Mekelle፡28 May 2024 (Tigray Herald)
By Prof. Alemayehu G. Mariam,
Prof. Alemayehu G. Mariam, Abiy Ahmed’s close confidant, publishes a racist article targeting Ervin Massinga, the US Ambassador to Ethiopia.
US Dumbplomat M ass inga Opens Mouth, Instantly Sticks Foot In It!
M ass inga’s latest meltdown!
No joke!
I did not know US Amb ass ador to Ethiopia Ervin M ass inga could talk or read.
He always appears in public with pursed lips. Never smiles!
M ass inga claims to speak French, Spanish and Mandarin Chinese.
He has been in Ethiopia for nine months. But I don’t recall ever seeing him speaking in English at least formally as in making a policy statement.
In February 2024, he gave an interview and complained nobody had bothered to interview him since he arrived in in Ethiopia. He distinctly conveyed his feeling that he felt ignored and disrespected by everybody in the Ethiopian press.
Of course, being ignored has not kept M ass inga from taking cheap shots at the Ethiopian government by issuing his own silly fatwas on Ethiopian “human rights” in documents he calls “statement” and “joint statement.”
The fact of the matter is that everyone knows M ass inga is the diplomatic village idiot in Addis Ababa.
When he is not playing words games with the Embassy’s X (Twitter) followers, he pontificates about Ethiopian “human rights” but never about Bli-Den (Blinken—Biden administration) government’s wrongs in sanctioning and brazenly interfering in Ethiopia’s internal affairs.
When it comes to Bli-Den’s full support for the countless massacres in Gaza and Palestine, M ass inga follows the proverbial principle of “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil”.
In his latest policy fatwa proudly pinned at the top his X account, M ass inga crucifies the Ethiopian government as “fascist.”
Haltingly reading from a prepared text, frequently mispronouncing and tripping over the words written for him and grammatically warping his sentences, M ass inga unloaded his diplomatic tirade on the Ethiopian Government.
Pretending to remember and celebrate the alleged courageous actions of some long-forgotten American chargé d’affaires (while also pretending to inherit that chargés’ heroism) during the “Kitet 12” (sic) fascist Italian massacres in Addis Ababa 87 years ago, M ass inga declared:
Eighty-seven years ago, horror unfolded outside these gates. In 1937, rampaging [Italian] fascists killed nearly 20,000 Ethiopians over the course of three horrible days. In a tragic event known as “Kitet 12 massacre” (sic) [It is Yekatit 12] thousands of Ethiopians were targeted not for any evidence not after any due process (sic)… My predecessor sheltered behind these walls nearly seven hundred and fifty hundred (sic) Ethiopians from almost certain death…” (It is Yekatit (February) 12 massacre). M ass inga should at least learn to correctly pronounce the Ethiopian memorial day over which he pontificates.)
In the same breath, at the end of the foregoing statement, M ass inga doubled down on the Ethiopian Government with his rhetorical gun:
Regrettably, many people in Ethiopia and across the globe continue to face the same fear Ethiopians did 87 years ago…
In other words, what the present Ethiopian Government is doing to its people is the same thing the Italian fascist army did 87 years ago.
Is M ass inga a dumbplomat or a dumbplomat trying to show his diplomatic balls to the Ethiopian Government? Or just an ignorant dumb ass?
In lecturing and hectoring the Ethiopian Government on human rights, M ass inga preached:
My country has experience with this [human rights violations]. From the Civil War to World War I and World War II, my government has confronted these issues balancing the needs to protect human rights with the need to defend the state. So, with that experience when we see reports that civilians across this country have been subject to extrajudicial killings arbitrary detention, enforced disappearance… we are deeply distressed…
M ass singa brazenly and shamelessly whitewashes and glosses over the long and ignoble record of gross human rights violations of the US government during WW I and WW II.
During WW II, between 1942 and 1945, the US Government established 10 concentration camps to imprison over 120,000 innocent Japanese Americans without any evidence of criminal wrongdoing or due process.
M ass inga does not mention the fact of concentration camps exclusively for Japanese Americans in America (but not for Italian and German Americans whose nations of origin were part of the Axis Powers during WW II) as part of the “experience” he presents as an object lesson in history for Ethiopians.
