Ethiopia in Senator Cory Booker’s Black Book of Crippling Sanctions!

Senator Booker sheds crocodile tears for victims of human rights violations in Africa. But what has he done to deal with human rights violations of African Americans in New Jersey?

“Booker’s New Jersey has an incarceration rate of 341 per 100,000 people and locks up a higher percentage of its people than almost any democracy on earth. New Jersey continues to have the highest rate of racial disparities in its prison population in the country, with Black residents incarcerated at a rate of 12.5 times that of whites.”

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Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) is the third member of the “N.J. Triad of Evil” plotting to destroy Ethiopia by crippling sanctions.

The other Triad members include the indicted criminal Senator Robert Menendez and Human Rights Watch’s “mole” in Congress Representative Tomasz Malinowski.

I exposed mendacious Menendez’s conspiracy to destroy Ethiopia in my April 8, 2022 commentary, “Robert “Teflon Don” Menendez and the Mugging of Ethiopia in the U.S. Senate.”

On April 21, 2022, I exposed Tomasz Malinowski’s plot in my commentary, “Malicious Malinowski, Human Rights Watch’s “Puppet/Mole” in the U.S. House Gunning for Ethiopia!”

Booker, the third member of the Triad, is the first African-American U.S. Senator from New Jersey who won a special election in 2013.

Booker was Mayor of Newark from 2006 to 2013.

Booker has been wind bagging and dogging Ethiopia since the terrorist TPLF declared war on Ethiopia and attacked the Ethiopian Northern Command on November 3, 2020.

On November 16, 2020, barely 2 weeks after the TPLF terrorist attack, Booker tweeted:

The continuing violence in Ethiopia threatens to engulf the entire region. The TPLF and @AbiyAhmedAli must de-escalate tensions, use all diplomatic means to end the crisis without delay, and refrain from drawing in regional governments.

Booker said absolutely nothing to condemn the TPLF terrorist attack nor did he bother to check the facts with the State Department before he jumped into the limelight to present himself as a human rights hero.

Almost two weeks after the terrorist attack, Booker had not even bothered to find out what the State Department’s position was on the terrorist attack.

Had Booker exercised elementary due diligence befitting a U.S. Senator, he would have learned the U.S. government had already taken a clear and unambiguous position on the terrorist TPLF attack.

On November 4, 2020, twelve days before Booker posted his tweet, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had made clear the U.S. position on the terrorist TPLF attack:

The United States is deeply concerned by reports that the Tigray People’s Liberation Front carried out attacks on Ethiopian National Defense Force bases in Ethiopia’s Tigray region on November 3… The United States stands with the people of Ethiopia and will work with all who are committed to peace, prosperity, democracy, and the rule of law.

Pompeo and the Trump administration were demonstrably principled and unequivocal. The US stands with the people and government of Ethiopia.

On November 15, 2020, a day before Booker posted his tweet, US Assistant Secretary for African Affairs Tibor Nagy had tweeted,

The United States strongly condemns the TPLF’s unjustifiable attacks against Eritrea on November 14 and its efforts to internationalize the conflict in Tigray.

But incredibly, Booker, without even checking with the State Department, was ignorantly blathering and bloviating about violence engulfing the Horn region.

On December 18, 2020, barely 6 weeks after the terrorist TPLF attack, Booker joined in a statement urging “targeted sanctions on any political or military officials found responsible for human rights violations.”

Again, the willfully ignorant and lazy Booker urged sanctions without a clue about the facts on the ground.

Indeed, by definition, the “targeting of political and military officials” could apply only to Ethiopian government officials and not the TPLF terrorists.

Booker blindly or with willful ignorance sought to sanction Ethiopia while remaining conveniently oblivious of the criminal terrorist TPLF attack which had resulted in the deaths and maiming of tens of thousands of Ethiopian federal soldiers.

The statement Booker co-signed

1) completely and dismissively overlooked the central and critical fact the terrorist TPLF solely caused the war by its attack and subsequent deaths and destruction;

2) pins the entire blame for the war on the Ethiopian government with utmost fairness;

3) sought to presumptively impose sanctions on Ethiopian officials without any factfinding whatsoever; and

4) absolved the terrorist TPLF of any accountability for its terrorist crimes.

Two months later, Booker co-sponsored S.Res.97.

S.Res.97 reads like one of the acts of the British Parliament imposed on the New England colonies of North America.

S.R. 97 is distinctive for its hubris, audacity, imperiousness and heavy-handedness.

S.R. 97 flagrantly disregards

1) Ethiopian sovereignty;

2) undermines Ethiopian judicial process;

3) creates moral equivalency between the legitimate government of Ethiopia and the terrorist TPLF;

4) commands Ethiopia how to run its internal affairs by dictating terms of national consensus, and

5) demands Ethiopia surrender its political independence and autonomy by subordinating itself to foreign investigators.

