THE LEGAL CASE AGAINST U.S. STATE-SPONSORED TERRORISM IN ETHIOPIA
[UPDATE 11/23/21]: On November 23, 2021, the U.S. Embassy in Addis Ababa issued a warning of terrorist attacks in Addis Ababa and warned Americans to avoid places “frequented by foreigners.” If any terrorist actions take place, the U.S. will be solely responsible. The U.S. would not have issued such a warning unless it had credible evidence of a terrorist attack. Did the U.S. that evidence with the Ethiopian Government? We all know who is the state-sponsor of terrorism in Ethiopia. Thank you US Embassy Addis Ababa for proving my case!]
Desperate to save the TPLF terrorists, the U.S. has become an outlaw sponsor of state terrorism in Ethiopia
In an apothegm (figure of speech) Friedrich Nietzsche admonished, “Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And when you look long into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you.”
Blinded by desperation to save the leaders of the terrorist group Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) and drunk with hubris and arrogance that is borne of ignorance, the U.S. has become in Ethiopia the very terrorist monster it fought globally for the last twenty years.
The TPLF is getting hammered in Amhara and Afar regions. The sun is setting on the TPLF. The final nails are being driven in the TPLF’s coffin!
Thousands of TPLF fighters have been killed and thousands more are captured.
The Biden administration (guided by the invisible hands of the DUCHESS OF DARKNESS Susan Rice) is facing the abyss in Ethiopia and totally confused and desperate about what it can do next to break Ethiopia’s back, break her knees and throw Ethiopia to the TPLF terrorist wolves.
None of the tired old tricks of the U.S. — sanctions, saber-rattling, global conspiracy to undermine Ethiopia politically, diplomatically and economically, global disinformation, demonization and fear and smear campaigns against Ethiopia — have worked.
In absolute desperation and groping the end of its rope, the U.S. has finally become sponsor of state terrorism in Ethiopia!!
For decades, the U.S. has accused and sanctioned Iran as a sponsor of state terrorism because Iran allegedly supported “Hizballah, Palestinian terrorist groups in Gaza, and various terrorist groups in Syria, Iraq, and throughout the Middle East.”
Today, in absolute desperation, the U.S. is openly and unashamedly supporting and waging a global disinformation and propaganda war on behalf of the terrorist TPLF in Ethiopia.
How desperate is the demonic duplet of Biden & Rice to save the handful of TPLF leaders from their inevitable doom?
More desperate than a drowning man off a sinking ship!
More desperate than the devil stuck between a rock and the deep blue sea!
More desperate than a base jumper midair with a stuck parachute!
Talking about parachute, a couple of days ago, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) warned civilian passenger planes operating out of Bole International Airport in Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital, could be “directly or indirectly exposed to ground weapons fire and/or surface-to-air fire”.
Say what?!
DESPERATION!
Foolishness is the hallmark of desperation.
Never in my wildest imagination did I think the U.S. would stoop this low to intimidate and scare the Ethiopian people!
Every time I read about the ludicrous shenanigans of Biden-Rice in Ethiopia, I chuckle and tell myself, “They can’t get any lower than this!”
On November 9, 2021, I wrote a commentary entitled, “THE EAGLE TURNED CHICKEN LITTLE: “THE SKY IS FALLING ON ETHIOPIA!”
For the past three weeks, the U.S. State Department and Embassy in Addis have been the proverbial Chicken Little trying to create mass hysteria and exodus out of Ethiopia proclaiming, “The sky is falling on Ethiopia! The TPLF wolf is coming. The TPLF wolf has surrounded the capital.”
The U.S. even issued its highest “Level 4 Travel Advisory” to scare expatriates out of Ethiopia.
The leader of the “free world” has become the propaganda arm of the terrorist TPLF in Ethiopia.
How the mighty have fallen!
But with the exception of U.S. embassy workers and other officials, a handful of Zambians (whose government was paid $30 million by the U.S.) and a few officials from European countries working in concert with the U.S. to destabilize Ethiopia and restore the TPLF to power, there was no mass exodus or evacuation out of Ethiopia.
