If Ethiopia can produce competent and determined leaders skilled in leadership and diplomacy, the country can work with any superpower without losing its political independence and integrity. And in the age of a small world, US involvement should not be demonized.
Ethiopia's rich military and diplomatic history makes it an important nation in global politics and history. It cannot be isolated as some degenerates wish but it should fix its internal problems and emerge as the ancient civilizations of Japan, Israel, Iran, China, Russia and India did with or without direct influence from western powers.
For the last fifty years, Ethiopia's murderous rulers and their stooges have found a scapegoat for their failure to lead the nation to stability and wealth. Now Ethiopia's much hyped reform of 2018 collapsed right after Abiy Ahmed came to power and started trying to recreate things in his image.
His incompetence caused the death of thousands in ethnic killings across the country. Then an all-out civil war started in Nov 2020 after his mediocre military intelligence failed to see and abort the massacre of thousands of ENDF troops stationed in Tigray by the regional ruling party TPLF's ethnic Tigreyan militia.
The ENDF recovered and defeated TPLF in three weeks but Abiy Ahmed's mediocre leadership wasted the army's sacrifice. The war was dragged and the TPLF returned to the provincial capital Mekelle six months after its defeat. It even marched south to northern Shoa threatening to dissolve the Ethiopian state. On its way, it destroyed and looted billions of dollars' worth economy and infrastructure in Wollo, Gondar, Wag and Afar provinces. Its fighters raped thousands of women in Wollo and Gondar.
In the last four years, between the two, Abiy Ahmed's PP and TPLF, over a million Ethiopians lost their lives. Instead of taking responsibility for the horrific civil war, the TPLF and Abiy accused of each other being US agents for the destabilization of Ethiopia. Their disregard for human life is beyond imagination.
This isn't the only conflict in Ethiopia in the last five decades since the communist revolution ended the Ethiopian monarchy. Hundreds of thousands of Ethiopians lost their lives in vain by conflicts its murderous rulers created. From Mengistu Hailemariam to Abiy Ahmed, they butchered young Ethiopians to come to power and then hang on it at any cost.
US role in Ethiopia since 1974
While the last Ethiopian Emperor championed the non-aligned movement, US had a positive relation with Ethiopia during Haileselassie's reign. In the 50s, Ethiopia fought on the side of the US-led UN troops in Korea and Congo. US had a military base in the country. They had no malicious interest against Ethiopia. They even advised the monarchy to reform its land policy. Had the American advice been taken seriously then, by now Ethiopia could have been the African Japan.
When the communists toppled the emperor and started their bloody regime. the US could not obviously support them. This was an understandable move from a capitalist superpower locked in a cold war against the communist Soviet Union.
US major policy shift happened only after 1979 under the Carter administration. The move did not target Ethiopia as a nation or people but its bloody communist regime. To our surprise, the strained relation was severed by not the US but by Mengistu Hailemariam's ruling clique as his once Prime minister Faika Sidelil said. Per the former chief of Ethiopia's command economy, the soviets were surprised by the Mengistu regime who appeared more sovietly anti-US than the Soviets themselves. They soviets were even forced to advise the Ethiopians to cool it down.
The communist regime had a lot of chances to resolve the civil war in a peaceful manner. The former foreign minister Ashagre Yigletu had reportedly made several appeals to the president to accept a negotiated settlement. But Col Mengistu rejected all attempts for peace. He kept blaming the US and other foreign forces only to finally mass-murder his own top generals which led to the dissolution of Ethiopia's century old modern military and the occupation of the Ethiopian state by a new group of ethnofascist rebel forces. Mengistu had reportedly settled his exile with the Americans he blamed in his entire 16 years of power.
Again, per Fasika Sidelil, the former prime minister and Ashagre Yigletu, the former foregn minister, the US did not support the balkanization of Ethiopia including the secession of Eritrea until 1991. When the TPLF and EPLF surrounded Addis Ababa in May of that year and Mengistu already abandoned his own nation and army, the US had no choice but to work with the newbies in power. It's all about who is in charge.
OLF founder Lencho Leta admitted the US government was never comfortable with their divisive politics. They chose to work with TPLF who had a platform to rule Ethiopia over OLF whose demand was the dismemberment of Ethiopia and the rise of the Oromoya republic. Had the US wanted Ethiopia's demise, it could have easily chosen to work with OLF.
American scholars who the TPLF consulted on how to reform Ethiopia in the early 90s, warned the rebels not to install an ethnic segregation and federalism that put Ethiopia in its current state. It is the TPLF and its allies in Amhara and Oromo who copied and adopted fascist Mussolini's map for the new Ethiopia.
During the Clinton era in the late 90s, the US did not fully support the TPLF regime. It took a neautral stance in the TPLF-EPLF conflict. Meles and TPLF used US neutrality as a grievance to rally the uninformed Ethiopian mass behind them against US and Eritrea. They caused the death of over a hundred thousand Ethiopians in their political war against their former ally EPLF between 1998 and 2000. They benefited from the war they fabricated and as a result consolidated their fascist rule on the rest of Ethiopia.
