http://eritreanamerican.org/node/79
An Ill-Advised and Uninformed Hearing on Eritrea
OEA Statement
For Immediate Release
September 14, 2016
An Ill-Advised and Uninformed Hearing on Eritrea
A hearing on Eritrea scheduled by the House subcommittee on Africa for
Wednesday, September 14, 2016, titled “Eritrea: A Neglected Regional
Threat,” is ill-advised and seems to reflect complete lack of
knowledge of the reality in the Horn of Africa region. The hearing
does not augur well for the US Congress to dwell on Eritrea and a
non-existent threat, while ignoring the real regional threat that is
in Ethiopia. This diversion will only embolden the regime in Ethiopia
and allow it to continue with its belligerent stance against Eritrea
and its people.
Depicting Eritrea as a regional threat can only come from the twisted
minds of Ethiopia’s lobbyists and their enablers in Washington in a
futile attempt to protect their client in Addis Ababa from the
condemnation of world opinion it deserves. The officials of the
minority regime in Addis Ababa are experts at using everyone and
everything to implement their agenda of demonizing Eritrea.
The hearing is also an insult to the people of Eritrea who just
celebrated their 25th Independence Anniversary without ever being a
threat to the region, but rather as the only haven of peace in a
turbulent region. For this august body to provide forum to known
apologists for the regime in Ethiopia, to disseminate distortions
about Eritrea and its people and undermine its proud cultures of
religious and ethnic respect and tolerance, is a disservice to the
American people in general and Eritrean Americans in particular.
Any fair-minded assessment of the reality in the Horn of Africa would
show the small and young African nation of Eritrea as an anchor for
peace, not a regional threat, in the Horn. It is the only country that
has successfully weathered the turmoil that has ravaged all the other
nations in the Greater Horn region, stretching from Burundi to South
Sudan, from Kenya to Somalia, and now engulfing the biggest nation,
Ethiopia, in the center.
Some see the hearing as a desperate attempt to take world attention
away from the murderous acts now being committed against innocent
Ethiopians by the minority regime ruling that Horn of African country.
Here is where the subcommittee’s attention should be because what the
regime has been doing and continues to do with little response from
the West may in fact lead to the disintegration of this African
nation, constituting a major threat to this region.
The US has repeatedly allowed itself to be used in this game of
victimizing Eritrea in an attempt to prop minority regimes and keep a
tattered empire, Ethiopia, together. Washington must learn from the
errors of such misguided policies that seem to benefit neither the US
nor the region. For example, rewarding a regime that is conducting
mass massacres against the two largest ethnic groups in the country
(the Amharas and the Oromos), with seats on the UN Security Council
and UN Human Rights Council doesn’t show concern for justice or any of
the other values Washington says it fights to protect.
The regime in Ethiopia continues to flout international law because of
the diplomatic, political and military shield and support it receives
from the United States and its allies. Its occupation of sovereign
Eritrean territories, and its ethnic policies that had resulted in the
uprooting of and deporting nearly 80,000 Ethiopians of Eritrean origin
from their homes and villages in 1998-2000 is now continuing with
Ethiopians that do not belong to the same ethnic group as those in
power, and its invasion and occupation of Somalia has contributed to
the humanitarian disasters across the region. The regime remains the
only threat to peace, stability and security in the region.
As Americans of Eritrean origin we have a vested interest in seeing
peace, stability and security returned to the Horn region. However,
demonizing the only nation that is serving as an anchor for peace in
the region in an attempt to protect the real regional threat,
Ethiopia, doesn’t help maintain security in this troubled region.
Organization of Eritrean Americans (OEA)
In PDF format:
http://eritreanamerican.org/sites/default/files/sites/default/files/OEA-Statement%2009-14-16.pdf
Received on Wed Sep 14 2016 - 07:14:56 EDT