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Zmeselo
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Posts: 35028
Joined: 30 Jul 2010, 20:43

Canada revives military co-operation with Ethiopia despite genocide allegations

Post by Zmeselo » 14 Mar 2025, 17:45



Canada revives military co-operation with Ethiopia despite genocide allegations

Geoffrey York Africa Bureau Chief Johannesburg

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/world/a ... legations/

14 march 2025


Ethiopian government soldiers ride in the back of a truck on a road near Agula, in the Tigray region of northern Ethiopia, on May 8, 2021. Ben Curtis/The Associated Press

Canada is resuming its military co-operation with Ethiopia, just months after the African country’s armed forces were accused of genocide and other crimes in the war in Tigray region.

The federal government suspended its defence collaboration with Ethiopia three years ago because of the Tigray war in the north of the country, where the Ethiopian military was widely reported to have killed thousands of civilians.

Now it is reviving the relationship, bringing Ethiopia back into Canada’s Military Training and Co-operation Program (MTCP). Independent human-rights experts are questioning why Canada would restore its links to an army that continues to be implicated in the killing of civilians with drone attacks and artillery bombardments.

More than 60 countries participate in Canada’s military co-operation program, which is aimed at building military capacity in countries that don’t belong to NATO.

An internal memo by a senior Canadian diplomat, seen by The Globe and Mail, said the revived collaboration was disclosed last month in a meeting between Canadian officials and Ethiopian Defence Minister Aisha Mohammed. It said Canada will focus on “non-lethal” co-operation.

Canada believes Ethiopia has made “initial progress” on peace initiatives, human-rights accountability and transitional justice for atrocities in Tigray and in current conflicts in the Amhara and Oromia regions, the memo said.


Ottawa suspended defence collaboration with Ethiopia three years ago because of the Tigray war in the north of the country, but it is now restoring military co-operation and bringing the country back into Canada’s Military Training and Co-operation Program. A Canadian soldier on a U.N. peacekeeping mission in Ethiopia monitors the redeployment of Ethiopian tanks leaving from an Eritrean on Feb. 20, 2001. PEDRO UGARTE/Getty Images

By restoring military co-operation, Canada would have a new entry point for engaging Ethiopia on human-rights issues, while also boosting its military influence in a country that remains a key geopolitical player in the region, the memo said.

But it also describes Canadian concerns about the continuing civilian casualties from Ethiopian air strikes in Amhara and Oromia. Even as the Canadian officials were meeting the Ethiopian Defence Minister last month, there were reports of a drone strike in Amhara that killed 16 civilians, including several children, the memo said. The air strikes in the region have declined in recent months but remain persistent, it said.

In addition to the air strikes, Ethiopia’s military has killed and injured civilians in Amhara with indiscriminate fire from artillery guns, according to an investigation by The Globe, published in December.

Another concern is a potential looming war between Ethiopia and Eritrea, with the Ethiopian military reportedly moving a significant number of troops and heavy weapons toward the Eritrean border in recent days.

Andrée-Anne Poulin, a spokesperson for the Department of National Defence, said Canada is offering only “small-scale training activities” to Ethiopia for the time being.
It was our assessment that reintegration into the MTCP would be more likely to encourage and support progress and improvement within Ethiopian Armed Forces than continued exclusion from the program,
she told The Globe in response to questions.
Canada regularly assesses compliance with the Program’s terms and conditions and reserves the right to suspend engagement with countries that cease to meet the membership criteria of its Program.
Former Canadian justice minister Allan Rock, who contributed to a report last June that found strong evidence of the Ethiopian military’s involvement in acts of genocide against Tigrayans, criticized the Canadian decision to resume military co-operation with Ethiopia.

