Horrible': Witnesses recall massacre in Ethiopian holy city

I knew about the story of the Ark of the Covenant allegedly being in Axum. Just horrifying if what happened is true. Do you think this occurred:

 

Nobody cares about Ethiopians.. The UN will prefer to deal with a wounded Palestinian which fell near his house than the poor Africans.
It's all about how well you present your propaganda.

 

More evidence it did occur:

 

God is not mocked and those who do this kind of evil WILL face His justice unless they repent and ask for His forgiveness.

 

Before I comment on this, what a pity that to only people on this thread beside you are using it to push their own personal BS. I suppose I shouldn't expect any better from some people.

I think it is highly likely this happened and much worse besides.

I have visited the spot where this happened. I have stood inside that Cathedral as the Deacon showed me the ancient holy books & played the drums used for religious services. It is a beautiful church and a beautiful place.

The Ark of the Covenant is only part of the significance of this place. This is basically where Christian Ethiopia was born, the holiest place in their religion & arguably the most important in their history. The smaller building that houses the Ark is surrounded by places of enormous significance. On one side is the Old Church of Mary of Zion, outside which sits a stone where the Solomonic Emperors were traditionally crowned. A few meters away from that are more stone seats connected with coronation. In between those are the ruins of what is claimed to be the first Christian church in Ethiopia. Next to that is the modern cathedral where this massacre took place. Across the road are large stone columns put up by the pre-Christian Ethiopian Emperors. The last of those was put up by King Ezana and has Christian symbols - Ezana was the forst Christian Emperor & built the first Christian church. All of this is in a very small area.

So, the significance of this for Ethiopian Orthodox is huge. The fact that the Ethiopian government let Eritrean troops in to the country to kill its people is also of huge significance. It could do considerable damage to the reputation of the government. Given the information blockade it is hard to know exactly what is going on. For now things appear to be quiet, but I'm not confident that will remain the case. The Tigrinya are hardasses. The TPLF, which ruled Tigray & from 1991-2018 Ethiopia, fought a guerilla war for two decades against one of the largest armies in the world. Events like this massacre could very easily drive a new guerilla movement. That could have some fairly dire consequences for Ethiopia.

The Ethiopian government is hoping the shock of all this will not only subdue Tigray, but scare off the Oromo, Somali & other groups who are already fighting each other and the Amhara. I actually had a conversation yesterday with an Ethiopian Oromo guy who was talking about how the Government is repressing his people. There have been a number of massacres by the government. Given that they are the largest and perhaps most widespread ethnic group in Ethiopia this could easily degenerate into armed conflict. The Somalis over in the east have never really accepted their inclusion into Ethipoia care of a British decision in the 1940s. Similarly many of the ethnic groups in the south have no love of an Ethiopian state which imposed itself upon them in the C19th. There have already been massacres between different ethnic groups and it wouldn't be a shock to see this degenerate further.

All of this is a genuine tragedy. Ethiopia is a beautiful country and the people are wonderful. It is also regional power whose economy has enormous potential, but it has always been riven by regional, ethnic & to a lesser extent religious tensions (some groups, including Eritreans & Oromo are both Christian & Muslim in significant numbers but overwhelmngly identify by ethnic/language group). This could all easily degenerate into a bloody & widespread civil war. Every Ethiopian I talk to is deeply concerned about family & friends back home.

 

Religion again. This is what happens when it ties into government and has for centuries.

"My loving all-merciful god is better than your loving all-merciful god. "

"Oh yeah?" BANG

Isn't zealotry wonderful?

 

Errr, no, not religion. This is all about ethnicity. The Ethiopian troops who would have been sent there were most likely Orthodox too. The Eritreans could have been Orthodox or Muslim, but as their government is Marxist that is hardly relevant.

The issue here is 100% ethnic. The Tigrinya, who make up 6% of the population, ran Ethiopia from 1991 to 2018. Those who held power have been reluctant to relinquish it and the hamfisted attempts by the central government in Addis ended up with a war. Ethiopia is riven with ethnic conflict. Eritriea, once allied to the Tigrinya powerbrokers, blames them for the Ethiopia/Eritriea war of the late 90s. Religious conflict is much, much rarer in Ethiopia & usually has an ethnic angle - such as religious groups rooted in the Somali community or groups from Somalia itself.

As I said in my post, groups such as the Oromo are both Orthodox and Muslim, but are unified by their ethnic identity. The real religious issue here is that by defiling some of the holiest places in Ethiopia and inviting in foreign soldiers the government runs the risk of alienating some of its own supporters, as well as further alienating already angry Tigrayans.

 

You have a good point but you're sort of missing mine. Why can't the religions step in and try to stop the killing? I'll lay you dollars to navy beans that some are approving of it.

 

Sometimes they can, sometimes they can't.

I am not a believer of any sort, I am just someone who is informed about the situation in Ethiopia and trying to inform others. It depressing that you are now the third person to come on to this thread to push some barrow that has three fifths of SFA to do with what is happening there. I don't expect any better from the first two. I had you pegged as being up to a bit more than that.

Happy to answer any relevant questions abou tthe situation that I can answer.

 

Thank you, you seem to know I am susceptible to flattery

My question is still just that, why won't the religions involved stop the killing?

The better question might be why don't the religions stop the killing everywhere. I know that just about all religions generally forbid killing other people without good reason and they generally regard ethnic conflict as a reason that can and really should be worked around. Why don't they?

