Africom Expelled From Niger Just Like Little French Bishes...,

abcnews  |  On Saturday, following the meeting, the junta’s spokesperson, Col. Maj. Amadou Abdramane, said U.S. flights over Niger’s territory in recent weeks were illegal. Meanwhile, Insa Garba Saidou, a local activist who assists Niger’s military rulers with their communications, criticized U.S. efforts to force the junta to pick between strategic partners.

“The American bases and civilian personnel cannot stay on Nigerien soil any longer,” he told The Associated Press.

Singh said the U.S. was aware of the March 16 statement “announcing the end of the status of forces agreement between Niger and the United States. We are working through diplomatic channels to seek clarification. These are ongoing discussions and we don't have more to share at this time.”

State Department spokesman Vedant Patel said the discussions were prompted by Niger's “trajectory."

“We are in touch with transition authorities to seek clarification of their comments and discuss additional next steps,” Patel said.

The junta has largely been in control in Niger since July when mutinous soldiers ousted the country’s democratically elected president and months later asked French forces to leave.

The U.S. military still had some 650 troops working in Niger in December, largely consolidated at a base farther away from Niamey, Niger's capital. Singh said the total number of personnel still in country, including civilians and contractors, is roughly 1,000.

The Niger base is critical for U.S. counterterrorism operations in the Sahel and has been used for both manned and unmanned surveillance operations, although Singh said the only drone flights being currently conducted are for force protection.

In the Sahel the U.S. has also supported local ground troops, including accompanying them on missions. However, such accompanied missions have been scaled back since U.S. troops were killed in a joint operation in Niger in 2017.

Depopulation Is America's Top Foreign Policy Priority For Africa

Bill Gates Is An Expression Of Official American Foreign Policy Toward Africa

Best ever video to explain the elemental evil of Bill Gates and his infernal foundation. No need to thank me: pic.twitter.com/KRDBnLV7D7

— Ivor Cummins (@FatEmperor) November 28, 2023

 

Nothing Good EVAH Came From The "Garden" To The "Jungle"...,

SCMP  |  When US President Joe Biden released his national security strategy on Wednesday, the report did not mention Africa much – one brief discussion near the end on building “US-Africa partnerships” and a handful of other mentions scattered across the document’s 48 pages.

However, military analysts say the continent is not only on the US radar but is a major arena of competition with China and Russia.

The main thrust of the strategy continues a theme Biden has sounded since taking office last year: the US will focus on competing with China and containing Russia.

In Africa, Beijing has become the single largest trading partner and built mega infrastructure projects through its Belt and Road Initiative, while Moscow is the largest military arms supplier and its companies have invested heavily in the continent’s extractive industries.

“China and Russia understand very well Africa’s strategic significance,” Major General Todd Wasmund, commander of the US Southern European Task Force, Africa, told a discussion at the Association of the US Army’s annual conference on Monday.

“As the Army refocuses on China – our pacing challenge – as well as the acute threat posed by Russia, it’s important to recognise that both countries are actively competing in Africa.”

The US says it will outcompete China and Russia by investing at home, building a coalition of like-minded states, and modernising its military. According to the strategy, the US will “counter democratic backsliding by imposing costs for coups and pressing for progress on civilian transitions” and “push back on the destabilising impact of the Russia-backed Wagner Group”, the Moscow-based mercenary network.

“These are sensible priorities, but they’re also not surprising given Russia’s attack on Ukraine, which delayed the strategy for months, and America’s rising tensions with China, which date from well before Joe Biden became president,” Christopher S. Chivvis, the director of the American Statecraft programme at the Carnegie Endowment, said.

Wasmund discussed how the army used its training of African militaries through its 2nd Security Force Assistance Brigade to ward off the growing Chinese and Russian influence on the continent.

“They are seeking to influence events on the continent in their favour using political influence, disinformation, economic leverage and malign military activity. We also know that violent extremist organisations are a persistent threat,” Wasmund said.

Multi-Polarity Is The Achilles Heel Of American Imperialism

BAR  |  The U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s International Trade Administration encourages  U.S. companies to do business in the DRC, citing “tens of trillions of dollars” in mineral wealth.

“The DRC is one of the most blessed places on Earth,” said Taye. “Sadly, the agents in the neighborhood—Kagame and Museveni—are facilitating the looting of Congo for the West.”

