By Nick Wadhams | TIME

British rock impresario and Africa aid promoter Bob Geldof, a.k.a. “Saint Bob,” was back in the headlines this past week after blowing his stack at the BBC for a story it aired alleging that Ethiopian rebels had diverted 95% of the $100 million in Ethiopian famine relief raised in the mid-1980s — much of it by Geldof’s iconic Band Aid concert.

Geldof’s spirited denials (he called the BBC a “rotten old cherry” and said there was not a “shred” of evidence to support the claim) drew support from NGOs that worked in Ethiopia at the time, along with those who remember the miseries of the famine which killed hundreds of thousands of people, as well as the gumption Geldof showed by pulling together rock stars from the U.S and Britain to help feed the victims. In the days since, however, Geldof has raised eyebrows for his apparent refusal to acknowledge the possibility that money may have been skimmed off the top, which many aid agencies and humanitarian workers say routinely happens in developing nations. In fact, doubts in the last few years about whether relief supplies reach their intended sources in conflict zones have given rise to a whole new way of thinking about humanitarian aid — and caused some to question whether giving aid in times of war does any good at all.

“Whereas outsiders might have been well-intentioned in wanting to solve the problems of famine in Ethiopia, the regime and rebels were very much aware of how they could make use of that aid to advance their own interests,” James Shikwati, director of the Inter Region Economic Network, a Nairobi-based think tank, and a longtime critic of foreign aid, tells TIME. “Instead of trying to defend themselves, I think Bob Geldof and his friends should be looking at this as part of the problem of the aid industry.” Shikwati is a leading advocate in an emerging movement that wants to see foreign development assistance — and some emergency help — stopped entirely in Africa. He says foreign aid fosters corruption and a sense of dependence on Western donors. In some countries, leaders have also been accused of steering development projects to areas where people have voted for them while opposition areas get nothing, Shikwati says.

The real story behind Ethiopia’s famine exemplifies many of the problems with aid. In the West, the famine of the 1980s was seen as a great natural disaster. Band Aid was so successful — it raised tens of millions of dollars — because it played on Westerners’ sense of obligation to “save Africa” and their sense of guilt for somehow “allowing” the famine to happen. But the reality was far more complex. While Ethiopia was indeed in the grip of a drought, Mengistu Haile Mariam’s government, which was fighting an insurgency at the time, restricted NGOs from helping famine victims in certain areas and forcibly moved hundreds of thousands of people from one place to another in a repeat of Soviet-era collectivization campaigns, exacerbating their plight. The rebels, who came to power years later, are partly responsible for people’s suffering, too. A CIA report cited by the BBC found that money raised by the insurgents, ostensibly to help the starving, was “almost certainly” diverted for military purposes.

It seems ironic that in one of his ripostes, Geldof argued that current Ethiopian Prime Minister tribal warlord Meles Zenawi — who was a rebel leader during the time of the famine — denied that any aid had been diverted in the 1980s. But Meles has been accused of doing the very same thing in recent years in Ethiopia’s Ogaden region, which is also home to a rebel insurgency. Aid workers operating in the region in 2007 told TIME the government allowed them to distribute food in some places and not others. They spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of upsetting the government. In a report soon after that, Human Rights Watch accused the Meles government of rounding up and killing livestock in the region and blocking aid. The government has repeatedly denied such accusations.

It’s not just happening in Ethiopia either. A new U.N. report on Somalia, first revealed in a report by the The New York Times on March 9, found that Somali contractors skim off as much as half the food aid delivered by the World Food Program and give it to Islamic militants battling the government. That revelation followed on the heels of a sharp debate on aid in Somalia between the U.N. and the U.S., which has announced it will restrict some supplies to the country out of fear it’s helping the rebels. “Operating in conflict zones is always a complex challenge for humanitarian organizations,” WFP’s Nairobi spokesman, Marcus Prior, tells TIME. “Even in the worst circumstances, we seek to follow all rules and regulations surrounding our operations and to remain true to our humanitarian mandate of impartiality and neutrality.” But the WFP has had a hard time doing that given the fact that it is part of the U.N., a body made up of member states.

