Famine used as a weapon. And today, a civil war that threatens to tear the country of 109 million people apart. For the past half century, the history of Ethiopia has been punctuated by episodes of such drama and tragedy that each chapter is an epic in its own right. But there’s a deeper story unfolding behind the headlines that helps explain why the present-day crisis is proving so hard to resolve. The pendulum swings back and forth between attempts to build a strong central state, and moves to devolve power to the regions – with fundamentally different political visions and readings of Ethiopian history co-mingling with raw struggles for power.

Source: Ethiopian News December 21, 2021 11:06 UTC