BY FITSUM GETACHEW
Part II
Ethiopia is a developing country and may need some assistance from its partners and allies. However economic aid or even grants of any kind can now come from multiple directions and not from one source alone as it used to be some decades ago. There has been tremendous economic, social and political growth in the world that can now match the leadership of only a few western countries. More democratic countries have emerged and in this current digital world every move of any government can be monitored and examined before it wrecks irreparable damage.
‘Neocolonialist’ moves are seen with suspicion and Ethiopians have always been wary of alien moves in their country’s internal affairs. What the current government is exactly fighting is such uncalled for interference which has clear and unequivocal political objectives. The strategy seems to be creating instability in Ethiopia and threaten the position of the government which seems to be carrying out major development projects and try to change the lives of citizens.
The threats of sanctions that have been imposed on the country to submit to external pressure and sit down with the terrorist TPLF remnants to negotiate has been a clear demonstration of which side some of the international community particularly the West is and how disparaging they can be with regards to the sovereign rights of the country’s one hundred fifteen million people!
Ethiopians now know they can never allow foreign troops or arms to reach to the rescue of the terrorists and this has put the government in the difficult position of having to defend itself from multiple fronts: the battle ground, the diplomatic front and the political pressure with the supplement of some media outlets and their so called analysts and scholars!
Evidently TPLF has been preparing for this for years and its paid agents have been doing their job lobbying in the corridors of parliaments and governments abroad and engaged in trying to tarnish the image of a country that has always resisted undue foreign interference. And now the big homework of the Ethiopian government is how to supply humanitarian aid the peaceful and innocent people deserve but without facilitating any form of military assistance being sneaked to the terrorist TPLF remnants. That is the challenge Ethiopia should cope with.
Ethiopia cannot allow any such intervention or it would be reduced to a situation that we have seen in several other countries where proxy wars continue to rage destroying the countries involved. This would be the worst scenario for Ethiopians and that is what it should fight using all its resources available. By standing in unison both at home as well as abroad and discrediting completely the strategy and mission of the terrorist group TPLF which has little regard to casualties and losses citizens suffer, Ethiopia could achieve this mission of avoiding external interference and pressure.
Unfortunately, access to humanitarian aid has been used as a weapon of securing more youths to join the desperate fight. Tigrayan mothers have been resisting this desperately, but in vain. Children of the poor citizens, as young as thirteen have been found at the forefront of the battle field while at the same time the children of the TPLF bosses are all enrolled in luxurious schools in Europe and USA leading comfortable life at the expense of the poor peasants’ children’s sacrifices!
For almost three decades the wealth of Ethiopians was plundered by TPLF leaders who invested a lot in foreign land including paying for lobbyists in the corridors of power and reputed international media. The strategy seemed to work while it should be admitted that this aspect has been one of the weaknesses of the Ethiopian government. Losing the propaganda battle can cost a lot in the battlefield and this must be taken seriously. Awareness on this issue must have been not so rich and we can gauge some of the undesirable consequences.
The Ethiopian government stresses as long as the TPLF has been declared a terrorist organisation that needs to be fought and weeded out, as long as it has revealed and declared out loudly its true enmity to Ethiopia and Ethiopians, any one or organisation that associates itself with it or even worse supports it, they must know that they are considered terrorists themselves and face legal prosecution. Some observes assert that it should be noted however that never in recent years, at least in the past several decades, has the country been at loggerheads with some of its traditional allies and ‘partners of development’ to such a delicate stage.
What is more, there are indications of further worsening unless some reconciliatory moves are adopted in time. The recent ‘disagreements’ between the Ethiopian government and some of these traditional or historical allies and partners of the western world, including notably the USA, has left lots of questions unanswered and put Ethiopians in the condition of having to resist overtly to any of the demands or suggestions of these partners and/or donors because it has become an issue of sovereignty and pride for Ethiopians. US citizens of Ethiopian origin have expressed their dismay over such development. /*
Today there is a general understanding that the policies of these countries towards our country have been largely motivated and justified by the fact that the government in power had always been bowing to the demands of these ‘partners’ who presumably used the Ethiopian government to advance
their long term strategic interests. As soon as there were disagreements between the views of the new Ethiopian government and these states, their reaction has been to resort to blackmail and try and ‘punish’ her or impose ‘sanctions’ as they like to call it, alleging any number of excuses or pretexts such as ‘violations of human rights’, or allegations of attacks on civilian positions while the defense forces were engaged in the pursuit of the terrorist TPLF forces.
Ethiopia has made it clear that it could not allow TPLF be a threat to Ethiopia’s sovereignty and unity and that was why it was fighting the war in the north. But this picture of the situation has been misrepresented by allies of TPLF, lobby groups and paid media outlets manipulating fake accounts and fake images that do not correspond to the reality on the ground. Several false accusations have been forwarded in one voice by these international groups at the pay roll of TPLF agents, ready to defame the Ethiopian government’s efforts to bring back peace and stability in the regional state.
Continued accusations of denying humanitarian aid to the population have been consistently portrayed by international media who resent Ethiopia’s firm stance on the unity and integrity of the country, resisting interference. Ethiopia is conscious that any aid to these terrorists from outside would further endanger the security and integrity of the country and its people. There is hence no way of allowing free access to international actors in this campaign in favour of the terrorist TPLF remnants.
Ethiopia continues to argue that the situation is one that cannot allow interference in the internal affairs of a sovereign country and in this stance many important international partners have given Ethiopia full support.
The AU for instance which is the regional body that could have a legitimate say in trying to bring about a peaceful solution to the crisis has declared that the AU’s Charter does not allow any interference in the internal affairs of a sovereign country and it has recognized the full sovereignty of the federal government on the Tigrayan region despite whatever rhetoric the terrorist TPLF might advance and despite the insistence of certain international actors who insist to regard TPLF not as a terrorist organisation but a representative of a people.
And yet TPLF leaders have come out openly with the declaration that they intend to destroy or dismember Ethiopia! How can any foreign government deny this glaring statement and try to force the Ethiopian government to negotiate with it on an equal basis!? This would be a shameful surrender for Ethiopia, and it is well supported by the large masses of Ethiopians!
Ethiopians know from past experience that in similar conditions alien infiltration is very dangerous and may provoke another dimension to the conflict. That is why the federal government seems to be wary of any alien interference with the pretext of supplying humanitarian assistance.
Ethiopia today is following its own independent trajectory regarding many of the major policy issues it has at hand. It knows it needs to address them as it deems. However, it appears that such ‘independence’ has not been appreciated nor approved of by some of these powers.
There could be multiple issues that have been controversial when it comes to the policies the Ethiopian government has been adopting lately. The major disagreements between Ethiopia and these states originate with first of all the building of the GERD, the grand dam on the river Nile and its sustained and rapid voyage towards its completion. Apparently, this does not respond to the strategies or interests of these countries and their close allies. We have observed that these countries have openly sided with Egypt and Sudan who insist that the Nile waters is first and foremost their source of life and hence a matter of sovereignty.
They argue any project on it must find the approval of these two downstream countries! It has been very disappointing for Ethiopians to find out that the western countries particularly USA has openly but blindly preferred to support Egypt given most probably its strategic importance for their national interests, as many argue, and bother little about what sacrifices Ethiopians may be forced to pay in the process. A weak Ethiopia or better still a divided Ethiopia would be an ideal scenario where its dependency would be eternal and hence easily controllable. This is exactly what Ethiopians deplore and would pay any sacrifice not to see it realized! It is so humiliating even to present it at a suggestion level.
The Ethiopian Herald August 19/2021
