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 The Bretton Woods model of monetary and financial governance is outdated and no longer relevant.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 securitization of institutions compounded by surveillance.
- 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
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!
Editor’s note : Views in the article do not necessarily reflect the views of borkena.com
__
To Publish an Article On borkena , please send submission to info@borkena.com for consideration.
Join our Telegram Channel : t.me/borkena
Like borkena on Facebook
Add your business to Borkena Business Listing/Business Directory Jobs
Join the conversation. Follow us on X (formerly Twitter ) @zborkena to get the latest Ethiopian news updates regularly. Ethiopia To share information or for submission, send e-mail to info@borkena.com
I must add, among the great speeches you mentioned, the UN speech by the Colombian president stands apart as one of the greatest speeches at the UN, and stated everything and more of what you talked about in this article.
Link = youtube.com/watch?v=9XOzKED7x7E
For the sentiment expressed in the last paragraph calling on the West lead by the US to be a solution in the world is a pipe dream, the leadership in Europe that called the rest of the world a ‘jungle’ and the West as ‘garden’, and leadership in the US that has demonstrated itself as the villain time and again with its climes world wide since the second WW, and the very current crime being committed in GAZA since Oct 8, 2023, in Lebanon in the last few weeks alone (let alone the past decades), and the recent strikes in Iran, and now they are calling each others ‘voter’ as “garbage” (including yourself, as you said you just voted) do not have the moral standing to be called on to be a solution in the world.
Link = youtube.com/watch?v=kkQkYIzLT7w
As for the List of the “failed states” ( I have not watched it yet) but if the US is not in it, it would be after Nov 5th, considering the obvious division developing since 2016, & the possible civil war that could potentially follow.
EU collapse has already begun due to “energy supply issues that have been put forward by the US by blowing up NS1 & NS2 pipeline to deindustrialize Europe so that the US remains #2 industrialized nation following China.
“Germany’s Biggest Employer to CLOSE Major Factories as China Tells EV Giants “HALT EU Expansion””
Link = youtube.com/watch?v=4jFsR-gm8nk
As for BRICS it has just started, yet it has solved several ongoing problems in the last couple of years, some created by the West’s “divide & rule” strategy in the middle east, namely the peace deal made between Iran & Saudi Arabia, within the Palestinian factions, and the very recent one between India & China that has lasted for decades and was being exploited by the US itself in an effort to destabilize china.
The BRICS are currently are working on the Ukraine issue but the US and the Ukrainian authorities themselves are against it.. for obvious reasons that are not known to the wider world populations… which is the Western nations long standing plan to take over Russian resources worth $75 trillion (the largest owned by any nations) the video below explains it all, including all the several US agencies from CIA, Pentagon, State department, DOJ (FBI under it) all are intertwined and are working towards one goal, expand US corporation (investors) ownership of all resources on the planet and the WARs are the means to achieving that goal, the Ukraine or GAZA, Iran, Syria wars, & the destabilization effort in Ethiopia is not any different, they are all run according to the PLAN.
” Mike Benz On (US) Government, Censorship, Election Tactics & Media Control”
Link = youtube.com/watch?v=sTrZLHQOJkg
The shameless hypocrisy re ICC, by the US and the collective West who were the initiators for Putin’s ICC warrant, while protecting their own from it… is glaringly stupid, fully know Russia (just like the US &…) is not an ICC signatory state.
Link = en.wikipedia.org/wiki/States_parties_to_the_Rome_Statute
The inception idea & support for ICC by the collectives West is very simple, it is designed to be used against resource rich Africa & South America so that they do not have to use their army to plunder these resources by using ICC to get strong men that say NO to the Western ‘interest’ and replace them by ‘YES’ men which they bring to power & support.
Out of the more than 800 US military bases in the world only a hand full are in Africa & South America , left for ICC to keep them in line.
However, things are changing as NATO member is going against its own member state to not relinquish its #2 industrialized status as ‘stopping’ China became unattainable. as BRICS members focus on their collative development by pushing further industrialization and emerge as finished- resource supplier instead of shipping out raw-material the problems we see at the moment will not linger for too long… the way things look 2025/26 are the turning in all aspects point globally.
