AU should support Ethiopia on Eritrea to pre-empt NATO

The Ethiopian deputy prime minister, and also Foreign minister, Hailemariam Desalegn has made an important announcement regarding Eritrea, a move that should become a template for dealing with Uganda and other rogue states if the African Union is claim any credibility and keep NATO out of Africa.

Addressing the press in Addis Ababa on April 21, Desalegn said: “We have embarked ourselves on regime change in Eritrea. This regime change is not by invading Eritrea, but by supporting the Eritrean people and groups which want to dismantle the regime. We are fully engaged in doing so.” (Reuters, Al Jazeera and other news agencies).

The African Union, which has been ignored and humiliated by western military alliance NATO over Libya, must welcome and support Ethiopia’s move, not least because it is a pre-emptive action that will prevent NATO, already active in Libya, from intervening in Eritrea before moving to other sub-Saharan Africa countries.

Eritrea’s strategic position in the Red Sea, which connects the Suez Canal to the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean, makes it a high priority candidate for NATO intervention purely for geo-political reasons.

But the humanitarian case for Ethiopia intervention in Eritrea cannot be over-emphasised.

Eritreans perished

On April 4, 2011, no less than the United Nations reported that over 400 African immigrants mainly Eritreans had drowned in the Mediterranean Sea, trying to go to Europe in search of a better life.

Earlier, on July 8, 2010, the BBC and other international media outlets had reported that more than 300 Eritrean young men and women had drowned in the same sea seeking an escape route to Europe.