Open Letter
High Commissioner Michelle Bachelet Jira
Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR)
Palais des Nations
CH-1211 Geneva 10, Switzerland
02/01/2022
Ref: Justice Delayed is Justice Denied
Dear High Commissioner Michelle Bachelet Jira,
We would like to start by wishing you a very pleasant, peaceful, productive and prosperous 2022.
One year has passed since Tigray was under a siege and total blackout. A population of more than seven million is subjected to a total siege and blockage where there is no running water, no food, no basic medicine, no electricity, no banking and as a result,thousands of children and their mothers perished every day . Thousands of adults and children who live with the help of medication are dying of preventable diseases. However, the whole world has watched this genocide act in silence while it taking its tolls in Tigray not for a day, not for a week, not for a month but for over a year now. This is not just sad but inhumane.
As if that was not enough, dozens of drone swarms and jet fighters from China, Iran, UAE, Turkey and other countries darken in the skies of Tigray targeting any moving objects and destroying residential areas and public infrastructure; killing innocent civilian, livestock’s and burning crops. However, the whole world simply watched all these atrocities unfolding for over a year and still lets it continue. When the starved and the sick expected food and medicine, it is Incendiary bombs that aredropped to the people of Tigray. So sad!
No one in their minds will allow a genocider to investigate its heinous crimes. However, the whole world witnessed the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission, the sole defender of Ethiopian government, coming up with a sickening half-baked crime report under the cover of UN Human Rights Council. Out of 160+ massacre sites barely a few were ‘investigated’ under a duress – eye witnesses who tried to tell the truth being intimidated, harassed and blackmailed.
As the UN high commissioner and the Ethiopian human rights commissioner pointed out, their recent report is far from a full rendering of the devastation experienced by civilians in Tigray. The report does not give well-documented trends the attention they deserve. It makes scant mention of the abuses committed by Amhara regional forces and militia against Tigrayans in Tigray. It documents brutal sexual violence by all warring parties, but fails to acknowledge the scale of abuses, including sexual slavery, by Ethiopian, Eritrean, and Amhara forces targeting Tigrayan women and girls, it glosses over the deliberate and extensive destruction and pillaging of civilians infrastructure, and the intimidation and killing of humanitarian workers.
Tigray Advocacy and Development Association (TADA) would like to express its gratitude to the European Union that tabled the serious human rights violation in Tigray and other regions of Ethiopia for further investigation by the UN Human Rights Council. TADA is also very grateful to those countries for their right decision and vote on the investigation. As described above, over seven million people of Tigray are under a total siege and blackout for over a year resulting in a full scale genocide in a broad daylight.
TADA believes that at last justice was done to the people of Tigray when the UN Human Rights Council voted on 17/12/2021. However, unless the people of Tigray are still not getting the basic supplies like food, water and medicine; the whole effort will have no meaning as it will be too little too late for the people who are dying by their thousands everyday.
TADA therefore urges the UN Human Rights council in partnerships with the UNSC:
- Declare no fly zone in the skies of Tigray to prevent migs and drones from killing innocent civilians and destroying properties
- Allow UN convoys to pass through the Region of Afar as they used to pass in the past
- Allow UN flights to Mekele on a special arrangement with the goverments of Ethiopia and Tigray.
Tigrayan Advocacy & Development Association (TADA)
211 Clapham Road
London
SW9 0QH
Email: info@tadauk.org
Note:
Human Rights Council decides to establish an International Commission of Human Rights Experts to investigate allegations of violations in Ethiopia
https://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/HRC/Pages/NewsDetail.aspx?NewsID=27999&LangID=E
Statement on the killing of three MSF aid workers in the Tigray Region
https://ethiopia.un.org/en/133273-statement-killing-three-msf-aid-workers-tigray-region
https://ethiopia.un.org/en/146875-statement-secretary-general-ethiopia
https://ethiopia.un.org/en/150848-secretary-generals-right-reply-security-council-meeting-ethiopia
Ethiopia-Related Sanctions | U.S. Department of the Treasury
Sanctions on Certain Persons with Respect to the Humanitarian and Human Rights Crisis in Ethiopia 14046.pdf (treasury.gov)
Health facilities targeted in Tigray region, Ethiopia | MSF