How low has the U.S. fallen in Ethiopia? How low can the U.S. get in Ethiopia? Lower than a snake’s belly?
With the FAA announcement, it is clear the U.S. has hit a new high in its old low.
The U.S. has become a laughingstock with its silly evacuation plans in Ethiopia in tatters.
The next strategy is harum-scarum. “If you can’t get foreigners to fly out of Ethiopia, then scare the hell out of those foreigners planning to fly in.”
The U.S. has got it all wrong. Wrong! Wrong!
Ethiopia is not Afghanistan. Addis Ababa is not Kabul.
The U.S. had months to plan the Kabul evacuation, but the Biden administration completely botched the evacuation sitting on its duff and twiddling its thumb talking about, “America is back.”
Back to what? A humiliating evacuation like Vietnam?
People were dropping off American military evacuation planes in Kabul like chunks of heat shield tile from the space shuttle.
In Addis Ababa today, any American or expatriate can leave on the next plane out.
But no one is rushing to fly out at Bole Airport. Americans love it in Ethiopia.
The Biden administration is tripping! Freaking out!
The Biden administration should not be telling Americans and other expatriates to evacuate Addis Ababa.
The U.S. should be telling the TPLF: “Evacuate out of Amhara region! Evacuate out of Afar region! You are surrounded by Amhara and Afar special forces and militia and the Ethiopian National Defense Force. You have a snowball’s chance in hell to win against 115 million people. Cut your losses and get back.”
The U.S. should be telling the TPLF: “Run for your lives. If you can’t run, then walk. If you can’t walk, then crawl. If you can’t crawl, then roll on the ground like your pathetic diaspora supporters.”
But whatever you do TPLF, evacuate! Evacuate! EVACUATE! Out of Amhara region. Out of Afar region.
The legal case against the U.S. for conducting state-sponsored terrorism in Ethiopia
For more than four decades, the U.S. threw Iran into the abyss of sponsor of state terrorism with numerous sanctions .
In 2021, the Iranian abyss is gazing back at the U.S.
Lo and behold! As the U.S. points an accusatory finger at Iran and others as sponsors of state terrorism, it is now discovering that three fingers are at pointing at itself.
There is a compelling legal case to be made under American and international law that U.S. is committing state terrorism in Ethiopia by hybrid (Info)wars.
I use the phrase “hybrid wars” here to signify the application of “a range of non-military or clandestine means cloaked by extensive disinformation efforts” against a target county.
The hybrid warfare “toolbox includes elements, or “strands,” such as political, diplomatic, economic, and financial warfare, legal (lawfare), as well as socio-cultural efforts, with infrastructure, intelligence, and criminal groups being widely used.”
The tactics of hybrid warfare “prioritize identifying strategic weaknesses in target states, especially economic, political, ethnic, or other vulnerabilities.”
The weapon of choice – the Trojan Horse — in the U.S. hybrid war in Ethiopia is the terrorist TPLF.
In early November 2021, the U.S. openly and unashamedly declared DEFCON 1 propaganda/psyops war to terrorize Ethiopians, dehumanize the Ethiopian government and demonize Ethiopia as a nation.
Since the TPLF attacked the Ethiopian Northern Command on November 3, 2020, Susan Rice and her TPLF friends have been secretly plotting regime change and waging a desperate hybrid war coordinating and spreading with the Western press-titute media lies, fake news, disinformation, fear and smear campaigns, psyops, propaganda war, etc. against Ethiopia.
Could the U.S. be held legally liable for its state-sponsored hybrid warfare of international terrorism in Ethiopia?
Could the U.S. be hauled before the International Court of Justice and even American tribunals?
But first, what is meant by “international terrorism” and “sponsor of state terrorism” under American and international law?
