Ethiopian National Defense Force (ENDF) Chief of Staff Birhanu Jula Gelalcha accused the country’s World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on November 19 of lobbying to support the ruling party in the northern Tigray region’s military junta and helping it acquire weapons.
Military clashes between the Ethiopian government and the military junta in Tigray, which broke out on November 4 and is now in its third week, have resulted in hundreds of deaths and at least 30,000 people crossing into exile in neighboring Sudan. Tandesse, a Tigrean, belongs to the Tigrean People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) party. Earlier, the Ethiopian Emergency Verification Team (EERT) issued a statement on November 17 that the Ethiopian National Defense Force (ENDF) had won decisive victories on both the Eastern and Western fronts in Tigray. The EPDF has reportedly captured several towns in eastern Tigray, destroyed the TPLF junta building defenses, and seized weapons. The verification team updated its report on Thursday that the Tigray junta has destroyed much of the infrastructure in Tigray, blowing up four bridges to Mekelle and destroying the asphalt road between the towns of Shire and Axum in order to dig trenches to prevent the advance of the EDF towards Mekelle, the capital of Tigray.
This man (Tan Desai) is a member of that group and he has been supporting them as much as he can,” he said at a press conference Thursday. Graça said Tandesai has worked in neighboring countries to condemn the war. But he fought for arms for the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF). He said Tandesse has “spared no effort” to help the TPLF. In a televised address early on the 4th of April local time, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed announced that the defense forces would begin a military offensive against the TPLF in the Tigray region after the TPLF attacked an EPDF base in the Tigray region and attempted to take over the Northern Command.
It is worth mentioning that Ahmed is the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize winner and became the country’s Prime Minister in 2018. Tigray is located in the northernmost part of Ethiopia, bordering Eritrea, and has been one of the most sensitive regions in Ethiopia since the border war between Ethiopia and Eritrea broke out between 1998 and 2000. The Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) was an important part of Ethiopia’s former ruling coalition, which controlled most of Ethiopia from 1991-2018.
In November 2019, Ahmed formally established a new ruling party, the Ethiopian Prosperity Party (EPP), and the TPLF did not join it, believing itself to be marginalized, and tensions between the two parties have intensified since then. After the conflict erupted in November, the TPLF claimed that it was being unfairly treated and persecuted by the government.
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