Aklog Birara (Dr)
“There’s no law of economics or physics that says the US dollar is the world’s reserve currency indefinitely, irrespective of what America does.”
Arvind Subramanian, Peterson Institute
There are only a few matters in life that are inevitable and shall change. One of these is rapid transformation of global governance architecture and the platforms that will govern it. There is no law that says one powerful country can and must influence and govern the entire world for ever: none.
As an Ethiopian American who admires US institutions like the Constitution that provides checks and balances, an independent and free press that defends and reports the truth on the ground most of the time and impartially, the widespread formation, and engagement and activism of civil society organizations that defend social and humanitarian causes affecting the most vulnerable, the freedom to move, vote, compete for office, own a home and establish an enterprise anywhere in the country that contribute hugely to the openness of society and the vitality of the US economy and the like, I often wonder why these core American values that define the United States as the symbol of democracy are not translated into the country’s foreign public policy.
For certain, there is no symmetry between the rhetoric US officials utter and present to the international community concerning human rights and the rule of law and American actions and deeds on the ground. For example, the government of the United States chooses the term and application of “genocide” selectively. It accepts international norms that suit its strategic global interests and the interests of its allies.
I have watched the presidential debate and debates for the US Congress. Equally, I have listened to renowned leaders speak at the 16th BRICS Summit that just concluded in Russia. You cannot deny the notion that a ‘new cold war’ and a new world order is taking shape, and that BRICS are rising challenging the old and replacing the outmoded model.
UN Secretary General Guterres’s speech at the summit shocked the West. It did not shock me. It is the same theme the President of Barbados hammered at the UN General Assembly in September.
The UN system is weak. The UN Security Council is undemocratic and unrepresentative. The Bretton Woods model of monetary and financial governance is outdated and no longer relevant. This must change. For one, I have argued Africa must be at the table.
In 2024, the five original BRICS—Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa—alone had a combined GDP of $29 trillion. If you add the rest that have since joined, the figure will rise. This is a tectonic shift. This reality alone requires change.
Unless they are reformed and democratized soon, the UN system and multilaterals do not meet the democratic aspirations of half of the world’s population. Lack of fair and equitable representation entails mistrust within and among nations. Mistrust leads to conflict and unnecessary wars. Like nations, grieved people also fight for fairness, justice, equitable representation, survival, human dignity, and security.
Experts estimate BRICS represents more than half of the world’s population. This emerging and potential economic and market powerhouse to which several key African countries belong will be a major player in shaping future global governance, trade, and institutions. I am suggesting here that multilateralism is inevitable.
However, I must admit I am disappointed by omissions in debates and conversations by both the West and BRICS concerning, for example, ten collapsing nations in 2024, as well as ethnicity-based mass killings, ethnic cleansing, mass incarcerations, displacements, disempowerments, state as well as non-state led collective punishments in Sub-Saharan African countries and the Middle East.
Who speaks for the voiceless? Where is Western media? Where is the BRICS media?
Because I live and pay taxes in a Western nation, and just voted, it irks me that Western media that I follow daily rarely mentions ethnicity-based war crimes, crimes against humanity, crimes of rape and crimes of genocide in Africa and the Middle East. Doing so seems taboo.
I suggest there is symmetry between what influential government leaders like President Biden and corporate media like CNN do or do not say. Why?
This takes me to the one international institution established to deal with ethnicity or faith collective punishment that amounts to genocide. I have in mind the International Criminal Court (ICC) in mind.
What is the ICC anyway? Why is the USA opposed to the ICC?
The ICC is an independent judicial institution empowered by 124 UN member nations to investigate and prosecute war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide, and the crime of aggression. Fifty percent of African nations belong to the ICC. Members have given the ICC the authority to investigate and persecute individual criminals regardless of territory, political power, wealth. status or office under the protocol of the Rome Statute.
“The ICC is new. According to Human Rights Watch. It “has been in operation since 2003. It has opened more than two dozen cases based on investigations in eleven countries, most of which are ongoing. On March 5, 2020, the ICC appeals chamber authorized the court’s prosecutor to open an investigation in Afghanistan, which could include alleged crimes committed by the Taliban, Afghan National Security Forces, and United States military and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) personnel.”
