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Report: Seattle:
Jandayi Frazier meeting on US’s Africa policy successfully confronted by
Eritreans May 29, 2008 Ambassador Jandayi gave a presentation of US foreign
policy in the African continent. She explained how great US’s policy is in
economic, political and conflict resolution areas when it comes to Africa. For
those who do not know what is taking place in Africa and how the US is
messing up the continent, the speech would give the impression that the US is
contributing tremendously to the economic boom and democratization of Africa.
She counted the number of elections that took place in Africa and the single
digit economic growth recorded by a number of African countries as examples
of progress. Later she mentioned that there were some problems with the
recent elections in Kenia and Zimbabwe. Of coarse, she conveniently forgot to
talk about her best friend Zenawi’s election debacle resulted in hundreds of
dead civilians and tens of thousands of political prisoners. ….. But wait, what she didn’t realize is that the crowd she is facing this time is not your “regular scholars” from universities who research African issues by reading the accounts of the so-called Western experts. The crowd consisted mainly of Eritreans, Ethiopians and Somali’s who suffered and are still suffering tremendously because of polarizing and self-centered US’s Africa policy. Although, she completely ignored the issue of the Horn Africa
in her speech, the first question was related to the Ethiopian Eritrean
issue. One would think that the Horn of Africa would be at the center
of the discussions. But, immediately after the first question was answered,
the crowd was told that the next questions
should not be about Eritrea/Ethiopia but other African issues.
That sets the mood right for confrontation. How can the crowd be told
what questions to ask? Isn’t this a public meeting where everyone can
ask freely what he/she feels? Clearly, the organizer anticipated a heated
debate on this issue and wants to avoid embarrassing Jandayi. But it
didn’t work.. The next question came from an Ethiopian who promised not
to ask about Eritrean Ethiopian issue but only about Ethiopia. He is outraged
by Jandayi’s support to Melles and her understanding for Melles action to
kill and imprison the opposition leaders. He angrily told her that she is
responsible personally for appeasing a dictator. The crowd supported his
anger with applauses. Jandayi tried to evade the question by saying that she
was not there when the election took place and that she has only joined after
everything was over. Surprisingly, she said “although some of you do not like
Melles I have been in many meetings where many Ethiopians support him”. Well,
you would think there should be no debate about this if we could just refer
to the election result. Then tens of hands went up for the next question. The
moderator started hunting for non Horn African looking people. There weren’t
many. So, the third question went to an Eritrean who eloquently asked the
questions that every Eritrean have in mind: 1. What is it that the US doesn’t understand about a
“final and binding” agreement? 2. Why is Eritrea being labeled as supporter of terrorism
while it is the first country that was the victim of terror and fought hard
to stop it? It also doesn’t support terrorism ideologically. So, where is the
logic? 3. How come Ethiopia is hosting and supporting a terrorist
group known as the Eritrean Jihadist movement” and the US has nothing to say
about that? 4. How come you went to create a coalition government in
Kenya while the opposition clearly has won and you do not want to mediate in
Zimbabwe with the same situation? Jandayi’s response was the normal bla bla… On the first question: “We really can not do much about that, We do not have any
leverage to force Ethiopia. We tried hard to let the two talk… When I first
was assigned to this job I never supported the idea of US mediating in the
conflict because the two leaders are so stubborn. But I was told to take it
on by my boss and I had no choice. The first thing I did was I asked to see
the border but Issayas refused to give me Visa. So I went through Ethiopia to
Badme.” The crowd interrupted, how can you do that? Badme is Eritrean and you
didn’t have visa, to which she replied “I don’t care, I want to go and see
the border” . Now, one must wonder how a mediation can possibly succeed if
the assigned person doesn’t even believe in the mission that she is assigned
to. So, with Jandayi in the mediation picture, achieving peace in The Horn
was a failed mission from the start. On the second question: She agrees that Eritrea doesn’t ideologically support
terrorism. But Isayas is so intent in overthrowing Melles that he supports
every group that fights Ethiopia….The US has no leverage what so ever on
Isayas. We took action to tell the people that send him Money that they will
be in trouble (that is us)… Eritrea has yet not designated as a terrorist
supporting country because of it is “ideologically” doesn’t support terrorism…
(if only Isayas’s name was Ali or Mohamed, there would have been no issue for
her)…. On the third question: She said she is not aware of Ethiopia supporting Jihad movement. That was new to
herJ Well, that is very typical of the Bush
administration. The intelligence is filtered and adjusted to suit the
objective of the US administration. It is not related at all to the reality
on the ground. No surprise there. So, she is Zenawi’s best friend but really
doesn’t know what is going on in Ethiopia. Who can believe that? On the fourth question: She said the election result in Kenya was really so close
that you can not tell who won. So, it was the right thing to do to mediate.
She said the same could apply to Zmbabwe. …But clearly there was nothing to
mediate in the Ethiopian election since the opposition won outright and the only choice she had apparently was
to support the tyrant in power. The moderator continued to force non-Eritrean issue and
occasionally he ignored the public and started asking questions himself to
which a roaring opposition was voiced by the crowd. On the role of china in Africa: Jandayi said that the Chinese do not attach any conditions
to the support they give to African countries and that this will give Africa
flexibility in dealing with the West. However, she predicted that the
relationship with China will worsen in the future as China will start to go
after Africa’s natural resources and flood Africa with cheap goods …. On why the US supported TFG and removed ICU that had
brought peace to Somalia: She said, “after the creation of TFG we supported the
warlords and everyone said that we had to support the TFG so we supported
TFG”. She agreed that the current opposition in Somalia consists of a legitimate
opposition as well as patriots who fight the Ethiopian occupation. She agreed
Ethiopia needs to go out of Somalia if a UN or AU can take the job on. The US
is now talking to the ICU and other opposition groups based in Eritrea. She
said, let alone the “Somalian Jihadists” she even wants to talk to Issayas
now. She said that she and Secretary Rice called him but he refused to answer
their call. The crowd cheered in approval of President’s Isaias’s refusal to
talk to her. She said her Africa desk is stuffed with inexperienced
officers and it has been hard for her to make progress in conflict resolution
since the staff is inept. That is quite an honest assessment from her.
President Issayas had observed and had spoken about this at the start of the
border conflict. Overall, the Eritreans, Ethiopians and Somalis showed her
that she can not hide the mess she has created in Africa. They laughed and
booed her when she said the Bush administration has done more than any
administration to help Africa. She often said that various issues would be
left up to the next US administration. The good thing for Eritrea is she will
most likely be history before they can ever list Eritrea as a terrorist
sponsoring country. With the situation in The Horn going from bad to worse it
will not be long before the US comes to its sense and start to adjust its
policy. Once more, betri Haki tQeTn ember aytHaqqn!! |
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