The Hyena War
Ethiopia, Tigray, and the Media Lies That Fueled a Conflict
A book that sets the record straight on the TPLF war in Ethiopia.
A book with never-shared-before stories from the war zones and the “second front” of the struggle against the digital woyane and the fight against Western media bias.
A book with sourced quotes and appendices of shocking documents proving collusion with the TPLF and the cover-up by media, human rights groups, and the UN of TPLF war crimes.
The time for lies is over. Time for the whole truth to come out.
***
Here’s a link to a downloadable book. I wish it had a dustjacket and pages. I wish it could be in stores for you to pick up and browse through at your leisure. I’m a fossil, and I began my writing career on typewriters, so to me, a book is always a physical thing. I’ve had eighteen of them put out by publishers big and small, and I hope to get more.
This one’s different because for the time being, for right now, this book can’t be released by a regular publisher. There will be idiots out there who guffaw and snipe at a self-published product, which is both asinine and hypocritical — some in their ranks are still trying desperately right now to get media attention over a think tank report. Yep, that institute essentially “published” its report online, a document that only backs up the tired narrative that the TPLF has pushed for more than two years (snore).
Of course, for those who look down their nose at any self-publishing, I will simply point them in the direction of the newsletters produced by legendary investigative journalists George Seldes and the ones by I.F. Stone, who each knew that the establishment would refuse to print their stuff. Howard Fast, author Spartacus — the basis for the blockbuster Hollywood film — had to self-publish his novel because as he put it, “no commercial publisher, due to the political temper of the times, would undertake the publication or distribution of the book.”
Being naïve, I had to discover for myself that almost any book that portrays Africans in a positive light is inherently “political,” even if the politics never get spoken aloud.
It was an uphill battle to get Prevail published. I was told, quite often by white editors in New York, that “there was no market for it.” I would reply, “Really? So, Black people don’t read?” They had no response to this — but they didn’t change their decision. It was an uphill battle to get The Gifts of Africa published, and in a typical fashion for which many an author can relate, there was virtually no marketing support for it.
So, imagine a book about Africa that also defies almost every single Western media outlet and presents how they’ve been incompetent or outright lied; a book that has evidence that shows Amnesty, International, Human Rights Watch, and even the United Nations were in on a conspiracy to overthrow a nation. Yeah, who would buy that?
Hopefully, you will. There will be those who crow that (Shock! Horror! Clutch your pearls!) I am charging a small amount for this digital book. Yeah, I like to buy groceries. I like to pay rent. I am not charging the $20+ expected for Martin Plaut and Sarah Vaughn’s comical novel, Understanding Ethiopia’s Tigray War After Your Lobotomy, or the $30+ in hardcover charged for Tom Gardner’s The Abiy Project: What I Scribbled On My Extended Vacation After I Got My Ass Kicked Out of Ethiopia.
Instead, I’m asking for a small sum. Yep, I’m simply counting on the goodwill of those who support my work and still believe in it and are willing to throw me a bit of compensation. And being cynical, I know that it’ll be hilariously easy to download the book and share it, thus skirting this paywall, but that was never the point in writing it. Writers like being paid, but they like even more being read.
Yes, technically, you’re paying for a monthly subscription to get to the book, but okay, if you don’t want the subscription, you can always unsubscribe, and keep the book anyway. Your choice. Hopefully, you’ll want to stick around.
**
A proper, full-length book in English has been needed for some time that blows up the TPLF lies, exposes the conspiracy, and also presents scenes from the war zones by someone who was actually there. Well, I was there. This is my account.
Jeff Pearce in Afar, late 2021; photograph by Jemal Countess
The book is not intended to be a simple rehash of the conflict. Because I’ve had to tell my own story in it, I’m including behind-the-scenes anecdotes of how some things really went down. Certain people will not be happy with it, especially since a few have gone through a political canonization and can do no wrong in others’ eyes. Well, I call bullshit on that. I was there, too, when their halos slipped.
