Even though Washington claims to have counseled Ethiopia not to use military force against Somalia.
WikiLeaks Reveals U.S. Twisted Ethiopia’s Arm to Invade Somalia
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Ethiopia
Bad aid: Throw your arms around the world
In December 1984, I walked into the HMV store on London’s Oxford Street to spend a little discretionary money on an LP. Other albums drew me, but one had an advantage. It combined the talents of all the major ‘Top of the Pops’ singers in one song. Given the standards of British pop at the time (leaving aside Scritti Politti’s ‘Jacques Derrida’ and perhaps the Bronski Beat’s ‘Smalltown Boy’), the diminishing marginal returns at the cash register were held in check with only one purchase. It had to be Bob Geldof’s ‘Do they know it’s Christmas?’ The ‘charity single’ had all of Britain’s finest, from Paul McCartney to Boy George, from Siobhan Fahey (of Bananarama) to Sting. The song opens with African drums and Phil Collins’s drum kit, and then the flow of British vocalists, with a young Bono in full flight. Geldof named their charity super-group Band Aid, a name that morphed as the fever caught, into Live Aid, Sport Aid and so on. BBC ran the Band Aid song non-stop. It raised millions of pounds to buy relief for the survivors of the Ethiopian famine.
Ethiopia: Licensed to Steal
If democracy is a government of the people, kleptocracy is a government of thieves.
Straight Talk: Revealing the Real U.S.-Africa Policy
Editor’s Note: A press booklet, created by a coalition of organizations, on recommendations for U.S.-Africa policy can be found here.
It’s time for some straight talk on U.S. foreign policy as it relates to Africa. While Obama administration officials and the U.S. African Command (AFRICOM) representatives insist that U.S. foreign policy towards Africa isn’t being militarized, the evidence seems to suggest otherwise. While Africans condemned U.S. military policy in Africa under the Bush administration, the Obama administration has not only mirrored Bush’s approach, but has in fact enhanced it. President George W. Bush established Africa as a foreign policy priority in 2003, when he announced that 25% of oil imported to the United States should come from Africa. Like the Cold War, the Global War on Terror establishes a rationale for bolstering U.S. military presence and support in Africa. Yet official pronouncement of U.S. policy is routinely presented as if neither of these two developments occurred. Unfortunately, the more evasive we are about our intentions on the continent, the more we invite not only skepticism, but even resistance.
The Making of Another Iraq
A new front in the Âglobal war on terror has emerged with its center in war-torn Somalia. The target of the new front, the Islamic Courts Union (ICU), both brought back normalcy to seemingly untamable southern Somalia and anxiously legislated morality to the point of social suffocation. According to the U.S. State Department, its greatest sin was its purported link to al-Qaida.
The War Between Ethiopia and Eritrea
Key Points
During the 30-year war against the Ethiopian military dictatorship, the EPLF and TPLF guerrilla movements worked closely together and achieved victory in 1991 as the firmest of friends.
Despite claims to the contrary, Ethiopia and Eritrea have been fighting not over a border but over rival hegemonic claims in the Horn of Africa and over “national pride” and “territorial integrity.”
Its neighbors see Eritrea as having deliberately chosen an aggressive foreign policy as a central element in its nation building strategy; Eritrea fears the threat of Ethiopian regional dominance.
Even by the shocking standards of recent African conflicts, the May 1998-June 2000 war in the Horn of Africa is truly appalling. As many as 100,000 people have been killed in the intermittent, but savage fighting; up to one million people have been driven into exile or internal displacement; hundreds of millions of dollars have been diverted from development into arms procurement.
Eritrea/Ethiopia War Looms
The latest State Department call for progress in the stalled Ethiopia-Eritrea peace accord–issued this week and coming on the heels of similar expressions of concern by European diplomats last week–is welcome news for those fearing the renewal of war. But it doesn’t go nearly far enough.
Africa Policy Outlook 2002: Africa’s Priorities Ignored Due To Washington’s War on Terrorism
By almost any measure, the war on AIDS is more important than the war on terrorism. Yet Washington’s fixation with the latter—still loosely defined—campaign threatens to crowd out attention to Africa’s priorities. And those priorities, from obtaining support for international peacemaking and peacekeeping, to canceling illegitimate debts and arresting the growing disparities between rich and poor in the world, to defeating the AIDS pandemic, are all equally global priorities.
Ethiopia-Eritrea Disengagement Proceeds Slowly, Civilians Watch & Wait
Two months after Eritrea and Ethiopia signed a pact to end their two-year border war, an agreement to move ahead with its implementation has finally been ironed out. Ethiopian forces occupying positions inside Eritrea began to pull back last week, and the 4,200 UN troops brought here to monitor the truce are now deploying to the contested frontier. A spokesperson for the UN Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea today said that the withdrawals are taking place on schedule and are expected to be complete by February 24. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of war-displaced civilians remain in camps behind the lines, waiting to see if the truce will hold.