The West is does not have the capability to maintain its corrosive ways any longer.
Be well
” … it’s profoundly counterintuitive that there could be any resemblance between the United states in the 2020’s and the Soviet Union in the 1980’s… ”
“WATCH: Niall Ferguson Stuns World Leaders at ARC Australia – ”
Are we the Soviets now?”
Link = youtube.com/watch?v=IUJMyTJ9gyI
Basically, what NF long term observation as presented is clear for everyone to see, however his conclusion seem to go side ways to implicate the outcome to the recent development in ‘X’ ownership as the game charger, similar to the old age excuse ‘my dog eat my homework’, we are all familiar with.
However, there is something else brewing unique to all the written history we have available and it will turn out to be mind blowing to all who will have the chance to see it. The generation before us saw the rise and fall of fascism, German NAZIs, & Japan’s imperialisms… the generation that came after WWII is now witnessing the fall of US imperialism…
Though we are in a time of great transition and based on traditional analysis that uses the ‘past’ experiences to project what is coming, it is very hard to see what is coming ahead, but, if we dig beyond the surface we come to realize that we are about to emerge to a future that has never been experienced in human development history for more than 12 thousand years. Hint, it is related to the rotation of our Solar system in space time, one rotation will take 25,000 years and just like Earth’s rotation around the Sun makes 6 months darkness in the north pole while 6 months of 24 hours Sunshine is enjoyed in the South pole. Like so, the last 12,500 years our Soral system has been in the ‘dark ages’ , and since 2012 we have crossed over the next half of 12,500 years of being in the ‘light ‘ so to speak; but the next few years could bring the ugly-ending of darkness inflicting a lot of cruelty we have never experienced this far…
To illustrate what is happening & where we are in the rotation of our Solar System here is a fascinating video
Link = youtube.com/watch?v=B0NLfBQHw-8&ab_channel=OwenLucas
Bob Dylan,
:”The times that are a changing”
Link = youtube.com/watch?v=Q9_nWlSX6Us
Apologies, for possible errors, as I was typing away here as I was listening to NF’s lecture…
Be well
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.
‘Pillar of Stability’ (?!): Haile-Selassie’s monarchy even failed to airdrop 10¢-100g bread for Wollo famine victims? Didn’t the Ethiopia-wide riots bring the brutal Derg as Savior?
Adding insult to Ethiopia’s injury, 500 kg of gold [youtu.be/vtPBNlkLIEk] was found in Haile-Selassie’s palace. Why would a person of your age & academic status praise him?
Dr. Aklog, ≈75% of Ethiopians back home are under age 45. Why not leave them chart their destiny? Given your affiliation and career, your opinion is the last thing they need:
1. Dr. Aklog: Senior WB Advisor under Egyptian VP. WB & IMF are Anti- Black Africa
2. The Monarchy’s Ethiopia: The Poster Child of Inequality, Poverty and Famine.
3. The Derg’s Ethiopia: The Poster Child of Bloodshed & Proxy Secessionist Wars.
4. The EPLF-TPLF’s Ethiopia [’91-’98]: The Poster Child of Looting & Ethnic Clashes.
5. The TPLF-EPRDF Ethiopia: The Poster Child of Looting & Inter-Ethnic Clashes.
6. Abiy’s Ethiopia: The Poster Child of Greenery, Prosperity, and Proxy Putschist Wars. [NB: In Abiy’s Ethiopia over 10 million kids get two free meals right in their schools.]
The many secretive & hidden hands of :
Bank for International Settlements (BIS)
“World’s Most Powerful & Secretive Financial Institution: What It’s Done & Planning Next – Adam LeBor”
link = youtube.com/watch?v=bfivIBK9cm4
The dark-forces (little men) “behind the curtain” being exposed as the “Golden Age” shines its golden-light on these rats…
This is the ‘the time’, that is mentioned in the Bible as ‘the eye of the needle’, meaning everyone can see who goes through it , and those (the Dark ones) who cannot go near it… & shiver just looking at it in the distance.
Bob Dylan
“The Times They Are a-Changin’
Link = youtube.com/watch?v=Q9_nWlSX6Us
Be well