Eritrea: Inaction in Ethiopia manifests int'l. double standard

31 January 2006

Eritrea today charged the international community with a clearly manifest double standard for its inaction in the face of what has been going on in Ethiopia ever since the May 2005 elections. An editorial posted today in the website of the Ministry of Information of Eritrea said “The suffering to which the heroic and steadfast Ethiopian people are subjected to, enduring every punitive act of the TPLF regime, in its legal and peaceful protest against the blatant duplicity of the regime during the national elections in May and demanding for the reinforcement of law and respect of the people’s voice, has been denied every attention by the international media. It has received a deaf ear by the so-called Western media, which apparently advocates the rule of law, people’s empowerment and democracy and further claiming that the same media “ stands for the freedom of expression under the rule of law and democracy”.”

From shabait.com

Editorial
Silence Of The International Community Over The Ethiopian Issue: Clear Manifestation Of Double Standard
By Staff
Jan 31, 2006, 21:03

The suffering to which the heroic and steadfast Ethiopian people are subjected to, enduring every punitive act of the TPLF regime, in its legal and peaceful protest against the blatant duplicity of the regime during the national elections in May and demanding for the reinforcement of law and respect of the people’s voice, has been denied every attention by the international media. It has received a deaf ear by the so-called Western media, which apparently advocates the rule of law, people’s empowerment and democracy and further claiming that the same media “ stands for the freedom of expression under the rule of law and democracy”. Moreover, the international associations and institutions which define themselves as “defendants of human rights” have preferred to remain silent while the TPLF regime, in a bid to prolong its stay of power, is resorting to taking every punitive measure against the unarmed and peaceful people and brutally putting behind bars all those who voiced the truth.

As every one is well aware by now, the TPLF regime which is nearing its downfall, is illegal and has been ruling Ethiopia by the use of force for fourteen years, formulating a unilateral constitution that has no popular consent, a constitution which encourages ethnic polarity and supremacy of a handful clique. Moreover, the United Kingdom and the United States, countries that talk with too much pride about democracy, have been branding the TPLF regime as a competent and democratic government. Furthermore, it is to recalled that the British government rewarded the TPLF regime with a large amount of funds in the name of a project to “reinforce the Ethiopian police” after the massacre of students in Addis Ababa during which the regime blatantly described the incident having occurred due to the shortage and lack of a competent police force.

The intensive care and protection the Western countries are providing to the TPLF regime could not indefinitely prolong the power mercury of the detested regime. The current wave of popular uprising that Ethiopia is engulfed in for the first time in its history is the outcome of the recent third round fake elections drama conducted to please Western institutions and donor government.

Despite all of the atrocities the TPLF regime had committed, it did not encountered any real pressure from the so called “defendants of democracy, good governance and advocacy of human rights” in the West at a time when the TPLF regime continues to muzzle people’s voices and is trying to consolidate its power through brute force. Some European countries including the UK, embarrassed by the demonstrations conducted by Ethiopians living abroad are warning, though as lip service, that they are considering to stop the aid earmarked for Ethiopia. The fact is, however, that of shifting the aid from development assistance into a “humanitarian” one with a view to saving the regime from the extreme internal turmoil it is encountering.

The truth of the matter is that the silence of the international media and the “human rights advocates” namely western institutions regarding the prevailing situation in Ethiopia is that the philosophy of human rights and democracy is being used to serve as an instrument, with unclear clarification and measurement, so as to safeguard one’s interest and hidden agenda and acting with a double standard to maintain the suppression and isolation of the “disobedient”. Out of this experience, the Ethiopian people have been able to identify friends from enemies. The people of Africa in general have also raised their awareness out of the experience of the Ethiopian people. Hence, the silence of the international community could not save the TPLF regime, which is in the last hours of its death bed from its final doom; for the Ethiopia people, without expecting the help of others, are bound to expedite the downfall of the hated regime.