Paul Henze on Somalia: Futile Attempt to Justify Ethiopia's US-Backed Invasion

Paul B. Henze, the ex-CIA man and Meles Zenawi’s advisor and confidante is back to defend his premier client in the Horn-the minority regime in Ethiopia. In defense of Meles Zenawi’s malfeasance and lunacy, he is trying to pass another one of this childish propaganda pieces for an intellectual analysis on the crisis brewing in Somalia today. This latest paper, with its nonsensical comparisons and outright fabrications and distortions of easily verifiable facts, is filled with incoherent long winded non sequitur arguments, further exposing his intellectual dishonesty and degenerating morals. His paper “Ethiopia and Somalia” is a deceptive piece designed to mislead, misinform and deliberately confuse the facts surrounding Ethiopia’s US-backed invasion of Somalia.

Acknowledging the international community’s acquiescence, the African Union and United Nations’ impotence and presenting them as justifications for the invasion of Somalia, and conveniently omitting the fact that Ethiopia and its western partners, including Henze himself, were directly responsible for the dismal state of affairs in Somalia for the last 4 decades, Henze wrote:

“… Meles did not act to divert attention from internal troubles. Somalia has no historic existence as a state. It has been a disruptive element in the Horn of Africa since it came into existence in 1960. It has been in a condition of anarchy since 1991. The Islamic Courts declared war on Ethiopia and claimed Ethiopian territory. The AU, the UN, the US and most Western countries recognize Ethiopia's entitlement to act in its own interests as well as those of the Somali people…”

Paul Henze knows that the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) asked Meles Zenawi to remove his forces (8000 of them) from sovereign Somali territories that Meles had violated and occupied. Irregardless of what the self serving Western countries recognize, Ethiopia’s invasion is still a violation of international law, and the AU and UN Charters. The duplicitous and hypocritical US led international community has not taken any punitive actions because Meles Zenawi was acting on their behalf. It should be recalled that Jendayi E. Frazier and the UN officials at the planning meeting held in Ethiopia in June 2006 had already decided that there would be no condemnation of Ethiopia for violating Somalia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.

Just as he is today, Paul Henze was a staple on Ethiopian television and other media during the Eritrea Ethiopia border conflict, making excuses for the minority regime’s lawlessness. He contributed to Meles Zenawi’s propaganda campaign as the war mongering regime waged the destructive aggressive war of invasion and expansion against Eritrea. Henze wrote endless distorted articles to confuse and misinform the Ethiopian people and garner international support for Meles Zenawi’s recklessness and belligerence. Paul Henze egged the minority regime to reject dialogue with Eritrea and choose violence and war. He downplayed Ethiopian casualties during the war and exaggerated Ethiopia’s military capabilities to hoodwink the Ethiopian people.

Instead of calling for peace, he called for more war. Encouraged by Henze’s support (he is white, American and CIA), mistaking his deliberate and willful fabrications and exaggerations for friendship, the minority regime, which suffers from an incurable inferiority complex, escalated the seemingly minor border issue into a full blown war.
This sinister individual encouraged the deportation of over 80,000 Eritreans and Ethiopians of Eritrean origin from Ethiopia at the height of the Eritrea Ethiopia conflict and the confiscation of their hard earned properties valued at over a billion dollars. He also advised Meles to boycott Eritrean ports in the hopes of weakening Eritrea and strangulating its economy.

The senseless Eritrea Ethiopia border war cost the lives of over 120000 Ethiopians when they were used as cannon fodder and minesweepers in Meles Zenawi’s war of aggression and invasion of Eritrea. Paul Henze worked with Meles Zenawi’s deceptive regime to hoodwink the Ethiopian people and is also the key propaganda architect behind the “Ethiopia won the Eritrea Ethiopia war” fallacy that Ethiopians were led to believe.

When the Eritrea Ethiopia Boundary Commission (EEBC) delivered it’s Final and Binding decision, reaffirming Eritrea’s sovereignty over Badme, the casus belli for the war, he lashed out and insulted the world-renowned Commissioners for standing up for justice and the rule of law. Manipulating the facts, in a futile attempt to cover up the minority regime’s malfeasance and lunacy, he produced numerous opinions and analyses attacking the Commissioners and praising Meles Zenawi’s lawlessness in an effort to amend, revisit, re-write, and reverse the Final and Binding decision. This self serving senile analyst, parading as an Africa specialist, does not have the moral or intellectual capacity to challenge the legal findings of the world renowned, respectable, distinguished, eloquent Commissioners.

