Will Antonio Guterres Be on the Right Side of History by Invoking Resolution 2417, Today?
Source: Globe News Net
October 6, 2021
By- Ztseat(Dr.)
In what is deliberate deprivation of the civilian population in Tigray of all means of farming, Eritrean and Ethiopians troops explored every village in Tigray, slaughtered farm animals, especially oxen essential for ploughing; they slaughter more than they can eat, killing the animals as punishment. Eritrean soldiers even killed newborn chicks with the soles of their feet. Ethiopian troops shoot donkeys, which are essential means of transportation in Tigray, on their heads to kill them; Eritrean soldiers too did the same when they are not able to take them to Eritrea.
Eritrean and Ethiopian soldiers also destroyed irrigation canals, small dams; they destroyed all irrigation materials, including yolks, scissors. They burnt crops, either looted or burnt food stuff in a house-to-house search; they uprooted newly planted trees.
Eritrean soldiers were seen cutting mango trees in the Rama area of Tigray in a video which widely circulated in Social media. Both Eritrean and Ethiopian soldiers set bushes on fire; they deliberately set fire a forest in Sheraro and Atsbi areas, to leave an already deforested Tigray a barren land, inhospitable for living.
This has pushed thousands of elephants who use to inhabit inside Kafta-Sheraro Park to migrate Northwards to Eritrea. Eritrea a week ago announced its elephant number “markedly increased”; these are the same elephants which were forced out of Tigray by the destruction of their natural habitat.
the entire sesame and maize production in Western Tigray was taken to either Asmara or Gonder by the governments of Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Amhara.
Ethiopian federal forces and Eritrean troops have targeted Tigray’s economy for comprehensive destruction. The Almeda textile factory in Adwa employed about 8,000 workers until a year ago; the Eritrean forces took everything they could load onto trucks and then the rest was destroyed with explosives, mortars and artillery.
A pharmaceutical factory in Adigrat, a leather factory, a glass factory, Mesfin Industrial Engineering, a Mining Factory, a Marble factory, numerous textile factories e.t.c, employing more than 80,000 people in Tigray, were deliberately destroyed. Much of the machineries were taken by Eritrean army to Asmara.
The destruction of civilian structure like health facilities, water systems, schools is a well documented fact. MSF documented that nearly 70 % had been looted and more than 30 % had been damaged; just 13 per cent were functioning normally.
Earlier this week, Associated Press published the first pictures of the starving in Tigray in the famine of 2021. The pictures are all from Mekelle, many from Ayder Referral Hospital in the city, where Tigrayan doctors and aid workers are trying to save the lives of severely malnourished children without outside help.
Early June, UN emergency relief coordinator Mark Lowcock said “There’s famine now in Tigray.“
His statement at a roundtable discussion ahead of the G7 summit showed that a UN-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) estimated that 353,000 people in Tigray were in phase 5 (catastrophe) and a further 1.8 million are in phase 4 (emergency).
On August 8, just two months after the UN declared that “famine-conditions” were affecting 350,000 people in Tigray and just and one month after USAID declared 900,0000 Tigrayans were facing famine – the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWSNET) published its food security outlook for Tigray. The report shows there are people throughout the region identified as in Catastrophe (IPC Phase 5, i.e. famine). An estimated 5.2 million people are now critically food insecure and require sustained life-saving assistance to prevent them from falling into famine.
At the end of June, the Ethiopian government imposed a blockade on Tigray. Since then, according to USAID, only 10 percent of the necessary relief assistance required is being allowed entry to the region. The World Food Programme (WFP) has said it needs 100 trucks every day to enter Tigray to keep up with needs. Given the extreme shortage of relief assistance entering the region, one must assume those needlessly suffering is far higher today.
Mr. Grant Leaity, Un Acting Humanitarian Coordinator for Ethiopia, ina statement he issued on September 2, 2021 said, “With the inability to bring in sufficient and sustained levels of humanitarian supplies, cash and fuel, the humanitarian situation in the North of Ethiopia is set to worsen dramatically, particularly in Tigray region.”
He disclosed that an estimated 5.2 million people (90 %of Tigray’s population) need urgent humanitarian assistance, including 400,000 people already facing famine-like conditions.
