Thread by @althecat

The English Language translation of #TearsOfWolkayit was introduced to me on Thursday in a Twitter Space holding what felt a lot like a digital vigil in the lead up the release of the University of Gondar research.

Thread....

Tears Part-1 via @YouTube

The documentary which runs to a little over an hour in its two parts is a MUST WATCH for anyone who has embraced the false #TigrayGenocide narrative which TPLF has used as cover for its insurgency in Ethiopia.

Tears Part-2

There have been extensive war crimes and ethnic cleansing committed in the territory which is wrongly called #WesternTigray in western media, a lengthy one, of the people and the culture of Amhara people of Wolkayit.

The Amhara TV documentary published in March 2021 [five months after the TPLF attacked the Northern Command - and started the current war] sets it out in exquisite detail what happened through interviews with those who experienced it.

The joint Amnesty and HRW report into "Western Tigray" issued last week, is a monumental exercise in gaslighting aimed at the people of Wolkayit who know very clearly what the truth is in the green and fertile land which they have occupied for 1000 years. amnesty.org/en/latest/news…

Only after watching this has the full clarity of this gaslighting come completely apparent to me - a Ferengi journalist who has been trying to understand the full context of the horrific war in Northern Ethiopia over the past 13 months. Which is why it is imho a MUST WATCH.

The Amnesty/HRW report addresses aspects of this in its Background section of its report, even acknowledging the deaths of protestors against TPLF rule in the area, but it does so in a shallow and selective manner which is unconscionable.

The documentary explains that TPLF started to occupy Wolkayit well before it won its war against the DERG in 1991. Confiscating land and establishing a rule of fear over the people of Wolkayit from the mid 1980s, around the time that the world was transfixed with LiveAid.

I was a teenager back then, and whilst I have since learned about the TPLF's use of aid as weapon - a story eventually told in Western by then BBC Africa editor - now TPLF apologist Martin Plaut. news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8535189.s…

But I am increasingly beginning to understand just how much I do not know, and do not understand about Ethiopia.

Part one of the documentary tells the story from the DERG time through the words of those who experienced it.

The story includes the story of the torture prisons and death camps established in the mountains in Dejene which @PushStartMedia1 and @JemalCountess visited on Wednesday in the lead up to the Gondar University research announcement.

https://twitter.com/althecat/status/1511842412842430464?s=20&t=zZm4BZ9dg5JfnlInCC6HMQ

It talks about the mass graves which have now been found which @PushStartMedia1 and @GettyImages photographer @JemalCountess visited on Thursday.

https://twitter.com/JemalCountess/status/1512291470358818817?s=20&t=dYUGC3I0GAjy25BPqXNoLA

And it contains extensive interviews with Col. Demeke Zewde, hero of the "Wolkait Identity question committee" who was named as a war criminal by @Amnesty and @HRW in their report issued 2 days before the Gondar University announcement.

Here is a report from @Borkena about the release of Demeke Zwedu, who led the successful effort to counter the TPLF's "War of Choice" against Ethiopia which started on November 4 2021 with a treacherous massacre of 1000s of ENDF soldiers. borkena.com/2018/02/19/col…

Anyone reading the @Amesty / @HRW report issued this week - probably after getting wind of the Gondar University research announcement (probably via the TPLF) - will know nothing of the background which is contained in this documentary.

i.e. the entire Western IC.

I am now familiar with my current feeling about all this. This was at the heart of what we discussed in the #TwitterSpace on Thursday - a sense of horror that while the truth is clear - the web of lies spun by the TPLF remains dense and strong.

https://twitter.com/althecat/status/1512225167065460747?s=20&t=dYUGC3I0GAjy25BPqXNoLA

But I also believe silence is breaking on the truth of all this and that individuals in positions of power such as @Amnesty's @LaetitiaBader and @HRW's @KenRoth will eventually be held accountable for their collusion with a group which on its face appears to be genocidal.

@amnesty @LaetitiaBader @hrw @KenRoth "Accuse the other side of that which you are guilty" - Nazi Propagandist Joseph Goebbles.

The authenticity of this is questioned though

However it may be a paraphrase of something Goebbles did say at a 1934 rally in Nuremburg >> research.calvin.edu/german-propaga…

@amnesty @LaetitiaBader @hrw @KenRoth The real quote:...

"The cleverest trick used in propaganda against Germany during the war was to accuse Germany of what our enemies themselves were doing."

... attributes this approach to the WWII Allies, which is deeply ironic in the current circumstances.

@amnesty @LaetitiaBader @hrw @KenRoth Anyone who has been closely following the TPLF's activities over the course of this war will be well aware that this is almost a signature of TPLF spokesman @reda_getachew, a former Minister of Communications in the TPLF govt until 2016.

2016 was also incidentally was the year that one of many "Wolkayit identity committee" protests was put down violently by the TPLF in a hail of bullets 30 people were killed. (See attached a extract from the Amnesty report featuring Colonel Demeke when he was an activist.)

It is clear from this part of Amnesty's report [extract above is from pages 24 -27] Amnesty and HRW are fully aware of the real context to recent events in Wolkayit - but for some reason choose to leave such information out of their summary and ignore it in conclusions.

Tigrayans may well have been chased out of Wolkayit in large numbers as it was retaken by the ENDF (Though the numbers provided by @UN @OCHA @Amnesty and @HRW are absurd) - but surely given the context this is far from surprising.

https://twitter.com/EA_DevCouncil/status/1512114059927121920?s=20&t=dYUGC3I0GAjy25BPqXNoLA

Moreover there is no evidence that this exodus of Tigrayans from Wolkayit was part of some organised govt. or Demeke Zwede plan. It could very easily have been entirely spontaneous.

In conculsion: As noted in previous tweets - this @amnesty / @HRW report is a complete sham. It is unsound in so many ways that it deserves a comprehensive academic debunking. And its authors and those responsible @LaetitiaBader and @KenRoth ought to hang their heads in shame.

As for Colonel Demeke, unless someone proves otherwise he is clearly no war criminal, and is rather a hero of exactly the sort that the TPLF leadership constantly claim to be - a resistance leader who has defended his people against a genocidal regime.

Having now at least partially addressed my own ignorance around all these matters I can also say with some degree of confidence that the people of Wolkayit have represented themselves in relation to these matters with astonishing strength and honesty through a very dark time.

And they deserve unreservedly to be freed from the constant ignorant calls by foreigners for "Western Tigray" to be returned to the TPLF. There is no such thing and never was. What there is a crime scene which is still to be properly investigated, and a people's story un-heard.

Hopefully both will soon be remedied with:
1. A full forensic investigation into the genocidal crimes of the TPLF is needed (but not by @Amnesty or @hrw)
2. A Western Media that actually focuses on the truth here rather than the propaganda released continuously by the TPLF.

/ENDS

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