エチオピア虐殺、連邦政府側も？　食い違う証言　報復連鎖で紛争悪化の恐れ

【マイカドラＡＦＰ＝時事】エチオピア北部ティグレ州西部の町マイカドラの教会には、敷地いっぱいに、たくさんの新しい墓が掘られていた。疲れ果てた手が放り出したシャベルが転がる土の上に、臭い消しのレモンを入れた空き缶が幾つも置かれていたが、死臭をごまかすことはできていない。（写真はエチオピア・ゴンダルの病院に入院している、マイカドラで11月9日に起きた虐殺の生存者）
　町中ではあちこちで何十人もの遺体が道端に放置され、埋葬されるのを待ちながら日の光を浴びて腐敗し始めていた。
　人口４万人のこの町で、恐ろしい事件が起きたことを否定する人はいない。何百人もの民間人が銃で撃たれ、刃物やなたで切りつけられ、刺されて虐殺されたのだ。
　だが、犠牲者らの存在は今、３週間に及ぶ紛争の当事者たちの間で、非難合戦の駒と化している。

■食い違う証言
　１１月９日に起きた民間人の虐殺は、まず国際人権団体アムネスティ・インターナショナルによって明るみに出た。アムネスティは検証した写真と動画を公開し、エチオピア連邦政府軍と戦っているティグレ州政府与党「ティグレ人民解放戦線（ＴＰＬＦ）」側の勢力が、退却する際にマイカドラに住むアムハラ人を殺害したとの目撃証言を報告した。
　ノーベル平和賞受賞者のアビー・アハメド首相率いるエチオピア連邦政府は、この証言に飛びついた。それは、ＴＰＬＦに対する武力攻撃の必要性を補強する残虐行為の証しだった。
　連邦政府機関のエチオピア人権委員会は２４日、ティグレ人の若者グループと地元警察や民兵組織が、民族に基づいて「前もって識別した」被害者少なくとも６００人を虐殺したとする報告書を発表した。
　だが、マイカドラから隣国スーダンに逃げたティグレ人難民らは、虐殺を行ったのは連邦政府側の勢力だったと証言している。

■「民族浄化」
　ＡＦＰは先週、連邦政府軍が制圧したティグレ州内の地域に立ち入る許可を特別に得て、マイカドラを訪れた。アムハラ人の住民たちは口々に、町の近くまで戦闘が迫ったとき突然、ティグレ人の近隣住民らが襲い掛かってきたと語った。
「民兵と警官が発砲してきた。民間人はなたで襲ってきた」と、農場で働いていたアムハラ人男性（２３）は病院のベッドの上で話した。横たわった男性の頭部を覆うガーゼから、ギザギザの傷痕がはみ出していた。「町の住民全員が関係者だ」
　新しく就任したマイカドラの行政官はアムハラ人の連邦政府支持者で、「アムハラ人に対して残忍な民族浄化が行われた」とＡＦＰに語った。
　しかし、マイカドラから少し西に進み、スーダンとの国境を越えたところに急拡大しているウム・ラクバ難民キャンプでは、まるで異なる証言が聞こえてくる。
「エチオピア軍兵士とアムハラ人民兵が、町に入ってきて空や住民に向かって発砲した」と、多数の同胞と逃げてきたティグレ人の農家の男性（２９）はＡＦＰに話した。「私たちは、安全な場所を求めて町から逃げ出した。（軍服ではない）私服の男たちが、刃物やおので人々を襲っているのを見た」「通りという通りに、遺体が転がっていた」
　他の難民たちも同様に、襲撃してきたのは連邦政府側の勢力で、ＴＰＬＦではなかったと証言している。
　アムネスティの調査員フィセハ・ティクレ氏は、マイカドラとウム・ラクバで語られた証言はいずれも真実の可能性があると指摘した。民族間の報復の連鎖によって、紛争の悪化に歯止めが利かなくなる恐れが浮き彫りになっている。【翻訳編集ＡＦＰＢＢＮｅｗｓ】
〔ＡＦＰ＝時事〕（2020/11/27-14:44）

