source Black Agenda Report
by Thomas C. Mountain
Most
of the millions of Ethiopians forced into the global limbo of displacement are
Oromo or ethnic Somali from the Ogaden, victims of the Ethiopian regime’s
genocidal policies. During the recent devastating drought, “all of Oromia and
the Ogaden affected by this catastrophe were prevented from receiving food and
medical aid by the Ethiopian regime” – one of Washington’s closest allies in
Africa.
Ethiopia’s 10 Million Human Tsunami
by Thomas C. Mountain
“At one point up to 1,000 people a day,
mostly women, children and the elderly, were dying of hunger.”
Every
year for a decade or more a million Ethiopians, 10 million and counting, have
left, or fled, their homeland. While the television screens of the world have
been flooded with images of North African migrants drowning off the Italian
island of Lampedusa, the bones of tens of thousands of Ethiopian refugees lay
in unmarked graves along Yemeni shores or at the bottom of the Indian Ocean or
Red Sea.
How
is it you might ask, that this 10 million human tsunami remains almost unknown
to the world? And why, why would ten million Ethiopians, one in every 8 people
in the country, risking their lives in many cases, seek refuge in foreign,
mostly unwelcoming, lands?
The
answer lies in the policies of the Ethiopian regime which have been described
by UN investigators in reports long suppressed with words such as “food and
medical aid blockades,” “scorched earth counterinsurgency tactics,” “mass
murder” and even “genocide.”
Most
of the Ethiopians refugees are from the Oromo nationality, at 40 million strong
half of Ethiopia, or the ethnic Somalis of the Ogaden. Both of these regions in
southern Ethiopia have long been victims of some of the most inhumane, brutal
treatment any peoples of the world have ever known (it has been estimated that
a full half of all Oromos were wiped out during the western supported
Abyssinian Imperialist colonialization during the late 1800’s by the
forefathers of “Emperor” Haile Sellasie).
These
past few years saw the worst drought and famine in the Horn of Africa in 60
years yet almost all of Oromia and the Ogaden affected by this catastrophe were
prevented from receiving food and medical aid by the Ethiopian regime.
What
country in the world is allowed to expel both the Red Cross and Doctors Without
Borders during such a humanitarian crisis and not be roundly condemned by the
international community? Only Ethiopia.
In
Somalia alone the UN has admitted at least 250,000 starved to death during this
famine with estimates for the victims in Oromia and the Ogaden running at least
this high.
500,000
people starving to death in a couple of years and no outcry from the world? At
one point up to 1,000 people a day, mostly women, children and the elderly,
were dying of hunger and all we got was a New York Times best seller on the
CIA’s “dirty wars” in the Horn of Africa which somehow failed to condemn this
enormous crime.
“Every day some 3,000 Ethiopians flee
their homeland, almost 100,000 a month, another million or more this year.”
Ethiopia
remains the largest recipient of international, mainly western aid, in the
world. Recently sources in Addis Ababa from within the offices of the IMF have
sent word that Ethiopia’s import bill has reached almost 12 billion dollars a
year while exports are only $2 billion. $10 billion a year in “aid,” “loans” or
“investment” make Ethiopia entirely dependent on foreign good will to survive
yet the world is helpless to prevent the enforced starvation of hundreds of
thousand or over 10 million Ethiopians fleeing their country?
In
the past ten years we have seen many reports on over two million Iraqi refugees
and now another more than 2 million Syrian refugees. Yet more than twice this
number of Ethiopian have become refugees and this fact remains unknown to the
world?
When speaking
of these crimes I am not speaking in the past tense for every day some 3,000
Ethiopians flee their homeland, almost 100,000 a month, another million or more
this year. Many flee by boat from the shores of Somalia, heading for Yemeni
shores and hopefully on to safer lands. How many boats sink with the loss of
almost all onboard, or worse yet, have their passengers thrown overboard while
still offshore will never be known. The international navies that patrol this
region seem to care little for preventing the human trafficking mafias from
carrying out their ghoulish trade, far to busy protecting the interests of the
major shipping lines through these very same waters. Have you ever heard of a
drone strike or commando raid on a human trafficking headquarters? Are any of
these vermin trading in human misery ever listed on international “Most Wanted”
bulletins?
Why
should they, for the criminals ruling Ethiopia not only are allowed to continue
business as usual but actually see their cash flow in the form of “foreign aid
and investment” increased by a third since 2010 while at the same time hundreds
of thousands of Ethiopians starve to death.
So
next time you are confronted by images of lines of corpses along the shores of
Italy remember that this is something that goes on almost everyday in the Horn
of Africa but doesn't merit comment, let alone disgust and outrage by those
most pious of commentators in the international media.
Thomas C. Mountain is the most widely distributed independent journalist in
Africa, living and reporting from Eritrea since 2006. He can be reached at
thomascmountain_at_yahoo_dot_com.