Under American law, 18 U.S. Code § 2331, “international terrorism” is defined to criminalize
activities that involve violent acts or acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States… or that would be a criminal violation if committed within the jurisdiction of the United States. The crime of international terrorism has three elements and consists of actions committed with the intent to intimidate or coerce a civilian population, influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion, or to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping occurring primarily outside the territorial jurisdiction of the United States…
The phrase “state sponsor of terrorism” is defined, inter alia, in section 301(13) of the Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and Divestment Act of 2010 (22 U.S.C. 8541(13) as “any country the government of which the Secretary of State has determined has repeatedly provided support for acts of international terrorism pursuant to Section 6(j)(1)(A) of the Export Administration Act of 1979 (50 U.S.C. 2405(j)(1)(A) [“government of such country has repeatedly provided support for acts of international terrorism”]; Section 40 of the Arms Export Control Act, 22 U.S. Code § 2780 (d) [“country has repeatedly provided support for acts of international terrorism”] and 22 U.S.C. 2371(a) [“government of country has repeatedly provided support for acts of international terrorism”]; 50 U.S.C. 4813 [countries supporting international terrorism].
Executive Order 13224 is aimed at disrupting the financial support network for international terrorism by authorizing the U.S. government “to designate and block the assets of foreign individuals and entities that commit, or pose a significant risk of committing, acts of terrorism.”
Under international law, the U.S. became a signatory to the International Convention for Suppression of Terrorists Bombings (CSTB) on January 12, 1998.
The CSTB criminalizes the “intentional delivery, placement, discharges or detonation of an explosive or other lethal device in, into or against a place of public use, a State or government facility, a public transportation system or an infrastructure facility, with the intent to cause death or serious bodily injury, or extensive destruction likely to result or actually resulting in major economic loss.”
Art. 15 of the CSTB provides, “State parties shall cooperate in the prevention of terrorist crimes involving “discharges or detonations of an explosive or other lethal device in, into or against a place of public use, a state government facility, a public transportation system or an infrastructure facility (Art. 2).”
The U.S. signed the International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism (CSFT) adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations on 9 December 1999.
The CSFT criminalizes financing of terrorism and facilitates police and judicial co-operation to prevent, investigate and punish terrorist financing.
Article 2(b) of the CSFT criminalizes acts intended to “intimidate a population, or to compel a government or an international organization to do or to abstain from doing any act.”
Under Article 8, the CSFT mandates “each State Party shall take appropriate measures, in accordance with its domestic legal principles, for the identification, detection and freezing or seizure of any funds used or allocated for the purpose of committing terrorist offences.”
The U.S. became a signatory to the Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts (CSUA-CA) against the Safety of Civil Aviation on November 1, 1972.
The CSUA-CA criminalizes any act that threatens the safety of civil aviation. Article 1 criminalizes, among others, “placing or causing to be placed on an aircraft a device or substance which is likely to destroy or cause damage to an aircraft” and “communicating information which is known to be false, thereby endangering the safety of an aircraft in flight.”
The Protocol for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts of Violence at Airports Serving International Civil Aviation lists new offenses to Article 1 of the CSUA-CA by focusing on acts of violence occurring at an airport serving international civil aviation and disrupting airport services.
The U.S. is a sponsor, aider and abettor of state terrorism in Ethiopia
The U.S., under the Biden administration, has been a brazen and unrepentant defender of the terrorist TPLF.
Indeed, months before the Biden administration was inaugurated, Susan Rice, Antony Blinken and Jake Sullivan were moaning and groaning and urging the Trump adminstration to save the TPLF.
Rice, Blinken and Sullivan, before they took office, were working like the devil in hell trying to save the TPLF even though they knew with absolute certainty that the TPLF is a terrorist organization which attacked the Ethiopian Northern Command.
The TPLF is a well-known global terrorist organization that has been operating for decades in the bushes and in three-piece suits for nearly three decades.
On November 9, 2011, Amnesty International issued a report documenting the terrorist acts of the TPLF including rapes, robberies, looting and massacres.
