The Basis of Our Analysis
The struggle of African People in Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa is spurred by a host of conflicting interests and involves a number of active political and military forces. To properly understand and respond to it we make an assessment from the perspective of the people, and support solutions that serve the interest of the masses of African People in Ethiopia, the Region and the world.
We first acknowledge that the People of the region are the primary active agents in the unfolding scenario in the Horn of Africa. The People are not passive victims of conflicting global and regional agendas. The People are not objects pushed about by powerful forces beyond their control. The People are working to improve their lives. They are experienced and capable fighters in the struggle for their human dignity, freedom and justice.
The People of Eritrea, Ethiopia, Sudan, Southern Sudan, Somalia, Kenya and Djibouti have hard won experience with war, famine, flood, draught, dictatorship, colonialism, pandemics, neo-colonialism, coups and corruption. The collective interests of Africans in the Horn are the same as the interests of Africans everywhere. They want power over their lives, and they have to defeat capitalism, imperialism and Zionism to get it. The analysis starts and ends with the People, their consciousness, capacities, collective interest, and needs. Some understanding of the history of the region is needed.
The Horn of Africa in general is in conflict with capitalism and imperialism. The People vs. Imperialism: This is the real contradiction. The imperialists need Egypt, Sudan, Eritrea, Somalia and Djibouti to control the Red Sea, which is the doorway to the Suez Canal, the world’s most important water route between east and west. The most important political/military real estate in the region are bases, from which to monitor and sometimes control maritime activity in the Red Sea.
The Importance of Ethiopia
Ethiopia, in particular, is more than a Country; she is a symbol of Africa. The imperialists want control of Ethiopia because it is one of Africa’s most populous countries and because Ethiopia is at the heart of Africa culturally, historically and emotionally. Ethiopia is central to the history of African and human civilization. Ethiopia is the first country named in the Bible. Humanity is thought to have arisen in Ethiopia. Ethiopia is the origin of modern African culture, history and personality. Ethiopia’s Story is Ourstory.
Ethiopia is also central to the fight for African Unification. The Organization of African Unity (OAU) was founded there. The headquarters of the African Union is in Ethiopia and it is in Ethiopia that African Liberation Day was established. Bob Marley and the Rastafari Movement, like Marcus Garvey before them, have permanently connected Ethiopia to the struggle for African Unity. Ethiopia was the only territory to successfully resist occupation (Italian) following the Berlin Conference of 1884. The Italians first colonized Eritrea as a base for the invasion of Ethiopia. The conquest of Eritrea and connecting it to Ethiopia has been part of the imperialist plan for the region since the end of the 19th century. Africans around the world volunteered to fight Italy because of their second invasion of Ethiopia (1935-37). Africans feel that the emergence of a stable Ethiopia is a precondition for the establishment of a Unified African Continent and this feeling has given new meaning to the biblical phrase, “Ethiopia shall stretch forth her hands unto god.”
When the U.S. was drawn into WWII by the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, one of its first U.S. acts was to secure Ethiopia by secretly partnering with Hailie Selassi. The US was given a long-term lease of Kagnew Station and in return it was to provide economic and military assistance to Ethiopia. Part of this arrangement was dismissing the constitutional agreement to establish Eritrea as an autonomous state within a federated Ethiopia. In 1943 the Kagnew Station was established as a United States Army installation in Asmara, Eritrea. Ethiopia became the first modern U.S. neo-colony in Africa (1942) and Eritrea the site of the first U.S. military installation in Africa (1943-1977).
Both Ethiopia and Eritrea are engaged in a struggle to reclaim African lands and resources and put them in the hands of the working mass of people. This is the primary objective of the struggle in the Horn of Africa, Exploiting the People and confiscating the land is the primary objective of the imperialist enemies of African People.
Historically the People seize land to create liberated zones. Liberated Zones are safe places for people to live, grow, train and support other Africans Freedom Fighters. Liberated Zones contribute to the total liberation of the Continent. People fight for sovereignty, self-determination and justice. The sovereignty of liberated territory is the precondition for improving the lives of the People and providing material and ideological support to others who are fighting to achieve the same objectives.
