Ethiopia not invited to Biden Summit on Democracy and will suffer more severe sanctions

President Biden will hold his “Summit on Democracy” virtually December 9-10 with 110 countries but Ethiopia, Eritrea, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, Egypt, and Sudan will not be invited. The Biden administration has stated that concurrent with the meeting there will be announcement of wide actions including further sanctions against countries violating human rights and practicing corruption.

The State Department of the United States has stated on numerous occasions that Eritrea should leave its occupation of Ethiopian territory, the Tigray forces should return to their territorial borders, and that Abiy Ahmed should stop imprisonment of Tigrayans. Today a Joint Statement on Detentions in Ethiopia was jointly released by the governments of Australia, Canada, Denmark, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Sanctions are likely to be imposed on Ethiopia and Eritrea according to a spokesman for the United States Treasury Department who said “Treasury will take a series of actions to designate individuals who are engaged in malign activities that undermine democracy and democratic institutions around the world including corruption, repression, organized crime, and serious human rights abuse,” to many leaders around the world.