In its insightful Q & A, Human Rights Watch reports “The International Criminal Court has opened investigations in Afghanistan, the Central African Republic, Côte d’Ivoire, Darfur in Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, Libya, Uganda, Bangladesh/Myanmar, Palestine, the Philippines, and Venezuela.”
Most of the countries of focus by the ICC are Sub-Saharan African. Why only Africa?
I pose the hard but valid question “Why did the ICC fail to open an investigation on US war crimes in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Vietnam and other countries where hundreds of thousands innocent civilians were killed?”
According to a report by Human Rights Watch issued in 2015, the leading reason for not targeting the USA is this. “The US is not a state party to the Rome Statute. The US participated in the negotiations that led to the creation of the court. However, in 1998 the US was one of only seven countries – along with China, Iraq, Israel, Libya, Qatar, and Yemen – that voted against the Rome Statute. US President Bill Clinton signed the Rome Statute in 2000 but did not submit the treaty to the Senate for ratification. In 2002, President George W. Bush effectively “unsigned” the treaty, sending a note to the United Nations secretary-general that the US no longer intended to ratify the treaty and that it did not have any obligations toward it.”
The US is a Superpower. No other country can force it to implement ICC determinations. Congress has not approved the Rome Statute of 2000.
It is true under international law and the sovereignty of states—the corner stone of state relations and functions—”states have a responsibility to investigate and appropriately prosecute (or extradite for prosecution) suspected perpetrators of genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and other international crimes. The ICC does not shift this responsibility. It is a court of last resort. Under what is known as the “principle of complementarity,” the ICC may only exercise its jurisdiction when a country is either unwilling or genuinely unable to investigate and prosecute these grave crimes.”
In the cases of Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Israel, the United States, and others evidence shows their governments do not conduct thorough investigations and hold individuals accountable for war crimes, crimes against humanity, crimes of rape and crimes of genocide. What recourse do victims have?
For the ICC to function effectively, governments must be willing to grant or delegate authority to the ICC to effect investigations and to hold criminals accountable. They will not do such a thing if they too are the perpetrators of war crimes and the like.
Even in the case of the United States where the rule of law is paramount, there is no evidence that national authorities such as the Department of Justice conduct authentic due diligence” against their own citizens.” This makes American citizens immune from persecution for alleged war crimes, crimes against humanity and crimes of genocide.
Human Rights Watch “found no evidence that the investigators interviewed any victims of CIA torture. The investigation was limited to abuses that went beyond the interrogation methods authorized by the Justice Department. Many of the authorized techniques were abusive – some clearly amounting to torture – and should have been included. A 2014 report by the US Senate Intelligence Committee concluded that the CIA covered up its crimes, including by making false claims to the Justice Department. The 6,700-page Senate report remains classified, but a redacted version of the 525-page summary shows that abusive CIA interrogation methods were far more brutal, systematic, and widespread than previously reported.”
Is there a flaw in US Policy towards genocide?
Evidence shows the US applies a double standard of international laws and covenants on other countries that it does not apply to itself. Human Rights Watch (HRW) hammers out this dichotomy.
“The Bush administration pressured governments around the world to enter into bilateral agreements requiring them not to surrender US nationals to the ICC. But these efforts did little more than erode US credibility on international justice and gradually gave way to a more supportive US posture, starting in 2005. The US did not veto a UN Security Council request to the ICC prosecutor to investigate crimes in Darfur, Sudan in 2005 and it voted for the UN Security Council referral of the situation in Libya to the court in 2011.”
The US is initiative-taking and public regarding war crimes, crimes against humanity and crimes of genocide committed by non-Americans, especially Africans.
HRW notes “US support was critical in the transfer to the court of ICC suspects Bosco Ntaganda, a Congolese rebel leader, in 2012 and Dominic Ongwen, a Lord’s Resistance Army commander, in 2015. In 2013, the US Congress expanded its existing war crimes rewards program to provide rewards to people providing information to facilitate the arrest of foreign individuals wanted by any international court or tribunal, including the ICC.”
What is former President Trump’s Policy on the ICC?
I urge Ethiopians and other African to consider the fact that US foreign policy is steady and consistent regardless of the Party in power. An American president will not compromise his or her country’s core national interests regardless of party affiliation.
