“The war is with your closest enemy who is sitting in Ethiopian cities collecting information and spending money to your killers.”
The Facebook post below is a sign of the depths to which the supporters of Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Abiy have sunk.
As their forces have suffered reverses in the war with the Tigray Defences Forces, they have turned on their Tigrayan neighbours. The Facebook post below (originally in Amharic) is an example. Little wonder that Tigrayan civilians are being arrested, attacked and murdered in Ethiopian cities.
This is not the first example of hate-speech by the Prime Minister’s supporters.
In September the United States on Monday condemned a speech by a prominent ally of Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed which compared Tigrayan rebels to the devil and said they should be “the last of their kind”.
“Hateful rhetoric like this is dangerous and unacceptable,” a State Department spokesperson told AFP in response to the speech last week by Daniel Kibret, who is often described as an adviser to Abiy and was nominated to the board of the state-run Ethiopian Press Agency last year.
The UN and US have recently voiced concern about hate speech and dehumanising rhetoric in the conflict, but Daniel’s comments were the first to draw specific criticism from Washington. At an event in Amhara attended by high-ranking officials, Daniel called for the total erasure of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), which dominated national politics for nearly three decades before Abiy took office in 2018.
“As you know, after the fall of Satan, there was nothing like Satan that was created… Satan was the last of his kind. And they (the TPLF) must also remain the last of their kind,” Daniel said. “There should be no land in this country which can sustain this kind of weed. “They should be erased and disappeared from historical records. A person who wants to study them should find nothing about them. Maybe he can find out about them by digging in the ground,” he said to applause.
Facebook is under scrutiny for fanning hate speech in Ethiopia
Hate and division on Facebook are not just a problem in the U.S. That’s one of the messages whistleblower Frances Haugen took to Congress last week, where she accused Facebook’s algorithms of quote, “literally fanning ethnic violence in Ethiopia,” a country that’s endured nearly a year of civil war.
Dejene Assefa
• The war is with the one who is your neighbor for ages and is with you and your people and is waiting for your death.• The war is with the traitor you raised.• The war is not only with the invader Junta that came from Tigray but also with the one who is next to you who is drinking your blood instead of your death.• The war is with your closest enemy who is sitting in Ethiopian cities collecting information and spending money to your killers!!!!!• The war is with your neighbor who throws whiskey when he thinks your killer has won!!!!!= If you can control and control these thorny thorny elements you have hugged in your guyah… Don’t doubt the victory is yours!!!!. AND YOU KNOW THEM!!!!.Do it even when you are sad!!!!!. You won’t get worse than them!!!!.Who is evil… Who is the real one… Who is a traitor… Who is wearing a neck… Who is the cruelest one… History will remind him as it was!!!!.Starting today in Dessie in Kombolcha in Habru… This should be done in Addis Ababa and all the cities… You will see the change immediately!!!!.Embrace your killer and killer but expect nothing!!!!.Hold on let go of us!!!!. Be wise because they look good on you!!!!.So hurry up!!!!!. Hurry up!!!! Still hurry up!!!!!Only if you are quick, you will save your people from humiliation and destruction of your country!!!! It’s not greater than your existence!!!!. Protect your unity and do this.. Ethiopia will win!!!!!
We have known this for a long time, but as many innocent Tigrayans, innocent civilians living peacefully anywhere in Ethiopia, are brutally attacked by vicious mobs & murdered, while many watch laughing or unscathed, many more will die and nothing will change until the International Community takes the necessary steps to bring Abiy Ahmed Ali & Co., to International Court for his crimes to humanity, for his crimes against the people of Tigray!
You know what gets me? We are Ethiopians! We indeed are! We are the true Ethiopians! Ethiopians from the state of Tigray; we lived happily and peacefully for 27 years, going everywhere throughout the country without problems, without fears, without permissions, without checkpoints; we traded, we danced, we sang, we celebrated births, marriages, graduations …we had peace…all gone in less than 3 years because of the power hunger of a madman, and sadly, too many Ethiopians don’t see it! It just makes no sense!
Many say TPLF stole from Amhara & brought to Tigray! Absolutely NOT TRUE!
How many roads, hospitals, schools, universities, dams, commercial jets and much more have been implemented in the Addis Ababa/Amhara area & NOT in Tigray!
The few industries built in Tigray have been built with funds contributed by investors in diaspora!! My goodness, Addis Ababa has always been considered ‘the’ city of Ethiopia but now Amharas & Eritreans thanks to their leaders (Abiy & Isaias), have the audacity to say Tigray was built with stolen goods!! Of course they’ve never been in Tigray or they would see how much poverty covers the state….
Anyway, I want to add that I never once called myself Tigrayans before 11/04/2020.
I was an Ethiopian from the state of Tigray.
Now, I am Tigraweyti & may GOD help Tigray because I don’t ever want to be associated with ‘them’. They want my death? I don’t want theirs, but I don’t ever want to be part of them again.
Eritrea Hub, thanks for the article!
>I was an Ethiopian from the state of Tigray. Now, I am Tigraweyti
Goodbye? You vote for TPLF for 30 years worth of elections in Tigray while the rest of Ethiopia suffers. When it is time to stand equal with the rest of Ethiopians, you once again support TPLF that’s been beating war drums since 2018, which then goes ahead to start war. Then you blame the rest of Ethiopia?
You do not want Ethiopia, and Ethiopia does not want you. Farewell.