Ethiopia: Isaias Afewerki and Abiy Ahmed through the prism of the Ukraine conflict (The Africa Report)
Posted: 15 Mar 2022, 08:28
Russia’s premeditated aggression against Ukraine has justifiably provoked global outrage. Russia’s relentless assault on Ukraine violates the cardinal organising principle of the international system: state sovereignty. In launching brutal, multi-pronged assaults on Ukraine, Russia has also violated one of the core tenets of the United Nations (UN) charter: the prohibition on the use of force for something other than legitimate self-defense (Article 2(4)) or in service of collective security (Article 51).
The international community’s reaction to the invasion has been swift. The international community has condemned Russia’s aggression, reaffirmed the principle of non-interference and the prohibition on the use of offensive force, imposed wide-ranging sanctions on Russia and provided Ukraine with military support. A UN General Assembly resolution condemning Russia for its aggression passed with the support of 141 countries.
Five countries voted against the resolution, officially sanctioning Russia’s norm-shattering invasion that undermines the rules-based liberal international order. One of the five countries that blessed Russia’s aggression is Eritrea, led by the long-time dictator Isaias Afewerki.
Isaias is contemptuous of the rules-based global order
Eritrea’s vote supporting Russia’s aggression is neither shocking nor surprising. Eritrea has a long track-record of launching unprovoked attacks against its neighbours. Since its independence three decades ago, Eritrea has been involved in international conflicts with the Sudan, Djibouti, Yemen and Ethiopia.
The idea of peaceful coexistence with neighbouring countries does not strike the authoritarian Isaias as a meaningful maxim worth living by. Even when it is not a direct participant in a conflict, Eritrea provides material, diplomatic and political support to various groups engaged in some form of armed resistance against its adversaries. For this rogue state, coming up with new ways to destabilise the region is what passes for statecraft.
For its repeated belligerence, Eritrea has been on the receiving end of numerous sanctions. The international community, with United States leadership, has by and large ostracised Eritrea. A predilection for aggression and coercive diplomacy are baked into the Eritrean dictator’s political DNA.
In fact, since November 2020, Eritrea has been a direct participant in the Abiy regime’s genocidal war on Tigray, inflicting unimaginable atrocities on the people of Tigray. The Eritrean military as an institution has plundered private and public wealth, massacred civilians, used sexual violence as a tool of war, deliberately destroyed socioeconomic institutions and used hunger as a tool of war.
Although Isaias has suffered widespread international opprobrium for his genocidal role in Tigray, the international community has not imposed sufficiently robust sanctions to compel him to alter course. Now, Isaias has publicly supported a war of aggression against a UN member state. Standing up for the victims of aggression would run counter to his basic nature as a political gambler and perennial troublemaker.
Furthermore, the international community has amassed a large body of incontrovertible evidence establishing Isaias’s destructive role in prolonging and intensifying the Tigray conflict. As a result, for Isaias to support Ukrainians in the face of wanton aggression by Russia would serve to bring into sharp focus his own role in the genocidal assault on the people of Tigray.
READ MORE Ethiopia: To achieve peace, take Eritrea out of the game
As the chief architects of the genocidal war on Tigray, Isaias and Abiy have repeatedly violated the core tenets of international humanitarian law and international human rights law. The international community’s failure to impose robust punitive sanctions on this authoritarian duo has undoubtedly undermined the basic architecture of global governance, creating a norm-shattering precedent that it is okay for powerful countries to gang up against supposedly nettlesome, weaker nations.
By not standing up to these local bullies whose chief preoccupation at the moment is coming up with creative ways to exterminate the people of Tigray, the international community has been complicit in the incremental erosion of the basic rules and norms governing the conduct of states within their domestic jurisdictions as well as in their international relations If tyrants are allowed to violate the basic rules of the international order, the system begins to fall apart at the seams.
Different paths
In large part as a result of the cumulative erosion of these rules and norms, a military behemoth – Russia – is seeking to strip a sovereign country –Ukraine – of its independence simply because its people decided to take a different path from that which Russia chose for them.
Next time the international community has difficulty making up its mind about who precisely Isaias is, it should bear in mind that he officially and unabashedly supported Russia’s naked aggression against a sovereign country that has done nothing but chart its own peaceful path. Isaias, through his various mouthpieces, has sought to justify his support for Russian aggression in Orwellian terms, arguing that his vote against a resolution condemning aggression was in fact a vote for peace, to borrow a phrase from a US diplomat, out-Orwelling Orwell in the process.
