More on Congressman Payne’s anti-Ethiopian hearing on June 17
As we noted last week, Congressman Payne held a hearing of his Africa and Global health sub-committee of the US House Foreign Affairs Committee on 17th June. The subject was “The Horn of Africa: Current Conditions and US Policy”. Virtually pre-empting his own title, Congressman Payne’s opening statement launched into one of his all too frequently egregious criticisms of Ethiopia and its government. He was even prepared to make the nonsensical allegation that Chinese military units had been involved in clashes in Ethiopia. Exactly where the Congressman obtained this extraordinary notion from wasn’t clear as no one has made any such claim before. Like some of his other comments, the Congressman’s remarks and the errors he made set the tone for several misleading diatribes against Ethiopia, notably that of Mr. Ted Dagne of the Congressional Research Service, the first witness at the hearing. His is a strange and bizarre analysis of politics in the Horn. What values and objectives they are intended to serve is very difficult to fathom. But that peace, security and stability as well as the democratization are not Dagne’s objectives is plain.
Mr. Dagne managed to couple his usual critical and negative comments on Ethiopia with a comprehensive number of errors in his efforts to “set the scene”. Neither civil society nor “independent press activities” have been crushed in Ethiopia as papers like Fortune, Capital and the Reporter can testify. Opposition leaders have not been forced into exile, though some, like Berhanu Nega, have chosen to go into exile and attempt to launch movements like Ginbot 7, committed to an alliance with Eritrea and to armed struggle. Mr. Dagne makes no mention of the real reasons for the EPRDF’s electoral success, including the considerable economic and other developments of the past few years, though to be fair he does refer, if briefly, to the failure of the opposition groups which “fragmented and fought each other more than preparing a united front with a vision…or building a constituency base throughout the country”. This lack of accurate information on the election and the electoral process was equally apparent in the testimony of the witness from Human Rights Watch, which has consistently made little effort to investigate the reality of the democratic process in Ethiopia, and as we have noted before, has tried on several occasions to influence the elections through a series of pre-election reports.
Equally, Mr. Dagne’s account of the history of the ONLF is quite simply wrong. He makes no mention of the split in the ONLF in 1994 when the majority refused to follow the ONLF chairman in calling for a referendum on self-determination in the region or follow him into an armed struggle when this was rejected. The majority of the party stayed within the political framework of the Somali Regional State. They still participate in regional politics within the Somali Peoples Democratic Party, the current ruling party in the region. It might be added that no more than elements from a couple of sub-clans follow the ONLF, and most of the Ogaden clans (which make up no more than a third of the inhabitants of the region) actively oppose the ONLF. Nor does Mr. Dagne make any effort to give an account of the substantial recent economic developments in the region, in educations, health, infrastructure and telecommunications for example. But facts are hardly significant for Dagne; they tend to be to all those driven by visceral hostility towards the subject of their analysis.
Mr. Dagne claimed that “hundreds of thousands of civilians” had fled the Ogaden region of Ethiopia into refugee camps in Kenya. In fact, although there have been some Somali-speaking refugees from Ethiopia appearing in Kenya refugee camps, the numbers have been small and the majority of the Somali refugees in these camps come from Somalia itself. He said one of the leading figures in Al-Shabaab, Sheikh Muktar Robow, came from Somaliland when he in fact comes from the Bay region of Somalia. He suggested Ethiopia’s intervention in Somalia in December 2006 had contributed to the emergence of Al-Shabaab despite the fact that the organization was set up at least two years earlier.