Specifically, S.Res 97 orders the Ethiopian government to

1) remove Eritrean forces from Ethiopian soil (while the US keeps troops in South Korea, Germany, etc.);

2) “release all opposition leaders, supporters, and activists detained on the basis of their political activity and views as well as journalists detained on the basis of their reporting, and respect the rights of all Ethiopians to free,” (in complete disregard of Ethiopian judicial process which is adjudicating the criminal cases);

3) “convene a credible and countrywide process of national dialogue and reconciliation inclusive of all nonviolent political parties” (directing Ethiopia how to run its internal affairs);

4) guarantee unfettered and immediate humanitarian access for personnel and supplies (to facilitate covert shipment of arms to the TPLF under the guise on humanitarian aid as it was done in the early 1980s [as I have extensively documented US role in installing TPLF to power], and

5) “cooperate with, independent and transparent investigations of any alleged human rights abuses committed in the course of the conflict in the Tigray Region and other conflicts across Ethiopia and hold perpetrators to account in a credible process.” (Contrast that with how the US has rejected accountability before the International Criminal Court) and indeed imposed sanctions on the ICC for merely seeking to undertake investigations into US human rights violations in Afghanistan and elsewhere.)

On January 18, 2021, Booker issued a statement:

Despite these positive developments, much work remains to be done, and I strongly urge the Ethiopian government to make good on its commitment to allow unfettered access for humanitarian efforts. More must be done to ensure that human rights are protected throughout Ethiopia; thousands of political prisoners remain imprisoned and must be released.

What evidence does Booker have to make his claim of the Ethiopian government failing in its commitments?

None.

Booker’s depraved disregard for facts having to do with Ethiopia borders on the morbid. He would rather blather based on stories cooked up by Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International.

In January 2021, during the confirmation hearing for Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Booker specifically called for the State Department to create the position of Special Envoy for the Horn of Africa.

In a joint letter to Special Envoy Jeffrey Feltman (a/k/a TPLFeltman) dated April 29, 2021, Markey stated:

We encourage you to use all diplomatic tools available to ensure that Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed fulfills his commitments to provide unfettered humanitarian access to the region, to secure the withdrawal of Eritrean and non-state troops from Tigray, to allow independent investigations into human rights violations, and to hold perpetrators accountable.

By “diplomatic tools” Booker and Co., meant threats or deployment of sanctions and other punitive actions against Ethiopia, and nothing else.

Indeed, before travelling to the Horn, TPLFeltman fired a shot across the bow with stunning accusations, “Authoritarian leaders in Ethiopia, Eritrea and Somalia draw closer at the expense of the wider collective.”

Are insults, invectives and vilifications diplomatic tools?

“Authoritarian” is a kinder, gentler word for “dictator.” U.S. officials use “authoritarian” to demonize and ostracize leaders that do not kowtow to them.

Booker thought he was sending America’s new sheriff to Ethiopia.

Suffice it to say, despite Feltman’s boast and bluster about crushing the leaders and government of Ethiopia and bringing them to their knees and beg mercy from the terrorist TPLF, he resigned in absolute disgrace and failure.

I am proud of the role I played in sending the “ugly American” to pasture with his tail between his legs!

Does Booker have the moral authority to lecture Ethiopia on human rights, good governance and the rule of law?

Booker has as much moral legitimacy to preach human rights to Ethiopia as Jimmy Swaggart has preaching the Gospel.

Booker is another corrupt politician from the “haven of corruption.” New Jersey has long been known as the “corruption capital of America.”

The “ugly truth” about Booker as mayor of Newark, N.J., is that he is as crooked as a dog’s hind legs.

Booker had a fantastic scam going with his former law firm as mayor.

All the while, from 2006 to 2011, Booker was still receiving annual payments, which totaled close to $700,000, from his former law firm—Trenk, DiPasquale, Webster—from which he had resigned once elected mayor to avoid “the appearance of impropriety.

As Booker was getting his cut from the law firm, they were in turn “profiting from Newark: over $2 million in work for Newark’s Housing Authority, the Watershed Conservation Development Corporation, and a wastewater agency.”

There is also evidence “Booker’s allies and others squandered millions of dollars in public money at the nonprofit through kickbacks and embezzlement, bogus contracts, risky investments and excessive pay, according to investigations, criminal trials and federal testimony.”

Newark, N.J. remains one of the tragic American cities afflicted by multiple social ills.

During Booker’s mayorship in Newark, murder, violent crime, unemployment, and taxes all rose dramatically.

Between 2007 and 2012, violent crime increased in Newark with Booker as mayor.

In 2019, Joe Biden called the Newark Police Department under Booker corrupt.

What has Booker done for the people and State of New Jersey?

On his website, Booker brags, “he believes that the American dream isn’t real for anyone unless it’s within reach of everyone. Cory has dedicated his life to fighting for those who have been left out, left behind, or left without a voice.”

What has Booker, who pretends to care about black Africans 10 thousand miles away, done for African Americans right there in in New Jersey?

Let’s review the evidence on what Booker has done for the huddled masses of New Jersey.

Booker has been in the Senate since 2013.

Booker introduced/sponsored 95 bills in the 117th Congress in 2021-22.