A Crisis We Know Nothing About

Ethiopia is a landlocked nation of over 100 million people, with a sprinkling of many faiths but mostly roughly two-thirds Christian and one-third Muslim. This land on the Horn of Africa is a complicated multi-ethnic federation with more than 80 ethno-linguistic groups. It is the second fastest growing economy on the continent. It is also a humanitarian mess. For nearly three decades, a heavily repressive central government kept the lid on ethnic tensions that have riddled the nation throughout its history. With a lifting of that boot and the rise of new political leadership, free speech has unfortunately often morphed into hate speech, resurrecting conflicts that were simmering all the while.

The net result: A vast array of “inter-ethnic conflicts raging in Ethiopia that have given the country an unenviable distinction: Last year more people fled their homes there than in any other nation on Earth… In total, 2.9 million people had been displaced by December 2018, more than those dislodged in Syria, Yemen, Somalia and Afghanistan combined, according to estimates published this month.

“The upsurge in communal violence has coincided with the early days of Abiy Ahmed’s tenure as prime minister and is arguably the greatest threat to his lofty ambitions… Elected prime minister in April 2018, Abiy won international praise for his sweeping political and economic reform in Africa’s second-fastest growing economy. But the huge displacement during his tenure is the biggest black mark against the ambitious leader’s first year in office.

“‘Officials and others [outside the Abiy administration] have been focused on the opportunity for democratic progress, and they have been reluctant to also recognize this serious humanitarian and security crisis,’ said William Davison, senior analyst at the International Crisis Group, a think tank.

“Appointed by the ruling party to steady Ethiopia after two years of anti-government protests, Abiy has won over much of the country with promises to reform authoritarian politics. He has released jailed journalists and political prisoners, welcomed exiled dissidents back into the country, declared peace with longtime foe Eritrea and has been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize.” Tom Wilson writing for the Los Angeles Times, May 30^th. 

People violently driven from their homes, death and destruction as local war lords and self-appointed ethnic leaders have too often incited their “people” to violent intolerance of competing ethnic groups.

In order to reverse the growing fears about national stability, Abiy is collecting displaced people by the busload to transport them back to their home territory. Claiming to have tamed most of the bad actors creating the violence, Abiy is trying to present an image of his country that just might not exist.

“More than 200,000 ethnic Oromos have been evicted from the western Benishangul-Gumuz region since September, while Benishangul authorities last month accused members of another ethnic group, the Amhara, of killing more than 200 people in a territorial dispute. Similar disputes have flared on Oromia’s eastern border with Ethiopia’s Somali region.

“In southern Ethiopia, Guji and Gedeo groups have periodically clashed over access to productive farmland, but the recent conflict was marked by an unusual intensity. [About 700,000 people have fled their homes in this dispute alone.]

“In the villages around the town of Dilla… the government has begun putting displaced people on buses to return them to their homes, in what they said was an effort to regain the initiative…. Aadi Tigistu Boyalla, an official in charge of the response in the Gedeo zone, told the Financial Times that any security issues had been resolved and that the plan was for all the area’s 446,420 displaced people to be returned by the end of the month.

“However, humanitarian workers accuse the government of rushing the process by returning people against their will to areas where the underlying causes of the conflict have not been addressed. Some were being taken back to homes that had been burnt or occupied, said one aid worker who declined to be identified… ‘You just don’t wake up one day and return half a million people. You need to plan,’ the worker said. ‘Two years is a viable time frame, not two weeks.’…

“‘The government’s actions are making an ongoing humanitarian crisis even worse,’ the Refugees International aid organization said last week…. ‘Pushing people to return to their home communities prematurely will only add to the ongoing suffering,’ senior advocate Mark Yarnell said.

“The prime minister’s office said all returns had been compliant with international best practices but warned that unnamed “hostile” actors had sought to disrupt the process. “There are elements exploiting victims of displacement and conflict for their own agenda,” a spokesperson said.

“One explanation is that political and community leaders from the Oromia region have seen the rise to the prime minister’s office of Abiy — who is also from Oromia — as a chance to assert the rights of the region’s people. Other officials say that the conflicts are an unavoidable consequence of Ethiopia’s attempt to move from a de facto one-party state to a pluralist democracy.” LA Times. 

How many Americans even know about this horrific violence? How many even care? The world is a dangerous place, and sooner or later, all of these seemingly distant struggles and disruptions find their way onto the global stage… and impact us all.

              I’m Peter Dekom, and an awareness of severe pain in a nation of over 100 million people is simply too big for us to ignore.