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War clouds in the Horn of Africa |
By Yohannes Woldemariam and Okbazghi
Yohannes*
Nov 15, 2007
As we collect our thoughts and reflect
about what a future war could possibly mean
to the peoples of Eritrea and Ethiopia, dark
rumors of war are rampant in the African
Horn; whether these rumors of war are an
indication of an impending war or simply a
function of public posturing is something
that only the near future can tell. If it
happens, a fresh war now could spell
disaster of tragic proportions for both
countries, but especially for Eritrea. It
appears that Ethiopia is determined to take
advantage of the desperate internal Eritrean
conditions. The recent assessment of the
International Crisis Group (ICJ) is apt
here: “It would not be surprising if Addis
Ababa believes an effort in the near future
to stage a coup in Asmara and use force
against an Eritrean government that has few
friends would also be tolerated in
Washington.”
http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=5136&l=1
This feverish Ethiopian preparation for
aggression on Eritrea has a crucial
international dimension, supplied by none
other than the U.S. Assistant Secretary of
State for Africa, Jendayi Frazer. She has
actively been on a personal crusade to
orchestrate an international demonization of
the Eritrean leader and his regime as part
of a coordinated effort to facilitate
aggression. In Ms. Frazer’s vernacular, the
Eritrean regime is a sponsor of
transnational terrorism, and the answer must
be “regime change”. Even Washington analysts
have understood the metaphoric significance
of her rehearsed statement as a dangerously
opportunistic signal to Ethiopia’s Meles to
begin his well calculated journey of
aggression on Eritrea. Ken Menkhaus put it
right when he opined: “recent statements
made by the Assistant Sec of State for
African Affairs, Jendayi Frazer, may have
aggravated an already tense situation in the
Horn. She made a statement about the
government of Eritrea - in order to stay off
the list of states sponsoring terrorism, one
of the ways to do that would be regime
change. By using that expression, that sent
a message throughout the region that looked
like the United States was implicitly
accepting the possibility of an Ethiopian
attack. And I hope that was not her intent,
but that is how it was interpreted.” VOA
NEWS.
We believe that this is the exact
interpretation that Ms. Frazer wanted to
communicate. If the rumors are credible,
Meles’s understanding of the signals from
Washington could be one of the factors that
have precipitated the current crisis and the
frantic preparation for war as well. As the
Indian Ocean Newsletter recently reported in
March 17, 2007:
According to a source close to the
Ethiopian ministry of defence, the Ethiopian
army has obtained satellite photos from the
American intelligence services, showing the
northern border of Ethiopia and providing
useful information on Eritrean troop
concentration. Moreover, the leaders of the
Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF, hard
core of the EPRDF in power in Addis Ababa)
are currently waging a propaganda campaign
based on the slogan "repeat in the North the
victorious military operation in Somalia"…
[This] has caused diplomats on post in Addis
Ababa to wonder whether the United States
military cooperation with Ethiopia to
prepare their joint offensive into Somalia
could now be repeated in Eritrea. All the
more so since the relations between the USA
and the government of Asmara are at their
lowest point…”
There should be no mistake that the reason
for another war between Eritrea and Ethiopia
is not that Eritrea has suddenly become a
state sponsor of transnational terrorism,
but the fact that Ethiopia desperately needs
a pretext to create a material foundation
for its de facto rejection of the Hague
decision on the border issue. For the
unfamiliar with the real reason for the
Ethio-Eritrean conflict, it is important to
recall that the two countries signed a
binding agreement in Algiers in December
2000 pertaining to their disputed boundary.
Two crucial provisions of the agreement are
worth mentioning here. First, the two
countries agreed in advance to accept the
final decision of a boundary commission
without any qualifications. Second, the
United States, the European Union, the U.N.
and the African Union all guaranteed the
full implementation of any binding decision
once made by the boundary commission. The
commission gave its final and binding
verdict in April 2002. While Eritrea
accepted the final decision in full without
reservation, Ethiopia rejected the decision
outright because the town of Badme (the
flash point of the 1998-2000 war) has been
awarded to Eritrea. Even after over five
years since the final verdict, Ethiopia has
yet to accept the unqualified implementation
of the decision and continues to block the
U.N. technical committee from starting the
task of boundary demarcation. When,
frustrated by Ethiopia’s intransigence and
obstructionist behavior, the boundary
commission issued an ultimatum that it is
going to create a virtual map using
satellite imagery to show the boundary
delineation between the two countries, the
regime in Addis Abeba suddenly found itself
in a quandary. The reason is that the
virtual map gives de jure recognition to the
territory awarded to Eritrea before Ethiopia
could fulfill its expansionary objective,
which includes the incorporation of Badme
and possibly other Eritrean areas into
Ethiopia.
