ETHIOPIA: Dying Regime with Curious Supporters

Sophia Tesfamariam

November 18, 2007

Ethiopia: Dying regime with curious supporters

I borrowed the title from Donald E. B Jameson’s 1990’s article in the Washington Times in which he questioned the prudence of the Israeli and Soviet Union’s support for the regime in Ethiopia, led by Menghistu Hailemariam, while fully cognizant of its imminent collapse. Much of what Jameson, a retired Central Intelligence Agency officer, a writer and a consultant on international affairs, wrote about the nature of the Menghistu regime and the unconditional support given to it by the Soviet Union and Israel, can today be said about Meles Zenawi’s minority Tigrayan regime ruling Ethiopia and the diplomatic, financial, political and military support it receives from the US Administration and its allies.

The US Administration, through its representatives at the State Department, and most vocally through Jendayi E. Frazer, the Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, has gone out of its way to publicly and aggressively defend and protect the minority regime in Ethiopia, as it violates international law, rejects the Final and Binding decision of the Eritrea Ethiopia Boundary Commission (EEBC), refuses to allow for the unconditional demarcation of the Eritrea Ethiopia border, invades and occupies sovereign territories of neighboring states, violates the human rights of the Ethiopian and Somali peoples, commits genocides, rapes and untold international crimes against humanity, tortures political detainees and employing Menghistu’s scorched earth policies, uses food as a weapon of war against the people of Ethiopia.

Allow me to share Jameson’s observations and comments on the Menghistu regime and its key supporters. On 3 April 1990, about a year before Menghistu’s ouster from Ethiopia, Jameson wrote the following:

-“ …Colonel Menghistu, leader of Ethiopia’s dying communist regime has finally issued a decree proclaiming a new era of enlightenment and reform for his tortured starving nation. Included were private enterprise, tolerance of dissent, opportunities for foreign investors and all the slogans of reformation sweeping Eastern Europe…His people are dying of hunger imposed by his government. His armies are disintegrating, and only the support of his foreign friends prolongs the agony of the long-suffering people of Ethiopia…”

-“…And his friends are a curious combination. Mikhail Gorbachev’s Soviet Union sent over $800 million worth of arms to Ethiopia last year…So Mr. Gorbachev, who supported the overthrow of Nicolae Ceausescu in Romania, still furnished the weapons to the dwindling guardians of a despot whose misdeeds equal, if not exceed in depravity, those of Romania’s recently executed president-for-life…”

-“…What makes the situation even more curious is that, at first glance, it is hard to see why anybody would support Col. Mengistu. Leave humanitarian considerations aside and look at it in terms of realpolitik…Ethiopia’s armies melt away from desertion and surrender almost as rapidly as the reminaing youth of the nation can be pressed into the ranks…”

-“…The weapons that the foreign powers ship to Col. Mengistu flow through the hands of his soldiers and on to the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (EPLF), the Tigreans and other rebel forces…”

-“…Mr. Gorbachev can plead inertia as an excuse for keeping on with this tragic folly. The Soviets have been trying to make Col. Mengistu a viable autocrat for 15 years…It may be hard to change course after all that time…Israeli advisers are trying to shape up Col. Mengistu’s armies…nevertheless, neither inertia in the case of the Soviets, nor the well being of the Jewish colony in Ethiopia explain fully the support Col. Mengistu receives…”

-“…For both the Soviet Union and Israel, Ethiopia is primarily a littoral state on the Red Sea. For the Soviets it is also a foothold in Africa, a place from which influence and power can be projected down into Kenya or westward across the countries south of the Magreb…”

-“…As the Eritrean and Tigrean resistance expand their areas of control, the Soviets will finally learn that despite Ethiopia’s geopolitical value, the game is up…as astute political observers, they [Israelis] too must see the handwriting on the wall. But they also persist…The EPLF may soon capture Asmara. And then what happens? Very likely, Col. Mengistu falls…”

-“…What are the Soviets and Israeli’s thinking when they contemplate that event? Almost certainly they are looking a head to find a successor; less bloody minded, more enlightened and more tolerant but someone who will be serviceable in keeping Eritrea a part of Ethiopia and pliable enough to try, when asked, to influence other African nations…”

-“…Can they [Soviet and Israel] place the strategic value of a place on the Red Sea Coast ahead of the starving millions who must have peace to survive? More practically, can they somehow tame the EPLF [Eritrean People’s Liberation Front] and get it to agree not to interfere with their concerns about the Red Sea? Therein lies the rub. The EPLF is the oldest continuously fighting guerrilla movement in the world. It has had very little help from anybody. Even forces as big as the Soviets and as adept as the Israeli’s should be cautious by now…”

-“…Eritrea, which has never really been a part of Ethiopia should get its independence. The option to revert to the autonomous status the United Nation’s intended for it after World War II I is no longer acceptable…that effort brought down the old emperor and it is now destroying Col. Mengistu…”

-“ …When policies have been followed for years, even the most experienced statesmen can fail to see that alternatives are in order. If Col. Menghistu’s curious supporters are firmly confronted by the rest of the world, then they may learn that the game is no longer worth the candle, particularly when the lives of so many innocent people depend on ending the conflict. Only peace with the EPLF can achieve that…”

Déjà vu?

