Asymmetry

Again at Bloomberg Bobby Ghosh takes pains to remind us that the most damaging war going on now isn’t between Russian and Ukraine but the Ethiopian civil war:

Though the war’s true toll is impossible to know, researchers from Belgium’s Ghent University estimate as many as half a million people have died so far: between 50,000 and 100,000 from the fighting, 150,000 to 200,000 from starvation and more than 100,000 from the lack of medical attention. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has expressed concern about possible ethnic cleansing in Tigray, but the government in Addis Ababa has dismissed this as “spurious.”

The Tigrayan rebels have been accused of crimes, including murder and rape, against other ethnic groups. But Abiy’s soldiers are blamed for most of the civilian casualties, especially those from starvation and neglect. Government forces are preventing food aid and medicine from reaching Tigray, humanitarian groups say.

And they are no slouches at other kinds of atrocity, including the recent immolation of a Tigrayan man, which even the government-affiliated human rights commission has blamed on Abiy’s forces.

Such outrages are likely to multiply and escalate as the war remains stalemated. Late last year, government troops were able to beat back a rebel advance toward the capital and retake towns on the border with Tigray. The use of military drones, apparently supplied by Turkey, helped turn the tide. (Turkish drones have also helped Ukrainian forces slow the Russian advance.)

While his ground forces seem to have stopped short of an assault on Tigray, where the mountainous terrain has previously proved to be a distinct rebel advantage, Abiy has no qualms about ordering airstrikes that have inflicted heavy civilian casualties. Michelle Bachelet, head of the U.N. Human Rights Commission, says her staff have recorded hundreds of deaths from aerial attacks “apparently carried out by the Ethiopian Air Force.” The government has denied this.

There are many reasons that the U. S. is reacting so differently to the two conflicts. No great power is involved in the Ethiopian civil war. It doesn’t alarm our European allies or pose any threat to them whatever its outcome. Ethiopia doesn’t have nuclear weapons or AFAIK biological or chemical weapons. I also suspect there is a tinge of racism in our reaction as in all conflicts in Africa, a sort of “what else can you expect from the wogs” sort of attitude.