The internment camps built for Japanese Americans were the culmination of US Government racist treatment of Asians that began in the late 1800’s with restrictive immigration policies and driven by the ideology of the “Yellow Peril.” Asians, particularly Chinese people, were depicted and subjected to massive and intense media fear and smear campaigns and accused of plotting to corrupt Western values.
During the First (WWI) and Second (WW II) Red Scare, tens of thousands of Americans suspected of communist organization membership and sympathies suffered gross human and civil rights violations without due process.
Incredibly, M ass inga completely and conveniently ignores the brutal and barbaric lynchings of Black people in America. In the 19th and well into the 20th centuries, it was common for white people in the southern part of the US to terrorize and control Black people by hanging them from trees, torturing, mutilating and decapitating them with impunity.
M ass inga does not mention the fact that it was only in December 2018, that the US Senate passed the Justice for Victims of Lynching Act, marking the first time in American history that federal anti-lynching legislation had been passed by the Senate.
But lynchings continue in America with impunity in one form or another even today.
Less than a week ago, a white man who in 2020 murdered a black man who was a member of Black Lives Matter protest group in cold blood and sentenced to 25 years in prison was pardoned by the Governor of Texas and set free as a bird. (Pardon means the white murderer never committed the crime!) Ironically, the black victim was demonstrating against racial injustice and police brutality in the wake of the murder of George Floyd, a Black man who was killed weeks earlier by a Minnesota police officer.
M ass singa does not feel these gross human rights violations are a relevant part of “his country’s experience” worthy of an object lesson for Ethiopians.
Do black lives matter in America, Brother M ass inga? I guess you wouldn’t know living in “The House.”
Should I mention in passing the horrible war crimes, crimes against humanity and gross human rights violations by the US Government in Afghanistan, Iraq, Vietnam…
I don’t know if M ass inga is simply ignorant of this history and “experience” or just babbling “his government’s experience” as instructed by his State Department bosses.
In an attempt to soften the rhetorical blow, M ass inga said “every country has a right to defend itself” but America and only America is the ultimate arbiter in making a moral determination on whether and if Ethiopia can exercise that right.
That sounds so much like the fatwa Osama bin Laden and his ilk would issue.
In effect, in his “policy statement” M ass inga declared, “Ethiopian human rights before Ethiopian sovereign rights.”
To add insult to injury, M ass inga creates a false equivalence in calling for peace talks between the democratically elected government of Ethiopia and a bunch of rag tag, riffraff bands of terrorists, outlaws, bandits, thugs, cutthroats and desperadoes.
M ass inga preached on:
Let me be direct. To those in Oromya, the OLA, you have made a genuine effort to reach a deal at the negotiating table at Dar es Salaam… To those to those fighting in Amhara, the Fano, know that your objection to dialogue does not serve you well… To those whose responsibility is to govern the country Ethiopia, the government here, the country has far more to gain in peace then in the battlefield… Detaining and harassing those who criticize the government will not resolve those issues that must be addressed… The political dialogue Ethiopians need could be helped by releasing key political figures. Let me reiterate. There will be no quick wins on the battlefield on any side in Ethiopia…
Bli-Den’s Special Envoy, Mike “The Scammer” Hammer tried to buy his way into becoming an Ethiopian Peace Czar by offering USD 15 million.
Now, M ass inga dishes out orders and wants to be Ethiopia’s Human Rights Czar for free.
Simple question: On what planet was M ass inga an ambassador before his appointment in Ethiopia?
“Let me be direct… Let me reiterate…”
Yo, yo yo! This brotha is trippin’.
For M ass inga to be jive talking ***t like this to the Ethiopian Government, he musta smoked somethin’.
But why is M ass inga lashing out in such a childish and diplomatically whack way?
Why is M ass inga throwing temper tantrums just like a child who is frustrated because of lack of parental attention and poor impulse control?
M ass inga is frustrated because no one gives a rat’s ass about him. He desperately craves the attention of the Ethiopian Government and people.
He feels he might as well be the invisible ambassador.
He is in Ethiopia, but nobody sees or acknowledges him. He knows he is viewed with utter contempt and derision.
I wonder if his minions tell him the nasty local jokes they have about him. Ouch! Ouch!
M ass inga is also an insufferable bore and he knows it. Everyone who has met and talked to him knows it too.
He is treated with amused tolerance in diplomatic circles. His human rights temper tantrums fatwas/statements never fail to raise eyebrows followed by a question.