It is “offensive and completely unacceptable” for Canada to revive its defence collaboration without insisting on accountability for past crimes and evidence that the atrocities have stopped, Mr. Rock told The Globe.
How are we to know that Ethiopia’s military, strengthened by its collaboration with Canada, will not simply resume its aggressive and unlawful harassment and abuses against its Tigrayan population?
he asked.
We should be before the International Court of Justice seeking a declaration that the Ethiopian government failed in its legal obligation to prevent a genocide in Tigray,
said Mr. Rock, who is also a former law professor at the University of Ottawa.


A girl carries her belongings on her flees battles between the Ethiopian National Defence Force and pro-Tigray People Libration Front rebels, in Zarima, Ethiopia, on Sept. 16, 2021. AMANUEL SILESHI/AFP/Getty Images

He was among dozens of scholars who contributed to a 120-page report by the U.S.-based New Lines Institute last June, accusing Ethiopia of targeting civilians with mass killings and starvation tactics during the Tigray war, which began in 2020 and ended with a peace agreement two years later.

The report cited estimates by researchers that the Tigray war caused the deaths of more than 400,000 soldiers and up to 300,000 civilians, making it the deadliest war of the 21st century.

Sarah Teich, a lawyer specializing in international criminal and human-rights law who has advised a Canadian Tigrayan association on seeking justice for atrocity crimes, said any resumption of Canada’s military co-operation with Ethiopia would be
a disturbing development.
Recent reports show that Ethiopia’s military is continuing to commit human-rights abuses and international crimes in Tigray and elsewhere, she told The Globe.
Justice and accountability have been virtually non-existent,
she said.
Even if the Ethiopian government has made initial progress, which would be news to me, not nearly enough has been done to justify Canada’s resumption of military co-operation.
Kyle Matthews, executive director of the Montreal Institute for Global Security, said Canada should be cautious about co-operating with the Ethiopian military.
Ethiopia has multiple conflicts going on within it, where we have documented proof of civilians being targeted by the Ethiopian military,
he told The Globe.
No one has faced justice for this, no one has been held accountable. Any training, if it does take place, should focus on respecting international humanitarian law and the Geneva Conventions and the protection of civilians.

Zmeselo
Senior Member+
Posts: 35028
Joined: 30 Jul 2010, 20:43

Re: Canada revives military co-operation with Ethiopia despite genocide allegations

Post by Zmeselo » 14 Mar 2025, 18:00





Donald Trump
Sudan rejects US request to discuss taking in Palestinians under Trump’s Gaza plan

US and Israel reportedly contacted officials in Sudan, Somalia and Somaliland

Jason Burke in Jerusalem, and Mark Townsend

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... -gaza-plan

Fri 14 Mar 2025

Sudanese officials say they have rejected a request from the US to discuss taking in Palestinians displaced from Gaza under Donald Trump’s plan to turn the territory into a
Riviera on the Mediterranean.
According to an Associated Press report, the US and Israel contacted officials in Sudan, Somalia and Somaliland about resettling uprooted Palestinians. The contacts suggested both countries are determined to press ahead with Trump’s proposal despite international outrage and massive practical difficulties – or at least use the plan to force other actors in the region to come up with their own ideas for Gaza when hostilities finally end.

Two officials from war-torn Sudan https://www.theguardian.com/world/sudan confirmed to the Associated Press that the Trump administration had approached the military-led government about accepting Palestinians.

One said the contacts began even before Trump’s inauguration with offers of military assistance in the army’s fight against the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, assistance with postwar reconstruction and other incentives. Both officials said the Sudanese government rejected the idea.
This suggestion was immediately rebuffed,
said one official.
No one opened this matter again.
Ahmed Moalim Fiqi, Somalia’s foreign minister, did not confirm or deny any requests from Israel or the US but said Somalia https://www.theguardian.com/world/somalia rejected any plan that would involve the use of its territory for the resettlement of other populations or would undermine the Palestinian people’s right to live peacefully on their ancestral land.

Under Trump’s plan, Gaza’s more than 2 million residents would be permanently displaced to allow massive reconstruction as a high-end “international” leisure and business destination. Experts said any forced resettlement was illegal under international law. https://www.theguardian.com/law/2025/fe ... ay-experts

Initially, Egypt and Jordan were suggested as destinations for displaced Palestinians, but both strenuously opposed the plan.