 

Like I said, if you are interested in Ethiopia & what is currently happening I'll do my best to explain.

 

I read about it today, but it wasn't mentioned as a massacre, only that there were a lot of deaths. It said that the soldiers were fighting off the invaders and the civilians joined the fight to protect the Ark of the Covenant.

According to your post, the soldiers were Ethiopians so they had to be Orthodox and the invaders must have been either Marxist Eritreans - or Muslim jihadists. Yet the impression is given in the MSM, that it was the Orthodox Christian Ethiopian Army that committed the massacre on their own people. This reminds me of the false flags in Ukraine and Syria.

I have two questions. One is if the Ark of the Covenant was touched, and the other is if Egypt was involved, since they have a lot of problems with Ethiopia over the dam and want them to stop filling it up because it's affecting them.

 

Lots of news links by typing in "Tigray" on Twitter search.

Looks like they are about to destroy electricity in the area?



https://twitter.com/search?q=Tigray&src=typed_query

 

Seems like the attackers are Jihadi Sunnis rather than Marxists. Poor Ethiopia, like the Armenians they were one of the first Christian nations, yet they have always been in the crossroads.

 

Hard to tell if this is religious as much as a political storm which has been brewing since 2018, and having the current ruler of Ethopia, first elected in 2018, rescheduling elections due to "Covid". The Tigras are saying the Prime Minister is illegitimate and it looks like this boiled over into outright civil war.

I'm certainly no expert on Ethiopia though. Just trying today to figure out who is fighting who....and "What for?"

PM Abiy Ahmed apparently won a Nobel Peace Prize, and now he is silencing and killing political opposition in the northern states of Ethiopia. Sounds about right. "Unity" wins the day!


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tigray_War

 

All the while ignoring your own zealotry, right? It won't surprise me at all if a day comes when people like yourself are willing to ignore or even to take part in savagery like this for reasons no better than suppressing the political choices of your opponents. We're already hearing casual commentary about "re-education" and the like for Trump supporters.
Isn't zealotry wonderful?

 

Peace Prize winner, Barrack Obama, was the first President to order a drone strike to kill an American citizen (with no approval from Congress).

Now people on MSNBC (and Joe Biden) are accusing Americans of being "terrorists" like ISIS, and we have news anchors implying that perhaps we should just drone "suspect" Americans on American soil.

Joe Biden's desire for "domestic terrorism" legislation is the most dangerous idea to ever occur in the history of America.

 

In June 2020, Abiy extra-constitutionally postponed elections. When Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region refused and, on Sept. 9, 2020, held its own parliamentary elections marked by long lines and high participation that the opposition Tigray People’s Liberation Front won. Abiy responded two months later by cutting Tigray’s internet access and phone lines and sending in the Ethiopian Army to oust the elected government from Mekelle, the provincial capital. Multiple reports confirm that Eritrea’s military also entered the region, operating side-by-side with Ethiopian troops as they sacked and looted towns and villages in the region. On Jan. 13, 2021, Ethiopia announced that its forces had killed Seyoum Mesfin, the country’s long-serving former foreign minister, while fighting. Subsequent photos suggest that Abiy’s men had summarily executed Mesfin.

https://nationalinterest.org/featur...ate-trial-international-criminal-court-178481

 

Nothing surprises me out of Somalia, Ethiopia and a handful of other African countries. Tribalism comes in many forms but it always has the same kill or be killed pattern to it. It is just a matter of who gets to be the killer and who gets to be the victim on any given day.

 

I would be very careful about sources like that. The Tigrayans claimed the dam had been bombed by the Ethiopian government back in November....which would mean it shouldn't still be there. It is also a lot farther from the Eritreian border than I'm betting that Eritrean troops are going ot be allowed to move.

Additionally, if Ethiopia wants the dam destroyed they don't need a single Eritrean to get it done - they can just send their own people. However, claiming that Eritreans are going to do it makes good propaganda. I notice that the entire twitter thread appears to be people reposting the same stuff, which makes me even more suspicious.

We will know soon enough. Hard to hide something like this.

 

Certainly good advice not to trust "news". Our domestic broadcasting isn't honest, so I can imagine what spin makes it through to the U.S. after it gets filtered for our consumption. "News" became a caveat emptor service many decades ago and has only gotten less reliable.

 

I have seen a fair bit of 'news' coverage of what is going on in Ethiopia & I have seen quite a bit of stuff from twitter feeds & facebook posts. The 'news' is so much more trustworthy that there is simply no comparison. If you want to know what is happening then start with 'news'.

If you are genuinely interested in who is fighitng who & what for I'm happy to inform you, but it won't be a short post. On the other hand, if you don't really care about this and are just looking for a way to make these events fit some pre-existing set of ideas or prejudices then I'll save my time.

 

And secularism? The gulags, the Cultural Revolution, the Reeducation Camps,
the trench warfare, nationalism, racism, Bolshevism - quarter of a million bodies
from what was supposed to be the first century free from religious wars, the
infamous 20th Century.

 

You don't get away that easily. All those things are religions without God(s) but that doesn't absolve the Deities. No, it makes them worse. "The Revolution is a whore, she defends the man who is pimping her as she eats her own children. She is not worthy of a single coward, let alone the thousands upon thousands of good men who bravely die for her."

 

This is supremely ambiguous to me, sorry.