In referring to terrorism in the region, Mr. Dagne failed to mention Eritrea’s support for Al-Shabaab and other terrorist organizations in Somalia, or indeed those operating in Ethiopia. Even more extraordinarily in his references to Eritrea he did not speak of the UN Security Council Resolution 1907 of December last year. This imposed sanctions on Eritrea because of its support for Somali terrorist organizations and for Eritrea’s invasion of Djibouti territory and its seizure of Ras Doumeira in June 2008. Mr. Dagne’s highly specious account of this episode describes it as a border dispute and a clash which had “erupted after several months of tension, following troop deployment to the border by both Eritrea and Djibouti”. He then added “In June 2010, the governments of Djibouti and Eritrea agreed to resolve their dispute through negotiations under the auspices of the government of Qatar. In early June 2010, Eritrean forces withdrew from the border area, and Qatar deployed its forces as observers.” This inaccurate and highly partial account fails to make clear that Eritrean forces invaded Djibouti, that they seized Djibouti territory, and refused to withdraw for two years even denying in the face of photographic evidence and captured prisoners that Eritrean forces had crossed the border into Djibouti or indeed that Eritrea had any problem with Djibouti. It was only following the imposition of UN sanctions that Eritrea accepted Qatar’s mediation and withdrew the forces that it had continually denied were in Djibouti. Of course, Eritrea is yet to inform its own people about all this.
Mr. Dagne’s account of US-Eritrean relations is equally specious. He fails to note the long string of outspoken attacks on the US made by President Issayas over a number of years. President Issayas has even accused the CIA of being responsible for bribing the hundreds of Eritreans who flee across the border into Sudan and Ethiopia every month, many escaping from conscription. In the subsequent discussion, Mr. Dagne defended conscription in Eritrea on the basis that it is common in other countries. He failed to mention that in Eritrea conscription is open ended, with those who were called back to military service in 1998 were still mobilized over a decade later, and that virtually no one has been demobilized. Equally, he neglected to mention that conscripts are normally used as an unpaid or cheap labour force, often for companies run by senior military officers, as thousands of those who have fled from Eritrea have testified.
Mr. Dagne claims the Ethiopian government accepted the Ethiopia-Eritrea Commission Boundary ruling in June 2007, though, as he must know perfectly well, Ethiopia in fact clearly accepted the ruling more than two years earlier in November 2004. His other comments on the issue are so biased and skewed they deserve no response. He does not even know that an international tribunal — the Claims Commission — handed down a ruling saying Eritrea violated the UN Charter when it invaded Ethiopia in May 1998. The Commission said that Eritrea committed an aggression, not Ethiopia.
Another statement that deserves comment is Professor Menkhaus of Davidson College who provided a lengthy critique of the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) in Somalia, classifying it as a failure, and suggesting that it was time for a US policy shift over Somalia. He added, however, that this could “only happen if a reasonable policy alternative could be articulated”. This he fails to do. In fact, Professor Menkhaus, even in his own terms, was overly pessimistic about the TFG dismissing its performance and exaggerating its problems. It is not true that “most” of the thousands of security forces that external states have trained and armed for the TFG have deserted or defected, though some have. Nor is it the case that Ethiopia’s direct involvement in Somalia (an involvement which ended over a year ago) had the effect of “legitimizing” Al-Shabaab or tarnishing the TFG. Indeed, as Professor Menkhaus also says elsewhere Al-Shabaab is “deeply unpopular with most Somalis, who loathe its extremism, its links to al Qa’ida, and the role foreign jihadists play in the movement.” In fact, one result of Ethiopia’s involvement was the Djibouti Agreement which was responsible for revitalizing the TFG and putting President Sheik Sherif in power. Professor Menkhaus largely ignores the Djibouti Agreement and the significant agreement between the TFG and Ahlu Sunna Wal Jama’a signed in Addis Ababa earlier this year. In fact, despite his criticisms of the TFG, he also admits it would be counter-productive to abandon it, though it should be treated more as a transitional authority; and he also argues that the US must continue to support AMISOM.
Professor Menkhaus notes that the crisis in Somalia is very much part of a regional conflict but, in line with others at the hearing, fails to raise the issue of Eritrean involvement and its active support for Al-Shabaab and other anti-TFG forces. Apparently following the line Congressman Payne tried to take in ignoring Eritrea’s regional involvement, Professor Menkhaus even appears to suggest that factors underlying Somalia’s problems include the failure to resolve the Ethiopia-Eritrea border issue and the activities of the ONLF. There can be little doubt that peace in the region will eventually require recognition by all states that no one can, nor should, threaten the security of their neighbours. Eritrea, of course, has been the prime example of this over the past decade and a half, something which Congressman Payne appears determined to deny in spite of all the indisputable evidence to the contrary.