Terror Manufacturer: TPLF, world’s most virulent and violent crew
Asegedew Shemelis
Researcher and Consultant
Terror acts of TPLF as a guerrilla fighting group
In
order to increase the spiral of the mass silence, TPLF covertly circulated terrorizing
flyers and letters in small towns and farmers villages. In some localities, it
used to attack communities and plundered public and private properties to
trigger abhorring rage against the state. The wicked part of TPLF’s terror was
on its people too. The June 22, 1988 Hawzen Market Massacre of about 2,800
people in Tigray had really exposed the very essence of the group’s savagery.
The
perpetrator is listed in the GTD, based on dozens of incidents occurring
between 1976 and 1990. As GTD database in districts of Werder, Gonder, Metema,
Bure, Adi Haro, Addis Ababa, Kobo, Lalibela, Jari, Korem, Workamba and Aksum
are victims of the Tigre forces fascism.
According to U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Citizenship and Immigration Services, TPLF was one of the ineligible squads for visas or admission. The TPLF qualifies as a Tier III terrorist organization under Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). INA section 212 (a) (3) (B) (vi) is a member of a terrorist organization described in clause (vi)(III); (VII) endorses or espouses terrorist activity or persuades others to endorse or espouse terrorist activity); and (III has, under circumstances indicating an intention to cause death or serious bodily harm, incited terrorist activity) on the basis of its violent activities. Though GTD registers TPLF as non-state actor terrorist, the group has continued its crimes after it seized power in 1991—attacking opponents, killing civilians and abusing human rights all in its tenure.
State terrorism and global alliance to fight
it: the paradox
TPLF
orchestrated countless acts of terror before and after it seized state power in
1991. The other controversial face of TPLF with regards of Terrorism is
its global partnership in fighting terrorism on behalf of the government of
Ethiopia. The TPLF-led government of Ethiopia was known for its partnership
with the international community and United States in fighting terrorism in the
Horn of Africa. Unusually, however, it has been using its power and global
partnership privileges as hideouts to its acts of terror against the people of
Ethiopia. As commentaries of The Oakland Institute (2015), the anti-terrorism
law used as a tool to stifle dissent where that “law is premised on an
extremely broad and vague definition of terrorist activity.” There were also substantial
documentations about the anti-terrorism law deficient in relation to its contravention
of international understanding of the fight against terror. Even the breadth and
depth of the law and its interpretations were loaded with TPLF’s political ends
to choke legitimate oppositions.
In
1992, aftermath of control of central power, TPLF schematized the Bunno-Beddeno
and Arba-Gugu Massacres in Oromia against Amharas, videotaped the atrocity and
used for its propaganda, was one of the bitter realities of the nation.
Repudiating
the Sidama peoples constitutional rights, on May 24, 2002, the TPLF gunmen shot
69 and injured 220 Sidama ethnics in many places but majorly in Hawassa.
Similarly, in South Nations, Nationalities and Peoples Regional State, the
atrocity against Konso people on September 13, 2016 is another manifestation of
TPLF’s anti-Ethiopians stance. Konsos entangled with attacks, mass arrests and
killings with prolonged state terror hindering farmers from agricultural
activities.
In 2003, the Amhara
(Wolkait, Raya, Birsheleko); the Oromia (outskirts of Addis Ababa); the
Gambella (Nuer lands) and the Benishangul-Gumuz peoples protested to stop
native lands from being taken over by the felons. With their arms raised
to signify peaceful protest, they were violently repressed and killed rampantly
(Degeufe Hailu, Green Left, June 5, 2017). On
December 13, 2003, according to the Human Rights Watch Report titled “Targeting
the Anuak: Human Rights Violations and Crimes against Humanity in Ethiopia’s
Gambella Region” published on March 23, 2005, due to “a brutal ambush allegedly
committed by armed Agnuak sparked a bloody three-day rampage in the regional
capital, 424 people were killed, almost all of them Anuak. The mobs burned over
four hundred houses to the ground and ransacked and looted many of those left
standing.” The December 2003 massacre was not the first time TPLF gunmen had
committed human rights abuses against civilians in Gambella, but it was a
turning point in Gambella's spiral of conflict and insecurity which facilitated
for land grabbing by the military generals and ordinary Tigre.
