Ethiopian community protests in Wellington over Tigray War portrayals

Demonstrators are worried the West might intervene against the federal government in Addis Ababa. Photo / John Weekes

Members of the Ethiopian community marched on Parliament this afternoon.

Ethiopia has been embroiled in the Tigray War for more than one year and the demonstrators said Western powers gave a free pass to the Tigray People's Liberation Front.

Some said the West was portraying the TPLF as a victim in the conflict and the elected federal government as evil, because the West had historical ties to the TPLF.

Protesters said major Western media outlets had greatly misinterpreted the war. Photo / John Weekes

Ameha Wondirad and others at Parliament this afternoon said the TPLF was not representative of most Ethiopians.

"The Western governments, the EU and also the Americans are in support of TPLF," one of the protesters said.

"No-one wants war. We've never benefited from war. We're here under one banner," another demonstrator said.

Ethiopians in Wellington said they were opposed to outside forces destabilising their country's federal government. Photo / John Weekes

He urged people who were aware of the conflict to consider the wellbeing of Kiwis who had relatives in Ethiopia.

Some of those gathered said Western media outlets including CNN and the BBC were parroting an ideologically-driven portrayal of the Addis Ababa government as genocidal.

One of those attending today said the TPLF stole billions of dollars from Ethiopia and used the loot to fund lobbyists overseas.

Others said Western intervention to oppose the federal government was not welcome, and would destabilise the country.

"Tell me a country which is peaceful where America intervened," Wondirad said.

He said those gathered today had origins from all across Ethiopia and many different ethnic groups.

Another man at the gathering said: "All we're asking is for our sovereignty to be respected."

In February, Human Rights Watch said Ethiopian federal forces carried out apparently indiscriminate shelling of urban areas in the Tigray region in violation of the laws of war.

HRW at the time said more than 200,000 people were internally displaced, and tens of thousands had fled to neighbouring Sudan.

The TPLF dominated Ethiopian politics from 1991 to 2018 before Abiy Ahmed Ali became Prime Minister.

Ahmed was a 2019 Nobel Peace Prize recipient but then his government's relationship with the TPLF disintegrated.

Ahmed had a major military victory over the rebel forces earlier this month.

And in the past 24 hours, Tigrayan forces fighting central government troops announced a withdrawal from neighbouring regions in northern Ethiopia.