From Nobel laureate to global pariah

September 20, 2021 5:38 AM

How the world got Abiy Ahmed and Ethiopia so wrong "In less than two years, Abiy has gone from darling of the international community to pariah, condemned for his role in presiding over a protracted civil war that, by many accounts, bears the hallmarks of genocide and has the potential to destabilize the wider Horn of Africa region."

Biden Threatens New Sanctions Against Ethiopia War Leaders

Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed of Ethiopia, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate now exposed to possible sanctions, reacted with indignation and defiance. In a three-page statement, his office accused the West of bias, denounced any criticisms of Ethiopia as the product of neocolonial impulses, and showed no sign that he intended to bow to Mr. Biden’s demands.
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“Nearly one million people are living in famine-like conditions,” Mr. Biden said in a statement. “Humanitarian workers have been blocked, harassed and killed. I am appalled by the reports of mass murder, rape and other sexual violence to terrorize civilian populations.”

Ethiopia’s Tigray war: The short, medium and long story

As Africa's second-most populous country, Ethiopia is pivotal to stability in the Horn of Africa.

There is also a concern that the conflict could further exacerbate ethnic tensions and could lead to the break-up of the country.

Abiy Ahmed’s Counterrevolution: The Tigray conflict is a struggle over the idea of Ethiopia.

The Tigray war is also a counterrevolution: a ruthless repudiation of the progressive ideals that animated a generation of Ethiopians.
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By 2017, with Zenawi gone, his hapless successors were exhausted, and people pressed for democratic change. Reform was always going to be fraught, more likely to result in a turbulent market in political allegiances than a mature democracy. But, mismanaged by Abiy, the process has descended into something far more alarming: war, mass starvation, and the disassembly of the state itself.

Steal, Burn, Rape, Kill: Alex de Waal on Ethiopia’s new famine

Until a few weeks ago, Tigrayans were hopeful that famine could still be averted through a combination of emergency aid and stores of seed and fertiliser. Now that the rains are falling it’s too late. If Eritrea could be forced to withdraw through a UN Security Council resolution, they argue, Tigray wouldn’t starve. But the Eritreans are digging in: towns are being encircled with trenches. Last week, the UK special envoy for famine prevention, Nick Dyer, tweeted: ‘Just back from Tigray. The humanitarian crisis is worsening and the risk of famine conditions growing.’ But famine is no longer a risk, as another senior diplomat wrote privately: it’s a ‘mathematical certainty’. With their arms twisted by the Ethiopians, it seems likely that the UN and donors will stick with circumlocution and euphemism. If this isn’t a famine then the word has no meaning.

‘I just cry’: Dying of hunger in Ethiopia’s blockaded Tigray

In the most extensive account yet of the blockade’s toll, a humanitarian worker told the AP that deaths from starvation are being reported in “every single” district of the more than 20 in Tigray where one aid group operates. The group had run out of food aid and fuel. The worker, like others, spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.

posted by Noisy Pink Bubbles (7 comments total)

“accused the West of bias, denounced any criticisms of Ethiopia as the product of neocolonial impulses”
posted by homerica at 5:55 AM on September 20, 2021 [1 favorite]

Ah, the ol’ Aung San Suu Kyi phenomenon.
posted by Apocryphon at 7:50 AM on September 20, 2021 [2 favorites]

Between Abiy, Aung San, and Kissinger (also Arafat), we should retire the Nobel Peace Prize. It's a truly meaningless stamp of approval which gives carte blanche to it's recipients.

Also, is there anybody that can speak on the particular circumstance of Abiy's rise? Or is he just the latest iteration of the global phenomena, a Duterte/Orban/Erdogan/Bolsanero for Ethiopia?

And why is it that we're getting this rise of murderous populist demagogues? Was Rosa Luxembourg right? Is this simply where capitalism and liberalism will always end?
posted by LeRoienJaune at 11:48 AM on September 20, 2021 [1 favorite]

Thank you for these links (though it feels emotionally wrong to "add to favorites," war is not a fave....), I was very ignorant about the current civil war and crisis. From the Baffler link:

On November 4, 2020, Ethiopians awoke to find that their country was in civil war. Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed—the fresh face of a reformist agenda—announced that troops loyal to the previous government had attacked army bases in the northern region of Tigray, and he was launching a “law enforcement operation” to bring this “criminal clique” to justice. Hostility towards the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), the leading party in the coalition that had ruled Ethiopia for twenty-seven years until Abiy took power in 2018, was already running high. Through November, Abiy’s operation seemed to be going according to plan. While drones destroyed the armor and artillery of the rebel region, federal forces closed in on the regional capital of Mekelle and occupied it. Abiy declared victory, claiming “not a single civilian” had been killed; the last remaining job was to round up renegade TPLF leaders who had fled to the hills. Some were captured or killed over the following weeks.

