The United States and Ethiopia: The Tragedy of Human Rights by Kadiro Elemo

This book is about the what, the how, and the why of the U.S. foreign policy towards Ethiopia, from the vantage point of promotion and protection of human rights. It studies factors that shaped it, and, it draws how it impacted political dynamism of the nation with diverse cultural and religious landscape. It unravels its deficiency in promotion and protection of human rights in the ages of imperialism, Cold War antagonisms and fighting terrorism. It argues that the U.S had-and-has wrong diagnoses of human rights problems in Ethiopia and hence applied wrong prescriptions. Based on the wrong prescriptions and myopia in the foreign policy, the U.S. offered carte blanche for the discrimination of the ruling class of Ethiopia instead of playing positive roles on promoting the rights of diverse linguistic and ethnic groups in Ethiopia. The wrong prescriptions perpetuate and exacerbate human rights violations and damage the reputation of the U.S. as the champion of freedom around the world.