(The following is an excerpt from the book "Lost in Transition: Deceit and Conflict in Ethiopia (2014-2022)" published on 25 September 2025 by Befekadu Hailu.)
The Tigray war allowed many foreign "Ethiopia
experts" to emerge and speak authoritatively on behalf of Ethiopians.
Despite having published books or articles on Ethiopia and visited the country
several times, these experts often lacked proficiency in local Ethiopian
languages. As a result, they were usually blind to the nuances of some complex
issues. Some were overtly partisan to one of the warring parties, while others
maintained a veneer of impartiality. However, almost all of them displayed
partiality towards one side or the other.
Fana Gebresenbet and Yonas Tariku, researchers at the
Institute for Peace and Security Studies at Addis Ababa University, strongly
criticized the role these experts played in spreading misinformation and
disinformation about the Tigray war. They went so far as to name
and shame some of these experts from Europe and North America, accusing them of
a lack of professionalism. This sparked a debate and response from some of the
accused.
Fana and Yonas observed that the tweets and opinion pieces of these experts “easily show whose side they are on and the extent to which they are willing to defend that side’s actions.” They added, “most scholars (both Ethiopians and foreigners) were reduced to mere activists rather than voices of reason and resolution.” However, considering the concerns that Ethiopia’s survival as a state was at stake, they said, “it is understandable that Ethiopian scholars inevitably had to choose a side.”[1]
Six authors wrote a joint response to Fana and Yonas's
allegations, accusing the latter of “show[ing] little nuanced political
understanding or empathy.” The authors argued that Fana and Yonas’s article
“reproduces central narrative threads of the propaganda of the Federal
Government of Ethiopia.” [2] The
six writers accuse the Ethiopian scholars of partiality to the federal
government (or its narrative lines) without disclosing their own partiality to
and history with the TPLF. Ironically, one of these authors, Mulugeta
Gebrehiwot, is a former fighter of the TPLF. Even during the recent war, he
maintained an advisory role to the TPLF, despite not being “on active duty,” as
he mentioned to another author, Alex de Waal, who interviewed him during
the war.[3]
Alex de Waal is a British scholar and the executive
director of the World Peace Foundation, which is affiliated with the Fletcher
School of Global Affairs at Tufts University in the United States. He dedicated
one of his books, “The Real Politics of the Horn of Africa,” to Meles Zenawi, the late Prime Minister of
Ethiopia and leader of the TPLF/EPRDF for over two decades. When Seyoum Mesfin, one
of the founders of the TPLF and former minister of foreign affairs of Ethiopia,
was killed during the Tigray war, de Waal penned his eulogy:
“In Memoriam: Seyoum Mesfin, Ethiopian Peacemaker and Patriot.” In it, de Waal
writes of his cherished personal relationship with Seyoum since 1988, the days
of the armed struggle, when they first met while de Waal was “travelling within
the TPLF-held areas of the country.” He also recounts how Seyoum, after
becoming Minister of Foreign Affairs, granted him access to visit the
imprisoned Derg officials to see how they were being treated.[4] Alex de Waal's works consistently demonstrate his partisan
support for the TPLF.
Alex de Waal’s commentary has been
criticized for bias and factual inaccuracies. For example, in an op-ed on BBC
Africa, he falsely alleged, “Abiy said that TPLF crossed a red line when it held regional
elections in September,” while Abiy used the phrase “the red line was crossed” regarding the
TPLF's attack on the ENDF base immediately before de Waal wrote his piece.[5] Abiy
had instead adopted a narrative downplaying the relevance of the Tigray
election in the face of his government.[6]
De Waal also infamously wrote “five scenarios of collapse in Ethiopia” in his
doomsday conspiracy in 2021, when he thought the TPLF had won. He asserted that
the argument that Ethiopia is an empire whose “dissolution [was] long overdue”
is valid as much as the argument otherwise.[7],[8]
One of the other six respondents, a journalist and expert in
Horn African conflicts implicated in the critique above, is Martin Plaut. Plaut co-authored a book
with Sarah Vaughan titled "Understanding Ethiopia's Tigray War." As
he covers the Tigray war in the second half of the book, he presents
not an impartial analysis but a one-sided perspective of the conflict,
portraying the Tigray forces as protagonists and the ENDF and its allies as
antagonists. He describes TPLF's preparations for war as
defensive and the Ethiopian government's actions as offensive. He justifies the
TPLF's invasion of the Afar and Amhara regions as a defensive measure and equates
the TPLF with the Tigrayan people. Plaut relies heavily on statements from TPLF
officials while dismissing statements from federal authorities and downplaying
the atrocities committed by Tigrayan forces, especially in Amhara.[9]
The same is true of Jan Nyssen and his approximately two-decade-long work in
Tigray, as well as his partisan commentaries. The point is not that their long
associations with Tigray and Tigrayan elites are inherently wrong. They live in
a glasshouse to speak about the partisanship of others.
