BY MULATU BELACHEW
ADDIS ABABA– The U.S. Congress H.R.6600 bill would affect the bottom of the food chain of the ordinary and poor Ethiopians, a renowned political professor said, adding that the sanction ‘would hurt Afar and Amhara badly’ due to limited basic infrastructure.
Wilfrid Laurier University Political Science Prof. Ann Fitz-Gerald cited a research that claimed the sanctions impact disproportionately on children, adolescents and women. “For instance, Sudan’s sanctions did not target President Al-Bashir but instead made the country extremely food insecure.”
“Other specific trends that I’m thinking about with regard to the situation in Ethiopia, the main impacts are on the price of food because of low cash hampering logistics and transportation which delivers food, and medical supplies and pharmaceuticals besides , how services, education and infrastructure function.
If these sanctions go ahead, it has the potential to hurt Afar and Amhara very badly and that is a classic insurgency tactic to target the basic services infrastructure to try to delegitimize the government,” the academician elaborated.
Noting the country with limited foreign currency can’t source spare parts and foundational material for rebuilding, Fitz-Gerald stressed the sanction makes it extremely difficult to revive schools, hospitals and other public institutions that have been demolished by TPLF forces. “Accordingly, the most impoverished will become more impoverished.”
Financial restrictions may very well lead to Ethiopians not being able to use their international credit cards linked to foreign banks to pay for important things. If one cannot spend and the government doesn’t get money from the Diaspora, this leads to a shortage of foreign currency hyperinflation in Ethiopia that would limit Ethiopia from buying anything unless deals are done with countries like China, she emphasized.
The March 9/2022