In an ironic way, Meles and his cronies have
proved to be diligent students of the Bush
Administration’s postmodern preemption
doctrine, regardless of whether it violates
the conventional norms of international
politics and the fundamental principles of
international law or it offends a basic
sense of justice. The difficulty for both
the Bush Administration and Meles is the
fact that both international law and the
practice of international diplomacy support
Eritrea’s position. Even John Bolton, former
Bush appointee to the U.N. acknowledges the
legal validity of the Eritrean case in his
new book (Surrender Is Not an Option:
Defending America at the United Nations ) in
these terms:
neither the Ethiopian nor the Eritrean
government would win any popularity
contests, and I certainly had no favorite,
but it seemed to me that Eritrea had a
point: Ethiopia had agreed on a mechanism to
resolve the border dispute in 2000 and was
now welching on the deal.
Likewise, David Shinn’s (former U.S.
ambassador to Ethiopia) words also echo
Bolton’s observation: VOA October 26
Strictly from a legal point of view, the
Ethiopians are on shakier ground for the
simple reason that it was a binding
arbitration to begin with and Ethiopia chose
to conclude that there were problems... They
did not accept the final agreement. Well,
you cannot do that. Binding arbitration is
binding arbitration.
As indicated above, if the crux of the
conflict between Eritrea and Ethiopia, and
by extension between Eritrea and the Bush
Administration, has been Ethiopia’s
rejection of the final verdict of the
international community, why have the
guarantors of the Algiers agreement failed
to help enforce the boundary commission’s
decision? Even more important question, why
has the Bush Administration decided to cast
its lot with the Meles regime in the face of
Meles’s open defiance of the international
rule of law? Answers to these questions
should untangle and illuminate the issues.
An examination of Secretary Condoleezza
Rice’s world outlook and her intellectual
pedigree as well as that of her protégé, Ms.
Frazer, can provide an important piece of
the puzzle.
During the 2000 presidential campaigns, Ms.
Rice wrote an essay in the Foreign
Affairs magazine in her capacity as
foreign policy adviser to then candidate
Bush. Although the substance of her essay
was a sheer regurgitation of an antiquated
notion of international politics, a relic of
the Cold War era, it was nonetheless
revealing of her myopic understanding of
contemporary issues as well as of the nature
and texture of the incoming Administration’s
foreign policy. The thrust of her
proposition was that the United States was
the sole hegemonic leader in global affairs,
something that had to be continually
demonstrated by America’s global power
projection and the containment and
domestication or eradication of “rogue”
states. The means to this objective was
power politics, pure and simple. According
to this formula, America’s national interest
could not and should not be hampered by
international moral considerations and legal
niceties; the U.S should always be prepared
to trade strategic opportunism for proxy
services provided by local or regional
actors if that were what American military
preponderance and global dominance required.
Ms. Rice’s former professor affirms this
brief presentation of her politics in his
exquisitely revelatory essay on her
intellectual pedigree. Professor Allan
Gilbert tells us that Ms. Rice is an
exceptionally gifted performer without “core
values”, continually adjusting her
performance to the tune of the symphony. As
the good professor puts it: “she [Rice] is
also a person without a core, who loses
herself in her performance. National
security was her responsibility. She failed
in that responsibility because she was too
busy perfecting her performance as a Bush
team player when the Bush team, obsessed
with wild fantasies of global domination,
had lost touch with reality.” New
African, June 1, 2004, Condi as you never
knew her; Diaspora, Gilbert, Alan,: No. 430;
Pg. 52
This type of personality meshes well with
her advocacy for power politics as the
spring water of American foreign diplomacy.
States are either with the United States or
against the United States; based on the
services they provide to perpetuate American
global dominance. States that complement
American effort to project its power are to
be rewarded and nurtured regardless of their
internal particulars in terms of whether
they are violators of international law or
perpetrators of domestic crimes. Conversely,
states that contradict American strategic
interest are to be demonized as “rogue” or
state sponsors of transnational terrorism.
