‘Ethiopia aid diverted for rebel arms in 1980s’

LONDON, Kurrent News: Millions of dollars of international aid for victims of the mid-1980s famine in Ethiopia was diverted to rebels to buy weapons in the African country, a BBC investigation reported on Wednesday.Citing former rebels and CIA documents, it said militant leaders posed as merchants in meetings with aid groups who flooded into Ethiopia to help relieve the famine, highlighted by the global Live Aid charity concert in 1985.

“Some funds that insurgent organisations are raising for relief operations, as a result of increased world publicity, are almost certainly being diverted for military purposes,” said a 1985 CIA assessment cited by the broadcaster.

The BBC quoted a Christian Aid worker, Max Peberdy, as saying he took nearly 500,000 dollars into Ethiopia in 1984 to buy grain from merchants, who he believes were genuine.

“It’s 25 years since this happened, and in the 25 years it’s the first time anybody has claimed such a thing,” he told the broadcaster.

But the merchant he dealt with, Gebremedhin Araya, claims he was in fact a senior member of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF).