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OpTic Venti

Mar 29 • 65 tweets • 46 min read

This is a thread containing my response to one person’s doubts about #HR6600. All true Amharas, Afars, and Ethiopians should read this to understand why so many of us support the bill.

Disclaimer: These are my own views and observations, and they do not necessarily represent those of all Amharas/Afars/Ethiopians.

Others in this community have already explained in detail what HR6600 is about and how it will benefit us. The point of this post is to provide further justification for supporting this bill.

I would like to preface this post by saying the following to opponents of the bill who claim that “HR6600 is bad and we have to oppose it because the TPLF (may or may not have) made/wrote/sponsored/lobbied for it”:

“
Good on you for taking the time to read the bill; that’s the first step toward understanding our position. But you also need to understand that we do not support HR6600 because we want the TPLF back in power like the Tigrayans do. congress.gov/bill/117th-con…

Another thing you need to understand is that the passing of this bill will not mean that the TPLF will come back to power. The bill’s purpose is also not necessarily regime change, because even if the TPLF were to come back to power now, which is practically impossible unless…

Abiy Ahmed allows them to, the U.S. would still require, above all, for Ethiopia to be a stable and peaceful country. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying they want this for our sake, but clearly it’s very difficult to do business and have relations with…

a country that is war-torn, especially Ethiopia, which is of much geopolitical and strategic importance.

As proof of this, read about #HR128, which was a previous bill passed by the U.S. Senate. What if I told you that it was actually this bill that forced the TPLF out of power in 2018 and created a hopeful, peaceful, and somewhat united Ethiopia for a very short time?

congress.gov/115/bills/hres…

It’s interesting to note that most Ethiopians actually SUPPORTED this bill, which threatened to sanction the GoE, among other things. I mean, all kinds of Ethiopians supported it, from Amharas, to Oromos, to Afars, to Gurages, etc. The only group that didn’t support HR128 was…

the one in power: the Tigrayans and TPLF sympathizers, who said all the same things the Prosperity Party and its sympathizers are saying now, such as that the U.S. is trying to control Ethiopia, that they want a puppet gov’t, that they don’t really care about human rights, etc.

…

…

But again, our country actually made some progress because of the bill! Due to HR128, one gov’t went out, and another, led by Abiy Ahmed, came in. Ppl were praising him for releasing hundreds of political prisoners, for his democratic reforms, for making peace with Eritrea, etc.

They even awarded him a Nobel Peace Prize for it. Have you never heard of “Abiymania”? The reason our country went from all of that positive change to the disaster, mess that we are seeing now is b/c behind that grand façade, Abiy & the PP had a secret, cruel, devilish agenda…

that involved genocide, intimidation, racism, using terrorists to eliminate perceived “threats” (meaning innocent Amhara and Afar men, women, and children), locking up pro-democracy, justice, accountability activists/journalists, using terrorists to destroy…

decades of progress in the Amhara and Afar regions, using war, conflict, and natural disasters to create dependency, intentionally failing to protect citizens, using Fano to secure their own power and stop the TPLF and then arresting, torturing, and killing them…

to render Amharas defenceless, excluding ethnic Amharas from higher education, etc. Oh, and who could forget releasing war criminals and terrorists!

…

That’s why the bill is called the “Ethiopia Stabilization, Peace, and Democracy Act”: no matter who is in power, a puppet or otherwise, the West, Africans, Ethiopians, the WHOLE WORLD needs Ethiopia to be stable to benefit. If Ethiopia remains a war and conflict-ridden zone,…

all foreign entities will lose their interests in, not just Ethiopia, but the entire Horn of Africa & even East Africa. Also, even though the U.S. & West generally have a bad track record with other countries, that doesn’t mean we’ll have the same relationship &/or fate as them.

The U.S. did want a puppet gov’t to overthrow the DERG, which is why they supported the TPLF. But did we Ethiopians know they were being supported financially, militarily, & diplomatically by the West at the time? Absolutely not, which is the only reason why they managed to…

take power and dominate and then corrupt the other resistance parties in the EPRDF. But things are very different now as we know very well who is supporting the TPLF, and so there is virtually no chance of them being able to forcefully take back power and govern the country,…

unless, again, the current GoE allows them to. I would also like to add that Ethiopia has worked with and benefited from European and Western actions in the past. We were helped by the Portuguese, the Russians, the Soviet Union, Cuba, and the British in various wars.

It was actually also the U.S. that helped Emperor Haile Selassie build Ethiopian Airlines almost a century ago, which is important to our country’s economy and reputation today.

In other words, the TPLF, America, the West, Amharas, Afars, and other non-pro-Oromummaa groups in Ethiopia actually have a common enemy: the GoE, which is a bane on all our existences, and we all oppose it for our OWN reasons.

Hence, my point here is that you shouldn’t view everything that comes from the West as inherently bad. As Ethiopians CAN benefit from #HR6600, it’s worth supporting, even if other parties may benefit as well. The enemy of one’s enemy is a friend at times, after all.

So for the sake of our people and our country, we Ethiopians, especially Amharas and Afars, who’ve been hurt the most, need to stand together against the GoE, before it’s too late.

That is why we are encouraging and empowering Ethiopians to wake up and save themselves and their country before the Oromo gov’t destroys it with its Oromo supremacist, Oromo first policy. The north of the country is already hugely damaged and its people aggrieved,…

and our country’s reputation has also been badly damaged. To prevent the GoE from causing any more damage to Ethiopia—and the reality is that it has caused MUCH more damage to Ethiopia than HR6600 ever will—we need to rise up, as one.

