This latest act of state orchestrated outrage has been met with the same stony silence we have been accustomed since June 1998. Effectively protected by the West's silence, Ethiopia continues, unperturbed, its assault on decency and civilized human behavior. There aren't that many countries in the world that can get away if they build a concentration camp designed for innocent civilians. But Ethiopia has defied the odds thanks to the West's Charlie Brown-like "See no Evil, Hear no Evil" attitude. The acquiescence to evil is an indefensible moral deafness, especially coming from the paragons of the sanctity of human rights.
Let us be absolutely clear where we find the West, particularly the U.S. wanting. Ethiopia's flagrant violation of the rights of Eritreans and Ethiopians of Eritrean decent has been well documented by all the relevant international agencies. Amnesty International, the International society of the Red Cross, the United Nations Human Rights Commission, the European Union have documented the extent of the violations. Even the OAU, that toothless organization, has affirmed Ethiopia's guilt.
People may quibble as to the exact number of deportees, but there's no argument that that they are in the tens of thousands. Among the forty eight thousand expellees are old and sick men and women, not to say, toddlers and infants, who have been accused of being a threat to Ethiopia's national security. Thousands have been uprooted from the only country they have known, a country they grew up, and for many, a country they fought for. These are the Ethiopians of Eritrean heritage, expelled by Ethiopia's new power elite, the practitioners of ethnic cleansing. The expulsions serve two essential purposes: it feeds into the anti Eritreanism of the Amhara elites, while providing an excuse to loot Eritrean properties and businesses. The economic fleecing of a defenseless minority population has been continuing for the last eight months, without any sign of abatement, right under the nose of the international press, international organizations, and Embassies of every kind.
The Western Embassies know enough about the mindless cruelty but lack the simple decency to say to their proteges in the Ethiopian government that the horror show must end. They don't because they don't care what Africans do to other Africans. In their mind it only becomes a problem when Serbians do it to Bosnians. As a policy analyst, an American resident of Addis, said to American journalist Karl Vick, "It's not Bosnia. But it's not right." Surely it's not right, but the deportations continue under the darkness of night, exposing the hollowness of the West's devotion to human rights. The American Embassy knows this for it has been a direct witness to the injustices.
By keeping an ignominious silence, the West has permitted the Ethiopian government to engage in a campaign of lies and deception. Right from the start, the West, particularly the U.S government was well aware of Ethiopia's campaign of deception. Thus the bombing of Asmara on June 5 was presented to the world as a retaliation to the bombing of Mekele. This was a lie; the American Embassy knew it was a lie. Yet did nothing to correct the lie when unsuspecting American journalists incorporated the lies into their reports in their dispatches to their papers home. Embassies' staff feeding lies to journalists is not knew. It happened in a massive scale during the Vietnam War. The American people were intentionally mislead about Vietnam, and the consequence of the lies are too painful to recall- the unnecessary loss of lives on both sides of the battle front. The feeding of false information of the type that happened in Saigon in the mid sixties is happening now in Addis. Perhaps you remember the unnamed Western diplomat who predicted to a Western journalist the imminent fall of Assab last June. Careful followers of the news should have no problem decoding the correct identity of the unnamed diplomat. The journalist became an unsuspecting conduit to a lie.
It has been common practice of Meles's press officer to accuse Eritrea of the very acts Ethiopia had been accused of. Out of the blue Ethiopia said close to forty thousands Ethiopians had been expelled from Eritrea. The total falsehood of accusations against Eritrea's mistreatment of Ethiopian nationals, including deportations, has been contested by several international organizations. Yet the lie was allowed to take root because the American Embassy in Addis Ababa and others who knew the true story chose to remain silent thus giving credence to the canard that "they all do it, or equally pernicious, they "all exaggerate." Obviously the Embassies found it more expedient to say "plague on both houses" as if they thought that would lessen their moral responsibility of protesting the expulsions from Ethiopia. Perhaps they thought their acquiescence to evil would go unnoticed. How foolish can they be.
