International media in Tigray: They’re not naïve at all

(Yusuf Abdulkedir, 02/28/21)

Many people are expressing their concern that the group of International media in Tigray are being subjected to overt and covert ways of making it difficult for them to be able to meet victims and eyewitnesses to find out exactly what happened in Tigray regarding human rights violations, war crimes, looting, destruction, and the humanitarian crisis in general.

In a desperate attempt to avoid meetings with the international media people, the Abiy government is removing potential victims from their previous locations (hospitals, IDP temporary camps), assigning security agents and mis-informers, stealing journalists’ video recordings, harassing and imprisoning interpreters, interrupting the work of the international journalists by inviting them to a press conference by top provisional administrators of the Tigray region, preventing the free movement of the journalists and limiting them to certain places only, etc.

There is no question that the authorities will try to conceal the truth, to misinform the journalists and to make it look like the TPLF were the culprits. The more the authorities try to hide the truth or to misinform, they get even more exposed as liars, not having an iota of semblance of responsible government by any standard.

Whatever frantic attempts Abiy and his company try to make, the truth will always come out. What’s more, it is professional journalists with international experience who have worked also in similar situations that the people are talking about. They represent highly respected media organizations that can check and counter-check information whosoever it comes from, using technology as well. They’re not at all so naïve as to be fooled by Abiy’s monkey tricks.