Let us take a look at some of what is being said today, about the minority regime in Ethiopia led by Meles Zenawi:

-“…US continues to support Ethiopia, even though Ethiopia disregards both the border agreement which it signed in 2000, and the UN’s ceding of Badme to Eritrea in 2002…”

-“…So why didn't Ethiopia's allies - the European Union, Britain and the United States, who provide Ethiopia with millions of dollars' worth of development assistance each year and who are also providing substantial support to the TFG - do more to stop these violations? The answer is as depressing as it is obvious. Ethiopia and its Somali proxies, including a large number of warlords with notorious records of abuse from earlier conflicts, are perceived by the EU and US government as key allies in the "war on terror" and are doing the west's dirty work against Somalia's Islamists…”

-“…Ethiopia's military campaign [in the Ogaden region of Ethiopia] has triggered a serious humanitarian crisis… dozens of civilians have been killed in what appears to be a deliberate effort to mete out collective punishment against a civilian population suspected of sympathising with the rebels…”

-“…the state that is perpetrating abuses against its people in Ogaden is a key western ally and recipient of large amounts of western aid. Furthermore the crisis in Ogaden is linked to a military intervention by Ethiopia in Somalia that has been justified in terms of counter terrorism and is firmly supported by the United States and other western donors…”

-“…The EU and the United States have significant leverage over Ethiopia in the form of foreign aid and political influence. They should use it instead of turning a blind eye to abuses carried out by the Ethiopian security forces in the name of counter terrorism…Western support for Ethiopia's counter insurgency efforts in the Horn of Africa is not only morally wrong and riddled with double standards, it is also ineffective and counterproductive. It will lead to the escalation and regionalisation of the conflicts of the region and may well help to radicalise its large and young Muslim population…”

-"…Ethiopian troops are destroying villages and property, confiscating livestock and forcing civilians to relocate. Whatever the military strategy behind them, these abuses violate the laws of war…"

-"…Villages and nomadic homes have been torched by the Ethiopian forces. They want to starve the people into submission. Food donated by western taxpayers is being used as weapon of war by the Ethiopian regime…."

-“…The U.S. military used and uses Ethiopian air bases modernized by infusions of millions of dollars of “AID” funds to launch attacks against Somalia…U.S. spy satellites were used provide intelligence to Ethiopian troops as they swept across the Oganden basin and Somalia… The Ethiopian government retained former U.S. Republican house majority leader Dick Armey as a lobbyist in Washington to whitewash the Ethiopian regimes’ crimes…”

-“…The Ogaden, Oromo and Anuak regions of Ethiopia have seen massive military occupation and state repression. The Ethiopian government of Meles Zenawi has perpetrated mass starvation and scorched earth policy in the region. There has been very little international media coverage and most is favorable the Zenawi regime or pressing the upside-down stories about “relief” and “starvation” that serve the Western “humanitarian” business sector. The Ogaden basin is a bloodbath today. Applying the same legal standards as in Darfur, all three Ethiopian regions qualify as ongoing genocides against indigenous people…Failure to apply the genocide standards constitutes genocide denial…”

-“…the US congress and the Bush administration are still ready to reward Zinawi with half a billion dollars of US tax payers's money for a job well done in the US war against Islamic terror. This is nothing more than blood money paid to the Tigre army's mass, killing and maiming of the people of Somalia in the name of US war against terror while giving, lip-service to his atrocious human rights violations inside Ethiopia….The current US spin on the fear of Power vacuum in Somalia, if Ethiopia's occupation force is to pull out of Somalia, is a deprived lie designed to prolong the agony of the people of Somalia who are currently suffering under menacing power of the unholy trinity of US global militarism, thuggish warlords and the Tigre army…”

-“…No regime that terrorizes its citizens can be a reliable ally in the war on terror…Ethiopia's a great country. It deserves better, frankly, than the government they have..."

-Etc. etc.

I will end here and let the reader make his or her own conclusions…

The rule of law must prevail over the law of the jungle!

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