Non-governmental organization Global Witness reported in April that 90 percent  of minerals coming out of one DRC mining area were shown to have come from mines that did not meet security and human-rights standards. Companies relying on minerals from such mines include U.S.-based Apple, Intel and Tesla.

“Aid that comes in the front door with tens of millions of dollars is a mirage,” Carney said. The United States has disbursed $618 billion  in aid to Uganda since 2001. “Billions go out the back door in the form of extractions [of resources].”

‘Africa Is Going to Be Punished’

Conference moderator Joseph Senyonjo said the NUPUSA (the party’s U.S. arm) has attempted to engage U.S. Representative Karen Bass (D-CA), chair of the Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights and International Organizations in the House Committee on Foreign Affairs.

“She has done nothing,” he said.

Senyonjo added Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-NY) has been unhelpful. Meeks chairs the House Committee on Foreign Affairs and has introduced a U.S. House bill  that would punish African countries for bypassing U.S. sanctions on Russia. U.S. Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield said in an August 5 speech  in Ghana that U.S. sanctions are not to blame for the global wheat shortage, all while threatening action if African countries buy Russian fossil fuels. However, cutting off Russia from the SWIFT global payments system prevents it from trading wheat, a major Russian export.

What does that mean for African countries that have relied on Russia for 32 percent  of their wheat imports?

“Africa is going to be punished,” Senyonjo told conference attendees.

‘We Can’t Be Timid’

Netfa Freeman, the keynote speaker, warned attendees of approaching the U.S. government from a weak position and with the intent of appealing to the conscience. He said the United States cannot recognize human rights because it was built by violating the human rights of the Indigenous peoples and enslaved Africans. Now, it holds one-fifth  of the world’s prisoners, including the longest-held political prisoners in the world.

“Convincing them cannot be the goal,” said Freeman, an organizer with Pan-African Community Action, a grassroots organization based in southeast Washington. He also is a member of the Black Alliance for Peace Coordinating Committee and hosts a local radio program.

Freeman added officials such as Thomas-Greenfield, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris and U.S. Secretary of Defense Austin Lloyd mirror the comprador class that holds power in various African countries. A comprador appears to independently operate as a leader, but answers to colonial powers.

Freeman encouraged conference attendees to widen the scope of their solidarity to include Afro-descendants in Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela, for example, because they, too, suffer under U.S. sanctions and threats of invasion. He connected events that took place during the same timeframe on the continent—the assassination of DRC Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba and the driving into exile of Ghanian Prime Minister and President Kwame Nkrumah—with the assassinations of Malcolm X and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Any Minute Now Merica's Gone Have To Bring Uganda Some "Democracy"...,

tfiglobal  |  The major issue African countries face even after the presence of valuable minerals and metals under their soil is the unavailability of technology and capital for extraction. Major developed countries with the appropriate means are known to have considerable interest in African countries majorly due to their resources.

Moscow has maintained strong relations with Kampala. Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni did call Russia ‘Europe’s Center Of Gravity,’ and expressed strong support for the Kremlin amid the ongoing war.

The EU’s and Biden’s disregard for the African nations has placed the West in an unstrategic position there. Due to their broad disregard for the food security and inflation problems in African nations, Biden and his minions have lost all political clout in Africa. A master strategist like Putin would never have missed this chance to solidify his position.

Putin’s Masterstroke

Biden has done the damage and it is time for Putin to come into the picture and take steps to strengthen the already powerful Russian economy. Russia’s masterstroke to control a big chunk of the commodity market of the world is making Moscow unbeatable and irreplaceable.

Uganda’s reserves and Moscow’s interest in the region would be a demonstration of a show of strength in this time of crisis. Russia’s interest in Uganda is not newfound. Russian investors backed the first gold refinery in Uganda more than ten years ago.

The refinery, established by Russian-owned Victoria Gold Star Limited, has a capacity to process 1.2 tonnes of raw gold per month, the company’s managing director told Reuters.

Of late, Russia has also taken advantage of loopholes in sanctions and has strategically used its humongous $140 Billion gold reserves to hold down its economic fort. You see, gold is more of an elixir for Russia right now. Since Russia invaded Crimea back in 2014, the Russian state has been constantly working hard to steer its economy against the impact of sanctions. One avenue to do so was to increase its gold reserves, as gold tends to soar in times of conflict.

