US Sen. Menendez conviction is justice for Ethiopia & black Africa

The views, statements and opinion in the article reflects that of the writer’s , NOT borkena.com ‘s 

By Teshome M. Borago

Almost 80 years after the United States began destabilizing Africa thru Egypt, justice might be finally knocking doors as the highest profile American politician bought by Cairo lobbyists is now convicted of bribery and corruption. Those of us Ethiopian-Americans who have been asking the US to fix its dangerous African foreign policy for decades might see light at the end of the tunnel. 

The powerful U.S. Senator Bob Menendez got convicted on Tuesday on all 16 criminal counts he faced, including bribery at his corruption trial in federal court. He was also charged with illegally acting as “an agent of the Egyptian government” and extortion; which ultimately helped Cairo acquire billions more of US dollars and gain diplomatic victories against Ethiopia. 

While what Menendez has done might not be new, it seems the degree of his latest corruption and lavish bribery (including Gold Bars and luxury cars) that he received from the Egyptians shocked the US prosecutors. And Menendez appears to have exploited his role as chairman of the powerful US Senate Foreign Relations Committee to rubber stamp everything Cairo needed from America. It was so bad that Egyptian military & intelligence officials (who have been threatening to bomb Ethiopia’s hydroelectric dam) were writing letters to Senator Bob Menendez that began with “Dear Bob,” according to US official Sarah Arkin. 

Since the 1940s, the United States has indeed given Egypt nearly $100 billion in foreign aid (probably worth over a trillion today, if adjusted for inflation). On top aid, the pro-Egypt policy led to US lawmakers and the IMF/WB circles to oppose Ethiopian economic development projects on the Nile river for decades past.

The most disturbing aspect of that US aid to Egypt was the billions worth of “security assistance,” which included fighter jets, tanks and other military equipment. Such endless American military support has not only emboldened Egypt into becoming a geo-political bully & troublemaker, but it has also freed Egyptian military budget to mass produce or acquire unlimited amount of smaller arms that are shipped region-wide to help rebels in various Africans wars for decades. Thru Egypt, the United States was essentially arming & funding black-on-black African wars for years, often leading to weak African governments that never enjoy the “monopoly of violence” necessary for any African government to even imagine having the stability needed for development and democracy.  Nearly all brutal “liberation fronts” aka “freedom fighters” of all sorts the last 50, 60 years in the Horn of Africa can often trace their funding and weapons source back to Cairo supplied by the US. It was a dirty open secret, to the point that even US State Department’s annual reports never hid the fact, often referring to Cairo’s destabilizing role casually, effectively normalizing it. For the State Department, it was worth it in order to protect the US-Israel-Egypt relations.

Despite the usual lip service to democracy and human rights in recent years, President Biden’s administration seemed to have been influenced by Senator Menendez and his allies as well. There might be others involved because media reports show that Senator Menendez seems to be threatening to bring down his own colleagues with him. After his conviction, Menendez’s lawyers appear to be using the “others do it too” argument that Trump used with for his campaign finance & classified document cases. In his defense, Senator Menendez claimed “every member of the United States Senate” has similar engagement with lobbyists in one form or another. 

He might be correct to a degree, but the recent political changes in the region and Egypt’s insistence on unrealistic monopoly of the Nile, the longest river in the world, seems to have raised the stakes for Cairo, leading to desperate measures. After Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi’s party openly declared “backing rebels” and “use them (rebels) as a bargaining chip against the Ethiopian government,” reports of both Egyptian support for dissidents in Ethiopia and Egyptian spending for lobbyists in Washington DC skyrocketed under President Al-Sisi. 

Outside DC, American lawmakers are also influenced by the local residents they encounter and it’s no surprise that Menendez’s home state of New Jersey has the largest Egyptian-American population in the whole country. In fact, outside the Arab world, New Jersey is one of the states making USA home of the biggest Egyptian Diaspora community on earth. But New Jersey has a small Ethiopian population and they are mostly dispersed. 

It is normal for US lawmakers who have a constituency of large Ethiopian diaspora to be involved in political issues back in Ethiopia. In fact, i interviewed former US Congressman Mike Coffman as he was interested in supporting democracy in Ethiopia and mobilizing the exponentially growing & highly organized Ethiopian-American population in Colorado for his own election. However, despite not having a large Ethiopian-American population like Los Angeles and Maryland, New Jersey lawmakers have strangely been the most aggressive opponents of Ethiopians governments the last few decades.  From New Jersey Congressman Donald Payne (who personally made trips to observe Ethiopian elections), to NJ Congressman Smith (who was outspoken about human rights problems in Ethiopia while often praising Egyptian President al-Sisi), Menendez’s home state politicians have always displayed a disproportional interest in micromanaging & criticizing Ethiopia’s governance issues, while prioritizing “stability before democracy” in Egypt. As the result, many of these US lawmakers have been butting heads with soft-spoken diaspora representatives of vicious rebel groups and dissidents in Ethiopia and the region; effectively endorsing and empowering them. In contrast, while not directly praising Egypt as a democracy, many US lawmakers like Menendez often put human rights in Egypt to the backseat and favor arming Egypt to the teeth “for the sake of stability and its vital role in the Middle East.” Even as prominent human rights organizations opposed aid to Cairo, Menendez allegedly ignored them and allowed the continuation of over $1 billion of US military aid to Egypt.

Part of Senator Menendez’s defense and future appeal strategy will definitely revolve around the fact nearly all other American politicians are entangled with the multibillion dollar lobbyist industry. According to the New York Times, he was willing to throw his own wife under the bus, so Menendez will certainly not shy away from doing the same thing to his colleagues in Congress. 

In the midst of all these court cases, and with the US Presidential election dominating the media, Menendez’s conviction might not shed light on his real victim (Ethiopia), nor provoke lasting change on how the US foreign policy is crafted. Real reform might not arrive soon to the corrupt US lobbyist industry and the reckless US foreign policies, but the conviction of Sen. Menendez still gives hope for poor African countries like Ethiopia, who cannot spend as much money as Egypt on the “revolving door” lobbyist-lawmakers US business enterprise, and who often become casualties of misguided policies out of US Foreign Affairs committees.

The writer can be reached via e-mail : Teshomeborago@gmail.com

Editor’s note : Views in the article do not necessarily reflect the views of borkena.com


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