March 9, 2002

By Tecola W. Hagos

[Speech delivered at the Public Meeting on the issues surrounding the Algiers Agreement and the mandate of the Ethiopia-Eritrea Boundary Commission, at Hague, as well as historical and legal analysis affecting the delimiting of boundary between Ethiopia and Eritrea. The meeting was organized by concerned Ethiopians from Boston and vicinity. 9 March, 2002.]

I. THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT

A. Brief Historical Background

It is a tragedy to observe the government of the United States involved in international deceit and fraud against an ancient country that has fallen on difficult times. It is even more tragic to observe such a leading nation associating with brutal and violent governments that have been singled out repeatedly by international human rights organizations and government agencies for violating the human rights of their citizens for the last ten consecutive years. [See Human Rights Watch Report, 2002; United States Department of State Country Report, 2002] At this point, what is of great concern for Ethiopians everywhere is the unconscionable and illegal interference of the government of the United States and its European allies in the affairs of Ethiopia, a sovereign and friendly nation.

The United States Government is involved directly or indirectly in creating a situation favorable to Eritrea to gain the Ethiopian Afar coastal territory thereby making Ethiopia the largest and most populous nation in the world to be landlocked by a six hundred miles strip of land about forty miles wide. As I have pointed out in my previous essays, it is not that difficult to realize that the Sovereign State of Ethiopia, if landlocked, is going to be dependent for its survival on the whims and caprices of its historic enemies Egypt and the Arab nations. What advantage the United States and its European coconspirators derive from such unjust and illegal dismemberment and subjugation of Ethiopia is nothing more than the action of racist bullies with no particular economic or political gain, but for the psychological satisfaction of destroying a proud and ancient black civilization. As I shall show here below, this shameful scheme to dismember Ethiopia was started sometime after the violent dictator, Mengistu Hailemariam, who is now in Zimbabwe, established his brutal military regime in late 1970s. [It was again the government of the United States, in collaboration with Canada, that arranged for Mengistu to escape to Zimbabwe and avoid prosecution for the crime of genocide he committed during his seventeen years of violent rule.]

In fact, Ethiopia's problem with the United States government started during the Nixon/Ford Administration in the 1970s. Henry Kissinger, who has no respect for Third World peoples to begin with, as Secretary of State in the Nixon/Ford Administration, stopped all military weapon shipment that was already paid for to the new Ethiopian military government at the first sign of trouble. The pseudo-Marxist brutal government of Mengistu Hailemariam further irreparably damaged Ethiopia's relationship with the West with his full embrace of the Soviet Union, and with his complete change of the political and economic structure of the country. The Carter Administration had no choice but keep what had already been in the making during Nixon/Ford Administration after the brutal Mengistu and his fellow military conspirators murdered sixty former government officials of Emperor Haile Selassie I in 1975. Further, adding insult to an injury, as part of the deal with the Soviet Union, Ethiopia closed down the United States Kagnew Military Station in Asmara. No doubt the current pragmatic and non-normative foreign policy of the United States owes much of its dogma to Kissinger who changed the outlook of the government of the United States to adopt a more aggressive and non-normative, and often times amoral and brutal foreign policy.

For the new Carter Administration (1978-1982), pulling back diplomatic relationship with the government of Mengistu Hailemariam was the most honorable thing to do at the time. Understandably, the United States reoriented its presence in the Horn by becoming the new major weapon supplier to Somalia. In brief that was the main and only reason that soured the United States. The Carter Administration soon after was immersed with Iran's new Leader Ayatollah Koumeni, and the taking of hostages of the American diplomatic staff at the United States Embassy in Tehran by Iranian government backed students. Because of those political setbacks, in the 1980s the Carter Administration was replaced by a new Reagan administration that won the election by projecting a new anti-Soviet image of confrontation and strength.

Against such politically charged atmosphere, it seems that lower level technocrats at the State Department were rewriting the foreign policy of the United States towards Ethiopia. Senior officials were preoccupied with far more serious problems of the Cold War to pay much attention to the type of work being undertaken by Cohen and company. These lower echelon bureaucratic power ladder climbers did come up with utterly disingenuous scheme that is now giving us great grief. It seems what they were aiming at was to create a legal justification for the creation of an independent coastal "State" that would remain under the influence of the United States or its European allies no matter what happens in the rest of the region. To achieve such goals the dying Eritrean Liberation Front was revived with fresh assistance from the West and the Arab nations. Furthermore, in order to insure the independence of Eritrea the West suddenly accepted the old Marxist idea of "self-determination" abandoning the Wilsonian approach embodied in the Charter of the United Nations Article I (2). A new theory of statehood based on another Marxist concept of "hegemony" was also introduced in order to compromise and ultimately deny Ethiopia its legitimate claims of territories within "Eritrea," and Afar coastal areas if the issue of territorial integrity or sovereignty is raised at some later point.

The creation of "coastal states" for the purpose of promoting the interest of powerful western nations is not something new. It has been used by former colonial powers such as Britain that created Kuwait out of Iraq, and is now effectively engaged in looting the equivalent of billions of dollars as investment by Kuwait and its Sheiks. France has also used the same scheme by creating Djibouti out of Ethiopia more for strategic presence rather than for looting of wealth; there is none in Djibouti. This scheme of bottling up potentially powerful nations and rendering them economically and militarily dependant on the West through surrogate dummy states like Kuwait and Djibouti, has now reached the 21st Century in the activities of the new "out of control" power, the United States.

The Security Council is charged by the Charter of the United Nations to preserve the peace of the World. However, it has repeatedly resorted to violence rather than negotiation and equitable settlement of conflicts in Africa, Asia and even in Europe. In case of Ethiopia it is to the benefit of Britain, and France that Ethiopia remains landlocked because their satellite or Commonwealth dependant nations will benefit from the great wealth of Ethiopia through transit charges, port service charges, and all kinds of exploitative schemes. The other Permanent Member of the Security Council, will not object to the type of abuse waged against Ethiopia because it has its own national interest to protect such as favorable trade arrangement, less scrutiny of its human right violations against its own citizens et cetera. Our only hope is to bring our case to the citizens of Britain, France, and the United States, where we will be able to relate to the conscience of millions of citizens of those countries.

Full Speech linked below:
http://www.tisjd.net/boston2.htm