Imperialism in humanitarian, security cloak
BY WORKU BELACHEW
The pretext of humanitarianism is often raised by the officials of the Biden administration to justify their unwarranted pressure against Ethiopia.
Biden’s September 17, 2021, executive order is one in a series of instruments that are sugarcoated with humanitarianism and the protection of US national security. The latter in particular begs the question; the preamble of the executive order says that the conflict poses: “extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States.”
The situation in Ethiopia is purely an internal matter— also as some permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) at various times make it crystal clear. But the question is: why has the Biden administration remained stubborn not to treat the issue as an internal matter to Ethiopia?
In this writer’s assessment to understand the matter, among the chief reasons that are making the Biden administration bog down in a policy that is against the 100+ million people of Ethiopia and at the cost the centuries’ old Ethiopia-US relations can be his and his advisors’ far-fetched ambition to impose their imperialistic will on a sovereign state, and later to expand the practice on a continental level in Africa.
Available literature shows that there are various arguments as to how powers such as the US advance their imperialistic ambitions either subtly or forcibly. But in our case, two of them seem to hold water. Actually, one of the arguments is premised on “moral ground”. This one looks like a resurgence of a subject that was put to play to justify colonialism in Africa in the late 19th C-early 20C. The colonial powers marched to Africa in the fig leaf of “Christianizing” and “Civilizing” the people of Africa.
At this very time, the Biden administration and its western allies are fabricating stories after stories through their agents that work under the cloak of humanitarianism. In today’s world, by and large, imperialism is reviving being encapsulated with humanitarianism—as many would agree. At face value, the sympathy the Biden administration shows to some people in Ethiopia appears to have sort of humanitarian element but the ultimate goal is to advance its illegitimate interests in a seemingly legitimate way.
In Ethiopia, the lives of close to seven million people is affected in all states of Tigray, Amhara and Afar, but the Biden administration and his allies are lax on demonstrating sympathy to the people of Amhara and Afar. This speaks for itself, doesn’t it?
The second track that the US and its allies employ to advance imperialism can be analyzed through the prism of “the protection of national interests in faraway geo-strategic places”.
What we have witnessed thus far is that the US and its allies choose short-sighted approaches than sustainable ones. Regarding the former, the powers have opted for supporting client states to remain on the helm of government or resorted to giving every life-support even to a dying group that advances their interests. As far as the client states are protecting the interests of, say the US and its allies, they keep lubricating the state machinery with aids and donations, and whether or not human rights abuses are rampant, corruption deepens media freedom stifled, they just don’t care. In the words of late Ghanaian President Kwame Nkrumah this is the worst form of imperialism “power without responsibility”— neo-colonialism if you like.
Now that the frontiers of superpowers are expanding beyond their terrestrial and aquatic boundaries, the Horn of Africa has already become a hub for their military buildup in faraway geo-strategic locations— a matter with a visible threat to the sovereignty of countries of the region in particular and the entire continent in general.
It is now plausible to argue that the military buildup in the region must be checked and countered in some way to avert the imminent danger. A November 12, 2021, BBC report first headlined as US Force Ready ‘to respond’ to Ethiopia crisis quoting Maj. Gen. William Zana at Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti furnishes enough reason as the US has the ambition to promote its interests against the wills of the millions of people and their sovereignty.
The Biden administration, its allies and the western media altogether are supplying political, diplomatic and other key supports to the rebel terrorist TPLF force, on one hand. And they publicly brag to militarily intervene in a UN member country, Ethiopia, on the other. Humanitarianism and the protection of security or whatever interests are now found to be sugarcoated pretexts; inside these are the bitter imperialistic ambitions that Africans should check sooner than later.
Africans, the black population all over the world and all who seek justice, equality and fraternity to prevail must closely look into the current situation in Ethiopia. The current model—i.e., trying to destroy a legitimate government by force using an internal rebel is likely to be exported to other African countries. The necessary condition for this is, as we are practically witnessing it here, determination to chart out one’s destiny by oneself. When any African country starts to develop its natural resources, formulate home-grown policies, then the model would be put to play.
The model is worse in its entirety. But it becomes worst for Ethiopia as a country that boasts for having the oldest democracy like the US is attempting to restore a group chased away by popular unrest.
The people of Ethiopia have elected their representatives marching in droves to polls which the US’s two institutions verified.
The International Republican Institute (IRI) and the National Democratic Institute (NDI) on their joint report on the June 21, 2021 as part of a Limited Election Observation Mission for Ethiopia released on August 9, 2021 indicated this very matter.
For instance, NDI President Derek Mitchell said there were important improvements over past elections, particularly relating to the national election body and election monitoring by political parties and civil society.
The report also acclaimed “reforms that allowed civil society and political parties to emerge as actors of the electoral process. It also noted the reforms that allowed for NEBE to be more independent as well as important positive efforts made by Ethiopian individuals and institutions, including NEBE, citizen election monitoring, and voter education groups.”
Obviously, this does not mean that Ethiopia conducted one of the rarest elections. But the improvement has been tremendous as compared to the previous ones.
As every cloud has a silver lining, the approach by the US and its allies towards the current situation in Ethiopia holds important lesson to all people of Africa, the black community on the globe and all justice-seeking people of the world. The attempt is like a knockout game where these forces want to mess up the lives of non-western people and protect what they call “their national interests” at the cost of millions of people, particularly in the developing world. It is high time to all who stand for justice to prevail to stop these devilish forces.
The current path of the Biden administration and its allies is totally against the interests of the people of the respective countries. It is a path of destroying centuries-old cooperation. Of course, there is no proof that the entire people in the west back such imperialistic policy that exposes millions of souls to death and destruction. But there is proof that a substantial number of western people stand for truth and justice. One can see the number of black and white people of citizens in the western countries that are supporting Ethiopia by publically defending the Ethiopian cause. This has also been evident in the past. While the fascist Italian aggressor invaded Ethiopia, good people like Sylvia Pankhurst were standing for truth. Sylvia also went as far as establishing a newspaper dedicated to revealing the truth in her New times & Ethiopia news.
Published in The ETHIOPIAN HERALD NOVEMBER 30/2021