The talk about the US government bills directed against Ethiopia has been lingering for the last five months. Whenever this topic is mentioned, there is an image that immediately pops into my mind. It is a picture that went viral about 8 months ago. Seen in the picture, was one of the top TPLF leaders holding a satellite phone to his ear, under the watchful eye of the then WFP Emergency Coordinator, Thomas Thompson.
WFP was the one that first announced last week the arrival in Mekele of the first batch of food aid and fuel carrying trucks since last December. How much of these supplies would reach their intended targets, the hungry Tigrayans civilians? This question obviously would not be a cause of concern for the USAID, WFP, or any other UN agency.
These western agencies know too well that their food supplies and fuel are being diverted by TPLF forces to be used as input to the logistics of TPLF war efforts. Even some analysts accuse the agencies of helping TPLF revive as a major player in Ethiopian politics. They base their argument on TPLF’s track record as a proven loyal servant to the big geopolitics agenda of the Western powers in the Horn of Africa. TPLF operatives like Tedros Adhanom have infested all echelons of power in these agencies. And pushing political agenda under cover of serving humanitarian purposes is a usual practice in these international agencies.
The two bills, S-3199 and H.R. 6600 are just the final stages of the grand secret plan of the Americans. The plot to bring TPLF from dust in the outbacks of Tigray to a power-to-be reckoned with in determining Ethiopia’s political future. It is now public secret that both bills are initiated by lobbyist firms hired by the TPLF sympathizers and the Egyptians. Members of the US Senate and House of Representatives who sponsored the bills have a track record as strong supporters of TPLF.
When the news of S-3199 approval by the Foreign Relations Committee of the US senate came last week, TPLF leaders in Mekele jumped for joy and their sympathizers abroad threw a party. They have a solid reason to be jovial. The bill intends to safeguard the interest and guarantee the survival of TPLF by all means at the expense of Ethiopians’ continued misery and Ethiopia’s sovereign rights.
For one thing, S-3199 is crafted to blatantly incriminate the Ethiopian government. The US Senate bill tries its level best to cover up the truth to paint the Ethiopian government as an aggressor and the TPLF as a victim of aggression fighting only in self-defense. Section 3 paragraph 5 of the bill reads: “In the early hours of November 4, 2020, Prime Minister Abiy ordered a military offensive in response to an attack by the TPLF on the Northern Command of the Ethiopian National Defense Forces (ENDF), which TPLF officials have asserted was an act of self-defense in the face of an imminent invasion by Federal forces.”
In paragraph 16 of Section3 of S-3199, the bill sponsors have tried their best to downplay the civilian massacres, the mass pillage and destruction of public and private, mass rapes conducted by the TPLF forces in the Afar and Amhara regions. They did not mention that TPLF forces committed all these crimes against humanity after the Ethiopian government withdrew from the Tigray region declaring a unilateral ceasefire.
According to recent reports, the scale of the humanitarian crisis in the Amhara and Afar region far outweighs that of Tigray. The IDPs in Amhara Region alone surpass 11 million. – a figure roughly twice as much as the entire population of the Tigray region. In addition to that, there is a rising number of Tigrayan IDPs fleeing from Tigray to the Amhara region. despite these facts, the focus of attention of the Western politicians and humanitarian agencies is still on Tigray.
Two points can explain why the prevalence of peace, stability, and democracy in Ethiopia is not a real cause of concern for the Americans. Deacon Yosef Teferi, chairman of the Ethiopian Amercan Civil Council recently said “the Americans have never had any track record of involvement in Africa that brought peace and stability to the region.” The west in general, and the Americans in particular were bystanders when the Rwandan genocide, the latest and one of the most notorious genocides of our time was committed for 100 days. Americans interfere in Africa only to protect their selfish national interests.
The second point is that the Americans will immediately throw the bills into the trash and stop their rhetoric about human rights, peace, democracy, and justice in Ethiopia, if the Ethiopian government and TPLF somehow struck a deal that would provide for TPLF to share power at the federal government or to get the liberty to secede Tigray from Ethiopia.
Neither of the bills makes any mention of plans for specific measures to guarantee the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ethiopia. S-3199, for instance, does not make any mention of Ethiopia’s unity in the core sections of the bill, namely sections 5-7. It is just lip service for the Americans hen they say they want to see Ethiopia’s unity and territorial integrity preserved. Of course, they mentioned it in the policy statement of the bill.
The Americans did not condemn the illegal occupation of Ethiopian territories by Sudan. But they were the first even before Ethiopians themselves to demand the expulsion of Eritrean forces from Tigray. Only three decades ago, the Americans, designating themselves as peace brokers, were the lead facilitators of the beginning of one of the darkest eras of Ethiopian political history. They paved the way for TPLF to take control of Addis and EPLF to take control of Asmara, and thus presided over the break up of Ethiopia into separate independent states.
Some analysts even argue that what the Americans plotting in Ethiopia now is a modified replication of what they have done 20 years ago in Serbia to create a new breakaway republic, the Kosovo Republic. This time they want to do it only without direct military actions, only through diplomatic pressures and crippling economic sanctions.-an approach some analysts to call regime castration. The sanctions proposed by HR 6600 and S3199 are the most debilitating ones that have multilateral dimensions, and thus can be equated as a declaration of war without military attacks.
The sad thing is the Americans are in a hurry to enact these bills with the full knowledge that Ethiopia has already implemented the majority of the actions proposed by the two bills as measures required to bring peace, stability, and democracy to Ethiopia. Some of the recent measures implemented by the Ethiopian government include the declaration of a humanitarian ceasefire and the resumption of the delivery of humanitarian supplies to war-affected regions including Tigray by both air and land routes. Plus an independent dialogue commission, NDC, has been established by the parliament and is already in its initiation phase. These are some of the positive steps the government took to tackle the humanitarian crisis, ensure lasting peace and genuine democracy as well as improve the protection of human rights.
Had it not been for the sudden break out of the Russian-Ukraine war and the continued pressure of patriotic Ethio- Americans, the bills would have been rushed into law weeks ago. Some hope that the Americans in time would realize diplomatic engagements would bring more results than cruel sanctions Many analysts describe the two bills, which are by in large similar in both title and content, would not bring any change for the better and serve their stated objectives. Even if the bills get approval and signed into law, they would only worsen the misery of the Ethiopian people. Among the forty-plus sanctions America imposed on different countries, none of them has materialized their intended result.
An Ethiopian government official recently commented “We do not expect the Americans would bring solutions to our problems. But we are desirous of maintaining the century-old bilateral relations through constructive dialogue. To that end, several diplomatic engagements are being conducted. We are explaining to them that these bills are detrimental to Ethiopia and a threat to our sovereignty. The enactment of these bills would not address the basic problems Ethiopia is facing today. The problems could only be tackled by the joint efforts of our people and government. We are confident that we can address the problems by utilizing our resources and knowledge.”
BY SOLOMON WASSIHUN
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD THURSDAY 7 APRIL 2022