Other groups have laid down specific rules that keep them from working too closely with certain governments or rebel groups. Among the most prominent is Doctors Without Borders. The French arm of that group was, in fact, expelled from Ethiopia during the famine in the 1980s when it criticized the government for forcibly moving some of the population and manipulating aid. The group now makes a point of delivering as much direct aid to those in need as possible, rather than working through governments or what it calls “armed actors.” This week, it went after NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen after he made a seemingly innocuous remark about wanting to “improve the frequency and quality of the dialogue between NATO and the NGOs” in Afghanistan. He went on to say that “hard power” must be combined with “soft power,” an idea that infuriates Doctors Without Borders, which said in response that it “never works alongside, or partners with, any military strategy.”

“We have left places where the level of interference was too much,” Monica Camacho, the group’s coordinator in Somalia, tells TIME. “We are very clear that the moment you are interfered with, you no longer have legitimacy. News of whatever happens to us in one conflict will spread, and we are very aware that it has an impact everywhere.”

By Jason McLure | Bloomberg

Ethiopia’s opposition criticized media rules that give Meles Zenawi’s ruling party and its four main allies 16 times as much airtime as the largest opposition party ahead of May 23 elections.

“In general the media is controlled, used, monopolized by the ruling party,” Negasso Gidada, a former president of Ethiopia who is now a leader of the opposition Medrek alliance, said in a phone interview yesterday. “Our stand is that the time allocation is unfair.”

The Ethiopian Broadcast Authority earlier this year awarded Meles’ Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front and four allied parties 199 hours and 15 minutes of time on state radio and 31 hours and 30 minutes on state television, according to figures from the EBA. Medrek, the country’s largest opposition grouping, was awarded 12 hours 15 minutes of radio time and 1 hour 45 minutes of television time.

“We have negotiated about this on our party council and they are not part of that council,” Hailemariam Desalegn, parliamentary whip for the EPRDF, said by phone today. “I don’t see unfairness in this issue.”

The Ethiopian government owns the only television broadcasters in the country, and the Horn of Africa nation’s radio waves are almost entirely controlled by government or ruling party-affiliated stations.

The allocation of airtime was based largely on the number of seats in parliament held by each party, according to Desta Tesfaw, director general of the broadcasting agency. A second, smaller award of airtime will be made in the coming weeks based on the number of candidates fielded by each party, he said.

‘Notable Opening’

Prior to the country’s last elections in 2005, “there was a notable opening of the state media to the political parties contesting the elections,” said a report from the European Union electoral observer mission that year.

Opposition parties won more than 170 seats in the country’s 547-member parliament in that vote, though many opposition members refused to take their seats to protest what they said was vote rigging by the ruling party in some areas.

In ensuing demonstrations, security forces loyal to Meles killed 193 people. Dozens of senior opposition figures were jailed on treason charges.

“Meles and his ruling party appear intent on preventing a repeat of the relatively open 2005 elections which produced a strong opposition showing,” Dennis Blair, the U.S. director of national intelligence, wrote in a report to the Senate on Feb. 2.

By Fekade Shewakena

The stabbing of an opposition parliamentary candidate and the brutal beating of another in Tigrai by Meles Zenawi’s thugs last week, only days after the latter made a code loaded speech at the TPLF anniversary in Mekele, where he referred to his opponents as the mud, the riffraff, and the enemy, fall perfectly in line with the tactic and strategy set out for “winning” the May 2010 election. All indications, including the rush by government officials to explain how the victim died before even any preliminary police investigation, show that Meles Zenawi’s finger prints are all over the killing. Some ferenjis may be willfully fooled. We Ethiopians know the drill and we get it. That it happened in Tigrai, the ethnic homeland of Meles Zenawi, seems to have made the brutality more sensational but similar instances occur widely and in large numbers in other parts of the country. What this case may have loudly demonstrated is perhaps the fact that no ethnic elite in power can oppress other ethnic groups and leaves the people of its own ethnic homeland in freedom. I hope our brothers and sisters from Tigrai are getting the message loud and clear, that they are only one disagreement away from the TPLF from being stabbed to death – just one attempt away at making choices and decisions for and by themselves.

