“They Have Destroyed Tigray, Literally”: Mulugeta Gebrehiwot Speaks from the Mountains of Tigray

27 January 2021 Call between Mulugeta Gebrehiwot and Alex de Waal 

[The first minute of the call was not recorded. Mulugeta started by describing the onset of  the war.] 

Mulugeta: 

… and the damage it inflicted on the enemies, it’s difficult to express, it was a sort of  miracle. Tigray only had 23 battalions, and 42 divisions of Eritrea and twelve divisions of  Ethiopia, were all here. This is without including the special forces of the Amhara region,  which is beyond, over 10,000, and also special forces of Oromia, Somalia, and other forces  as well. The first month’s resistance was with this level of asymmetry.  

And then the Emirates came. The Emirates effectively disarmed Tigray. They started killing  tanks, then howitzers, then fuel, then ammunition. Then they started hunting small  vehicles, targeting leaders, [indistinct] all over. This created [unclear: risk?] and sort of  dislocation, and this is part of the weakness of the preparation. So many people moved out  of the cities of Tigray towards the rural other areas following the army, some including  their families. 

So, we were caught in between, you know. Are we going to defend these people who flocked out of the cities with their families or are we going to fight, I mean the army was  caught in between. So, the organization has to make a decision. You know, it prioritized  continuing the resistance, and then it advised many of us who were not in active duty in the  resistance to remain in some remote areas which finally resulted in the type of sad news  you heard.  

You know, the result became—they have destroyed Tigray, literally, all of them, EPLF, the  Eritrean forces and the Ethiopian forces. They literally destroyed all the wealth that it had  accumulated for thirty years, and burned schools, clinics, they have ransacked each house.  They moved in. They have started looting the produce of the peasants, from all the villages beyond the black road that crosses Tigray towards Eritrea. And they kill whomever they  find in whichever village they get in. In the village I was in yesterday—it’s a small village— they killed 21 people, out of which seven of them were priests of that small village.  

And that’s what they do, wherever they go. So they literally destroyed the wealth we  accumulated for thirty years in Tigray. And, no peasant is staying at home when these  forces move around, and therefore we can consider the whole Tigrayan peasantry as  dislocated. 

It’s an effective destruction of Tigray but that’s not the only thing. It’s also an effective  destruction of Ethiopian defense forces. Ethiopia has remained without an army now. Our evaluation initially reduced the Ethiopian army by [to?] about 85 percent. Seventeen percent of the army was immediately reduced by Abiy because 17 percent of them were Tigrayans.  

They were torn out of their ranks, put in camps like Dedessa [etc.] under custody 17,000  Tigrayans. So, that was literally approximately 20 percent. And this is not only numbers,  but its also critically—a critical part of the army, mid-level commanders, most of the  technicians, and also, you know, skilled people who used to work in artillery, engineering,  and all sorts of departments. And they literally lost something like 60 percent of [indistinct,  call breaks] …they sent the commanders of the Eritrean forces, which they were just using  as cannon fodders, you know, they send them first, and then once they’re finished, they  start sending their army. So, Ethiopia is effectively without an army now. If the Eritrean  forces left Tigray… 

[BREAK IN CALL] 

[The call resumed with Mulugeta saying that if the Eritrean forces left Tigray, the Ethiopian  army would not be able to stay there, even for a few days. The recording resumes:] 

Alex: Tell me, what is the condition of the people? Are you able to eat? Do you have  any medical facilities? What are the essentials of life?  

Mulugeta: Not much. You know, there has been this locust infestation, and the harvest  also much interrupted because of the war. The crisis started at the beginning  of the harvest period, and particularly, the Eritrean forces have deliberately  burned crops while they are on the ground or before the harvesting is  completed. So there is a reduction of produce as well. The [aid] logistics that  was prepared initially by the government was disrupted, so there are drops,  these problems of supplies, food, medicine, and so forth. Hunger, among  peasantry, is crippling [indistinct] in those remote areas, bordering areas  Eritrea. They are massively, massively ransacked by the Eritrean army.  Whatever produce they have is taken by them. So, it’s tight. Soon, we might  see a serious humanitarian crisis.  

