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When I took office as Prime Minister of Ethiopia in April 2018, I had only one driving mission for my position as Prime Minister: to put my country and my people on the path to lasting peace and prosperity. I swore to myself, my family and my people, in private and in public, that I would never use force as a way to resolve internal political differences. I believe that no problem is worthy of bloodshed, that all problems can be resolved amicably if we have the courage of our convictions to sit around a table, in good faith, in search of mutually acceptable solutions. Furthermore, I declared that the only enemy I would mobilize my people and resources against to wage war was poverty.
However, my vision and determination have been under great strain from the beginning of my term as Prime Minister. It didn’t take long for the leadership of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) to launch a campaign, covertly and overtly, to undermine my administration and make our people and the rest of the world believe that, without them to the head, Ethiopia would be ungovernable. In order to present their case, the TPLF leadership had to present the evidence of ungovernability themselves, organizing a clandestine national campaign of crime and violence: sponsoring, financing and training disgruntled individuals to instigate communal confrontations and attacks on members of ethnic minorities in different parts of the country. Attacks sponsored and orchestrated by the TPLF leadership have left more than two million internally displaced people and thousands of people dead in the last two and a half years.
He was fully aware that the TPLF leadership orchestrated the chaos, which bordered on party-sponsored terrorism, diverting budgetary resources allocated by the Federal Government to pay for its criminal enterprise and destabilizing the nation. But, despite overwhelming pressure from the public for the Government to stop them by any means necessary, including through the use of force, I made it clear, repeatedly, that my Government would never use force to resolve the matter. I shared this strong and clear position with the TPLF leaders directly, in person and by phone, and reassured the Ethiopian people, including our citizens of the Tigray region, through social media and social media.
When the TPLF leadership declined my personal invitations to engage with my administration in a constructive dialogue about the future of our nation, I encouraged the country’s top religious and community leaders to travel to Mekelle, the capital of the Tigray region, and help federal and regional governments. Political leaders resolve differences peacefully. Sadly, these most revered community and religious leaders were rejected by the TPLF leadership, treating them with the utmost contempt and sending them back with nothing.
Even then, I didn’t give up; I would not do it. As I’ve said before, my own life has taught me that war is “the epitome of hell for everyone involved.” I didn’t come to the office to take my people to hell; rather, I took office committed to leading my people to peace and prosperity. Since I took office just over 30 months ago, I have reiterated, over and over again, that nothing would distract me from my strong position on this matter. Unfortunately, all my persistent efforts to avoid conflict by all means were taken for weakness.
In the end, however, the choice was not going to be mine. As I preached peace and prosperity for my country and my people, and worked day and night to achieve it, a violent attack was launched against my Government and my people. On the night of November 3, 2020, the TPLF leadership launched, under cover of darkness, what they later described, on public television, as a “pre-emptive lightning strike” against the Northern Command of the National Defense Force of Ethiopia (ENDF), which had been stationed in the Region since the outbreak of war with Eritrea more than two decades ago. Using traitors recruited into the army along ethnic lines, the TPLF leadership not only caused the massacre of unarmed soldiers in pajamas in the dead of night, but also illegally seized the entire military arsenal of the Northern Command. Therefore, I was left only with the decision of how, not yes, to fight to defend the integrity of my country and restore constitutional order.
More than the attack, what surprised me and my fellow Ethiopians was the level of cruelty that the TPLF leadership displayed in conducting its criminal operations. After surprising and dominating several regiments of the ENDF forces, the TPLF identified and separated hundreds of unarmed Ethiopian soldiers of non-Tigrayan origin, tied their hands and feet, slaughtered them in cold blood and left their bodies in the air. free. I would never have imagined that it would be humanly possible for a person to kill their fellow soldiers in their sleep and record themselves singing and dancing over the bodies of their victims.
After their surprise attack on their own unsuspecting Ethiopian colleagues, it didn’t take long for the TPLF leadership to begin celebrating and gloating in public about their prowess and invincibility in warfare and how they have now transformed, overnight. , in the largest fighting force. throughout the Horn of Africa.
In retrospect, the surprise attack by the TPLF forces had three interrelated objectives. First, by attacking the Northern Command, which represented the majority of Ethiopia’s most experienced fighting forces, they sought to weaken the ENDF’s ability to safeguard the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the country. Second, by using ethnic Tigraya members of the ENDF to carry out the attack on their comrades in arms from other ethnic groups, they sought to divide and destroy what was left of the ENDF as a cohesive national defense force. Third, once the ENDF was so fractured, defeated and destroyed, and the country almost certainly descended into anarchy, the TPLF would present itself as the only force that could unite the country, ousting and replacing the government. federal by force.
My primary duty as prime minister and commander-in-chief is to protect the nation and its people from internal and external enemies. That is why the Federal Government launched and successfully executed defensive operations to restore law and order in the Tigray Region, sadly making the use of force the only tool left in our arsenal.
I recognize that, in the end, everyone has a right to have a say. Only history will judge whether the federal government under my leadership could have done more to solve the existential crisis that my proud old nation faced on that fateful night of November 3 and its aftermath.
As I write this article, the Ethiopian Army has completed its mission according to plan and captured the regional capital of Mekelle without the large-scale civilian casualties and war crimes that so many in the international community confidently predicted. However, despite the success of these operations, I am not celebrating; I can not be. While I admire the courage and sacrifice of our men and women in uniform, I know that the conflict has caused unimaginable suffering. This is a conflict in which the Ethiopians had to kill their fellow Ethiopians, attack and destroy their own defense infrastructure, and weaken their own defense capabilities. At the same time, I also know that the Federal Government was forced to participate in this operation for existential reasons: the future of Ethiopia as a sovereign nation and the peaceful coexistence of its people were at stake. The high cost we incurred as a nation was necessary.
Now that the active phase of military operations has ended, our next task is to launch the healing process of the aftermath of this traumatic conflict, to ensure our citizens in the affected areas, including those who have been forced to cross borders to the Sudan, have unlimited access to humanitarian assistance and other support necessary to rehabilitate them and return to normal life as soon as possible. The need to restore transport and communication links destroyed by the conflict is also fundamental.
Having once again witnessed the courage and determination of the Ethiopian people to protect their country from its enemies, I am confident that Ethiopia will regain its traditional role as an anchor of stability for the entire subregion and beyond.
At the same time, the peace and security that we have restored at such cost remains fragile. That is why we are determined to ensure that our next elections, scheduled for mid-2021, are fair, free and inclusive, and that the people of Tigray, like all other Ethiopians, will soon be led by a regional government of their free choice. .