As he repeatedly keeps reminding us, Meles Zenawi has taken lessons from the debacles of the May 2005 national election and will not repeat the same mistake. He even boasted that his organization (TPLF) hasn’t made the same mistake more than once. The lessons he learnt and action plans derived from the lessons of the 2005 election are simple and least sophisticated. This time there is no taking a “calculated risk” as in 2005 by a slight opening of any door for democracy. The only game left in town now is how to hold something that can be referred to as an election and satisfy the donors, who insist that they need some kind of election to show for their tax payers that they are spending their money on and with an “elected” government. Meles doesn’t want this election if it is meant to be a democratic exercise. The Ethiopian people also do not want this kind of election and if asked will prefer to spend the millions of dollars spent on this sham exercise on buying food. Only these lords of our poverty want this election. And it has to be said clearly that it is these donors who insist on a useless exercise and get our people killed, dehumanized and turn their already miserable lives into hell.

Meles knows that he has the monopoly of violence in the country. He also knows the violence he so far perpetrated against the Ethiopian people did not make any dent on his relationship with his Western donors in whose honor we seem to be holding these disastrous periodic elections. Meles has stayed in power long enough to understand that his donors are full of hypocrisy, that none of them pursued their bluff to ask him to account for the crimes he committed in 2005. Deep down in his heart I think he despises them. He at least has seen them how they got all over poor Mughabe for killing a small fraction of the number of people he killed. Meles knows that as long as he gives them the illusion of a stable country, they don’t give a hoot for democracy or the rule of law. Armed with this knowledge, Meles has made a plan. It is a simple plan – move the election violence from the post election to the pre election period and spread it over time.

Any serious observers of Ethiopia can identify some six broad forms through which Meles Zenawi’s pre election violence is packaged and delivered to the Ethiopian people. Note that these tactics are applied separately or in any combination as the condition presents itself. Here are some of them:

1. The use of direct and blunt force: This involves direct application of force including killings and beating. This tactic is employed by spreading the violence over time and space so that the drip, drip, in blood does not make it look like a massacre. You can kill 100 people in a day at one location and not look good. If you do that over a period of 100 days in different places, you don’t look like you have even killed a fly. The reports of Human rights organizations on Ethiopia are replete with this kind of political crimes including torture and other degrading treatments. There are hundreds of people thrown in jail and forgotten. Torturing critics and suspects and forcing false confessions are rampant. We see them daily. Only our donors have closed their eyes.

2. Intimidation and harassment: Anybody suspected of supporting the opposition is harassed as anti people, anti development (as if anybody needs more poverty), pro terrorist, pro OLF, Pro Ginbot 7 etc. As I am writing this, I listened to a UDJ election candidate in Arba Gugu telling the voice of America that he was told by local officials that he cannot be an opposition candidate while drawing a salary from his government job and that some official vowed to cut his tongue and feed it to him if he doesn’t stop his candidacy. They have so far succeeded in intimidating independent journalists to self sensor or flee the country. Meles makes self fulfilling prophecies such as accusing the opposition of collaboration with terrorists, Shabia etc. This is an important method in TPLF’s tool box. It has been used in 2005 and had proven to work. Anyone remember the accusation of the CUD that it is like the Rwandan Interhamwe in 2005? When they took the CUD leaders to the kangaroo court, it was only time that they accuse them of genocide. Such methods are now being used both to intimidate and punish opponents. This time the opposition is accused of harboring ambitions of making this election like the elections in Kenya and Zimbabwe. You know, those bastards who demanded a coalition government and ruined the meaning of democracy!

