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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:Constructed on a sand foundation: the crisis of U.S. foreign policy toward the Horn of Africa during the post Cold War era: a critical review: part one; part two
Author:Tuso, HamdesaISNI
Year:1999
Periodical:Horn of Africa
Volume:17
Issue:1-4
Pages:19-31
Language:English
Geographic terms:Northeast Africa
Ethiopia
United States
Subjects:Oromo
foreign policy
Abstract:Two-part essay on the repercussions of US involvement in power politics and conflicts in the Horn of Africa at the time of the Cold War and its aftermath. The basic question which is asked is whether the United States, when faced with ethnic persecution in the Horn of Africa, will use the same standard of intervention as was applied, e.g., in Kosovo. The first part of the essay presents the personal observations and experiences of the author, an Oromo exile who lives and teaches in the US. He gives a critical assessment of positive US views of democratic progress in Ethiopia. Reflecting on the London peace conference of May-July 1991, he takes a long-term view of colonization of the Oromos and other peripheral peoples in Ethiopia during the regimes of Emperor Haile Selassie and the socialist Dergue, which effectively used mechanisms of punishment and reward and collaboration to perpetuate Oromo dependence. The second part of the essay examines Western policies toward the Horn of Africa during the European colonial expansion, the Cold War period, and the post-Cold War period; US foreign policy toward the Zenawi regime, the Khartoum regime and the Oromo question during the Cold War period; and alternative policy considerations. The essay reveals several areas of contradiction in US policy towards the region. Notes, ref.
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