Dear reader,

 

In the first section of this Tigray Digest, we highlight the book “Understanding Ethiopia's Tigray War” by our colleagues Martin Plaut and Sarah Vaughan. Second, as our friend Gebrekirstos mentioned, Tigrayan diaspora does big efforts to leave its echo chamber and reach out to the host communities – the Amsterdam and Zürich events in early February are good examples of this (section 2).

Afbeelding

While the plight of the people in Tigray and in the wider Ethiopia runs as a red thread through this digest, we particularly highlight the schisms in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, that are existential for the local communities, strongly geared towards religion – the World didn’t care about the Tigray people, and more, what is happening to our Church now? (section 3). The next section in the digest addresses some “mafia-style” military support to Ethiopia and Eritrea (section 4), followed by a short review of the internal political situation in Tigray (section 5). We further highlight scientific papers documenting the plight of the people in Tigray (section 6), as well as ways you can help (section 7), against all odds (a brain drain is on the way!). We further list a selection of opinion pieces (section 8), international media reports directly from Tigray (section 9) and other press articles (section 10).

 

 

  1. Featured book: Understanding Ethiopia's Tigray War by Martin Plaut and Sarah Vaughan

Our friends Martin and Sarah, who are very familiar with Tigray, describe the conflict and subsequent hunger in an area that was (and still is) nearly totally cut off from the outside world. The Ethiopian and Eritrean administrations are deliberately pursuing this tactic in order to crush the Tigrayans at whatever cost. This contrasts the current situation from the 1984-5 famine, which killed 400,000 people due to a prolonged drought exacerbated by violence and administrative mismanagement. Today's famine is the direct outcome of purposeful agricultural sabotage and the cutting off of supplies to the region. Hatred for Tigrayans has been fueled by Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and his associates, who have referred to Tigrayans as "weeds" and "cancers" that must be removed and their role in history erased. A language reminiscent of the declarations that preceded Rwanda's massacre. The University of Edinburgh School of Social and Political Science organises a book launch on 9 March. Infos and registration here.

 

  1. Two successful Tigray events (Amsterdam and Zürich)

“Alarm Bell for Tigray” was organised in Amsterdam on 11 February, with about 90 participants, including journalists, people from the foreign ministry, people who have worked in Ethiopia before, NGO representatives, activists and friends. The very powerful event (a combination of music, dance, and panel discussion) was also streamlined and recorded on YouTube. Tghat presents an extensive summary and Gebrekirstos highlights the need for Tigrayans to communicate their plight to the public opinion. A local newspaper picked it up: Haarlems Dagblad, 10/2/2023: Toevallige ontmoeting opende de ogen van Jan Willem Baljet voor een vergeten oorlog in Ethiopië [in Dutch] (Chance meeting opened Jan Willem Baljet's eyes to a forgotten war in Ethiopia)

 

“Tigray – The invisible genocide?” The room in Zürich (12 February) was packed by more than 100 people, half of them Tigrayans based in Switzerland. There was an academic part with nine panelists (professors in various disciplines and journalists). During the cultural evening, the Tigrayan community was able to share many of their stories. The recording of the event was posted here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpcbMdcq3VI

 

 

  1. Schisms in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church

The schisms in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church may appear trivial to observers in secular Europe, but they shock the country. The grounds for the schism are directly related to the central Amhara leadership's prejudice towards outlying ethnic groups. The Oromo, being the biggest ethnic group, have long complained that they are underrepresented in church leadership. The apostate bishops want that, in addition to the traditional Ge'ez, the Oromo language be utilized in Orthodox services. In contrast, using the vernacular languages, like in civilian life since the fall of the Dergue regime, is the great strength of Protestantism in Ethiopia. For instance, when conducting fieldwork in the far southern Bench district around 10 years ago, I saw that Pentecostal churches were simple buildings in local materials, but full of believers, whereas the luxurious Orthodox churches were much less popular. There, the P’ent’ay Church, I was told, employs the local Bench language, while Orthodox churches, in addition to liturgy in Ge'ez, use Amharic. The southern and western bishops also demand that distinct patriarchates be formed for each region. About a year ago, the Tigray Orthodox Church had already opposed itself against the Ethiopian Church due to the latter's cover-up and even instigation to killings in Tigray. The Ethiopian Church recently issued cosmetic apologies, with no mention of the key hate preachers. Such fallacious apologies were not accepted by the Tigray Church. To add upon the complexity: the Pentecostal religion was introduced to Ethiopia by Scandinavian missionaries, in competition to the longstanding Orthodox, Islam and traditional African religions; PM Abiy is the best known P’ent’ay follower in the country. Below are some contrasting opinion pieces and press articles.

 

 

  1. Illegal arms trade with Ethiopia

Military and customs authorities in Italy, coordinated by the Genoa Public Prosecutor's Office, confiscated machinery for the fabrication of artillery material, i.e. shells, destined for sale to Ethiopia in the lack of the appropriate authorizations. Two containers landed at Genoa's customs areas for eventual shipment to Ethiopia included machinery with user manuals and instructions for the production of shells, despite the fact that the exporter had presented paperwork with no reference to the manufacturing of weapons.