3. Use the abject poverty in the country as a political tool to recruit supporters and coerce people into falling in line: Zenawi’s party has recruited millions of members by making membership a choice without alternative. If you want to rot in poverty and stay unemployed upon graduation you can refuse to fill out the membership forms. Discrimination in employment, promotion on the job based on membership to the party is being practiced in broad daylight. It has been declared that higher education is the exclusive preserve of EPRDF members. Many young people are agonizing over this predicament. Food aid, including food donated by our Western donors is openly used to coerce or lure hungry people into supporting Zenawi’s party.

4. Using the law and the courts to make it difficult for political opponents to operate and make free expressions of ideas difficult: This package includes the issuance of the draconian Anti Terrorism Law where even a kid who throws stones during a demonstration can be charged with, and sent to prison for 20 years. The Civil Society Law that virtually closed down all civic groups in the country, including those that do advocacy for women, children and the disabled. Meles understands that civil society is the pillar of democracy and he has to cut the pillars before embarking on an election. Zenawi has even written a proclamation regulating how international election observers should behave and work during the election. Ethiopians are eagerly waiting to see which groups would agree to monitor the election under this law. The recent accusation of many ethnic Amharas including an 80 year old man of staging a cup de tat and changing the charge into terrorism in the middle of the process is part of this package. In some situations the police and the courts are ordered to make the flimsiest of reasons to send opponents to prison. The most famous case under this tactic is the case of Birtukan Mideksa, the chairwoman of UDJ that Meles condemned to serve life for reasons that is boggling even the minds of some of his supporters. But Meles and his inner clique know what they are doing. They don’t want to deal with this courageous and intelligent young woman during and after the election that she was ready to challenge. Meles knows she is a love of the people. More importantly, she has that potent weapon of straddling two of the largest ethnic groups in Ethiopia. She has a mixed Oromo-Amhara ethnic heritage. This young articulate lady and expert in the law was very difficult to box in a political debate. Zenawi’s preferred to box her in the small room in Kaliti. He knows that the case against her cannot stand a minute in a country that has rudimentary practices of the rule of law. He faked an outrage out of nowhere and sent her to prison. Had he been serious about the violation the terms of the pardon, that he falsely accused her of, he would have thrown all of the released prisoners who said the same thing at one time or another including Hailu Shaul who told a BBC journalist during an interview that he signed the pardon letter under duress. Zenawi’s donors know very well why Bitrukan Mideksa, the icon of democracy and peaceful struggle in Ethiopia, is languishing in jail for over a year now. Meles knows that they cannot risk their relationship with him over the case of “one person”, as one anonymous Western diplomat in Addis Ababa is reported to have said recently. Birtukan remains a martyr for her people. The world is getting to know here more with each passing day. She has just begun rocking the consciousness of freedom loving people around the world. We, her brothers and sisters, will make sure that her name and cause is spreading across the globe like a wild fire. She will soon become an albatross on Meles’s neck and definitely the necks of the donors who, in the face of this gross injustice, are looking the other way. She is a victim of an election that is being carried out only to satisfy their need.