How does one explain the behavior of the West, especially that of the U.S. America is not inherently anti Eritrea; it's simply obsessively pro Ethiopia. There's nothing new here. American policy coddled Emperor Haile Selassie, and for a time tolerated Mengistu for the same reason: if America did not support the central government, it was believed then, Ethiopia would fall apart. This was the primary reason for American hostility to Eritrean independence. If Eritrea goes, so will the others. This was the logic. It was only when independence became inevitable that skilful American diplomacy engineered a soft landing that contributed to a smooth transition from Mengistu to Meles. America accepted Eritrean independence, grudgingly. But when internal domestic Ethiopian deteriorated to the point of threatening the country's unity, a scapegoat was sought, and found. As always, Eritrea fit the bill. During Emperor Haile Selassie's era it was Eritrean independence that was held hostage; during Meles's, Eritrea's sovereignty was slated for subordination to advance Ethiopia's interest. It hard to see how it could have escaped anyone that Ethiopia's experiment with ethnic based Federalism was a failure, and if truth be told, the ethnic arrangement was at the root of Ethiopia's problem. But then it's easier to find an external scapegoat than to admit that the failure from within. It became expedient to locate the root of the problem to the nature of Ethiopian Eritrean relations.
The notion that Eritrean interest had to be sacrificed to make Ethiopia whole seems to have acquired a permanent place in the thought processes among practitioners of American foreign policy even when these practices appear to contradict stated American policy. The fractured politics of ethnicity obsessed Ethiopia had to be made whole by rearranging Ethiopian Eritrean relations to engineer the subordination of Eritrea to Ethiopia's interest. If Meles could demonstrate his manhood by "cutting Eritrea down to size" he would earn the allegiance of the Amhara elite. For Meles and his group from Tigray, the battle to destabilize Eritrea's sovereignty became an important vehicle for demonstrating their "Ethiopianess" to their mortal enemies, the Amhara elite. And given the closeness of the American Embassy staff to people in the highest echelon of the Ethiopian government, it's impossible not to assume that the American Embassy knew an artificial fight was in the works.
Given America's commitment to keeping Ethiopia whole, all effort was made to bring the opposition groups and Meles together. All Meles had to do was repudiate the previous seven years relations with Eritrea. Meles had to be protected from charges of favoring Eritrea at Ethiopia's expense, regardless how baseless the charge may be. It was important that Meles was insulated and his ethnic based political commitments were papered over. If that meant turning a deaf ear to the massive violations of human rights of Eritreans, and Ethiopians of Eritrean decent, the West, particularly America simply shrugged its shoulders as if to say, So be it. It was important for his handlers that the Tigrayan nationalist was repackaged as an Ethiopian nationalist, the guardian of Ethiopian national sovereignty and territorial integrity. Never mind that Eritrea never threatened Ethiopia's sovereignty or territory. By claiming Eritrean territory as his own, Meles created an artificial crisis. The Embassies in Addis know full well the geographic location of the areas Meles is lusting after and that the areas are inside Eritrea. The fact that they know this and they are allowing Meles to go with his artificial crisis is most unconscionable.
The repackaging of Meles and his government demanded that the West refrained from saying anything, or doing anything, to bring notice to the presence of concentration camps, and the massive expulsions. It even meant ignoring Meles's boast that his government had the right to deport any one, for any reason even if that meant he did not like the color of their eyes. All these were brushed off because the West wanted Meles to stay in power at any cost.
The West's acquiescence to evil took several forms. By remaining stone deaf to the violations of basic human rights, and conspiring with Ethiopia to keep the extent of the violations concealed from the world, the West insulated the Ethiopian government from international condemnation. Not only that but if the populations back home in the West knew the extent of the violations, their governments would find it difficult to justify financial aid to the Meles regime. The Embassies in Addis know full well, even if their people back home don't, that it's Western largess meant to feed Ethiopia's hungry that continues to oil the Ethiopian war machine.