READ MORE Ethiopia: Accelerating reforms by taking on new debt
Isaias’s cynical rhetoric is intelligible in the context of the grudge he has been nursing against the Western world, exemplified by the United States, for his country’s ostracism and sanctions. Given this resentment, supporting Russian aggression is his way of avenging perceived or real wrongs he supposedly suffered at the hands of the West.
That the West might be opposed to Russia’s brazen invasion of Ukraine might have to do with principles is of no consequence to Isaias. What is more, that his grudge match with the West should not come at the expense of the victims of aggression is neither here nor there to Isaias.
Appealing ideas
Furthermore, the West, as the proponent of liberal-democratic ideals has little appeal to the authoritarian Isaias. Isaias has always expressed contempt for democratic self-governance, in which power resides in the people, which they exercise via their representative legislatures.
He has ruled Eritrea for three decades without so much as holding even deeply flawed elections that are the mark of electoral authoritarian regimes around the world or even a constitution. In this regard, Vladimir Putin’s disdain for democracy, deep hostility towards the liberal-democratic West and imperial ambitions fits perfectly with Isaias’s deeply-held authoritarian worldview.
Finally, Isaias is adept at political brinksmanship. He stands eyeball to eyeball with his adversaries and waits for them to blink first. During the first few months of the war on Tigray, the Eritrean army committed some of the most brutal crimes against Tigrayans imaginable.
And yet, while the international community repeatedly threatened some unannounced adverse action against his government, Isaias’s military pressed ahead with its vicious rampage in Tigray. Eritrea’s brutality in Tigray appears to have risen in direct proportion to the international community’s rhetorical condemnation of its actions. Unfortunately, words mean nothing in the face of a determined enemy committed to exterminating the people of Tigray through violence and starvation.
READ MORE Ethiopia: Afar region the new front in the civil war as Tigray violence subsides
In large part due to the failure to penalise Isaias for his destructive role in Tigray, there is no end in sight to Isaias’s commitment to destroying Tigray, as he has intensified his de facto alliance with the expansionist Amhara elites against Tigray. His military has helped train tens of thousands of Amhara paramilitary troops in Western Tigray, which the Amhara regional government has illegally annexed. The presence of the Eritrean army in Western Tigray also continues to underwrite the annexation of a constitutionally established Tigrayan territory.
Continue reading https://www.theafricareport.com/183840/ ... -conflict/
The international community’s reaction to the invasion has been swift. The international community has condemned Russia’s aggression, reaffirmed the principle of non-interference and the prohibition on the use of offensive force, imposed wide-ranging sanctions on Russia and provided Ukraine with military support. A UN General Assembly resolution condemning Russia for its aggression passed with the support of 141 countries.
Five countries voted against the resolution, officially sanctioning Russia’s norm-shattering invasion that undermines the rules-based liberal international order. One of the five countries that blessed Russia’s aggression is Eritrea, led by the long-time dictator Isaias Afewerki.
Isaias is contemptuous of the rules-based global order
Eritrea’s vote supporting Russia’s aggression is neither shocking nor surprising. Eritrea has a long track-record of launching unprovoked attacks against its neighbours. Since its independence three decades ago, Eritrea has been involved in international conflicts with the Sudan, Djibouti, Yemen and Ethiopia.
The idea of peaceful coexistence with neighbouring countries does not strike the authoritarian Isaias as a meaningful maxim worth living by. Even when it is not a direct participant in a conflict, Eritrea provides material, diplomatic and political support to various groups engaged in some form of armed resistance against its adversaries. For this rogue state, coming up with new ways to destabilise the region is what passes for statecraft.
For its repeated belligerence, Eritrea has been on the receiving end of numerous sanctions. The international community, with United States leadership, has by and large ostracised Eritrea. A predilection for aggression and coercive diplomacy are baked into the Eritrean dictator’s political DNA.
In fact, since November 2020, Eritrea has been a direct participant in the Abiy regime’s genocidal war on Tigray, inflicting unimaginable atrocities on the people of Tigray. The Eritrean military as an institution has plundered private and public wealth, massacred civilians, used sexual violence as a tool of war, deliberately destroyed socioeconomic institutions and used hunger as a tool of war.
