Altered video falsely claims former Ethiopian minister ‘signed over’ disputed territory to Tigray region

This article is more than one year old.
Published on August 30, 2023 at 16:14
4 min read
By Tolera FIKRU GEMTA, AFP Ethiopia

A post claims that a clip shows evidence of Gedu Andargachew, a former president of Ethiopia’s Amhara region, handing over disputed land to the neighbouring Tigray region. This is false; the video has been digitally manipulated by splicing together clips from different interviews. There is also no mention by Gedu of ceding the disputed land to Tigray.

A Facebook Reel shared more than 130 times and published in Amharic on August 21, 2023 claims to offer “proof that shows when Gedu gladly signed and handed over Welkait to Tigray”.

Screenshot of the altered video, taken on August 25, 2023

Gedu Andargachew is an Ethiopian parliamentarian who once served as Ethiopia’s foreign affairs minister, president of the Amhara region and national security adviser to Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed (archived here).

Welkait is a parcel of disputed land between Ethiopia’s Amhara and Tigray regions, located in the northern part of the country (archived here). It was part of Tigray until the war in 2020 when it was annexed to Amhara (archived here).

The video in the post comes from a TikTok account with 75,000 followers. A caption at the bottom of the clip in Amharic reads: “History revealed: excerpts shows Gedu handing over Welkait to Tigray.”

The footage shows a television interview with Gedu and then switches to a community meeting led by Gedu and Abay Woldu, formerly president of Tigray region.

The TikTok video has been shared more than 500 times.

Gedu a critic

Gedu, who was replaced (archived here) as Abiy’s security adviser in June 2022 by Redwan Hussein, criticised the ongoing military operation in Amhara during a parliamentary session on August 14, 2023 held to ratify a state of emergency imposed in the region in the same month.

“The current crisis in the Amhara region has stemmed from a political problem and hence it needs political solutions instead of resorting to military actions,” said Gedu (archived here), who remains a member of parliament.

AFP reported (archived here) on August 16, 2023 that an air strike carried out by Ethiopian government forces killed 26 people in a town in Amhara.

The post and the video were intended as a show of support for the ruling Prosperity Party and an attempt to negate Gedu’s criticism.

However, the footage in the posts has been selectively edited to give a false impression.

Manipulated video

The video begins with Gedu saying in a television interview that “Welkait is currently administered under the Tigray region”.

AFP Fact Check used the video verification tool InVID-WeVerify to conduct reverse image searches on keyframes from the footage.

We established that the statement by Gedu was taken from a broadcast of him that was shared on Facebook in June 2018 (archived here).

The studio backgrounds match and Gedu says the same words at 1’19” into the clip.

At this point, the altered video switches to a block of text in Amharic meaning “six years ago”.

Screenshot from the altered video showing Amharic text reading “six years ago”, taken on August 25, 2023

Gedu then appears onscreen again, but along with Abay, his then counterpart from Tigray region. Both men are seated on a stage in front of an audience.

“We, the leaders of the ANDM and the TPLF, have thoroughly discussed and amicably resolved the border issues between the Tegede peoples in Amhara and the Tsegede peoples in Tigray in a way that benefits both peoples,” says Gedu.

ANDM stands for Amhara National Democratic Movement, which was rebranded as Amhara Prosperity Party, while TPLF stands for Tigray People’s Liberation Front. Tegede and Tsgede are two border districts in Amhara and Tigray regions respectively, while Welkait is another adjacent district.

Abay then says a few words along the same lines as Gedu before the pair sign papers and stand up to embrace as the people in the hall applaud.

A further image search using keyframes from the footage yielded an hour-long video published by Tigray TV, a state-owned broadcaster, in September 2017 (archived here). AFP Fact Check found that the statement by Gedu that “We the leaders of ANDM and TPLF have discussed…” was taken from this video between 7’12” and 7’32”.

The edited footage of Abay and Gedu presiding over the meeting was also taken from this video filmed by Tigray TV, which included a longer account of an agreement between the leaders of the two regions.

When compared, we see the same two distinctive microphones in the original and altered videos. However, the television station’s logo in the top left corner has been obscured in the false post.

Screenshots from the original video, top, and the altered video, taken on August 25, 2023

The agreement, also covered by the Ethiopian Broadcasting Corporation (EBC), was signed to ensure joint development of the neighbouring Amhara and Tigray ethnic groups.

There is no evidence of Gedu handing over Welkait to the Tigray region in any of the footage.

On August 22, 2023 international media reported (archived here) that Ethiopa is preparing to conduct a referendum to decide the fate of the land disputed by Amhara and Tigray regions.

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