The US Continues To Disrespect Ethiopia By Playing Word Games With The TPLF’s Name

Andrew Korybko

The interconnected reconciliation-reconstruction process that bravely began last week after both direct parties of the latest hostilities agreed to pursue peaceful solutions to their disputes must be supported by all. Those like the US that passively-aggressively signal their displeasure with this outcome that was reached between the conflicting parties’ representatives aren’t truly the friend of the Ethiopian people – whether in whole or in part with respect to only the Tigrayans – that they falsely present themselves as being.

The US doubled down on its passive-aggressive approach to the peace agreement that was reached last week between the Government of Ethiopia (GOE) and the TPLF by continuing to refer to the latter as the so-called “Tigrayan Defense Forces”. State Department spokesman Ned Price was confronted about this by a reporter during Tuesday’s press conference, who directly asked him to respond to those Ethiopians and Ethiopian Americans who consider that this terminology violates their sovereignty since it’s noticeably absent from the aforementioned peace agreement that reaffirms the existence of only one defense force, the ENDF.

Price predictably dodged the question but made sure to repeat that offensive terminology in his response, which can be interpreted as the US Government (USG) refusing to recognize that integral part of the peace agreement. This arrogant approach violates the will of both Ethiopian parties, who in their joint statement called upon everyone to support their noble efforts at ending two years of warfare. Extrapolating from the USG’s position that was tacitly conveyed by its official diplomatic representative on Tuesday, it can be concluded that the peace agreement was made possible largely because the GOE succeeded in convincing the TPLF that its American patrons were ruthlessly exploiting them as proxies.

After all, if the USG was truly in full support of the agreement, then it would respect the will of both parties and especially the TPLF by not employing offensive terminology that isn’t included in the text itself. By doing so two days in a row and importantly doubling down on the second when directly confronted by a reporter to explain himself, Price is trying to desperately signal to the TPLF that the US hopes that it’ll resume the disruptive activities that it carried out when it referred to itself by that name prior to the success of last week’s talks. This is an unfriendly policy to practice and confirms that observers were right all along in suspecting that the US wanted to fight the GOE to the last Tigrayan.

The Tigrayans themselves should take careful note of America’s duplicitous approach. Their self-proclaimed representatives signed the peace agreement despite it not mentioning that name but only their official one that they’d hitherto been universally referred to prior to the latest hostilities. If the US was truly a supporter of the Tigrayan people like it presents itself to be, then it would publicly respect their self-proclaimed representatives’ decision to sign the agreement that only referred to them by their official name instead of referring to them by that other one. Basically, the US is signaling that it believes that it has a better understanding of the TPLF’s interests than its own former proxies do.

This insight is crucial for the locals to realize since the information warfare dimension of the prior conflict, most of which was orchestrated and propagated from abroad, sought to convince them that America was truly the TPLF and Tigrayans’ ally. The reality, however, is that it always sought to exploit them as proxies for its Hybrid War on Ethiopia that aimed to punish its democratically elected and universally recognized leadership for its principled neutrality in the New Cold War. The interconnected reconciliation-reconstruction process that bravely began last week after both direct parties of the latest hostilities agreed to pursue peaceful solutions to their disputes must be supported by all.

Those like the US that passively-aggressively signal their displeasure with this outcome that was reached between the conflicting parties’ representatives aren’t truly the friend of the Ethiopian people – whether in whole or in part with respect to only the Tigrayans – that they falsely present themselves as being. They’re solely pursuing their self-interests at that entire country’s expense, hoping that they can subtly sabotage the peace process in order to continue dividing and ruling Ethiopia through proxy warfare. America’s approach is reprehensible and should thus be universally condemned by all peace-loving people without exception.