5. Keeping uninformed public by blocking information and news from the people. A perfect example is the jamming of the Voice of America and Drutche Welle Amharic services, all dissident radio stations from abroad including blocking Ethiopian democracy websites. When caught they don’t hesitate to make bold and shameless lies. Officials like Bereket Simon and Shimeles Kemal (it is amazing that his name rhymes with the word shameless) are unleashed to issue blunt denials (aynen ginbar yargew). These guys have amazing capacity to deny even if you catch them with their hands in the cookie jar. Consider this lie for example. “This is absolutely a sham,” Shimeles told CPJ, when asked about the Ethiopian government jamming radio stations. He added, “The Ethiopian government does not support the policy of restricting foreign broadcasting services in the country. Such practices are prohibited in our constitution”. Shameless Kemal also told CPJ that the allegations were part of a “smear campaign” by “opposition web sites in the Diaspora”. That he said all of these with a straight face is staggering. But isn’t it interesting that Meles spends millions of dollars on jamming radio programs broadcast by the US government while at the same time stretching his hand and receiving food aid and other assistances? Blatant lying has always been used by Meles and his cronies. Since we always cut them a lot of slack for lying, they normally think we have accepted it. We are dealing with a group of people who claim they have brought equality between Ethiopia’s ethnic groups when everybody in Ethiopia sees that 95% of the key commanding officers of the armed forces of the country are staffed by officers from Zenawi’s ethnic party, with the Oromo, the largest ethnic group in the country contributing Zero. Zenawi is the quintinsential Orwellian and his donors who insist on holding this sham election are willful participants against a crime being committed on 85 million people.

6. Control the Election infrastructure fully: This is the last line of defense. Meles has put the fox in charge of the henhouse. Under this group of tactics comes the staffing of all election personnel from the national election board down to the polling station by members of Meles Zenawi’s party and cadres. They have shamelessly declared that they are neutral while the opposition says they have proof that they are not.

The Endgame:

Meles Zenawi’s end game is making sure that the Ethiopian people are a broken and subdued people, incapable of putting up any resistance during and after the election and that the opposition is as broken and as weakened as possible. The goal is to make Election Day and the days that follow as tranquil as possible so that the congratulations from Barak Obama, the leaders of member nations of the European Union will be paraded in fanfare. If the post election time goes by without declaring emergency, killing and rounding up people and herding them in concentration camps, it will be lauded as a great improvement over the previous election by the donors. In the best traditions of Africa’s dictators, Meles Zenawi will be assured of staying at the helm of power for a quarter of a century and, who knows, even beyond.

But then again this assumes that the Ethiopian people may stay broken and suppressed and do not want their rights and dignity back. But what if they say “give me liberty or give me death” as many indicators seem to suggest? What if more and more Ethiopians begin sharing the views of an Ethiopian in Kenya who recently told a journalist, Lauren Gelfand, of World Politics Review “the West thinks stability in Ethiopia is more important than democracy, destabilizing is the only way to change”. Let’s hope the enablers of the misery of the Ethiopian people wake up before this view gets off the ground. Ethiopians are waiting with a thinning out patience. Careful eyes can already see that they are sitting on the fence.

(The writer can be reached at [email protected])

By Amanuel Biedemariam

On March 5, 2010, President Omar Hassen Al-Beshir of Sudan conducted a quick visit with his Eritrean counterpart President Isaias Afwerki in Asmara, Eritrea. At face value, it could appear easy for those who want to demonize and try to dismiss the significance of the visit. They can try minimizing it as insignificant because of President Omar Hassen Al-Beshir’s standing with the International Criminal Court (ICC) as well as the sanction measure in place against the people of Sudan. They could portray it as, two lightweights getting together to prop-up each other in a world stage. However, the visit, their meeting and the outright rejection by Sudan of the UNjust sanction resolution 1907 is sending a shockwaves for Ethiopia, IGAD and the USA. Here is why:

It Highlighted the Irrelevance of IGAD

The Inter Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) is a regional organization of East African states namely Eritrea, Sudan, Ethiopia, Uganda, Djibouti, Kenya and Somalia created to foster cooperation in the region. However, during the Bush era, IGAD was-taken over by Dr. Jendayie Frazer and turned into a tool for the US hegemonic agendas, and is currently serving US interest. Moreover, in Christmas of 2006, after Ethiopia invaded Somalia, breaking IGAD and UN rules at the behest of US with IGAD’s acquiescence, Eritrea withdrew her membership from the group in 2007. After that period, the onslaught of decisions against Eritrea by the IGAD continued with impunity and unabated until they pushed the sanction measure against Eritrea.

