35 quotes found
"Allow me to break down the facts of hunger as they stand right now. 811 million people are chronically hungry. 283 million are in hunger crises — they are marching toward starvation. And within that, 45 million in 43 countries across the globe are in hunger emergencies — in other words, famine is knocking on their door. Places like Afghanistan. Madagascar. Myanmar. Guatemala. Ethiopia. Sudan. South Sudan. Mozambique. Niger. Syria, Mali, Burkina Faso, Somalia, Haiti and on and on and on. The world has often experienced famine. But when has it ever been so widespread, in so many places, at the same time? Why? Three reasons. First, man-made conflict. Dozens of civil wars and regional conflicts are raging, and hunger has been weaponized to achieve military and political objectives. Second, climate shocks /climate change. Floods, droughts, locusts and rapidly changing weather patterns have created severe crop failures around the world. Third, COVID-19. The viral pandemic has created a secondary hunger pandemic, which is far worse than the first. Shutdowns destroyed livelihoods. Shutdowns stopped the movement of food. Shutdowns inflated prices. The net result is the poor of the world are priced out of survival. The ripple effect of COVID has been devastating on the global economy. During the pandemic, $3.7 trillion in incomes — mostly among the poor — have been wiped out, while food prices are spiking. The cost of shipping food, for example, has increased 3 – 400%. But in places of conflict and low-income countries, it is even worse. For example, in Aleppo, Syria — a war zone, where I just returned from — food is now seven times more expensive than it was 2 years ago. The combined effect of these three — conflict, climate and COVID — has created an unprecedented perfect storm."
"Contrary to western myth, the elevated central plateau which covers half of Ethiopia 's surface area that supports the large majority population is quite possibly the most extensive contiguous area of fertile land in the eastern side of Africa."
"Obscured by the media-refracted glare of the surrounding deserts, Ethiopia feels like the archetypal forgotten land. Ethiopia confounds every expectation. You arrive expecting a vast featureless desert and instead find yourself overwhelmed by majestic landscapes and climatic abundance. You expect a land which has been ravaged to the point of ruin by years of civil war, and instead you find close to the best civil amenities in Africa and almost no obvious signs that a war ever took place. You arrive expecting to see human degradation and abject poverty, and instead find yourself immersed in a culture besotted which itself and its history, and marked by a sense of unforced pride that is positively infectious. Ethiopia is a true revelation. It is the most welcoming, enjoyable and uplifting country I have ever visited."
"The war of conquest conducted by fascist Italy in Ethiopia started in October 1935 and ended in May 1936 (Del Boca 1969). The origins of the conflict are diverse and can be traced back to the late 19th century, but the immediate political reasons lie in Benito Mussolini’s interest in renewing the Roman Empire. Ethiopia, the only uncolonized country in Africa and surrounded by Italian colonies (Eritrea and Somalia), was the obvious target for the expansionist policies of the fascist state. Ethiopia was also the only country that had been able to obtain a lasting victory over a colonial power during the scramble for Africa. The Ethiopian victory at Adwa (1896) was a thorn in Italy’s imperial pride. The 1935-36 war was short but very costly in human lives, especially on the Ethiopian side. Ethiopia suffered almost 300,000 battlefield deaths (Del Boca 2010: 252), over 30 times more than Italy. Despite the modernizing efforts of the Ethiopian Army in the 1920s and 1930s, the massive firepower of the Italians and their systematic use of airplanes, tanks and poison gas gave no chance to the Ethiopians in the field of conventional war. Typical of a colonial conflict, the treatment of prisoners and civilians was ruthless: thousands were led into concentration camps where they died of disease or starvation (Del Boca 1969: 240-241)."
"In our opinion, it is important to ‘unearth fascism’, for several reasons. First, because material remains are so important in shaping the collective memory of fascism in Ethiopia. Archaeological vestiges are not innocent: they are part of a prevalent remembrance of the Italian occupation, one that has privileged monumental works over much less visible traces of abuse and conflict. Norindr (1996: 158) points out that in Indochina, the focus of neocolonial imagination is on French ‘ornate beaux-arts buildings’. In Ethiopia, the mythologies of the Italian occupation rest upon modernist houses, roads and bridges. Significantly, during our fieldwork in the region of Gambela (western Ethiopia) most buildings attributed to the Italians were (wrongly) identified as schools, in keeping with the idea propagated by the colonizers themselves that they were spreading civilization. This clearly goes against historical facts: the Italian policy in the Horn of Africa was, even before the advent of fascism, guided by the maxim: ‘no schooling for Africans’ (Barrera 2003: 90)."