Informally, we learned that the Italian customs seized more material than what is reported in these press articles. A contact in Eritrea also told us that Italians have recently been seen in the main Eritrean military camp at Sawa – not government officials, but rather people described as “the mafia”.

 

 

 

  1. Tigray's internal political dynamism

The internal political environment of Tigray has been quite dynamic, featuring a variety of actors, as a result of the two years of dreadful war. Tigray's ruling TPLF party continues to dominate politics, according to opposition groups demanding more autonomy or independence from Ethiopia, as well as civil society organizations and academia. And these organisations accuse the TPLF leadership of failing to prevent the war that Ethiopia and Eritrea's governments had been planning since well before 2020. The governing party has established a committee to prepare a transitional government, despite the fact that the Tigray authorities earlier rejected the opposition's repeated requests for such a government. Allegations that the TPLF leadership is in control of the current process are mounting. In the confined political environment, the recent developments leave us with many questions.

 

 

  1. Scientific publications

 

 

  1. Helping the people in Tigray

Tigray Disaster Relief Fund (TDRF) - Do you have a worthy project in Tigray that TDRF could contribute to?  TDRF is funding projects from $5,000-$25,000 to support the people of Tigray.  Here is a video that shows you how to navigate the application process.

 

The Green Tunaydbah Foundation project includes small-scale farming solutions for refugees near their shelters in the Tuneydbah camp in Sudan to enable them to produce food for their households and gain some income while creating employment opportunities and a sense of hope for other refugees. Haben Tigray contributes to the project and deserves to be supported.

 

“Mary’s Meals” serves school meals in Tigray since 2017, and have continued working throughout the war. They have been very vocal about the plight of the Tigray people. Mary’s Meals continues fundraising for Tigray – there was a broadcast on MM’s activities on the radio in Croatia and Bosnia.

Klix, 29/1/2023: Zaboravljeni rat u Etiopiji je najsmrtonosniji sukob u 21. stoljeću sa 600.000 mrtvih civila [in Bosnian] (Ethiopia's forgotten war is the deadliest conflict of the 21st century, with 600,000 civilians dead.) Klix.ba is a major media in Bosnia and Herzegovina. There are dozens of comments under this article, and in general they say "it  is very sad, but we can't help / what we can do / we can do nothing" or they criticize USA and their wars in Iraq etc... or "I can understand, we had war in Bosnia..." or someone even writes about the feudal Ethiopia under Haile Selassie. These comments show generally a lot of empathy, in contrast to sometimes irrelevant comments under articles of Western European newspapers. In the western Balkans, there is a proverb that "the rich do not believe the poor".

 

The EthioTrees project activities did not stop throughout the war; the project leaders, both in Belgium and Tigray jointly continued to manage the community forest projects and to get the finance through, even at the darkest hours of blockade. There were several reports on Tigrai TV and Dimtsi Weyane TV, see the most recent one (from 15:12 to 19:15).

In this last video, our project gives financial support to over 200 Agriculture and Rural Development staff in Dogu’a Tembien and to 20 Natural Resource Management staff pertaining to Inderta woreda – the districts where the project is active. These government employees have not received salaries for over two years. Interviewed staff including the Dogu’a Tembien district adminstrator mentioned that even now, months after the Cessation of Hostilities Agreement, they have not received their salary yet; even if banks are now open this doesn't help government employees, as their salary was never sufficient to allow savings.

 

The problem is severe, and judging from the messages we and colleagues abroad get in our mailboxes, numerous professionals try to move out of Tigray. Earlier this week, Dr. Kibrom Gebreselassie, the director of Ayder hospital raised the alarm:

“By the time salary and budget make it to Tigray, I am afraid not so many doctors will still be in their posts. The rate at which our hospital is losing its healthcare workers is alarming. The exodus is hemorrhaging the region. Healthcare is amongst the prime target.”

“Hitherto our main problem was lack of medications but from now onwards there will not be enough professional to utilize it. They have endured the brutal war and siege, waited patiently to see if conditions would get better but finally started to lose hope.”

“Now they are going away to wherever they can get a pay. The draconian plan is finally paying off.”

Four months ago, public health specialists had already forewarned for this scenario.

Some of our contacts suspect a deliberate move by the Abiy government: salaries are not paid and five flights per day out of Mekelle, a perfect plan to organise a brain drain out of Tigray.

 

 

  1. Other opinion pieces

 

 

  1. International media directly reporting from Tigray

 

 

  1. Other media articles

 

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Jan Nyssen
Em. Senior Full Professor
Department of Geography
Ghent University
Belgium
(0032) 9 264 46 23
https://www.researchgate.net/project/War-and-humanitarian-crisis-in-Tigray-and-Ethiopia