The deceitful cutthroat approach the organization embarked on behalf of the US will certainly doom its future because it has lost credibility. However, in the short term, the US managed to use it as a tool against Eritrea in an effort to give the sanction an African face so the US State Department can confidently say it is an “African Initiative.”

Fast forward to march of 2010: in a last ditch effort to stop President Hassen Al-Beshir from visiting Eritrea and to ask him to join the IGAD meeting in Kenya, IGAD members sent Kenyan foreign minister Moses Wetangula and Ethiopian minister of foreign affairs Seyoum Mesfin to Khartoum. If Sudan were to accept the invitation and come onboard, they thought, it would seal the fate of Eritrea. However, Sudan utterly rejected their attempts because it was against its own national interest. It is also clear to Sudan the manner in which the sanction measure IGAD passed against Eritrea could likely be, applied against Sudan at some point.

The utter rejection showed, Sudan is convinced IGAD is not working for the interest of countries involved and does not trust its members and rendered IGAD worthless. For all practical purposes, Sudan is unofficially out of IGAD, Somalia is unsettled as a nation to matter and Eritrea has officially suspended its membership. Thus, it is safe to say that IGAD is all but dead as organization because Sudan and Eritrea are key actors who are not active members. Therefore, IGAD will not be able to claim it is working for its intended mission with any credibility while a significant portion of its membership is inactive.

Renders US/UN Sanction Decision Worthless

In the past, any US authored international sanctions meant a death sentence to any nation that they imposed it on as witnessed in Iraq and many other places. However, when the UN uses sanctions on nations based on considerations other than international peace; by using fabrications; without evidences and transparent legal process, it loses its intended meanings and effectiveness. In addition, when they apply sanction measures to prop-up US and other Western nations interests, the resistance for it hastens and it looses grip because it no longer serves the greater good or its intended mission. As a result, international cooperation for it wanes.

That is what just happened in Iran with China flatly rejecting US efforts to impose stiffer sanctions on Iran even when US is trying to exempt Chinese companies because it is counter to their interest. That is exactly what just happened with the Sudan and Eritrea. In fact, it is serving the reverse of what it is intended to achieve by pressuring this countries into working together in a much stronger bond. Furthermore, it alienates the powers who want to alienate the sanctioned nations because of its over-use and abuse.

It is a Rejection to Meles Zenawi

For the first time, there has been a concerted effort by the West to demonize the TPLF in order to appear as if they are still for democracy and the good side of the Ethiopian people. For the first time, the BBC attacked the TPLF gangs in a way that hastens the hatred the people of Ethiopia have towards the junta. In addition, Meles is getting measured reprimand from his masters in the US (crocodile tears by Senator, Russ Feingold). However, that is nothing compared to the rejection by the Sudan.

On February 9, 2010, Meles Zenawi met with General William Ward, commander of U.S. Africa Command, in Addis Ababa, and on February 17, 2010 Meles sent five [in reality US donated] helicopters to bolster peacekeeping missions in the Sudan. The US is key ally and supporter of the South Sudan. The alliance of South Sudan and the US and US military involvement with Meles is certain to have turned off Sudanese authorities. As usual, Meles is trying to eat with every side of his mouth. However, that lack of principle has finally paid of in turning the Sudan away from Meles altogether.

Time will tell what the ramifications of Sudanese rejection would mean to Ethio-Sudan Relations while the TPLF is in power. The TPLF tries to brag about their “Good relation and economic cooperation” but TPLF’s greed and deep political prostitution have certainly turned off Sudan. That means Sudan is working tightly with Eritrea as they pursue mutual security interest and all that it entails as evidenced by President Beshir’s recent visit to Asmara.

