💭 With This America is Rewarding a Genocidal Regime that Just Massacred 1 million Christians of Northern Ethiopia. Beneath the mask: Hypocrisy and the Pathology of Shame.
💭 Have you noticed something on the image? Yes, the iconic portrait of the first U.S. President George Washington on United States quarters is being tossed out of the window for something entirely new in 2022, a revision that seemingly has the founding father turning his back on America’s national motto, “In God We Trust.”? Wow! Indeed, the Day America Turned Its Back on The Almighty God, God Will Turn His Back on America. Woe to you, America!
💭 Coca Cola has inaugurated its new ‘mega factory’ in Sebta City in Ethiopia.
The $100 million factory, located 25 km from the capital, Addis Ababa, is equipped with state of the art machinery and will create 30,000 job opportunities.
Senior officials of the fascist Oromo regime were in attendance at the inauguration
The factory has a daily production potential of 70,000 racks of 24 bottles.
This level will bring the group’s total manufacturing capacity in the country to 100 million cases per year and will make the country a stronghold of the group’s presence on the continent.
“We have a project to better water usage across 41 countries in Africa we benefit more than 6000 families today, the second area that I want to touch on is package recycling we have the ambition that by 2030 we’ll take back every single bottle that we put into the market,” said Bruno Pietracci, President of Africa for the Coca-Cola company.
Coca-Cola has operated for more than 60 years in Ethiopia and now has a total of four factories in the country.
On the African continent, the group has bottling activities in 13 countries and employs nearly 16,000 people.
Few may have heard of the term “al-Fashaga,” yet the fate of over 150 million people is now hanging over it.
A swath of fertile land between Ethiopia and Sudan, al-Fashaga is becoming a powder keg that could set off a large-scale war and humanitarian crisis in the Horn of Africa. Sudan and Ethiopia have both claimed this borderland as their sovereign territory and sent heavy weaponry to the region, placing themselves on a path of direct military confrontation.
At a time when Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has stoked a global food crisis, a war between Ethiopia and Sudan would further push our world toward mass hunger. Ethiopia and Sudan are not only key agricultural producers and exporters in the Horn of Africa but also two of the most populous countries across the entire continent. And al-Fashaga is particularly crucial to food supplies because of its dense production of oilseed crops and vegetables along the Atbara River.
To prevent this humanitarian crisis, U.S. citizens need to call on the Biden administration to act now. And to be clear, the U.S. is well positioned to do so. As the largest aid donor to Ethiopia and Sudan, we have invested over $1 billion to protect civilians in both countries in the past year alone, building up extensive coordination networks. Since taking office, President Joe Biden has also personally engaged with controversial Ethiopian leader Abiy Ahmed to secure a humanitarian cease-fire in the Tigray region — in a way met with bipartisan support. Domestic and international situations allow the Biden administration to play a major role in facilitating a peaceful settlement for al-Fashaga.
The U.S. and its allies’ economic power, combined with the African Union’s political presence, offers the best hope for securing a suspension in military deployment into al-Fashaga. This pause will be crucial to limiting the risks of accidental firefights and misjudgment that could lead to major escalations. U.S. involvement could also facilitate African Union efforts by raising international awareness of this impending crisis, putting further pressure on the two nations to avoid war under the spotlight. In recent Eastern African history, a series of conflicts escalated quickly after a few minor incidents, including Ethiopia’s Badme War with neighboring Eritrea. These avoidable wars led to enormous human suffering. Reducing military presence in the disputed area would be a great way of preventing history’s darkest chapters from repeating themselves.
In coordination with the African Union, the U.S. should launch a multilateral diplomatic effort to tackle the central issue complicating peace efforts: the surge in nationalism on both sides fueled by their own leaders. Since the beginning of the current confrontation, Ethiopia and Sudan have been accusing each other of flagrant crimes. To project strength, Ethiopia’s Foreign Affairs Ministry has gone so far as to rule out any prospects of negotiations unless Sudan withdraws entirely. Such remarks will only build up domestic pressure and shrink the room for future diplomatic engagements. Instead of letting strong emotions derail peace talks, Biden could coordinate with the African Union and U.S. allies and regional partners such as Kuwait, which has already shown interest in economic collaboration with Ethiopia, to provide additional economic incentives. Such economic support should be designed to enable countries to tone down their war of words without damaging internal stability.
Biden could also provide key insights from other U.S. allies and partners to decrease tensions between front-line militaries. Last year, amid tense border conflicts between India, a U.S. partner, and China, the front-line armies established a hotline in North Sikkim for instant communications following any accidents. The Indian army said this hotline contributed to mutual de-escalation from the first day, where the opening event “was attended by ground commanders of the respective Armies and a ‘message of friendship’ was exchanged through the Hotline.” The U.S. has sufficient information about the India-China hotline based on its security partnership with India, and Biden is in a position to convince Ethiopia and Sudan of the hotline’s contribution to preventing tragic outcomes.
Biden has declared that he will earn back America’s “position of trusted leadership” in the world. So far in al-Fashaga, several other countries have made attempts at international mediation, including the United Arab Emirates, but all of them have failed. It is precisely at such perilous moments that trusted leadership matters the most.
With the risk of war rising daily in al-Fashaga, Biden needs to step up and safeguard the lives of millions of civilians in the Horn of Africa.
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Addis Ethiopia Weblog 