{"id":12798,"date":"2021-11-02T18:51:53","date_gmt":"2021-11-02T18:51:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/axumawian.com\/?p=12798"},"modified":"2021-11-02T18:51:55","modified_gmt":"2021-11-02T18:51:55","slug":"ethiopia-tried-to-limit-rare-un-report-on-tigray-war-abuses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/axumawian.com\/?p=12798","title":{"rendered":"Ethiopia tried to limit rare UN report on Tigray war abuses"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Source: News Nation<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

November 2, 2021<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The findings of the only human rights investigation allowed in Ethiopia\u2019s blockaded Tigray region will be released Wednesday, a year after war began there. But people with knowledge of the probe say it has been limited by authorities who recently expelled a U.N. staffer helping to lead it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And yet, with groups such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International barred from Tigray, along with foreign media, the report may be the world\u2019s only official source of information on atrocities in the war, which began in November 2020 after a political falling-out between the Tigray forces that long dominated the national government and Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed\u2019s current government. The conflict has been marked by gang rapes, mass expulsions, deliberate starvationand thousands of deaths.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The joint investigation by the U.N. human rights office and the government-created Ethiopian Human Rights Commission, or EHRC, is a rare collaboration that immediately raised concerns among ethnic Tigrayans, human rights groups and other observers about impartiality and government influence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In response to questions from The Associated Press, the U.N. human rights office in Geneva said it wouldn\u2019t have been able to enter Tigray without the partnership with the rights commission. Although past joint investigations occurred in Afghanistan and Uganda, the U.N. said, \u201cthe current one is unique in terms of magnitude and context.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Ethiopia\u2019s government has given no basis for expellingU.N. human rights officer Sonny Onyegbula last month, the U.N. added, and without an explanation \u201cwe cannot accept the allegation that our staff member \u2026 was \u2018meddling in the internal affairs\u2019 of Ethiopia.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because of those circumstances, and the fact that the U.N. left the investigation to its less experienced regional office in Ethiopia, the new report is \u201cautomatically suspect,\u201d said David Crane, founder of the Global Accountability Network and founding chief prosecutor for the Special Court for Sierra Leone, an international tribunal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat you need when you go into an atrocity zone is a clean slate so outside investigators can look into it neutrally, dispassionately,\u201d Crane said. \u201cYou want to do these things where you don\u2019t build doubt, distrust from the beginning,\u201d including among people interviewed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The investigation might be the international community\u2019s only chance to collect facts on the ground, he said, but because of its setup, it may disappear \u201cin the sands of time.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

People close to the investigation, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation, asserted that the head of the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission, Daniel Bekele, underplayed some allegations that fighters from the country\u2019s Amhara region were responsible for abuses in Tigray and pressed instead to highlight abuses by Tigray forces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s even though witnesses have said the perpetrators of most abuses were soldiers from neighboring Eritrea, Ethiopian forces and Amhara regional forces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In response to AP\u2019s questions, Bekele asserted his commission\u2019s independence, saying it is \u201cprimarily accountable to the people it is created to serve.\u201d Attempts to influence the investigation, he added, can come from \u201dmany directions\u201d in such a polarized environment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bekele said he and the commission have consistently cited \u201cserious indications that all parties involved in the conflict have committed atrocities.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Observers say a major shortcoming of the investigation is its failure to visit the scene of many alleged massacres in Tigray, including the deadliest known one in the city of Axum, where witnesses told the AP that several hundred people were killed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bekele said the investigation lacked the support of the Tigray authorities now administering the region after Tigray forces retook much of the area in June, about midway through the joint team\u2019s work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The U.N. human rights office, however, said the government\u2019s subsequent severing of flights and communications from Tigray during the planned investigation period made it difficult to access key locations, both \u201clogistically and from a security point of view.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even the interim Tigray authorities hand-picked by Ethiopia\u2019s government to run the region earlier in the war rejected the joint investigation, its former chief of staff, Gebremeskel Kassa, told the AP.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe informed the international community we wanted an investigation into human rights but not with the EHRC because we believe this is a tool of the government,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The U.N. has said Ethiopia\u2019s government had no say in the report\u2019s publication, though it was given the chance to read the report in advance and to point out \u201canything it believes to be incorrect.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Late last week, Ethiopia\u2019s government and a diaspora group released the results of their own investigations focusing on alleged abuses by Tigray forces after they entered the neighboring regions of Amhara and Afar four months ago in what they called an effort to pressure the government to end its blockade on Tigray.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ministry of justice said it found 483 non-combatants were killed and 109 raped in parts of Amhara and Afar that were recaptured by federal forces in recent weeks. It also found \u201cwidespread and systematic looting\u201d of schools, clinics, churches, mosques and aid groups\u2019 offices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A separate report by the Amhara Association of America said it found that 112 people were raped in several districts covered by the ministry\u2019s findings. The diaspora group drew on data from offices of women\u2019s and children\u2019s affairs as well as interviews with witnesses, doctors and officials.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The diaspora group asserted that the Tigray forces \u201ccommitted the rapes as revenge against ethnic Amharas, whom they blame as responsible for abuses in their home region.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The spokesman for the Tigray forces, Getachew Reda, said the allegations aren\u2019t worth \u201cthe paper they\u2019re written on.\u201d Accusations of rapes and killings by Tigray forces are \u201cabsolutely untrue, at least on a level these organizations are alleging,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Feature image:<\/strong> Haftom Gebretsadik, a 17-year-old from Freweini, Ethiopia, near Hawzen, who had his right hand amputated and lost fingers on his left after an artillery round struck his home in March, sits on his bed at the Ayder Referral Hospital in Mekele, in the Tigray region of northern Ethiopia, on May 6, 2021. A year after war began there, the findings of the only human rights investigation allowed in Ethiopia\u2019s blockaded Tigray region will be released Wednesday, Nov. 3, 2021. (AP Photo\/Ben Curtis, File)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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