But the TPLF has long been listed in the Global Terrorism Database for documented acts of terrorism including armed robberies, assaults, hostage taking and kidnapping of foreign nationals and journalists and local leaders, hijacking of truck convoys, extortion of business owners and merchants, nongovernmental organizations, local leaders and private citizens and intimidation of religious leaders and journalists.
The TPLF is also registered as a terrorist organization listed in the Terror Research and Analysis Consortium (TRAC).
The U.S. government had classified the TPLF as a “tier III” terrorist organization until 2014 when it issued an exemption in a policy memorandum.
There are three notable facts about the TPLF’s exemption from the terrorist list.
First, the U.S. installed the TPLF in power in 1991 knowing full well it was a terrorist organization.
The 2014 policy memorandum states the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security has “exercised his discretionary authority not to apply certain terrorism-related inadmissibility grounds to certain aliens for voluntary activities or associations relating to the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF)… The TPLF qualifies as a Tier III terrorist organization under INA section 212(a)(3)(B)(vi)(III) on the basis of its violent activities before it became part of the ruling coalition and the government of Ethiopia in May 1991. (Boldface added.)
Second, the U.S. aided, abetted and supported the TPLF and its leaders as part of a terrorist organization from 1991 to 2014 with full knowledge that the TPLF was an organization designated a “Tier III terrorist organization” under U.S. law.
Third, it is not clear if the TPLF is in fact not listed as a terrorist organization under some yet to be discovered arcane law. The exemption in the policy memorandum applies to the TPLF as a “Tier III terrorist organization” narrowly and only for immigration law purposes. Is the TPLF still a “Tier III terrorist organization” for purposes other than immigration?
The TPLF is a racketeering mafia-type organization involved in massive corruption schemes, money laundering, extortion, infiltration of legitimate businesses, tax fraud, brokering and enforcing illegal agreements and stealing business plans and appropriating it.
On September 16, 2006, the U.S. Embassy concluded the TPLF had indeed engaged in acts of terrorism and tried to blame others. “A series of explosions were reported in Addis Ababa killing three individuals. The GoE announced that the bombs went off while being assembled, and that the three dead were terrorists from the outlawed Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) with links to the Oromo National Congress (ONC). An embassy source, as well as clandestine reporting, suggests that the bombing may have in fact been the work of GoE security forces.” (Italics added.)
On August 31, 2021, Sean Jones, head of the USAID mission in Ethiopia, told Ethiopian state television:
We know for a fact… that the TPLF (Tigray People’s Liberation Front), every town they’ve gone into they looted the warehouses, they’ve looted trucks, they’ve caused a great deal of destruction in all the villages they visited and it’s a great concern for humanitarians… What we do have proof of is that several of our warehouses have been looted and completely emptied in the areas, particularly Amhara, the TPLF soldiers have gone into. (Boldface added.)
There is evidence the U.S. is supporting the TPLF terrorists by providing, among other things, satellite telephones for communication and and data on Ethiopian troop movements and targets to attack. The U.S. is also desperately trying to airdrop weapons and military supplies from its base in Djibouti.
The U.S. has pulled out all the stops to save the TPLF from its inevitable damnation and perdition by coordinating action with its allies to damage Ethiopia politically, economically and diplomatically.
How I wish all the stops had been pulled out and saved over 700 thousand American lives from Covid!
On November 14, 2013, the U.S. listed Boko Haram, the terrorist organization operating out of Nigeria, on its Foreign Terrorist Organization roster for suicide bombings and armed assaults on selected civilian and military targets.
On June 15, 2014 the U.S. delisted the TPLF as a terrorist organization!!
The TPLF attacked the Ethiopian National Defense Force bases in Tigray region, killed and maimed thousands of soldiers and committed terrorist atrocities in Amhara and Afar regions over the past several months and today the U.S. is trying to pressure the Ethiopian government to negotiate with it without “preconditions.”