Pro-TPLF foreign “Ethiopia experts” often whitewashed
the role of TPLF in the war, its history of violence and repression, and the
fact that it used Tigrayans as a shield in its power struggle with the Prosperity
Party. Tigrayans
have endured immense suffering during the war, yet this does not erase or
justify the TPLF's crimes.
On the other side of the partisan divide are the pro-federal
government foreign experts. Throughout the war, they unscrupulously propagated
government propaganda, readily dismissed all reports of atrocities against
civilians in Tigray, exaggerated the role of TPLF in the crisis, and even bullied local actors
who showed the slightest tendency to advocate for peace.
The prime example of this category of experts was Jeff
Pearce, a Canadian journalist,
historian, and author of many fiction and non-fiction books. Pearce has been a
notorious commentator on Ethiopian politics and history, characterized by
intense partisanship and a following among Traditional Ethiopianists. His
historical book, Prevail: The Inspiring
Story of Ethiopia's Victory over Mussolini's Invasion, 1935-1941, has
endeared him among many Traditional Ethiopianists.
During the Tigray war, Pearce found a leaked video
of a Zoom meeting hosted by the Center for Peace and Development International
(CPDI). The meeting was intended to discuss solutions for the Tigray war.
However, it excluded Ethiopian government representatives and instead became a
TPLF support
group meeting where best wishes were offered to the TPLF representative.[10]
Pearce used this video to launch an online campaign, resulting in massive
character assassinations against Ethiopian economist Eleni Gebre-Medhin and
suspending the Center for Peace and Development (CPD) in Ethiopia. CPD, a local
organization involved in grassroots peacebuilding for two decades, shared a
founder with CPDI, Professor Efraim Yishaq, whose domestic leadership team was
detained for months without a court warrant due to Pearce’s campaign.
Pearce actively shaped public opinion on Twitter, advocating
for “Ethiopian unity” and against what he presented as Western media bias.
However, he seemed oblivious to his own biases. Pearce found a ferocious
partner in Rasmus Sonderriis, another pro-Ethiopian-government foreign expert
based in Addis Ababa. Sonderriis claims to have worked in Ethiopia as a
correspondent for Danish and Chilean media since 2004, but he was largely
unknown, even in media circles, until the Tigray war began.
His extremely biased book, Getting
Ethiopia Dead Wrong, extensively criticizes pro-TPLF foreign experts for spreading misinformation
while ignoring the Ethiopian government's wrongdoings and disinformation.
For instance, Sonderriis wrote about the Mai-Kadra massacre against Amharas, citing different
reports. However, he dismissed the retaliatory attacks against Tigrayan
civilians in the same place, though they were mentioned in the same sources. He
cherry-picked the information he needed to make a case. He even concluded that
“the Mai-Kadra massacre [against Amharas] qualifies as a genocide,” citing
Kjetil Tronvoll’s assertion that “definitions
of genocide do not rely on numbers killed, but the intent behind why they were
killed.” Yet, he doesn’t apply the same principles to the equally, if not more,
appealing claims by the Tigrayan activists.[11]
Pearce and Sonderriis, once allies on Twitter due to their
shared pro-Ethiopian government stance, later became adversaries. Their
division stems from their differing allegiances in the post-Tigray war period: Sonderriis continues to support the
Ethiopian government, while Pearce has openly sided with Fanno militants. As a result, Pearce’s stick whipped
Sonderriis. In a blog, he called Sonderriis a “white savior,” and urged him to
leave Ethiopia alone.[12]
Ironically, Pearce has not stopped at protecting
Ethiopia from what he called “white saviors;” he has also actively tried to
save Ethiopia(ns) from Ethiopians. One of his targets in that endeavor was the
relentless journalist Zekarias Zelalem, an Ethiopia-born and Canada-based
journalist who covers conflicts in Ethiopia. In a video shared by the Amhara
Association of America (AAA), Zekarias is seen thanking Amhara victims for
trusting him with their stories, which earned him a nomination for an award.