This is a clear indication that all the games Meles played have reached its culmination point. Meles wanted to play a double agent, by playing US agent in South Sudan as well as Darfur while at the same time trying to maintain excellent relations with Sudan. This turned out to be a conundrum of the highest form because for the first time, Meles must choose to either remain a US agent or pursue a major national interest and work with Beshir. He remained a US agent because he has no choice or say in this matter! In the process however, Meles jeopardized the interests of the people of Ethiopia and particularly people of Tigray with the Sudanese because Sudan is the KEY trading partner and a lifeline.

Eritrea and Sudan mean more to the people of Ethiopia than US interests in the region would mean to Ethiopians. The people of Ethiopia need to live in peace with the people in the region for them to thrive through trade and cooperation. Meles Zenawi is working against the interest of the people of Ethiopia and the region as he pursues US interests. That has certainly alienated him and his clique for good no matter how skillfully he tries to spin things in his favor and; jeopardized the livelihood of the people of Tigray in the process. Sudan and Eritrea (nations with ports) can shut down any products from passing to Tigray thus sanctioning Ethiopia in reverse.

The onslaught of bad news for the TPLF junta is an indication of a certain doom. After all, Meles is not as powerful as their masters would have us believe, just a yes man!

It Bolsters Chinese Position in the Region

The US has lost all credibility in the Horn of Africa by overwhelming majority of the people in the region for a number of reasons. Firstly, the US pursues its national interests at the expense of the people in the region. They ignore the people in the region and try to run US affairs using dictators that are not accountable to the people, ala Meles. Secondly, the US has incompetent diplomatic core that are belligerent and short sighted. They lack understanding of the political intricacies and fail to understand the consequences of their poor diplomatic manipulations and threatening postures. They pursue ill-calculated policies that work against US interests. For example, Ambassador Susan Rice failed to anticipate what would happen to IGAD after using it to seed the foundation of the sanction measure she hatched and implemented against Eritrea. In the least, she underestimated how it will affect Ethiopia. She failed to see how Sudan could counter. She and the Administration of which she is part of failed in a major way to see how China could take advantage of the “Blind leading the blind” policy of successive US Administrations regarding the Horn of Africa. Moreover, Susan Rice totally exposed her ignorance, by undermining the political brilliance, wit and willingness of Eritrean people to stand against her ill-conceived agendas.

The US has bet all its eggs on Meles Zenawi. In an effort to make Ethiopia the anchor state in the region, they put all their efforts on Addis Ababa firstly, because it is headquarters of the AU and secondly, because Meles Zenawi will do anything on command.

Furthermore, the people in the Horn of Africa have had it, they are fed up with US antiques. They want peace, development and cooperation, which the US will not entertain. The US, by betting entirely on Meles Zenawi, has lost a great swath of the Horn territories to China without China having to lift a finger. All the Chinese have to do is be the good people and help the countries exploit their resources peacefully and help them build their infrastructures. It is a much better alternative than what the US and the Western powers currently offer that is; the abuse of people, death and destruction in the guise of war on terror and, in the name of freedom and democracy.

The Chinese abstained from voting for sanctions against Eritrea and gave themselves a wiggling room to get out of it as they have with the Sudan. By now, it is clear that the sanction measure the US put in place against Sudan is not having any affects in the Sudan because China is a good ally and a major trading partner of Sudan. Any harm to the regime in Sudan can work against the interests of China. Therefore, US have not been able to penetrate Sudan regardless of the political maneuvers. That means the US is not in Sudan; and by sanctioning Eritrea, the US has just given China a clear path into Eritrea. That means China has no competition in a large swath of African territories that is full of oil and other natural resources. Where is the brilliance of team Obama in this? Instead, they are maintaining the failed Bush policies of propping up a puppet minority regime in Ethiopia; failed to implement legal border decision and by pushing the UNjust sanction measure on fabricated and trumped-up grounds.

It is disappointing to see successive US administrations trying to convince the American people that they are actually working for the hearts and minds of the people in a given region after they have cultivated hatred against the US by pursuing ill-conceived policies for decades.