Furthermore, when the TPLF entered Amhara and Afar, the West may have supported them, but the federal and regional gov’s ALSO supported them in their own ways: by failing to mobilize the army throughout the regions fast enough,…

https://twitter.com/addisabawit/status/1507018822347239437?s=21&t=uqH8Zr_3VvmhwtOiIQzPdQ

by failing to arm the citizens, by calling for a ceasefire but not taking the necessary precautions to ensure that the other side upholds it or preventing the TPLF from entering the neighbouring regions and attacking again, etc.

https://twitter.com/xotrinx/status/1472752077256417283?s=21&t=u0Q3I-xNDUeM27H7phP0cg

Many Amharas in the Amhara region also complained that when the TPLF came to attack them, all the police, security forces, gov’t officials, etc. ran away. They even said they closed down the gun and ammunition shops!

https://twitter.com/xotrinx/status/1473798109813694466?s=21&t=rJnEheljgcXJjM7TPvDiUQ

We also learned very recently from the TPLF themselves that the reason they attacked the Northern Command of the ENDF and Eritrea was because they felt the imminent threat of an attack on their people and/or leadership. They say they felt “cornered, trapped” by…

Abiy Ahmed’s actions and desire to consolidate his power by eliminating any actual or potential threats to it. We are seeing the same thing today as Abiy actively hunts down Fanos. This, then, may have been a provocation on the part of the GoE, and look where it got us!

As such, Ethiopia’s greatest enemy right now is the GoE itself, and until it is stopped, Ethiopians will continue to suffer. So we firmly believe that the passing of HR6600 will do for our country and our people all the things it says it will. As I mentioned before,…

it will also force the GoE to get its act together and stop abusing its power through negative action and inaction. This bill is thus the biggest threat NOT to Ethiopia and Ethiopians, but to the GoE, which is why they’re so scared of it, why they give it so much attention,…

why they try so hard to turn people against it, & why they spread so many lies about it. But of course, anything that hurts our enemy may help us, & this is definitely the case for HR6600. So I understand your concerns, but the pros of this bill FAR outweigh the potential cons.

Also, do you have any alternative ideas on how to force the GoE to respect, feed, protect its citizens, and rehabilitate the nation?

Because so far, HR6600 is our best bet, and until someone comes up with something better, it is in our best interest to support this bill, lest we want our country to keep going down and our people to become extinct.

”

P.S. We’ve already seen multiple positive effects of #HR6600, before it has even passed, including but not limited to: (1) the GoE suddenly declaring a humanitarian truce after seeing Amharas & Afars beginning to support the bill, despite pretending the war was over for 3 months;

(2) a noticeable change in tone in U.S. gov’t officials’ tweets and statements about who exactly in Ethiopia needs aid, as before they called for only the Tigray region and Tigrayans to receive aid, but now they are extending these demands to cover ALL regions and peoples…

in need of aid (i.e., also Amharas and Afars);

(3) in the last few weeks, Amharas and Afars have seen an increase in humanitarian aid deliveries as well as more attention being given to their needs. We can expect this trend to continue as more pressure is placed on the GoE to extend aid to all Ethiopians and to facilitate…

the process as well;

(4) the GoE and its supporters have shown that they are more concerned about opposing this bill than opposing the ongoing Amhara and Afar genocides, several of them even daring to question their “veracity” and/or “severity”;

(5) true Amharas/Afars/Ethiopians distancing themselves from the fakes and pretenders among them and the associated movements that dismiss or outright ignore their concerns;

(6) sleepy Amharas/Afars/Ethiopians increasingly waking up and learning the truth about their country and its gov’t, and consciously choosing to put their people above the gov’t, to put Ethiopians and Ethiopia above the GoE;

(7) organizations that genuinely have Ethiopians’ best interests at heart doing and saying what is needed to safeguard the lives and livelihoods of Ethiopians as well as advance their interests, despite the potential backlash and controversy; and

(8) in the last few days, as others have noted, reports of targeted killings of Amharas in the Oromo and Benishangul-Gumuz regions have, seemingly, stopped.

As we continue to observe the positive effects of HR6600 and the GoE’s continued abuses against Ethiopians, the true Amharas, Afars, and Ethiopians who still oppose the bill will eventually warm up to it. That I believe. #SupportHR6600

#StateSponsoredAmharaGenocide #AfarUnderAttack #JusticeForAmharaStudents #StopKillingFano #AbiyAhmedIsaDictator

…

As millions of Ethiopians suffer and die each day, some protestors dance and sing like they don’t have a single care in the world,…

https://twitter.com/natenega/status/1508467666473865218?s=21&t=9GT9QJ37wrYqAtTyAO4pkQ

while other protestors scream their hearts out to give voice to their voiceless people.

https://twitter.com/etiozion/status/1508151949182578692?s=21&t=AyNOg31DsGP6zYooc8voNg

…

https://twitter.com/gihonawit/status/1494359729958801408?s=21&t=E8qDlB0lyCq87VdqzYjOlQ

That is the difference between fake and real Ethiopians.

The question is…

What kind of Ethiopian are you?

If u agree with me, I’m tagging u so u share this post for more ppl to see it & have their beliefs reinforced. If u r sincere but misguided about this bill, it’s so u open ur eyes. If u r insincere & deceitful about it, it’s to call out ur lies and hypocrisy. U know who u r.