Thread by @althecat

The OCHA / WFP briefing on 10th of Feb - delivered in NYC with @UN_Spokesperson is here media.un.org/en/asset/k16/k…

It was a long way away from being critical of TPLF. All he said was that conflict was the cause of aid not getting in.

https://twitter.com/reda_getachew/status/1492426773618905088

He said no convoys entered Tigray since the 16th. Be did not say that TPLF caused that conflict by invading Afar at that time - which is the cause - which anyone with access to Twitter could quickly determine for themselves.

He noted that aid has not got in for nearly 2 months due to this conflict.

I posted a short thread (quoted here) about this briefing at the time. Noting "The @WFP's Dunford does not however attribute the TPLF commencing this offensive - which remains underway - as the cause of the restrictions on access to Tigray."

https://twitter.com/althecat/status/1491868976531619850?s=20&t=zReA_LSLuKvhqjaMifwkuA

What likely triggered @reda_getachew's remarks was the briefing from UN Deputy Sec. General @AminaJMohammed yesterday. The DSG is the most senior UN official to visit Ethiopia since the conflict began.

@reda_getachew @AminaJMohammed But as you can see in a thread posted last night on @AminaJMohammed's briefing here >>media.un.org/en/asset/k19/k….

The DSG did not attribute TPLF's attacks on Afar as the cause of this either. Instead suggesting that the conflict was caused by Afar & Tigray.

https://twitter.com/althecat/status/1492249632289792001?s=20&t=QtfnCDSbnaew4E97QSXE2A

@reda_getachew @AminaJMohammed Which is also not true.

This press release from Getachew Reda therefore looks to be an effort to try to get out ahead of media inquiries looking deeper into the cause of the absence of aid deliveries through the Semara-Afar corridor.

It is striking that even though @AminaJMohammed actually continued to maintain the fiction that the conflict in Afar is not due to TPLF aggression, the TPLF nevertheless is still attacking the UN.

Which points very strongly to what many of us already know, namely that the UN is continuing to actively minimise/deny the TPLF's active efforts to prevent aid from getting into Tigray.

There are 2 big lies in the Tigray conflict story maintained by TPLF. Both of which have been hugely successful.

1. That the war initiated on Nov 3-4 by TPLF was started by the Govt of @AbiyAhmedAli

2. That the humanitarian aid crisis in Tigray is not of the TPLF's making.

The truth is:

1. That TPLF started the war, but managed to convince the UN at the outset that the Govt of @AbiyAhmedAli did. This remains the single greatest failure by the UN in this conflict.

2. That after the unilateral 28 June Govt. ceasefire the attacks on Afar & Amhara that began mid July closed off the aid corridors to Tigray - thereby worsening the humanitarian crisis in Tigray and creating one in Amhara and Afar (through rape, looting and destruction).

This deliberate information warfare tactic used by the TPLF from the outset, and enabled by UN and UN humanitarian agency silence / wilful blindness is to cast themselves as the victims.

And it remains in the ascendency.

And @reda_getachew is doing his best to maintain this ascendency, now by attacking the UN directly.

Hopefully this points towards TPLF desperation and this tactic reaching its end-of-life.

/ENDs

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