To make matters worse for US position in the region, the fall of the minority clique in Ethiopia is imminent and would not be a peaceful transition contrary to newfound concern (crocodile tears) by Carter Center and Senator Russ Feingold for “free and fair election.” No election in Ethiopia can bring the kind of change Ethiopians can-believe-in while the minority clique is in power. Moreover, when that change comes, the Ethiopian people will not forget US alliance with Meles. Moreover, if Ethiopia falls into the hands of leaders that do not favor US position in the region, the US will be out of Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Sudan. This could certainly have a spiraling affect southward. That is all possible because incompetent US politicians have played zero sum games for decades by betting against the people in the region. That is very dangerous and impossible for the US to control once it is on the offing. In other words, US need to change its approach quickly in order to regain credibility and footing if there is a taker.

It Nullifies the Sanction Measure

No matter how tight, without total support of the sanction measure by all countries neighboring Eritrea and while the Chinese are in full support of Sudan; the UNjust sanction 1907 is null-and-void, irrelevant, ineffective and just propaganda exercises. The rejection by Sudan is a slap to the architects of the sanction, US, Ethiopia and IGAD. It is actually a blessing in disguise for Sudan and Eritrea because it strengthens their bilateral ties, enhances their cross border trade and strengthens people-to-people bonds. A good example of this is the fact that Sudanese are flocking to honeymoon and to tour Eritrea. It will also enhance the security cooperation and all that it entails. In addition, it clarifies the nature of alliances in the region for friends and foe.

Concluding Remarks

The US went the distance to give the sanction measure an African face as if the majority of African States had an interest on Eritrean sanction. The reality however, all African States know Ethiopia openly invaded Somalia. They know the US openly conducted and continues to operate militarily in Somalia illegally. Africans also know fully, the war between Eritrea and Ethiopia – the demarcation that followed based on colonial treaties, is sacrosanct to African boundaries. Africans know that Ethiopia continues to, openly reject international law. This is unconscionable, un-American and UNjust.

Yet, the Obama Administration contrary to campaign promises to engage is choosing deception. The American Ambassador at the UN, Susan Rice, after giving the Eritrean people the gift of Sanction on Christmas Eve turned around and said, “This is an African initiative.” Really? While that claim aimed to appease the international community from asking what in the hell is going on, it exposed the mediocrity of this half-baked politician.

Susan Rice forgot her race, forgot President Obama’s African American heritage and the history of African Americans. Because for sure, if it is up-to the White majority, Black Americans would still be slaves. Therefore, Susan Rice needs to stop deceiving herself because this is American initiative hatched, campaigned-for and implemented by Ambassador Susan Rice and Susan Rice alone. This is a continuation of the Bush Administration policies led by Dr. Jendayie Frazer another black educator! Dr Frazer pursued the placing of Eritrea into a list of Nations that Sponsor Terror and US congress rebuffed it because it was a farce. However, President Obama was able to subvert the process by making the UN Ambassador a cabinet position and making it a foreign policy matter under control of the president thus giving Rice full authority.

Susan Rice achieved what she wanted and set-off a dangerous political process that Africans need to reject: ugly sausage-making in a continent fraught by corrupted stooges of foreign powers.

At the same time, the incompetence of Ambassador Susan Rice has exposed the integrity of US as judicious arbiter of international matters. It brought to question the integrity of the UNSC and the UN. More importantly, it tarnished the UN emblem and defiled the UN brand. Eritreans in the process of fighting repeated injustices have effectively re-branded the blue with green wreath UN-designed flag into a sign of bloodiness and injustices.

The Obama Administration needs to reevaluate its position of African matters and make a carefully planned policy adjustment. They need to stop listening to people who are interested on power only by riding on the backs of the US by truly looking at the interest of the people and, at least, try to bring “Change We Can Believe in”. First, repeal the UNjust sanction because it will not serve the interest of the US in fact it will do the opposite.

(The writer can be reached at [email protected])