webmaster
© Copyright DEHAI-Eritrea OnLine, 1993-2011
All rights reserved
From: awetnayu@hotmail.com
Date: Mon Jul 18 2011 - 12:05:45 EDT
UK Aid for Ethiopia 'to prevent catastrophe or
Finance Genocide and Wars?
Amanuel Biedemariam
On July 3, 2011, the BBC
advertised, “UK aid for Ethiopia 'to prevent catastrophe” and stated, “The UK has
pledged £38m ($61m) in food aid to drought-hit Ethiopia - enough to feed 1.3m
people for three months. International Development Secretary Andrew Mitchell
said "direct intervention", managed by the World Food Programme, was
needed to stop a catastrophe. The African country faces its worst drought for a
decade with an estimated 3.2m people in need of emergency aid. The UN has
called for international aid across the Horn of Africa where 10 million people
are affected.”
In its report, the BBC
emphasized, “The African country faces its worst drought for a decade.”
However, this is not new. The failed regime in Ethiopia, while boasting
inflated growth rates have, consistently received food aid for decades and
failed to make a dent on improving food security of the
nation. Meles Zenawi has effectively turned Ethiopia into an arrogant
beggar nation; a nation that believes could do no wrong in the eyes of the
Western powers that enable his failed regime. The Western puppet has been
terrorizing Ethiopia and the region for decades, ironically, in the
name drought, hunger, fighting terror and other programs.
Over the last 20 years
the West have funnelled billions of dollars funding a genocidal regime to
further their hegemony in the region. Exactly 8 years ago on July 4 2003, New
York Times published an article announcing a similar pledge:
“The United
States said it would send 250,000 metric tons of additional food aid to
try to avert a famine. The United Nations estimates that about 12.6 million
people need food aid in Ethiopia and another 3.1 million need close
monitoring. The donation brings the amount of food pledged by the United
States since last year to more than a million tons and comes days before
President Bush is to make his first official trip to Africa.”
The aid mentioned above
is tiny-tip of the iceberg. After three decades of aid by the West led by the
US, UK and the World Bank etc…; the same old stories are re-hatched to create a
sense of urgency anew; for PR and to further other hidden agendas. They are
repeating the same strategy all over again. The language used by BBC in this
current report is nearly identical to that of New York Times 8 years earlier.
The genocidal regime in Ethiopia would have collapsed instantly if it
were-not for all the support it gets from the West in the name of aid.
The minority regime in
Ethiopian is in effect an occupying force. It does not represent the people
of Ethiopia because it is only a handful member of the Tigrayan
clique, the TPLF, which are ruling the country using brute force. This was
exposed in 2005 after Ethiopians openly rejected the TPLF clique in an election
that altered the destiny of the people of Ethiopia permanently.
However, to the disappointment of Ethiopians around the globe; those who
champion human rights and democracy, US and UK, decided to
embrace a criminal regime that shot point-blank innocent demonstrators after
snatching their votes and rejected their rights. Within days of the massacres,
the-then Prime Minister Tony Blair sat next to Meles in South
Africa on a summit. Moreover, the same year, in the same manner
the US and UK refused to accept a legitimate election the
Palestinian people won outright because they didn’t like the party that won. In
other words, the call the US, UK and France make for
free and fair election, democracy, and human rights are nothing but a farce. It
is simply a democracy Ala Carte for them!
Moreover, what
the US, UK and France are doing in Libya in
the name of protecting civilians is laughable considering their model-puppet
regime’s atrocities. They have been financing a regime that has committed major
crimes against humanity; ethnic cleansed 80,000 Eritreans
from Ethiopia and committed genocides in the open to mention some of
his evil deeds. In January 8, 2004 Genocide watch released a report on the
massacre the Meles Zenawi regime committed in Gambella:
“Genocide Watch has
checked these reports carefully with eyewitnesses in Gambella as well as with
the United States State Department and the United Nations, who have confirmed
that the massacres were committed by Ethiopian government forces. Between 3000
and 5000 additional Anuak refugees have fled into Sudan, where they have
congregated around Pochalla. Genocide Watch has verified these reports with the
United Nations High Commission for Refugees and with sources in Pochalla.
Genocide Watch and Survivors’ Rights International, with the assistance of
concerned church groups, have sent field investigators to Pochalla, who
corroborated the accounts of massacres in and around Gambella. The refugees say
they are fleeing massacres of Anuak in Ethiopia.”