Since then, this rosy account has unraveled, despite a blanket communication blackout. Abiy was first compelled to concede that there were indeed massacres needing to be investigated, most notoriously in the city of Axum. The killing of hundreds of civilians was painstakingly documented by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.

posted by spamandkimchi at 12:45 PM on September 20, 2021 [2 favorites]

CNN/Channel 4 News report from March 2021 that included interviews from a safe house -- the only one believed to be operating in Tigray for rape survivors -- where around 40 women too traumatized to return to their families are receiving shelter and support. ... Content warning, sexual violence:

Outside of the safe house, many more women and young girls are being treated in Ayder Referral Hospital, the main medical facility in the regional capital Mekelle. Most have been referred there by hospitals in rural areas that are not equipped to handle rape cases... One doctor at the hospital told CNN that more than 200 women had been admitted for sexual violence in recent months, but many more cases have been reported in rural villages and centers for the internally displaced, with limited to no access to medical care.

The fighting in Tigray, which has included attacks on health care facilities, has severely restricted access to medical treatment, according to a report published Thursday by international medical humanitarian organization Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF). Of the 106 medical facilities MSF visited in the region, barely one in 10 were still operating, and one in five had been or was occupied by armed soldiers. One facility was being used as an army base, MSF said. Between a lack of access to medical services and stigma surrounding sexual violence, doctors CNN interviewed said they suspect the true number of rape cases is much higher than official reports.

posted by spamandkimchi at 12:55 PM on September 20, 2021 [1 favorite]

Also, is there anybody that can speak on the particular circumstance of Abiy's rise? Or is he just the latest iteration of the global phenomena, a Duterte/Orban/Erdogan/Bolsanero for Ethiopia?

So, first thing to understand about Ethiopia is that it was never colonized, and tends to have its own kinda special political situation. The last hundred years (at least) have been marked by strong central governments ruling with very heavy fists, and very little concern for the little people who might be crushed in pursuit of whatever the leadership wants.

Once there was an Emperor, who led the country in a fight to keep out the Italians in the 30's ('led' largely from a flat in london, but who's counting), and then kept leading the country through massive famines in the 50's, 60's and 70's. (Ryszard Kapuscinki's book on Haile Selassie is quite a read, btw.)

The Emperor was overthrown in 1974, and replaced by a new communist government, the Derg, which was famously brutal and uniquely terrible. If you ever visit Addis, you can go to the museum full of bones of unknown people killed by the Derg. This era was Pol-Pot-level bad, and brought up a lot of similarly dismal questions, such as "Is it really genocide if the government is just killing everyone?" depressing a for a depressing q: usually, yes! the government will generally be racist in one way or another, providing enough evidence for targeted killing to call it genocide, at least for some people. While the Derg were being terrible, there was a massive famine and western musicians decided to help by ending lots of food aid while ignoring the politics and the supply lines... and arguably ended up just feeding lots of repressive soldiers.

Eritrea split off from Ethiopia in 1991, in the aftermath of the Derg war. The remaining country I guess spent a few years getting it's shit together after a goddamn nightmare of a decade, and came up with a new constitution in 1993. The new government, which more-or-less ran from 1994-ish to 2018, was intended to be multiethnic, but was headed continuously by Tigrayans, and became steadily Less Fun for some of the other major ethnic groups, eg, the Oromo. After many protests and many doses of violent repression, Abiy is elected prime minister, the first Oromo to hold the post.

While promising unity and smoothing out the conflict with Eritrea, things get spicy in Tigray. Abiy's government brings down a real heavy fist on the dissent, putting us where we are today. The hope was that we would see a real multi-ethnic government working for the betterment of all Ethiopians, and instead we seem to be getting just-desserts handed back to the Tigrayans from the previously-repressed Oromos. This fucking sucks.

(I've probably gotten some details wrong here, and there's plenty of room for argument on most points.)

But I'll end by saying that Ethiopia is a beautiful and truly unique country. I ran a math camp for secondary students there in 2012-ish, and had a truly amazing time. I met piles of absolutely brilliant people, who were incredibly welcoming. And: clothes, music, food, coffee... Ethiopia is just incredibly culturally rich, perhaps due to the distinct lack of colonization. The curse of loving the country is being eternally depressed and disappointed with the politics.
posted by kaibutsu at 4:49 PM on September 20, 2021 [21 favorites]

So, first thing to understand about Ethiopia is that it was never colonized, and tends to have its own kinda special political situation. [...] Once there was an Emperor, who led the country in a fight to keep out the Italians in the 30's ('led' largely from a flat in london, but who's counting), and then kept leading the country through massive famines in the 50's, 60's and 70's. (Ryszard Kapuscinki's book on Haile Selassie is quite a read, btw.)

For still more backstory, Robert Evans' Behind The Bastards podcast recently did a two-parter on the Italians' history in Ethiopia.
posted by progosk at 12:06 AM on September 21, 2021