Western economic aid to feed the hungry is routinely spent on military hardware. About a month ago, Telefax, the Russian news agency blurted that Ethiopia was planning to finance its purchase of Russian fighter bombers with U.S aid money. Is it possible that the U.S was unaware how Ethiopia was planning to pay US$160 million to cover its purchases of military hardware, or the earlier deals with Israel for electronic equipment, and the 140 tanks purchased from Bulgaria. In its press release of December 29, 19998, the World Food program announced that some 2 million Ethiopians were in need of 180,000 food aid. This was in addition to an earlier (June) announcement that 4 million Ethiopians faced starvation, and for which the UN requested 240,000 tons of food at a cost of US$94.8 million. Does any one doubt that with so much food being donated, Ethiopia needs to spend any money of its own to feed its army, poised to attack Eritrea over the 500 miles length border ? No, the fact is the West by acquiescing to evil, and providing indirect financing to huge arms purchases, has become a catalyst to the war cloud engulfing the Horn.
We have, then, this ghastly spectacle of these two of the poorest of the poor, armed to the teeth, and poised to pounce on each other. This is a crisis that need not have happened. Unfortunately it happened because of America's fatal decision to take sides while assuming the role of a neutral mediator. It entrusted its diplomacy to amateurs and cowboy diplomats, too arrogant to admit their ignorance of the politics of the Horn. Peace could have been had in late May and early June, if only America had sent diplomats who knew what they were doing, and who were not beholden to TPLF's agenda. The bombing of Asmara on June 5 with the prior knowledge of the American peace envoys, and as some reports indicate the active encouragement of the American Ambassador in Addis Ababa shattered any possibility for peaceful resolution to an essentially minor border dispute. Let's be clear on one essential point: the bombing was launched with the view of overthrowing Eritrea's legitimate government. The irony of ironies is that Eritrea is being implored by the OAU to cede a part of its territory as a gesture of "good will" to a regime that came to overthrow it, but failed.
American Envoy Tony Lake is a skilful diplomat with a good grasp of African politics, but given the debris left by the amateurs who preceded him, his task of coming up with an acceptable formula won't be easy. Actually the outlines for a peaceful way out are not hard to grasp, and need not be controversial. First and foremost the two sides have to agree to cease hostilities and to commit themselves to a peaceful resolution. Eritrea has accepted its readiness to accept this first step proposal; Ethiopia has not. Secondly, the boundary has to be demarcated on the basis of colonial treaties as mandated by the OAU's charter. This is not an insurmountable technical problem. This is what Ethiopia's friends in the West need to impress on Addis Ababa. If Badme is Ethiopian, fine. Let's first see its geographic coordinates. And if Adi Murug is Ethiopian, ditto. Same with Altiena. Same with every contested area.
Thanks for the moral and material support from the West, particularly from the U.S., Ethiopia has been spared from making hard choices for peace. The U.S negotiators' posture that Meles cannot make concessions for peace because his support in Ethiopia is wafer thin, is untenable. If he has support to make war, but not peace, it's hard to see how this can be Eritrea's problem. If any one thinks Issaias will make unwarranted concessions because his support among Eritreans at home and abroad is rock solid, then the proponents of such foolish ideas know nothing about Eritreans' commitment to their land. Mele's friends in the West may want to consider a simple proposition: if his public support is so thin, may be he lacks the political legitimacy not to mention the moral authority to lead Ethiopia, let alone speak for Ethiopians. How could it have failed to dawn on his Western handlers that perhaps they are imposing him on the people of Ethiopia.
What's so sad is that it's people with such naive views, these American innocents abroad, with little practical knowledge of the terrain they were working on, were sent to mediate. What's equally sad is, once it became obvious that they had bungled the mission, no one seems to comprehend that the cost of their failed mission will fall on the people of Ethiopia and Eritrea. In their frantic efforts to cover their policy failure, these failed diplomats have resorted to covering up Ethiopia's massive human rights abuse record. They should be brought on notice that they have acquiesced to the perpetuation of evil.
In the final analysis, if war breaks out, blood will be in the hands of the amateurs and cynical diplomats who coddled and indulged the debasers of human rights, the warmongers who rather feed their guns than their people. History will judge all of them, the coddlers and the coddled, and judge them harshly.
tekie