by Ann Fitz-Gerald, Hugh Segal. Originally published on Policy Options
June 11, 2021
As G7 leaders gather in Cornwall, and based on apparent and emergent American policy on Africa, Canada should not blindly follow the U.S. lead. Doing so would undermine our democratic values, our commitment to Black Lives Matter, and the global commitment to anti-oppression, democracy and fairness.
The Biden administration deserves credit for its
pledge to seek a more balanced foreign policy, more collaborative and less
prone to dismissive approaches to Africa than the erratic and clearly racist
Trump approach to Africa, Muslims and Hispanics in general.
But in attempting to rebalance, the U.S. must be
particularly vigilant against one-sided, diaspora-driven lobbying and media
campaigns, such as those that have been launched by the terrorist Tigray
People’s Liberation Front (TPLF). The TPLF is now out of office, and seeks to
destabilize democratic and federal Ethiopia through sporadic violence and a
false flag self-portrayal as the victim in an internal conflict, which its own
unsolicited military attack on federal forces initiated. At the same time,
however, the Ethiopian government has been so circumspect and reticent in its
strategic communications that it has practically surrendered the PR high ground
to a sophisticated propaganda network. It must now focus its efforts on being
open and candid about the remaining deficiencies in aid, medical care and
infrastructure, as well as on diligent diplomacy to win back old Western
allies.
U.S. policy in Horn of Africa lacks logic
Current U.S. policy in the Horn of Africa lacks
logic and, if left unchallenged, will only steer regional countries like
Ethiopia, Sudan and South Sudan back to historic levels of poverty and
conflict. These unnecessary results not only fuel destabilization, but also
support rebel attacks on sovereign territory that can have disastrous impacts
on the Horn of Africa region. This also sets the stage for a far more
dangerous proxy battle
with China.
After the West declared Sudan a terrorist country
and imposed harsh economic sanctions lasting 20 years, the Sudanese economy was
badly hurt with the resulting immeasurable human suffering. The justification
for this was always a vague finger-pointing toward Osama bin Laden, despite the
fact that bin Laden was nowhere near Sudan and turned up later in Pakistan,
where, thankfully, SEAL
Team 6 assassinated him in 2011.
The U.S. lifted the sanctions in 2020. Months
before, Sudan
praised Ethiopia’s prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, for brokering an
interim civilian-military transitional government. During the same year, Sudan’s
water minister also confirmed that the country was barely using
one-third of its legal share of the Nile River. He stressed the need for water
regulation to enable Sudan to get greater access to this water.
Meanwhile, to placate Egypt’s concerns over
Ethiopia’s development of its Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), the U.S.
urged a closer alliance between Sudan and Egypt, resulting in Sudan’s shift in
position on the GERD. Egypt has been bellicose toward Ethiopia since Ahmed
unveiled plans to complete the filling of the GERD to help lift its 110 million
people out of poverty. In a bizarre move, Egypt – the nation that under Gamal
Nasser once tore up its contracts with colonial Britain and France over the
Suez Canal – now prefers to wave old colonial treaties in the air. But these
granted no rights to Ethiopia for the 85 per cent of Nile waters it hosts.
As an important partner to the U.S. Middle East
peace plan, Egypt has benefitted from added American military assistance
(US$50 billion) and US$30 billion in economic assistance. No doubt this
will be further bolstered following Joe Biden’s recent
public thanks to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi for his
country’s diplomatic response to the recent Palestinian-Israeli violence.
U.S. moves to isolate Ethiopia
As the GERD fills, the U.S. keeps
moving aggressively to isolate Ethiopia.
The State Department seemingly looks away as Sudan
supports rebels who spread terror in the
western Ethiopian region of Benishangul-Gumuz, ignoring its aggression
toward, and displacement of, Ethiopian
farming communities along the al-Fashqa border region with Ethiopia’s
Amhara regional state. Only five days after the Tigray conflict erupted and
made world headlines, Sudan had severely compromised Ethiopian territory.
A joint
Sudan-Egypt demonstration of air power, dubbed “Nile Eagles I,” was
conducted five days later. A second show of joint air power came just before
the fresh round of GERD negotiations in April.
So, the U.S. appears to indirectly support rebel
incursions in the sovereign territory of Ethiopia, its oldest Cold War African
ally, while at the same time calling for a ceasefire and asking Ethiopia
to use a different security apparatus in Tigray. It is now treating
Ethiopia as if it’s invading a neighbour, instead of responding to a national
security crisis involving an unprovoked attack by the TPLF.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has also now
engaged with the continental heavyweights including South Africa and Nigeria,
while U.S. Special Envoy Jeff Feltman has also visited Kenya. This appears to
be another bid, months after the first try, to tip the African Union against
Ethiopia. U.S. discussions on the GERD have also extended
to Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, even though they have
nothing to do with what by definition is Ethiopia’s internal water
infrastructure. One could ask whether this is a bid to garner Arab support for
Egypt and further isolate Ethiopia.
Why is the U.S. trying to build a coalition to
isolate one of its oldest friends? In addition to appeasing Egypt, and making
Ethiopia succumb to pressure by entering an unfair deal, the answer may lie in
aspirations to access green
metal resources across and around the Arabian-Nubian Shield – and to
compete more credibly against China for the consumption of these metals and
resources.
We are supposed to be living in the era of Black
Lives Matter. Yet they apparently matter little if Washington feels free to
break historical alliances, support violent cross-border rebel incursions and
work against the food security and GERD use of the Sudanese people, while
trying to manipulate the African Union into being an instrument of its foreign
policy – all for a resource-exploitation battle with China.
It wasn’t that long ago that Donald Trump in the
White House alienated African nations with his casual remark about “shithole
countries.” African political and thought leaders are no different
than their African-American cousins. They want to know that black lives matter
in Africa. They don’t judge America only by words but also by deeds. While the
Biden administration isn’t expected any time soon to let Trump-style
vulgarities slip from the Oval Office, it released something far more
provocative: the promise that its overseas
security interests would be indistinguishable from its domestic economic policy.
This laudable principle is not reflected in its approach to the Horn of Africa.
It is important that the G7, and Canada in
particular, not lose sight of this central strategic reality in Africa. It is
also important for the Ethiopian federal government to make its case more
effectively through diplomatic and advocacy circles worldwide.
