E-Mailed to blackinformant.com by Young Ethiopian Diasporans

UPDATE: November 28, 2005

The main stream media has finally dragged itself to what’s happening in Ethiopia, so much so that the New York Times had an Op-Ed on it on Sunday.

In “Mr. Good Governance Gone Bad”, the Times implores:

Mr. Blair should publicly evict Mr. Meles from his Commission for Africa. The rest of the international development crowd should exile him.

It is vital that the US comes head on to support the people in Ethiopia, who overwhelmingly came out against the government of Meles Zenawi. So far, the reticence of the United States could be considered understandable since Prime Minister Meles has held the bogus claim that he is the stabilizing factor in the Horn of Africa, even though he is spoiling for another deleterious war with his neighbors. He has also virtually blackmailed the West into believing he is the paragon of partners in the War on Terror.

But as his true nature is revealed, it is obvious that any further support of his regime will ultimately contribute to the instability of the Horn, and will have ruinous results on the journey to democracy.

Ethiopundit elucidates this point:

The War on Terror must be fought with vigor and determination but Ethiopia seems to have slipped through the cracks. The Ethiopian government slickly uses the threat of terror to manipulate Washington in particular, and its policies of aid dependent economic stagnation and tribal divide and rule will ultimately lead to another failed state.

Any government that aims a machine gun at a grieving mother and shoots her point blank in front of her children is not a government that is remotely interested in peace and democracy.

The Washington Times features on its forum a great piece, Oops, we did it again (?):

At present, thousands have been imprisoned for the unforgivable crime of wanting democracy.

Can we learn from our past mistakes so Ethiopia doesn’t become another “Oops, we did it again”?

Could it be our fear of the enemy clouds our judgment? Could it be we invest more in war than in the long-range quest for peace?

While the conservative Ethiopundit bristles at Washington’s slowness in responding to the Ethiopian question, Weichegud tears into Jeffrey Sachs and his close support of the Meles government. Professor Sachs, who has excoriated the West for not pouring money into Africa with little strings attached, is called into question for his lukewarm response when asked to condemn the Ethiopian government.

What do you think Jeffrey Sachs’ reaction would be if the US government gunned down 42 people who were throwing stones at the police? What kind of fury would he be engulfed in if he read that 4000 African-Americans from Biloxi, Mississippi were carted off to semi-concentration camps for opposing President’s Bush’s Iraq policy?

Why then are Ethiopian lives worth so infinitely less that condemning their killers has to come with caveats and stipulations?

Meanwhile, Ethiopian women seek for their husbands arrested during election protests two weeks ago.

We speak not just as people of Ethiopian ancestry; we speak foremost as Americans who staunchly believe that democracy is sacred, especially at the time. 71 million people are being held hostage by a tyrant. As Americans our visceral instinct is to say, “no more” to the kind of immoral, instinctively oppressive government that is being touted as “progressive.”

President Bush said,

Time after time, observers have questioned whether this country, or that people, or this group, are “ready” for democracy — as if freedom were a prize you win for meeting our own Western standards of progress.

In fact, the daily work of democracy itself is the path of progress. It teaches cooperation, the free exchange of ideas, and the peaceful resolution of differences. As men and women are showing, from Bangladesh to Botswana, to Mongolia, it is the practice of democracy that makes a nation ready for democracy, and every nation can start on this path.

Sixty years of Western nations excusing and accommodating the lack of freedom in the Middle East did nothing to make us safe–because in the long run, stability cannot be purchased at the expense of liberty.

Amen!