Yet, instead of listing the TPLF as a terrorist organization as the US had done before 2014, today the U.S. is fighting tooth and nail to save it and restore it to power in Ethiopia.
Why?
Because Susan Rice, Gayle Smith, Samantha Power and the rest are madly in love (in more ways than one) with the TPLF terrorists!
Let the video speak for itself!
There is the universal principle of the rule of law and the hegemonic principle “U.S. rules”.
The U.S. will uphold the rule of international law only when it suits its purposes.
In May 2020, former President Barack Obama said the “rule of law is at risk” after the Justice Department decided to drop charges against former White House national security adviser Michael Flynn. Obama complained Flynn who had “been charged with perjury just getting off scot-free.”
I argue the rule of international law is at grave risk if the U.S. is not challenged for its support of the terrorist TPLF and sponsorship of state terrorism in Ethiopia before the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
There is sound precedent to bring the U.S. before the ICJ to account.
What the U.S. doing in Ethiopia, covertly and overtly, today is what it did in the early days in Nicaragua in the 1980s supporting right wing terrorists called “Contras”.
Under Article 1, section 8, Clause 9, the U.S. Constitution recognizes and punishes culprits for “Offenses against the Law of Nations.”
The question is what happens when the U.S. itself is the culprit committing offenses against the law of nations.
As reviewed above, there are U.S. laws and international laws and conventions criminalizing and penalizing international terrorism.
Indeed, the US launched the war in Afghanistan following the 9/11 attacks because US investigators determined that the attacks were orchestrated by al-Qaida terrorists holed up in Afghanistan.
In a historic speech, then president George W. Bush declared, “We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them.”
Yet, the U.S. today happily harbors terrorists organized by the TPLF who have vowed as their “next step is to totally dismantle the existing Ethiopian government either by force or negotiation… and set transitional government as soon as possible.”
Under American law, the U.S. is required to pursue and bring to justice all international terrorist, e.g., 8 U.S. Code § 2332.
The U.S. is required under international law, pursuant to its various convention obligations, to provide information and cooperate with any country that is a signatory to the in the investigation, pursuit and apprehension of terrorists.
The announcement of the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) that civilian planes in Ethiopia could be targeted by the TPLF is of exceptional legal interest.
On June 11, 1987, “Afghan guerrillas using a U.S.-made Stinger missile shot down an Afghan passenger plane and that 53 of the 55 people aboard were killed.”
The FAA warning in Ethiopia is clearly reminiscent of the 1987 Afghanistan civilian plane shootdown.
In 1986, the CIA reportedly delivered to Afghan mujahideen between 2,000 and 2,500 of the Stinger missiles followed by 700 in 1987. They used the missiles to down civilian and military planes including American aircraft after 9/11.
The only way the TPLF could shoot down civilian planes in Ethiopia is if the U.S. provides it with Stinger missiles as it did the Afghan mujahadeen in 1986-87.
Is that the not-so-secret message the U.S. is sending to the Ethiopian government? The U.S. will provide the TPLF Stinger missiles to shoot down civilian planes.
Manifestly, the FAA would not have issued the warning unless it had credible and reliable information the TPLF is planning to undertake such an attack.
There are at least three alternative scenarios in the FAA warning of a TPLF shootdown of a civilian passenger plane.
First, the U.S. is lying and using psyops disinformation to pressure the Ethiopian government.
Second, the U.S. is actively plotting, and has equipped the TPLF with Stinger missiles as it did the Afghan mujahahadeen, to shootdown Ethiopian civilian planes as part of its desperate strategy to save the TPLF and restore it to power and is giving advance warning.
Third, the U.S. is playing a game of chicken with the lives of innocent air passengers.
Under any of the foregoing scenarios, what the FAA has done is not only criminal but also renders the U.S. the equivalent of fanatical terrorists the world over.
The FAA warning, under any of the above scenarios, also makes the U.S. jointly and severally liable for any terrorist crimes committed by the TPLF against Ethiopian civilian planes under both international law and American law.
