Looking at the track records that the terrorist TPLF has registered in duecourse of its existence, one can learn about the real character of the group. The thugs never bat an eye to barter public interests to its devilish ends.
During the gorilla fighting period with the Derg regime, for instance, it used to loot humanitarian aids provided to the drought affected people in Tigray and the surrounding people. It diverted the aids to feed its combatants and sell the bulk of it to purchase armaments exposing the people to hunger and migration.
Instead of getting lesson from its corrupted history, the terrorist group has continued employing its evil experience in relation to the current situation in Ethiopia. It has sustained regime of blockage of humanitarian aids. The dearly needed humanitarian aids provided by the Ethiopian government and a few other aid organizations cannot reach to the people. Even the food and other essential materials the government left in Tigray after the unilateral ceasefire are used to to the group’s terroristic activities.
To anyone’s dismay, all the gruesome attack it perpetrated on the people of Amhara and Afar and its continued use of the youths of Tigray as its cannon fodder to serve its paymaster’s geopolitical interests.
On the contrary, the terrorist group accuses the Government of Ethiopia of blocking the aid on account of lack of transport, fuel, and humanitarian corridors. The government, however, once again has called upon the international community to its keen attention to the truth of the matter. Yes, the IC must listen to the call.
More than 1010 aid trucks that should have been on the road delivering much-needed humanitarian support are stranded in the Tigray region. TPLF is accountable for the stranded trucks not only for the hostage, but also for using them for war activities to escalate invasion to adjacent regional states of Amhara and Afar.
The terrorist group has also failed to take any accountability to the claims of fuel shortages that allegedly disrupted humanitarian supply in the region. Truths that falsify the claim are in the public records. The federal government left 14 million liters in Mekele city alone when it evacuated its troops from Tigray region in June 2020, declaring a Unilateral Humanitarian Ceasefire.
Besides, TPLF looted millions of liters of fuel from a federal depot in Kombolcha town when it expanded the conflict into the Amhara and Afar regional states. Moreover, the stranded trucks in the Tigray region were loaded with enough fuel to make a return trip. Revealing its egocentric character, the TPLF had been selling fuel in black markets in Tigray, profiteering out of the misery of the public.
Sadly, no one tried to hold the TPLF accountable for misusing the fuel reserves. It is also regrettable to see that no one cared to question how the group was able to fuel its military vehicles and tanks during its invasion of adjacent regional states.
The reckless behavior of the TPLF also restricted options for having additional humanitarian corridors for supplying aid to the region. Setting aside all the destructions in Afar and Amhara, it is surprising to see the group launching fresh attacks on Abala – the only operating corridor supplying aids to Tigray.
Thus, the international community should wake up to the real reasons that made the delivery of humanitarian assistance increasingly daunting. The matter needs more attention of the international community to put the blame and pressure where it is due, and hold the TPLF accountable for the crime of starving the people of Tigray.
The January 15/2022