He continued, ” Where UNICEF recently alerted that over 100,000 children in Tigray could suffer from life threatening severe acute malnutrition in the next 12 months – a tenfold increase compared to the average annual caseload.”
“Stocks of relief aid, cash and fuel are running very low or are completely depleted. Food stocks already ran out on 20 August. A minimum of 100 trucks of food, non-food items, and fuel must enter Tigray every day to sustain an adequate response. To date, and since 12 July, only 335 trucks have entered the region (9 % of the required 3,900 trucks). Not one single truck has entered the Tigray region since 22 August.”
The spokesperson of the U.S. State Department Ned Price early September said that “Nearly one month after the USAID administrator was on the ground there in Ethiopia, she emphasized the dire humanitarian catastrophe that faces 5.2 million. The situation on the ground has gotten worse since then.”
He added, “The truth is that access has been limited to but a trickle by the government of Ethiopia. Warehouses sit empty in Tigray, because the government has put a stranglehold around the region, trucks with life-saving assistance remain idle as administrator Power lamented a month ago, while desperate Ethiopians slide closer to famine.”
In a statement on September 21, OCHA Ethiopia “ The de facto blockade on the Tigray region has significantly restricted humanitarian operations due to restricted movements of aid supplies, fuel, and cash”, adding “Across all sectors, operational capacity has been severely reduced and critical activities suspended. Food stocks ran out on 20 August. Health partners have suspended programs to deliver emergency health kits and vaccinate vulnerable communities against cholera, measles, and polio. Furthermore, electricity, communications, banking services and commercial air flights remain suspended since the end of June. The situation is impacting over 5 million people in Tigray, including 2 million internally displaced people (1.2 million in IDP sites)”
In a recent statement on September 30, OCHA Ethiopia said “During the week (21-28 September), 79 trucks of humanitarian supplies arrived in Tigray via Afar. This brings the number of humanitarian trucks that entered the region since 12 July to 606 trucks, or 11 % of the trucks needed. Humanitarian partners estimate that 100 trucks with food, non-food items, and fuel must enter Tigray every day to meet the needs on the ground.
According to WFP, Tigray has one of the highest prevalence of insufficient food consumption in the country, which has risen from 5 to 21 % between June and September 2021. The nutrition situation is also critical. Screenings for malnutrition during the reporting period indicate unprecedented high levels of moderate malnutrition (MAM) among pregnant and lactating women. Of the more than 15,000 pregnant and lactating women screened during the reporting period, more than 12,000 women, or about 79 %, were diagnosed with acute malnutrition reaching about 79 per cent. MAM level among children under five years is also exceeding global emergency threshold of 15 %, at about 18 per cent, while cases of children with severe malnutrition is 2.4 %, above the alarming 2 % level.
The crisis in Tigray’s region in Ethiopia is a “stain on our conscience,”the United Nations humanitarian chief, Martin Griffiths in September 29, 2021.
Just 10% of needed humanitarian supplies have been reaching Tigray in recent weeks, Mr. Griffiths said. “So people have been eating roots and flowers and plants instead of a normal steady meal,” he said. “The lack of food will mean that people will start to die.”
OCHA has been repeatedly calling on parties to the conflict to allow unfettered humanitarian access, for close to a year period, now.
September 3, 2021, theAfrican Union urged Ethiopia’s government to step up efforts to ensure humanitarian access to the war-torn Tigray region to prevent starvation, as aid workers struggle to reach desperate populations.
Speaking at the G7 roundtable in the UK on June 10, U.S. Special Envoy Jeff Feltman warned, we “should not wait to count the graves” before declaring the crisis in Tigray what it is: a famine. That was a warning.
Early September, Tigray State government announced that at least 150 people in Tigray have been starved to death in the month of August.
Telecommunications, electricity and banking services have again been cut off to Tigray since the elected government of Tigray retook much of the region in June.
Tigray leader Dr. Debretsion Gebremichael in a letter dated Sept. 3, sent to more than 50 heads of state and government and multilateral organizations called for pressure on Ethiopia for the “immediate and unconditional lifting of the siege on Tigray” and “an internationally sponsored and all-inclusive negotiation” for a cease-fire.