"I, Haile Selassie I, Emperor of Ethiopia, am here today to claim that justice which is due to my people, and the assistance promised to it eight months ago, when fifty nations asserted that aggression had been committed in violation of international treaties. There is no precedent for a Head of State himself speaking in this assembly. But there is also no precedent for a people being victim of such injustice and being at present threatened by abandonment to its aggressor."
"Take care not to spoil the good name of Ethiopia by acts which are worthy of the enemy. We shall see that our enemies are disarmed and sent out the same way they came. As Saint George who killed the dragon is the Patron Saint of our army as well as of our allies, let us unite with our allies in everlasting friendship and amity in order to be able to stand against the godless and cruel dragon which has newly risen and which is oppressing mankind."
"May it be taken as Divine significance, that, as We mark the passing of the Nazi Reich, in America at San Francisco, delegates from all United Nations, among whose number Ethiopia stands, are now met together for their long-planned conference to lay foundations for an international pact to banish war and to maintain World Peace. Our Churches pray for the successful triumph of this conference. Without success in this, the Victory, We celebrate today, the suffering that We have all endured will be of no avail."
"I knew that the English regarded themselves as civilised, but it seemed to me that in many ways Ethiopia was a far more civilised place."
"If there is one people in history to have been shaped in its own self-consciousness by the Bible, it is the Ethiopian, with their extraordinary early medieval myth of origin, recorded in the Kebra Nagast, that the Mosaic Ark of the Covenant was carried from Jerusalem to Ethiopia, by Menelik I, son of Solomon, to constitute their nation as the new Israel. It is a myth which probably goes back at least to the sixth century. In consequence the whole Hebraic model of land, people, monarchy and religion could here be reproduced."
"Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots?"
"Ye who listen with credulity to the whispers of fancy, and pursue with eagerness the phantoms of hope; who expect that age will perform the promises of youth, and that the deficiencies of the present day will be supplied by the morrow; attend to the history of Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia."
"Ethiopia has always held a special place in my own imagination and the prospect of visiting attracted me more strongly than a trip to France, England and America combined. I felt I would be visiting my own genesis, unearthing the roots of what made me an African. Meeting the emperor himself would be like shaking hands with history."
"In this country, some aristocratic families automatically categorize persons with dark skin, thick lips, and kinky hair as "Barias" [Amharic for slave]... let it be clear to everybody that I shall soon make these ignoramuses stoop and grind corn!"
"The importance of the queen, the Ark of the Covenant and the Kebra Nagast in Ethiopian history cannot be overstated. Through their reading of the Kebra Nagast, Ethiopians see their country as God's chosen country, the final resting place that he chose for the Ark - and Sheba and her son were the means by which it came there. Thus, Sheba is the mother of their nation, and the kings of the land have divine right to rule because they are directly descended from her. Emperor Haile Selassie even had that fact enshrined in the Ethiopian Constitution of 1955."
"Completely! We've wounded and antagonized our natural friends. We've stabbed them in the back and we've shot ourselves in the foot."
"The Emperor of Ethiopia has been deposed by a military coup … Poor Haile Selassie; over the past few years he'd lost control and the inevitable was bound to happen. I remember his attendance at the monarchy celebrations, how he snatched his hand away when I tried to help him from his car, telling me he could manage well enough on his own, thank you very much. Likewise during the recent drought when thousands of his people were dying he refused all HIM's offers of help, denying that anyone was suffering or even that there was a drought. He saw himself as a mighty ruler, but now the truth has caught up with him. At the Shavand Palace today I could think of nothing but Haile Selassie's fate. Inevitably one is inclined to draw parallels … They are not reassuring ..."