Eritrea is Liberated Territory. Coordinating the struggle to liberate and unify Africa is a way to safeguard and protect the liberated territory. The African People owe unshakable allegiance to our liberated zones. All who seek justice in Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa must safeguard Eritrea, the only consolidated liberated zone in East Africa.
We Are Biased
The All-African People’s Revolutionary Party is not neutral in our assessment of the human, political and military forces in operation in the Horn of Africa. For more than 50 years our Party has proceeded as comrades of the Eritrean Revolution and worked in coordination with the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (EPLF), now called the Popular Front for Democracy and Justice (PFDJ). The governments, political parties, movements and interests in operation in the Horn of Africa are not new.
We have a particular and detailed knowledge of the origins and history of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), the main protagonist in the current crisis. We knew the TPLF as a student/youth movement (TUSA) and in training camps inside Eritrea (1978). We remember when they joined the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) and fought beside the EPLF to defeat the Derge dictatorship. We also recall in horror how they became instruments of U.S. imperialism, ruling Ethiopia in the (EPRDF) from 1991 till 2018 and fostering war with Eritrea. For the last thirty years we have known TPLF as neo-colonial agents of imperialism, bitter enemies of Eritrea, oppressors of the Ethiopian people and the primary instigators of war in the Horn of Africa. Imperialist media (CNN, MSNBC, FOX…) portrays the TPLF as victims in the current crisis, we know with certainty that they are nothing more than agents of imperialism and enemies of African People.
Eritrea is encircled and surrounded by enemies. To the west are neo-colonial regimes in Sudan, Ethiopia, and Djibouti. To the east, across the Red Sea, is the imperialist stronghold of Saudi Arabia and the besieged state of Yemen. Eritrea conquered independence by fighting a thirty-year war against Ethiopia, followed by nearly thirty years of intermittent war, under the leadership of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF). Eritrea stands alone as an example of self-determination and self-sufficiency and a beacon of hope for Africans everywhere.
Eritrea under the PFDJ is one of the few political/military forces in the Region to consistently promote the interest of the masses of African people. We can never let Eritrea become another liberated territory that is overthrown by imperialism, like Libya, Burkina Faso, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Ghana, The Congo, Algeria or Mali. Failure to defend Eritrea is failure to defend ourselves and the African Revolution.
We Are One!
The Pan-African struggle is global. We fight Imperialism in all its manifest forms. We are engaged in a single, indivisible struggle operating on various fronts. Our organizations and organizers are to be found wherever African People are. Our humanist principles are not bound or limited by oceans, continents or national borders. We are Africans fighting capitalism wherever we find it.
The Ethiopian struggle is an African struggle. Politically and organizationally, All Africans must stand in uncompromising solidarity with Ethiopians fighting to gain their freedom. We stand in the trenches with Eritrea, an African Liberated Territory fighting to defend the freedom they have gained.
Eritrea fosters Peace with her neighbors (even after fighting bitter wars), rejects AFRICOM installations within her borders, withstood and reversed U.S. /European Union (EU) sanctions. Eritrea has freed herself from imperialist aid, world bank loans and International Monetary Fund (IMF) structural adjustments. All imperialist attempts to destabilize the Horn of Africa are disguised efforts to destabilize and destroy Eritrea.
Peace And Stability
The most important way to ensure the sovereignty and security of Eritrea is to develop stability and peace in the region. The Peace and Stability being sought by the Eritrean and Ethiopian People is also the primary objective of all the people of the region, irrespective of the governments that are currently in power. The People of Sudan, Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Djibouti are united in their desire for peace and stability as a first step toward development of any kind. Peace and stability are in the interest of the People of the region.
Peace and stability are also where the interest of the People comes in direct conflict with the interest of the capitalist, imperialist and Zionist operating in Africa. The imperialists foster war as a means of ensuring instability. Imperialism uses destabilization as a strategy and war as a tactic to destabilize. Their destabilizing efforts are not confined to the political or military battlefields. They also engage in ideological and psychological warfare by consciously creating confusion, disseminating false information and lies. They do this and so much more to justify their destabilizing actions.