Every time M ass inga issues his fatwas/statements and sticks his foot in in his mouth someone asks me, “What the hell is wrong with your ambassador?”
I just tell them curtly my ambassador suffers from terminal “foot-in-mouth disease.”
M ass inga is generally regarded a diplomatic kook (fool). Diplomats laugh, chortle and snicker behind his back.
Many in the diplomatic community in Addis find my commentaries on M ass inga very entertaining and look forward to my responses to his diplomatic gobbledygook with delightful anticipation. I never fail to oblige.
The fact of the matter is that nobody gives a rat’s ass about M ass inga’s “human rights” preachments or anything else he has to say.
I respond to him not because I care about what he has to say but because I hope against hope that the I can kindle a teeny-weeny bit of black pride in him as he serves his white masters in Washington DC.
Back in my day, we sang it the James Brown way:
“Uh! With your bad self!
Say it loud: I’m black and I’m proud!
Say it loud: I’m black and I’m proud!”
I will say it loudest, “I am black. Hell, yeah! I am Ethiopian. I am proud.”
I wish I could help M ass inga with his bad ass self!
The fact of the matter is that M ass inga is just Blinken’s man Friday. He is told what to say and do.
His response is always, “yessuh massuh!”
M ass inga believes he is a bad ass sent by Bli-Den to Addis to kick ass.
The funny thing is that M ass inga actually believes he is a champion of human rights in Ethiopia. That is the conclusion of many people who have talked to him formally and informally.
He believes he can lecture and hector the Ethiopian Government and people into submission by talking about his human rights bull***t.
That is why M ass inga has converted the US embassy into a pastoral pulpit to sermonize Ethiopians with his perverted human rights screed.
He sermonizes Bli-Den’s false gospel of human rights to Ethiopians.
Pastor M ass inga preaches fire and brimstone from the US Embassy.
The Ethiopian Government and people are going to human rights hell in a hand basket if they don’t follow his tedious preachments.
The fact of the matter is that M ass inga is Bli-Den’s court jester. He thinks he is the US ambassador to Ethiopia but he is a fool sent to Ethiopia to be made a laughing stock and a punching bag for activists and commentators.
I enjoy poking M ass inga every time he opens his mouth and sticks his foot in it.
I know his is a light weight, a token black man sent to impress the Ethiopians that the Bli-Den administration appoints black men to high diplomatic positions.
The fact of the matter is that the US State Department for which M ass inga works is one of the most racist institutions in the US government.
The US State Department is a documented hostile workplace for African American diplomats.
The State Department has special and historical problems attracting, retaining and promoting black foreign service personnel.
FACT: In 2008 “African Americans composed 5.6% of the approximately 11,471 members of the U.S. Foreign Service. This percentage falls short of the number of African Americans in the civilian workforce and the general population.”
FACT: In 2019, eleven years later, African Americans represented 5.3% of the Department of State Foreign Service Generalists! Eleven years later, there are fewer African Americans in the Foreign Service. Obviously, institutional racism rules the US State Department.
FACT: In June 2020, the NY Times in article entitled, “The State Department Was Designed to Keep African-Americans Out,” reported, “An entrenched system of white supremacy controls advancement and promotion at the department, which has failed to recruit and retain black diplomats.” Discrimination and humiliation of black diplomats has been fully documented in various reports, op-eds and analysis. (See also Christopher Richardson, “The State Department Was Designed to Keep African-Americans Out,” New York Times, June 23, 2020, at https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/23/opinion/state-department-racism-diversity.html; Robbie Gramer, “Fighting for U.S. Values Abroad, Black Diplomats Struggle With Challenges at Home,” Foreign Policy, June 11, 2020, at https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/06/11/u-s-black-diplomats-state-department-george-floyd-protests-trumppompeo-state-department-diversity-racial-injustice-police-violence-soft-power/ )
M ass inga, groomed in one of the most racist institutions in the US government, now wants to lecture the Ethiopian government on human rights! Lordy, lordy! They have done a number on that brotha’s mind, y’all!
Talking about human rights in America, I know a thing or two.
I have spent more than one-half century in America and seen it all from the White House to the county jailhouse, from the courtroom to the classroom and in boardroom.
M ass inga talks about human rights. What the hell does he know about human rights?
As a lawyer, I have spent the better part of 3 decades fighting for human rights in America.