Putin also understands that the West cannot just sanction commodities such as crude oil, grain and gold because they would have severe repercussions on the global order. This is precisely why Moscow is all set to assist Uganda in its future mining endeavours and parallelly solidify its stronghold on the commodities trade. Africa in general and Uganda, in particular, would soon become one of the strongest allies of Russia.

The Greatest Crime Since World War 2 Has Been U.S. Foreign Policy

FP |  U.S. President Joe Biden has approved a Defense Department plan to redeploy American troops to Somalia to shore up counterterrorism efforts against one of Africa’s deadliest and most powerful militant groups. 

Biden’s decision will send several hundred U.S. special operators back into Somalia to help the fragile Somali federal government fight off the al Qaeda-linked al-Shabab terrorist group. The decision largely reverses former President Donald Trump’s directive to withdraw some 750 U.S. troops from the East African country shortly before leaving office in January 2021, as part of his broader efforts to draw down the U.S. military’s presence abroad. 

A senior Biden administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity in a briefing to reporters under ground rules set by the White House, characterized Trump’s directive as “an abrupt and sudden transition to a rotational presence” that allowed the al-Shabab terrorist group to gain further strength and step up attacks against the Somali government and civilian targets in recent years. 

The senior official said “under 500” U.S. troops would be redeployed to Somalia under the new plan but did not give additional details on the troops being deployed, citing security. The United States had about 750 troops in Somalia until Trump ordered the withdrawal that took place just days before Biden’s January 2021 inauguration. Since then, U.S. troops have rotated in and out of Somalia for specific missions, which the official characterized as a difficult and inefficient system that undermines U.S. efforts to help Somalia and other partnering governments fight al-Shabab. 

“Restoring a persistent U.S. military presence will help to increase the security and freedom of movement of other personnel, such as State Department and [U.S. Agency for International Development] colleagues as they conduct critical diplomatic and development missions,” the official added. 

Biden also reportedly authorized the Pentagon to target top al-Shabab leaders in addition to the new troop deployment, as the New York Times reported. 

The news of Biden’s decision comes after a major international anti-Islamic State coalition conference in Morocco last week, where leaders from dozens of countries warned that the terrorist group was gaining traction across western Africa even as it lost territory and influence in the Middle East. American gunsights, in contrast, are trained on the al Qaeda-linked al-Shabab in Africa’s east. Biden has authorized at least five drone strikes against al-Shabab since he took office.

Al-Shabab, considered one of the world’s deadliest terrorist groups, has claimed responsibility for a spate of attacks targeting the federal Somali government and peacekeepers from the African Union. It orchestrated the siege of a Kenyan university that killed nearly 150 people and a massive truck bombing in Mogadishu in 2017 that killed nearly 600. It was also responsible for a 2020 attack on a U.S. air base in Manda Bay, Kenya, that killed three Americans.

In 2021, after Trump’s decision to withdraw U.S. forces, al-Shabab stepped up its attacks, particularly around Somalia’s elections, and was expected to be implicated in over 2,000 violent incidents and a 28 percent increase in clashes with government security forces, according to a report last July from the Africa Center for Strategic Studies. 

U.S. military officials have long believed that al-Shabab has the intent to attack the United States, though it lacks the capabilities to do so currently, and the Pentagon considers the group both the fastest-growing and most kinetically active terrorist cell on the continent.

Truth Telling About EthnoFascism Can Get You Fired, Sanctioned, Arrested Or Killed

borkena  |   Hermela Aregawi, born in Ethiopia and raised in the United States, is making headlines in the Ethiopian media after she exposed pro-Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) supporters in the diaspora in connection with the delivery of humanitarian assistance in the Tigray region of Ethiopia. 

Her favorite quote displayed on her Twitter profile reads  “if all the truth were known abt everything in the world, it would be a better place,” and that is what she seems to be doing. 

A journalist by profession, works for CBS,  from ethnic Tigray background,  tweeted earlier this week that the Pro-TPLF Tigreans in the diaspora “don’t want aid to get to people because it will make @AbiyAhmedAli Government look good.”

The Ethiopian government has been under immense pressure from the US government and European Union, among other actors, on alleged grounds of obstructing humanitarian aid delivery to the Tigray region. 

