Preface to Getting Ethiopia Dead Wrong

In the extended edition of Getting Ethiopia Dead Wrong, author Rasmus Sonderris exposes how recent media portrayals of Ethiopia have been grotesquely distorted to fit a narrow, pre-set narrative of Africa as a land of savagery and backwardness. Sonderris reveals how these twisted stories have been meticulously crafted and taken out of context to perpetuate a singular, misleading view of the continent.

Journalism is the first draft of history. This applies to what is commonly referred to as the Tigray War, raging across northern Ethiopia from November 3, 2020 to November 2, 2022. Alas, in this case, big media became actors of history as well, when their early sketches, weirdly slanted and upside-down, contributed to also misshaping the international community’s response.

Getting Ethiopia Dead Wrong aspires to be a first rewrite of this history. Although the truth in such matters is always nuanced, it should be straightforward to identify the two main warring parties at the outset. One is the internationally recognized government with a short but remarkably liberalizing record. Its multiethnic armed forces have suffered a massive surprise attack by the other side, an ethnically-exclusive militia commanded by the country’s old guard, kicked out of office just two and a half years ago, deeply unloved after oppressing the people for 27 years, but holding on to some of its grip on the military.

Such boring basics, however, had no place within the dominant framing of the conflict as tribal savagery on the darkcontinent. Playing on this ‘single story about Africa’ enabled a well-connected clique to pass off its violent quest to return to power as a persecuted minority facing a choice between killing and getting killed. Skillful propagandists laid it on thick. Activist university professors gave intellectual cover. Sensation-hungry correspondents lapped it up. News directors and editors made no retractions when proved wrong.

For example, important news outlets have yet to own up to spreading the fake news that, in the foremost church of Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity, 800 worshippers were cornered, dragged out, gunned down and eaten by hyenas. One section in this book looks at who invented this incendiary lie, and at the various investigations into what really took place in the holy city ofAxum. This is followed up in the annex “Going undercover to interview Cara Anna from Associated Press”, a jaw-dropping and not unamusing piece in the genre of swindling the swindler, which can be read as a dessert at the end or as an appetizer at the beginning.

False reports and sloppy analysis soon translated into open support for the rulers-turned-rebels, infecting Western governments. This was infuriating, but also heartbreaking, because most Ethiopians, and certainly myself as a long-time friend of Ethiopia, think of these prosperous democracies as the model of society to strive for. How could the liberal world order betray us so badly in our hour of need? Answering this became my obsession, and eventually turned into this book.

Though most of the readership will have a special interest in Ethiopian affairs, the target audience is much wider. This is why no particular foreknowledge is required. The context will be provided. This is for anyone concerned with international relations, diplomacy, development, media dynamics, the misuse of academia, career opportunism, the misrepresentation of Africa, and much more to do with contemporary society.

This had to be a whole book. For sure, a short article has greater reach. But persuading the neutrals, let alone the skeptics, that Ethiopia was gotten dead wrong was only possible by addressing every half-truth and falsehood repeated enough times to become truisms: ethnic animosity, hate speech, mass arrests, shutdown of public services as collective punishment, weaponized rape, humanitarian siege, deliberate starvation, even genocide. Complicating matters further, I was up against sources so authoritative that, as much as a year into the war, I would believe them myself on pure instinct. Gradually, however, I found myself scrutinizing their footnotes and methodological appendices, appalled at their anonymous witnesses and righteous verbiage substituting for forensics and standards of proof.

Throughout the war, these multiple renowned voices amplified the key justification for an irregular army, namely that, if the official army were to prevail, the Tigrayan people would be exterminated. Instead, Ethiopian military victory was what enabled peace. This ought to provoke some soul-searching. There seems to have been a bit of that in the realm of diplomacy. But in the media landscape, the narrative has barely changed. Meanwhile, international organizations, for all their do-gooder mission statements, still contribute to cementing enmities and hindering reconciliation among Ethiopians. This refusal to learn follows a pattern of fatal mispredictions being instantly forgotten and accurate predictions (or timely warnings) being afforded no recognition. It is high time to dig into who said what would happen, and then compare it to what did happen, so as to revise our model of reality accordingly.

This goes for my own mispredictions too, which were not about the actual war, but about global reactions to it. It sent me on a personal journey of questioning my worldview, as will be portrayed along the way. Spoiler alert: it has not pushed me into the arms of the regimes of China and Russia, but it has taught me some profound lessons about the nastiness and pervasiveness of the Western moral-superiority complex.

A preliminary version of Getting Ethiopia Dead Wrong was uploaded to my Substack account on September 3, 2023. You may find it at rsonderriis.substack.com. It is about two thirds the length of this book, and will remain available for free. It was well received, including by some Western diplomats who wrote to me that it had changed their perspective. By then, however, something loomed larger than rewriting recent history: a new war.

The central topic here is the 2020-2022 insurgency of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF). This covers the TPLF’s alliance with the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA). It also goes into the support for the federal government coming from Eritrea and from the volunteer Amhara militia known as Fano. However, while Ethiopian-Eritrean relations soured during 2023, Fano launched a full-scale insurgency in Amhara Region in April 2023, which rages till this day, deep into 2024.

My first online publication barely mentioned this. I was dismayed that blood was being shed between sides who had just pulled together to save Ethiopia from the onslaught of the TPLF. Whatever stand I took would draw the ire of a major share of my readers, adding to the disunity. Pressed on this issue in an interview, I cravenly responded that I was “not comfortable talking about it at this point”. Well, it is time to put aside my discomfort and speak out. And it is highly relevant as follow-up to the TPLF’s war, because Fano is borrowing leaf after leaf from the TPLF’s playbook. Therefore, the hostilities between the government and Fano shall be addressed throughout the various sections, and especially in the new ending titled “Part 5: Do not get the next war wrong too”.

Each ethnonationalist rebel group in Ethiopia is unique in its history and ideology, but all of them rile up their base and appeal to outsiders with an overblown sense of victimhood, including the obligatory social-media genocide hashtag. They make it all about ethnicity, so as to distract from the real issue of legitimacy to rule a diverse country. The TPLF has played this game better than anyone, thanks to its extensive government experience and network in places like Washington DC, Brussels and the UN system. But the Fano camp has also notched up some notorious wins, not on the battlefield, but in the fight for the sympathy of those international arbiters of right and wrong.

Smooth-talking to wannabe humanitarians from rich countries has long been big business in Africa. It should come as no surprise that this art form has been perfected in Ethiopia too. Thus, in English, they speak of human rights and freedom of expression. But in their own language they monger fear, hate and war, as they recruit and fundraise for the violent pursuit of power, with media-savvy diaspora activists leading the propaganda war and drawing in Westerners on their side. As the death toll mounts, extremists are empowered and moderates are cowed, if not killed. It is high time we see through this and stand in solidarity with the majority of peace-loving Ethiopians.

Getting it wrong on Ethiopian affairs ranges from prejudice and honest mistake to reckless incompetence and elaborate deception. The pantheon of villains featured here have yet to be held to account. May this book be a step towards that. At the very least, it will help set the historical record straight.

Rasmus Sonderriis, August 2024.