In November this year, a 20-year-old man from Ethiopia’s Amhara region, Africa’s second most populous country, dropped out of school and left home to start a business as a used wool seller due to the ongoing civil war in Africa’s second most populous country. It happened. At the market in a village near Zibst.
The young man never returned home.
He was one of 43 people killed when forces under Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed carried out a drone strike on a crowded market. This was one of three attacks on civilians that morning targeting health centers and elementary schools. The U.S.-based Armed Con conflict Location and Event Data Project said the attack was the deadliest drone strike since Abiy’s government stepped up fighting in the Amhara region this summer, targeting local Fano rebels and nearby rebels. It said it was particularly alerted because there were no collisions.
“He died after falling from the air,” the victim’s mother recently told German news agency DW. They were reluctant to reveal their family’s names for fear of government retaliation. The young man’s father could only confirm his identity through his ID card. “I took him and buried him in the place where he was born.”
The young wool seller was one of hundreds of civilians massacred in the latest and perhaps worst phase of Ethiopia’s seemingly endless civil war. The civil war intensified this fall when the government launched what it ominously calls “Operation Final” in the Amhara region. Despite targeting local Pano fighters, the attacks have killed, detained and displaced thousands of civilians.
The death toll to date is shocking. The airstrikes, carried out with Turkish-made drones and backed by the growing unholy alliance between Abiy’s regime and the United Arab Emirates, have killed at least 449 and up to 750 civilians in what appears to be a campaign of ethnic cleansing. According to groups that track the killings, it was aimed at undermining public support for Fano.
Meanwhile, government forces have established a massive network of detention camps in the Amhara region, visible in satellite images, which have assisted in the mass arrests of thousands of people, according to Amnesty International.
The world community largely ignores these crimes against humanity. While this is partly a result of distraction from other major conflicts across Africa and the Middle East, the shocking neglect of the Ethiopian crisis is also the result of political inertia and being caught up in regional and global superpower competition that ignores the fundamental principles of the agenda. Autonomy and human rights.
On the day of the drone strike over Zibst, Donald Trump was elected the 47th President of the United States for a second time. The inauguration of a new administration presents a unique opportunity to reset long-overdue U.S. policy. Ethiopia’s deep-rooted crisis provides a test case for the path to a solution.
The new president’s long-standing concerns about America’s competition with global rivals, including the growing ambitions of China and the oil-rich Persian Gulf states, can and should be combined with a strategy that emphasizes expanding democracy and guaranteeing basic freedoms.
Ethiopia and Abiy’s government are not the only ones who need strong love. But that requires Washington to stop turning a blind eye to human rights abuses in the Horn of Africa. There, Abiy somehow won the Nobel Peace Prize despite years of civil war.
During President Biden’s four years in the White House, talk of a new approach to Africa with a greater focus on pressing issues such as human rights and climate change has often been just talk. Earlier this year, the United States and other Western-backed institutions, including the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, offered loans and direct support, but missed a huge opportunity.
The dollars rescued Abiy’s regime from an urgent debt crisis as it failed to create conditions to improve civil rights or end the brutal conflict in the Amhara region and other parts of the country.
Instead, the bailout will allow the Addis Ababa government to buy more advanced weapons, such as the Turkish-made Bayraktar TB2 drones, the backbone of an unmanned fleet deployed under the Ethiopian Air Force’s Special Forces last year. The regime has also found an ambitious partner in its oil-rich Persian Gulf neighbor, the United Arab Emirates. The UAE is keen to gain political influence over the Horn of Africa by competing with other regional countries such as Saudi Arabia.
Ordinary citizens (farmers, teachers, merchants) of the Amhara region and most other parts of Ethiopia are becoming unnecessary pawns in this geopolitical power game. Civil society is collapsing, not only due to wanton violence, but also due to the rapid erosion of democratic norms across Ethiopia. According to Amnesty International, government forces’ drone attacks and house raids have resulted in many warrantless arrests of judges, court officials, prosecutors, and university professors.
While President Trump frequently spoke of an “America First” policy during his campaign that hinted at isolationism, the reality is that the president-elect is eager to flex his muscles and compete on the world stage with rivals such as China, which have been competing for the past decade. It will. It also sought to spread its influence throughout Africa. In this moment of crisis, there is an opportunity for a new American president.
Over the past century, strong ties between Washington and Addis Ababa have brought great benefits to both countries. The renewed focus of the second Trump administration in the late 2020s on maintaining close economic ties could not only be a ‘win-win’ for both countries, but could also weaken the appeal of anti-democratic rivals such as China and the UAE.
I strongly urge the new President to use Ethiopia as a test case that democracy and human rights can once again become the foundation of a newly prosperous African continent.
Mesfin Tegenu is Executive Chair of the U.S. Ethiopian Public Affairs Committee.