Hermela Aregawi’s view of the conflict in northern Ethiopia, including aid delivery and alleged blockade of it, seems to have changed. 

In fact, she said it in her three parts tweet:

“My perspective on Tigray evolved bc of inconsistencies I’ve seen & heard in 10+ mnths. I stayed quiet for mnths hoping to see a shift towards peace & truth bc lives of millions – including my families’ – depend on it. There was no such shift. #Ethiopia 1/3 … If you’re going to label this a genocide from Day 2 then you can’t also try to control efforts to send life-saving basics to the poor ppl in it. Likely millions$ raised in diaspora but little to no accountability about where it’s going. To fund a civil war? #Tigray #Ethiopia 2/3 …We’ve seen counts of # of civilians killed in Tigray, but how many young soldiers have been killed fighting this questionable war? Diasporans should have the conscience to ask these ?s before continuing to blindly support an ethnic-based war in the year of 2021. #Ethiopia 3/3” 

Reacting to a picture of a child affected by famine, she tweeted “Heartbreaking images. I care enough to ask this ?: If it’s true @UN claims that Ethiopian govt has aid blockade in effect, how is it @UNEthiopia recently reported 466 aid trucks went into Tigray since July 12? A claim neither side of the conflict denied.” 

It was only last week that the UN branch office in Ethiopia disclosed that only 38 of 466 trucks that went to the Tigray region returned. Ethiopia’s Ministry of Peace has confirmed the claim by the UN office. Unverified video footage circulating on social media showed the trucks being used by the TPLF to transport its forces to the battle front in the Amhara region ,one of the regions where the TPLF took its war after the Ethiopian Defense Force withdrew from Tigray region at the end of June following unilateral declaration by the Ethiopian government. 

Ethiopians who have been trying to expose TPLF crimes on Twitter have been hailing Hermela for standing for the truth. In reaction to her inquisitive remark about Associated Press statement published on September 20, Teshome Borago wrote : 

“You are good woman of honor

Please know that the writer of this article Cara Anna recently justified z mass killing of Amharas in #ChenaMassacre by saying the Amhara civilian victims were fighting back vs TPLF

These Westerners just want us Ethiopians to fight forever” 

Many other Ethiopians have been expressing appreciation for Hermela for what she has revealed and for being inquisitive about narratives that were rather regarded as distorted despite they seem to have been used by policy makers including in the U.S government. 

Last week, president Joe Biden signed an executive order approving action regimes against Ethiopia. 

Quiet As It Was Kept Before Ukraine Took All The Oxygen In The Room, U.S. Got Handed Its Ass In Ethiopia

asiatimes  |  Just as Ethiopian government forces appear to have turned the tide in the country’s so-called civil war, the Biden administration is pushing for US citizens in Ethiopia to leave and is providing relocation assistance to those who can’t afford to buy a plane ticket.

Meanwhile, China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi has visited Addis Ababa and has made it clear that China backs Ethiopia’s government fully. This, in contrast to the United States which has imposed sanctions on Ethiopia, but not on the rebellious Tigray. 

As Bloomberg reports: The US last month suspended duty-free access to its exports “because of gross human rights violations,” which remain undocumented for the most part. 

The US has shown no interest in atrocities by Tigray forces, nor the theft of UN-sponsored relief supplies taken by the retreating Tigray army.

China is also supplying weapons to the Ethiopian National Defense Forces (ENDF), including armed, medium-altitude, long-endurance Wing Loong drones.

Sensing the significant vacuum left in Ethiopia, Iran is also supplying its Muhajer-6 armed drones, the same weapons used by Iran’s proxy Hezbollah in Syria.  

The UAE had previously supplied drones and some Israeli weapons to Ethiopia, including Chinese-made Wing Loong’s.

China is clearly exploiting the opening created by the UAE and jumping in, along with Iran, to push out the UAE (seen incorrectly as a US proxy) and other Western suppliers and backers.

Ethiopia’s war has recently turned in favor of the government, which looked nearly defeated a few weeks ago when the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) was about 209 kilometers from the capital Addis Ababa.

But in a short time, Ethiopia has rallied its army, received important political and weaponry support from China and Iran, and apparently changed the course of the war.

