By awarding the 2020 Nobel peace prize to the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP), the Nobel committee said that it wanted to “turn the eyes of the world to the millions of people who suffer from or face the threat of hunger”. Among its reasons for awarding the prize were WFP’s “efforts to prevent the use of hunger as a weapon of war and conflict”.
Hunger has been used as a weapon of war for many years, but the issue has recently risen to prominence because of the increased risk of mass starvation in today’s conflicts.
In August 2014, the Yazidi community of Sinjar, in the Nineveh Governorate of Northern Iraq, was brutally targeted by the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) for annihilation through murder, torture, and the systematic and premeditated use of rape and sexual slavery of Yazidi women. In 2016, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights concluded that ISIS was committing genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes against Yazidis. Methods: Using current international literature, which includes reviews, qualitative interviews of survivors, and reports from medical and humanitarian actors, this paper explores the short and potentially long-term physical and mental health consequences of the extreme physical and sexual violence and atrocities perpetrated against Yazidi women. Results: Yazidi women survivors of kidnapping, sex slavery, and rape experienced significant levels of physical ailments, chronic pain, and mental health conditions. All women reported feelings of guilt, stress, insomnia, and severe flashbacks. The incidence of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) ranged from 42% to 90%. Sixty-seven percent suffered from a somatoform disorder, 53% had depression, 39% experienced anxiety, and 28% suffered from dissociation. Conclusions: Sexual violence against women is a common tool systematically employed during wars and genocide. In recent ISIS attacks, intentional perpetration of mass rapes of women and execution of men was a strategy to destroy an entire population. PTSD and depression are common after traumatic stress. For disaster responders and humanitarian workers, training and education to understand, try to prevent, and plan for interventions when gender-based violence and sexual exploitation occurs must become a mandatory part of emergency preparedness.
Throughout history, rape has been used as a weapon of war and genocide in conflict zones. In the Rwandan genocide against the Tutsi population, systematic sexual molestation, mutilation and rape of Tutsi women and girls were used as a tool to terrorize and annihilate the ethnic Tutsis. The aim of this study is twofold: to investigate (1) the trauma experienced by women who were raped and (2) the trauma of children born as a result of rape during the 1994 Rwandan genocide against the Tutsis and its aftermath. A questionnaire was completed by 341 members of the Rwandan diaspora, over 20 years of age (166 males, 175 females), who are living in Finland and Belgium. Of the women, 18 (10.3%) had been exposed to rape, and 9 individuals (2.6%) were born as a result of rape. The findings indicate that the women who had been raped experienced a much more severe trauma than the children who were born as a result of rape.
The study investigated the trauma inflicted by the Rwandan genocide and its aftermath among Rwandans who nowadays reside in the Diaspora in Finland, their ways of coping with their trauma, and whether they thought reconciliation possible. Qualitative and quantitative data were collected through interviews of 40 Rwandans, 20 males (mean age 37.6 years, SD 16.4 years) and 20 females (mean age 47.6 years, SD 14.9 years), selected representatively from 14 different locations of Finland. It was found that 57.5% of the respondents had lost one or more family member during the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi. In this sample, 72.5% reported being traumatized, and of these, 37.5% extremely traumatized. Fifty percent reported having sleeping problems often, and of these, 22.5% very often. Seventy-five percent reported having bad dreams at least sometimes, 30% of these often, and 20% very often. Thirty percent of women and 5% of men reported having been raped. Of these, 15% of the women became pregnant due to the rape, and 10% were contaminated with HIV/AIDS. Ten percent of the respondents were born as a result of rape. Although 50% reported living peacefully with other Rwandans, 35% considered reconciliation difficult or extremely difficult. In conclusion, the Rwandan Diaspora living in Finland were severely traumatized by the genocide, and still, 22 years later, reconciliation appears difficult.
The Ethiopian famine of 25 years ago was the greatest humanitarian disaster of the late 20th century, killing more than 600,000 people before the world took notice. Peter Gill was the first journalist to reach the epicenter of the famine in 1984 and he returned at the time of Live Aid to research the definitive account of the disaster, A Year in the Death of Africa.
