Time Pass & Sports POTW : Junaids

[MenInG]

I would like to thank [MENTION=132916]Junaids[/MENTION] for his very informative post about the war in Ethiopia which we are recognizing by giving it the POTW award for Time Pass & Sports forum.

Many thanks and congratulations to [MENTION=132916]Junaids[/MENTION]

http://www.pakpassion.net/ppforum/s...trings-in-the-Proxy-War-in-the-Horn-of-Africa

A few years ago I showed [MENTION=7774]Robert[/MENTION] how the end of Apartheid actually was the direct consequence of Cuban military action in Angola. This story relates to similar events taking place right now.

The war in Ethiopia is going under most people’s radar, and that is precisely how the external powers which are involved want it to be.

Ethiopia is a highly unusual country. It used to extend from inland of Somalia to the Red Sea coast, giving it huge strategic value as the west coast of the Red Sea, opposite Saudi Arabia and Yemen and at the entrance to the Suez Canal.

In the 1980s the population was around 50 million, and famine hit badly in the early 1980s. Ethiopia had only been colonized by Italy, of all countries, in the 1930’s, and the northernmost area, Eritrea, was still like a 1930’s Italian colonial museum.

(In the legendary comedy “Blackadder Goes Forth”, Blackadder recalls the fictional battle of Umbotu Gorge, in which the natives attacked the British with sharpened mangoes. This was actually based upon Italy’s actual defeat by Ethiopia in the Battle of Adwa in 1986.)

Ethiopia was run by a communist terror organization known as the Derg until the late 1980s, when it came under the control of the Tigrayan Ethiopians. Ethiopia is a nation of multiple ethnic groups, and the Tigrayans hold sway in the northern area of Eritrea and in Tigray itself, just south of Eritrea. The fall of the Derg led to Eritrean independence, which took with it Ethiopia’s coastline.

For a quarter of a century Ethiopia developed rapidly economically with the Tigrayans the leading part of the government. Its population has doubled now to around 120 million. Meanwhile Eritrea, with just 3.5 million people, stagnated under fearsome one-man rule by a President who instituted lifelong military service and who clamped down on every possible expression of opposition. It is the only country on earth rated as more repressive and less free than North Korea! But it has that strategic Red Sea coastline, and its port of Assab is just 60 km from Yemen’s port of Mocha.

Ethiopia and Eritrea fought a long and futile border war, in which the Eritrean side in particular committed extreme atrocities against the local Tigrayan border population. (Eritrea also fought a border war with its coastal neighbor, Djibouti.)

Finally three years ago a new Prime Minister came to power in Ethiopia. The new PM, Abiy Ahmed, was not Tigrayan and immediately entered and concluded peace talks with Eritrea, and ejected the Tigrayans from his government. He won a Nobel Peace Prize for ending the war.

Ethiopia continued to boom economically, and the population neared 120 million. Eritrea was satisfied that it no longer was at war on its border, although ultra-nationalist propaganda continued to demonise the neighbouring Tigrayan population.

Finally this time last year Ethiopia launched a military offensive against its own province of Tigray, claiming that Tigrayan nationalists had attacked government bases but offering no evidence to support this claim. The media was effectively locked out, given that the Ethiopians barred access and Eritrea has banned international media for years. And most of us quickly forgot that this war was even taking place.

But month after month news would seep out of appalling atrocities in Tigray. And it was so uncharacteristic of Ethiopian troops that it slowly became obvious that the Eritreans had invaded Tigray from the other direction, in coordination with the Ethiopian government. Women suffered extraordinarily gruesome rapes, hospitals were looted and destroyed and wells were ruined. It was clear that someone was trying to depopulate Tigray. And it became obvious that this was Eritrea burning itself a buffer zone.

But the offensive failed. Neither the Ethiopians nor the Eritreans could conquer Tigray, and now the Tigrayans are marching southwards to the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa, and forming alliances with other ethnic movements around the country.

It has become clear that the war in Tigray was actually conducted by Ethiopia’s government at Eritrea’s behest, and was all about Eritrea exacting revenge on Tigray for the long border war that it fought when Tigray controlled the Ethiopian government.

And now the government of Ethiopia is under threat of imminent overthrow. The land of 120 million people, with a booming economy, looks like it may well suffer regime change as the consequence of a foolish civil war.

While President-For-Life Isaias Afewerki of little Eritrea sits pretty in his capital of Asmara. He appears to have directed the entire war, and it is certainly his invading troops who committed the worst atrocities of it – atrocities so appalling that it was obvious that only his army would commit them.

But it looks as if being the small, poor country is what will save him and his government. But why? And how?

It turns out that Saudi Arabia and the UAE have been using secret bases in Eritrea to fight their war in Yemen amidst a total media blackout. In fact, it seems that the UAE launched airstrikes by drone against Ethiopian Tigray on Eritrea’s behalf.

This is a fascinating example of the tail wagging the dog. The country of 3.5 million people has got the country of 120 million people to destroy itself. And yet only the Ethiopian government is going to pay the price, because the Eritrean dictatorship is a client state of richer and more powerful neighbours.

 

[transparent opacity]

A great post from a good poster. A well-researched and well-articulated comment.
Many congratulation [MENTION=132916]Junaids[/MENTION]

 

[Last Monetarist]

Wonderfully insightful comment on a subject seldom touched upon by mainstream geopolitical analysts.

I definitely learned a lot of new things about the region.

 

[JaDed]

Junaids is a master poster but there is always a bias in his post, credit to him for having the ability to propagate his beliefs and making them appear rational.

His post here is again biased towards how western media holds narratives over political movements across the world.

It’s not a coincidence that his view coincides with the 5 eyes.

 

[Major]

wow junaids, great post. Was reading this in newspaper but didnt understand it, you helped made it simple man.

thanks alot

 

[mustang]

Great post and quite informative.

 

[sweep_shot]

Congratulations.

 

[Mamoon]

Junaids is a master poster but there is always a bias in his post, credit to him for having the ability to propagate his beliefs and making them appear rational.

His post here is again biased towards how western media holds narratives over political movements across the world.

It’s not a coincidence that his view coincides with the 5 eyes.

Unbiased opinions do not exist. Everyone is biased.

 

[Junaids]

I’ve learned quite a bit more since I wrote this.

Apparently the UAE tried to minimise deployment of its own troops in Yemen, and instead employed around 10,000 Sudanese mercenaries from the same Janjaweed group which earlier committed atrocities in Darfur.

They were trained up at Assab in Eritrea and then taken by the UAE across the narrow strait to fight in Yemen.

The US, France, Japan and China were aware of the UAE base at Assab in Eritrea as they all have bases of their own 150 km away in Djibouti.

But it has suited all parties to remain mute about the secret UAE and Saudi bases in Eritrea