written by James Jeffrey
quillette.com
“Forgetful of the world, by whom they were forgotten,” wrote eminent 18th-century British historian Edward Gibbon of the “Aethiopians” as they “slept near a thousand years.” Ethiopia remains the only African country not colonised—its rugged mountainous terrain kept out intruders and helped to preserve one of Africa’s most unique cultures. The country is far more prominent on the global scene these days, in large part due to a terrible famine that seared images of its starving children into the world’s collective consciousness during the 1980s. But more recently, it has attracted attention due to its remarkable economic renaissance. The country was in the ascendant and its tourism industry was champing at the bit. A campaign was launched promoting Ethiopia as the Land of Origins—the cradle of humanity out of which the antecedents of modern humans set off from Africa around 185,000 years ago.
But the world’s tendency toward forgetfulness has re-emerged since Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed ordered the military into Tigray, the country’s most northern region, last November. This move has plunged Ethiopia into deepening internecine conflict, ethnic cleansing, and starvation. It didn’t help that the world’s attention was transfixed by the US election and the ensuing controversy when Abiy sent federal troops to the region in response to attacks by forces directed by the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), the region’s dominant party, on federal military bases in Tigray.
Abiy set aside his 2019 Nobel Peace Prize and dismissed the international community’s meagre protestations, and the conflict has now lasted more than 110 days, producing multiple allegations of massacres. Meanwhile, the COVID-19 pandemic and the management of its fallout has sapped the political energy and attentions of UK and US governments which have long been close partners of Ethiopia. This has included providing colossal amounts of foreign aid, which you’d have thought would give them some leverage with the Ethiopian government. But apparently not, as one horror story after another emerges from the region.
Reports of massacres of civilians (with machetes and knives), extrajudicial killings, and widespread looting and rape by troops (including the alleged use of gang rape and forced incestuous rape as a tool of psychological warfare), have been attended by reports of artillery strikes on populated areas, hospitals, churches, and mosques. More than two million people have been displaced within Tigray, and about 60,000 have fled into neighbouring Sudan. According to a UN report, an estimated 4.5 million Tigrayans—out of a population of around six million—currently need emergency food assistance, prompting fears of a return to those dreadful scenes from the 1980s. Tigray was the epicentre of the 1984 famine that led to the Live Aid concert—the region has never had it easy due to a combination of harsh climate and even harsher political machinations.
The Ethiopian government has attempted to maintain total control of the narrative by locking down the region and imposing a communications blackout. This has made it next to impossible for journalists and foreign agencies to access the region and evaluate the videos of brutal executions of civilians that have emerged (one of the more recent clips appears to show Ethiopian soldiers beating and murdering Tigrayans while a crowd of Amhara cheer). Alleged massacres have been given credence by international groups and Amnesty International, which just released a report about the killing of hundreds of civilians between November 28th–29th in the city of Axum by Eritrean troops, who have been supporting Ethiopia’s military.
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