America's Double Standard in the Ethiopian Model

Earlier this month, U.S. ambassador to Ethiopia Donald E. Booth described the county as an “island of stability” amid a troubled region; however, it is an example of the double standards of most Western democracies and the U.S. in particular.

At this point in history, we have witnessed the American military occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan as well as the American movement towards a more NATO-led direction, which in turn led to the current military intervention in Libya. We witness “regime changes” of governments in which an individual or party presumably monopolizes power and uses tyranny, fear and repressive security agencies to confiscate civil liberties, suppress opposition and exchange power in order to retain power. This comes at a time when the Arab and African people thunderously claim their rights and freedoms, as Washington remains silent about the Ethiopian situation while ensuring the extension of financial and military aid to its strategic allies on the global war on terror now turned regional. As the U.S. supports its military endeavors outside its borders, it also threatens the regional neighborhood under the pretext of maintaining stability in the region, which lacks this stability because of the U.S.-Ethiopian alliance.

The alliance is not bilateral, but trilateral with the state of Israeli occupation representing the third member. According to accounts from Washington, Ethiopia’s role as Israel’s strategic partner is more important than its role as a strategic partner of the U.S. in the War on Terror. This would seem to justify the double standards America holds regarding Ethiopia. The United States and Ethiopia are currently obscuring the role of Israel in the tripartite alliance because of the negative repercussions associated with highlighting U.S.-Israeli relations, particularly in front of Arab nations.

Nevertheless, common interests among the three allies clearly include maintaining access to the Red Sea as a vital way to supply oil, to provide an Israeli naval port near Africa and Asia and to provide the sole naval port to landlocked Ethiopia. Israel was the first to recognize the Republic of Somaliland and has recently declared its willingness to support Ethiopia’s request to give Somalia an observing seat in the African Union. Former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and former Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir vowed to boycott the recent African Union summit in Khartoum until Somalia’s invitation to attend is withdrawn.

This is not the only example of the intersection of Ethiopia-Israeli interests conflicting with the Arab-Ethiopian interests. The Israeli Blue Bird Company was awarded a military contract this month for the sale of military aircraft (without drones) to Ethiopia. This is just the latest example of the close relationship between Addis Ababa and Tel Aviv during the 20-year rule of Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, who armed his bodyguards with Israeli Tavor machine guns. Zenawi also chose to be treated at the Hadassah Hospital in Israeli-occupied Jerusalem in June 2006, after the first official visit to the occupied territories carried out by an Ethiopian prime minister in 2004, during which he met with the now incapacitated Ariel Sharon. The prime minister welcomed to the Ethiopian capital Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, who avoids many countries, was formerly charged with extremism and racism and was investigated by the Israeli attorney general on charges of fraud, money laundering, breach of trust and witness tampering.

It is also worth mentioning that Israel restored diplomatic relations with Ethiopia in 1992, a year following Zenawi’s assumption of power in Addis Ababa during the Yom Kippur War in October 1973.

U.S. Ambassador Booth said that U.S.-Ethiopian relations are based on three pillars: economic development, regional stability and democracy and human rights.

Zenawi’s Marxist-Stalinist ideology and his party have supported the U.S. in its efforts to topple the regime of the Marxist Mengistu Haile Mariam. The American diplomatic representative in Addis Ababa was raised to the ambassadorial level in 1992, only one year after Zenawi assumed power. After 20 years of Zenawi rule, millions continue to live in hunger and poverty. And as the unemployment rate rose to 40 percent, Zenawi’s wife, Azeb Mesfin, spent 1.2 million Euros on clothes, according to ABC International in Madrid (January 27, 2011). Ethiopia was ranked 157th out of 169 countries according to the United Nations Development Program and 107th out of 110 countries in terms of economic prosperity. Thus, the first pillar mentioned by Ambassador Booth collapses and raises serious questions about the fate of the $1 billion in annual aid offered by Washington to Addis Ababa in addition to military assistance, which makes the U.S. the largest donor to Ethiopia. Thus, the West provides more than $3 billion in annual aid and thereby funds Zenawi’s repressive domestic regime and military exploits abroad.

