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Part 3
link:
US Moves against Ethiopia and Eritrea: Atrocities Alleged, Sanctions Imposed | Black Agenda Report
AG: Has anything changed in Ethiopia's posture toward the US aside from its alliance with Eritrea?
ST: Yes, Ethiopia is boldly asserting its sovereignty in defiance of Washington. When you consider TPLF's 27 years of neocolonial servitude to Washington, the mere assertion of sovereignty alone is revolutionary. Lately, America has done a lot of "urging" and expressing "concern" every time Ethiopia does something it doesn't like. We’ve heard a lot of this from Blinken in regards to Tigray. But Ethiopia refuses to submit. Instead, it continues on its own sovereign path.
At one point, Trump threatened to "blow up" Ethiopia's Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) through its Egyptian allies because Ethiopia refused to bend to his will. Instead of backing down, Ethiopia is moving forward with filling its dam.
When Washington's EU allies threatened to cut off roughly $100 million in aid if it didn't commit to a ceasefire that would largely benefit the terrorist TPLF forces, Prime Minister Abiy responded—to the shock of many Westerners—by saying, "threatening Ethiopia for coins will not work ." When Blinken pressured Abiy to force Eritrean troops to leave Tigray in February, Abiy followed by publishing an article in Project Syndicate that established his new doctrine—the Abiy Doctrine—that a “New Ethiopia” will push for regional integration among neighbors with which it is “inseparably linked”:
“An Ethiopia free of the TPLF will champion peace and inclusive development. Internally, our ‘New Ethiopia’ will be based on equality among all of our constituent groups, including the suffering people of Tigray. Externally, we will act in a way that recognizes that our national interests are inseparably linked to those of our neighbors.”
AG: In January 2021, Global Firepower released a ranking of 140 militaries with the most power to wage conventional war. It ranked Ethiopia 60th in the world and sixth in Africa, with 140,000 troops in a population of 12 million, and 2 million people reaching military age annually. Ethiopia also contributes more troops to UN Peacekeeping Missions than any other nation in the world, so this represents a major disruption of US strategic and military alliances in the Horn and in Africa.
Eritrea's military is, however, ranked 134th of 140 nations overall, and 33rd of 36 African nations that Global Firepower bothered to rank. It seems to have 200,000 active duty soldiers in a population of about 3.5 million, but it has nothing like the weaponry that the US has bestowed upon the Ethiopian army. Why is the US so irked by Eritrea and now by Ethiopia's alliance with Eritrea?
ST: Eritrea follows its own progressive developmental model based on self-reliance and socioeconomic justice and does not submit to Washington's diktats. Basically, it rejects the sort of neocolonial, neoliberal model that has led to the super-exploitation of Africa by Washington, Brussels and other predatory powers. Eritrea, a nation of fewer than 5 million people, is, like Cuba, an example that Washington finds intolerable.
Ethiopia's alliance with Eritrea and increasingly bold defiance of the West suggests the formation of a new resistance bloc in the Horn of Africa.
Add in Somalia under the leadership of Farma a jo and you have potential resistance spanning from the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean and down into the interior of Africa. In January 2020, Eritrea, Ethiopia and Somalia signed an agreement to form a tripartite alliance. Looking at a map, their close proximity to one another and situation near coast lines shields and insulates them from cross-border threats. If they can continue the current course and shield off Washington, one can only imagine what this means for Africa. The implications are enormous. Will we finally be talking of a genuine African resistance bloc?
AG: It seems that Ethiopia's border war with Eritrea was really a war between Tigray and Eritrea prosecuted because the TPLF were in power. Eritreans and Tigrayans both speak Tigrinya, so they must share history, however distant, that made them one people at some point in time. What's the story of that fracture?
ST: First, Eritrea is a multi-ethnic state with no official language but rather nine different languages spoken by different ethnic groups. Tigrinya just happens to be commonly used as a working language given that Tigrinyas make up roughly 60 percent of the population.
Second, it's important to note that the 1998-2000 war was the TPLF’s irredentist regime change war against Eritrea’s People's Front for Democracy and Justice (PFDJ) government. The TPLF were trying to reverse Eritrean sovereignty and capture Eritrean land, so as to have access to the sea. This plan to expand Tigray's borders to reach the Red Sea has its roots in British meddling in the 1940s and was officially pursued by TPLF in 1976 after it published its manifesto calling for the formation of a "Greater Tigray," which was not unlike the old "Eretz Yisrael " claims for Biblically established land title. That manifesto also stated that secession from Ethiopia was among its goals. It does not represent the ambition of the average Tigrayan peasant but rather the aspiration of the TPLF elite and their brand of bourgeois nationalism.
After 2000, the so-called border war morphed into an outright war of attrition—a war to the death. Either TPLF would fall or PFDJ would fall. This is due to the fact that TPLF's raison d'etre, as outlined in its 1976 manifesto, was to expand into and capture Eritrea, which is impossible given everything the Eritrean people sacrificed to achieve independence.
Again, this is not the aspiration of the Tigrayan people. There may be some sympathizers in Tigray, but the average Tigrayan, when pressed, would not be on board with this agenda. If the TPLF were removed from power, the relationship between the Tigrayan people and Eritrean people could finally begin to be reconstructed and reconciled on the basis of their shared ancient history.
AG: Samantha Power, Obama’s UN Ambassador and now Biden’s USAID chief, and one of the main architects of the US/NATO War on Libya, has been alleging Ethiopian and Eritrean army atrocities in Ethiopia’s Tigray Province, as she did prior to US military action in Yugoslavia, Libya, and Syria. Some on the US left, including prominent Black Lives Matter activists, young anarchists, and Democracy Now, have given some credence to Power’s argument. Democracy Now has relied heavily on London-based Sudanese CNN correspondent Nima Elbagir as a source.
Have you made any effort to reach out to Democracy Now or any of these young activists with the Ethiopian and Eritrean side of this story?
ST: We’ve made efforts to reach out to many forms of progressive media, including Democracy Now and outlets further to the left, but the response has been abysmal. Why progressives and leftists remain silent is truly confounding. I don’t think they truly understand what is at stake here. Eritreans and Ethiopians have been protesting together around the world, which is truly a sight to behold, especially in light of their long history of Western-manufactured hostilities.
We need regular, daily coverage of this matter as things are escalating quickly. The US is becoming increasingly desperate and seems to be following the Libya playbook that led to the invocation of “Responsibility to Protect” and the no-fly zone under the guise of opening up humanitarian access. They could do the same to Eritrea and Ethiopia.
However, the world is very different in 2021 than it was in 2011. It’s more of a multipolar world. There’s social media to challenge mainstream media narratives. Also, the highly mountainous Eritrea is no cake walk, and the Eritrean people, who are highly unified at home and abroad, have been mobilized and vigilant for this type of eventuality since 1998.
The Ethiopian people are also following suit, with Ethiopia quickly training conscripts in preparation for whatever is to come. It will be hard to justify intervention against Eritrea and Ethiopia. You can’t conceal a US and/or EU intervention. Publicity will only lead Western audiences to start reading more about Eritrea and Ethiopia, which will lead them to see the unbelievable absurdity of the lies by journalists like Nima Elbagir. Because of the West’s racism and disregard for Black Africa, they were sloppy with their lies, which are out in the open, extremely absurd and obvious. Hopefully, it will only be a matter of time before leftists, progressives, and even liberals see what’s really going on.
link:
US Moves against Ethiopia and Eritrea: Atrocities Alleged, Sanctions Imposed | Black Agenda Report
