the switch in addis. so that s your agenda, is it? it s separatism. what this is really all about. no, no. and it s important people around the world know this, is that you are seeking entire separation from ethiopia. you no longer regard addis ababa and prime minister abiy ahmed as legitimate rulers of your country. no, i don t consider abiy ahmed as a legitimate leader, not only of tigray but also of the oromos or even the amhara. so as far as we are concerned it s separatism to the extent that there is a tendency of separatism in tigray, it s imposed on us. it is because abiy and his partners in crime caused the kind of suffering which no one in their right mind could have imagined would come from a government that considers them its own. so, you know, to the extent that there is a tendency of separatism, i don t think this was something
up becoming a reality. simple question are your forces using child soldiers? we re not using child soldiers because soldiers have never been in short supply. but there are children who want to join the army because of the suffering that they have suffered, because their parents found themselves at the receiving end of these hassles or abiy s high handed tactics. but we refused because we have tonnes of people lining up tojoin our ranks. we don t have to use child soldiers. so the pictures that have been shown on ethiopian tv of children captured during conflict with tplf forces, what, they re all fake, are they? they are fake, because abiy s forces are not in a position to even take prisoners, because they are retreating, towns after towns. they have already abandoned practically half of the country, and they would have you believe that they have prisoners. they don t have prisoners. how could they have prisoners?
as long as abiy ahmed is still in power in addis ababa. is that what you re saying? i don t care if he sticks around in arat kilo, but what i care more about is whether he s in a position to threaten the safety and security of our people any more. whether he stays put in arat kilo is a totally different story. ethiopians are entitled to pick their own leader. and if they want to maintain abiy ahmed as their leader, even if he presides over the disintegration of the nation, that is the least of my problems at this point in time. hang on. my important. hang on, hang on. abiy ahmed isn t their leader, he s also your leader. you are an ethiopian. i respectfully disagree. he s not my leader. i didn t take part in the elections, and i would have. you do not live in a separate state called tigray. you live in ethiopia and tigray is one region within ethiopia. yes, i live in ethiopia, but i live in a territory which we, thanks to the struggle of our people, have liberated from the chokehold of
there are two things here. you know, we have to make sure the safety and security of our people is secure. and to do so, we have to make sure that abiy and his forces will not be in a position to come back and haunt our people any more, 0k? abiy has continued to maintain a chokehold on our people. he has cut off communications. he has cut off electricity. he has cut off access to humanitarian aid. and he wants us to continue what he has failed to achieve on the warfront, to continue through the kind of siege he has imposed on the people of tigray. so we have made it abundantly clear that until such time that such a siege is lifted and that our people are back to normalcy, that no amount of security threat continues to be posed against our people by both eritreans or ethiopians or the amhara expansionists, we will continue to take whatever action is necessary. so to be clear. yep, let s keep this
they are simply rounding up helpless children who are returning from saudi arabia or helpless children in many parts of addis ababa, who are eking out a living selling all kinds of commodities, or doing all kinds of errands, and then parading them on tv as prisoners of war. that s an absolute lie. let s talk about the future. right now, as we ve discussed in this interview, yourforces are fighting in amhara. they re fighting in afar. you re fighting eritrean soldiers who are on ethiopian territory. you re fighting eritrean soldiers who are on and, of course, you re fighting the ethiopian national forces as well. you vejust, as i understand it, signed some sort of military alliance deal with the rebels in 0romo. it seems that you want to fragment ethiopia, to foment fighting on many, multiple fronts across ethiopia. is it your desire to tear apart your own country? no, it s not our desire