Addis Ababa, September 7, 2022 (FBC) – The lack of international attention on the details of the ongoing conflict in Ethiopia coupled with the media bias in international news in favor of TPLF is making things complicated, said the New Zealander journalist and political analyst Alastair Thompson, in an exclusive interview with FBC.
The continued disinformation and misinformation campaign by members, leaders and sympathizers of the rebel TPLF have deluded the international community to recognize the rebel TPLF group as an underdog in the situation, he said.
“For instance, at the outset of the war, #TigrayGenocide hashtag was initiated, which was well before there were soldiers anywhere near Tigray,” he elaborated.
“Subsequent to that we saw through 2021 a whole series of arranged propaganda, sort of incidents, most notably the bodies in the river near Sudan, and spectacularly that sort of reports by the CNN came out to spread.”
“The report revealed that the bodies had actually been chemically preserved, that they’d been tied with pieces of plastic. And there were also reports that people who were picking up the bodies were being phoned from Humera and told to inspect the bodies. I think this is probably one of the most important aspects of the propaganda campaign by the TPLF.”
“Even today there is nobody to confirm the alleged kindergarten bombing incident that was reported by TPLF side as it took place on the third day of the renewed war. No news media showed interest to verify it and make sure that the footage that was made viral by the TPLF Information Group is valid. I think that needs to be acknowledged,” Alastair Thomson added.
“The initial reports were that the attack was in a residential neighborhood that was adjacent to where Debretsion lived, and then subsequently, all of a whole lot of tweets were deleted, and another reports emerged to claim that it occurred near a hospital.”
Thompson underscored that the international media need to understand that the lying is second nature to the TPLF and that they have various agents like Kjetil Tronvol, Martin Plaut, Alex De Waal and Rashid Abdi who are telling on the TPLF side of the story favoring the group. He explained that the media bias in favor of the TPLF is worsening consequences of the conflict.
Many of the international media are also reporting in favor of the TPLF avoiding its serious crimes. For instance, the international community and the media never talked about the use of child soldiers by TPLF, and the child soldiers issues has always been top of mind, he paraphrased.
They are using the children as human shields, the child human shields.
“When the captured and escaped child soldiers were interviewed by Ann Fitz Gerald they said that they were often sent into battle with no uniforms and guns. They were told that the guns were confiscated from the enemy. But I think the guns were just taken from their fallen soldiers.”
“Now there are independent journalists covering the realities in Ethiopia. And I’m one of those. I am not trying to take pro-government perspective. I have just observed the conflict very closely for a long period of time. And it is relatively clear for me what was actually happening,” he said.
What will be most helpful would be if the government would produce good daily briefings to the media about what is happening, he underlined.
As it was doing earlier, the TPLF has continued spreading misinformation in the battlefield for the mere purpose of manipulation. The government needs to send reporters from the media to the frontline, and assign them, assign them to keep the world informed about what is really going on in the country, Alastair Thomson added.