{"id":12259,"date":"2021-10-08T12:57:00","date_gmt":"2021-10-08T12:57:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/axumawian.com\/?p=12259"},"modified":"2021-10-10T08:06:34","modified_gmt":"2021-10-10T08:06:34","slug":"famine-in-ethiopia-is-the-world-averting-its-eyes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/axumawian.com\/?p=12259","title":{"rendered":"Famine in Ethiopia: Is the world averting its eyes?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Source: The Christian Science Monitor<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

October 8, 2021<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not so long ago, Ethiopia was a darling of the international community, an ethnically diverse country that had emerged from stifling communist rule with a model for building inclusive governance and equitable prosperity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2019 the country\u2019s leader, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, won the Nobel Peace Prize for pulling Ethiopia back from the brink of ethnic warfare and for committing to build a democracy through dialogue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But these days, the Horn of Africa country is an example of another \u2013 darker \u2013 trend in global power politics, one that portends dire consequences for human rights and potentially opens the door to horrors like ethnic cleansing and genocide. It\u2019s a door many experts thought was closing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As his government carries out a scorched-earth war in the rebellious Tigray province, Mr. Abiy is finding he can act with impunity \u2013 spreading famine and attacking civilians in a way the United States says is approaching genocide \u2013 because no power on the international stage has the will or desire to stop him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After Myanmar and Venezuela, Ethiopia has emerged, say African and international affairs experts, as Exhibit A for the faltering international defense of human rights and for the rise of enablers of gross rights violations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A decade after the U.S. and European powers intervened in Muammar Qaddafi\u2019s Libya to stop a threatened massacre \u2013 an intervention that resulted in regime change \u2013 Mr. Abiy is operating in a very different global power environment, the experts say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

China\u2019s role<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Not only have the Western powers, the traditional defenders of international human rights, tired of intervention, but China and Russia have also emerged as staunch and influential defenders of national sovereignty and a government\u2019s right to rule over domestic affairs \u2013 and the national population \u2013 as it sees fit and without outside interference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe ascendant idea a decade or so ago was that there were human rights standards and norms of behavior that leaders could be held accountable for, but more recently we\u2019re seeing something very different,\u201d says Michael Rubin, a resident scholar specializing in the Middle East and the Horn of Africa at the America Enterprise Institute (AEI) in Washington.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNow there\u2019s always someone who can give an aspiring despot support and even a sense of impunity,\u201d he adds. \u201cFor the Ethiopians and Abiy Ahmed,\u201d he says, \u201cthat power is China.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last week Mr. Abiy expelled seven senior United Nations humanitarian personnel, accusing them of aiding rebel forces loyal to the Tigray People\u2019s Liberation Front, which controls Tigray and formerly led Ethiopia\u2019s government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Days earlier, the U.N. had issued a report warning of famine across Tigray and accusing the government of stopping food, medical supplies, and fuel from entering the war-torn province.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The year-old war in Tigray has killed thousands of civilians, displaced 2 million people, and deepened what experts call \u201cman-made famine.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

U.N. Secretary-General Ant\u00f3nio Guterres said he was \u201cshocked\u201d by Ethiopia\u2019s action and demanded that the government reverse its decision. But when the Security Council took up the issue last Friday under \u201cany other business,\u201d no action was taken and no condemnation of Ethiopia\u2019s expulsion of U.N. personnel was issued.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Afghanistan … and the Cold War<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

For some experts, events in Ethiopia underscore two trends they see advancing in international affairs \u2013 both of which they see as welcome developments for the world\u2019s authoritarian rulers and human rights violators.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s going on with Ethiopia is illustrative of two syndromes at work in various forms and with varying intensity in different places around the world,\u201d says Michael Doyle, a professor at Columbia University\u2019s School of International and Public Affairs in New York and a former U.N. assistant secretary-general.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOne is the Afghanistan syndrome, and the other is the new Cold War syndrome. One is about intervention fatigue and a growing sense post-Afghanistan that you can\u2019t really make things better, so don\u2019t get involved,\u201d he adds. \u201cAnd the other looks at China and Russia\u2019s growing willingness to take sides, and declares there\u2019s another game in town despots can turn to if they get any kind of trouble from the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
People stand in line to receive food donations at the Tsehaye primary school in the town of Shire, Tigray region, Ethiopia, March 15, 2021. (Baz Ratner\/Reuters)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Nowadays authoritarians and human rights violators have powerful options on their side, Dr. Doyle says, \u201cwhich was just not the case in 2000 or 2005, or a decade ago\u201d when the U.S. and European powers intervened to stop Mr. Qaddafi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, leaders under pressure from Western powers can turn to Russia (Nicol\u00e1s Maduro in Venezuela) or China (Myanmar\u2019s military junta) to stave off any serious action against them. Not only does China bristle at the notion that any outside power has any kind of say in how it treats its Uyghur Muslim minority, some experts say, but it also wants to extend the principle of noninterference in another country\u2019s sovereign affairs beyond its borders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cRussia and China want to make a world safe for autocracy,\u201d says Columbia\u2019s Dr. Doyle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Responsibility to Protect<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

