Does Ethiopia have chemical weapons arsenals?
Following The Telegraph’s investigation into white phosphorus poisoning in Tigray, a key question arises: Does Ethiopia have a secret chemical weapon? Probably yes. This is an investigation about probably chemical weapons use and production in Ethiopia by the DERG, TPLF and Prosperity Party. In the Dirty Game may were involved US and DPRK too.
On 23 May 2021, the prestigious British newspaper The Telegraph published a journalistic investigation about the suspicion of the use of chemical weapons against the civilian population in Tigray, a northern region of Ethiopia in civil war since 03 November 2020. The investigation began following the first cases of victims flowed to the hospitals of Mekele, capital of Tigray. All patients have horrific, extensive and deep burns.
Two global chemical weapons experts were contacted: Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, former commander of the UK Chemical, Biological and Nuclear Regiment and Dan Kaszeta, chemical and biological specialist at the institution linked to the UK Ministry of Defense: Royal United Service Institute. Both, after analyzing photos and videos collected, stated that the burns on the victims’ bodies look very similar to the wounds found on victims in Syria, from the use of white phosphorus.
The Ethiopian Foreign Ministry was quick to issue a press release denying it 4 hours after the investigation was published in the British newspaper. The statement is grotesque as the same Foreign Ministry two hours earlier had rejected The Telegraph’s proposal to be able to comment on the accusations made against it. Following the journalistic investigation, the Director of the United Nations Humanitarian Department asked for an independent investigation to be opened to establish whether chemical weapons were actually used in the ongoing conflict in Tigray.
Following this horrible (and very likely) news, it is worth asking a simple question. Does Ethiopia have chemical weapons?
Ethiopia signed the Chemical Weapons Convention in 1993. The treaty requires each member state to declare whether it possesses chemical weapons on its territory, regardless of the age of the weapons or to whom they belong.
Italian fascist chemical weapons arsenal.
The ascertained presence of chemical weapons in the country concerns those used by the Italian army during the invasion war of 1935–1937. Presence confirmed in 2004 by the Ethiopian President Girma Wolde-Giorgis Lucha (presidential mandate 2001–2013) who asked for assistance to Italy for the disposal of chemical munitions that the Italian army had hastily abandoned to save its troops from the advance of the Allies in Ethiopia on 1942.
The presence of fascist chemical weapons in Ethiopia has been the subject of a long diatribe between Rome and Addis Ababa. According to the 1939 report drawn up by the Ethiopian Empire to the League of Nations, the Italian army between 1936 and 1940 had transported 80,000 chemical munitions to Ethiopia, carrying out 20 attacks with poisonous gases in 1936. The report found the clear denial of the fascist regime. Italy’s denying position lasted even after the war, included in the political choice of the various democratic governments from the 1950s onwards not to deal with the crimes against humanity committed during the fascist colonial period in Eritrea, Ethiopia, Libya and Somalia .
In 2001, 1,400 Italian bombs were found during construction works, including some chemical bombs, according to reports issued at the time by the ruling coalition Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) led by Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, historical leader of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) died of natural causes on August 20, 2012. A technical delegation was sent from Rome which established the absence of chemical weapons among the orders found by the Ethiopians.
In the absence of independent technicians, there is still the suspicion that the investigations of the Italian experts were mainly aimed at protecting their country. If Italy had admitted the existence of chemical weapons abandoned in Ethiopia it would have been responsible for their destruction, according to international law. The disposal and destruction of chemical weapons must be carried out through rigorous and very expensive procedures monitored by international bodies.
Can the chemical arsenal of the fascist army be used in the current conflicts in Tigray or Oromia? No! The ability of a chemical agent to maintain its composition unaltered during the period of storage for a long period, concerns only two types of chemical weapons: CN — Chloroacetophenone, a substance used as tear gas, and DM — Adamiste, an irritant used for disperse the crowds during demonstrations. It is practically impossible that any Italian chemical weapon dating back to the 1930s and 1940s could be used after 85 years.
The chemical weapons arsenal abandoned by the Somalis during the Ogaden War.
The story was different for the possible chemical weapons abandoned by the Somali army during the Ogaden conflict in 1977. The organization for world protection against Nuclear, Biological, Radiological, Chemical and Computer Hazards: Washington-based Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI), in an article published on its website on March 3, 2004, stressed the failure of the TPLF government to declare the alleged presence of a chemical stock abandoned by Somali troops.
The treaty of the Chemical Weapons Convention (also signed by Ethiopia) requires that each member state declare the possible presence of chemical weapons on its territory, regardless of the age of the weapons or to whom they belong in order to allow the delicate and very expensive disposal operations to prevent their reuse.
At the time, the spokesperson for the OPCW (Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons): Peter Kaiser reported to the international media the absence of the declaration by the Ethiopian government of the alleged presence of Somali chemical weapons. “Until we have a declaration there will be no basis for an inspection and the initiation of procedures for the dismantling of chemical weapons that may be present in Ethiopia. The lack of a declaration does not necessarily mean that the ammunition was not found in Ethiopia ”, Kaiser told the Nuclear Threat Initiative.
