Tag: Ethiopian politics

By Yilma Bekele

Crocodile tears (or superficial sympathy) are a false, insincere display of emotion such as a hypocrite crying fake tears of grief. That is what it felt like reading the gentleman’s article after watching the video ‘US Policy: Ethiopia A failed state.’ I was impressed by the powerful presentation. It is logically arranged with supporting evidence clearly identified for the viewer to investigate the assertions. Beyond being informative it also came with suggestions on how to go about demanding the US government stop the ethnic based regimes’ crime against the rest of the population.

I was surprised to read Ato Tecola Haogs’s article on our independent web sites with his harsh criticism of the video in question and his evocation of patriotism to support his argument. Furthermore I really felt insulted by his dismissal of the crimes against the rest of Ethiopians by the Tigrai ethnic group in power.

I am not trying to incite ethnic hatred between the children of Ethiopia. I will leave that to our government. But there are a few things that we have to be frank with each other when we talk about our country. The road to recovery is paved with admission of the problem as the first step. As far as I know TPLF is an exclusively ‘Tigrai’ ethnic group based organization and all the important political, economic, military positions are held by the Tigrai ethnic group.

Deputy PM –Debretsion Gebremariam (Tigrai), Defense- General Samora Yunis (Tigrai), National Bank – Newaye Christos Gebreab (Tigrai), Security – Getachew Assefa (Tigrai), EFFORT – Berhane Kidane Mariam Yihdego (Tigrai), Ethiopian Airlines – Tewelde Gebremariam (Tigrai) Federal Affairs Minster – Abbay Tsehaye (Tigrai), Orthodox Church Patriarch – Abune Matias (Tigrai)

All decisions affecting our country is made by the TPLF Politburo and persons like the puppet PM Hailemariam Desalegene, the Parliament and the rest of the bureaucracy is there to implement their wishes. As Chairman Mao wrote a while back ‘power flows from the barrel of a gun’ and the TPLF Party holds the gun and purse. The last twenty two years they have been exercising that power ruthlessly.

My esteemed friend Ato Tecola does not fight fair. It is one thing to disagree with the content of the video but one should refute specifics that are not in accord with reality and tell us what exactly the facts are and let the reader or viewer be the judge. I am afraid he does not have any supporting argument thus decided to engage in low level insults and question the integrity of the video creators. Instead of the message he decided to attack the messenger. What’s more just by watching it he concluded the video to have been produced by a ‘white person.’ I wonder what clued him to such deep insight of the highest order.

What the writer is doing is using fear as a weapon to scare us about perceived consequences for any action to change in the status quo. The video is advocating civic actions based on peaceful means to force the regime to back down and accept the rule of law. Even that is felt by the author to be unnecessary and harmful to the Ethiopian people. This what he wrote:

“Even if we are not wise enough or courageous enough to challenge the current tyrannical and treasonous leaders in power in Ethiopia, at the very least we should be wise enough to know our appalling limitations and allow nature to take its own toll, as was the case with Meles Zenawi’s death.” That is totally false and insulting. He is telling us to shut up and enjoy the abuse. Our people are kept ignorant and terrorized by their own regime. That has not stopped them from trying to be free. That is exactly the reason why there is ethnic conflict in some part of the country every day of the year. We have been challenging the regime but what is lacking is a united effort. We are in the process of building that. What do you think of Eskinder, Reyot, Wubshet, Bekele, Abubeker, Abraha, Zone 9 bloogers,
Andualem, Andargachew and thousands of unnamed others that are languishing in jail like ordinary criminals? They are the reason we their family feel emboldened to continue the struggle. What is more he wants to tell us the death of the evil tyrant ushered a different story. We love fiction, please continue. You wrote:

I did not see much of any constructive purpose in a video purely aimed to saw seeds of hate against an ethnic group in Ethiopia that is as much a victim of other ethnic groups of ethnic cleansing and brutal suppression by the current brutal Government of Ethiopia.

Where and when have any Ethiopian ethnic group victimized the Tigrai people? To throw around such charge demeans the hurt felt by the Amhara people in Gurafereda, Beneshangul/Gumuzl and other locations. What is shown on the video is true but sad. To say the Tigreans are victims of ethnic cleansing is wishing ill towards our own people. Like it or not ethnic cleansing was introduced by TPLF when they created Kilil and encouraged internal deportation.

What do you think of the following statement “I believe, this video is the work of the enemies of Ethiopia not just the regime in power.” It makes one pause don’t it? Why would the regime in power make a video about one of its members and especially the one with the guns?
The video offers eight point ‘action plan’ to bring the ethnic regime to its knees.

