The Woyane-Trump Connection: Potential Implications of the US Presidential Elections

Donald Trump (Credit: AFP)

By Selam Beyene, Ph.D.

The recent revelation that the head of the Huajian Group, a major supplier of footwear for Ivanka Trump’s personal fashion collection, has plans to build a small industrial city near Addis Ababa has sent shockwaves across the Ethiopian community in the Diaspora. According to an AFP report, the company intends to employ up to 30,000 workers by 2020, with “exports reaching US$1 billion to US$1.5 billion.”

On the surface, Huarong’s plan might appear an attractive opportunity for a country like Ethiopia where the unemployment rate is disconcertingly high, even by the lowly standards of African nations.

However, given the degree of corruption that is pervasive in the Woyane regime, there is every reason to believe that the TPLF leaders have already claimed a stake in the business proposition. More ominously, if Trump is elected president, his daughter’s business interest in the country may have even more devastating implications for the ongoing struggle by the people of Ethiopia to extricate themselves from the shackles of Woyane repression.

As recently postulated in a BBC article, Trump could be: “an erratic president who appears willing to do anything when it comes to torture, bombing, relations with authoritarian states“.

It is, therefore, by no means outside the realm of possibility to imagine how the corrupt Woyane regime could use a Trump presidency to advance its repressive agenda, while simultaneously extorting money from Ivanka’s Addis supplier, as it has been doing for decades from the unscrupulous Chinese companies.

Recently, the Ethiopian community was shocked to learn how much influence Sheikh Mohammed Al-Amoudi has had on the Clintons through his donation for the Clinton Foundation. The that fact the Sheikh is an ardent supporter of the repressive regime is, of course, public knowledge.

It is also well known that in the previous two presidential elections Ethiopian-Americans overwhelmingly supported the candidacy of Barack Obama. They were especially inspired by his vison of freedom for the oppressed, and his presumptive stand against the loathsome philosophy of the TPLF, as articulated in his famous words: “….if we discriminate on the basis of race or tribe or ethnicity, then the fragile bonds of civilization will fray. The world is too small, we are too packed together, for us to be able to resort to those old ways of thinking.”

Those words of wisdom, however, proved to be empty rhetoric when he paradoxically praised the EPRDF as democratically elected during his ill-advised visit to the country, despite the fact that the regime has been labelled as one of the most repressive on the face of the earth. While the people of Ethiopia have long known the close ties of his National Security advisor, Susan Rice, to the Woyane regime and her fanatical worship of the late Meles Zenawi, the President’s disregard for their plight, including his complete ignorance of the ongoing massacre against the Amhara and Oromo ethnic groups, would leave a lasting impression of ignominy and disenchantment in their collective psyche.

As the people of Ethiopia back home are heroically fighting against the tyrannical TPLF regime, those of us in the United States should seriously consider the implications of the upcoming US elections, and use our voting power to contribute to the deterrence of a seriously devastating outcome. Admittedly, the Obama administration has been totally disappointing, and even disgraceful, in terms of meeting what was minimally expected of its adherence to its promise of advocating and taking actions to promote democracy and the rule of law in places like Ethiopia. One also has every reason to be appalled by the association of the Clintons with the TPLF supporter, Mohammed Al-Amoudi.

However, the alternative is no less abhorrent, and may even be more detrimental to the success of the ongoing uprising in the various parts of our native country. It is, therefore, absolutely imperative for all Ethiopian-Americans to go to the polls on November 8th and contribute our share in averting a potentially catastrophic scenario.

The writer may be reached at beyene50@gmail.com

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