This declaration (necessary to dispel any doubts) never came officially. There was only an unofficial statement by a spokesman for the Ethiopian Embassy in Washington where he claimed he had no details on the number of chemical weapons that may have remained in his nation. Yet chemical weapons were used against rebellion and civilians in Eritrea in 1982 and 1990.
The real reasons that induced the ruling coalition led by the TPLF not to collaborate with the international community on the presence of Somali chemical weapons and their disposal are not known. However, even in this case, there are strong doubts about a possible use today of chemical weapons dating back to 44 years ago for the same reasons explained for the chemical arsenal abandoned by the Italian fascists.
Chemical weapons used by DERG regime during Red Terror period.
During the session of the Chamber of Lords on March 16, 1982, Lord Averbury informed about the use of chemical agents by the Provisional Military Government of Ethiopia (called in Amharic ደርግ — DERG — Committee), headed by the dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam. Chemical weapons were used in Eritrea against the EPLF (Eritrean People’s Liberation Front) led by Isaias Afwerki, present Eritrean dictator. At the time, the EPLF was fighting alongside the TPLF and Oromo guerrilla formations against the Stalinist dictatorship of the DERG also known as the “Red Terror”.
The Ethiopian Ambassador to London denied Lord Averbury’s accusation, taking advantage of the lack of concrete evidence. Lord Averbury relied on credible sources from the Ethiopian Eritrean opposition in exile but not on documented evidence. At the time, the M16 and the CIA agreed on the veracity of Lord Averbury’s claims but clashed with Mengistu’s tactics of “Silence War”. A tactic that provides for the absolute control of information in order not to leak any news of the civil conflict and, above all, no evidence of any war crimes.
Mengistu’s Silence War set the stage for the TPLF’s subsequent war adventures in Somalia. In 2015 it was copied by the Burundian Nazi racial regime of dictator Pierre Nkurunziza and by the subsequent Burundian military junta of General Neva (illegal president since 2020) and by Prime Minister Allain Guillaume Bunyoni investigated at the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity that occurred between the 2015 and 2016.
Nobel Peace Prize laureate Abiy also uses this tactic, without succeeding well. If in Burundi (a very small country) it was very easy to apply it after having eliminated or forced into exile the majority of journalists and human activists, the demographic density and geographical extension of Ethiopia makes it difficult to successfully implement the Silence War even with a strict control of communications and the internet due to modern technology that allows anyone to capture images or videos with a simple Smartphone.
The white phosphorus used as a chemical weapon appears for the first time during the terrible aerial bombardment of the Eritrean port city of Massawa (the Pearl of the Red Sea) which took place at 10.30 am on April 22, 1990. The phosphorus was used together with napalm and bombs multiple fragmentation, the latter kindly offered to the DERG by the Soviets. The news was reported by Human Rights Watch and vehemently denied by the Stalinist regime. The report by H.R.W. was based on victims’ medical reports, testimonies and the 1984 CIA report which dealt with the threat posed by the expansion of biological chemical warfare capacity in various Third World countries, including Ethiopia.
Where did Mengistu find the chemical weapons? Does his arsenal still exist?
From the investigations of the time it was assumed that the chemical weapons used against the guerrillas of the EPLF and on the Eritrean civilian population came in part from the arsenal abandoned by the Somali army during the Ogaden war (1977), in part supplied by neighboring Sudan. and the Soviet Union. For the use of white phosphorus, production in Ethiopia was hypothesized. At the fall of the DERG regime, the EPRDF governing coalition did not mention any discovery of any residues of the chemical arsenal used by Mengistu, much less the existence of any production factories.
The Western powers asked no questions and felt the need for eventual investigations. In this specific case there are possibilities that residues from the DERG chemical arsenal could be used today, especially for chemical weapons possibly produced in the early 1990s, provided that the Ethiopian army was able to guarantee storage conditions. optimal in the past 31 years.
North Korean arms factories in Ethiopia.
The military cooperation between the TPLF-led government and the North Korean regime on the establishment of arms factories in Ethiopia is one of the darkest and most controversial chapters of the ruling coalition that led the country from 1991 to 2018. A chapter that implies even complicity of the United States, amply illustrated by the American association GlobalSecurity, one of the main international sources of information on the defense, space, intelligence, national security and weapons of mass destruction sectors, founded in 2000 with headquarters in Washington.
In October 2006, the United States lobbied the United Nations to impose severe sanctions on North Korea due to the first North Korean nuclear tests. For reasons of geopolitical control, containment of the Islamic threat in the Horn of Africa and alliances with the Tigrin leadership of the TPLF, in December 2006 the George W. Bush administration allowed Ethiopia to secretly buy weapons from North Korea, in blatant violation of UN restrictions imposed by the White House itself. The only conditions placed in Addis Ababa by the Americans concerned the purchase period (no later than January 2007) and their exclusive use in Somalia against Islamic militias.
