The United Nations\u2019 top development agency said in a memo to U.N. Secretary-General Ant\u00f3nio Guterres that leadership in Ethiopia\u2019s Tigray region deserves much of the blame for provoking the federal government\u2019s bloody offensive against the Tigrayans, appearing to suggest that a military crackdown that has driven half a million people from their homes and fueled allegations of mass atrocities may have been justified.
\nThe confidential memo\u2014signed by Achim Steiner, the administrator of the U.N. Development Program (UNDP)\u2014says that \u201call sides\u201d in the East African conflict bear a share of responsibility for the bloody government offensive on the northern Ethiopian region of Tigray, with federal forces receiving backing from the Eritrean armed forces and militias from Ethiopia\u2019s Amhara ethnic group.<\/p>\n
The four-page memo points to the Tigray People\u2019s Liberation Front, Ethiopia\u2019s former ruling political party, as provoking the Ethiopian government offensive by attacking and seizing Ethiopia\u2019s Northern Command headquarters in Tigray in early November 2020, in what would have been an \u201cact of war everywhere in the world, and one that typically triggers military response in defense of any nation,\u201d according to the Feb. 16 memo, which was obtained by Foreign Policy.<\/p>\n
The memo provides a largely sympathetic account of Ethiopia\u2019s role in the crisis, echoing government talking points and repeating the Ethiopian leadership\u2019s says that the international community has failed to address Tigrayan provocations over the past two years, including its opposition to government reforms and refusal to engage in political talks with the government. <\/p>\n
The memo also urges donor states to focus more on development and humanitarian goals and less on reprimanding the Ethiopian government over its human rights record and especially the excesses committed during the conflict. It recommends that any investigation into human rights abuses be led by Ethiopia\u2019s own national Human Rights Commission, possibly with international participation.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn a context like Ethiopia, this approach is likely to be counter-productive and will yield no results,\u201d the memo states, referring to taking a confrontational tack.<\/p>\n
The memo paints a damning portrait of the Tigrayan political leadership, characterizing it as an obstacle to the government\u2019s reform agenda, while faulting foreign governments for failing to call the Tigrayans out over the past two years when their actions challenged the rule of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed.
\n\u201cThe ghosts of a repressive 27-year TPLF regime continue to torment the country\u2014and winning the hearts and minds for social cohesion requires accepting that there is blame on all sides, including the international community,\u201d it states.<\/p>\n
It remains unclear what influence, if any, the memo will have on the thinking of the U.N. secretary-general. UNDP\u2019s pro-government stance reflects the fact that any effort to restore peace and basic services in Tigray will require the cooperation of the Ethiopian government. But it also underscores a long-standing concern U.N. observers have held about the development agency: Its dependence on member states\u2019 approval for development programs has made the organization almost reflexively deferential to governments where it operates. The agency\u2019s reluctance in the past to criticize governments from Myanmar to Sri Lanka as they carried out mass atrocities against ethnic minorities inflicted lasting harm on the U.N.\u2019s reputation as a champion of human rights.<\/p>\n
Senior U.N. and UNDP officials said that the memo does not reflect the official U.N. position and that is simply one of a number of briefing notes reviewed by senior leaders in the organization seeking to forge a U.N. position on the crisis.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese internal briefing notes provide insight and analysis based on a variety of views and positions of stakeholders on the ground, and do not constitute UNDP\u2019s endorsement or official position on a particular issue,\u201d according to a statement from a UNDP spokesperson.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The United Nations\u2019 top development agency said in a memo to U.N. Secretary-General Ant\u00f3nio Guterres that leadership in Ethiopia\u2019s Tigray region deserves much of the blame for provoking the federal government\u2019s bloody offensive against the Tigrayans, appearing to suggest that a military crackdown that has driven half a million people from their homes and fueled […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":269,"featured_media":352060,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-352057","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ethiopian-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Abiy-Ahmed-in-Mekelle-4.jpg?fit=600%2C360&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9NivD-1tAl","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352057","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/269"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=352057"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352057\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":352059,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352057\/revisions\/352059"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/352060"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=352057"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=352057"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=352057"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}