“When he served as President of the USA, Trump’s “government said that it will not cooperate with the ICC and threatened retaliatory steps against ICC staff and member countries should the court investigate US or allied country citizens. President Trump addressed the UN General Assembly stating that the “United States will provide no support or recognition to the International Criminal Court. As far as America is concerned the ICC has no authority, no legitimacy, and no authority.”
The US went further. “On March 15, 2019, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that the US would impose visa bans on ICC officials involved in the court’s potential investigation of US citizens for alleged crimes in Afghanistan. He indicated the same policy may be used to deter ICC efforts to investigate nationals of allied countries, including Israelis, and stated that the US would be prepared to take further actions, including economic sanctions, “if the ICC does not change its course.” The Trump administration confirmed in early April 2019 that it had revoked ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda’s visa.
“Trump issued a sweeping executive order on June 11, 2020, authorizing asset freezes and family entry bans that could be imposed against certain ICC officials. The administration acted on September 2 to designate Fatou Bensouda, the ICC prosecutor, and Phakiso Mochochoko, the head of the Office of the Prosecutor’s Jurisdiction, Complementarity, and Cooperation Division, for sanctions. The executive order also provides for the same sanctions regarding those who assist certain court investigations, risking a broad chilling effect on cooperation with the ICC.”
The US gives protection to Israel by using its veto power. This prevents the ICC from conducting formal investigations. “Given strong evidence that serious crimes have been committed in Palestine since 2014, including the transfer of Israeli civilians into the occupied West Bank and alleged war crimes committed during the 2014 hostilities in Gaza by the Israeli military and Palestinian armed groups, Human Rights Watch has called on the ICC prosecutor to open a formal investigation of serious international crimes committed in Palestine by Israelis and Palestinians.”
I commend Human Rights Watch for this call concerning Palestinian victims.
Could the ICC open an investigation on Ethiopia?
For the ICC to act there must be a referral from a government or state or from the UN Security Council.
I recall US and other Western officials referred “Tigray Genocide and Tigray Famine” to the UN Security Council a dozen times. Had the Council reached a unanimous decision, it would have referred the Tigray war and its atrocities to the ICC. The ICC would have acted.
In the case of Palestinians, South Africa played a leading role in sponsoring the investigations.
Do Ethiopian victims of war crimes, crimes against humanity, crimes of genocide and crimes of rape have state, country, or government sponsors in the West or among BRICS? If not, why is that?
Fragmentation among Ethiopian political and social elites along ethnic lines that has diminished unified and vigorous advocacy and international media coverage contributes hugely to the lack of international attention.
By the looks of things, it is unlikely that officials of the government of the United States would sponsor a UN Security Council hearing on ethnicity-based war crimes, crimes against humanity and crimes of genocide in Ethiopia.
In the long-term, this “dead silence policy” does not help the United States. At minimum, the US government can speak up and demand an end to drone strikes of civilians in Ethiopia. It can demand cessation of warring factions. It can demand reverting to war in solving the country’s multifaceted crisis will not work.
Ethiopia’s situation is more explosive and concerning for the both the West and BRICS. in my assessment neither can afford to ignore it for long.
A video that went viral this week says it all in its “Ten Fastest Collapsing countries in 2024. Ethiopia is ninth on the list. Imagine that!! Once a pillar of stability Ethiopia is now “collapsing fast.”
One of the countries my family and I have enjoyed visiting is Argentina. It is one of the most beautiful and wealthiest countries in the world. I never imagined Argentina will be on the list.
Why is Argentina collapsing?
The experts who released the video based their assessments and categorization on sound statistical data that affects the lives of tens of millions in each country.
Twelve Indicators of Rapid Collapse?
- Skyrocketing prices or hyperinflation that affects all citizens.
- Administrative malpractices at all levels
- Protracted ethnicity-based conflicts and mass killings, incarcerations, and human insecurity
- Total securitizationof institutions compounded by
- Suffocation of civil society and press freedom
- Lawlessness, abductions, theft, graft, and corruption
- Escalating public debt, Ethiopia’s reaching 60 percent of GDP
- Diversion and misuse of public funds
- Deepening poverty affecting more than twenty million in the case of Ethiopia.
