BY HAILE DEMEKE
USAID Chief Administrator Samantha Power is expected to come to Addis after visiting Sudan. The objective of her tour is to facilitate and observe the process of humanitarian assistance in the northern part of Ethiopia, it was learnt. Before her stop in Sudan, some international media outlets disclosed that she is coming in order to press the government of Ethiopia to allow full and unhindered humanitarian access to Tigray state. But, many experts are urging the USAID head to adopt a balanced policy towards Ethiopia with regard to Tigray situation.
While in Sudan, Power tweeted that Amhara forces should leave Western Tigray, a statement never expected from head of humanitarian agency. Besides, in contrast to the principle of humanitarian aid and sovereignty of one nation, some agencies are trying to prescribe which corridor should be used to deliver relief.
In fact, there are tangible worries that humanitarian agencies are on double missions to advance political interests of their masters and engage in clandestine activities. In this regard, Agency for Civil Society Organizations has announced the suspension of work permit of three foreign humanitarian organizations for three months until a final decision is made. This is in accordance with Article 77 (4) of Proclamation No. 1113/2011.
MSF Holland, Norwegian Refugee Council and Al Maktoume Foundation are the organizations whose work permits have been suspended by the agency, according to Ethiopia Current Issue Fact Check. While they have been engaged in different humanitarian operations in Ethiopia, the agency has identified rule violations by these organizations while monitoring their activities.
According to the office, MSF Holland and Norwegian Refugee Council have been disseminating misinformation in social media and other platforms outside of the mandate and purpose for which the organizations were permitted to operate.
These organizations employed foreign nationals without the appropriate work permit from the Ethiopian government for more than six months. MSF Holland illegally imported and using satellite radio equipment which was not authorized by the relevant authority and the employees were thus apprehended by the security forces for using the equipment for illegal purposes.
Reacting to the demands of some humanitarian agencies and their hidden objectives, Assistant Professor of Political Science and International Studies at Bahir Dar University Yayew Genet told The Ethiopian Herald that the mandate international aid agency is providing aid and other necessary materials of food and non-food items. “Unfortunately, what we are witnessing from USAID is quite different from this and the question of opening corridor and other related questions related to withdrawal of military are against the principle of humanitarian aid,” he added.
As Ethiopia is a sovereign country, it is only the government that has the ultimate right to troop deployment and withdrawal inside the country’s territory. The power of enforcing law and order in the country is the mandate of a sovereign state which doesn’t need intervention of a third party. All sovereign nations across the world have equal sovereignty and no country is superior to others.
Humanitarian assistance is provided through bilateral collaboration of federal government and international organizations; he said adding that the corridor in which aid is provided needs to be facilitated by the government.
“Exerting unwarranted pressure on the government to open or close corridor is not the mandate of the humanitarian agency and the role of humanitarian agency has nothing to do with political activities.”
On the other hand, the international humanitarian organizations need to stick to principle of humanitarian aid and stay neutral. Some have hidden political motives to support the terrorist group. The sovereignty of Ethiopia needs to be protected by any means, he said.
Wossen Melaku is an Ethiopian political analyst he stated that in an article published in The Star, Power’s insistence on unhindered humanitarian access to prevent famine in the Tigray region of Ethiopia is clearly noble-intentioned and must be supported by all means. But, that exclusive focus on the Ethiopian government also betrays her lack of understanding of TPLF’s role in all this its use of starvation as a strategy to gain sympathy and support from the likes of Power and her government.
“I fear that Power’s laudable commitment to the cause of human rights, first sparked 32 years ago by the image of the heroic struggle of Chinese students for democracy in Tiananmen Square, has been hijacked by TPLF’s murderous agenda. To take a current example, if TPLF were to cease hostilities in the Afar region, humanitarian aid could reach our citizens quickly.”
But, in trying to press the government of Ethiopia to allow full and unhindered humanitarian access to Tigray, she needs to understand the situation on the ground better. Critical as humanitarian access is, it is not necessarily in the gift of the Ethiopian government alone. The senseless war imposed by the TPLF on all of us, Tigreans included, has made access to Tigray a dangerous adventure. Too many aid workers have given their lives trying to help us. That must stop.
Behind the concerns of experts like Yalew and Wossen remains a true fact. History shows that TPLF terrorist group had used humanitarian aid for other purposes buying of weapons and other sinister motives.
The current TPLF sympathizer Martin Plaut in his BBC investigative report published in 2010 entitled “Ethiopia famine aid spent on weapons” wrote that millions of dollars in Western aid for victims of the Ethiopian famine of 1984-85 was siphoned off by rebels to buy weapons. He used the term rebel to describe TPLF at that time.
Former rebel leaders posed as merchants in meetings with charity workers to get aid money and they used the cash to fund attempts to overthrow the government of the time and the aid money was being misused by the rebels, the story indicated.
Its report concluded: “Some funds that insurgent organizations are raising for relief operations, as a result of increased world publicity, are almost certainly being diverted for military purposes.” Some international organizations are misinforming the global community by taking advantage of providing humanitarian aid.
The Ethiopian Herald August 5/2021