Palestinians in Gaza have also rejected the proposal and dismiss Israeli claims that the departures would be voluntary. Arab nations have offered an alternative multibillion-dollar reconstruction plan that would leave the Palestinians in place.

The White House says Trump
stands by his vision.
Speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss a secret diplomatic initiative, US and Israeli officials also described to the Associated Press news agency contacts with Somalia and the breakaway Somaliland region. They said it was unclear how much progress the efforts made or at what level the discussions took place.

Outreach from the US and Israel to the three potential destinations began last month, days after Trump floated the Gaza plan, according to the US officials, who said that Israel was taking the lead in the discussions.

Israeli officials and the White House have declined to comment on the efforts. The offices of Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, and Ron Dermer, the Israeli minister who has been leading Israel’s postwar planning, also had no comment.

Netanyahu has hailed Trump’s proposal as a “bold vision”, while Bezalel Smotrich, Israel’s far-right finance minister and a longtime advocate of what he calls “voluntary” emigration of Palestinians, has recently said that Israel was working to identify countries to take in Palestinians.

International legal experts have told the Guardian that, given the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, any such emigration could be unlawful and potentially constitute a war crime.


Palestinians receive food cooked by a charity kitchen in Rafah. Photograph: Hatem Khaled/Reuters

Sudan was among the four Abraham accord nations that agreed to normalise diplomatic relations with Israel in 2020 but was plunged almost immediately into a civil war marked by widespread atrocities, including ethnically motivated killing and rape, according to the UN and rights groups.

US officials, seemingly aware that few Palestinians would be keen to relocate to such a precarious state, attempted to sweeten any deal by offering a range of incentives to Sudan’s government, including an offer of assistance to the army in its fight against the RSF which, in turn, is backed by the United Arab Emirates, a significant US ally.

The proposal, if accepted, would have meant the US backing a side it has accused of war crimes and joining the same side in the conflict as Russia, at a time when Vladimir Putin is contemplating the American proposal for a ceasefire in Ukraine.

Before the revelations, Sudan had already indicated it would not entertain any attempt to resettle Palestinians in a country coping with the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. The head of Sudan’s army and de facto president, Gen Abdel Fattah al-Burhan – subject of the US sanctions – last week told a summit in Cairo that his country “categorically rejects” any plan that aims to transfer
the brotherly Palestinians from their land under whatever justification or name.
The Guardian has contacted Sudan’s ministry of foreign affairs for comment.

Somaliland, a territory of more than 3 million people in the Horn of Africa, https://www.theguardian.com/world/africa seceded from Somalia more than 30 years ago, but it is not internationally recognised as an independent state.

An American official involved in the efforts confirmed to the Associated Press that the US was
having a quiet conversation with Somaliland about a range of areas where they can be helpful to the US in exchange for recognition.
An official in Somaliland, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to talk to the media, said his government had not been approached and was not in talks about taking in Palestinians.

Somalia is an even more unlikely destination. Mogadishu has been a vocal supporter of the Palestinians, and joined the recent Arab summit that rejected Trump’s plan. A Somali official told the Associated Press the country had not been approached about taking in Palestinians from Gaza and there had been no discussions about it.

In recent years, Somalia has developed strong ties with Arab states and with Turkey. Much of the country is ruled by al-Shabaab, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/ ... in-somalia an extremist Islamist militia allied with al-Qaida.

ethiopianunity
Member+
Posts: 9960
Joined: 30 Apr 2007, 17:38

Re: Canada revives military co-operation with Ethiopia despite genocide allegations

Post by ethiopianunity » 14 Mar 2025, 23:25

The U. S under Trump is going the right direction, it is disturbing that pp govt is embracing the mother of all world chaos, English Crown that includes Canada. Ethiopia is going dangerously to the wrong direction instead of following Trumps policy.

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