Meanwhile, thousands of Ethiopians in the United States, some protesting in front of the White House, are angry that the US has sided with the TPLF forces against the country’s legitimate government.

The US administration claims it has supported peace negotiations between the two sides in the conflict, working through African intermediaries.

But brokering a peace deal in the middle of an undecided conflict is unlikely to gain traction, not least because Addis Ababa sees talks as a way to force it to give up territory, even legitimacy, in exchange for ending the war. 

The US says it is neutral in the actual dispute, but American behavior, including Biden’s imposition of sanctions first on Ethiopia on September 17 and then on Eritrea on November 12 for assisting Ethiopia has made it clear whose side the US is on. 

In actual fact, the Biden administration opened the door to China and Iran by convincing Addis Ababa that there was no future with the US or its allies and partners.

The US has been speaking out of both sides of its mouth, a fact noted by Today News Africa journalist and commentator Simon Ateba. 

Ateba points out that Samantha Power, administrator of USAID, has been condemning Ethiopia in tweets while others, especially the US envoy for the Horn of Africa Jeffrey Feltman, have been trying to talk to both sides – although unsuccessfully. 

 

Ethiopian Civil War Was A U.S. vs China Proxy War (And China Won)

omna tigray |  It has been over a month since the Ethiopian government declared what it claimed to be a “humanitarian truce,” promising to facilitate humanitarian access to Tigray. However, since this declaration, less than 4 percent of the trucks required to address the man-made famine in Tigray have been allowed to enter the region. The irregular and piecemeal humanitarian convoys that have been allowed into the region are severely inadequate in addressing the humanitarian catastrophe that has been caused by the Ethiopian government’s 10 months-long siege. Despite the Ethiopian government’s proclaimed commitment to facilitate humanitarian deliveries to Tigray, aid workers, including Michael Dunford of the World Food Programme (WFP), report negotiating with regional authorities for the safe passage of aid convoys. That humanitarian organizations have to negotiate access with regional leaders rather than the federal government indicates that the federal government is either unable or unwilling to exercise control over regional authorities.

While the federal government and regional authorities continue to obstruct aid delivery, the man-made famine in Tigray grows more severe. Previously, the number of trucks of food that needed to enter Tigray was around 600 a week. In April 2022, a United Nations (UN) official reported that about 2,000 trucks of food are needed every week to meet the region’s needs. Without consistent and unhindered humanitarian deliveries, the scale of the need will continue to increase. Additionally, farmers’ lack of access to essential agricultural supplies like seeds and fertilizers means that many will miss the planting season, leading to poor harvest and a food crisis that will affect the region for years to come.

The severe food shortage also affects the ability of healthcare professionals to assist patients in the region. Healthcare professionals at Ayder Referral Hospital reported in April 2022 that Ayder Hospital, one of the last functioning hospitals in Tigray, has begun discharging patients after its food supplies ran out. After completely depleting their food supplies, doctors revealed that they have had to send hundreds of patients home, including infants, children, and people waiting for cancer treatment. In addition to the severe food shortage, the Ethiopian government’s siege has also prevented medicine and medical supplies from reaching the region, leaving doctors unable to provide medical care.

As well as the brutal siege on Tigray, several areas in Tigray remain under the occupation of brutal invading Eritrean forces and Amhara regional forces, including Northern and Western Tigray. In these areas, these forces continue to commit atrocities, among them, forced displacement and weaponized starvation in Irob district in northeastern Tigray, and campaigns of ethnic cleansing in Western Tigray, which comprises of mass arrest, torture, extrajudicial killings, massacres, weaponized rape, and forced displacement. On April 6, 2022, a joint Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International report on atrocities committed in Western Tigray detailed the events that have taken place since November 2020 and labeled them as ethnic cleansing. The Amhara forces’ illegal occupation of Western Tigray is arguably the largest barrier to facilitating peace.

Furthermore, the federal government is engaged in or unable to reign in the numerous conflicts and unrest across the country that threaten to further destabilize Ethiopia and the broader East Africa region. The government is currently waging a military offensive against the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA) in Oromia, while clashes between the government and armed groups have been reported in the Benishangul Gumuz, Gambella, Somali, and Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples Regions (SNNPR). The federal government and militias operating across regional borders have killed hundreds of people, destroyed entire villages, and deeply traumatized communities across the country. This growing political instability comes as swaths of Oromia and Somali regions face a severe drought that threatens hundreds of thousands of people’s lives.

