{"id":195678,"date":"2021-09-27T12:01:47","date_gmt":"2021-09-27T11:01:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=195678"},"modified":"2021-09-23T07:06:02","modified_gmt":"2021-09-23T06:06:02","slug":"biden-threatens-sweeping-sanctions-on-ethiopia-prime-minister-abiy-ahmed-responds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2021\/09\/biden-threatens-sweeping-sanctions-on-ethiopia-prime-minister-abiy-ahmed-responds\/","title":{"rendered":"Biden Threatens Sweeping Sanctions on Ethiopia, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed Responds"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Black Agenda Report<\/p><\/div>\n

22 Sep 2021 – The U.S. is once again attempting to overthrow a legitimate head of state in Africa, this time in Ethiopia, where they want to put their old puppet, the TPLF, or a new one, in power.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

President Joe Biden has issued an executive order <\/a> threatening to impose new US sanctions on Ethiopia and Eritrea for their roles in humanitarian crisis caused by the war in Ethiopia\u2019s northern regions.<\/p>\n

Unilateral sanctions, meaning sanctions not approved by the UN Security Council, violate international law codified in the UN Charter.\u00a0However, Biden wrote, \u201cThis order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.\u201d<\/p>\n

In other words, the US writes its own laws, just as it imposes its own sanctions. Unilaterally.<\/p>\n

In one bizarre paragraph, Biden describes Ethiopia\u2019s conflict as a \u201cnational security threat\u201d:<\/p>\n

\u201cI, JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR., President of the United States of America, find that the situation in and in relation to northern Ethiopia, which has been marked by activities that threaten the peace, security, and stability of Ethiopia and the greater Horn of Africa region \u2014 in particular, widespread violence, atrocities, and serious human rights abuse, including those involving ethnic-based violence, rape and other forms of gender-based violence, and obstruction of humanitarian operations \u2014 constitutes an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States. I hereby declare a national emergency to deal with that threat.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

He\u2019s wrong of course. Americans don\u2019t wake up worrying about Ethiopian conflict. Many wake up wishing they didn\u2019t have to go to that damn demeaning job another day, and\/or wondering what pro sports they might enjoy afterwards. Many more wake up full of anxiety about medical debt, college debt, eviction, foreclosure, and poverty. Next to none will read Biden\u2019s executive order and most couldn\u2019t find Ethiopia on a map, thanks to the savage state of American education. Some, especially those who\u2019ve been watching mass atrocity TV, might be persuaded by Biden\u2019s invocation of\u00a0 \u201cThe White Man\u2019s Burden <\/a>\u201d:<\/p>\n

Take up the White Man’s burden–<\/em>
\nThe savage wars of peace–<\/em>
\nFill full the mouth of Famine<\/em>
\nAnd bid the sickness cease;<\/em>
\nAnd when your goal is nearest<\/em>
\nThe end for others sought,<\/em>
\nWatch sloth and heathen Folly<\/em>
\nBring all your hopes to nought.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u201cFamine\u201d is the Ethiopian emergency that US AID Chief Samantha Power has been shrieking about most for nearly a year. The Ethiopian government, she says, is blocking food aid into war-torn Tigray. Never mind that the Tigray People\u2019s Liberation Front, a US puppet for nearly 30 years, started the war that\u2019s causing the suffering, as war always does. Or, that the Ethiopian government says that they wouldn\u2019t starve their own people, that they are delivering more food to Tigray than any of the Western NGOs, but that they have set up checkpoints to make sure that aid convoys aren\u2019t transporting arms to the TPLF. Power, like Blinken and Biden, don\u2019t call the Ethiopian government\u2019s account of facts on the ground a lie. They just ignore it, as do other Western officials and press.<\/p>\n

Previous US and EU sanctions have targeted individual officials or military officers for their roles in the Ethiopian conflict,\u00a0but in his most recent order, Biden threatens to sanction governments, political parties, or military or security forces that he deems to be prolonging the conflict or abusing human rights. The worst of such sanctions can block a nation\u2019s access to medical supplies and food, as has been done to Iraq, Cuba, and Venezuela, or the freezing of a nation\u2019s assets in foreign banks, as has been done to Libya, Venezuela, and now Afghanistan.<\/p>\n

Time will tell whether the US and its allies will go to such extremes to control the Horn of Africa, but President Biden has heightened the threats. Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed wrote an open letter in response, asking him to respect Ethiopia\u2019s sovereignty, but Biden has not responded, and the letter has not been published by Western press.<\/p>\n

Here is Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed\u2019s open letter to Joe Biden, which he first published on his Twitter page <\/a>.<\/p>\n

_______________________________________________<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/em>Ann Garrison is an independent journalist based in the San Francisco Bay Area. She attended Stanford University and is a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment<\/a>. In 2014 she received the Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza Democracy and Peace Prize<\/em> for her reporting on conflict in the African Great Lakes region. She can be reached at @AnnGarrison<\/em>, ann@kpfa.org,<\/em><\/a> ann@anngarrison.com.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 blackagendareport.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

22 Sep 2021 – The U.S. is once again attempting to overthrow a legitimate head of state in Africa, this time in Ethiopia, where they want to put their old puppet, the TPLF, or a new one, in power.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":195680,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[237,867,2642,2197,2249,1050,1190,923,70],"class_list":["post-195678","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-transcend-members","tag-africa","tag-anglo-america","tag-anti-imperialism","tag-biden","tag-ethiopia","tag-imperialism","tag-regime-change","tag-sanctions","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195678","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=195678"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195678\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/195680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=195678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=195678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=195678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}