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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
October 17, 2007
gowans.wordpress.com
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
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