A: The government is saying it controls 85 percent of the access, and that it can  provide humanitarian access to the great majority of people. Is that correct,  do you think? 

M: The great majority of people. Even the government, even the humanitarian  organizations, are estimating the people who need food to around 4.5 million.  That’s even conservative. 

A: And how many of those people can be accessed from the government’s side,  and how many of them are in areas that are controlled by Tigray forces?  

M: Literally people on the towns of the main road. Because there is conflict all  over. You know, a certain part of people, or the southern part of Tigray,  around Maychew or Alamata… the rest of it is not accessible for humanitarian  aid, unless some arrangement can be made. [Until] some sort of preliminary  agreement to allow humanitarian assistance to [indistinct] has been reached,  I don’t think a majority of Tigray is accessible to any humanitarian aid that  comes through the government.  

A: But we are not hearing anything—we have heard nothing from the TPLF  leadership about what— 

M: I know, that’s a major problem we have. They’re just dislocated, and [sighs],  that’s a critical impediment, we know that.  

A: Because—as you might have heard today, well yesterday—the [U.S.] State  Department demanded, first of all the withdrawal of Eritrean forces, but then  also said there needed to be talks towards a political resolution. But how can  any talks be conducted under the current circumstances?  

M: I think they’re in contact through telephone with some people there, but I  don’t really understand why they shy away from coming public and talking  publicly. I know there is a limitation of communication. They have lost their  V-SATs, they only have these Thurayas, and they’ve really been without any  radio transmitter. They brought a television station, which was not possible  to run it without having a permanent base. I know that there is this limitation  of communication, but the problem they have is more than that. I am telling  them, people are telling them, we hope that they will soon come out and start  being public. It’s even a problem here in Tigray.  

A: Because also we are not hearing anything about any political demands. I  mean, what is the agenda, what is the political program? I mean if there were  to be negotiations, where would be the starting point? We don’t know any of  this at the moment. 

M: Yeah. I know.  

A: Anyway, just the news we get every day is so desperately sad. I think many  people were shocked, especially by the news of the deaths of Seyoum and  Abay and Asmalesh. I think that touched a lot of people around the world. As  you may know, I wrote a tribute to Seyoum, which was widely circulated, but  we still don’t know anything about the circumstances. Did you learn anything  about that incident—? 

M: They just found them in a village. They were staying in a village, and they  didn’t have an army. They were just in a secluded area. They caught and  killed them. It was the EPLF that killed them.  

A: So, this story about a shootout, et cetera, is not— 

M: No, no, no. It’s completely rubbish. You know, they, the TPLF could have done  so many things had they forecasted that level of violence which was not  difficult to forecast. You know, it was very obvious that this war would be a  war against Tigray, which Abiy is going to run alongside Isaias. And once you  expect Isaias, you shouldn’t expect it to come less than any devastating force  it could mobilize. Therefore, for those who will not have participated in active  resistance in the field on the military side, there were lots of options. You  know, moving them to Sudan or someehere else. So many things could have  been done, but there were no preparations at all.  

A: It seems there was just a terrible miscalculation about this, and no political  strategy, no communications strategy, no protection strategy.  

M: Not at all, yeah, not at all. Extremely poor. People were begging them. They  didn’t have any [indistinct]. People were literally coming up with plans and  asking them do this, do that. But they brought Tigray to their size anyway,  what can we say. 

A: The mood of the people now must be desperate, angry.  

M: Angry, angry, extremely angry, extremely angry. They are left with one  option: just fighting. And the war is only beginning. It’s the same in the urban  centers, and much worse in the rural areas. Wherever you go, you get dozens  of youngsters asking you to be mobilized, to be trained and armed. The TPLF doesn’t have any shortage of manpower when it wants to mobilize. So it’s  anger, and they’re left without option, with that option only, they don’t have  an option.  

