Double Standards and the turmoil in the Horn of Africa
By Aklilu Demissie
March 25, 2007 — In opening remarks at the release of the 2006 Human Rights report on March 6, 2007, Secretary Rice again phrased beautiful words of commitment and recommitment to protection of human rights in the world. She even said, “And we are recommitting ourselves to call every government to account that still treats the basic rights of its citizens as options rather than, in President Bush’s words, the non-negotiable demand of human dignity”. The non-negotiable human dignity is nowhere appallingly brutalized than in Ethiopia.
Compared to the decency of the report, the words and the actions of the Secretary do not, in the least or remotely reconcile each other as to what is happening daily in Ethiopia.
No body is certain why regimes that terrorize their own citizens should be carried on the back of the Secretary. She has never come publicly to denounce the abysmal records of human rights abuses in Ethiopia. Although there is no comparison which is the lesser degree to human rights abuses, she is always at full front when the name of Robert Mugabe comes. Poor Mugabe doesn’t have the geographical nor the political craftsmanship of allying to “war on terror”. Other wise he would have been saved like Meles Zenawi from the wrath of Secretary Rice for whatever heinous crimes against humanity he commits like Zenawi.
The double standard is mind boggling. It leads to disillusionment for what America stands for and stands out.
Doing business with rouge elements, whose human rights record is monstrous, in the Horn of Africa is the order of the day.
Take, Abdullhi Yusuf Ahmed, the so called President of the Transitional Federal Government of Somalia (TFG).He was a colonel in the Somali army who established the self declared State and President of Puntland in 1998.He comes from the Majeerteen (Daarood) clan. When his term in 2001 ended he started a military campaign in Puntland and regained the Presidency of Puntland again until he was elected President of Somalia in October 2004 with Meles’ blessing.
Scrutinizing his human rights record, there is no more defying report to his being a President than the US Department of State report of 2002 on human rights practices in Somalia. He was also decorated for valor by Siad Barre for the Ogaden War of 1977.
Ali Mohammed Ghedi has had no major power play in his life except being a spy and a child of a Colonel in the Siad Barre National Security Service. In the 1980s, his father provided the Tigray Peoples Liberation Front (TPLF) everything for its survival. Ali Mohammed Ghedi is also implicated in the arrest and torture of hundreds of Somali citizens while working as an informant to the Somali National Security Service.
Well, as to expounding the major vicious destabilizing element, Meles Zenawi, America has it all.
The spillage of ethnically based domination and leadership has transcended its pervasive strides down to Somalia from Meles Zenawi.
If the Hawiyes’ complain that they are being threatened by the Daarood clan under the sugar coating of Somali Federal Transitional Troops, the majority being from Puntland, they may have a justification. What is being done is a mirror image of crafting a regime from one ethnic group-Meles Zenawi’s minority ethnic Tigere regime, to clan wise formulated Daarood clan domination by putting forward a lame Prime Minster Ghedi [from Hawiye clan] for propaganda consumption and completion of the shenanigans.
The solution is an all inclusive government, although masters of the sword in the region do seem to favor the perpetuation of war and division that will bring about money and safe power stay at the blood of peaceful civilians.
Abridgement of citizens’ right to change their government, harsh and life threatening prison conditions for dissenters, indiscriminate jailing, extrajudicial killings, you name it, and you have it in Ethiopia. The motto with Meles Zenawi, of course is, “if you got them smoke them”.
There had been a well known and established fact. Once the USA awakens and librates itself from the spell of this elusive and capricious thug called Meles Zenawi, her sword is vicious and merciless, even to her devout allies let alone to a miniscule who lives by subterfuge.
United States and the people of Ethiopia are committed to bringing about an everlasting stability to the region by waging war against terror.
But as long as Meles is on the scene, every thing is doomed to fail. Meles knows that maintaining the status quo is the very card he would not give up at all coast.
The disgusting pampering of a despot by Western diplomats and State Department officials despite his convoluted treachery, human rights abuses continues unabated. The assumption of protection of national interests through murderous regimes is an utter fiasco as long as they do not side with the democratic wishes and aspirations of the Ethiopian people.
It won’t be long before Ethiopia becomes a single country in the world where two successive despots-Mengistu [wait till Mugabe goes] and Meles- will be facing the international tribunal court for crimes against humanity standing side by side.
To all intense and purposes there is no difference between the regimes in Rangoon and Addis with regard to stark ,massive human rights abuses and transgression against humanity. While the regime in Addis is left aside, the US government was feverishly trying to pass a UN resolution against Burma after years and years of complacency. Obviously human rights violation in one form or another is a threat to global peace and security as the US identifies it now.
Martin Luther King stated in a speech [“Our God is Marching On!] in March, 1965… “however difficult the moment, however frustrating the hour, it will not be long, because “truth crushed to earth will rise again. How long? Not long, because no lie can live forever. We are on the move now. The wanton release of their murderers would not discourage us .Like an idea whose time has come, not even the marching of mighty armies can halt us. We are moving to the land of freedom.” Amen!
As to Meles Zenawi’s gibberish and sordid denials of the facts on the ground, in interviews and private discussions, are non other than classic signs of desperation and invariable demise- a disease that has no remedy. It is a hopelessly vicious affliction resulting in believing once own grotesque lies.
* The author is based in the USA. He can be reached at [email protected]