On
April 24, 2007, in partnership with TPLF, members of the resistance groups in
Ogaden attacked a Chinese oil exploration team’s camp in Obale, killing 65
Ethiopian experts and 9 Chinese nationals. The TPLF contrabandists,
surprisingly, were politically sabotaging to exploit resources in the Somali
Region, assassinating businessmen, good-minded citizens and politicians. Tens
of thousands of ethnic Somali civilians were destined to death yet many more
had tragically migrated to Europe, Kenya and Somalia.
The
2014 Ambo Massacre where TPLF responded
with a brutal crackdown and assassination of 78 students in Ambo town for
peaceful protests while 400 and more Oromos were killed for joining the
protest. The second Ambo Massacre happened on October 25, 2017 claimed the life
of 10 innocent youth and wounded 23 for only road blockade to stop smuggling
trucks.
As
TPLF is a belligerent group, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists
(CPJ), Ethiopia was at the global top list journalists forced exile between
2010 and 2015 after Syria.
On October 2, 2016, the terror makers, TPLF Agazi butchers, terrorized the public amid its Irreecha festival, killed at least 678 festival-goers with machine gun. In December 2017 the TPLF-guard, Agazi forces massacred 20 and wounded 14 in Chellenko. The Hamaressa camp violence is another virulent act of TPLF. More than 350 IDPs shelter was attacked and 6 were shot-dead by the Tigre soldiers in February, 2018 inside the camp. The death of 13 civilians of Moyale town on March 10, 2018 and catastrophic wounds of 15 women and kids was horrific. The heinous attack caused the displacement of about 79,000 residents.
Above all, as they are very swiftly realizing that the terror
strategy of the TPLF is the same as that of the colonial masters — divide and
conquer.
In another explanatory
article, Ethiopian regime has a 25-years-long bloody legacy, composed by Degeufe Hailu, a co-founder of the Ethiopian Community Association of
Australia and a former vice-president of the Horn of Africa Relief and
Development Agency, reveals the contagious nature of social and economic terror
posed by TPLF. Degeufe pronounces that: “200,000 indigenous persons from
240,000 hectares of land in the lower Omo Valley were displaced without
compensation or consultation, due to the government's development of sugar
plantations. The clearance of land, sold to foreign interests, year-in year-out
has lined the pockets of the government, without regard for the region, or the
Ethiopian people in general” (Green Left, April 3, 2016). However, after
embezzling more than 77 billion birr from the proposed sugar factories,
miserably, none of the five projects become successful.
Assailant
TPLF abducted an Ethiopian Business tycoon Mohamed Sheikh Adani, in Werder,
Somali, Ethiopia. No group claimed responsibility for the incident; however,
sources attributed the attack is orchestrated by the TPLF. GTD coded this
attack with ID: 201805120045 committed on 12 May 2018 in Werder province,
Somali region. Mareeg and Halgan Media both had a report on May 12, 2018 as:
“the Ethiopian militia backed by Tigrian Peoples Liberation Front abducted
Saturday night Mohamed Sheikh Adani and all his property has been confiscated
by militias receiving orders from Ogaden head Abdi Iley [the former Regional
president]” where the extent of property damage was estimated to be 1 million
dollar.