The plight of the Anuak
people in the Gambella region is one of the many areas victimized by Meles
Zenawi. Ethiopians everywhere are feeling the brutal hands of the regime. In
the Ogaden the atrocities detailed by various Human Rights organizations are
simply numbing. From 1997- on The Human Rights Watch (HRW) consistently
reported how aid money is being used to fuel repression. In June of 2008
the HRW released a 130 page report called, “Collective Punishment” and detailed
atrocities committed by the criminal Meles Zenawi’s regime. Georgette
Gagnon, Africa director at Human Rights Watch said,
“The Ethiopian
army's answer to the rebels has been to viciously attack civilians in the
Ogaden. These widespread and systematic atrocities amount to crimes against
humanity. Yet Ethiopia’s major donors,
Washington, London and Brussels, seem to be maintaining a
conspiracy of silence around the crimes."
Leslie Lefkow reported:
“Ethiopia's repressive
government has put foreign aid to a sinister purpose, with officials
in Ethiopia's ruling party using their power to give or deny financial
assistance to citizens based on their political affiliation. Perhaps even more
shocking, international donors appear to expend more energy pretending these
abuses don't exist than trying to address them.”
Furthermore, in a
briefing to congressional representatives HRW reported:
“In the Ogaden, we have
documented massive crimes by the Ethiopian army, including civilians targeted
intentionally; villages burned to the ground as part of a campaign of
collective punishment; public executions meant to terrify onlooking villagers;
rampant sexual violence used as a tool of warfare; thousands of arbitrary
arrests and widespread and sometimes deadly torture and beatings in military
custody; a humanitarian and trade blockade on the entire conflict area; and
hundreds of thousands of people forced away from their homes and driven to
hunger and malnutrition.”
In Somalia, the
minority regime of Ethiopia and Dr. Jendayi Frazer have
collaborated to destroy the short stability Somalis achieved for the first time
in over 16 years by invading a sovereign nation in the name of fighting terror and
denied the people of Somalia a room to start rebuilding their country. The
atrocities the minority clique committed with the support of US represent the
worst of mankind. Hundreds of thousands were displaced and thousands have died
in the conflict with no end in sight. That is what opened up to the current
holocaust that the world is witnessing in horror. Millions are starving with
refugee camps filling in rates that aid workers and the camps unable to handle
the persistent stream of desperate people. Ben Jackson, Environment Editor of
the sun,
“We haven't
seen anything like this for decades. Hardened aid workers are weeping at what
they see."
The situation
in Ethiopia is hardly any different. People in Eastern Ethiopia are
flooding into an already crowded refugee camps. Yet, the occupying force
in Ethiopia is buying unmanned aircrafts and hundreds of millions
worth of tanks and military hardware while receiving aid supposedly to
alleviate hunger. The beggar-mercenary regime is also unashamedly selling
fertile Ethiopian lands to multinational corporations for a dream investment
while millions are starving in his hands.
Conclusion
Clearly, aid is welcome
when needed and Ethiopians have been receiving needed food-aid for decades.
However, Ethiopia has failed to improve on securing the basic food
needs of the nation regardless of the size or quantity of aid it received.
There has not been a significant change on the life of the people being
impacted-repeatedly. In fact, as the reports indicated, it has gotten worse.
The problem is not the
DONORS or the good people of the world that gathered pennies to help the
starved. It is not the NGOs that inhibit local farming, suppress indigenous
institutions, and systematically curtail economic developments from maturing by
providing donated foodstuffs and goods. The NGOs are the number
one benefactors from the miseries of Africans and as such have no interest to
see long term solutions to the problems that plague the African continent.
Moreover, It is historically proven fact that Western nations will do all they
can to create dependency for their own end. It is also a matter of record that
they will do all they can to destroy countries and leaders that believe on self
reliance. In fact, the aid trap works for them so well that they keep
encouraging and propping successive failed genocidal regimes such as that
of Meles Zenawi in Ethiopia to perpetuate it. They create mechanisms that
inhibit indigenous institutional capacities from developing by replacing it
with NGO’s or civil society organizations that act as governmental
institutions. In other words, the West and their agents will do all they can to
further their agendas and interests. Hence, it makes no sense to blame the West
and their entities for the apocalypse that is now in the area. It is a result
of successive Ethiopian regimes that relied heavily on aid to-stay in power by
suppressing Ethiopians and exporting instabilities in the region.
So what can be done or
is the situation helpless? Can we afford to give up? The simple answer is that
we cannot afford to give up and must do all we can to help end the suffering of
the starving people. While it is important to get all the help needed from all
sources to stem the problem now; in the future we must use this holocaust to
change the way we look at the issue of food security differently. The first
thing to do is believe on self reliance. That attitude shift is the key to
future success. The second thing is to take ownership of the issue and do all
that we can to reject the tainted aid. We must support each other regardless of
where we are from; learn from each other as we hobble our way out of this
problem. Fight hard the agents and law makers that push the tired agenda while
supporting tyrants like Meles. The people of Eritrea are the best
example of this and it will help a great deal to see how Eritreans have managed
to avoid the horror.
----[This List to be used for Eritrea Related News Only]----