Pearce strongly opposed the AAA celebrating Zekarias, citing the journalist’s
previous reports on the Tigray war. He said they are “betraying
[Amhara’s] values” by merely sharing Zekarias’s speech.[13]
Bronwyn Bruton is another scholar and civil society
practitioner who has actively commented on the issue of the Tigray war. Bruton is a prominent
analyst in African affairs and a former deputy director of the Atlantic
Council's African program, who also managed multimillion-dollar grants for East
Africa at the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). Bruton has been a friend
to Eritrea’s government. In 2016, Bruton
testified before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs in the United States,
arguing that the country is misunderstood and unfairly characterized as a
regional threat.[14]
Bruton said she had a “long meeting with Eritrea’s President Isaias Afeworki” and engages “regularly with
the Eritrean government, traveling periodically to Asmara.”
In the same year, Bruton also published an Op-Ed in The New
York Times, arguing “It's Bad in Eritrea, but Not That Bad.”[15] The
commentary is in response to a UN report by the Commission of Inquiry on Human
Rights in Eritrea. The report details human rights violations, including
enslavement, imprisonment, enforced disappearance, torture, other inhumane
acts, persecution, rape, and murder, committed by Eritrean officials against
the civilian population since 1991.[16]
In her NYT article, Bruton dismissed the report by a three-member commission of
experts, claiming “It extrapolates from anecdotal examples — like instances of
rape by military forces — to allege systemic abuses and blame them on state
policy.”
Bruton’s sympathy for the Eritrean government was absent
from Ethiopia until Eritrea allied with Ethiopia in the Tigray war. In the 2016 House Committee
hearing, where she defended the Eritrean government, she accused the Ethiopian
government of its human rights violations; she said “efforts to single out
Eritrea for criticism on human rights grounds must stop,” and claims that
Ethiopia is “good” and Eritrea is a “spoiler,” a fictional dichotomy. In 2018,
however, in an article she published on Foreign Policy, “Ethiopia and Eritrea
Have a Common Enemy,” she explicitly identified the “TPLF hardliners” as that enemy.[17]
Ever since, she has held the TPLF to be the main accountable party for the
crises. In successive articles she published, she advocated for the TPLF to
surrender to achieve peace.
Bruton was actively engaging in social media during the war,
mainly pushing the U.S. government to stop pressuring Eritrea and Ethiopia, citing that the TPLF had occupied Eritrean territories for the past
20 years.[18] She
also referred to the experts who influenced U.S. politicians in favor of the
TPLF as the “Nairobi Mafia.”[19]
Bruton, in another piece published on Foreign Policy, co-authored with Ann
Fitz-Gerald, the director of the
Balsillie School of International Affairs and a professor of international
security at Wilfrid Laurier University in Canada, wrote “The alliance between
Ethiopia and Eritrea looks set to outlast the war.” Thus, they argued, the U.S.