BBC’s Reality Check, Peter Mwai retrieving evidences from the UN,
23 aid workers have been killed in the region since fighting broke out in
November last year. Fighting has also spread into this region, displacing more
people and making the routes insecure. Further, The International Crisis Group
(IRC) reported on December 11, 2020 that one of its members and two members of
the Danish Refuges Council (DRC) were killed on December 12, 2020. Around June
21 and 25, 2021 three Medecins Sans Frontier (MSF) members were reported killed;
TPLF was responsible for humanitarian workers. Most recently, the US, in fact prestigious media and news agencies including
AFP, Al Jazeera, CNN and France 24 had reports, has accused TPLF of attacking and
looting aid warehouses in the areas they have captured in the Amhara region.
Due to such terror, attacks and violence made hurdles getting into neediest
places. Thus the neighboring Amhara and Afar regions are put in jeopardy by
TPLF acts.
TPLF
has obviously committed countless acts of terror before and after it seized
state power in 1991. GTD only contained TPLF’s terrorism record from 1976
up to 1991. Puzzled why GTD does not contain acts of terrorism that the TPLF
has been committing after it came to power, Abebe Gellaw, prominent rights
activist and journalist, asked Erin Miller, Project Manager of the GTD.
Miller explained him that despite the fact that in circumstances
where terrorist organizations like the TPLF have succeeded in seizing
state power, they automatically fall outside the domain of the GTD due to the
fact that it only records and archives terrorist acts committed by
non-state actors. “The rule of inclusion does not include state actors.
Terrorism acts committed by governments are state terrorism.”
Herman Hank Cohen, former Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs who
served in the U.S. Foreign Service for 38 years, also blames the TPLF and its
surrogates. “The political leaders have a policy of killing all opponents who
take to the streets to demonstrate against them. Other opponents who do not
demonstrate but make public statements instead, are sent to jail for long
periods … I fail to understand why the TPLF regime feels it necessary to
exercise such extreme control to the point of committing murder periodically
against its own citizens.” Thereby, Cohen’s message to the TPLF criminals was,
“relax and loosen up. The more citizens you kill for no reason, the more
difficult it will be for you to govern in peace.” (Cohen: On Ethiopia, December 18, 2015). They are too complex to
understand for the political broad at home too.
Back to Temben with new form of terrorist plan
After it is removed out from the central power in 2019, TPLF has
transformed itself into national clique. Onwards, launching the most organized terror
acts against the people of Ethiopia. Training and arming insurgents and
militants in different parts of the country for genocide and terrorism become
its sole enterprise. Along with the economic sabotages, financing ethnic
cleansing in Metekel, sponsoring the Shene terrorists in Wollega (Horro-Guduru,
Shambu, Dembi-Dollo and etc.) to murder Amharas; the Chilga attacks allied with
Qimant extremists; the Gedio agony that displaced 800,000 people; the Gumayde
conflict and many more are the TPLF projects.
Assimilation
of Amharas into Tigre was the tool used to change the demography. TPLF has committed
the new form of attack known as silent genocide in the Wolkait against the
Amharas. To this end, tens of thousands are killed, tortured, kidnapped while
hundreds of Wolkait farmers and youth forced to leave their homestead. After
the loss of its power, it extended its cleansings into full scale. A similar
killing happened in Kobo and Merssa on civilians who were protesting against
the killing of innocent civilians in Woldia in 2018.
The
November 9-10, 2020, Maikadra Massacre on ethnic Amharas is one of the greatest
brutality against humanity. The Ethiopian Human Rights Commission (EHRC) had
deployed an investigation team to Maikadra, Abrhajira, Sanja, Dansha and Humera
and between November 14 and 19th 2020. According to the Commission’s
findings, dreadful crime was committed by the TPLF expertise on murders.
Evidence gathered and analyzed by the EHRC revealed that the Maikadra attack is
not a simple criminal act but is rather “a premeditated and carefully
coordinated grave violation of human rights.”
Members of Samri (youth groups assigned for the massacre), with
the help of the local Tigrayan police and militia, moving from house to house
and from street to street, began a cruel and atrocious rampage on people
they pre-identified/profiled as Amharas. They slaughtered more than 1,600
innocents, beating them with batons/sticks, stabbing them with knives, machetes
and hatchets and strangling them with ropes. They also looted and
destroyed properties.