Despite that, the government of Ethiopia has continuedto deny the presence of hunger in Tigray.
Days after the UN chief warned that ‘Tigray is descending to famine’, Ethiopia expelled 7 UN higher officials, including UN Humanitarian-Ethiopia Chief Grant Leaity. This has been a shock to the world, and a signal to Ethiopia’s commitment to starve the entire Tigray to death.
The prime minister’s advisor, Deacon Daniel Kibret has said “they should be the last of their kind; they shall not be repeated…that future researchers studying the TPLF “shouldn’t find anything about them, except after digging the ground.”
In fact, Pekka Haavisto, Finland’s foreign minister, and European Union special envoy to Tigray said that in his talks with Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and other ministers in February, the Ethiopian leadership said that they were “going to wipe out, destroy the Tigrayans for 100 years”.
On May 24, 2018 UN Security Council anonymously adopted Resolution 2417. The resolution condemns starving of civilians, unlawfully denying humanitarian access as warfare Tactics.
The resolution calls on all parties to armed conflict to comply with their obligations under international humanitarian law regarding the protection of civilians and on taking care to spare civilian objects, stressing that armed conflicts, violations of international law and related food insecurity could be drivers of forced displacement.
Article 1 of the resolution reads “….calls on all parties to armed conflict to comply with their obligations under international humanitarian law regarding respecting and protecting civilians and taking constant care to spare civilian objects, including objects necessary for food production and distribution such as farms, markets, water systems, mills, food processing and storage sites, and hubs and means for food transportation, and refraining from attacking, destroying, removing or rendering useless objects that are indispensable to the survival of the civilian population, such as foodstuffs, crops, livestock, agricultural assets, drinking water installations and supplies, and irrigation works, and respecting and protecting humanitarian personnel and consignments used for humanitarian relief operations”
This is exactly what the governments of Ethiopia, Eritrea and Amhara did. By scheduling the war to start early November- a high time for harvest; by deliberately destroying materials essential for agricultural production, including by killing oxen, destroying farming tools; by deliberately destroying irrigation canals, burning crops, cutting trees, burning bushes, stealing food stuff from every household; by deliberately destroying entire villages, Ethiopia, Eritrea and Amhara has clearly violated international laws…much can be said about this.
The resolution strongly condemned the unlawful denial of such access and depriving civilians of objects indispensable to their survival — including willfully impeding relief supply and access for responses to conflict‑induced food insecurity.
Tigray now is completely sieged; EU has declared siege on Tigray two months back. The siege on Tigray has continued. EU commission announced on Tuesday October 5 that close to a million people in Tigray are in famine condition. The EU Commissioner for international partnerships called for a concerted global response.
The Resolution clearly says that that using hunger as weapon of war is war crime.
The Security Council on the resolution also says that it could consider adopting sanctions, where appropriate and in line with existing practices, that would apply to individuals or entities obstructing the delivery or distribution of humanitarian assistance to civilians in need.
Article 11 of the resolution:
‘….requests ‘the Secretary‑General to continue to provide information on the humanitarian situation and response, including on the risk of famine and food insecurity in countries with armed conflict, as part of his regular reporting on country‑specific situations
Most importantly, Article 12 of the resolution reads:
Requests the Secretary‑General to report swiftly to the Council when the risk of conflict‑induced famine and widespread food insecurity in armed conflict contexts occurs, and expresses its intention to give its full attention to such information provided by the Secretary‑General when those situations are brought to its attention
Additionally, in 2019 there was an amendment to the Rome statute of the international criminal court, outlawing starvation as a war crime in civil conflicts.
Ten months after the first warnings of conflict-related food insecurity were sounded, the Secretary general remains reluctant to declare the deliberate starvation of Tigray “war crime”, and present the starvation crime to the UN Security Council as per Article 12 of Resolution 2417.
Today, the Security Council convenes on Tigray; the Secretary General is also expected to brief the Security Council. will he be bold enough to invoke Resolution 2417 and press the all Security Council members to come to an agreement? Will he choose to sit on the right side of history, today?
This is what today’s UN Security Council meeting brings to a test.
The Author of the Article, Ztseat(Dr.) is a Medical Doctor, Civil Society Leader, and Political Activist.
