In a campaign to disabuse the Biden administration from imposing the sanction, the Ethiopian Americans are using the Voters Voice platform to send a clear message to congressional representatives and senators to oppose the sanction and to explain to them that the decision by the State Department threatens to undermine US-Ethiopia diplomatic ties.
If the Biden administration escalates the visa restriction and fulfills its threat of economic sanctions, this will further lead to a dire economic situation that could further exacerbate the political polarization and lead to a migration the world has never seen.
In an open letter to the President, they reiterated the fact that they would like to send a clear message that they are not happy with the Senate Resolution-97 & the newly introduced House Resolution-445. They explained to the US lawmakers that if the sanction is implemented that it will not only hurt the government, but it will hurt the people of Ethiopia more.
The objective of the campaign is said Genet Nigussie, GLEAN Outreach Team Member, to help the members of the US senate and members of the US congress see the negative impact the sanction could have for the long term US geopolitical interest in the Horn of Africa and also to the Ethiopian people. “We want the lawmakers to reconsider their position and understand their constituents’ concerns.”
She stated that they have made great progress. “We had over 570 individuals that made phone calls within the first hour of starting the phone campaign. As of 3 PM today, which is less than 24 hrs since the campaign started, 69 out of 100 senators and 150 of 435 House of Representatives have been reached.”
The key messages that would be conveyed to the senators in order to stand against the Biden’s administration decision to impose the sanction, the sanction will destabilize the country, Genet told The Ethiopian Herald.
It will embolden the terrorist and extremist groups both inside and outside of the country. It will create a space for more unemployed youth to get easily recruited by terrorism groups. The country will become a breeding ground for terrorism with far reaching consequence if Ethiopia becomes unstable with a population of over 110 million people.
This is bad for the US strategic role in the Horn of African region as Ethiopia has been contributing to the peace keeping force and will impact Ethiopia’s ability to positively participate in any future peacekeeping effort.
It will have a negative impact on the financial industry. International investors will not be willing to invest their money & will also be challenged to get foreign currency and this will destroy the economy, they sorted out as the main results could be.
In their message to encourage Ethiopians to participate in the campaign, the organizers of the campaign said encouraging Ethiopians to share the voters’ voice link with everyone (families & friends) they know. It takes less than five minutes to complete the campaign. All one needs is to fill out their address and phone number, and the voter-voice application will automatically identify their congressman and the two senators will pop up with their respective phone numbers. The callers will leave a one line message that they oppose the sanction on the Ethiopian government.
Ethiopians need to understand these lawmakers believed the false narrative that has been floating around by the TPLF supporters and their lobbyist paid with the stolen money from the Ethiopian people. The reason why these TPLF supporters have temporarily succeeded is because the majorities of Ethiopian has stayed quiet and are not organized. The lawmakers care about our votes so we have to make it clear to them that we oppose the sanction.
In the time ahead, we will need to follow up with a letter campaign and request a meeting to gauge their understanding. We will be following and evaluating what the senators and house of representatives and ask them to make public statements, Gennet stressed.
Meron Ahadu is GLEAN Media Monitoring Team Member for her part noted that the organizer of the telephone call campaign is GLEAN Global Ethiopian Advocacy Nexus this is a grassroots advocacy organization that is comprised of various organizations and individuals that work together in advocating for Ethiopia and its people our work is focused on constituent engagement and in monitoring and debunking the false narratives on main stream media and social media that is currently prevalent against Ethiopia
To this end, in one day over 2000 calls have been made, over half of the Senators have been contacted and over 200 Congressional representatives have been called. “The program that we are using Voter Voice allows us to monitor how many calls have been made and to whom” she said.
The main objective of this campaign is to increase awareness that the majority of Ethiopian Americans and their allies are opposed to Biden Administration’s stance on Ethiopia. “Get targets to reconsider their own position, understanding that most of their constituents would like them to support the Ethiopian people & government. The main message says ‘Stand with 110 million Ethiopians & their Government – Be on the right side of history”
Sanctions will undermine and alienate the Ethiopian government and embolden terrorist groups which will lead to civil war in the second most populous country in Africa. The entire region will become a breeding ground for terrorism with far reaching consequences for decades.
BY HAFTU GEBREZGABIHER
The Ethiopian Herald June 6/2021
