Global Terrorism and Ethiopian Foreign Policy Dynamics: A Narrative Analysis
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2014-06
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
After the attacks of 9/11, the threat of global terrorism has emerged on top of national and international security agendas, widely perceived as a severe and very real threat to world peace. Responding to these unpredictable and unprecedented threats, states embarked up on a number of counterterrorism strategies among which foreign policy measures have been considered as priority instruments. However, some states' foreign policy practices are blamed as responsible for inviting terrorist threats against their own national security interests. Depending on this argument, the study attempts to examine if there is any link between Ethiopian foreign policy behaviors and the terrorist threats in the country. This is done by considering contexts of terrorism in Ethiopia i.e. the dimension of the threat, triggering factors, incidents and casualties of the threat and the government responses against the threat. In the process of collecting the relevant facts and allegations, as well as analyzing these data, the study has employed qualitative research methodology drawing mainly on governmental statements, policy papers, and official correspondences and mass media texts.
The thesis has demonstrated that the threat of terrorism is a growing phenomenon in Ethiopia. The terrorist groups functioning in Somalia (that are widely claimed to be al-Qaeda affiliates), in collaboration with the OLF and ONLF rebel forces, are targeting Ethiopia since the early years of 1990. The Eritrean Government's entanglement with these groups exacerbated the threat directed against Ethiopia. At the end, the study has concluded that some of the Ethiopian foreign policies are further intensifying the threat of terrorism against the country, though the policies are practiced based on its national security interests. Ethiopian foreign policies identified as attracting terrorist threats against the country's national security interest include: the military intervention in Somalia, a military cooperation with the USA (in the fight against terrorism), and the hostile relations with the government in Eritrea. The study suggests that the failure to reconsider and revise these foreign policy practices would have an exacerbating impact of the more terrorist threats on the national security interests
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International Relation