Scores of freshly-dug graves fill the church compound in Mai-Kadra. Shovels abandoned by weary hands are strewn on the dirt among empty cans of lemon air freshener that fail to mask the stench of death.
Elsewhere in this town in western Tigray, dozens of corpses still awaiting a grave lie abandoned in a roadside ditch, their exposed flesh rotting in the sun.
No-one denies that something terrible unfolded here: a massacre of hundreds of civilians, who were shot, slashed or stabbed with knives and machetes.
It is the worst-known episode of violence against civilians in the deepening bloodshed in northern Ethiopia.
But the dead are now pawns in a blame game. Participants in the three-week-old conflict are seeking to absolve themselves of an atrocity that bears the hallmarks of a war crime.
- Contested narrative -
The massacre on November 9 was revealed by rights group Amnesty International, using photo and video analysis and interviews with witnesses who said retreating forces loyal to the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) were responsible for killing ethnic Amhara residents of the town.
Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed's government has seized upon this narrative, the atrocity providing further arguments for pressing his offensive against the dissident leadership of the northern Tigray region.
On Tuesday, the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission (EHRC), a government-affiliated body, issued a report blaming a Tigrayan youth group as well as local police and militia for the massacre of at least 600 people it said were pre-identified by ethnicity.
But Tigrayan refugees who fled Mai-Kadra for Sudan instead say pro-government forces were responsible for the killings during a brutal assault on the town of 40,000 people.
- 'Ethnic cleansing' -
Last week AFP gained rare access to territory controlled by the federal government in the northern conflict zone and visited Mai-Kadra.
Amhara residents of the town said their Tigrayan neighbours had turned on them as the fighting drew close.
Militiamen and police attacked us with guns, and civilians attacked us with machetes, said Misganaw Gebeyo, a 23-year-old Amhara farmhand now lying in a hospital bed, a ragged scar extending below the medical gauze encasing his head. The whole population is involved.
He recalled hiding at home, watching in terror as assailants decapitated his friend with a machete. He too was hacked and left for dead.
They wanted to exterminate the Amharas, Misganaw said.
The town's newly-appointed administrator, a government loyalist called Fentahun Bihohegn, described the massacre as an act of attempted genocide against his fellow Amharas.
A brutal ethnic cleansing has been committed against the Amhara people, Fentahun said, describing the entire TPLF, whether leaders or members, as criminals.
For me, I have witnessed the real hell here in Mai-Kadra, he said.
- Corpses in the streets -
A different story of the massacre can be found a short distance to the west, in the mushrooming refugee camps across the border in Sudan.
Ethiopian soldiers and Amhara militiamen entered the town and fired into the air and at residents, Marsem Gadi, a 29-year-old farmer who fled with thousands of other Tigrayans to the Um Raquba refugee camp, told AFP.
We ran out of town to find safety. I saw men in civilian clothes attacking villagers with knives and axes, he said. Corpses were lying in the streets.
When Marsem made it home later his house had been looted and his wife and three-year-old son were gone. I don't know if they're still alive, he said. After that, he fled to Sudan.
Other refugees shared similar tales of attacks by pro-government forces, not TPLF.
Elifa Sagadi said she too ran for the safety of nearby fields when the gunfire started.
On the road I saw at least 40 bodies. Some had bullets in their heads, others had been stabbed, she said of her return. When I went home, my house was on fire and my husband and two sons had disappeared.
In a statement, the Ethiopian government seemed to dismiss all such testimony as the work of TPLF operatives (who) have infiltrated refugees fleeing into Sudan to carry out missions of disinformation.
For his part, TPLF leader Debretsion Gebremichael rejected suggestions that his forces were responsible for the massacre as baseless.
It cannot be related to us. We have our values, we have our norms. We know how to handle people, he said.
Amnesty researcher Fisseha Tekle told AFP the stories heard in Mai-Kadra and Um Raquba could both be true: a tit-for-tat ethnic slaughter revealing the dangers of a conflict that could spiral out of control.
We don't know the full extent of the situation, he said, adding the killings may amount to war crimes.
- Deepening divisions -
The UN and human rights groups have called for an impartial investigation, but a communications blackout, restrictions on movement and continued fighting in Tigray make that unlikely in the short term.
Amharas and Tigrayans were uneasy neighbours before the current fighting, with tension over land sparking violent clashes.
That Mai-Kadra is now being run -- at least temporarily -- by Amharas provides relief to Amharas, even as it deepens Tigrayan fears of a takeover.
Now I feel very free, said Adugna Abiru, an Amhara farmer who has worked in Mai-Kadra for two decades.
Before, if you spoke on the phone in Amharic and not Tigrinya (the Tigrayan language), people would look at you. You didn't feel safe, he said.
Fentahun, the new administrator, who arrived after the federal government took control on November 10 and drives around in a pick-up truck with three armed guards, said he and his fellow Amharas did not want revenge against Tigrayans. He insisted there were still Tigrayan residents in Mai-Kadra, but was unable to identify any.
Nevertheless, he urged refugees to return home from Sudan -- something the federal government is also pushing even as the conflict escalates in the mountainous east where a siege of the regional capital is threatened.
Our vision is to create a safe place for every Ethiopian, he said. We want to make this a peaceful place where everyone can exist together.