It is much intriguing to see envoys who claimed to have roles of igniting the engines of a peace talk ended up being obsessed with posing for a selfie with a party that is responsible for committing genocide on innocent civilians, recruiting child soldiers, raping women and even desecrating nuns and seizing the people in Tigray as a hostage to quench its thirst to power.
At least freezing a moment with those criminals would have been sensible had the group secured tangible results to achieve its purposes. But it only danced to the tunes of the terrorist group’s machinations.
The criminal enterprise’s forked tongue of course blurred the reality for quite some time until its overly inflated ego was flattened only in a matter of weeks. Almost 80 percent of Ethiopia’s arsenals it seized, and what it called “a lightning speed attack in 45 minutes” on the northern command did not shield its “battle-hardened” fighters from biting the dust.
Remnants of the group had to get harbor in the scorching desert of Kola Tembien for months until the government declared a truce. The warmonger clique’s months of marching and their cronies’ unceasing assistance motivated by an illusionary plan of controlling Addis and taking advantage of the truce decimated only in a matter of two weeks. But still, there are a few entities that opt for appeasing the ringleaders of the criminals that the people and government of Ethiopia have already defeated.
A joint US and EU statement released on August 2, 2022, completely failed to capture the reality on the ground. They also purposely gave a deaf ear to the voice of international organizations such as the WFP.
It was the criminals in their doomed attempt of treachery on the Northern Command that destroyed the telecom and electricity connections. Even after Mekele was under the interim administration of Tigray, there were numerous activities to restore services. But the brutal group had been attacking people deployed to maintain the destroyed infrastructure.
What is included in the statement speaks for itself. “….provided a letter to be passed the government of Ethiopia providing security for those who need to work to restore services.” They indirectly admitted that they were attacking personnel of service-providing institutions that were deployed for restoration.
The “Selfie-obsessed” individuals also failed to comprehend the July 15, 2022 interview of World Food Programs Country Director for Northern Ethiopia, Adrian Van der Knapp on BBC Focus on Africa. He illustrated vividly the commitment of the government to a safe humanitarian delivery. In his interview, he was mentioning that the WFP and partners were able to put 4,000 humanitarian trucks along the Semera-Mekelle corridor. He attributed the capability to do so to the unilateral truce that the government declared.
Earlier in June, the government announced as it had transferred a total of 2.1 billion Birr for humanitarian assistance from July, 2021 to June 3, 2022 into the State. Previously, as Mekele was under the interim administration, the government invested over a 100 billion Birr to restore and rehabilitate Tigray.
The envoys were blown off the course of peace. They tried to push the government to fulfill T-TPLF’s precondition. The government unequivocally stated to hold peace talks “anywhere,” “anytime” and without precondition, period.
The 7 August 2022
