Is it time to rethink US foreign policy in Africa ?

When anti-American sentiment is spreading across the world and US seems powerless to stop it, why is the State Department further adding fuel to the fire by alienating friendly states ?

I started this blog to try to understand the US foreign policy U-turns in the horn of Africa and its disastrous destablizing consequences.

U.S. considers putting Eritrea on terrorism list

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States said on Friday it was considering putting Eritrea on its list of state sponsors of terrorism for allegedly funneling weapons to insurgents fighting the Ethiopian-backed government in Somalia.

Putting Eritrea on the list would impose sanctions on the Horn of Africa nation, including a ban on arms-related sales, prohibitions on some U.S. aid and U.S. opposition to International Monetary Fund and World Bank loans to Eritrea.

The fragile interim Somali government, backed by troops from Eritrea's archrival Ethiopia, is fighting an Islamist insurgency in a conflict that has killed hundreds of people since December.

A U.N. monitoring group last month said large quantities of arms, including surface-to-air missiles, were flowing from Eritrea to Somalia. Eritrea has denied sending the weapons.

Diplomats say Eritrea and Ethiopia have been waging a proxy war in Somalia since last year, when Asmara backed a hard-line Islamist movement against the country's government.

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Jendayi Frazer said Eritrea could avoid being designated a state sponsor of terrorism if it stopped its alleged activities in Somalia.

"We are not looking to go down this route but if they continue their behavior and we put together the file that's necessary, I think it would be fairly convincing," she told reporters.

Frazer said the United States had intelligence that backed up the U.N. report.

"We are still in the process of collecting that data and ... it's an opportunity -- before they are put on the state sponsors list -- for them to change their behavior," she said

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Eritrea Could Teach U.S. Much to Combat Terror

By Jim Garamone
American Forces Press Service

ASMARA, Eritrea, Dec. 10, 2002 – Following a meeting with Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said that the United States can learn much about combating terror from the people of this small African nation.

Afwerki said his country would cooperate gladly in the global war on terrorism, because it has been the victim of terrorism. In essence, he told reporters, his neighborhood is rough. The failed state of Somalia is near Eritrea, and al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was based in adjacent Sudan until 1996.

Eritrea has cooperated in the war of terror and has offered facilities, intelligence, and other help such as overflight and mooring permissions to the United States and other members of the worldwide coalition, said embassy officials.

Rumsfeld noted the history of Eritrea when he said that the country of about 4.5 million people "has considerably more experience than we do over a sustained period of time" in battling terrorism. He said the United States can benefit from that experience.

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