"Haile Selassie was not an evil man, but his priorities were misplaced. He was so concerned with establishing a strong central government and modernizing the country that he failed to meet the challenge of natural disaster... It was his false pride, this lack of courage to admit mistakes, that brought about his downfall."
"[Haile Selassie] wanted to avoid bloodshed, so he gave up power for the good of his people and without fighting."
"Haile Selassie wanted to develop his country, but social justice was not a concept that made a great impression on him. Opinions differ over the degree to which Ethiopia's backwardness in the early 1970s was to be attributed to his policies. Unquestionably, however, the flaunting of the wealth of the aristocracy and the business class, many of them foreigners, made the poverty of the masses seem all the more terrible."
"The Derg was largely a mystery to the Americans, as it was to others. The officers of the US military mission in the Ethiopian capital knew few of its members, and those that could be identified and approached shied away from contact with the Americans."
"There were two reasons why Mengistu and others in the Derg wanted Soviet arms. First, they came to power as revolutionaries with a radical program. They regularly denounced imperialism, yet they remained dependent on the bulwark of what they called imperialism, the United States, for the most critical of all commodities, weapons for their army. Could they be true revolutionaries and socialists and still have such a vital link to the United States? It was very embarassing. But it was more than that. For the second and equally powerful motive that pushed them toward the Soviets was that they wanted a much bigger army than Ethiopia had at the outbreak of the revolution."
"The killing of General Aman and of the old regime notables was the turning-point for the Ethiopian revolution. To that moment events in Ethiopia had unfolded without bloodshed; thereafter blood flowed freely."
"No sooner had Mengistu seized power than he unleashed an orgy of killing. Arms were given out to the Kebelles ('Urban Dwellers Associations') and a 'people's militia' was formed. Mengistu publicly urged it and the army to 'dispense revolutionary justice' and 'liquidate counter revolutionaries'. Revolutionary justice meant summary killing, without trial, of suspected enemies of the regime."
"1,000 children have been killed, and their bodies are left in the streets and are being eaten by wild hyenas . . . You can see the heaped-up bodies of murdered children, most of them aged eleven to thirteen, lying in the gutter, as you drive out of Addis Ababa."
"Of all these offenses the one that is most widely, frequently, and vehemently denounced is undoubtedly imperialism—sometimes just Western, sometimes Eastern (that is, Soviet) and Western alike. But the way this term is used in the literature of Islamic fundamentalists often suggests that it may not carry quite the same meaning for them as for its Western critics. In many of these writings the term "imperialist" is given a distinctly religious significance, being used in association, and sometimes interchangeably, with "missionary," and denoting a form of attack that includes the Crusades as well as the modern colonial empires. One also sometimes gets the impression that the offense of imperialism is not—as for Western critics—the domination by one people over another but rather the allocation of roles in this relationship. What is truly evil and unacceptable is the domination of infidels over true believers. For true believers to rule misbelievers is proper and natural, since this provides for the maintenance of the holy law, and gives the misbelievers both the opportunity and the incentive to embrace the true faith. But for misbelievers to rule over true believers is blasphemous and unnatural, since it leads to the corruption of religion and morality in society, and to the flouting or even the abrogation of God's law. This may help us to understand the current troubles in such diverse places as Ethiopian Eritrea, Indian Kashmir, Chinese Sinkiang, and Yugoslav Kossovo, in all of which Muslim populations are ruled by non-Muslim governments. It may also explain why spokesmen for the new Muslim minorities in Western Europe demand for Islam a degree of legal protection which those countries no longer give to Christianity and have never given to Judaism. Nor, of course, did the governments of the countries of origin of these Muslim spokesmen ever accord such protection to religions other than their own. In their perception, there is no contradiction in these attitudes. The true faith, based on God's final revelation, must be protected from insult and abuse; other faiths, being either false or incomplete, have no right to any such protection."
"Henceforth we will tackle our enemies that come face to face with us and we will not be stabbed in from behind by internal foes... To this end, we will arm the allies and comrades of the broad masses without giving respite to reactionaries, and avenge the blood of our comrades double - and triple - fold."