- Fragility, instability, and human insecurity
- Mistrust of government and its institutions
- Regional tensions
To this menu, I would add the deeply troubling Ethiopian political culture that contestants for power can and must settle problems through the barrel of the gun killing, maiming, jailing, or expelling their opponents and adversaries. Ethiopians have been killing one another non-stop since the overthrow of the Haile Selassie regime. Does this show sanity?
Over the past thirty-three years Ethiopia has allowed, strengthened, and facilitated the extraction of massive rent by elites rather than advancing the common good of inclusive growth, development, and wellbeing. Does this show sustainability?
Ethiopia’s intellectual class has failed to articulate the pitfalls of ethnicity-based politics, and political capture and to offer an alternative roadmap. Does this intellectual gap matter?
Like Argentina that I had the opportunity to visit and observe three times, a privileged few Ethiopians live scandalous lives while the majority are unable to meet their daily needs.
For these reasons, it is prudent for both the West dominated by the USA and the BRICS dominated by China to at least speak up and question why Ethiopia—at one time a pillar of stability– is collapsing and why the state must cease slaughters of hundreds of innocent civilians like chickens each day.
0ctober 30, 2024
References
“It’s BEGUN! 10 Fastest Collapsing Countries 2024. Do not Live Here” on YouTube
https://youtu.be/O2D6o5qiknk?si=VkomPiUV1-hrXKEI
Drone Warfare, Extrajudicial Killings, and Human Rights Violations in Ethiopia’s Amhara Region – Ethiopian Policy Institute
Watch “Viral UN Chief’s Speech at BRICS Summit Sends Shockwaves Worldwide!” on YouTube!
https://youtu.be/BokWENpPNYI?si=FeYjJcVm44vOQY1P
An excellent and well written article.
Putting diplomatic language aside, Ethiopia is collapsing because the decades long work of its detractors (the same people you are appealing to) is bearing fruit. There has been a concerted and sustained project to destroy Ethiopian unity, food self-sufficiency, political stability and sovereignty.
Ethiopia is not collapsing and Shall never collapse. If that is a written/signed death warrant, that country could have gone belly up already way back in the 1930’s, 1974 and most likely in 1991. Since 1974 conniving commies and bigots have tried everything in their animosity spreading arsenal to render it broken beyond repair. They failed miserably except for the one that was a bad marriage from the very beginning to start with which was a blessing in disguise. It lost breathing outlets to the sea but it kept breathing and growing in size.
Bigots from their comfy homes here among us in the Diaspora were inciting the gullible youth in Oromia and Amhara regions during the years 2014-2018 to go out and torch all tools of developments and advancement in sight such as factories, schools and healthcare facilities. The youth obliged in force where factories, schools and clinics were torched to the ground. Meanwhile those bigots among us were going around and telling the Western media that the youth was burning only those owned by the leaders of the then regime and those who were connected to the regime. Just imagine where on this good earth those conniving bigots got the audacity to justify wanton destruction. Those so-called leaders of the youth were well-read intellectuals. But that country somehow found the strength and regained its life for the country that was on the brink of death.
1930’s, 1974 and 1991 were not the only years that country almost withered away. After reading a history book written by our own over-qualified historian, Obbo Professor Bahru bin Zewde, I discovered that the old country was even in the worst shape to go asunder from the early 18th to mid 19th century during the lawless period he called the Era of Princes. It was saved by the arrival of my Barentu Oromos who brought law and order all the way to Gondar. Aligaz ain’t a Puerto Rican. Ali was not an Aryan from Bavaria. Emperor Bakaffa did not seek political asylum in Minnesota or Toronto but was sheltered and protected by my own Barentus. I am not making this up. Read the brother’s book. But read it with undivided attention. Empress Taytu wasn’t just another woman from Papua New Guinea but a concoction of the 3 backbones of the country. Above all, don’t forget to mention the Yejju Dynasty. How about Dinegde, Marye, the unflinching patriotic Ethiopian Mikaeel(Mohammed Ali), Gobana Dache, Jagama Kello and millions others? I think I have said enough to rile up bigots and connivers. Meanwhile, for now, take this one with you:
Ethiopia will never go away. Mark my word for it!!! Add it to your cup of tea or coffee and drink it, It will cleanse your hateful body and soul.