Shock as UNHRC resolves to interfere in Ethiopia’s internal affairs

In their pursuit of illegally changing Ethiopia’s legitimate government for about two years now, terrorist group Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) and its international sympathisers, have been flip-floping from one clandestine effort to another including war, misreporting facts about the conflict, playing victims to self-committed crimes, but with no success.

While they killed civilians, raped women and girls, commandeered trucks delivering humanitarian supplies to the people in Tigray and neighbouring Afar and Amhara regions, used children as soldiers etcetera, TPLF and its sympathisers constantly falsely claimed that the federal government forces were committing genocide in Tigray, as well as hunting down ethnic Tigrayans.

Indeed many countries, media and international organisations, leaders including the U.S which at some point threatened to impose sanctions on Ethiopia, fell victim to this false propaganda that international media itself propagated.

The latest victim of such lies is the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) which Friday resolved to put in place an investigating team to probe the alleged severe human rights violations and abuses in Ethiopia. This was on Friday during an infamous special session held at the request of the European Union.

The resolution is a repeat of what has already been done and leaves so many questions as to why. Earlier in August, the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights jointly conducted an investigation into alleged human rights violations and abuses, and violations of international humanitarian law, and refugee law.

The investigation which covered the period between November 3, 2020 and June 28, 2021 found that both the TPLF and the Ethiopian government forces and allied militia had committed atrocities, including killings, rape, forcible displacement and torture, but it did not find evidence of genocide.

Ethiopia has since set up an Inter-Ministerial Taskforce to implement the recommendations of the report including prosecution, rehabilitation of those) who surrender, providing humanitarian services and assisting those who were sexually violated.

Establishing another probe to do the same investigation delays rehabilitation, restitution and compensation of the survivors as well as prosecution of the perpetrators. It is actually repetitive and counterproductive to ongoing implementation processes, and further delays redress for victims and survivors.

One wonders why the UN Human Rights Council is so much obsessed with the establishment of another probe to literally do similar investigations already done jointly by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission.

It should be remembered that efforts by the Ethiopian government to make peace with the Tigray fighters and restore normalcy in the Northern part of the country like implementing Ceasefire in June, attempts to dialogue with the fighting group and sending humanitarian aid to affected areas, met with objection by the TPLF, have gone unnoticed by the UN, its agencies and the rest of the international community.

There is a wide belief that some members of the international community are actually backing and amplifying criminal activities of TPLF and are actually helping to drive their agenda of forcefully and illegally getting back government, the reason they have never condemned the atrocities commited by TPLF on the innocent people.

If at all the UN Human Rights Council genuinely wanted to probe the Tigray conflict and serve justice to the victims, why not encourage OHCHR and EHRC to continue with joint investigation in areas which the JIT could not access due to insecurity, and to cover the period following 28 June 2021 which was not covered by the joint investigation as opposed to setting up an international commission of human rights experts on Ethiopia.

Why has it refused to cooperate with the legitimate government on investigations on the Tigray conflict given its understated and undisputable efforts to protect the children and people of Ethiopia including Tigrayans?

If it was not for settling for meddling into the internal issues of Ethiopia, why is the Human Rights Council not supporting the implementation of the JIT recommendations and the Inter-Ministerial Taskforce in the timely implementation of the JIT recommendations, particularly on accountability and redress for victims.

The UN Human Rights Council seem to be used as a tool by imperialists to impose themselves on countries like Ethiopia that have closed avenues for meddling, and it is unfortunate for the agency established to to promote and protect human rights around the world.