From: Berhane Alazar (erigram@comcast.net)
Date: Sun Dec 20 2009 - 21:48:43 EST
Eritrea on the Spot
When a Superpower Foreign Policy Goes Awry
The United States have the unenviable position of consistently standing
against the interest of a country, which many of its media outlets love
to identify it with some unnecessary , unrelated and demeaning
superlatives when they have some "Stories" to tell about Eritrea. One
naturally wonders why they use such adjectives as "Tiny", "Impoverished"
and "Isolated" when none of those words have anything to do with the
"Stories" at hand!
Nevertheless, when one thinks about it, those "Unnecessary" superlatives
were apparently meant to be a prelude to the incessant demonization of
the Eritrean people and its government that usually follows with a
barrage of various threats and intimidations against Eritrea. Yes,
ladies and gentlemen, the mighty USA loves to "Punish" Eritrea for
alleged infraction of UN resolutions regarding to Somalia, and God knows
what! Add to that the non existent Ethiopia-instigated "Border issue
with Djibouti", then one gets the full flavor of US' misguided and
totally bankrupt policies aimed at destabilizing a principled and
peaceful Eritrea!
Yes, that is it, ladies and gentlemen. That is all there is to it. The
United States and its shadow British governments have been hell bent to
see to it that Eritrea never sees the daylight of its hard won
independence. With the advent of the decolonization of Italian East
Africa, the emergence of Eritrea as a nation - state was never accepted
by the then emerging Superpower. Accordingly, various US Administrations
have done what they could to make sure that Eritrea remains under the
bondage of their ally Ethiopia.
Even after 30 long years of struggle and a flood of Eritrean blood and
sweat; and when the Eritreans finally liberated their country from the
then strongest army in black Africa at some immeasurable human and
material cost, the US had the nerve to try to pressure the victorious
Eritrean People Liberation Front to abandon our people's long cherished
wish of political independence for Eritrea!
Barely 5 years after Eritrea's official declaration of independence, is
it an open secret that the US collaborated and encouraged the Ethiopian
government of Meles Zenawi to invade Eritrea with the unholy and illegal
mission of replacing the incumbent nationalistic government of Eritrea
with a nominal "Eritrean" toothless government under total tutelage of
the Ethiopians.
After the war of aggression failed to materialize to the chagrin of the
Ethiopians and the US; and to save face to their badly losing client,
the US and UN hastily called for a ceasefire. Subsequently, the Algiers
Peace Treaty was signed in 2000 between the aggressor (Ethiopia) and the
aggressed (Eritrea).
As a result of that Treaty, an Eritrea Ethiopia Border Commission (EEBC)
was formed to arrive at some legal conclusion of the so called "Border"
issue. Once again the US did what it can to subvert the EEBC "Final and
binding" verdict, which was handed down in 2002. That verdict could not
be implemented to date due to US - supported Ethiopian intransigence.
When in 2006, the Somali people appeared to finally have a government
that seemed to restore some semblance of order in that war torn country,
the US ordered the subservient Ethiopian government to invade Somalia
under US diplomatic and military cover. As if that was not bad enough
and because the war did not go as the ivory tower commanders wanted, the
US found it convenient to accuse, you guessed it, Eritrea as having
fielded some 2,000 troops inside Somalia! This false assertion continued
to float among diplomatic circles for almost 3 years in spite of it
being outright lie concocted by the despicable Ethiopian regime and
parroted by some inept US State Department officials.
There was also this story of how the Eritrean Air Force had delivered
airplane loads of military hardware from Massawa and Assab to Mogadishu
in a broad day light evading the French and American naval forces that
are stationed in neighboring Djibouti. This is even more puzzling when
one considers that Eritrea does not have a common border with Somalia.
No, no, no, ladies and gentlemen, fasten your seatbelt for the story
gets even mouth watering juicier, albeit all based on hearsay, wild
speculations and outright lies packaged in Addis Ababa.
Now that neither the, so called, Somali Monitoring Group nor the UN
point man in Somalia could prove any of the material and personnel
allegations, the US unashamedly finds it appropriate to once again to
accuse Eritrea of providing some logistical facilities of the likes of
"Passports "for some Somalis. Yes, providing "Passports" to our Somali
brothers and sisters is the latest crime US is accusing Eritrea! Hmmm,
doesn't the US issues and provides US passports to various non us
nationals around the globe? Doesn't Eritrea, as a sovereign member of
the UN, has aright to run its internal affairs like any other sovereign
UN member states? Is that crime enough for the US to be huffing and
puffing to show its might? Can the UN impose a sanction on one of its
member states based on allegations that have no merits whatsoever? How
does the UN justify of such action and explain to its non dormant
members?
It is simply unfair for the US or any other power to push for the
sanctions against any country with out any evidence to justify such
action. It is also doubly unfair and illegal for the UN to enact such
action based solely on the whims of its top dog!
Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice shame on me!
Berhane Alazar