Mereja Forum

[Horus]

The ineffective phrase is now becoming one hackneyed hegemonic paper tiger overused and abused ! You Are Sanctioned !!

[Horus]

ETHIOPIA SHOULD BE ABLE TO FORM STRONG RELATION WITH ALL THOSE COUNTRIES OPPOSING AMERICAN HEGEMONY .......
China
Russia
India
Turkey
Iran
Germany
France
UAR
.....
.....

[Lovetarik]

Dear Horus,

I do not believe Germany and France will work with us. These countries always work with USA, even if it means undermining their own national interest. Look at France for example, Marcon just issued a statement pressurizing Ethiopia to negotiate with the terrorists, even after France just got stabbed by USA. Samething with Germany, their natural gas pipeline with Russia just got slapped with sanction by USA, but still Germany put their support behind genocider Tewodros for WHO.

For some unknown reasons, at least to me, all western Europeans are scared of USA and would not go against the USA even if it is against thier national interest.

Ethiopia should focus on working with other developing nations like China, Turkey, India etc.. and most importantly strengthening regional cooperation and African unity.

[Horus]

Lovetarik,
I understand. Here is my point. Now almost every political animal recognizes that in world diplomacy, economic, and military conflict the singular driving force is National Interest. What is this national interest? It is power, money, fame and status. These core drivers appear in a form of geography, natural resources, market, sea lane, air space, political support, media, so called terrorism, influence, finance, etc. In short deciding which country get what and how?

So, we take all of the players in the game and ask what each country wants. what does Germany want in Africa, HoA and/or Ethiopia? What does France want? The answer are clear. They may have their own other conflicts with USA but both US and France may want the same thing in Djibouti. What do we do in this case? in each case? We map the interests, conflicts, agreements, and differences of each player and map our own moves. These moves could be very small and temporary and big and long term.

For example, the number 1 global conflict right now is economic. The fear is both USA and China could default on their debts leave alone small players like Ethiopia. France just lost billions of weapons sale in Australia. Hence, France will have an interest to find arms buyer, just as example. As you well know both France and Germany have huge colonial interest in African resources and they are not going to like Abiy's pan-African positions and the slow burning new African consciousness for unity, resource protection, market protection and African nationalism in general.

It by playing these kinds of complex geopolitical, economic, political, ideological strategic games that Ethiopia gets the gravitas she needs to ward off external bullying and hold her own place in the sun. It is doable if we simply get rid of small time tribal conflicts and form a unified strong country.

And, I fully agree that Ethiopia not only work closely with AU but lead Africa toward a more united and nationalist Africa!! Pan-Africanism is an old word. In my view African Nationalism is the simple and elegant concept that represents all of the things we are trying say.

[Lovetarik]

Your point well taken.
But my issue is, historically, the so called western democracies work in tandem when it comes to exploiting poor countries, be it in Africa or anywhere else, regardless of their own national interest. They always put a united front and put aside internal disagreements amongest themselves. It seems there is unspelled and unspoken alliance (ቃልኪዳን) between them. In almost all cases, only USA dictates what the alliance should do to policy pronouncements by Washington.

For instance, France canceled arms sale to Ethiopia following Washington's request. But France had a perfect opportunity to reinstate the scrapped arms sale to Ethiopia in light the AUKUS deal which left France out in the cold. But France did not do that, but instead continued its adversarial stance against Ethiopia. Instances like this gives me little hope that we can work with anyone of the west Europeans countries singularly. We get them all or none. That is why I say let's focus on Russia and china and other developing countries like Turkey and India while strengthening African unity.

I agree with you that Ethiopia should play her diplomatic card with each power by looking at what each power is seeking out of our relationship with them.

Without sounding conspatorial, an old friend of mine once told me that the European union has unwritten agreement to continue to colonize their former colonies indirectly. Ethiopia being independent for most of its history is a wild card where every colonialist vies for dominance. Kind of a battle field to these vultures. USA seems to be leading the pack for dominating Ethiopia.