It is in this light that Ms. Frazer’s
statements and testimonies must be
understood. After all, Ms. Rice was Ms.
Frazer’s doctoral thesis adviser, a
mentorship that has continued to this day.
Thanks to Ms. Rice, Ms. Frazer was first
recruited to work as National Security
Council staffer in the Bush Administration,
followed by her appointment as ambassador to
South Africa, and then promotion to a rank
of an assistant secretary. Thus the mentor
and protégé form a team and are the chief
conductors of the war symphony in the
African Horn. While Ms. Rice is the
strategic architect of U.S. policy in the
Horn, Ms. Frazer is the tactician and foot
soldier in charge of implementing that
policy. However, implementation of this
policy requires manipulation of regional and
international opinion and the manufacturing
of domestic consent.
In keeping with this objective, Eritrea and
Ethiopia must somehow be differentiated
along the axis that separates “good” from
“evil.” Meles’s presumed positive style of
governance and valuable alliance on the “war
on terror” must sharply be contrasted with
Isaias’s dictatorial rule and alleged
“sponsorship of terrorism.” The truth is
that both Isaias and Meles are twins in
substance and addiction to power. True,
there are some superficial differences that
are adroitly exploited by Meles himself and
his international handlers. Where Isaias has
wedded ruthlessness to his political
buffoonery, Meles has perfected the
synthesis of ruthlessness and Machiavellian
shrewdness. Where Isaias has cast himself as
a dictator in the mode of Idi Amin, Meles
knows how to simulate appearance by taking
with one hand what he appears to have given
with the other hand. We would recall that,
because of his Machiavellian simulation of
appearance, Prime Minister Blair of Britain
hand-picked Meles to serve as a member of
the 17-man Commission for Africa, the
supposed mission of which was to promote
“good” governance in Africa.
In fact, overestimating his international
stature and underestimating the mass support
of opposition to his misrule, Meles agreed
to hold competitive multiparty elections in
2005. When it backfired, Meles then picked
up all opposition leaders and threw them in
jail accusing them of treason and inciting
genocide. In the ensuing nationwide
demonstrations against the stolen elections,
his security forces used live munitions and
killed about 200 young people and herded
over 40,000 Ethiopians into various
concentration camps. In addition to the
perpetration of genocide by attrition
against the Anuak, Somali and Oromo peoples,
Meles has continued to trample upon the
civil and human rights of Ethiopians.
Despite these gross domestic violations
coupled with his defiant rejection of the
international verdict on the border issue,
the Bush Administration has continued to
pamper Meles and present him as a strategic
partner to Congress and the American people;
evidence is his role as a proxy service
provider in Somalia.
The Bush Administration’s Janus-like
approach to the African Horn has unavoidably
raised concern even here in the United
States. The U.S. House of Representatives
passed a resolution in October 2007,
requiring the Administration to tie U.S. aid
to Ethiopia to improved conditions of human
rights, even though Ms. Frazer fought hard
against this congressional move. Even some
of the Administration’s own supporters found
her staunch opposition to the effort to
promote human rights governance in Ethiopia
confusing, if not objectionable. For
example, Republican Congressman and
presidential campaigner, Tom Tancredo, found
Ms. Frazer’s testimony frustratingly
confusing. As he put it:
“We have, from time to time, heard testimony
in this committee from the State Department
on a variety of issues dealing with specific
countries in Africa in particular in which
the justification for our support of those
particular governments is based upon, to a
certain extent, anyway, their support for
our side in the war against radical Islam.
It is a question I have that really has
never been satisfactorily answered, and that
is this: Is there a specific criterion that
the State Department uses to determine at
what point we become an apologist for a
country that otherwise would not be the
case? That is to say, we would — if that one
factor, their support for our efforts in the
war against radical Islam, if that were not
there, we would be on a decidedly different
relationship with them. We would be
antagonistic about them because of their
human rights abuses.
Is there some criteria, specific criteria,
that the State Department uses to determine
at what point we change from being
antagonistic because of their human rights
abuses to being supportive… Because it seems
quite confusing to me. In certain
conditions, in certain situations, we seem
to overlook these human rights abuses; in
others, we don’t.
