Re: [DEBATE] : Don’t Turn on Ethiopia

[MFleshman at aol.com]

not curious at all, considering who Huddleston is. Career foreign  service 
Head of the Cuban Interest Section, haiti during the invasion among many  other 
things. Came to State from the AIFLD -- the AFL-CIA outfit.  They are  equally 
silent on the internal repression and brutality of the Zenawi regime  too.
 
In a message dated 11/15/2007 5:59:48 PM Eastern Standard Time,  
straightup00us at yahoo.com writes:

curiously silent on Ethiopia's proxy role in Somalia the destabilizing  of 
the Horn...

New York Times
November 15, 2007
Op-Ed  Contributors
Don’t Turn on Ethiopia   By VICKI HUDDLESTON  and TIBOR NAGY
Washington
NINE  years ago, two nations began the first modern war in sub-Saharan 
Africa,  leaving in two years more than 100,000 dead. Today Eritrea and Ethiopia 
could  reignite their old border conflict. Arms and money from radicals 
throughout  the Middle East, as well as troops trained in Eritrea, have strengthened an 
 insurgency in Ogaden Province, in southeastern Ethiopia.
A new war in the  Horn of Africa would destabilize the region and bolster 
radical Islam’s push  to build a Muslim caliphate. 
Sadly, Congress is poised to fuel the march  toward war by passing a bill 
that threatens to cut off technical assistance to  Ethiopia, one of our closest 
allies, if it does not, among other things,  release political prisoners, 
ensure that the judiciary operates independently  and permit the news media to 
operate freely. Ethiopia has already freed  opposition leaders, reformed 
parliamentary rules to give opposition parties  greater legislative responsibility and 
approved a new media law that meets  international standards. By singling out 
Ethiopia for public embarrassment,  the bill puts Congress unwittingly on the 
side of Islamic jihadists and  insurgents. 
A far better approach would be to buttress Ethiopia against  threats to its 
survival — by helping it resolve its border conflict and  ensuring that it 
reopens negotiations with insurgents and traditional leaders  and permits 
international investigation of reported military abuses (including  allegations of 
rape and murder). Ethiopia has begun this process by allowing  the United Nations 
and humanitarian aid agencies to assist civilians in the  Ogaden. 
Eritrea demands that the border be marked exactly as  determined five years 
ago. But this places some Muslim and Christian villages  on what they consider 
to be the wrong side of the border, cuts through others  and splices certain 
roads several times. The United States should press both  governments to let 
people who live on the border help reach a mutual agreement  on the final 
boundary. 
Ethiopia is a nation where 77 million  Orthodox Christians and Muslims live 
in peace, engaged in building a democracy  while besieged from within and 
without by enemies of democracy. Congress  should put aside its bill and instead 
use creative diplomacy to deal with the  combined threat of insurgency and war. 
Vicki Huddleston, a  visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution, and Tibor 
Nagy, a vice provost  at Texas Tech University, are former chiefs of mission 
at the American Embassy  in Addis Ababa,  Ethiopia.

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