The recent defeat of the TPLF and its Western backers is both a diplomatic and military turning point. Militarily, it represents a stage of the conflict whereby TPLF’s military bravado fizzled like bubble of soaps as it is ejected from the regions it occupied and reduced to ashes by committing the most horrible human and material devastations. Meanwhile, its Western supporters are diplomatically defeated following their urging to negotiate with the terrorist group that has no relevance to Ethiopian politics and lives only on illusions and the state of madness that its loss of power and privileges have created in their mind.
The devastating military losses the TPLF neo-fascists suffered at all the fronts have made it clear that sooner or later, an unjust war of aggression is bound to boomerang on the aggressors and expose their true intents behind their deceptive claims. Ethiopia’s victory has made it clear that the West and the US were behind the aggressors. Although they denied it, they have engineered and encouraged TPLF’s military campaign, organized disgruntled opposition figures in Washington to take over power after Ethiopia is plunged into chaos and threatened to intervene military whenever the situation permits it, while their media consistently indulge in negative reporting of events in Ethiopia in sync with Washington’s hidden plans. If this is not covert intervention in Ethiopia’s internal affairs what is it?
The fact that they decided to conduct investigations into alleged human rights abuses as the Ethiopian offensive continued to successfully repeal the neo-fascist intrusions into Amhara and Afar territories is a clear manifestation of their intent to save the neo-fascists from any blame for the horrendous killings, rapes, burning of people alive, mass murder and mass burials they caused to the innocent people of the two regions. The resolution is also a graphic demonstration of the cover-up exercise the so-called investigation of human rights abuses is intended to serve by absolving the TPLF of any blame in its aggressive and destructive adventures.
The Ethiopian government is a legitimate and duly elected body that represents the interests of the entire people of Ethiopia while the TPLF is a group of gangsters who represent nobody but only themselves. As such, the two entities cannot be equally called for investigations into alleged human rights abuses. The TPLF are groups of lawless maniacs that is sowing terror and mayhem wherever they set foot. The Ethiopian government on the other hand is the sole responsible body that is entrusted with the protection of the lives of its citizens and the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the country.
First, as such, the TPLF should be held accountable automatically for the countless crimes it has so far caused against millions of innocent citizens in Amhara and Afar. The Ethiopian government has already been absolved of such accusations by the investigations already conducted by the UN human rights together with the Ethiopian human rights commission and the results of the investigations have cleared the government of any previous allegations. The TPLF should stand accused of the recent gross human rights abuses it carried out in Amhara and Afar in the context of its ill-fated counter offensive that it carried out in full view of the international community although the big media outlets kept silent for obvious reasons as they did since the start of the conflict.
Secondly, the West and its ally the TPLF hand engineered the “march on Addis” that the neo-fascists bragged about a few weeks ago with the intent to mislead and misinform the international community and create an atmosphere of psychological chaos and pressure conducive for the planned invasion of the Ethiopian capital by the neo-fascist hordes. This has proved a fiasco as the TPLF is now a ragtag assortment of fleeing looters desperate to reach their hideouts deep in their caves and dugouts to avoid accountability for their crimes.
Third, the TPLF defeat has once again proved that the Western countries and the US have been either cheated or deliberately allowed the so-called march on Addis in order to plunge Ethiopia into chaos and darkness and eventually send an occupation “peace keeping” army that would help them implement their interventionist projects to realize their long-term geostrategic interests in the Horn of Africa. American intervention in Ethiopia would be the starting point for the invasion of the entire Horn region and establish permanent military bases in the race against real or imaginary powers that may want to stop US expansion in the area.
Fourth, the TPLF defeat has demonstrated that the Western alliance is giving all round assistance to any barbaric group of misfits in Africa as long as they are ready to do the dirty jobs for them. The TPLF have cheated the West into believing they are about to take over Addis Ababa and form a transitional government. Subsequently, the Washington hawks hastily convened a meeting of non-existing nine opposition groups to take care of the transition until the TPLF would be comfortably settled into power. Meanwhile, the West would shift its support from media disinformation to supply of weapons and money that would be secretly smuggled to these forces. Thus the TPLF would rise from the ashes and make a second comeback and conquer the power they lost following the nationwide uprising cum revolution against them three or four years ago.