I think of this condition here in Ethiopia,
for instance. … It just seems like such a
confusing policy, and all I’m trying to do
is determine whether there is actually a
policy or whether it is a totally subjective
analysis, case by case; this country has
done just about enough to get us into the
position of supporting their efforts, and
this group or this country hasn’t.
Can you tell me that? Can you help me
understand what the thinking process is
inside the State Department to determine
which countries we will support, even if
their human rights abuses are as identified
in these reports in Ethiopia?
MS. Frazer, instead of directly answering
the Congressman’s question, offered a
convoluted explanation of the
Administration’s position on gross human
rights violation in Meles’s Ethiopia. The
crucial subtext of her answer is that
America has strategic priorities in the
African Horn other than promoting human
rights in Ethiopia. As she put it: “Our
relationship with Ethiopia is a complex
relationship. It’s a multifaceted
relationship. It is not solely a
relationship based on the terror threat in
the Horn of Africa. It is, in fact, a much
more complex relationship.”
What Ms. Frazer implies in her answer to
Congressman Tancredo’s pointed question is
that American strategic interest will always
take precedence over concerns about, human
rights or democracy promotion in Ethiopia or
even over the explosive Ethio Eritrean
conflict. As far as Ms. Frazer’s logic goes,
the American aid extended to Meles is not
adequate, which means that he must further
be rewarded in other ways, such as
overlooking his gross human rights
violations and his defiant rejection of the
international court’s decision. For example,
he should not be pressured to fully accept
the international decision on the boundary
issue; he has to be encouraged to accept, at
least in principle, a peaceful settlement of
the dispute with Eritrea; but, if or when he
continues to ignore the will of the
international community or even if he takes
Ethiopia to war with Eritrea, then the U.S.
would support him, albeit reluctantly, in
order to preserve his loyalty to Washington.
This posture can be rationalized by
establishing a moral equivalence between
Meles and Isaias on the border issue, in
general, and by designating Isaias as a
sponsor of transnational terrorism, in
particular. With respect to the first
justification, Isaias, too, is guilty of
violating the provisions of the boundary
decision, because he blocked the movement of
U.N. observers and has deployed regular
troops to the temporary security zone; even
when Meles offers to talk on the boundary
issue, Isaias has refused to talk, insisting
on implementation of the decision. Moreover,
in order to make Eritrea look resistant to
new ideas, the Bush administration brought
the U.N on board to supply an alternative
formula to ostensibly make the boundary
commission’s decision acceptable to Meles.
For example, in consultation with the United
States and over the head of the
international court, UN Secretary General
Annan appointed Lloyd Axeworthy (former
Canadian foreign minister) as a special
envoy to mediate between Ethiopia and
Eritrea. The overarching purpose of his
mission was to convince Eritrea to accept
some tangible modifications of the Hague
verdict in order to obtain Meles’s
cooperation on the boundary demarcation.
When the Axeworthy ill-conceived approach
collapsed, the Bush Administration then
directly inserted itself in the matter,
ostensibly as an impartial mediator. Ms.
Frazer was designated as the trouble shooter
to shuttle between Asmara and Addis Abeba to
make the two sides talk about how to modify
the Hague decision, in effect shelving away
the final and binding verdict of the
boundary commission. However, when the
Isaias regime refused her request to visit
the disputed boundary and assess the
situation with a view to modifying the final
and binding verdict, Ms. Frazer felt
snubbed. On the other hand, Meles
opportunistically exploited the fissure
between Isaias and Ms. Frazer and provided
all the necessary accommodation for her to
visit the disputed area from the Ethiopian
side. Following her visit to the area, Ms.
Frazer then proposed that a “referendum” be
held to determine the future of Badme. This
posture not only rewards Meles’s
intransigence but also represents an open
repudiation of the Hague decision. The fact
is that Ms. Frazer has neither the legal
competence nor the technical expertise to
substitute her own predilection for the
collective wisdom of the international
community on the border issue.
What this entire machination boils down to
is that the US Administration is acting
unlawfully to obstruct the demarcation of
the boundary in accordance with the "final
and binding" decisions of the
Eritrea-Ethiopia Boundary Commission.
When Isaias continued to hold on to the
spirit and letter of the international
verdict and treated the American self
appointed mediation role with incredulity,
another stratagem had to be found, and that
was to call Isaias a sponsor of
transnational terrorism. It is an undeniable
fact that Isaias and Meles have been
shopping for surrogates to undermine each
other’s political survival. On this point
neither can claim a moral virtue. To
elucidate the point made above, it is useful
to reproduce the exchange between Ms. Frazer
and Congressman Payne during her testimony
in Congress.