“needs to subdue its nostalgia for the TPLF dictatorship and embrace, instead,
Ethiopia’s transition into a fragile post-conflict democracy.” They also
advised the Biden administration “to call for the surrender of the TPLF
leaders” to shorten the war and salvage its reputation.[20]
Like Bruton, Ann Fitz-Gerald advocated for Western governments to see the
Ethiopian government’s version of the story. However, her most controversial
contribution was a now-removed commentary published by the Macdonald-Laurier
Institute on the opinions of grassroots Tigrayans regarding the Twitter buzz
sympathizing with the TPLF.[21] She
concluded, based on interviews with Tigrayans in displacement camps in the
Amhara region, that “only a small amount of aid sent to Tigray has ever been
made available by TPLF authorities to ordinary people—going first only to those
families who contributed fighters to the rebel force under a ‘one fighter per
family’ TPLF policy.”[22] On
May 3, Jeff Pearce published a screenshot of an email sent by Tom
Gardner, a correspondent to the Economist in Ethiopia, stating that the study
is “methodologically flawed” and “unethical” as well as requesting if the
author, Fitz-Gerald, has a relationship with a lobbying firm hired by the
Ethiopian government.[23]
Consequently, on 13 May, Gardner’s permit to work as a journalist in Ethiopia
was revoked by the Ethiopian Media Authority on grounds of ethical violations.[24]
And, Gardner was forced to leave Ethiopia immediately. In contrast, back in
December 2021, the Ethio-Canadian Network for Advocacy and Support (ECNAS)
awarded Pearce and Fitz-Gerald for defending “the Ethiopian version of truth.”[25]
In comparison, the pro-TPLF experts have had a significantly greater influence on foreign governments, non-governmental institutions, and media than those who supported the federal government. One reason could be that pro-government experts often criticized the perceived bias of the diplomatic community and Western media, rather than engaging constructively with them. The other could be the power asymmetry between the belligerents. One is a federal government capable of buying weapons or weaponizing a siege, while the other is a minority region with limited resources and besieged on all sides. There is also a moral asymmetry. One is calling for international intervention, fearing/suffering genocide. The other is resisting oversight. Where genocide is a risk, a fear compounded by the federal government’s refusal to allow international media into the region, the international community would rightly choose to err on the side of caution. Yet another reason for the asymmetrical international pressure on the federal government could be that it is a national government, a member of intergovernmental organizations, and a signatory to international treaties, while its opponent was a rebel group with significantly fewer such burdens. All these relative advantages compounded to give the pro-TPLF experts an edge over their pro-federal government counterparts.
[1] Fana Gebresenbet and Yonas Tariku (2023), The
Pretoria Agreement: mere cessation of hostilities or heralding a new era in
Ethiopia?, Review of African Political Economy.
[2] Mulugeta Gebrehiwot et al (15 June 2023), A response
to “The Pretoria Agreement: Mere cessation of hostilities or heralding a new
era in Ethiopia?”,
https://roape.net/2023/06/15/a-response-to-the-pretoria-agreement-mere-cessation-of-hostilities-or-heralding-a-new-era-in-ethiopia/
(last accessed on 10 January 2025)
[3] African Arguments (29 January 2021), “They Have
Destroyed Tigray, Literally”: Mulugeta Gebrehiwot Speaks from the Mountains of
Tigray,
https://africanarguments.org/2021/01/they-have-destroyed-tigray-literally-mulugeta-gebrehiwot-speaks-from-the-mountains-of-tigray/
(last accessed on 10 January 2025)
[4] Alex de Waal (14 January 2021),
In Memoriam: Seyoum Mesfin, Ethiopian Peacemaker and Patriot,
https://worldpeacefoundation.org/blog/in-memoriam-seyoum-mesfin-ethiopian-peacemaker-and-patriot/
(last accessed on 11 September 2025)
[5] Alex De Waal (16 November 2020), Tigray crisis viewpoint:
Why Ethiopia is spiralling out of control,
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-54932333 (last accessed on 11 September
2025)
[6] Guzo (9 September 2020), ጠቅላይ ሚኒስትሩ ስለ ትግራይ ምርጫ ምን አሉ?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDZZywhKbzA (last accessed on 11 September
2025)
[7] Alex de Waal (26 July 2021),
Five Scenarios of State Collapse in Ethiopia,
https://worldpeacefoundation.org/blog/five-scenarios-of-state-collapse-in-ethiopia/
(last accessed on 10 February 2025)
[8]
Alex De Waal (10 November 2021), Ethiopia: Salvaging a failing state,
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2021/11/10/ethiopia-salvaging-a-failing-state/
(last accessed on 12 September 2025)
[9] Martin Plaut and Sarah
Vaughan (2023), Understanding Ethiopia’s Tigray War, C. Hurst &Co. Ltd.
