Thousands of Ethiopians in the diaspora have gathered this week on the streets of Paris, Brussels, London, Canada, Luxembourg, Germany, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and the United States to express their support to the democratically elected Government led by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed.
The demonstrators also expressed their anger over the misinformation campaigns by major international media such as BBC, CNN, Reuters, AP and Al Jazeera among others that aimed at tarnishing the image of the Government of Ethiopia in relation to the conflict in the northern part of the country.
In the rally held today in front of the headquarters of the European Commission in Brussels, demonstrators urged the European Union and the United States to refrain from pressuring the government of Ethiopia.
The demonstrators displayed posters that denounced the TPLF, supported the leadership of the Government of Ethiopia, and called for the international community and the media to respect the sovereignty of Ethiopia.
As a result of the biased media reports, the United Nations and European Union among others, have been pressuring the Government of Ethiopia to stop defending the country of 110million population by ignoring the crimes being committed on the innocent people by the Tigray peoples Liberation Front (TPLF), which is designated as a terrorist group by the Ethiopian Parliament.
The ongoing military confrontation has started when TPLF launched a military attack against the northern military base of Ethiopian national defense force on November 4, 2020. The TPLF attack was aimed to overtake the heavy military armaments of Ethiopian Government and bring back the over 27 years of dictatorship of TPLF regime on the people of Ethiopia.
TPLF, which claims to represent 6 percent of the over 110 million total population of Ethiopia, was the dominant in Ethiopian politics from May April 2018. The ethnically structured TPLF was powerful within the four-party coalition, which was known as, Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF).
EPRDF was composed of TPLF, an Amhara ethnic party, an Oromo ethnic party, and a political party of Southern region composed of around 45 ethnic groups.
In early 2018 following the popular national protests against the political and economic dominance of TPLF and its dictatorship, the chairman of the ruling coalition Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn has resigned. That has led EPRDF to elect a new chairman, Abiy Ahmed, who was a member of the Oromo party of the coalition. Based on the previous decisions of EPRDF, Abiy Ahmed has announced the transformation of the coalition into one political party – Prosperity Party.
Prosperity party has announced that the previously neglected political parties, which have been in charge of the five peripheral regions of Ethiopia – Somali, Afar, Gambella, Harari, and Benishangul Gumz, have also become members of the new party.
This decision for the first time in about three decades has given the right for the people of these five peripheral regions to take any positions in Ethiopian politics including becoming a prime minister.
Meanwhile, TPLF, which lost its political and economic dominance has refused to join the new party. The dispute between TPLF hardliners and the new administration of Prime Minister Abiy has finally led to the military confrontation started by the former a year ago.
Since the war broke, tens of thousands of people are assumed to die while several millions are displaced. Currently expanding its aggression, TPLF is in battle with the federal government invading the neighboring Amhara and Afar regions.
Indicating that the people affected by the conflict especially are not able to get humanitarian assistance, the United States and European Union have been putting pressure on the government of Ethiopia, while ignoring the fact that TPLF has refused to return back 428 trucks which delivered food aid to the people of Tigray a few months ago.
The fact that the United Nations agencies, which are reportedly under the influence of U.S. and its allies, have not been able to condemn the crimes of TPLF including the over 200 people massacre at Maikadra, has angered Ethiopian including those in the diaspora who are now demonstrating in different parts of the world.
Over the past few days, similar protests by the Ethiopians in the diaspora has taken place on the streets of the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, and Belgium among others. Opposing the foreign policy of President Biden Administration of the United States, Ethiopians and Eritreans in Virginia have voted for the Republican Party candidate a few weeks ago.
That has led the Republican candidate to win the election and the Democrats to lose their state for the first time after decades. In retaliation to the continuous sanctions on Ethiopian and Eritrean governments by the President Biden Administrations, Ethiopians and Eritreans have vowed to deny their votes to the Democratic Party during the mid-term election in the United States.