REP. PAYNE begins his questioning as
follows: I see where you were quoted in the
paper that Eritrea should be placed on the
terrorist list. I just wonder — you know
that’s a serious situation, I’m just
wondering what evidence? I think when we
take countries and isolate them; don’t have
negotiations with them, don’t discuss and
push them in a corner, we’re certainly not
moving towards trying to have a solution.
And wonder what evidence is it that Eritrea
should be placed as a country on a terrorist
list?
MS. FRAZER: Well, Mr. Chairman, I did
see in the newspaper where members — or
where, you know, staff like Ted Dagne and
others have said that Eritrea has been, you
know, very cooperative on terrorism. Well,
that may have been at a time, but the
clearest evidence of Eritrea’s support for
terrorism is the fact that Hassan Dahir
Aweys was sitting in Asmara at the
invitation of the government of Eritrea — an
individual who’s designated under our
Executive Order 13224, as a terrorist, as
well as under U.N. Security Council
Resolution 1267 as a terrorist.
So if there was any question about my
statement about their support, the fact that
they allowed him to come to their country
and sit on the stage is clear evidence that
— whereas, as Ted said, this is one country
where fighting extremists and terrorists was
a priority. Well, clearly it’s not anymore,
and that the priority is to take down Prime
Minister Meles. And they will associate with
any extremist terrorist organization to do
so, including supporting Aweys and others
who are part of the al-Shabbah, who have
been sitting in Eritrea, who have been
trained by Eritrea, who have been armed,
financed and supported by Eritrea.
REP. PAYNE: And just let me conclude.
My questioning is that we supported the
warlords — gave them weapons, gave them
money, when the accused bombers were there
in Somalia — I mean — yes, in Somalia, when
these warlords controlled Somalia. And so if
we want to start giving examples of people
we support — as the same ones that brought
the Blackhawk down and killed our rangers
back years ago, the U.S. government decides
that we will support them, even, in fact —
and in spite of the fact that we knew that
these persons accused of the embassy
bombings were there in cozy with the
warlords that we supported.
So when we bring out Ted Dagne and something
that he said, I think if we want to get into
a debate — and maybe we need to have one at
some time when we have more time, because
there is seemed to be there is a
counterbalance for every question and every
instance that you use — I could give five
others of something that makes it even
worse.
From Ms. Frazer’s perspective, if Isaias is
determined to destroy America’s “man” in
Ethiopia, who has demonstrated his loyalty
to Washington by the blood and sweat of his
troops in Somalia, then the “regime change”
formula must be applied in Eritrea. Here
both Ms. Frazer and Meles see a presumably
promising substitute to Isaias in the
self-proclaimed Eritrean opposition. Before
tackling the flawed “regime change” thesis,
it is useful to clarify our own attitude
toward the regime now in Asmara in order to
preempt any distortion of our views by some.
We are neither defenders of nor apologists
for Isaias. We firmly believe that Eritrea
today is ruled by a regime of brigands,
political hoodlums and a handful sycophant
intellectuals, presided over by Africa’s
reincarnated Idi Amin. We, too, desperately
yearn for regime change in Eritrea, but not
one initiated, financed and directed by
outside forces with the so-called Eritrean
opposition providing enabling services. For
a long time now, the Eritrean people have
been subjected to total internal terror. And
now they face a perpetual threat of external
terror in the form of Ethiopian aggression
and possible reoccupation. Those who parade
themselves as Eritrean opposition and yet
seek the sponsorship of Washington and Addis
Abeba to bring about regime change in
Eritrea can only subject the Eritrean people
to more horrors of external intervention.
Iraq and Somalia are immediate examples.
What Eritrea desperately yearns for today
are not neo Challabists who ignominiously
seek power for its own sake on the back of
foreign sponsors, but principled patriots
who accept the Weberian synthesis of
visionary ethics and the ethics of
responsibility to provide authentic national
leadership. In so far as our own informed
observation goes, the members of the
so-called opposition who have associated
themselves with the Meles regime and seek
redemption from their external sponsors are
equally dangerous. An opposition which has
miserably failed to lead itself cannot lead
a nation. Before we stopped counting, the
number of the groups that roam the
opposition terrain had reached more than
eleven. In our humble view, the public
posturing of the self-appointed opposition
can only open the opportunity for the
Tigrean regime in Addis to undo the
independence of Eritrea.
