International Viewpoint - online socialist magazine

High tensions and fragile peace in Ethiopia

Paul Martial — 2022-05-15T05:15:05Z

“The Ethiopian government is proposing national conciliation after more than 18 months of a war that has torn the country apart. While the country is experiencing a precarious calm, important issues remain unresolved.”

- IV568 - May 2022 / Ethiopia

Lelisa's Message

Ezekiel Gebissa — 2016-10-21T18:51:53Z

A wave of protest in Ethiopia highlights the country's history of exploitation and dispossession. This summer, when marathon runner Feyisa Lelisa crossed the Rio finish line with his hands crossed above his head, he expressed his solidarity with a protest movement in Ethiopia's Oromia regional state.

- IV501 - October 2016 / Ethiopia

What's Left in Africa?

Firoze Manji — 2015-02-05T18:28:39Z

The early 1950s witnessed an extraordinary sweep of popular mobilisations across the continent inspired by aspirations for emancipatory freedom – an end to the colonial yoke. Across the continent, nationalist parties convinced people that the path to freedom was through political independence.
Since then, many of the gains of independence, which cost the blood and lives of millions in Africa, have been reversed with the privatisation of the commons and public utilities, as well as by dispossessions of land, by unemployment and by the increasing costs of food, rent and other necessities of life. In response, discontent has been growing across the continent, with spontaneous eruptions and mass uprisings that have in some cases resulted in the overthrow of regimes nurtured and nourished by imperialism (e.g. in Tunisia, Egypt and Burkina Faso). In such circumstances, one would have thought that there would have been fertile grounds for the emergence of strong left working class movements across the continent. But why has this not happened?

- IV481 - February 2015 / Africa, South Africa, Ethiopia, Kenya, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Congo, Guinea-Bissau

Africa: plummeting commodity prices might lead to a new debt crisis

Éric Toussaint — 2015-01-20T11:38:24Z

In 2014, Rwanda and Ethiopia, two of the world's poorest countries, sold public debt bonds on the financial markets of the most industrialized countries. While still unstable after civil wars and with debt payments suspended hardly three years ago, the Ivory Coast also managed to find private lenders willing to buy those securities. This was unprecedented in the last 30 years. Kenya and Zambia also issued debt securities.

- IV480 - January 2015 / Economy, Africa, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Kenya, Debt, Rwanda, Zambia, Angola

Famine: Less land, more hunger

Esther Vivas — 2011-08-23T22:46:02Z

The tragedy of hunger again becomes current news from the food emergency in the Horn of Africa, but famines are a silent daily reality. Worldwide, more than a billion people, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), have difficulties accessing food. A famine with political causes and responsibility.

- IV439 - August 2011 / Africa, Ethiopia, Food crisis

Ethiopia: unknown revolution, uncertain future

Lea Terbach — 2007-01-14T16:08:55Z

Conditioned by centuries of feudalism, victim of totalitarian regimes, prey to political banditry, this is the situation of Ethiopia today. The current regime has not brought democracy to the country or settled ethnic problems. The great powers only see the Horn of Africa as a strategic zone. Since 9/11 the will of the US to co-opt Ethiopia to control terrorism has borne fruit.

- IV385 - January 2007 / Ethiopia