. 

They should also address the people of Tigray directly and explain that they have given the TPLF a choice about a path to secure peace. If TPLF leaders stand-down, disarms, and or leave, they should assist the GoE in the rebuilding & rehabilitation of Tigray. Nonetheless, If the TPLF refuses they will actively assist the GoE in containing and eliminating any insurgency. 

Given all that Ethiopia has experienced over the past two years and anticipating that TPLF has no appetite for nor capability of talking peace, this (or similar) is in my view is the only practical path forward towards a swift and durable peace. 

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It is obvious the TPLF is once again leading a human wave strategy in its most recent offensive. Poorly trained Tigray youths, many of them children below the age of 15 are being made to run towards guns to control territory, which leaders hope to use as bargaining chip in an imagined future negotiation with the government of Ethiopia.

Based on last year, they are likely drugged up and not in uniforms, which makes things even more difficult or defending soldiers of the Ethiopian army. Think about the phycological stresses of shooting at drugged and bewildered youths sent to attack positions. Behind them is of course TPLF’s more experienced fighters who are using these youths as human shields and who will not even recover their bodies when they fall. Yet again, another column is behind them to clean up the mess, as some witnesses testify.

For its part, the Western mainstream media is presently so outraged at Dr. Tedros Adhanom’s alleged video of atrocities in Mekelle, which is most likely a PR concoction, that they are ignoring a monumental crime which is now being committed again. Nobody has a clear idea how many Tigray youths died in the human wave attacks orchestrated by TPLF generals last year. But it is likely to be in the tens of thousands. Locals in the Amhara and Afar regions have reported trucks were observed loading up the slain and taking them back to Tigray, some of these bodies were likely same ones found on the banks of the Blue Nile in Sudan. In Twisted TPLF fashion, the dead have a dual use, one as cannon fodder and another as propaganda dummies.

In the buildup to this current new phase of TPLF’s secessionist war, the leadership expressed a desire to build a million-person army. By their logic the reason that they failed to take Addis Ababa in 2021 was because they did not have enough unarmed children for cannon fodder. Even the New York Times’ great white reporter, Declan Walsh of course can’t report on any of this because he was so braindead that when he saw legions of marching child soldiers during operation Alula he saw motivated young soldier, and not a war crime, as did Dr. Tedros of the World Health Organization who expressed his “Pride” on Twitter.

No doubt there are a lot of Western editors and media managers who do not like the northern Ethiopia war, too savage, too ghastly, too difficult to get at the facts. But that is an abdication of responsibility and to justice. Reliance on poorly sourced and concocted stories is perpetuating the conflict further.

In the end, the reason the TPLF is so popular in the West is because it is so connected. It spent 27 years at the helm in Ethiopia siphoning off great health and using the loot to build a network. Its former leaders held great parties and were articulate and charming. Its supporters are well known figures. But they were also monsters who built an organization which prefers to kill its own children than give up its quest for power.

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