Overall, Ethiopia’s political and humanitarian conditions are extremely fragile. With Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s administration unwilling and unable to address and willfully fueling the multitude of complex issues that plague the country, the situation is sure to deteriorate quickly, jeopardizing regional and global security.

Read Full Situation Report…

Africom Did Not Have Good Relations With The Ethiopian Government

foreignpolicy |  The United States is pulling the plug on its drone operations in southern Ethiopia as demands on its fleet of unmanned aircraft expand elsewhere across the continent with the rise of the Islamic State in Libya, and extremist militants in Nigeria, Mali, Chad and Cameroon.

Since 2011, the U.S. had been using the air base in Arba Minch, 250 miles south of the capital, to launch surveillance drones aimed at groups in East Africa with links to al Qaeda. U.S. personnel primarily focused on al-Shabab, a Somali group which has waged deadly terrorist attacks across East Africa.

Pentagon officials remained tightlipped on Monday about the reasons behind the move. Lt. Col. Michelle Baldanza, a Defense Department spokeswoman, said the U.S. and Ethiopia agreed that the continued presence of the drone base was “not required at this time.”

Some experts say the fight against Shabab was going well enough that the Pentagon’s Africa Command, or Africom, had the opportunity to redistribute its scarce resources elsewhere.  

“Shabab remains virulent, but as a significant terrorist threat with high profile leaders in range for drone attacks, much less so,” said Peter Pham, director of the Atlantic Council’s Africa Center.

Other groups, by contrast, are rapidly gaining strength — and presenting far more tempting targets for the Pentagon and its drone operators.

In recent months, the Islamic State has consolidated its power in Libya, allowing it to easily move into the port city of Surt, and now control an estimated 150 miles of territory along the country’s Mediterranean coast. Its presence has reportedly forced the U.S. to focus on gathering intelligence there in order to better monitor militant movements in North Africa.

The continued strength of Boko Haram — the extremist group terrorizing northeastern Nigeria and parts of Cameroon, Chad, and Niger — has also forced Washington to dedicate more resources in the Lake Chad region as well. Since 2009, Boko Haram has killed more than 10,000 people and by last year the group controlled an area the size of Belgium. After the militants were forced out of some of their Nigerian strongholds by a multinational African task force last spring, they switched to more asymmetrical tactics and increased suicide bombings and cross border raids. In September, President Barack Obama pledged $45 million to help countries in the Lake Chad region beat back the group. And in October, the U.S. sent a fleet of surveillance drones and 300 troops to Cameroon.

Those pressures have forced Africom to reevaluate where it allocates resources, say experts.

“Africom remains under-resourced and our entire drone program, although it’s grown tremendously over the years, is facing a wide array of demands,” said Pham.

Jennifer Cooke, director of the Africa program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said that the U.S. military is likely facing pressure to tackle other African threats, and is trying to consolidate its bases in the region.

“It may be that with a base in Djibouti there’s just not the need for as many positions in East Africa as before,” she said.

Tigrayans WERE The Most Formidable Fighters On The African Continent (REDUX Originally Posted 11/27/21)

NC |  There’s a simple lesson here: Tigrayans are the bulk of combat power in the Highlands of the Horn. You’d think that would lead to the conclusion that you shouldn’t mess with Tigray unless you’re ready to get in a long, nasty war, even when the conventional military wisdom is that the Tigrayans don’t have a chance. They weren’t supposed to have a chance against the Europeans in 1896, either–or the Ethiopian Derg in the 1980s. If you’re running a war-nerd bookmaking business, put a sign on the window: “No bets on wars in Tigray.”

One reason we all underestimated Tigray is that no one outside TPLF circles seems to have admitted to themselves how much of the combat power of both Eritrean and Ethiopian forces came from ethnic Tigrayans. Admitting that would be politically unwise, especially in Ethiopia. Officially, Ethiopia is a federal, multi-ethnic state in which all ethnic groups are equal. But that’s a polite fiction. The Ethiopian state is the product of 19th-c. conquests by the “Habesha,” which is what the Highland Orthodox peoples, Tigrayan and Amhara, call themselves. Ethiopia was created by Habesha armies pushing south and east, absorbing Somali, Afar, Oromo, Sidamo, and dozens of other peoples who became Ethiopian citizens, but had very little share in ruling the country.

