Ethiopia Continues to Make its Case Amid Growing Pressure from the West

March 5, 2021

The meeting this week at the UN security council regarding Ethiopia reportedly ended with no agreement 

Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Affairs Minister, Demeke Mekonen, briefing ambassadors and diplomats on Friday. (Photo : MAFE)

Borkena

Ethiopia was successful in terms of reversing what was said to be a plan to disintegrate the country by weakening the Ethiopian Defense Force through “preemptive attack.” 

It was with that in mind that the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) started an unexpected war, at least at the time it happened, on November 4, 2020, for which it mobilized 250,000 special and militia forces. 

The outcome of the war was a crushing defeat for TPLF. It took only a little over two weeks for the Ethiopian Defense Force to dismantle TPLF military structure, and the entire region where the Ethiopian army was attacked in unsuspecting circumstances, in most cases  when the army in several bases in the region were sleeping, came under the total control of the Ethiopian Defense Force. 

But the image that emerged in the international stage in the post law enforcement, as the Ethiopian government calls it, phase of the development paints Ethiopia in the negative light while concealing the fundamental and immediate causes of it – TPLF. 

Ethiopia is criticized for the humanitarian and human rights situation in the northern part of the country.  

The latest allegation this week came from the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. It alleged that possible “war crimes” have happened in the Tigray region.  

Still another latest effort to discredit Ethiopia was the discussion that Ireland initiated at the United Nations Security Council. AFP on Thursday reported that member states did not reach agreement regarding the situation in northern Ethiopia. 

Based on reports that cite diplomatic sources, it was after Russia, China and India voted against the agenda item against Ethiopia that the meeting ended in disagreement. 

On the same day, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia condemned US stance on the situation in Ethiopia – a country where the US claimed to have invested a lot – using the hashtag #USInvestsinEthiopia. 

Maria Vladimirovna Zakharova, the Director of the Information and Press Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, said “We call on the @StateDept team to stop trying to interfere in other countries’ domestic affairs not just in word but in deed. Without considering and respecting its partners’ interests, these noble causes will remain simple declarations.” 

Had it not been for the three countries mentioned above, perhaps the outcome of the Security Council meeting over Ethiopia could have been different. 

Ethiopia is mobilizing resources, albeit inadequate given the enormity of the challenge, to counter the information war that TPLF personnel and supporters in the diaspora are wagging relentlessly through sponsored contents and lobbyists and what not. 

On Friday, The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ethiopia announced that Demeke Mekonen, the Minister (he is also deputy prime minister), “briefed Ambassadors and representatives of members of the United Nations Security Council in Addis Ababa on the current situation in Tigray.” 

Humanitarian access and human rights issues were addressed. The government said that so far 3.5 million people in the region have received humanitarian aid and aid organizations are provided unfettered access.  Ethiopia has also invited international expertise to be part of the investigation of the human rights violations in the Tigray region. 

The statement from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs also cited Demeke Mekonen as saying that “journalists and humanitarian workers also need to respect their professional code of conduct.” 

A considerable number of Ethiopians tend to believe that the west,including the United States, is plotting to resuscitate the TPLF as an organization under the guise of humanitarian activity in the region.