[10] Jeff Pearce (24 November
2021), The West’s Diplomats Meet in Secret to Decide How to Help the TPLF Terrorist
Group, https://jeffpearce.medium.com/ethiopia-the-wests-diplomats-meet-in-secret-to-decide-how-to-help-the-tplf-cb87f2d30777
(last accessed on 11 February 2025)
[11] Rasmus Sonderriis (2024), Getting Ethiopia Dead
Wrong.
[12] Jeff Pearce (27 August
2024), The White Savior’s Job Audition: Why “Rasmus the Clown” needs to go back
in his box and leave Ethiopia,
https://jeffpearce.medium.com/the-white-saviors-job-audition-why-rasmus-the-clown-needs-to-go-back-in-his-box-and-leave-9cfc41da1952
(last accessed on 10 February 2025)
[13] Jeff Pearce (3 January
2025), There’s Forgiveness and Then There’s Betraying Your Own Values: An Open
Letter to the Amhara Association of America,
https://thehabesha.com/theres-forgiveness-and-then-theres-betraying-your-own-values-an-open-letter-to-the-amhara-association-of-america/
(last accessed on 11 February 2025)
[14] Bronwyn Bruton (14 September
2016), Hearing Before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Subcommittee on
Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International Organizations,
https://docs.house.gov/meetings/FA/FA16/20160914/105311/HHRG-114-FA16-Wstate-BrutonB-20160914.pdf
(last accessed on 11 September 2025)
[15] Bronwyn Bruton (23 June 2016),
It's Bad in Eritrea, but Not That Bad,
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/24/opinion/its-bad-in-eritrea-but-not-that-bad.html
(last accessed on 11 September 2025)
[16] Human Rights Council (9 May 2016), Reports of the
commission of inquiry on human rights in Eritrea,
https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/Documents/HRBodies/HRCouncil/CoIEritrea/A_HRC_32_47_AEV.pdf
(last accessed on 11 September 2025)
[17] Bronwyn Bruton (12 July 2018),
Ethiopia and Eritrea Have a Common
Enemy,
https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/07/12/ethiopia-and-eritrea-have-a-common-enemy-abiy-ahmed-isaias-afwerki-badme-peace-tplf-eprdf/
(last accessed 11 September 2025)
[18] BronwynBruton (21 January
2025), https://x.com/BronwynBruton/status/1484271890466230282 (last accessed on
12 September 2025)
[19] Bronwyn Bruton (9 November
2022), https://x.com/BronwynBruton/status/1590395305844883456 (last accessed on
12 September 2025)
[20] Bronwyn Bruton and Ann
Fitz-Gerald (28 December
2021), To End Ethiopia’s War, Biden Needs to Correct Course,
https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/12/28/ethiopia-tigray-abiy-tplf-war-biden-needs-to-correct-course/
(last accessed on 12 September 2025)
[21] Macdonald-Laurier Institute (28 April 2022),
https://x.com/MLInstitute/status/1519685114006949888 (last accessed on 12
September 2025)
[22] Ann Fitz-Gerald and Hugh Segal
(not dated)
https://www.cgai.ca/tigrayans_fleeing_the_tplf_their_opinions_ignored_within_todays_most_misunderstood_war
(last accessed on 12 September 2025)
[23] Jeff Pearce (3 May 2022, An
Open Letter to The Economist,
https://jeffpearce.medium.com/an-open-letter-to-the-economist-c189714341e0
(last accessed on 12 September 2025)
[24] Befekadu Hailu (13 May 2022)
https://x.com/befeqe/status/1525065890596798464 (last accessed on 12 September
2025)
[25] ENA (6 December 2021), Jeff Pearce, Prof. Ann Fitzgerald Awarded for Defending Ethiopian Version of Truth Abroad, https://www.ena.et/web/eng/w/en_31262 (last accessed on 12 September 2025)
No comments:
Post a Comment