The US involvement in the Horn of Africa region before World War II was more or less limited, if not insignificant. Going out of World War II(WWII) with limited casualties in comparison to others, the US emerged as one of the victorious countries after the war, with its industries and production capacity intact. In fact, the war helped as an oil in the machine for the US industries during the WWII.
The default colonial powers like UK and France were severely weakened after the war with their economy almost in collapse. Other colonial countries like Germany, Japan and Italy were defeated in the war and had to handover their colonies to those victorious.
It was in this era the US saw the grand opportunities and stepped in seriously into the game of hegemony in colonized Africa.
The US slowly but firmly started to get a hard grip of Africa and began to design its long term strategy and policies for the continent. For now, we let alone the pre WWII grave atrocities the US did to mankind and focus on post WWII US involvement in the Horn of Africa.
1941 UK, with help of its colonial garrisons, defeated Italy in the last battle for Eritrea at Karen and took command of Eritrea. Eritrea at that time the second most industrialized country in the continent, after South Africa, were eyed as a good rehabilitation resource for the war torn economy of UK.
In 1942 the UK had established their colonial governance in Eritrea and started to loot the well developed industrial infrastructures of Eritrea. Same year, 1942, Hailesilassie was brought back from his exile in UK and reinstalled to power with the help of the US and UK. He was blessed with full political, diplomatic, economical and military support from his masters, in return, Hailesilassie had sworn oath to serve as trusted marionette, a puppet on the sting king.
The reinstalled marionette king had fled the war and had no legitimacy in Abyssinia. He was considered as coward leader by those who stood up and resisted the Italian. Italia had invaded Abyssinia in 1935 and incorporated it as its colony.
Blessed by all support Hailesilassie got from the colonialists, he managed to exterminate all strong internal opponents who he saw as a threat, Belay Zeleke of Gojam was one of them.
While Hailesilassie was in exile the British had helped him creating a well designed narrative portraying him as a God allocated inherent King of Judah. Not only the narrative around his monarchy was a table designed story, even the name Abyssinia was obsoleted and replaced by Ethiopia. The British woman who had tasked this state of the art narratives was no less than Sylvia Pankhurst, the mother of Richard Pankhurst who has written a number of narrative histories of Ethiopia.
These narratives were then implemented successfully in an orchestrated manner. The “Ethiopian” Orthodox Church was used to concretize the narrative internally while the US and its alliance via its agents spread these narratives internationally. It was also in this era the US heavy involvement in the Horn of Africa began. Using the advantages it gained in WWII, US started to dictate the fate of the Horn of Africa which later on severely impacted the fate of Eritrea in particular.
The 32th US president Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Democrat president, was the man who took the first miscalculated and misinformed US policy toward Eritrea. Roosevelt invited his puppet Hailesilassie onboard the US hangar ship at Suez channel and presented the US plan.
That short meeting was literally the one which decided the fate of Eritrea and changed the political paradigm of the Horn of Africa.
It was also in this meeting the US promised Hailesilassie Eritrea to become an integral part of Ethiopia, bypassing all Eritreans rights for independence.
The UK who saw their power diminished by US, were incapable to ensure theirs interests and had no choice but to abide by the new world order of that era.
10 years after the UK took over Eritrea as its new colony and looted what could be looted, in 1952 they had to leave Eritrea in federation with Ethiopia against their will, but according to the US agenda for the region.
In the 50’s when most colonized African countries were guaranteed “independence”, the US annexed Eritrea by proxy and declared it as its de facto colony.
The US formalized the annexation at the League of National(now UN) assembly through its irresponsible and arrogant speech made by John Forster Dallas, Forster Dallas served as Secretary of State under president Dwight D. Eisenhower.
Quoting John Forster Dallas speech makes the US misguided policies toward Eritrea easy to understand.
“From the point of view of justice, the opinion of the Eritrean people must receive consideration. Nevertheless, the strategic interests of the United States in the Red Sea Basin and world peace make it necessary that the country be linked with our ally Ethiopia.”
A decade after the US decided to integrate Eritrea in federation with Ethiopia, it gave Ethiopia green light to dismantle the federation and invade Eritrea.
The US facilitated the annexation by supporting Ethiopia politically, economical and military. The US then reached one of its milestones and managed to erase Eritrea from the world map. Eritrean saw no other means but to raise arms against the US and in 1961 Eritrean armed struggle for independence started. The US marionette in Ethiopia was militarily heavily pushed by the armed struggle while social uprising inside Ethiopia grew out of control. Hailesilass could not sustain the pressures. In 1974 the monarchy was overthrown by a communist military Junta. The puppet king killed a year later and thereof the US lost its de facto colony Eritrea and its influence in Ethiopia.
After 30 years of hard and very challenging armed struggle for independence, led by the popular movement front, Eritrean people liberation Front, stood victorious defeating all enemies of the Eritrean people, both in battlefields and politically, and guaranteed a sovereign and independent Eritrea.
In 1991 the Soviet Union had collapsed and the NATO allies with SU at the top declared themselves as winners of the Cold War. Uncontested by political and economical bankrupted Russian federation and china, US became militarily and economical the mightiest of that period. Taking advantage of the circumstances the US then proclaimed a doctrine aimed to fully control the political and economic arena of the global for coming 50 years and started to act as default world police. Based on the doctrine it drew it began to dedicate countries policies, decide the fate of countries, remove leaders it saw unfriendly toward its hegemonic policies etc.
It’s here Eritrea comes into the picture.
Eritrea, the youngest nation with unmatched self-confidence never seen in the “third world” countries, stood up and started to fight back the hegemonic ideology of the USA.
Despite the huge bullies, mistreatments and pressures to kneel down Eritrea, Eritrea was firmly growing as a real independent state both ideological and political.
US saw no signs of desertions from Eritrea, instead Eritrea started to put new standards on how African countries should create their own policies and handle with their resources
The defiant and confident Eritrea with its brilliance put the US on growing stress. The US then went for a well tested recipe and unleashed full scale war against Eritrean using its Horn of Africa proxy, the TPLF regime.
Once again Eritrea smartly managed to maneuver itself out from the war trap, and brilliantly dismantled US architecture war, implemented by its agent TPLF.
Eritrea decapacitated TPLF’s ability to act as marionette US command in east Africa.
Frustrated by its foiled misguided policies toward Eritrea, US then put Eritrea under most illicit and unjust UN sanctions for a decade, hoping to break the stamina of the Eritreans nationalist ideology.
Again Eritrea patiently worked out a state of the art political strategy and executed it “Eritrean way”.
The strategy helped Eritrea to achieve its goals in which the US servants, 20 years later after the latest full scale war, were destroyed and eradicated from Horn of Africa once and for all in December 2020, with the servant Junta ideology and political laundering going in full tact now.
Now back to the question, is the US the enemy of Eritrea?
I think the US is not the enemy of Eritrea. But the US fears the brave, self-reliant, self confident and enlightened Eritrean nationalist ideology which it sees as a threat to its misguided interests.
So, what is the US afraid of then?
President Isaias Afeworki once in an interview had to reply to a journalist questioning, why do the US hate you?
I would like to wrap up my article by quoting the president’s brilliant answer to the journalist which explained the root cause of the US stance against Eritrea.
“We went to the same school, we sat on the same benches, we read the same books and we had the same teachers but we interpreted what we have learned differently. Now we say, come and challenge us intellectually, while our partners tell us to take their version as the ultimate truth, which we know it isn’t”
Good read Thank you 🇪🇷
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