Some silly Ethiopians expect the US or westerners in general to install a democratic government on the country. Ethiopia is not a US state. Foreign powers work with whoever is in charge of a given country. And that's what they did in Ethiopia throughout TPLF's rule. The only force that threatened TPLF's power was CUDP in 2005 and the party failed to organize and lead persistent civil disobedience that could have exerted some pressure on Meles Zenawi. TPLF came out victorious and the US had to work with them. Pro-democracy Ethiopians should first work on themselves and create a power base that can reform the country for good instead of blaming the US for Ethiopia's continued instability.
The state department had always denounced TPLF's human rights violations in its reports. What else could it have done short of removing TPLF and installing a new government? US government institutions like VOA were serving as opposition media platforms. Prime minister Meles Zenawi went as far calling for the dissolution of these institutions labeling them cold war propaganda machines. Without major lobbying and strong anti-TPLF coalition at home, US law makers nearly passed a strong legislation against TPLF in the years following the 2005 election. What else could a foreign country do to promote freedom in a country where people were not ready to pay the price for their own freedom?
The rise of Abiy Ahmed and the TPLF war
Most people do not talk about it, but the US under Trump played a great role in helping Ethiopia reform and ditch TPLF. The US threw its support fully behind the prospect of a democratic reform. Even when the TPLF started the official civil war in Nov 2020, the Trump administration denounced the attack on the Ethiopian army base in Tigray by TPLF militia men. Then secretary of state, Mike Pompeo also condemned the missile attack on Eritrea by the rebels. Trump's top Africa diplomat Tibor Nagy explained the crisis as a product of an unfortunate ethnic federalism which the world accuses the TPLF for.
Abiy Ahmed's incompetence led to TPLF's preemptive attack and the prolonging of the civil war until Nov 2022. During the war, the Biden administration clearly took side with TPLF but the diplomatic ties were not completely cut off. The diplomatic crisis was created mainly by the mediocrity of Abiy Ahmed's regime to present Ethiopia's case to the world not by the world's blind support for TPLF. It was a handful of Ethiopians trying to explain the situation to the world when Abiy Ahmed & his diplomats failed to the counter TPLF's misinformation war.
Desperate Ethiopians started the Nomore movement to raise awareness on Biden's biased stance, but the movement was evidently blinded not to see Abiy Ahmed's mediocrity that dragged and complicated the war. People were understandably in paranoia when the TPLF reached Northen Shoa. They did not see Abiy and PP were fully responsible as TPLF for what happened.
After the Ethiopian army fully defeated the TPLF, the US helped broker a peace deal in Pretoria South Africa, Abiy Ahmed's fascistic ruling clique used the agreement to consolidate power and prepare for another war instead of bringing peace to the conflict. Most of the action items in the Pretoria agreement have not been implemented after four months mainly by Abiy Ahmed's lawless governing style not by US interference. But still Abiy Ahmed's fascist stooges blame the US for saving TPLF while the medieval ruler rules by what he sees in his dreams instead of the written rules.
Ethiopia and US interests in the horn aren't mutually exclusive
The US can work with any power who does not clash with its geopolitical interests without imposing its values. The US is a close ally of the mediaeval Saudi Arabian kingdom. They do not force their values on the Saudis. Saudi culture is inherently anti-US than Ethiopian culture. The US cannot stand on Ethiopia's way of democratization. In a democracy, the majority of Ethiopians vote for a pro-US government than the opposite. Ethiopia enjoyed a strong relation with US ally Israel even during Mengistu Hailemariam when it seemed unlikely.
Unlike what Abiy Ahmed's morons have been preaching, diplomacy is not black and white. If Ethiopia had competent and determined leaders who are skilled in leadership and diplomacy, the country could have worked with any superpower without losing its political independence. But what happened is successive murderous rulers who used foreign relations to make up for their local deficit.
Ethiopia's enemies are these murderous rulers and the uninformed mass that follows them blindly. These greedy politicians easily mobilize the poor and uneducated peasantry from the mid-70s until now for bloody civil wars created by their lust for power.
TPLF leaders spent their entire lives in Addis Ababa and other world capitals doing nothing for the poor Tigray peasants but when they were ousted from power after 27 years, they were able to mobilize and send up to 600,000 uneducated peasants to the meat grinder in a war they started to restore their power. The US or other foreign powers can not change this sad realty. Only determined Ethiopians who are willing to pay the price to educate and mobilize the peasantry in the direction of a prosperous democratic Ethiopia can end their country's tragedy.
Ancient civilizations like China, Israel, Russia, Iran, Japan and India all have developed their countries to some form of dignity with or without the US. Ethiopians can take them as a model and find the formula to success instead of occupying their minds about perceived western enemies.
Adresa
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