Thread by @althecat

On Friday. 6th Aug as the Galicoma Medical Center #AfarMassacre was reported TPLF propaganda account @Galaxy2Galaxy5 reflexively denied the medical center even existed & claimed that the ENDF was responsible. Now @reda_getachew is claiming the same thing.

https://twitter.com/UNICEFEthiopia/status/1424698346221015048?s=20

@Galaxy2Galaxy5 @reda_getachew Here is the thread @Galaxy2Galaxy5 thread got involved in. He has deleted his final tweets in which he was claiming a Google search for Galicoma Medical Center showed only one result which he claimed proved it didn't exist.

https://twitter.com/BellumPaxBR/status/1423709137674850305

A archive of the thread featuring takedown from @miskeenwa, @aseb2aden and @QafarMedia the last of which which posted the initial reports of the massacre.

@Galaxy2Galaxy5 initially leans on US news reports (@nytimes) and statements from @PowerUSAID to dismiss the incident.

Later he resorts to attacking the messengers, but gets short shrift.

This all happened on day 1 and day 2 of this horrific atrocity. Which occurred the day after U.S. peace envoy former journalist and "Genocide Expert" @PowerUSAID @SamanthaJPower left to return to Washington.

Reports, initially published in Afari English language media immediately started circulating widely on twitter. But it wasn't until an Al Jazeera Arabic report from Afar on Sunday 8th August that any mainstream outlet reported it.

https://twitter.com/1juxa/status/1424402282419048454?s=20

As far as I know this massacre, one of the worst of the war so far, hasn't yet been reported at all yet by @AP @Reuters @CNN or @AFP. Please correct me if I am wrong. But I can see no reports mentioning this at all in Google News ("Afar Civilians Killed").

Oddly the @AJEnglish hasn't covered this horrific atrocity in which 107 children, no where near Tigray were killed almost certainly by the TPLF.

Here is a second @AlJazeera Arabic broadcast report. I understand both broadcast reports refer to a reporting team visiting Afar to report.

All of which is exceedingly peculiar. More civilians were killed in this incident of pure violence than died initially in the German and Chinese Floods. And here we have 107 children killed in a medical center, incinerated.

The Afari are a very proud and tough people, and they have significant grievances with their old enemies in the TPLF who took much of their land and fomented conflict between them and the Somali people.

So it is entirely plausible that the TPLF attacked them.

Some think the Afari might have been the inspiration for George Lucas's Star Wars Bedouin people on Tatooine.

They are very news camera friendly, striking visually, and extremely good at twitter. From what I can discern they are cool as.

The apparent complete absence of international English language media coverage of #AfarMassacre #Galicoma #GalicomaMassacre is striking. And one wonders how this can possibly happen.

@ProjectCensored should have a good look at this.

@ProjectCensored The contrast between how this massacre of 250 Afari, including 107 children under artillery fire has been covered compared to @pulitzercenter funded "Bodies in the river" story from @AP Ethiopia/Tigray Atrocity reporter Cara Anna is astonishing.

apnews.com/article/middle…

@ProjectCensored @pulitzercenter @AP This story was published on August 2nd, the day that @PowerUSAID was expected to visit Ethiopia, and the day before the @StateDept reverted to its impossible policy position wrt to demanding Amhara withdrawal from #Welkaite / Western Tigray.

The @AP story has significant plausible evidence pointing to it being an engineered TPLF propaganda dis-information op. And warning alerts about this were issued as soon as it was published.

Newspapers globally carried the @AP report and other major Intl. media outlets including @Reuters and @AFP @bbcworldservice matched it. The TPLF had a Wikipedia page up within hours.

The following day August 3rd, the day @StateDeptSpox and @PowerUSAID again demanded withdrawal from #Welkaite, seemingly as a pre-condition to peace talks with the TPLF.

Also August 3rd @PBS @NewsHour broadcast this report, which whilst mentioning the incursions into Amhara territories quotes a TPLF spokesperson defending this as an act of self defence. It has a speaker claiming the GoE Ceasefire is cover for a defeat.
pbs.org/newshour/show/…

The PBS report also mentions fighting in Afar Region but suggests it is between Ethiopian Afar and Somali and fails to connect it to the large scale incursion initiated by the TPLF on August 16th which is the primary cause of violence in the region.

July 24th in an interview on an African Vlogger website private intel operative @Dibjir from SAHAN Intelligence explained his view, parroting TPLF positions and explaining their game-plan, namely to overthrow the Ethiopian Govt.

In the interview he talks about efforts to block the main transport route between Addis Ababa and ports in Djbouti to put pressure on the Ethiopian Govt. and force them to negotiations.

This is where things get extremely murky, a conflict between Afar and Ciise militias, caused by a fake-genocide disinformation campaign, alleging an incident on June 24th which never happened (according to Afar sources).

Thread:

https://twitter.com/aseb2aden/status/1421188429686050822

Now I cannot claim to have fully got my head around what can be seen in this thread - but the timing seems right, and the subsequent events appear to have been one of the reasons @AbiyAhmedAli visited Afar during Power's visit.

https://twitter.com/threadreaderapp/status/1421899071992868864?s=20

All this was came to my attention on the day after the Afar attack. A protest held in Djbouti by Somalis about the "fake-genocide" event, resulted in a crackdown on Afar residents in Djbouti during which police shot around 11 Afar.

https://twitter.com/redseaomzz/status/1423772826801213442?s=20

.@aseb2aden is in a better position to come to a view on whether there is a link between the protests and TPLF disinformation efforts, but from what can be easily learned about TPLF tactics, creating and exploiting ethnic conflict is part of their Standard Operating Procedure.

And in the context of this thread, which focuses on the dereliction of duty by international media to report without fear or favour, this seems relevant.

Nearly all the international reports about this conflict to date have sought to very crudely report it as a series of atrocities, blaming them all on the GoE and it's PM @AbiyAhmedAli.

This narrative is simply wrong. All of the evils which we have seen in the lead up to the Tigray War and since exhibit the hallmarks of well known TPLF tactics:

Famine as a weapon; Rape; Massacres; Faking atrocities; Faking bombings. Creating ethnic division.

And as the TPLF's long time ally the U.S. is completely familiar with all of this, and particularly Susan Rice and Samantha Power who have been taking the lead in this conflict, terribly, for @JoeBiden.

By contrast the government of @AbiyAhmedAli is publicly committed to free elections and the rule-of-law. And it has enacted and maintained a unilateral ceasefire in the face of unimaginable provocation from the TPLF and silence from the IC.

/ENDS