An Ethiopian Anarchist Perspective on the War in Tigray

The Final Straw Radio

This week, we spoke with Anner, an Ethiopian member of Horn Anarchists, an anarchist group based in east Africa, particularly in Ethiopia and the Ethiopian diaspora. The group has been around for about a year and hopes to organize and spread anarchist ideas and organizing in the horn of Africa. Horn anarchists is a newer group planning to do work with refugees and introduce anarchist ideas to east Africa. For the hour, Anner talks about the group, the history of post-Junta Ethiopa, the context of the ongoing armed conflict in Tigray, the fighting factions and the displacement and violence suffered by residents of the region as well as the ethnic hatred against Tigrayans by the government of Abi Ahmed and his Prosperity Party.

You can hear more perspectives from Horn Anarchists by checking out @HornAnarchists on twitter or visiting their website, HornAnarchists.NoBlogs.Org, which is mostly in Amharic and Tigrayan but readable in English via online translation services.

*** There is a content warning from 48:58 until 51:01 of discussion of sexual violence in the conflict. ***

• Transcript
• PDF (Unimposed)
• Zine (Imposed PDF)

Links from Anner:

• tghat.com is a good source of news from Tigray as well
• Dengelat Massacre https://twitter.com/katie_polglase/status/1365442094790279170
• Axum Massacre: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2021/02/ethiopia-eritrean-troops-massacre-of-hundreds-of-axum-civilians-may-amount-to-crime-against-humanity/
• Ethnic Cleansing: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/26/world/middleeast/ethiopia-tigray-ethnic-cleansing.html
• Ethiopia Map on Twitter: https://twitter.com/MapEthiopia

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Featured Tracks:

• Tium Zena by Solomon Bayre, a Tigrigna song
• Askari by Awate (a song about African conscripts fighting for colonial powers)