For an extensive background on Paul Henze’s record in Ethiopia, I recommend reading “Open Letter to Paul Henze , written by an Ethiopian intellectual. It covers all of the above mentioned instances of Henze’s duplicity and hypocrisy as well as his disdain for the people of Ethiopia. This shameless old man has earned his keep by going to extraordinary lengths to portray Meles Zenawi, the deceptive, flip flopping mercenary, in a favorable light, in spite of the facts and the record. Unable to hide or defend Meles Zenawi’s known and documented crimes against the people of Ethiopia, his violations of international law, numerous Security Council resolutions, and his violations of the UN and African Union Charters is today trying to elevate Meles Zenawi’s diminutive stature by once again distorting the truth and misrepresenting the facts in Somalia.
In his latest ramblings “Ethiopia and Somalia”, this senile apologist attempts to re-write Ethiopian, Eritrean and Somali history. Here is what he wrote in the 1 January 2007 paper:

“… As the Soviet Union moved closer to collapse itself, Gorbachev cut off the flow of weapons to Mengistu. Meanwhile the Tigrayan guerrillas led by Meles Zenawi came to understand what was happening in the world. Unlike the Eritreans, they had never enjoyed Soviet support. They shifted to a pro-Western stance and drew other anti-Derg groups into an Ethiopian Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF). It pushed Mengistu's armies southward during 1989 and 1990. He fled to Zimbabwe in May 1991 and EPRDF forces marched into Addis Ababa a few days later. The Eritrean Marxists liberated themselves and achieved de facto independence which became official in 1993…”

Paul Henze, an ex- CIA operative who was one of the engineers behind the annexation of Eritrea by Ethiopia, and whose hands are tainted with the blood of thousands of innocent people, neither has the moral grounds to talk about Eritrea, a country he has not visited since 1993, nor about its hard working, incorruptible, magnanimous leadership and people.

First of all, at no time in the history of the 30 year long Eritrean people’s struggle for independence did Eritreans EVER receive any support from the Soviet Union or from the West. That is a flat out lie. The gallant Eritrean People’s Liberation Front used the enemy’s own weapons to fight it-wherever it came from. Haile Selassie was supported by the West and Menghistu was supported by both. EPLF amassed a huge inventory of armaments taken from the Ethiopian forces. So Eritreans were never pro-Western or pro-Marxists, they were always, and remain to this day, pro-Eritrea. As for Ethiopia’s pro-western stance, pray tell us what it has done for the people of Ethiopia other then plunging them into endless conflicts and keeping them perpetually dependent on their “aid” and food handouts.

Paul Henze is once again attempting to distort the facts and the record. He knows that the EPLF entered Asmara the capital of Eritrea on 24 May 1991. EPLF’s mechanized units were instrumental in driving the Derg regime out of Ethiopia, not Meles Zenawi’s militia. Meles Zenawi and the EPDRF troops supported by EPLF mechanized units entered Addis Ababa on 28th May 1991…4 long days later. Eritrea’s history does not need the validation or justification of self serving technocrats; it stands tall on its own merit. It is an unparalleled history of courage, determination and perseverance and most of all, self reliance. The likes of Paul Henze cannot distort Eritrea’s history, the facts speak for themselves.

This following statement exposes Henze’s and Meles Zenawi’s selfish and sinister agendas for the permanent Balkanization of Somalia:

“… The former British northern region, Somaliland, fenced itself off from the chaos in the south and has become for all intents and purposes an independent country. It has even achieved a degree of democracy. Somaliland is more deserving of international recognition than Eritrea…”

It not up to Meles or Henze to decide Somaliland’s fate, it is up to the Somali people. As for Eritrea, Henze must know that the people of Eritrea fought for over thirty years to liberate their country from the clutches of colonialists, and not for recognition from the hostile international community that had denied them their rights to self determination and forced them to wage the bitter armed struggle in the first place. Paul Henze must also know that the 30 year struggle in Eritrea was not only for Eritrea’s liberation and independence, but that it was also a war against condescending, patronization, and self-serving operatives such as him. The Eritrean people are not fooled by the likes of Henze who are paid handsomely to spend their days searching for ways to blemish Eritrea’s impeccable image, undermine the Government of Eritrea’s strong, legal and moral position on the border demarcation issue, undermine Eritrea’s religious and ethnic diversity and harmony, and selfless commitment and hard work to develop their own country.