Oh, and that’s right, I used the word “conspiracy” again. As Sarah Kendzior argued in They Knew, “A conspiracy theory, when rooted in a sincere desire to find and expose the truth, is a refusal to move on from betrayal.” Kendzior knows that “the sneering dismissal of conspiracy theories in favor of uncritical acceptance of institutionalist narratives is aimed at protecting the powerful, bolstering the reputation of the disdainful as a ‘rational actor,’ and again directing people away from the search for accurate information.”
But sadly, the world has truly gone insane. I am not aware of any other “genocide” that magically appeared overnight with Twitter hashtags.
I’ve never heard of another “genocide” where the so-called villain (in this case, Abiy) hosted a ceremony and passed out framed certificates to the leaders of the victims, and one of them (in this case, Getachew Reda) agreed to be appointed head of the regional government — by the guy he wanted put on trial for war crimes.
Funny how that worked out. And yet the “genocide” narrative is being flogged online again and again.
I know several ferenji analysts who heroically stood up to the digital woyane as long as they could and have had enough. They waved goodbye and walked into the sunset, and who can blame them, as they put in their time. I know a respected diaspora publisher who was threatened and now has to fight to retain his intellectual property. As far as I can tell, this person is fighting alone, no one has his back, and I can only hope he’ll return to public life again one day.
But a few are left who will not go away quietly. Silly us for being so stubborn.
You see, it was my understanding that if a “genocide” is real, its advocates don’t have to launch petition after petition to try to get people fired from their jobs, or make physical threats, or engage in public smears, or shut critics up at parliamentary hearings, or complain shrilly that the BBC or the World Food Programme or a UN division or whoever else deviates from their narrative “must be biased” and must instantly fall back into line with their version of the truth. “Retract your story immediately or else.”
As I wrote on X, I don’t recall any persecuted peoples, not the Jews in 1930s Germany, nor the Armenians nor the Yezidi nor the Rohingya ever threatening media and international organizations over their coverage and official reports.
We are expected to have empathy for alleged victims of genocide, but we are also entitled to check the facts of what happened. We are not supposed to live in a climate of relentless fear if we contradict the narrative of their advocates.
I despise bullies intensely. I loathe the power that their fear can instill in others, and because I am freelance, because I live modestly, I can afford the privilege of saying no. At least so far.
I am counting on the TPLF to do their bully thing. They still haven’t figured out what I learned the hard way a long time ago: “The best way to kill a book is to ignore it.” So, I might as well ask them now: Go ahead. Behave true to form and go hysterically, foaming-at-the-mouth nuts with self-righteous indignation. It is what you guys do best, right? Besides murdering people. Please rant and rave. Please, by all means, condemn it and try to have it forbidden, banned, purged — I’d love that.
You’ve dropped the mask before to show the world who you are, but I’d love to be the one you go after now that the world has started to catch on to your act. It’ll really help sales and readership.
And if you take away my keyboard or my platforms, I’ll find a way to be that raving old cantankerous son of a bitch in the park who can string at least three or four sentences together to make others intrigued and to go dig up the facts for themselves. Shit, look at me, I’m an aging, bald, white dude, I’m practically already there.
Yes, this book is one more shot in the ongoing campaign to fight back.
It’s also offered to those who share that passion for the facts and for never breaking faith with the true history of events.
When I went back to Ethiopia to cover the war, ordinary people in Addis and sometimes in other spots would stop me and thank me “for all I’ve done.” It was both embarrassing and humbling, and I couldn’t persuade others, let alone explain to these nice folks that I was the one who needed to thank them. Ethiopia owes me nothing — I owe Ethiopia.
I am not religious, never will be, but that is a very different thing than having some appreciation of spirituality and reaching towards something higher in terms of moral value. For lack of a better way to put it, a nation redeemed my conscience and rescued me from frittering away years of just hack work, writing about the superficial or devoting my skills only to entertain.
Writers write because they have to. They’re either brimming with their own stories (fiction) or they come across a great tale that others should know about (narrative nonfiction).
I suspect only a lucky few of us ever get the chance to write about something important, something geopolitically crucial and that matters in terms of the global conscience, all while having the lived experience to chronicle it authentically.
I was granted that opportunity. I like to think I’m better for it, and my hope is that I have contributed something worthwhile. Yes, I covered what I call the Hyena War. I have made my own record of it. And now it’s yours to read if you click here and subscribe.