They [i.e. Ethiopian and Eritrean forces] are not even [indistinct] they’re not  trying to appease them, they’re not trying to get the buy-in of the people.  They’re not attempting anything. They’re just out here, and it’s literally  genocide by decree. Wherever they’re moving, whomever they find, they kill  him or her. [It’s] an old man, a child, a nursing woman, or anything.  

A: The stories we’ve been hearing most recently are especially that it’s the  Eritreans. Is it everybody, or is particularly the Eritrean forces?  

M: It’s everybody, but the worst ones are the Eritrean forces.  

A: So tell us, are you able to remain abreast of how this has been covered by the  rest of the world? Are you able to pick up anything from the news, from the  radio, from internet sites or anything?  

M: Yeah, I have an old radio transistor which I bought it from a militia [laughs].  That’s what connects me to the rest of the world.  

A: It’s back to those old days.  

M: It’s extremely difficult. Sometimes the battery gets, you run out of battery and  therefore run out of communication for two, three days. It’s difficult. 

A: So, we have been doing our best to just draw attention to what’s been going  on, because as you know, there was an attempt to have this war conducted in  conditions of total secrecy, and even to pretend that it was not a war. There  was the U.S. administration, the last one, was very much complicit in that. The  African Union completely failed. But the news is now coming out.  

M: Everything is fine. But one thing is you could push more on this humanitarian  intervention. There has to be either some sort of monitoring. 

And the Eritrean forces will remain here. They had a meeting last week, it’s  some information we got from them, among the senior commanders of the  army. There was a request from some of the army commanders on how long  they are going to stay in Tigray. The response they gave them was, “Once we leave Tigray, PP [Prosperity Party] will not stay for one week in Tigray, and  therefore we will leave Tigray to Woyene [TPLF] again and it will revive. And  therefore, we have to remain there up until PP can pick it up which might take several months to come back.” That’s the answer that they gave them.  

And therefore, this declaration from State Department—it might even come  later from the UN Security Council—might not force the Eritreans to leave  Tigray, unless it is supported, either with some humanitarian intervention, as  much as they did in Kosovo, some armed intervention that reinforces things,  or at least some sort of monitoring on the ground.  

A: What about the Emirates? You mentioned the Emirates. Presumably, you  meant the drones? 

M: Yeah. Now we don’t have any targets. We don’t have tanks. We don’t have  [indistinct]. We are not big targets. We are just human beings moving around.  I think that’s the only thing that brought it [i.e. the recent decline in drone  attacks]. Otherwise, they have been here in full force, in just full force. They  deployed their drones with their operators, and they’re the ones who  effectively disarmed us.  

A: There was one thing that I didn’t quite catch earlier on. You said the Eritreans  would stay until something had been achieved. What is the Eritrean war aim,  as you see it?  

M: They don’t know when PP will stand on its foot to fight against Tigray. That’s  what they’re saying. They’re saying we have to stay there until PP comes up  in a position to fight against the Woyenes. That’s what they’re saying. They  don’t know when it will happen. It will never happen, actually. They way I see  it, it will not happen here. It might not even happen in the rest of Eritrea.  We’re seeing them in the field. Wherever confronted… 

You might have heard of a small operation that happened two weeks ago  around Edaga Harbi. There was a full brigade, support brigade of the 33rd division, which was fully mechanized, a support brigade is a mechanized  support to the rest of the division. It only took 15 minutes to destroy it. In 15 minutes, six 107mm rocket launchers were taken, six 120mm mortars were  taken, four 122 howitzers were taken, several vehicles were taken, and 167  of them were taken prisoners, in just 15 minutes. 

A: What is happening to these prisoners of war? Where are they being kept?  How are they being kept?  

M: We sent them back. We can not carry them around. What we did was, we  gave them a sort of political education for two, three days, and then we sent  them back to Mekelle and Adigrat. It’s only the commanders—one colonel,  one lieutenant colonel—who declined to return back. They said, “they will kill  us, so we will remain with you.” We told them, “you cannot be our soldiers,  and that’s not what you are asking us, and we shall not provide you shelter,  but you can remain in the liberated areas.” So, they are just moving around.  

So that’s where we are Alex.