Although Isaias has suffered widespread international opprobrium for his genocidal role in Tigray, the international community has not imposed sufficiently robust sanctions to compel him to alter course. Now, Isaias has publicly supported a war of aggression against a UN member state. Standing up for the victims of aggression would run counter to his basic nature as a political gambler and perennial troublemaker.
Furthermore, the international community has amassed a large body of incontrovertible evidence establishing Isaias’s destructive role in prolonging and intensifying the Tigray conflict. As a result, for Isaias to support Ukrainians in the face of wanton aggression by Russia would serve to bring into sharp focus his own role in the genocidal assault on the people of Tigray.
READ MORE Ethiopia: To achieve peace, take Eritrea out of the game
As the chief architects of the genocidal war on Tigray, Isaias and Abiy have repeatedly violated the core tenets of international humanitarian law and international human rights law. The international community’s failure to impose robust punitive sanctions on this authoritarian duo has undoubtedly undermined the basic architecture of global governance, creating a norm-shattering precedent that it is okay for powerful countries to gang up against supposedly nettlesome, weaker nations.
By not standing up to these local bullies whose chief preoccupation at the moment is coming up with creative ways to exterminate the people of Tigray, the international community has been complicit in the incremental erosion of the basic rules and norms governing the conduct of states within their domestic jurisdictions as well as in their international relations If tyrants are allowed to violate the basic rules of the international order, the system begins to fall apart at the seams.
Different paths
In large part as a result of the cumulative erosion of these rules and norms, a military behemoth – Russia – is seeking to strip a sovereign country –Ukraine – of its independence simply because its people decided to take a different path from that which Russia chose for them.
Next time the international community has difficulty making up its mind about who precisely Isaias is, it should bear in mind that he officially and unabashedly supported Russia’s naked aggression against a sovereign country that has done nothing but chart its own peaceful path. Isaias, through his various mouthpieces, has sought to justify his support for Russian aggression in Orwellian terms, arguing that his vote against a resolution condemning aggression was in fact a vote for peace, to borrow a phrase from a US diplomat, out-Orwelling Orwell in the process.
READ MORE Ethiopia: Accelerating reforms by taking on new debt
Isaias’s cynical rhetoric is intelligible in the context of the grudge he has been nursing against the Western world, exemplified by the United States, for his country’s ostracism and sanctions. Given this resentment, supporting Russian aggression is his way of avenging perceived or real wrongs he supposedly suffered at the hands of the West.
That the West might be opposed to Russia’s brazen invasion of Ukraine might have to do with principles is of no consequence to Isaias. What is more, that his grudge match with the West should not come at the expense of the victims of aggression is neither here nor there to Isaias.
Appealing ideas
Furthermore, the West, as the proponent of liberal-democratic ideals has little appeal to the authoritarian Isaias. Isaias has always expressed contempt for democratic self-governance, in which power resides in the people, which they exercise via their representative legislatures.
He has ruled Eritrea for three decades without so much as holding even deeply flawed elections that are the mark of electoral authoritarian regimes around the world or even a constitution. In this regard, Vladimir Putin’s disdain for democracy, deep hostility towards the liberal-democratic West and imperial ambitions fits perfectly with Isaias’s deeply-held authoritarian worldview.
Finally, Isaias is adept at political brinksmanship. He stands eyeball to eyeball with his adversaries and waits for them to blink first. During the first few months of the war on Tigray, the Eritrean army committed some of the most brutal crimes against Tigrayans imaginable.
And yet, while the international community repeatedly threatened some unannounced adverse action against his government, Isaias’s military pressed ahead with its vicious rampage in Tigray. Eritrea’s brutality in Tigray appears to have risen in direct proportion to the international community’s rhetorical condemnation of its actions. Unfortunately, words mean nothing in the face of a determined enemy committed to exterminating the people of Tigray through violence and starvation.
READ MORE Ethiopia: Afar region the new front in the civil war as Tigray violence subsides
In large part due to the failure to penalise Isaias for his destructive role in Tigray, there is no end in sight to Isaias’s commitment to destroying Tigray, as he has intensified his de facto alliance with the expansionist Amhara elites against Tigray. His military has helped train tens of thousands of Amhara paramilitary troops in Western Tigray, which the Amhara regional government has illegally annexed. The presence of the Eritrean army in Western Tigray also continues to underwrite the annexation of a constitutionally established Tigrayan territory.
Continue reading https://www.theafricareport.com/183840/ ... -conflict/
