In recent months, the name Birtukan Temesgen has become synonymous with years of human-rights abuses in Ethiopia. That country has largely become a failed state under the rule of its strongman, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmad, despite — or maybe in part because of — generous aid from the U.S. and the West.

In 2019, Birtukan had overcome a rough childhood in Africa’s second-most populous nation to become a thriving student at Dembi Dolo University. One day, while walking across the campus, she was kidnapped by gunmen and brought to a remote corner of the Ethiopian jungle, where she says she was raped and forced to give birth to a child.

Six years later, Birtukan emerged to tell her story through interviews and a documentary, captivating the nation. However, in a subsequent interview, she recanted her story — a move many believe was coerced.

Her saga has also called attention to dozens of similar kidnappings and missing students over the last six years. The lack of accountability for the lethal campaign of ethnic cleansing against her ethnic Amhara people by the Abiy regime continues, even as the Ethiopian ruler basks in the Nobel Peace Prize he was awarded by the West in 2019.

The U.S., under both Democratic and Republican administrations, has largely ignored civil war, endemic corruption and economic decline under Abiy’s rule. For years, it continued to offer carrots of humanitarian and........

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