The peaceful peoples of Tigrai and Amhara need no reconciliation, but justice

Tigrai Online, July 22, 2017

The Ethiopian government is burying its head in the sand regarding the shameful deportation of Tigraians from Amhara region in 2016. Instead of carefully investigating the root cause of the conflict and take appropriate action in all levels, the government is trying to do band-aid solution to the problem.

The riots went on for months in many parts of the Amhara region and the armed hooligans killed innocent civilians Tigraians, they burned their businesses, they robbed their belongings, and finally 11 thousand women, children, the elderly, and professionals were deported.

This horrible event took place when the Amahara state government, police, and security forces were watching, but they didn’t even attempt to stop it. The question is if some of the state’s politicians and security forces were secretly working to facilitate the deportations of the Tigraians from Amhara region.

As far as we know the victims of this shameful act are still not compensated for the loss of life and businesses.

There is not a single person arrested for this crime. The federal and state governments are trying their best sweep this under the rug and wishing people will forget about it.

This week we saw a very meaningless event where they brought people from Amhara state including the president of the sate to Tigrai for people to people reconciliation. This is backwards while the issue has not been investigated, no one was held responsible, the leaders of the armed group walking free, and the government is trying to reconcile the people from the two states. Isn’t that ironic? You can’t even have the leader of the group who led the killing of 11 federal police on top of 82 Tigrai civilians tried in federal courts. You can’t even acknowledge at the federal or state level Tigraians were deported just because they happen to be from different region of the country.  Now you want the peaceful law abiding people to reconcile with each other, for what, what did the people do? How about reconciling the leaders with law of the land for not protecting civilians and upholding the law or better yet for working with the enemies of the country?

Reconciliation is great if it would contribute to the overall unity of our people, but not for what happen in Amhara region last year. What happened was not Amhara people verses Tigrai people, it was special interest groups infltrating the local government and inciting people to rise against their fellow Ethiopians. The governments failed misrabily to protect the civilian population and government proporty and those officials have to be accountable for the law.

The problem is not between two people, it is between those who are conspiring to overthrow the federal government and replace it with old trash that serves the few and the rest of the Ethiopian people. These guardians of poverty are using every trick in the evil book to achieve their goal and the 2016 criminal act was one of their tricks to stir conflict between people. They didn’t succeed last year but that doesn’t mean they couldn’t next time, besides they wouldn’t have a country to rule if they did.

The president of the state of Amhara is quoted as saying last year’s crime was committed by a few bandits. When a committee representing the deportees went to Addis Ababa to ask the federal government for justice they were told by Mr. Mr Demeke Mekonnen the Deputy Prime Minister of Ethiopia their claim was exaggerated.

First thing first:

1. All levels of governments federal and state acknowledge a crime was committed against the Tigraians who use to live in Amhara state.
2. The instigators of the crime should be brought to justice and punished according to the law.
3. The people should be fully compensated for their family lives and the loss of material wealth.
4.  Officially apologize for the Ethiopian people for your failure.

After all these done the people to people discussion can start. As it is now the problem has not been resolved and the anger of the people is just simmering and trust me, a colorful musical night or an impressive poem is not going to cut it.

The government needs to do what governments are supposed to do, uphold the law without any hesitation or fear. If the government is not respecting its own law or compromise for to hide a problem in fear of some imagined potential conflict it is opening a can of warms because there will be more people who would want to try the same trick.

EPRDF has changed the country beyond recognition for the better in the past 26 years, but sometimes it seems it wanted to be led by the people instead of leading them and leading means taking actions that are not popular. Not implementing your own policies or  not upholding the law for fear of reaction from the people is not respecting them.