[NYTr] Darfur vs. Ogaden, Mugabe vs. Meles

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

What's Left - October 17, 2007
http://gowans.wordpress.com/2007/10/17/darfur-vs-ogaden-mugabe-vs-meles/


Darfur vs. Ogaden, Mugabe vs. Meles

If the neutral left is really neutral, why does it keep coming down
hard on the West's official enemies while ignoring the West's henchmen?

By Stephen Gowans

Many left activists and progressives claim to be equally opposed to
oppression, whether practiced by the friends of imperialist powers or
their enemies, but are virtually silent on the well documented
oppressions of such US client states as Saudi Arabia, Egypt and
Ethiopia, while exhibiting an uncritical zeal in denouncing the enemies
of Anglo-American imperialism, often for crimes that have been
exaggerated or invented to be used as pretexts for Western intervention
and fulfillment of imperialist goals.

There is no better illustration of this tendency to profess principled
neutrality while regularly exhibiting a pro-imperialist bias, than the
current obsession with the alleged genocide in Darfur and the claims of
unjustified political oppression in Zimbabwe, while a virtually
unremarked series of crimes and oppressions is carried out by the US
and British client government of Meles Zenawi in Ethiopia.
In an anti-guerilla war conducted in the country's Ogaden region,
"Ethiopian troops are burning villages, raping women and killing
civilians as part of a systematic campaign to drive them from their
homes." Refugees say dozens of villages have been destroyed and have
"accused the Ethiopian government of forcibly starving its own people
by preventing food convoys reaching villages and destroying crops and
livestock."*

"A former Ethiopian soldier who defected from the army said how he had
been ordered to burn villages and kill all their inhabitants. He said
the Ethiopian air force would bomb a village before a unit of ground
troops followed, firing indiscriminately at civilians. 'Men, women,
children - we killed them all,' he said."

The little-known conflict in Ogaden parallels the more widely known war
in Darfur. The conflict began when rebels killed scores of Ethiopian
guards and Chinese employees at a Chinese-run oil field. The government
replied with a harsh crackdown.

"Human rights investigators are gathering evidence of widespread use of
rape, with women reporting gang-rapes by up to a dozen soldiers. In some
villages, men have been abducted at night, their bodies dumped in the
village the next morning.

"While in Darfur, aid agencies have been able to establish camps and
provide humanitarian support, they have been blocked from setting up
operations in the Ogaden. The International Committee of the Red Cross
has been thrown out and Medicins Sans Frontieres has also been
prevented from working. Journalists trying to enter have also been
banned - those that have tried have been promptly arrested."

But while neutral leftists have worked themselves into a state of high
moral dudgeon over Sudan's counter-insurgency in Darfur, which "has
been described by the US as 'genocide' and by the UN as 'crimes against
humanity'", they have been virtually silent   on Ethiopia, a recipient
of US and British military and humanitarian aid.

"America's top official on African affairs, assistant secretary of
state, Jendayi Frazer, visited one town in the Ogaden last month.

"On her return to Ethiopia's capital, Addis Ababa, she criticized the
rebels and said the reports of military abuses were merely allegations.
'We urge any and every government to respect human rights and to try to
avoid civilian casualties but that's difficult in dealing with an
insurgency,' she said."
The West's official enemies are never allowed the same latitude in
dealing with their own (often US and British financed and instigated)
insurgencies - a double standard backed by neutral leftists through
their voluble condemnations of the anti-insurgency efforts of official
enemies and comparative silence on those of Western client states.

"The US provides some $283m (#140m) in military and humanitarian aid to
Ethiopia and has trained its military - one of the largest and
strongest in Africa."

Compare Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe with Ethiopia's Prime Minister Meles
Zenawi.  For trying to invest Zimbabwean independence with real content
(land reform and indigenization of the economy), Mugabe has been
calumniated by British and US officials and the Western media as a
strongman who will do anything to stay in power, from stealing
elections to repressing the opposition.  The elections Mugabe was said
to have stolen were endorsed by the South African Development
Community, an organization of neighboring states, and the opposition
operates freely, despite being openly backed and financed by Western
powers in pursuit of a regime-change, anti-independence agenda.

For doing the West's bidding in the Horn of Africa, Ethiopia's Meles is
showered with US and British aid and was handpicked by Tony Blair to
sit on Britain's Commission for Africa, to lead the "African
renaissance." Neutral leftists say little about "the British
Government's - and the West's - favorite African leader", channeling
their energies instead into calling on the US to intervene militarily
in Darfur and in competing to see who can exercise the greatest
stridency in denouncing the Mugabe government (contributing to the
program of ushering Mugabe and his pro-independence policies out and
the MDC and its pro-Western dependence policies in.) Somehow, the end
result of all this is to put the West more firmly in control of Africa.