Fifth, the recent so-called “mellowing” of the Western and US attitude towards the situation in Ethiopia after the TPLF suffered a string of swift defeats they suffered in the hands of Ethiopian patriots is only a reaction to the shame and humiliation they suffered psychologically. The Ethiopian victory has made it clear that if the Western puppet handlers are trying to bring Ethiopia under their subjugation, the TPLF is not the right ally that is only interested in money, lootings, killings and the conquest of power and privileges.
The American government and its allies always come on the side of the stronger party in any conflict, no matter how much money and effort they spent to boost any of their agents. By the same logic, the US and its Western allies are bound to come on the side of Ethiopia sooner or later when they see that they have lost their gamble. They will abandon the TPLF as a spent force no more reusable to execute their plans in Ethiopia and the Horn. The TPLF is a paper tiger that can be used and thrown by its masters. The US will therefore will soon start recruiting new replacements and designing new tactics and strategies to implement their geostrategic designs. For the US and its Western allies, there are no lasting friends or lasting enemies but only lasting in interests.
The US administration needs to readjust its policies towards Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa in a way that better promote their interests. First and foremost, the US will have to change its attitude towards Ethiopia as a country and equate the government with the country. the US may have differences with the present elected administration in Ethiopia but it cannot have differences with the country or with its people. Governments come and go; but countries and their peoples are bound to remain.
The US will have to adjust its policies to its long-term interests of peaceful diplomacy and not its short term race for dominating the region. Instead of urging the Ethiopian government and the TPLF to talk peace, Washington itself should first initiate a diplomatic rapprochement towards Ethiopia. The TPLF is a dead political entity that cannot even defend its own terroristic interests.
A discredited and rejected group that destroys its own country and kills its own people cannot be a reliable partner in peacemaking or trusted into serving foreign interests whatever their motives might be. The TPLF could not exist even in name without the direct or indirect encouragement of the Washington hawks in the State Department who miscalculated or were cheated into believing that a terrorist group that is destroying its own country and commit genocide can be trusted partners or fair players.
The US should better negotiate with the Ethiopian government and chart a new course of relationships based on well-known foreign policy interests and principles. ginning of the conflict. It will have to left the economic sanctions that it has imposed based on wrong assessments of the situation at the start of the conflict. It will have to lift the ban on Ethiopia’s AGOA trade privileges whose revocation can only hurt small businesses and tens of thousands of workers and their families.
Ethiopia is the axis around which all African and/or Horn diplomacy revolves. No foreign force can and will succeed in selling its politics without the trust and cooperation of Africa as a continent and Ethiopia as a major partner in the Horn of Africa. So, it is crucial for the US to reestablish its trust in Africa, and by implication in Ethiopia, in its peaceful competition with real or perceived powers or in establishing cooperative relationships with all the actors, near or distant. Ethiopia has once again proved a bastion of the struggle against terrorism domestic or international. The US, true to its past records, should reestablished its security cooperation with Ethiopia in order to fight terrorism wherever it is found with some degree of success as it has done in the past. It cannot however fight terrorism by seeking the services of another terrorist group whose plans are in contrast to the principles and values American diplomacy and foreign are based on. Normalization in relations between the US and Ethiopia is the only key that can unlock the present deadlock and open up great opportunities for peace, cooperative and mutually beneficial development in the region and beyond.
The US should call a regional conference of all the countries of the Horn of Africa in order to make its case known or understood by the regional actors and seek ways of mending the fences and playing a constructive role in the political, economic and diplomatic spheres.
The US would do better stop seeking the services of terrorists, mercenaries or other proxy forces that are only interested in money and power and would not serve as forces for peace. Washington should rather seek the honest partnerships of African countries like Ethiopia whose interests are fair deal and emergence from poverty and dependence.
The US will have to work in order to keep its image of a great power that cares for the wellbeing of African countries and not as a neocolonial entity that is out to control the region for whatever reason. America’s negative image in Africa will heart America more than any African country. It will not help the US in its global competition with other economic powers. Neither will it promote global peace and stability. So this is the right time to return to the good old policy of responsible and generous diplomacy that famed and not shamed the US in the past.
BY MULUGETA GUDETA
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD TUESDAY 30 DECEMBER 2021