There is no doubt that a portion of U.S. aid funds secret prisons set up by the CIA in Ethiopia, which represents more than 90 percent of the Ethiopian government’s budget. In its annual report issued in October of last year, entitled “Development without Freedom,” the Human Rights Watch claimed that the Zenawi government has used foreign aid “as political weapons to control the population [and] punish dissent.” HRW also claims that “local officials deny these people access to seeds and fertilizer, agricultural land, credit, food aid and other resources for development” and that this aid “contributes to a broader climate of fear, sending a potent message that basic survival depends on political loyalty to the state and the ruling party.” The director of WHO in Africa, Rona Peligal, claims “foreign donors are rewarding this behavior with ever-larger sums of development aid.” According to the World Bank, Zenawi’s ruling party controls about half of the national economy through the party’s trade group, entitled “Fund to Stop the Tigray Reconstruction.”*

With regard to the second pillar of this relationship, regional stability is destroyed by the fact that Ethiopia was led by Zenawi, who remains the most significant cause for disorder in the region because of the wars waged upon its neighbors and its blatant interference in international affairs. Thanks to the “strategic partnership” with the United States, Zenawi now dares to threaten a “regime change” in Eritrea as a confrontation with Egypt looms. According to Reuters on April 21, 2011, Eritrea was accused of “working to destabilize his country and topple the government in Addis Ababa.” Claiming that Egypt is the direct force behind these subversive elements, Ethiopian Foreign Affairs Minister Hailemariam Desalegn said, “We have embarked ourselves on equal reaction, which is regime change [in Eritrea].”

Zenawi still insists on bringing up the loss of “Ethiopia’s right of sovereignty” over the Afar territory and the port of Assab from Northern Massawa to the islands in the Eritrean Red Sea. He rejects the demarcation by the United Nations concerning the Eritrean border and waged a war in 2000 over this that caused the deaths of more than 100,000 on both sides thus far. Financed and supported by the U.S. military, Zenawi invaded Somalia after the Islamic Courts Union almost united the country and restored the stability that was lost long ago, during the American invasion during the reign of former President Mohamed Siad Barre, under the pretext of preventing the state of Somalia from falling into the hands of Islamists and becoming an incubator for terrorism.

The current situation in Somalia demonstrates good evidence against the adverse consequences of Ethiopian and American exploits. In an American military base in Djibouti, Zenawi supports President Ismail Omar Guelleh’s ruling family that has corruptly monopolized wealth and power in Somalia for more than 30 years and has recently suppressed the mass protests influenced by the revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia, all under the pretext that Djibouti is now the main seaport for Ethiopia. Any new regime will of course not dispense with the hundreds of millions of dollars paid by Ethiopia to Djibouti as an annual fee to use the port; however, the gravest threat to the regional stability posed by the Zenawi regime lies in its support of America’s and Israel’s allies and in the provocation of Egypt to engage in a unilateral war in the waters of the Nile without consulting those downstream with regard to signed agreements. This prompted the President of the Supreme Council of the Egyptian Armed Forces, Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, during an interview with the official state television station on March 21, to threaten “regime change” if Zenawi continued provocations.

Regarding the third pillar referred to by Ambassador Booth, American and international reports undermine democracy and human rights. According to the CIA, Ethiopia is one of many societies that lacks equality among roughly 60 of its ethnic groups. The Tigraway, which represent 7 percent of the population of more than 80 million people under the Zenawi rule, retain control — though Muslims, which represent half of this group, are not represented at all in the ruling establishment. The Human Rights Watch issued a report in June 2008, entitled “Collective Punishment: War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity in the Ogaden Area of Ethiopia’s Somali Regional State.” The Human Rights Report in Ethiopia, issued earlier this month concerning the 2010 annual report released by the U.S. State Department, addressed abuses of the regime, the “special” security and police agencies, its detainment of opposition supporters and the “unlawful killings” and arbitrary detentions without charges. Also included were restrictions on freedom of expression and charges of violence and intimidation during elections and corruption among the police, administration and judiciary. Ethiopia is also accused of excessive use of force and harassment of non-governmental organizations, intervention in the activities of trade unions and media censorship. In this atmosphere, the ruling party naturally won 545 of 547 seats in parliament and 1903 out of 1904 seats in the regional parliaments in last year’s elections in May. In the 2008 local elections, the party won 3.4 million seats and lost only four seats, according to the report.

On April 12, Ambassador Donald Booth defended these results and stated that the “Ethiopian people” (99.6 percent of them) stood behind the victory of the ruling party and that his country had continued to support the regime after it gained victory over the opposition in the 2005 elections as hundreds were killed, thousands were detained and hundreds were arrested among opposition figures. The party at this time issued several laws, including one combating terrorism and another still in effect concerning the press during a state of emergency in order to guarantee the victory over the opposition in the 2010 elections.

If America’s democratic double standards are particularly blatant in the Ethiopian situation and are understood as a deep-rooted tradition in U.S. foreign policy, then America’s hypocrisy concerning Arab nations that defy Ethiopia’s threats must be illuminated.

*Editor’s note: This title could not be verified.