Now, in Famine and Foreigners, Gill returns to Ethiopia to piece together the real story of the last 25 years, drawing on interviews with leading Ethiopians and with an army of foreign aid officials. He conducted extensive interviews with Prime Minister Meles Zenawi and the leading development economists, Joseph E. Stiglitz and Jeffrey Sachs. Most important of all, Gill has traveled throughout the country and interviewed scores of Ethiopia’s dignified but still hungry farmers. What stands out in these pages are the graphic encounters with these Ethiopians–the supposed beneficiaries of western aid–who still struggle on the knife-edge of existence. What also emerges is the often tense relationship between official aid-givers and recipients–whether in the area of economic reform or the modern demands for “governance” and political change. Twenty five years on, we can say that we did feed the world. But did we change the face of poverty, did we close the gap between rich and poor, did we fulfill the promise of “development?”
Given the conversation view that the imperial Ethiopian government knew very little about events in rural Ethiopia and was usually misinformed by its officials about famine, what was the contribution of U.S.-Ethiopia relations, especially the security dimensions Of that relationship, in shaping the ideology and politics of famine in Ethiopia?
“We learned a terrible thing in Mengistu’s time. We learned non-compromise. In 1974 people who could have taken up arms submitted themselves to the Derg. The Emperor himself did so. These people had no idea of the catastrophe that was to come. The Derg taught us: don’t wait for justice, not with any government. That’s what is behind the intransigence of the opposition parties. That’s why the opposition press won’t acknowledge anything good about this government.”
“Politics in this country was essentially armed politics,” he said, “and so you don’t usually win through arguments, through logic, you win through shooting straighter than the other guy. So victories and defeats were to a large extent total. And even if they were not total they were perceived to be total. That does not encourage compromise—live and let live and so forth.”
In the famine of 1984, as Ethiopians died by the thousands in the countryside, Mengistu hosted a lavish celebration of the Derg’s 10th anniversary in Addis Ababa, hiding the emergency from the world. And when international relief agencies revealed the extent of the famine he used relief supplies as a weapon, diverting food away from needy rebel areas and selling the country’s grain reserves to buy Soviet arms. In international human-rights circles, the trial of the Derg, which had been three years on preparation, was being spoken of as an African Nuremberg. Mengistu himself fled to Zimbabwe, where he remains. For the Amhara elite of Ethiopia, the double shock of the loss of the province of Eritrea and the ascendancy of the Tigrayans has had a disorienting effect. It is as though Soviet Communism had been overthrown not by Russians but by Ukranians, and the Ukranians had taken power in Moscow.
For the past thirty years under both Emperor Haile Selassie and President Mengistu Haile Mariam, Ethiopia has suffered continuous war and intermittent famine until every single province has been affected by war to some degree. Evil Days documents the wide range of violations of basic human rights committed by all sides in the conflict, especially the Mengistu government’s direct responsibility for the deaths of at least half a million Ethiopian civilians. The Ethiopian army and air force have killed tens of thousands of civilians. The notorious urban “Red Terror” of 1977-78 was matched by indiscriminate violence against rural populations, especially in Eritrea and Tigray. Counterinsurgency strategies involved forcibly relocating millions of rural people and cutting food supplies to insurgent areas. Also, these military policies were instrumental in creating famine, and the government used relief supplies as weapons to further its war aims. There is now a prospect of lasting peace, but concerns remain such as the demand for justice and the future protection of human rights.
If you’re looking for the worst government on Earth, look no further. Mengistu has combined a murderous assault on human rights with an economic program that has made Ethiopia the world’s poorest nation. He has also prosecuted an endless war against secessionist rebels in two provinces, Eritrea and Tigre. Well, not quite endless: The rebellion in Eritrea began when John Kennedy was president.
Americans will be surprised to learn that the villain is not a lack of food. Vast supplies, including a quarter of a million tons sent by the U.S. government, now sit in Ethiopian ports, waiting to be delivered to those in need. Blocking the way is the Ethiopian government, which uses starvation as a weapon in a monstrous war against its own people. An estimated 7 million people are in mortal danger.