As a lawyer, I have spent the better part of 3 decades fighting for civil rights in America.
As a lawyer, I have spent the better party of three decades fighting for American civil liberties in in America.
Damn right, I have!
I have defended the US Constitution in the highest and lowest courts in the “Land of the Free and Home of the Brave.”
I have taught the US constitution in the classroom, and defended it in the courtroom, lectured it in the boardroom, explained it in the newsroom and used it as a shield for my clients in the police interrogation room.
M ass inga should stand up for the American black man and woman before he pretends to stand up for the Ethiopian black man and woman.
M ass inga should fight for black employees in the State Department before he lectures Ethiopian officials on human rights.
M ass inga should find out firsthand how hundreds of thousands of poor black Americans live lives of tumultuous desperation as second class citizens with nary human rights.
M ass inga claims to have worked in diplomatic missions in various African countries. The only thing he has learned from his African diplomatic experiences is to play the role of overseer of the diplomatic planation while living in “The House.”
M ass inga is a tragic figure for me.
I feel sorry for the brother.
He is just trying to survive in a white man’s diplomatic world. He ain’t got what it takes to make it on his own.
I believe M ass inga suffers from what I call the “Colin Powell complex.”
The late ex-General and Secretary of State Colin Powell hailing from Jamaican immigrant background rose to the top but was undone/duped into becoming the ultimate tool of Bush’s Iraq war propaganda resulting in the deaths of thousands of Iraqis and American soldiers.
In 2003, Powell told the UN Security Council Saddam Hussein in Iraq has “weapons of mass destruction. Every statement I make today is backed up by sources, solid sources. These are not assertions. What we’re giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence.”
It was all a lie. Powell was duped by the Bush Whitehouse.
M ass inga claims to have roots in Mozambique. Like Powell, he makes the same iron clad allegations of facts about human rights violations in Ethiopia.
Like Powell, M ass inga lies through his teeth about human rights in Ethiopia.
I am not saying Ethiopia is a human rights utopia. Not at all. There are rights violations of Ethiopian citizens just as much as the are rights violations of US citizens, especially Black citizens, in the United States of America.
When M ass inga was appointed ambassador, a lot of effort was made to sell his credentials. “His extensive experience in senior leadership positions, his demonstrated success in leading interagency teams, and his broad exposure to the global engagement of the U.S. government combine to make him an excellent candidate to be the U.S. Ambassador to the Federal Republic of Ethiopia.”
So far, M ass inga, “the excellent candidate,” has proved himself to be nothing more than a jive talking Ethiopian human rights champion wannabe.
The immutable fact M ass inga and his white masters in Washington DC should understand come hell or high water is this: Vindication of any rights violations of Ethiopian citizens remain in the hands and exclusively in the hands of Ethiopia’s sovereign government. No one else. Period. Full stop.
Neither Blinking Blinken, Mean Joe Biden nor Susan Rice, the Princess of Darkness Herself (PDH), has the moral or legal right to lecture Ethiopia’s democratically elected sovereign government on how it upholds the rule of law in its territory.
M ass inga and his bosses should know that in Ethiopia it is, “ETHIOPIAN SOVEREIGN RIGHTS BEFORE ETHIOPIAN HUMAN RIGHTS!”
But M ass inga is Blinken’s chump.
As I have previously stated on several occasions, M ass inga was not sent to Ethiopia to do bilateral diplomacy or enhance US engagement in Ethiopia.
M ass inga’s singular diplomatic mission in Ethiopia is to be a diplomatic hitman and har ass, embarr ass, hard ass, wise ass, jive ass and bad ass the Ethiopian Government and people.
M ass singa believes, just like Powell did, he can be promoted to higher positions, possibly Assistant Secretary for African Affairs, if he plays the cards given to him by Bli-Den right and demonizes the Ethiopian people and Government.
Long after she left office, Susan Rice, the Princess of Darkness Herself, (PDH) continues to remote-control M ass inga to do her dirty work in Ethiopia.
The Ethiopian Government responded to M ass inga’s temper tantrum “policy statement” with grace, dignity and honor.
In a press statement, the Ethiopian government took the high road.
The statement is ill advised and contains uninformed assertions. It is contrary to the historic and friendly relations between Ethiopia and the United states… The ministry will work with the Embassy of the United States in Addis Ababa to correct factual errors and inconsistencies in the statement.
Source፡almariam.com
