By the Queen of Sheba
On the night of November 3, 2020, the treasonous TPLF cabal forces heinously and cowardly attacked the Ethiopian Federal Army base of the Northern Command-the biggest, most formidable and well-equipped and staffed army command in the country-while in their sleep. As they attacked 200 sites and bases-in a superbly coordinated manner-they massacred thousands in a barbaric way-slitting throats, slashing guts, and cutting off breasts of women soldiers. In an attempt to decimate the surrendered soldiers en masse, they chased them with heavy trucks, mowing them with well-placed machine guns as they run for their lives.
The cabal also sent missiles into major neighboring cities in the country. Moreover, in a failed effort to internationalize the conflict, they also bombed Eritrea.
When the fortunes of the coup went south, the retreating and marauding cabal forces turned on civilians going on a killing spree in My-Kadra, systematically hunting and killing Amharas, roaming house to house. In that tragic day of infamy, over 1,000 civilians-mostly young Amhara laborers working on farms-were slaughtered by crazed Tigrayan militia and special forces.
The defeated cabal also went about destroying schools, bridges, roads, airports-and hospitals. It also looted banks, offices, depots and camps. And more.
These are all the uncontested facts grudgingly admitted by UN organizations, the former administration of the US State Department-and the leaders of the cabals themselves.
The humiliated and brutalized, but highly spirited, National Defence forces-swiftly reorganized and crashed the mutinous cabal-which boasted some 200,000 militia and special forces and commandeered a massive cache of arms from the National Defence. It only took the National Defence forces and the allied regional militias just two weeks to obliterate them into oblivion which surprised the whole world-but deeply and painfully stunned the cabal’s corps-supporters, sympathizers, friends, allies and beneficiaries.
As the misfortunes of the mutinous debacle hit home fast and hard, the cabal’s machinery run full steam on the public relations assault igniting a social media frenzy-well-oiled by the looted blood money which has been siphoned off from the nation for nearly thirty years-estimated at some 30 billion USD.
Manufacturing Stories, Outrage
Bogus stories had to be manufactured-featuring massacres, mass rapes, mass starvations, ethnic cleansing, genocide and now chemical attacks in Tigray-and shared in a systematically coordinated manner with major and small media houses, think tanks, NGOs, governments, multilateral and bilateral agencies. In one stunning case a major media house featured a bogus priest who pretended to be in Tigray giving eye-witness testimony on fabricated massacres there-while sitting in Boston. The story never got retracted even after it was proven fake.
The major media houses BBC, CNN, Aljazeera, Deutsche Welle and many others became unwitting, indifferent and sinister players in airing fabricated and over-inflated stories. In another shocking episode, which yet again desecrated the sanctity of journalism, the CNN reporter who claimed a massacre of 800 priests in Axum took a journey there-but to find nothing of that sort. Instead she had to manufacture a different story-and outrage-standing on a purported grave site-appearing to be more distraught than the purported family member standing behind her. The highly anticipated Axum report fell flat as it climaxes with an unarmed soldier casually running out of the hospital-as if soldiers were barred from accessing hospital services or visit their loved ones there.
Well, we may need to sympathize with the ‘famous’ reporter as presenting the facts would tantamount to contradicting herself-and undermining her credibility. But then, the weakness may lie in the CNN editorial office which sent her to validate a story herself manufactured earlier with the cabal’s operators-sitting thousands of miles away.
What is deeply regrettable-and more so painful-is that those journalists, public officials, and opinion makers whom we have respected and admired-and shaped our thinking and perspectives-have either got duped by the fake narratives being relentlessly spewed by the cabal’s machinery or they themselves became such sources motivated by the attractive remuneration. While one sympathizes with the gullible, but cannot help wonder why and how some of these people turned frontline mercenaries for the cabal-at the expense of their credibility earned over their life time. Well may be, wealth is more appealing than medals of public opinion.
Since the conflict broke out, the New York Times, one of the most respectable papers, has also mangled stories, cited bogus accounts, and misrepresented facts on Ethiopia-a number of times. But it never retracted them, even when presented with uncontested, and verifiable, evidence. In its latest piece, on 21 May 2021, it carried a story-following the removal of its reporter from the country-misleading readers by stating Andargachew Tsege, one of the most prominent Ethiopian opposition figures as an “adviser to Mr. Abiy”. Alas, the Times may not be encumbered by correcting these glaring errors.
Villain as a Victim
Ethiopia has been under serious stress with numerous conflicts, killings and displacements around the country. Entire cities, towns and villages have been razed to the ground. Hundreds have been killed and displaced. Virtually none of these get coverage on the media, except Tigray. Most journalists who drive through these affected areas witness these tragic scenes; but they shockingly and shamefully ignore them.
Journalism, as a profession, is screaming in pain in the highlands, valleys and villages in Ethiopia-and also, we fully realize now, in Africa and other ‘weak’ countries. We are witnessing journalism-and journalists-deployed not for fact-seeking purposes, but, we learned painfully, as a tool for a conspiratorial end.
The Ethiopian case is beyond curious. The perpetrators-both internal and external-do not seem to care about shame, disgrace or humiliation. Lies, fake news, and bogus evidences are relentlessly deployed to disinform and misinform the public. Of recent, Ethiopia has been crucified on the altar of international public opinion treated as a villain-when it is a victim of vicious and treasonous attack which could have had a monumental social, economic and political upheavals.
The US, the UN and other western powers rudely subscribe on a laundry list of actions and inactions for the country without qualms. They have now dared into instructing the sovereign nation of 110 million people where, when and which forces to dispatch around the country in its pursuit of peace, security and order. We heard of a proposed US Senate sanction against Ethiopia-for only doing what any self-respecting government must do in thwarting a putsch-comparable to the one attempted on the US capitol some months ago. Alas, what is good for the goose is not good for the gander.
In Conclusion
It is notable that while Africa and others continue to contend with the new form of colonialism, i.e. neocolonialism, Ethiopia is now grappling with a degenerate, crude and ugly form of colonialism-which it has fought for centuries and triumphed gallantly.
To be sure, Tigray is a ruse. If not Tigray, it would be Afar. If not Afar, it would be Somalis. We have already seen some signals in Benshangul-Gumuz and Oromia. The gullible might think that the external forces are doing the bidding in their interest. They should be firmly reminded that these forces only have their own selfish interest-and thinking otherwise would be foolish at best and dangerous at its worst.
Libya, Yemen, Somalia, Iraq, and Afghanistan, to mention a few, provide abundant lessons for resolutely defending our country which now faces a barrage of attacks unprecedented in its history as it is striving to peaceful and genuine transition-and social and economic transformation.
The time for wishing for the best is over. The time for action has arrived.
And every citizen is a force to reckon with.
The Queen of Sheba may be reached at QueenOfSheba2020@outlook.com | Twitter: @TheQueenofSheb5
