Welcome to pushback. I'm Aaron Mate. One year ago this month, a major conflict broke out in Ethiopia

between government forces and the TPLF, a rebel force based in the northern Tigray region.

Thousands have been killed and millions have been displaced. And getting accurate information in the Western media has been very difficult.

Well, here to help me make sense of this conflict is Hermela Aragaoui.

She is an independent journalist focusing on the conflict in Ethiopia.

Hermela, thank you for joining me.

Aaron, thank you so much for having me.

So the standard narrative we get is that the Ethiopian government launched this war a year ago and is committing genocide or ethnic cleansing.

Let me reach you from the New York Times recently writing.

The Times says one year ago in the early hours of November reach you from the New York Times recently writing. The Times says one year ago

in the early hours of November 4th, the Prime Minister of Ethiopia, Abbe, launched a military campaign

in the northern Tigray region, hoping to vanquish the regional ruling party, the Tigray People's

Liberation Front, his most troublesome political foe. Can you respond to that characterization?

Is it accurate? Is it an accurate way of describing how this conflict began?

Well, if it was opposite land, it would be accurate. It's completely flipped. The Ethiopian

government did not start this war. TPLF started the war in the late night of November 3rd, going into November 4th by attacking a military post and killing soldiers.

So that is something that even the TPLF has recognized just only justifying it as a preemptory attack because of a buildup of soldiers around that region

from Eritrea and Ethiopia is what they claim. But nonetheless, they pulled the trigger.

They killed their own countrymen, soldiers that have lived in that region for decades,

that are a part of that community that have intermarried and in peace times help farmers in in war time defend that country in that case

dying for the country so that is a a premise that keeps getting reiterated particularly by

the new york times deacon walsh and at times mark Simons and it's just absolutely untrue.

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