And yet the political repressions of which Mugabe is accused are
practiced ardently by Meles. Indeed, even if every charge leveled
against Mugabe were true (and most are not), he would still be an angel
against Meles.

Following Ethiopia's May 2005 general election, which the opposition
claimed was rigged, "security forces opened fire on protesters, killing
193 people." Thousands of opposition supporters and leaders were
rounded up and thrown in jail.

"More than 100 opposition leaders were put on trial for treason while
the police crackdown intensified. Text messages, which had been used to
organize the demonstrations in 2005, were banned."

The state asked that the death penalty be imposed on 38 opposition
leaders, including the founder of the Ethiopian Human Rights Council, a
former UN war crimes prosecutor and the mayor-elect of Addis Ababa. The
court rejected the prosecution's recommendation, but sentenced the
opposition leaders to life imprisonment. They were later freed, but
only after the US intervened. "Britain still gives Ethiopia #130m in
humanitarian aid each year - more than any other African country,"
while carrying out an unremitting campaign of demonization against
Robert Mugabe and blocking Zimbabwe's access to international credit.

How it is it that Meles, who has carried out much graver crimes than any
Mugabe has been accused of, is showered with honors and humanitarian
aid, while Mugabe is treated as Africa's version of Hitler and his
country is subjected to a campaign of economic warfare?
The answer lies in the reality that Meles acts as Washington's attack
dog in the Horn of Africa, invading Somalia to put down a
pro-independence government, while Mugabe pursues an independent
foreign policy and implements reforms to give Zimbabwean independence
meaningful content.

How is that many left activists and progressives, though professing
neutrality, channel much of their energy into campaigns deploring the
official enemies of Anglo-American imperialism, while remaining
virtually silent on oppressions carried out by US and British client
states?

The answer has much to the do with the media and how left activists and
progressives react to it. The news media are structured to report on
what state officials say and do. To garner support for their policies,
state officials make public statements on issues they want to draw
public attention to, while steering clear of events they prefer remain
unnoticed. Because Western state officials make frequent references to
Zimbabwe, and few, if any, to Ethiopia, dozens of media news stories
appear on Zimbabwe for every one that appears on Ethiopia.  In this
way, state officials, working through the media, are able to establish
a public agenda, not only for the media but for the neutral left to
follow - one which places Mugabe scores of rungs ahead of Meles, and
Darfur much higher than Ogaden. Left activists and progressives talk
about Mugabe and Darfur because the media do and the media do because
Western state officials do. But neutral leftists hardly ever talk about
Meles and Ogaden because the media hardly do, and the media hardly do
because Western state officials almost never do (and don't want to.)
The result is that while professing neutrality, many left activists and
progressives have been unwittingly recruited into agendas set in
Washington and London.

These are the conditions that, in part, lead the neutral left to channel
considerable energy into denouncing the official enemies of Western
governments, while spending little time talking about or campaigning
against oppressive regimes that receive Western aid and support.
Neutral leftists are quick to denounce the military government of
Myanmar (an official enemy) for its crackdown on a religious group,
while saying virtually nothing about the military government of
Pakistan (a client state) for an equally bloody crackdown on a
religious group. Neutral leftists are acutely sensitive to the
humanitarian crisis in Darfur (officially condemned), while saying
virtually nothing about the much larger humanitarian crisis in Iraq
(officially ignored) or the humanitarian crisis in Ogaden (also
officially ignored.) Neutral leftists say virtually nothing about Meles
Zenawi, a strongman accused of rigging elections who threatens
political opponents with the death penalty, has invaded another
country, and carries out crimes against humanity within his own borders
(and is supported by the West) while spitting out contempt for Robert
Mugabe, who has done none of these things (but isn't supported by the
West).

In all it does, despite professions of neutrality, the neutral left is
pro-imperialist, not neutral.  The moment its members devote half as
much energy to railing against the governments of Egypt, Ethiopia,
Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey as they do against Zimbabwe, the
Taliban, north Korea, Belarus and Iran, will be the moment their claims
to support neither imperialism nor its official enemies unconditionally
become something more substantial than deceptive rhetoric.

* All quotes from Steve Bloomfield, "Ethiopia's 'own Darfur' as
villagers flee government-backed violence," The Independent, October
17, 2007, http://news.independent.co.uk/world/africa/article3067244.ece