Long before Ukraine, fratricidal conflict raged in Ethiopia..
It’s almost heresy these days to ask people to avert their gaze from Ukraine even for a moment. But if our shared humanity means anything, you owe it to yourself to notice the carnage in Ethiopia. The reality is revolting, and if you’re not moved by this post, you need to check your pulse.
Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed triggered a descent into the genocidal fratricide now raging in Ethiopia more than a year before Vladimir Putin triggered the one now raging in Ukraine. Yet, while everyone seems shocked that Russians are killing their purported Ukrainian brothers so savagely, relatively few seem bothered that Ethiopians have been killing their purported Tigrayan brothers with even greater savagery.
Of course, you don’t have to be a Bible scholar to appreciate the Adamic nature that has caused brother to kill brother since the beginning of time. What is so foreboding, however, is that each fratricidal fight seems to get more genocidal than the one before.
On June 30, 2015, National Interest Magazine listed the five most lethal civil wars of all time, which affirm this trend. Because each raged during this past century as follows:
- Chinese brother killing brother from 1927 to 1950
- Korean brother killing brother from 1950 to 1953
- Vietnamese brother killing brother from 1955 to 1975
- Congolese brother killing brother (spasmodically) from 1960 to 2009
- Nigerian brother killing brother from 1967 to 1970.
This shows not only that, beneath the skin, men are the same everywhere, but that neither time nor geography spares us from ourselves. Still, it speaks volumes that two are in Africa.
Even so, Putin’s threat to use nuclear weapons on Ukrainians, whom he himself calls his brothers, shows that he’s hell-bent on Russians distinguishing themselves in this genocidal respect. But I fear Abiy is hell-bent on matching that zeal, proving that man’s inhumanity to man knows no bounds and requires no nukes.
But I see no point in delving into why Ethiopia is just the latest African country now at war with itself. Besides, you probably already know all you need to if you’re among the millions who have seen the critically acclaimed film, Hotel Rwanda. Because the same grievance over ethnic self-determination and territorial control that has Tigray, Amhara, Oromo, and other brothers killing each other in Ethiopia is essentially a carbon copy of those that had Hutu and Tutsi brothers killing each other in Rwanda.
Then again, perhaps my frustration reflects the feelings of fecklessness and fatalism that come from chronicling serial African genocides. The titles alone of just five of them should explain.
- “Genocide in DR Congo: Rwanda with a Vengeance” (April 6, 2005)
- “Darfur Says Thanks, America, but the Genocide Is Done” (March 14, 2006)
- “Ethnic Tensions Threatening Genocide in Kenya” (January 17, 2008)
- “Tweeting the Genocidal Joseph Kony to Death?” (March 8, 2012)
- “South Sudan: Another Genocide Developing in Africa” (December 19, 2016)
Michelle Bachelet, the UN high commissioner for human rights, sounded alarm in this respect on Tuesday. She accused all parties in Ethiopia of gross violations of human rights — notably looting, destroying civilian infrastructure, including schools and health facilities, and even blocking the delivery of food and medicine. But she could easily have been sounding alarm about what Putin is doing in Ukraine.
Alas, as I indicated a moment ago, there is nothing unusual about this latest genocidal conflict in Africa, which has already left thousands dead, millions displaced, and millions more on the brink of starvation. True to form, reports of ethnic cleansing and sexual violence abound. And this too is just tragic déjà vu:
- “Rape as Weapon of War in Congo” (October 18, 2010)
- “South Sudan Descending into the Heart of Darkness” (December 30, 2013)
Even so, you’d be forgiven for having no clue that this genocidal conflict is now raging in Ethiopia. After all, Western media only become interested when Africans fleeing conflict begin arriving on European shores.
Not to mention that the millions of Ukrainians fleeing conflict and arriving at national borders across Europe are providing more than enough humanitarian pathos for Western media to cover. They’d rather deliver redundant 24/7 coverage of a humanitarian crisis in Europe than divert the world’s attention for a minute to cover a humanitarian crisis in Africa.
Nothing betrayed this continental racism quite like the disparate way Polish border guards treated Ukrainians and Africans fleeing Russian bombs: They welcomed the Ukrainians with open arms. But they rejected the Africans, who were studying in Ukraine and now fleeing those same bombs. They treated the Africans as if they were escaped fugitives who should be returned to their Russian oppressors.
Meanwhile, the conflict in Ethiopia is beginning to spread, forcing more and more Africans to flee, daring danger and unwelcome, as I lamented in “African Migrants Turning Mediterranean Sea into Vast Cemetery” (February 12, 2015)
My heart truly goes out to the long-suffering, godforsaken people of Ethiopia. But truth be told, I’ve been expressing forlorn hope for them for years, in blog commentaries like:
- “Despite Live8 and G8 / Relief Looms Like a Cruel Mirage to Millions of Africans Dying of Starvation” (July 21, 2005)
- “Another African Famine?! Nobody Cares! Then Call Me Nobody” (May 2, 2014)
And yet iPINIONS is obliged to end with this cruel twist: the Nobel Committee awarded its 2019 Nobel Peace Prize to Abiy, only to watch him plunge his country into genocidal conflict. Mind you, the red flags were waving for all to see even before the committee awarded him its peace prize. After all, Abiy made clear his intent to rule Ethiopia with an iron fist, making the late Emperor Haile Selassie look like a Jeffersonian Democrat.
Sure enough, continuing my Putin analogy, Abiy wasted little time executing a Putin-style crackdown on opposition leaders, journalists, and pro-democracy protesters. And he did all of this even before he began his ill-fated campaign to do to Tigray what Putin is doing to Ukraine.
The Nobel Committee never revokes an award, no matter how warranted. But it should feel a special duty not just to rebuke Abiy but to organize relief efforts to deal with the humanitarian crisis he has caused.
Now, as Putin demonizes Ukrainians as “Nazis and gangsters,” Abiy casts Tigrayans as “malignant cancers and wild weeds.” Chilling rhetoric, but here’s the kicker: Putin never claimed the Nobel Peace Prize. Abiy did—and he fouls it daily, exhorting Ethiopians to spill blood, bury their brothers in mass graves.
Because it does not bode well that, just as Putin is demonizing his Ukrainian brothers as “Nazis and gangsters,” Abiy is demonizing his Tigrayan brothers as “malignant cancers and wild weeds.”
To be fair, though, Putin is not the Nobel Peace Laureate. Abiy is the one defiling that laurel by exhorting Ethiopians to spill blood and bury their brothers in deep pits.
Again, Europe’s war isn’t the only genocide worth mourning. And if you think it is, you’re complicit in the blindness that enables the next one.
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