Horn countries previously tended to show a disregard for outsiders, but now they are welcoming them with enthusiasm, due to the financial benefits involved.
Taking Sides
Ethiopia has been dealing with meddling foreigners for the past two centuries and has proven adept at playing them against each other and switching allegiances to suit itself.
During the reign of Emperor Haile Selassie (1930- 1974), Ethiopia forged strong ties with the US. But after a military coup overthrew the emperor in 1974, Ethiopia pivoted to Russia. After the next revolution in 1991, it was back with the US. Since 2001, and as the Global War on Terror proceeded, that relationship continued to strengthen as Ethiopia and its ability to effectively wield hard and soft power regionally turned it into a vital US ally. In recent years, however, the US has gradually come to perceive the rise of China and Russia, and not terrorism, as the biggest threat it is facing in Africa and elsewhere.
“Great power competition, not terrorism, is now the primary focus of US national security,” US Secretary of Defence, James Mattis, said in a January speech outlining the 2018 National Defence Strategy. “We face growing threats from revisionist powers as different as China and Russia are from each other.”
But while US policy was shifting, the Ethiopian government, belayed since 2015 by ongoing protests in the country and internal party squabbles, took its eye o the bigger picture outside Ethiopia.
“The EPRDF leadership failed to read the signal of the imminent US policy shifts,” says Mehari Taddele Maru, a Horn specialist. As a result, Mehari says, the EPRDF failed to prepare itself for the consequences.
“For one thing, Ethiopia continued to accept enormous Chinese investments in infrastructure and to forge economic and diplomatic ties between the two countries – and hence became the unintended target of [the] US policy shift from the war on terror to an economic confrontation with China.”
While the US knows it cannot match the scale of Chinese investment in Africa, it is still looking to curb Chinese economic in influence in the region, Mehari says. Fearing reproach from Washington, some East African countries may scale down their ties with China and revise their public procurement procedures. Aware of this, China has already announced its decision to cut down investment in Ethiopia until its current debt payment – which is colossal – is restructured.
For example, the loan for a railway that stretches from Addis Ababa to Djibouti, just one of the myriad Chinese-funded infrastructure projects, is $4bn.
Amid such shifting sands, and with the US not offering as steadfast diplomatic support as before – including it not being as willing to look the other way over controversial practices by the Ethiopian government – the EPRDF became increasingly susceptible to its inner frictions and thereby less stable and sure of itself.
By the beginning of this year, the EPRDF’s position had become so precarious that former Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn became the First Ethiopian leader to voluntarily cede power in an e ort to placate the criticism of his government and to calm the turmoil gripping the country.
“The paralysis was attributable to the internal weakness of the EPRDF, namely corruption, power struggles, and a lack of shared vision for the future,” Mehari Taddele Maru says. “Competition among [the] great powers due to the shift of focus from the War on Terror to strategic competition between the US, on the one hand, and China and Russia, on the other, accelerated this change.”
At the same time, the Ethiopian diaspora in the US was becoming increasingly effective in influencing US policy toward the motherland.
A week after the 2 April 2018 swearing-in of Abiy Ahmed as Ethiopia’s new Prime Minister, the US House of Representatives unanimously adopted a resolution entitled ‘Supporting respect for human rights and encouraging inclusive governance in Ethiopia’.
Unusually outspoken for US public policy in its criticism of Ethiopia’s government, the resolution – known as HR-128 – condemned the killings of peaceful protestors and excessive use of force by Ethiopian security forces; the detention of journalists, students, activists, and political leaders; and the regime’s abuse of the anti-terrorism laws to stifle political and civil dissent and journalistic freedoms.
“The new resolution is a reminder to the Ethiopian government that should it fail to reform, it can no longer rely on US largesse to contain problems at home,” says Hassen Hussein, an academic and writer based in Minnesota. Since coming to power, Abiy has pushed through numerous reforms at blistering speed, releasing prisoners, inviting parties once deemed as terrorists back to Ethiopia, and easing restrictions on the press and free speech. His game-changing modus operandi has also included reaching out to and forging closer ties with Saudi Arabia and its ally, the UAE. After becoming Prime Minister, Abiy’s First official visit outside Africa in May was to Saudi Arabia, and he has met with UAE’s rulers; both of which have been only too happy to oblige, often in the form of a golden handshake. “States in the Horn such as Ethiopia are trying to leverage these rapidly changing geopolitical dynamics to enhance their own influence,” Awol Allo says.
“Amidst the growing competition for influence among the Middle Eastern axes, Addis Ababa has managed to avoid taking sides, at least publicly, and leverage its geostrategic significance as the region’s hegemony to attract much-needed investment from several different partners.”