Meles may seize the opportunity to invade
Eritrea and occupy at least some parts of it
under the pretext of assisting the so called
Eritrean opposition. Oddly, while Isaias is
busy alienating and terrorizing Eritreans,
Meles is posturing himself as concerned for
the welfare of Eritreans. Moreover, the
quagmire that Zenawi faces in Somalia, after
his initial phantom success, may provide a
subtext of his motivation to attack Eritrea
as a diversion. Meles may see this as a
critical moment of transition to implement
the regime change formula. He may believe
that he could obtain American assistance to
use the Eritrean opposition as a vehicle.
This explains in part the rush by certain
elements to welcome Ms. Frazer’s attempt to
characterize the Eritrean state as a sponsor
of terrorism. In principle, we are neither
against opposition to Isaias’s dictatorship
nor regime change. But the effort should be
fundamentally homegrown and or the external
opposition should dissociate from Meles and
should demonstrate independence coupled with
an evidence of democratically inclusive
vision. Here we don’t want to convey the
impression that we are painting all members
of the opposition with a broad brush. We are
cognizant of the fact that there are many
honorable and patriotic Eritreans that
operate under the general rubric of
opposition. We hasten to add that there is a
simple rule of thumb that distinguishes
between genuine patriots and fly by night
opportunists who seek a shortcut to power
through foreign agency. In Eritrea’s current
reality, accepting advice, support and money
from the Meles regime with his vested
interests in Eritrea’s disintegration is a
political kiss of death. Anyone who solicits
such funds or claims to be a safe conduit
for such funds to "genuine democrats" is by
definition, not a true democrat. The bottom
line: Eritreans must oppose an externally
initiated and supported regime change of any
kind. Many members of the opposition are all
too quick to dismiss the threat from
Ethiopia as Isaias’s propaganda. It is true
that dictators regularly cite concerns about
outside influence and the threat of
instability as their motivations for
resisting pro-democracy efforts, a question
naturally arises: is the regime genuinely
afraid from the Tigrean threat or is this
fear just a convenient justification for its
repressive measures. We believe it is both.
The regime is interested in holding on to
power by any means necessary but the threat
from the TPLF regime to Eritrea as a country
is also very real. Eritrean nationalism and
independence is simply an affront to
bellicose Tigrean nationalism. Such
sentiment clearly reflects the ongoing
tug-of-war over Badme, but may also reflect
lingering resentments over the independence
of Eritrea which the TPLF supported for
pragmatic reasons in 1993 due to its
relatively weak position within Ethiopia.
Ironically, Meles’s refusal to abide by the
Hague verdict and America’s
counter-productive meddling in the matter
has contributed to the longevity of the
Isaias regime. In our view, the surest way
to effect meaningful change, not only in
Eritrea but also in Ethiopia, is to be true
to international law and due justice to
Eritrea on the boundary issue. No doubt the
United States can play a constructive role.
However, harvesting the promise of a new
Horn of Africa policy and avoiding its
perils require a diplomacy wise in its
historic insights, patient and prudent about
its goals, honest and clear about its true
foes and friends, and credibly resolute in
its use of the requisite tools to bring
about the desired ends.
Whether Washington respects the outcomes of
international verdicts and helps to enforce
them is the crucial factor for peace between
Eritrea and Ethiopia. Giving orders, issuing
public demands and pronouncements, reneging
on world court decisions and declaring
arbitrary expectations are not prudent. In
the Horn of Africa, U.S. double standards
and disregard for international law can only
plunge Eritrea and Ethiopia into
unimaginable destruction.
The United States must declare in words and
show in deeds that it is always on the side
of the Eritrean people and their democratic
efforts. A no-less-important part of such a
declaration should be a commitment to
respect the independence and sovereignty of
Eritrea. It must use its political and
economic leverage to weigh on the Ethiopian
regime, so the Hague verdict on the border
can be implemented. A necessary corollary of
these democratic principles must be to make
it clear that the United States will neither
anoint any group or person as the future
leader of Eritrea in the name of regime
change.
*The writers are both
professors of international relations and
can be reached @
yohannes99@hotmail.com |
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