Part I
Author’s Note: On December 29, 2021, the House of People’s Representatives passed Proclamation 1265/2014 (Amharic version) “Ethiopian National Dialogue Commission”).
There have been random speculations (no systematic written analysis I have seen) and observations on the Commission, its mission, organization and purposes and the scope of the authorizing legislation. Certain groups have declined to participate in the dialogue process claiming the Commission is “impartial” and “lacked representation”. One of the two objectives in Part II of my commentary here is to explain the legal basis for the Ethiopian National Dialogue Commission, its organization and intended objectives.
The second aim is to expound on the themes I introduced in Part I of this commentary where I discussed my dreams for Ethiopia at peace. I follow up on that commentary by introducing my concept of Pax Ethiopiana (Ethiopian Peace). Many great civilizations in history have sought to proclaim and practice peace on a grand scale. Britain, 4.5 times smaller than Ethiopia in land mass, became a hegemonic power and styled itself as the world’s policeman and imposed Pax Britannica. During Pax Hispanica, Spain managed to avoid the European wars of religion and preserved its peace.
There was Pax Romana which purportedly sought to spread peace throughout the Mediterranean world (Roman Empire) of antiquity by military conquest. And of course, Pax Americana discussed below. I shall argue herein that Ethiopia as a great world civilization is capable of declaring its own “Pax Ethiopiana”, Ethiopian Peace, for itself.
The foundation of Pax Ethiopiana shall be Peace through Law. Clash of Civilizations: Pax Ethiopiana v. Pax Americana Over the past year, our Ethiopian peace has been disturbed by the Terrorist Tigray People’s Liberation Front (T-TPLF).
Over the past year, the T-TPLF’s doubledealing, double-crossing Western government supporters and hired lobbyists gunslingers have tried to impose their wicked peace on Ethiopia from Capitol Hill, The White House, Foggy Bottom and The Berlaymont (EU) in Brussels.
Over the past year, the Princess of Darkness Susan Rice has left no stone unturned to impose Pax Susana on Ethiopia by restoring the terrorist TPLF to power.
The Biden administration has used threats, sanctions, aid cutoffs, arms embargoes, objections to loans by multilateral institutions and other pressures to establish ONE FACT: There will be peace in Ethiopia only if it is dictated, controlled, and arranged by the U.S. and the EU! Five days after the Biden administration was inaugurated, I laid out with prophetic certainty what the Biden administration will do to impose Pax American on Ethiopia.
On March 18, 2021, I warned of an impending Pax Americana: “The Americans are coming to Impose Their Imperial Pax Americana on Ethiopia and Eritrea.” I followed up with my March 29, 2021 commentary proclaiming the U.S. will try to “strangle Ethiopian and Eritrean sovereignty by coordinating with the European Union by imposing illegal and outrageous demands and by waging a relentless campaign of demonization in the international media.” On November 23, 2021, presidential special envoy Jeffrey Feltman said the TPLF terrorist barbarians were at the gates of the capital and Ethiopia is toast.
The only thing Americans and other expatriates must do, the State Department and the U.S. Embassy in Addis said with the fierce urgency of now, is to get the hell outta Dodge City, Ethiopia. A few American workers left under official pressure. Now, those who left are begging visas to enter.
Just like PM Abiy Ahmed predicted they would! Ethiopians were willing to oblige. You want to leave Ethiopia, then dig this: “Hit the road Jack and don’t you come back no more.” Ethiopian Americans and other diaspora Ethiopians gave a firm reply to the Biden administration. You want Americans to get the hell outta Ethiopia, and then Ethiopian Americans will go back to their motherland. It was Homecoming 2022 for diaspora Ethiopians. We came back to Ethiopia by the tens of thousands.
The fact of the matter is that Pax Americana (ordained/imposed American peace) is a long-standing core element of U.S. foreign policy dating back to the Monroe doctrine and the American Civil War. Most notably, “Pax Americana (American Peace) manifested itself aggressively after WW II with the rise of a new kind of American empire birthed in the Cold War.
Simply stated, the essence of Pax Americana is this: If there is to be peace in the post-War world, it will be dictated and controlled by U.S. interests and demands.
The rebuilding of the war-torn economies of Western Europe through the Marshall Plan marks the modern era of “Pax Americana”. To enforce Pax Americana globally in the post-WW II period, the U.S. has employed the United Nations, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development and Foreign Aid program with the principal aim of controlling the international political economy.
