Thread by @ervstours

1.Thread: Summary of Ethiopian PM Abiy Ahmed’s Response to the ETH. Parliament on 30 Nov 2020 on what has transpired from the day he assumed office leading up to the attack on the Ethiopian National Defense Forces #ENDF by the now defunct Tigray People’s Liberation Front #TPLF.

2. How did he come to office? The #EPRDF elected Abiy Ahmed as PM of Ethiopia in April 2018 upon the heels of massive internal resistance and unrest in the country. The #TPLF did its very best to elect its own figurehead but failed.

3.The first few months: The PM was a virtual prisoner at the palace and his every move was monitored. His and his own family safety was at stake, and in his own words, “I was not in a position to protect my family, let alone protect the country and discharge my official duties."

4. Breaking the Shell: The PM held public meetings in the Somali/Afar etc. regions. The turning point, however, came when the PM made his trip to the Tigray region which the TPLF considered its main social base. The popular reception of the PM scared #TPLF

5. From de jure to de facto PM: The real test of who is in charge of the decision-making process came when PM Abiy made a decision to release Mr. Andargachew Tsige – A prominent opposition leader and naturalized British citizen that the TPLF security forces had kidnapped in Sana.

6. An assassination attempt: the head of the intelligence unit fled to Mekelle after locking the nation's entire security system leaving everyone in the dark. An attempt on the life of the PM was made on June 23, 2018 coordinated by #TPLFisaTerroristGroup

7. The @nytimes @Lattif have written about ethnic profiling. The table below show the sheer lopsidedness of TPLF’s capture of the entire security apparatus. Do we speak of Germans being ethnically profiled when we talk about Nazi criminals?@nytimes @Lattif @ForeignAffairs

8. “This meant that even if we changed the composition of officer at the ranks of general, it would be necessary to promote from below...For a major to become a colonel, it takes 10 years.Therefore, that meant for the next 10 years we could not create a balanced military.”

9.would you consider the below data ethnic profiling or a healthy response to address major structural issues @Lattif @nytimes ? @ForeignPolicy @ForeignAffairs @ReutersAfrica @BBCAfrica @BBCWorld @VOAAmharic

10. PM Abiy: “This is so distorted. The people of Tigray as well as the entire Ethiopian people should know about these unusual circumstances. It should not be hidden. Everyone should get their fair share and we need to create a military that represents all of Ethiopia."

11.The “Red Book” Motto: We rule or Ethiopia shall perish – “The “Red Book” teaches members of the defense force, “You are a member of the [EPRDF] party. If there is a threat to revolutionary democracy, you must fight."

12. "This means all this talk about elections is political drama"it is not genuine. The Red Book says, “Without revolutionary democracy, there is no Ethiopia. The foundation of Ethiopia is the ideology of the party.”

13. 113 major conflict across Ethiopia except Tigray. PM Abiy: ‘There were at least 113 major conflicts that had occurred in every region except Tigray. They shamelessly proclaimed they were the only ones in the country that remained at peace. Even some foreigners echoed that."

14.The Creation of the Republican Guard: Given such an unbalanced structure of the military, PM Abiy’s administration was forced to train elite forces in secret and also purchased Drones outside of the orbits of TPLF’s spying network.

15. The Attack on the Northern Command: the cream of the Ethiopian army. PM Abiy, “In the late hours of November 3, the junta’s lackeys in Addis Ababa managed to disrupt communications. The junta had attacked the Northern Command."

16."They surrounded some of them with militia forces and forced others to surrender by sending in community elders and priests to get them to give up. They committed atrocities unknown in the chronicles of the country’s military history.”

17. "They left naked corpses in the sun and many of them had their hands tied behind their backs. A corpse has no ethnicity. Only when a person is alive can it be said it belongs to an ethnic group. Ethnicity means language and tradition. A corpse has no language or tradition."

18.The Amhara and others massacre at #Maikadra : PM Abiy “But in what language can one explain the massacre of civilians in #Maikadra ? If these people were armed, one may find an explanation.These were innocent people who were day laborers. They lived on what the made every day"

19. The ENDF recapture Mekelle: PM Abiy “By the way, it took the junta 15 years to get to Mekelle from Shiraro, without including Humera. It took us only 15 days to do that. And we both did it on foot...The road is hard and extremely tedious even driving let alone on foot."

20.The heroic stand of the people of Tigray: PM Abiy- “When we reached Shire, the people brought to us 200 pieces of Brel machine guns. They said this is yours. The gave it to us and said we are not going to fight you. When we reached Axum, the people brought us some 40 soldiers"

21. On Eritrea: PM Abiy, “The force that led our soldiers into starvation and suffering is our own but our soldiers received support from the people of Eritrea. Because our soldiers were left naked and went to seek help with our neighbor,"

22. "the enemy claimed that it was attacked by Eritrean forces. It was not the case. Before the Honorable House, I wish to express my highest gratitude to the people and governments of Eritrea, Sudan, Djibouti, Somalia, Kenya, and South Sudan for the tremendous assistance."

23. “Ethiopia is a country that helped establish the United Nations and the African Union. You don’t need to teach Ethiopia diplomacy and multilateralism. We are known for peace and negotiations. We have served as peacekeepers in Korea and in many parts of Africa."

24." What I want to tell our friends is, “If you want to be friends with us, you need to know who we are. Even though we are poor, we have long experience in statecraft. We had a government long before you even existed as a country, before you stood up as a country.”

25. Last words: PM Abiy- “The existence of Ethiopia is our pride and honor. Do not expect an Ethiopian that will trade on Ethiopia’s existence." @NeaminZeleke @nytimes @BBCAfrica @ReutersAfrica @jeffpropulsion @EUinEthiopia @AbiyAhmedAli @PMEthiopia @BilleneSeyoum @hrw @ESATtv