The African Union is the west’s gendarme in Africa with it’s combined national armed forces increasingly primed to invade and occupy rather than keep the peace. The latest potential victim of the African Union, backed by its big brother, the UN, is South Sudan. Before that Burundi was threatened with invasion by the AU “peacekeepers”. And this is just the beginning of a list of intended targets and actual invasions and occupations.
The African Union has its corrupt, western funded hands in almost every dirty war on the continent, ranging from the invasion of Somalia (and the subsequent spawning of Al Shabab) to the war in Azawad (Mali) to the most dirty of them all, the carnage in the Congo.
A lot of flowery rhetoric is spoken by and about the AU but the historical record tells a far different story. To start with, the AU’s predecessor, the OAU, was founded in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia while Ethiopia was a colonial power fighting an anti-independence war against the Eritreans, a war that would see success for Eritrea in 1991. Remember now, the OAU was founded as an “anti-colonial” organization so heaquartering the organization in Addis Ababa launched the outfit two faced from the start.
Addis Ababa itself is founded on the Oromian town of Finefine, captured by Abyssinian Imperialism (Europeans weren’t the only empire builders in Africa), colonized, and annexed to the ethnic Amhara/Abyssinian ruled empire.
The Abyssinians, or Ethiopians, colonized the Oromo peoples in the Horn of Africa along with the Anuak, Bengul, Sidhama, Afars, Somali/Ogadeni and Tigrayans (amongst others) in creating the modern Abyssinian empire of the Menelik and Haile Sellasie line which was ended by the military coup of 1974.
The Oromo, whom make up 40% of the Ethiopian population are the largest nationality in Africa with their language being the second most popular on the continent. Colonizing these once proud and mighty people was no small feat, requiring decades and large amounts of european weaponry supplied mainly by the Italians. No matter the bravery and daring of it’s mounted calvary, for which the Oromos were greatly feared by their enemies, firearms will eventually overcome spears and arrows, and the defeat of the Oromo by the Abyssinians began one of the largest, most barbaric, genocidal even, destruction’s of a people in history.
Off to a bad start the OAU continued through out the 1960’s, 70’s and 80’s to spout righteous words of African independence all the while overseeing or standing idly buy as western interests raped and pillaged our continent all in the name of “democracy and sovereignty”. The OAU actively supported the Ethiopian counter insurgency against the Eritrean independence fighters right up until Eritrean rebel tanks drove through the gates of Addis Ababa and chased the Soviet, backed dictator Mengistu out of the country.
Eventually the OAU morphed into the African Union and its role as the gendarme in Africa came to the fore. In 1998 Ethiopia invaded Eritrea, an egregious violation of the AU’s charter never mind Ethiopian goons ransacking the Eritrean Embassy and brutalizing Eritrean diplomats in Addis Ababa, all with the quiet acquiesense of the AU leadership.
During the subsequent two year war, while Ethiopian troops were raping and pillaging their way across the Eritrean countryside the AU sat on its hands and did nothing to stop this crime, instead secretly supplied aid and comfort to the Ethiopian regime.
Today, while the western backed Tigrayan ethnic minority regime in Ethiopia is tottering and its Agazi death squads open fire on Oromo and Amhara demonstrators, killing thousands across the heart of Ethiopia, the AU stands silent or when pressed, mutters a few words of the need for non violence by both sides.
And all the while AU sponsored soldiers in Somalia rape and murder, sell arms on the black market to their erstwhile enemies, Al Shabab, and in general smuggle and racketeer with the leadership of the AU turning a blind eye. And that’s just in Somalia, how many other AU sponsored armies from the Congo to the Central African Republic to Mali are supposedly “keeping the peace” is some of the most violence wracked places on the planet?
Being the west’s gendarme in Africa comes with a cost, for where there is oppression there will be resistance and the AU is heading for a crisis. It’s host, the Ethiopian regime, seems to be nearing its end and Africa’s largest nation, the Oromo, have seen the light of liberation at the end of a long very dark tunnel. The scent of freedom and independence is in the air mingling with the smoke of street fires fronting blockaded roads.
Do the western funded AU fat cats at their desks in Addis Ababa think the eventually independent Oromos will continue to welcome the AU in their hard won new capital of Finefine a.k.a. Addis Ababa? Or will the AU,, the west’s gendarme in Africa, call for troops to invade and occupy a newly independent Oromia? Or any of the rest of the Ethiopian nationalities crying out for freedom and independence, as they try to cut themselves loose from the decaying corpse of the Abyssinian Empire.
Thomas C. Mountain is an independent journalist in Eritrea, living and reporting from here since 2006. He speeches, interviews and articles can be seen at thomascmountain on facebook and he can best be reached at thomascmountain at g mail dot com