War is hell, as the saying goes. And it’s hell regardless of where it’s taking place. You might therefore expect that wars in different parts of the world would generate similar levels of coverage. But that would be naïve: some wars generate far more coverage than others.
At the present time, the BBC has an entire section of its website devoted to the war in Ukraine. And if you watch the BBC News channel, you’ll get updates about the conflict every hour. This makes sense: the war in Ukraine is very serious, and the public ought to be informed about it (though the BBC isn’t always the best source).
Another conflict, which you hear even less about, is the Tigray war in Ethiopia. This conflict has ‘only’ been going for a year and a half, but some sources say that half a million people have died. What’s more, there are numerous reports of war crimes and even crimes against humanity. (The latter are war crimes perpetrated against specific ethnic groups.)
In April of this year, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch published a report, which found evidence of “murder, torture, forcible transfer, rape, sexual slavery and other forms of sexual violence, persecution, enforced disappearances, widespread pillage, imprisonment, possible extermination, and other inhumane acts”.
While all sides in the conflict are believed to have carried out war crimes, the main victims appear to be the ethnic Tigrayans, who inhabit the region where the conflict centres. And a recent article in the Nation claims they are being subjected to “genocide”.
So why is the war in Ukraine getting so much more attention than the Tigray war? Some reasons are obvious: Ukraine is in Europe; Russia is a nuclear power; and both countries are major exporters. But are these the only reasons?
The author of the Nation article suggests that Westerners just don’t care as much about conflicts in other parts of the world. He quotes Tedros Ghebreyesus, head of the WHO, who earlier this year said, “The whole attention to Ukraine is very important … but even a fraction of it is not being given to Tigray, Yemen, Afghanistan, Syria.”
He continued, “I need to be blunt and honest that the world is not treating the human race the same way: some are more equal than others.” (Ghebreyesus happens to be Tigrayan himself.)
The man has a point here. Indeed, one is reminded of the “Black Lives Matter” activists who spend more time talking about black representation in Hollywood than about abject poverty and brutal wars in Africa.
Another possible reason why the war in Ukraine has garnered so much attention, relative to other recent conflicts, is that large parts of the left still blame Vladimir Putin for Brexit and the election of Donald Trump. (Before the war in Ukraine, it was people sceptical of those claims who were accused of being “Kremlin stooges”.)
In a recent video (go to 40:25), the journalist Glenn Greenwald argues this is why every single Democrat in the U.S. House of Representatives – including those who’ve spent their careers fighting the “military industrial complex” – voted to send billions of dollars of weapons to Ukraine.
Whatever the reasons, the lack of attention on the Tigray War is deeply troubling. A resolution is urgently needed, before the world has another Rwanda on its hands.
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