Thread by @althecat

The Director General of @WHO is once again abusing his position as a high UN Official to promote the interests of his former TPLF comrades, turned insurgents in their efforts to resurrect an over used misinformation operation focussed on the Tekeze River, for military purposes.

https://twitter.com/DrTedros/status/1471573397654155264

Since the beginning of this war in November 2020 the TPLF has been seeking to open an arms supply route from Sudan through Humera to provide materiel and fresh troops for TPLF's armed forces.

Refugee camps in Sudan have also been used to treat injured TPLF fighters, who have subsequently been caught with IDs fighting in Amhara, and to provide refuge - at the beginning of the war - to perpetrators of the Mai Kadra massacre where est. 1500+ civilians were killed.

This area of the border is massively militarised and has seen several incidents, including a recent incident when a group of TPLF soldiers sought to cross the border and allegedly Sudanese troops got caught in artillery fire to repel them. voanews.com/a/sudan-says-s…

Many journalists and investigators have travelled to the border to interview Tigrayan refugees, and this is where many of the testimonies of atrocities occurring in the early part of the war were collected by both reporters and investigators. In some cases via phone calls.

This is the case with the latest @Amnesty report released today [amnesty.org/en/latest/news…].

Although the fact that the IVs were conducted by phone with refugees in Sudan was not revealed until this detail was included in a Washington Post article, based on the report published this evening. washingtonpost.com/world/2021/12/…

https://twitter.com/althecat/status/1471581521144385546?s=20

Over the past two days there has been another rise in military activity on the Sudan Border, with reports that:
- former UN peacekeepers are training TPLF recruits in Sudan
- Sudan has deployed additional troops to the border.

https://twitter.com/althecat/status/1471590985268400139?s=20

And against this backdrop an emergency @UN_HRC meeting is due to be held tomorrow, called for by the EU on Monday.

https://twitter.com/EU_UNGeneva/status/1470412869040754692?s=20

Highly charged, and opportunely timed news events on this part of the Sudanese Border have become a regular event over the past five months.

On August 3rd, during a visit by @PowerUSAID to the horn @AP published a report about bodies being found floating down the river.

https://twitter.com/PowerUSAID/status/1422340300807213057?s=20

On September 5th the Telegraph published a new story about bodies in the river, this time adding an extra element, horrific detention centers in the city of Humera from which the bodies were originating. telegraph.co.uk/world-news/202…

On September 10th Lucy Kassa's story for the Telegraph was given a video treatment by @CNN's @nimaelbagir. edition.cnn.com/2021/09/05/afr…

Nima's initial report contained reference to forensic evidence that the bodies had been chemically preserved, which immediately raised eyebrows in Ethiopia, as did the fact that the guide who led her to the bodies had a TPLF cap on his head.

The saga around Nima's story went on for some time and was best chronicled by @Qnie_Addis in a series of now famous threads. In this one he reports on changes made to the published @CNN stories to remove some of their most obvious flaws.

https://twitter.com/Qnie_Addis/status/1442826734651445251?s=20

On 21st November the Tekeze River came up again, this time in a leaked conversation between a group of former and serving European and US ambassadors, and the TPLF's representative in the Western Hemisphere, Berhane Gebre-Christos.

https://twitter.com/althecat/status/1466224533917122560

Here's what Berhane Gebre-Christos says precisely in this clip + a comment.

The full 2 hour video in which the US and EU ambassadors discuss the overthrow of the Ethiopian Govt can be found here >>

The video was published on November 24th. A little over a week later I learned that @CNN had contacted the Govt. of Ethiopia and informed them that they were planning on running another story about bodies in the Tekeze River and wanted a Govt. response.

After consulting with colleagues I published a thread about the #NoMore movement which included information about the imminent release of the latest incarnation of the Bodies in the Tekeze River story.

https://twitter.com/althecat/status/1466299038572204035?s=20

And then the @CNN story never appeared, much to the relief of a very large number of people.

But now there are a bunch of indications that the story may be back yet again. And this time coordinated for release at the same time as the @UN_HRC debates human rights issues related to the war in Ethiopia in Geneva.

@UN_HRC There is a pattern to how these operations have been delivered in the past - and that pattern is being rolled out again.

The consistent elements are:

1. A story or report at an important moment (usually when the TPLF are losing)
2. The presence of a reporter in Sudan

And with the arrival of @maxbearak from the Washington Post in Khartoum on Monday (or thereabouts) we have this pattern in place now.

https://twitter.com/althecat/status/1471595244324102154?s=20

The timing of these events..

13/12 - EU call for @UN_HRC meeting
13/12 - @maxbearak arrives Sudan
15/12 - @DeclanWalsh's @NYTimes story
16/12 - The Amnesty/HRW report
16/12 - WaPo report
17/12 - HRC meeting Geneva

.. seems a remarkable coincidence.

Another remarkable coincidence exists in the witness testimony provided to HRW and Amnesty. The stories they tell about the Humera detention facilities in particular align with those @berhe_lucy was told, also via phone call, back in September.

Consistency is a virtue. But the repetitive consistency of this story in location, delivery method, content and timing is extraordinary.

The fact that #TigrayGenocide is trending again, less than an hour after @maxbearak's story is published and @DrTedros's tweet, tells us that the all the TPLF's information warfare assets are being deployed.

If past is prologue, then @maxbearak will likely find that there are some newly arrived corpses beside the river, either that or they will show him where they buried the corpses which were produced for CNN's aborted report.

In conclusion I really really hope that this is the last time anyone ever has to hear this story.

ENDS

@threadreaderapp unroll