It is a fact that the U.S. has historically supported terrorist and paramilitary organizations around the world and instigated coups. The U.S. has also provided numerous arms and training to dictators (Death Squads in El Salvador) who have used state terrorism as a tool of repression.
In 1961, President John F. Kennedy authorized the Bay of Pigs Invasion in an unsuccessful attempt to oust Fidel Castro.
Two decades later, from 1981 to 1991, the United States provided weapons, training, and extensive financial and logistical support to the Contra rebels in Nicaragua, who used terror tactics in their fight against the Nicaraguan government. It was called the Reagan Doctrine. Reagan said it was America’s obligation to support “freedom fighters”.
Similarly, in 1986 in Angola the CIA provided UNITA rebels “all appropriate and effective assistance” which could be used to conduct a terrorist war.
There are countless other documented instances of U.S. intervention to instigate coups and chaos throughout the world.
Is U.S. support of the TPLF terrorists the latest chapter in the long history of U.S. support for terrorists to destabilize countries in Africa, Latin America and elsewhere?
Nicaragua v. United States of America (1984)
There is sufficient prima facie evidence to haul the U.S. before the International Court of Justice for commission of state terrorism by hybrid war in Ethiopia.
Indeed, the Nicaraguan case can serve as a template for Ethiopia to sue the U.S. in the ICJ.
In its complaint against the U.S. in 1984, Nicaragua charged the U.S. had engaged in state-sponsored terrorism by recruiting, training, arming, equipping, financing, supplying and otherwise encouraging, supporting, aiding, and directing military and paramilitary actions in and against Nicaragua in violation of its treaty obligations to Nicaragua under:
Article 2 (4) of the UN Charter,
Articles 18 and 20 of the Charter of the Organization of American States;
Article 8 of the Convention on the Rights and Duties of States
Article I, Third, of the Convention concerning the Duties and Rights of States in the Event of Civil Strife, and that the
United States had breached customary international law
-
- violating the sovereignty of Nicaragua by:
armed attacks against Nicaragua by air, land and sea;
incursions into Nicaraguan territorial waters;
aerial trespass into Nicaraguan airspace;
efforts by direct and indirect means to coerce and intimidate the Government of Nicaragua.
-
- using force and the threat of force against Nicaragua.
- intervening in the internal affairs of Nicaragua.
- infringing upon the freedom of the high seas and interrupting peaceful maritime commerce.
- killing, wounding and kidnapping citizens of Nicaragua.
Nicaragua demanded that all such actions cease and that the United States had an obligation to pay reparations to the government for damage to their people, property, and economy.
The U.S. in its customary and expedient disregard for international law rejected the jurisdiction of the court arguing it “had neither the jurisdiction nor the competence to render a decision.”
Though the U.S. refused to participate in the merits phase of the proceedings, the ICJ determined the U.S. had violated international law by supporting the Contras in their terrorist actions against the government of Nicaragua and by mining that country’s harbors.
Nicaragua was awarded reparations. However, the U.S. blocked enforcement of the judgment by the United Nations Security Council using its veto power and prevented Nicaragua from obtaining compensation.
The ICJ decision was a shining moment for the rule of law and for the principle of right makes might and a historic moral victory for Nicaragua on the order of David and Goliath.
The Court had 15 final decisions upon which it voted.
The Court held the United States
was in breach of its obligations under customary international law not to use force against another State”.
unlawfully intervened in Nicaraguan internal affairs.
violated Nicaraguan sovereignty.
unlawfully interrupted Nicaragua’s peaceful maritime commerce.
was in reach of its obligations under Article XIX of the Treaty of Friendship, Commerce and Navigation between the Parties signed at Managua on 21 January 1956.
Does the U.S. care about the people of Ethiopia? People of Tigray? People anywhere?
I will let Nelson Mandela, an African leader of unimpeachable integrity, answer that question!
The Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia v. The United States of America.
To be continued….