The real struggle for power was always between the two Habesha peoples, Tigrayan and Amhara. Since Menelik II moved the capital southward to Shewa, the Amhara seemed like the stronger of the two groups. Amhara are a much bigger group, for starters. Tigrayans are only about 6% of the population, Amhara about 26%.

But after the Eritrean/Tigrayan insurgents destroyed the Derg in the late 20th c., it was the Tigrayans of the TPLF who really ruled Ethiopia. Their domination was so clear that the TPLF tried to minimize their power, dutifully talking about their multi-ethnic coalition, the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF). No one was fooled; it was the TPLF who had the power in Ethiopia.

The TPLF leader Meles Zenawi was the ultimate power in the country all through the first two decades of this century. Zenawi knew that the TPLF was so much better organized than the other members of the EPRDF coalition that he and his fellow Tigrayans could let the EPRDF make a show of ethnic equality while keeping Tigrayan control. Henri IV went through the motions of converting to Catholicism in return for the throne with the line “Paris is worth a mass or two,” and Zenawi seems to have decided “Addis and the whole GDP is worth letting those weaker militias from other ethnic groups share the credit.”

Zenawi’s PR campaign worked so well that Ethiopians forgot the hard truth that it was the Tigrayans who had the real combat power.

The Tigrayans’ only rival in terms of military power was the Eritrean army (EDF.) The “Eritrean” label made people forget that the EDF is also dominated by ethnic Tigrayans. Tigrinya-speakers are the majority in Eritrea, not only the dominant but the biggest ethnic group.

That has never stopped Eritrean Tigrayans from killing other Tigrayans. That shouldn’t be a surprise — when have people of the same ethnic group ever fretted about killing each other? — but it does underline what seems like the dominant fact at the moment: The Tigrayans are the most formidable people in the Horn.

Africom Advisors And Trainers Failing To Convert Their Trainees Into Responsible Negroes?

WSJ  |  The U.S. has trained thousands of African soldiers, from infantrymen rehearsing counterterrorism raids on the edge of the Sahara to senior commanders attending the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. The programs are a linchpin of U.S. policy on the continent, intended to help African allies professionalize their armed forces to fight armed opponents both foreign and domestic.

But U.S. commanders have watched with dismay over the past year as military leaders in several African allies—including officers with extensive American schooling—have overthrown civilian governments and seized power for themselves, triggering laws that forbid the U.S. government from providing them with weapons or training.

“There’s no one more surprised or disappointed when partners that we’re working with—or have been working with for a while in some cases—decide to overthrow their government,” Rear Adm. Jamie Sands, commander of U.S. special-operations forces in Africa, said this week. “We have not found ourselves able to prevent it, and we certainly don’t assess that we’re causing it.”

The strategic setback was apparent in recent weeks here at Fort Benning, where the U.S. Army hosted its annual gathering of top ground-force commanders from around Africa. Senior soldiers from three dozen African countries watched American recruits tackle boot-camp obstacle courses, witnessed parachute training and saw live-ammo tank and mortar demonstrations.

The Army withheld invitations from coup leaders in Mali and Burkina Faso, West African countries engaged in existential struggles with al Qaeda and Islamic State. Guinean soldiers, who in Septembertoppled the West African nation’s civilian government, were left out of the Fort Benning events and are no longer included in U.S.-led special-operations exercises.

Sudan’s ruling junta, which last year reversed a U.S.-supported transition to democratic rule, was unwelcome at the Fort Benning summit. Ethiopia hosted the last such gathering in 2020; this year its military is on the outs with the U.S. over alleged human-rights abuses in its war against Tigrayan rebels.

“We don’t control what happens when we leave,” said U.S. Army Col. Michael Sullivan, commander of the 2d Security Force Assistance Brigade, a unit created to advise and train African armies. “We always hope we’re helping countries do the right thing.”

Last year, a logistics advisory team from Col. Sullivan’s brigade had just arrived in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital, and was waiting out its Covid-19 quarantine at a hotel when the Biden administration decided to cancel the deployment “due to our deep concerns about the conflict in northern Ethiopia and human-rights violations and abuses being committed against civilians,” according to a State Department spokesperson.