Eritrean Officials Targeted as US Resolve to Rescue TPLF

November 12, 2021

The U.S. claims that the measure is taken in “connection with  the ongoing violence in Ethiopia.” Eritrea and Ethiopia have cooperation in a range of areas, including military.  

Eritrean President Isaias Afeworki and Ethiopian PM ABiy Ahmed shake hands.(Photo : File)

Borkena

The United States Department of State on Friday announced that it is targeting Eritrean individuals over what it calls “ongoing violence in Ethiopia” 

Secretary Anthony Blinken made an announcement about it on Twitter.  He said “The United States is designating six Eritrean entities and individuals in connection with the ongoing violence in Ethiopia. The Eritrean presence in Ethiopia has exacerbated the conflict and hindered humanitarian access. Eritrea must withdraw troops immediately.” 

The names of the Eritrean officials targeted by the United States government are unspecified. What the U.S. calls “violence in Ethiopia” is an actual war on terrorist groups, TPLF and OLF. Both groups have been targeting civilians and have massacred thousands of civilians in the past three years. 

The description, by the Secretary of State, ” “ongoing violence in Ethiopia”  is misleading because the Ethiopian government did not make accusations regarding Eritrea.

In fact, Ethiopia and Eritrea do have made arrangements for cooperation and partnership in a range of areas after they ended the two decades long no-peace-no-war relation in July 2018. 

As the United States seems to be losing its proxy war through the agency of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF),and its partner Oromo Liberation Front (OLF), it is taking even more aggressive steps to directly involve in the war over what the Ethiopian parliament designated as terrorist organizations. The United States has been explicitly pushing the Ethiopian government to negotiate with the TPLF terrorists – something that Ethiopians do not accept even if Abiy Ahmed’s government heeds to U.S. belligerence. 

On Friday, just a day after several corporate media in the United States published narratives romanticizing military intervention in Ethiopia, a senior U.S. military officer told the BBC that the U.S. army is “ready to respond” to the situation in Ethiopia from its Military bases in Camp Lemonnier, Djibouti.  (bbc.com/news/av/world-africa-59265578 ) 

China has a military base in Djibouti too. China and Russia have been opposing, at the United Nations Security Council, sanctions and interventions in the internal affairs of Ethiopia. 

Ethiopians too  have been protesting U.S. intervention in the internal Affairs of Ethiopia. The talks of direct military intervention in Ethiopia, apparently to save the TPLF forces, is getting reactions from Ethiopians in social media. 

Hermela Aregawi, Ethiopian American journalist who used to report for CBS, wrote in her twitter “REMINDER: Stay strong against the multi-armed psychological warfare being waged on the Ethiopian ppl & entire Horn of Africa. Africans, like any other citizen of the world, have the right to choose their leader & protect their peace. IT WILL BE DONE. In God We Trust! #NoMore” 

Many other Ethiopians are reacting to the U.S. interventionist policy in Ethiopia which is now morphing into  a military one.