How the world has changed. It was just in 2005 that U.N. member states approved the Responsibility to Protect. The new doctrine known as R2P declared leaders responsible for their citizens\u2019 well-being, and moreover endorsed international intervention in cases of state-sponsored violence against the population.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBasically R2P said to leaders, \u2018You can do whatever you want, run your economy into the ground or whatever, anything except genocide, ethnic cleansing, and gross human rights violations,\u2019\u201d says Dr. Doyle, who was serving at the U.N. when R2P was negotiated. \u201cIt put a floor on the very worst government behavior,\u201d he adds, \u201cbelow which leaders could not go without risking international intervention.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The West\u2019s Libya intervention is seen by some experts as both the R2P doctrine\u2019s zenith \u2013 and its undoing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLibya was the Responsibility to Protect gone awry,\u201d says Mr. Rubin of AEI. \u201cIt left a bad taste and a reticence about regime change, and today Abiy knows that,\u201d he adds, referring to the Ethiopian leader.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Noting that his sources tell him Abiy is preparing another major offensive into Tigray, Mr. Rubin says, \u201cAbiy is getting to the point where he just doesn\u2019t care what the outside world thinks, and he knows he really doesn\u2019t have to.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Limits of U.S. policy<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Which is not to say that the U.S. and other Western powers have thrown in the towel. In April Secretary of State Antony Blinken named seasoned diplomat Jeffrey Feltman as special adviser on the Horn of Africa, an appointment largely intended to keep the pressure on Mr. Abiy. In February the U.S. accused the Abiy government of carrying out ethnic cleansing in Tigray.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moreover, the Biden administration\u2019s USAID administrator and prominent anti-genocide crusader, Samantha Power, has also focused attention on Ethiopia. But when she visited the country in August, she was notably denied a meeting with Mr. Abiy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The result is that \u201cU.S. policy becomes a little bit toothless,\u201d says Dr. Doyle. \u201cThere are statements, occasionally even strong statements, and both Samantha and Jeffrey are perfectly capable of that, but in the post-Afghanistan fatigue I don\u2019t see things ratcheting up much higher.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr. Rubin says it would be wrong to conclude that Ethiopia is \u201ccompletely in China\u2019s pocket.\u201d Mr. Abiy has been trying to execute a \u201cbalancing act\u201d between China and the West, especially the European Union, he says. \u201cAbiy doesn\u2019t want to become too dependent on either,\u201d he adds, \u201cbut as the conflict goes on, he\u2019s also tilting towards the power he feels has his back.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It would be equally wrong to conclude that all big-power cooperation on human rights issues is a thing of the past. Noting that the Security Council recently extended the provision for humanitarian corridors in Syria by six months, Dr. Doyle says, \u201cMaybe that\u2019s not a lot, but it\u2019s something, and suggests international cooperation on these issues is still possible.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But that may offer little consolation for populations facing state-sponsored violence and gross human rights violations, he says \u2013 or little sense of threat to despots.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cQaddafi thought he could \u2018get rid of the cockroaches\u2019 with impunity, and it turns out he could not,\u201d Dr. Doyle says. \u201cBut today he probably could get away with it \u2013 we live in a different world.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

WHY WE WROTE THIS<\/em><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The U.N. secretary-general was \u201cshocked\u201d Ethiopia had expelled U.N. humanitarian staff, but the Security Council didn\u2019t act. Has the world lost its devotion to the \u201cresponsibility to protect,\u201d and if so, why?<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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