Under American pressure, on December 6, 2006, the UN approved resolution no. 1725 which authorized the constitution of a regional international force with the task of stabilizing Somalia, defeating the Islamic forces that controlled it through the “Islamic Courts”. The creation of the African military contingent under the aegis of the African Union — United Nations: AMISOM, financed by the United States and the European Union, was simultaneous with the Ethiopian invasion of Somalia. Starting on December 26, 2006, Ethiopian troops liberated the city of Jowar and the capital Mogadishu. The Ethiopian invasion contingent consisted of 20,000 troops, 120 tanks (T 62 and T 54–55), supported by a hundred artillery, a dozen Su planes. 27, Mig 23, 25 and Mig 21.
To ensure the military capacity of the Ethiopian army in Somalia, the United States in March 2007 launched a second phase of the secret operation concerning military cooperation between Addis Ababa and Pyongyang. The creation of two arms factories in the cities of Ambo and Debre Zeit in Oromia. In classic international intrigue, American military experts collaborated with their North Korean counterparts to create these two arms factories.
The common interlocutor was Tigrinya General Samora Yonus, then Supreme Commander of the Ethiopian National Defense Force (ENDF) replaced by Prime Minister Abiy on 7 June 2018 with General Seare Mekonen a TPLF veteran commander of the North Command of the Ethiopian army stationed in Tigray.
General Mekonen was killed in mysterious circumstances during the failed coup in the Amhara region state on June 22, 2019. After a period of adjustment, the command of the ENDF was assumed starting from November 4, 2020 by the Deputy Commander of the Central and Eastern Command : General Birhanu Jula, who currently directs military operations in Tigray and Oromia.
In 2008, the Bush Administration, fearing that the cooperation promoted with the number one enemy of the United States in the Asian sector would go too far and escape American control, asked Prime Minister Meles for authorization to exercise strict control over the production of armaments in the factories of Ambo and Debre Zeit. Despite Meles’ apparent willingness, General Samora Yonus categorically opposed any American control by reassuring Washington that relations with North Korea were purely technical and at such minimal levels that they did not deserve the attention and concerns of the American ally.
General Tigrinya stated that the production was exclusively for small arms emphasizing that the reduction of costs through local production allowed Ethiopia to fulfill its obligations in the UN peacekeeping missions and protect the Ethiopian-American strategic interests in Somalia. .
Two months after the veto, General Samora announced the departure of military experts and North Korean technicians who had finished their work allowing the two weapons factories to independently produce the Chinese version AK-47 assault rifles. The Ambo factory was the subject of a visit by the American Ambassador who found that production was limited only to AK-47s.
However, the American secret services harbored strong suspicions that in the two arms factories the production of other weapons much more deadly and hidden from the American partner were activated. They also raised the suspicion that Ethiopia had long ago started an internal chemical weapons production program, accelerated by the Addis Ababa — Pyongyang military cooperation, ironically desired by the United States.
US intelligence suspects echoed statements made by Rear Admiral Thomas Brooks, Director of US Naval Intelligence on March 7, 1991 at the House Defense Commission. Brooks said at the time that there was a high probability that Ethiopia possessed chemical weapons for defensive purposes.
Brooks’s statements were reinforced by the Congressional Reserarch Service for Nuclear, Biological, Chemical Weapons and Missiles, which in August 2001 listed the ruling coalition led by the TPLF as the likely holder of chemical weapons. However, at the moment there is no evidence that Ethiopia’s production capacity of white phosphorus or other agents used for chemical warfare or the possession of such a stock of weapons exists.
Conclusions
Despite the temporary impossibility of establishing an exact hypothetical chemical warfare program of the Ethiopian government, started with the DERG, and continued by the TPLF and now the Prosperity Party, the mystery remains of the white phosphorus used on the defenseless population of Tigray. A purely criminal use as on the military level it is known by all international military experts that the use of chemical, radiological or biological weapons has the sole objective of terrorizing the population or accelerating ethnic extermination projects.
Johnny Nehme, PhD in Biomedical Sciences at the University of Paris and now Director of the Department of Contamination of Unconventional Weapons at the International Committee of the Red Cross, confirms the terrorist use of chemical weapons on civilians in modern wars as a concentration of troops as significant as at the time of the two World Wars is now rare.
References
Exclusive. Ethiopians suffer horrific burns suspected white phosphorus — The Telegraph — 24/05/2021
UN Demands inquiry Ethiopia War Crime — The Telegraph — 25/05/2021
Eritrea alleged poison gas use by Ethiopia. — U.K. Parliament — 16/03/1982
https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/lords/1982/mar/16/eritrea-alleged-poison-gas-use-by
“Mengistu has Decided to Burn Us like Wood” — Human Rights Watch — 24/07/1990
https://www.hrw.org/reports/archives/africa/ETHIOPIA907.htm
Ethiopia Special Weapons — Global Security Org
https://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/ethiopia/index.html