1 Western powers to stop financial aid
2 Investigate the charges of ethnic cleansing.
3 Investigate genocide policy against the Amhara, Ogaden and Gambella regions.
4 Release all political prisoners and journalists unfairly imprisoned. Allow free media
5 Stop interfering religious matters and recognize the plight of Ethiopian refugees
6 Stop land giveaways and investigate the crimes
7 Make the military a reflection of Ethiopia not one ethnic group (Tigrai)
8 Create independent judiciary.

The regime should be given a year and show good effort to resolve the above problems. If the regime does not cooperate levy the following sanctions.

1 Economic sanctions against TPLF officials
2 Freeze assets of TPLF officials.
3 Institute travel bans against TPLF officials’
4 Cut diplomatic ties.
5 Cut off financial aid.

This is what our friend wrote regarding the action plan

“Take note also of the type of solutions offered in the video, it is all aimed to hinder any form of economic help and progress of the Ethiopian people. For sure, we can see that a well-armed regime will not just collapse, but ordinary Ethiopians are the ones that will further suffer the most if economic sanctions and pressure is drastically put on Ethiopia.”

When he wrote ‘we lack courage’ I guess he meant it. The author is advocating for us to cower under because the regime is very powerful. What is advocated we do is not only appalling but downright ugly. His advice is “Thus, I advocated tact, wisdom, even sleaze in working from within to be able to create popular support within the citizens of Ethiopia right there in Ethiopia in handling a powerful and unscrupulous foe.” My question is what kind of change are we going to bring about if we are sleazy like them? You know what the definition of sleaze is – immoral, sordid, and corrupt behavior.

It seems like all his analysis of history is downright distorted. He is going counter to how other societies have achieved freedom and democracy. When he writes “For sure, we can see that a well-armed regime will not just collapse, but ordinary Ethiopians are the ones that will further suffer the most if economic sanctions and pressure is drastically put on Ethiopia” he is denying let alone old history but what most of us have observed in our life time. The white South African regime that was ‘well-armed’ was defeated by the determined will of the people, the East European were no match to the Soviet nuclear arsenal but achieved their independence, Viet Nam cannot equal even one of the American States but persevered and won.

He is telling us denying economic aid would hurt our people and here is Nobel Laureate Albert Lutuli, president of the African National Congress in one of his speeches said:

“The economic boycott of South Africa will entail undoubted hardship for African. We do not doubt that. But if it is a method which shortens the day of bloodshed, the suffering to us will be a price we are willing to pay.”

On Richard Hefner’s ‘open mind’ interview way back in 1957 when asked:
“Do you feel that this aggressiveness, this self-assertiveness will get him more in the long run than going along with contemporary opinion and biding his time, taking it step by step as he goes?”

MLK replied: “I think it’s better to be aggressive at this point. It seems to me that it is both historically and sociologically true that privileged classes do not give up their privileges voluntarily. And they do not give them up without strong resistance. And all of the gains that have been made, that we have received in the area of civil rights, have come about because the Negro stood up courageously for these rights, and he was willing to aggressively press on.”

He speculated that the independent site editors did not seem to have ‘considered the deeper mission of the video of poison’ when they posted it on their sites but failed to point out what exactly he found not to be true. It is only fitting to speculate that the writer was overwhelmed by the evidence that he closed his mind not to see such crime committed by his ethnic group. What kind of person would not be deeply be affected when confronted by the fate of Eskinder and Reyot, the killing of the Anuaks in Gambella, the atrocity against the Somalis in Ogaden and the ethnic cleansing of the Amharas? It all leads to TPLF.

I believe my honorable friend to be disingenuous when he argues about the coming holocaust that might happen due to the criminal activities of the mafia group and uses scare tactics to warn us of the consequences. I totally think the writer is inflicted with that primitive disease commonly known as tribalism and failed to rise up to the challenge as a Tigrai intellectual that could challenge the dangerous policy carried out by his cousins. He is obviously an educated and well-read individual but it seems his affiliation to the tribal mentally seems to have stopped his rational thinking process to rant such nonsenses to the victims. Or it is also possible that he has lost all semblance of respect to the rest of us and feels insulted that we dare raise such an issue instead of keeping quiet and let the ‘golden tribe’ do what is best since they are supposed to be our liberators.

They say you reap what you saw and I am sure the TPLF mafia group would one day face justice. Our wish and our prayer is that the rest of us are spared from the coming conflagration that is sure to take place due to the policies of the ethnic organization. There is no need to scare us of what would happen with the mafia group out of power. It is much better to think out loud with our people, confront the ugly reality and discuss ways to punish the criminals so the next ones will learn by example.