"I'm a military man, I did what I did only because my country had to be saved from tribalism and feudalism. If I failed, it was only because I was betrayed. The so-called genocide was nothing more than just a war in defence of the revolution and a system from which all have benefited."
"Bob Geldof has denied a new report claiming that millions of pounds were siphoned from the 1985 Live Aid concerts to purchase weapons for Ethiopian rebel groups. "It just didn't happen," Geldof insisted, despite accepting that "some money" may have been "mislaid". The allegations stem from an investigation by BBC Radio 4's Martin Plaut, who interviewed former rebels and NGO employees involved in aid work during the 1984-1985 famine. According to Aregawi Berhe, at one time a commander of the Tigrayan People's Liberation Front (TPLF), only 5% of the $100m (£65m) in aid money went to feed the starving. Of this $100m, a sizeable amount likely came from Bob Geldof's Band Aid campaign, including the Do They Know It's Christmas? single and the Live Aid concerts, which involved U2, Paul McCartney, Madonna and many more. Rebel soldiers allegedly disguised themselves as grain traders, exchanging camouflaged bags of sand for thousands of pounds at a time. "We showed them huge amounts of grains," Gebremedhin Araya, former head of finance for the TPLF, told the Australian. "But if you go there, half of the warehouse is stacked full of sand collected from the Tekeze River. We tricked them as well as possible." "The rebel leaders put [the money] in their accounts in western Europe, in so many different places," he said. "Some of it was used to buy weapons. The people did not get half a kilogram of maize." This claim is supported by a CIA assessment from 1985, in which the American intelligence agency claimed that "some funds [meant] for relief operations ... are almost certainly being diverted for military purposes"."
"While Geldof rejected the report's principal allegation, he agreed that some funds may have been misused. "It's possible that in one of the worst, longest-running conflicts on the continent some money was mislaid," he told the Times. "[But] if that percentage of money had been diverted, far more than a million people would have died." (An estimated one million people died in the Ethiopian famine.) "The essence of the report also is not just about Live Aid. It's that all monies going into [the province of] Tigray – that would be Oxfam, Save the Children, UNICEF and Christian Aid – somehow, we were all duped and gulled. And that's simply not the case. It just didn't happen.""
"For years the rains had failed and by 1984 millions were starving. But, kickstarted by Michael Buerk's reports for the BBC, people responded as never before. Millions of dollars were raised. Food was brought in. Many died, but the worst was averted. Then a year ago, I began hearing a different take. I was contacted by Ethiopians who said we had all missed the real story of how money given with such worthy objectives had ended up being used to buy weapons."
"Aregawi Berhe is the former army commander of the rebel movement that operated in the Ethiopian province of Tigray. He now lives in a modest flat in the back streets of a Dutch town. He insisted on making me coffee. Then he told me his version of what took place all those years ago - how the lightly-armed rebels he led took on the mighty Ethiopian army which had all the latest Soviet weaponry. He told me that as the money began flowing in to feed the starving, a bitter debate had taken place inside the rebel movement. There were divisions over how the cash should be spent. He also explained how the aid money was diverted not just to buy weapons his troops needed, but also to build a hardline, Stalinist party - the Marxist Leninist League of Tigray. This initiative, he said, was led by a young ideologue, Meles Zenawi. In the bitter infighting, Aregawi and his allies lost out. Money that was being channelled through the rebel side went to the party and to buy guns. In 1985, Aregawi told me, just 5% of $100m (£65m) they received went to the starving. It was an extraordinary tale, but perhaps Aregawi and his associates were just embittered men, trying to blacken the names of their former comrades?"
"I accumulated evidence from secret CIA reports. Former ambassadors supported the story Aregawi had told me. Facts were found in the dusty back issues of obscure newsletters. Even former Ethiopian government officials, who had been on the government side of the conflict said they believed it was true. Was it significant that so many people refused to speak about these events, including civil servants, academics and politicians like Meles Zenawi? It became clear that 25 years on, this was still a subject too sensitive to be discussed openly."
"Although I was now finally following the trail of the money and the rebel guns, I am only too aware that I was making these enquiries 20 years too late. The aid workers who did so much to help those suffering back then had not asked those questions either. But perhaps they would not have saved so many lives if they had."