Summary
has long been a key US ally in East Africa, and the two states share deep political, economic, and military links. Lately though, this relationship is being tested due to developments within , where sectarian tensions are boiling over amid a growing government crackdown.
lately on these , and since then a stampede at a protest over land rights around Addis Ababa has claimed the lives of 55 people. Just today, when her car was hit by rocks thrown by protestors.
For US policymakers, the geopolitical calculus isn’t anything new: is a key ally in the war on terror, an economic success story in the Horn of Africa, and a bastion of political stability in an otherwise anarchic region. Yet its government has presided over an ongoing crackdown on opposition parties, journalists, and civil society, and recent events suggest a situation which deteriorating even further.
Thus the question that has dogged the post-9/11, markedly schizophrenic foreign policy establishment of the United States: Look the other way, or fall on the sword of ‘American values’?