Finally, neither the Government and people of Eritrea, nor the distinguished Eritrea Ethiopia Boundary Commissioners, nor the suffering people of Somalia have the time, or the inclination, to stoop to his gutter level to respond to his erratic, irrational, senile ramblings written in defense of Meles Zenawi. But for the record, allow me to refresh the denier’s geriatric memory with these undeniable facts that clearly show that his client, Meles Zenawi, the leader of the genocidal vote rigging minority regime in Ethiopia remains the biggest threat to peace and security in Ethiopia in particular, and the entire Horn of Africa in general:

• Meles Zenawi's security and military apparatus massacred 44 University students in cold blood in Addis Ababa in 2001.

• On May 2002, Meles Zenawi's forces massacred over 100 people in Awassa, his forces committed illegal acts against innocent citizens who were demonstrating against a change in the administrative status of Awassa. Security agents used machine guns mounted on armored vehicles to fire into a group of unarmed peasants, workers, women and children. Twelve of those killed were children.

• In what was described then as "Africa's Kosovo", the shameless bigoted leader of the Tigrayan minority regime in Ethiopia, in 1998 and 1999 deported over 80,000 innocent Eritreans and Ethiopians of Eritrean origin and confiscated over a billion dollars worth of their hard earned belongings right under the watchful eye of the African Union, UN and EU Ambassadors. Manifesting his ignorance of Japanese-American history, he had the audacity to say, "The Ethiopian government has the unrestricted right to expel any foreigner from the country for any reason whatsoever. Any foreigner, whether Eritrean, Japanese, etc., lives in Ethiopia because of the goodwill of the government. If the Ethiopian government says 'Go, because we don't like the colour of your eyes,' they have to leave." Nevertheless, he got away with his bigotry and crimes.

• Dubbed “Operation Sunny Mountain” by Meles Zenawi and his minority regime, plans to procure Annuak territory, a zone coveted by corporate interests for its oil and gold, were laid out at a top-level cabinet meeting in Addis Ababa led by Meles Zenawi on September 2003. At that meeting, “the militant ethnic cleansing of the Anuaks” was openly discussed and a coordinated military operation to systematically eliminate Anuaks began on 13 December 2003. The minority regime in Ethiopia willfully burned villages, massacred hundreds of Anuaks and Nuers and caused over 15,000 inhabitants of Gambela to flee to neighboring Sudan and Kenya.

• Meles Zenawi’s minority regime rigged the May 2005 Elections, stole the people’s votes and ignited the nationwide protests that have plagued Ethiopia for the last 8 months. Having declared a “State of Emergency” on 16 May 2005, and after taking full command of the police, security and army apparatus, the genocidal regime has detained all the opposition leaders, journalists, civil society leaders and opposition supporters on trumped up charges of treason and inciting violence, and detained over 40,000 Ethiopians all over the country while its military and security forces have massacred over 100 people since the elections.

• Ethiopian police shot and killed two people and wounded many more during disturbances at celebrations marking the Orthodox Epiphany in 2006. Hundreds of riot police were deployed in various parts of Addis Abeba, adding to the terror in the city.
• Misusing arms and equipment originally intended to boost Ethiopia's “antiterrorism efforts” along the country's border with Somalia, the US Ambassador to Ethiopia has acknowledged Meles Zenawi’s regime’s usage of “Humvees”, US military vehicles, to harass, intimidate and terrorize Ethiopians in the city.

• The regime continues to harbor and finance Al Queda trained operatives parading as “liberation movements” in Mekele, Gondar and Addis Ababa. These terrorists have carried out attacks across the Eritrea-Ethiopia border, across the Ethiopia-Kenya borders and also the Ethiopian-Sudan borders, killing innocent civilians and destroying private and state properties.

Paul Henze, remaining true to his nature, has served successive repressive Ethiopian regimes from Haile Selassie, to Menghistu and now Meles. He is not a friend of Ethiopia, but a dangerous, self serving, vindictive enemy, just like Meles.

The people of Ethiopia are also not fooled by Henze’s cover up for the TPLF regime’s crimes in Ethiopia, Meles’ lawlessness and bellicosity, and Henze’s deliberate misrepresentation of the dismal state of affairs in today’s Ethiopia under the Tigrayan Prime Minister Meles Zenawi and his minority clique.

Paul Henze ought to consider retiring his geriatric mind and find a suitable retiring spot for his equally degenerating body-preferably out of Africa… He has done a lifetime’s worth of damage ….!

The rule of law must prevail over the law of the jungle!

Sophia Tesfamariam