It has been made apparent that the attack was ethnicity based
and specifically targeted men the attackers profiled through, amongst
other things, identification cards, as Amharas.
At the
beginning of the invasion to the Amhara Region, the Raya, North Wollo Zone of
Amhara Region, incident is the most horrible scene. Alamata, Maychew, Kobo and
Harra have witnessed the delinquency of the TPLF gangs looting almost all
public and private cars, damaging all public enterprises and government
offices. Literally, nothing has left in Sekota town. Tefera Hailu Memorial
Hospital, Sekota Teachers Education College, Amhara Rehabilitation and
Development Organization, Sekota Agricultural Research Institute, Telecom
infrastructures and almost all private properties are looted, damaged and taken
to Tigrai.
One of
the most important trade and investment centers of the Amhara Region, Woldia
was targeted too many times. The administration on set and the residents two
weeks-long fight to protect the city was remarkable. However, the TPLF militias
invaded the city with the support of heavy shell attacks. Many civilians are
murdered while the vast majority of all properties such as Woldia hospital, the
International stadium, Woldia University and its Merssa Campus facilities,
Woldia Teachers Training Colleges, Woldia Technical and Vocational College, key
development institutions, public and private belongings are plundered and taken
away to Tigray. To facilitate the pillage, the terrorist militias with the
direct command of its criminal leaders, took nearly 1,000 vehicles.
Recently
from 19-20 August 2021, the group assaulted Debretabor City and its suburb five
times with heavy cannons. The attack devastated entire families without any
apparent military target nearby, and all the blasts have had fatal damages over
many structures and living rooms. Public and state property pillages and
damages in Lalibela, Kobo, Mersa, Checheho, Maytemri, Gayint, Guna Technical
and Vocational College teaching facilities including laboratories, workshops
and administrative centers, Kimir Dingay, Gashena, Debre-Zebit, Wuchalle, Kon,
Dellanta, Mersa and other towns have been rampant.
The Mehoni, North Wollo Zone, Massacre of that claimed dozens of
Muslims is the barbaric act of the TPLF. The Muslims massacre is a clear signal
for TPLFs anti-religions foundations across generations. The Agamsa Massacre is
another war crime committed by the TPLF. More than 200 civilian farmers are
burnt, slaughtered and chopped in North Wollo Zone, Agamssa town in August
2021. The town, according to a Google Earth Pro images and the actual scene the
survivors reported to the Regional government, nearly 100 homes and structures
are turned to ashes with heavy assault shells. The prestigious Great Britain
daily, The Telegraph gave due emphasis to the atrocity and covered it on 5
August 2021. According to The Telegraph, referring the survivors’ words, 'They
[the TPLF] are out for revenge'. The armed groups have bombed the village for
series of nights and killed residents moving door to door. The latest Cheena
Massacre has also many to tell about the group. It has murdered about 120
civilians in Cheena village, Dabat Woreda, North Gonder Zone.
Disarm and dismantle it: who should do what?
It’s time to
deactivate the terrorist group—from the political ecology. Like the Nazis, TPLF
should face a lifetime ban from all political environments in Ethiopia and
beyond. The federal government of Ethiopia shall disarm its hundreds of
thousands criminal forces and unsubscribe them. Further, regional and
continental actors like African Union and IGAD have crucial responsibilities to
restore peace and order in the Horn; so they must collaborate with the
government and people of Ethiopia to bring the terrorists before the law.
TPLF has done many than any other terrorist group in the world: in terms of severity and intensity. It is the world’s most virulent and violent terrorist group. To obliterate the shocks and scares of the terror manufacturer, TPLF and its fanatic extremists must get obsoleted. The international community has to understand the grief of millions of Ethiopians and designate TPLF as international terrorist. With these, then, the nation will enjoy the future with meaningful stride toward a peaceful and free society.
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