The conflict in Ethiopia is between the People and their imperialist enemies. The various forces, governments, political parties, private corporations, NGOs and Mass Media, either serve the People’s desire for peace and stability or they serve capitalism and imperialism.
Know The Enemy: Imperialism
Imperialism, in the form of Neo-colonialism, wants to keep the “Horn of Africa” destabilized to justify continued intervention and balkanization of Ethiopia and other countries in the region. The current conflict in Ethiopia started with the attacks by the TPLF against the government of Ethiopia. These attacks opened the door for capitalist/imperialist economic, military and political interference, U.S./E.U./Israel axis have always used Ethiopia to keep Africa under its control through neo-colonialism. Ethiopia has since that time been used by imperialism to pursue their interest in the region. We know the maneuvers of capitalism and imperialism to keep Africa from stabilizing and achieving greater levels of unity.
When we look to the Horn we see enemies everywhere. Neo-colonialists, Multi-nationals, Imperialist intelligence agencies, diplomatic corps, puppet political parties, mainstream media, military forces, private intelligence agencies and armies, confused and ignorant self-serving Africans are all over Ethiopia, Sudan, Djibouti, Somalia, Egypt, Southern Sudan. If you make an assessment of the Horn of Africa, without accounting for and considering these ever-present enemy forces you will reach a false and dangerous conclusion. It behooves us to not only be aware of the imperialist and their agents among us but also to mark them as our primary enemy and make their removal the primary objective of this stage of the struggle for Pan-Africanism.
#NoMore
Standing for the Peace and stability of Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa and opposing imperialism is precisely the basis of the #NoMore movement that has recently swept the globe. The People have shown their disagreement with the actions of the western imperialists through the #NoMore movement. Africans in western Africa have adopted #NoMore as well as the Africans throughout the diaspora in light of the maneuvers of the imperialists in Ethiopia, the French imperialists in western Africa, and the neo-colonial government of Nigeria. The only logical next step for the #NoMore Movement is to openly oppose neo-colonialism and fight for Pan-Africanism as the solution to Africa’s problems and the problems of African People around the world.
Pan-Africanism
Continental unity is the objective. To achieve it African People’s organizations must come together on a continent and international basis. “The African Freedom Fighters, while mainly concerned with enemy strength in Africa, must nevertheless study this world pattern if they are to assess correctly the true dimensions of their struggle will, in fact, be world-wide, since revolutionary warfare will occur wherever the enemy operates”. This worldwide struggle has to be coordinated both politically and militarily.
All People of African Descent, whether you are born in Europe, North or South America or the Caribbean, are African and belong to the African Nation.”— Kwame Nkrumah
Only the coordinated action of the organized forces of Africa and her diaspora, in solidarity with other colonized and neo-colonized peoples and socialist and progressive states around the world can defeat imperialism. This is why we built the Organization in Solidarity of the Peoples of Africa, Asia and Latin America in Havana, Cuba at the Tri-Continental Conference in January 1966.
The All-African People’s Revolutionary Party is saying “#NoMore” to the intervention of western imperialism in Africa. “#NoMore” AFRICOM. Get all foreign military troops out of Africa! “#No More” Imperialism in Africa! get the U.S. Out of Africa. “#No More” Foreign Intelligence agencies in Africa! Get Rid of the Industrial Police/Military Intelligence Complex and destroy patriarchy, imperialism, capitalism and Zionism.
“Africa Must Unite!” We call you to fight for the “Total Liberation and Unification of Africa Under Scientific Socialism.” This is the primary objective of all Black revolutionaries worldwide. Africans must unite to defeat capitalism, imperialism, neo-colonialism, patriarchy, colonialism, racism, Zionism and settler colonialism. Africa Must Unite. Unity presupposes organization. Organize, Organize, Organize! Our slogan is clear and simple, “Pan-Africanism or Perish!”
VIVA PEACE and STABILITY in the Horn of Africa!
VIVA ETHIOPIAN SOVEREIGNTY!
VIVA ONE UNIFIED SOCIALIST AFRICA!
VIVA THE ERITREAN REVOLUTION!
VIVA PFDJ!
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