If you’re an ally of Ethiopia and the Ethiopian people, you might feel pretty frustrated about now. I don’t know about you, but I’ve come to the conclusion that we’re wasting time on the wrong battles.
The TPLF has managed to play the Western media like a fiddle. It began the conflict, boasting through its sock puppets like Kjetil Tronvoll that “battle hardened troops” would make for a long fight. And the media ate that up. Those same troops were humiliated in a couple of months, but then the spin masters moved the conversation to “When would the Abiy government sit down and talk? Why wouldn’t it sit down and talk? And wasn’t that the decent thing to do? To sit down and talk? You heartless meanies!” Blah, blah, blah.
The word went forth of a massive humanitarian crisis, and now it was all the fault of the war and the Abiy government. Forget those who were already suffering while the TPLF were in power. Never mind that no Western reporter has bothered to sit down and do basic math — Lawrence Freeman has had to do that for them.
So on February 13, influential New York Times columnist quote-tweeted Kenneth Roth of Human Rights Watch, claiming, “The government is starving the Tigray population and refusing to allow humanitarian access. It’s an appalling situation.”
This guy won the Pulitzer Prize twice, but I guess success has made him lazy, as he can’t bust his ass to check the simplest facts. No, that was done for him by Ethiopians who quickly fired back with the video made by David Beasley of the World Food Programme. Hey, look! Food aid is coming in. Yes, the WFP and others are working with the Ethiopian government. Yes, there are issues on scaling up aid and logistical problems, but that does not give you the right to toss around an accusation that a government is deliberately starving a people.
Consider the phrasing in this story from The New Humanitarian: “The UN has tried to negotiate response procedures, to little effect, and Ethiopia so far has brushed off diplomatic demands for unhindered access, leaving dozens of aid agencies at a near-standstill on the sidelines of an unfolding humanitarian disaster.”
This story also went online days after Beasley was phone-camming himself in front of trucks being unloaded.
We are fighting the wrong fight. Ethiopians and their allies are wasting their time with bickering back-and-forths on Twitter and other platforms, with even sending out posts in the vain hope that they’ll get noticed by Jake Tapper at CNN.
It’s time to take away the weapons and the toys of the TPLF’s shadow army in the diaspora communities. It’s time to go after what they use and how they use it.
Black Lives Matter didn’t just change the world by casting a spotlight on systemic police violence. In the great tidal wave of its movement came “Defund the police,” which challenged our whole way of thinking about law enforcement. It’s high time we did that with human rights organizations. Challenge the assumptions underlying those groups.
I’m saying it loud. I’m screaming it: Defund Human Rights Watch. Defund Crisis Group. Defund Amnesty International.
Because this is the new colonialism for Africa. This is the new, liberal-lite white supremacy.
Oh, you’re a white person reading this, and it sounds extreme? Got your attention? Good. About flippin’ time. And I think I can make my case.
Consider that we’re dealing with organizations that will tweet about Ethiopia but use old photos of Iraq and Somalia. We have Amnesty International, who had apologize last year for a blatantly biased tweet, which was even noticed by BBC News. We have Human Rights Watch, with Kenneth Roth who will blame Ethiopian forces for massacres while posting articles that actually contradict his message. We have Crisis Group, which likes to lecture African governments over crushing dissent, but has more than one senior analyst who likes to engage in cyber-bullying of those who don’t agree with their narratives. Trust me, Human Resources at Crisis Group has been busy lately, rapping knuckles.
Why am I mentioning social media so much? Because this is how they build their brand. That, and being ready and willing mouth pieces for network news.
Source: https://jeffpearce.medium.com/