To create the illusion of global moral legitimacy to buttress post-War Pax Americana, the U.S. played a decisive role in the drafting and adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
The U.S. became the moral policeman and self-appointed enforcer of the “inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family” at the very time de jure (by law) segregation and discrimination were being practiced in the U.S.
Today, the Biden administration seeks to impose Pax Americana on Ethiopia using the U.N., the World Bank/International Monetary Fund, USAID, EU and certain Western European countries and by moralizing and pontificating about defending human rights.
The facts tell a different story about US concern for global peace. In 2019, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo talking about covert operations, engineering coups against democratically elected governments, inciting revolts said, “I was the CIA director. We lied, we cheated, and we stole. We had entire training courses. It reminds you of the glory of the American experiment.” Gross human rights violations by the U.S. in the name of defending and promoting human rights have been amply documented.
Whether the U.S. has the moral authority to dictate terms of peace in Ethiopia depends on whether it has cleaned its own house before it can clean the Ethiopia house.
Professor James D. Hunter, author of “Culture Wars: The Struggle to Define America”, argues that the issues that divide America (the family, education, media, the arts, law, electoral politics, abortion, women’s rights, gay rights, court-packing, police brutality, racism, inequality, injustice, etc.) are so interconnected and deep that they are part of a fabric of conflict which constitutes nothing short of a struggle over the meaning of America. Joe Biden campaigned his presidency would be about the “battle for the soul of America”.
America today needs Pax Americana given the deep divisions in the society and the brazen and violent attempt to take over the seat of the American federal government on January 6, 2021. Pax American was indeed declared after the U.S. Civil War to extol the “supremacy of law throughout the length and breadth of the land.” Can America dictate Pax Americana in Ethiopia while it battles to save its own soul? Pax Ethiopiana, Ethiopian Peace Pax Ethiopiana is about dialogue (not “battle”) to protect, defend and preserve Ethiopian unity, dignity, sovereignty, and prosperity. Nothing is more important to Ethiopians than peace.
The words “peace” rolls off the tongue of every Ethiopian – all 115 million of them – ever day dozens of times. All Ethiopians greet each other by asking, “Selam neh/nesh”? “Are you at peace?” They bid each other farewell by saying, “Selam hun”, “Be at peace.” “Beselam enegenagne”. “Let’s meet in peace next time.” Selam Le Ethiopia! (Peace be upon Ethiopia.) Selam lehulachinm! (Peace to all of us.) They express their wish for their country by saying, “Selamun yistegn (May the Almighty grant us peace.” Ethiopians have a long-lived reputation of being a peaceful “unwarlike people”.
When America declared independence in 1776, Edward Gibbon, author of the epochal sixvolume “The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire” wrote of the need to defend the Ethiopians, then called “Abyssinians, an unwarlike people from the Barbarians who ravaged the inland country and the Turks and Arabs who advanced from the sea-coast in more formidable array.” Gibbon wrote the Abyssinians were interested peaceful people interested in a “rational project of importing the arts and ingenuity of Europe; and their ambassadors at Rome and Lisbon were instructed to solicit a colony of smiths, carpenters, tillers, masons, printers, surgeons, and physicians, for the use of their country.” Ethiopia, like the other great civilizations of the past, is entitled to declare its own peace, PAX ETHIOPIANA. Pax Ethiopiana is different from all others.
Pax Ethiopiana is not expansionist, imperialist or neocolonialist. Pax Ethiopiana does not resort to war or violence to achieve its objective of national dialogue for peace through law. Pax Ethiopiana does not seek to wage war in the name of peace. Pax Ethiopiana does not undermine or denigrate the sovereignty of others.
Pax Ethiopiana is based on fundamental principles of dialogue, unity, consent, consensus, reciprocation, and give-and-take. Ethiopians literally breathe peace every moment of their lives! Pax Ethiopiana naturally rolls off the tongue of all Ethiopians in different languages and dialects. Pax Ethiopiana is a universal phrase of greeting in Ethiopia.
Dialogue for peace is instinctive and second nature to every Ethiopian of good will and good faith. So, formalizing what is natural by formal legislation takes the pursuit of peace to the next level and institutionalizes it
Editor’s Note: The views entertained in this article do not necessarily reflect the stance of The
BY ALMARIAM
The Ethiopian 16 February 2022
