US Call for Economic Sanctions on Eritrea, an Embarrassment of a Great Nation
Dawit Gebremichael Habte
December 1, 2011
While I was delighted to see the first African-American elected as a U.S. president, it was Barack Obama’s promised approach to foreign policy that earned him my support in his bid for the nation’s highest elected office.
After years of U.S. leadership that advocated for “pre-emptive strike” military engagements and was constantly beating the drums of war, it was refreshing to hear a presidential candidate who wanted to see America win friends through the power of its time-proven ideas, not the power of the gun.
According to the documentary, “The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara,” McNamara is quoted as having said that “One of the lessons of Vietnam was that we as a people, as a nation, must learn to empathize with others in the world -- particularly our opponents. Sympathy is not a synonym of empathy: Empathy means understanding; sympathy means agreeing or embracing.” At the time of his campaign for the Presidency, Barack Obama seemed to have understood the secret of life that had taken Robert S. McNamara more than 50,000 American lives to learn: empathize with your enemy. I had said "Thank God for a presidential candidate that openly advocated for dialog over war; for sluggish peaceful solutions over supposedly expedient military adventurism. Thank God we finally had a presidential candidate who understood that talking to one’s enemies – real or perceived – is not a sign of weakness.” I say “perceived enemies”, because if it was not for a couple of US officials in charge of our African policy that are willing to shortchange American interests for personal vendetta, I deeply believe Eritrea is the best ally the US could have in the Horn of Africa.
But that was then. What about now? How are we faring under President Barack Obama’s foreign policy?
If President Obama’s foreign policy is going to be assessed by what one sees in the Horn of Africa, then the promise of change was merely illusory. Take a look at what the Obama Administration’s policies have so far produced in that region of Africa. Susan Rice, Obama’s Ambassador to the United Nations, is pushing the U.N. Security Council to slap economic sanctions on Eritrea, Africa’s second youngest nation.
So what was Eritrea’s cardinal sin for Dr. Susan Rice to try to destroy it? Its President was presumptuous enough to publicly criticize America’s policies in Somalia. For this crime, the small nation is being threatened by unheard-of economic sanctions that could ban Americans of Eritrean origin from sending money to their relatives at home, and criminalizing the tiny nation’s nascent mining industry. If the objectives of the proposed UN sanctions are meant to enhance America’s interests and security in the Horn of Africa, they do neither.
How can Susan Rice reconcile the obvious contradictions in her push to impose “economic sanctions” on a nation that months ago she was claiming was plagued with famine and drought (
http://usun.state.gov/briefing/statements/2011/170336.htm)?
Well, there’s some history there. During her post as Assistant Secretary for African Affairs under President Bill Clinton, Ambassador Susan Rice was one of the architects of the “final and binding” peace agreement that ended a two-year bloody war between Eritrea and Ethiopia in 2000.
While the Eritrean government fully accepted the border demarcation decision of the Eritrea-Ethiopia Boundary Commission (EEBC) without any precondition, the Ethiopians refused to do so. The United States, instead of supporting the rule of law by encouraging the Ethiopians to implement the “final and binding” agreement, which they had willingly signed, caved to the Ethiopians, who have flagrantly refused to abide by the norms and standards of international law.
Eritreans have been betrayed before; first under the Italians, then the British, then under successive Ethiopian governments, supported by the U.S. and the former Soviet Union.
In 1952, John Foster Dulles, U.S. Secretary of State under Dwight D. Eisenhower, infamously said:
“From the point of view of justice, the opinions of the Eritrean people must receive consideration. Nevertheless the strategic interest of the United States in the Red Sea basin and the considerations of security and world peace make it necessary that the country has to be linked with our ally Ethiopia.”
This ethically indefensible U.S. foreign policy articulated by Dulles resulted in a 50-year war. As a result of this policy, out of the 53 African countries that emerged after colonization, Eritrea was the only nation to be denied the sacrosanct right of self-determination enshrined by the UN Charter and the International Declaration on Human Rights.
This dereliction of duty on the part of John Dulles and his British counterparts might not be excusable, but it is understandable. At the time, they considered the people of Africa in much the same light as they viewed the Blacks in their respective nations – which is to say, less than human.
But, the policy blunders being orchestrated today by Barack Obama, the first African American president, and Susan Rice, his African American representative at the United Nations, is unfathomable.
Eritreans feel they are being betrayed all over again, and by the very people they expected to know better.
I hope and pray that President Barack Obama and Susan Rice abandon their desire to punish Eritrea for having the guts to tell American officials they have a misguided policy in Somalia. The Eritrean government’s policy with respect to Somalia has been clearly and consistently articulated: establish an all-inclusive Somali-driven dialogue supported by the international community. Supporting one warlord or clan at the expense of the other will neither help Somali nor bring peace to the region.
For Americans of Eritrean origin, all logic seems to have failed us to see how the current suffering of Somali children and mothers during this period of instability caused by Ethiopia’s invasion of Somalia will help American interest and national security in the Horn of Africa.
U.S. policy in Somalia will not bear fruit by punishing Eritrea, but by taking a hard look and making amends where wrongs have been made. Sanctions against Eritrea will only aggravate the already volatile situation in the Horn of Africa.
The solution to the Eritrean and Ethiopian impasse is very simple: first and foremost adherence to the rule of law by advocating for the implementation of the “final and binding” Eritrea-Ethiopia border demarcation decision in its entirety without any ifs and buts. Then, and only then, will it be possible to take step two: initiating a dialog on neighborly cooperation based on mutual respect.
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Received on Thu Dec 01 2011 - 09:49:08 EST