Honoring courage

2006-10-20T09:53:00.005-07:00

TPLF/EPRDF must be Congratulated for shooting itself on the foot, as the enquiry commission they themselves commissioned found the TPLF/EPRDF to having committed a "massacre". Even though most of us knew that the TPLF/EPRDF tyrannical gang always acted above the law for over fifteen years and only exercise the rule of the jungle on the poor people of Ethiopia. Now we must Congratulate them, for making it clearly definable for all of those who are intellectually numb and in a zombie-like state. What was sad and humiliating for all the freedom loving Ethiopians was that not only the extra judicial killings, extra judicial imprisonments, tortures and ethnocentrism Ethiopians face each and every day; but also for the majority not a whisper of such lateral thinking could be heard from the vast majority of the academics and international community even after the massacre in June and November. It is true that the people with consciousness shouldn't be waiting for the so called international community to make a move. But now it can not pretend to be a forgotten outpost of a crumbling Roman empire as it can clearly see the barbarians at its gates and shouldn't wait for instructions to arrive from Rome.

I would like to praise Judge Wolde-Michael who exposed the massacre of nearly 193 Ethiopians by the TPLF/EPRDF. His courage in standing up for the truth is more than admirable. I hope all of those who are serving the TPLF/EPRDF tyranny will learn from his action and the sacrifice he was willing to pay to purge himself from being consciously tortured. I know he has saved himself from mental torture, and the truth form the blood drenched lies of the TPLF/EPRDF. I am pretty surtain that Judge Wolde-Michael's name will be written in the history books with all the respect and awe his action testifies for eternity.

Meles Zenawi unveiled

2006-10-14T08:31:00.000-07:00

The place to start trying to understand any political crisis, repression and human rights abuse is always with the government in power. Oppositions merely fill the gaps left by the incumbent regime in order to defend the population from falling victim to it. In the case of the TPLF tyranny led by Meles Zenawi, these repressions, extrajudicial killings, extrajudicial imprisonments, tortures, ethnocentricity, racism, ethnic cleansing and genocide are glaring.

Name: Meles Zenawi

Job: Prime Minister of Ethiopia

Reputation: A ruthless political boss. A rotten intellectual dictator. Point man for Tony Blair’s Commission on Africa, and Bush’s war on terrorism.

Sense of humour: Meles claims that independent journalists will not be charged under the press code, which is undergoing revision. Instead they are being charged with genocide and treason, which are potentially capital crimes. Meles used Rwanda’s genocidal “interahamwe” as the main election slogan for the May 2005 elections, and showed what he meant in the June and November 2005 massacres.

Low cunning: Meles Zenawi’s wife, the ambitious Azeb Mesfin, is a member of parliament and head of its powerful Social Affairs Committee. She is also head of the multi-million-dollar company Mega Enterprises that since Meles came to power has reportedly used its government connections to squeeze out competitors. Conflict of interest anyone?

Ethiopia is yours: TPLF had created scores of businesses quietly since the early 1990’s. The rate and ferocity with which TPLF businesses were fanning out in TPLF-Ethiopia will convert a non believer to believe that, if the trend continues and the TPLF persists in controlling the Ethiopian state by frustrating the possibility of other parties coming to power, all the lucrative sectors of production such as trade, services and transport will go under the hegemony of the TPLF by 2010.

Meles Zenawi is a cunning fellow. He has been a medical student, a guerrilla leader and now moves in the upper echelons of Africa’s political class as Ethiopia’s leader. His politics have adapted along with his shifting fortunes.

He leads the TPLF (the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front) whose politics were inspired in the late 1970s by Enver Hoxha and his Albanian ‘road to socialism’. With the Dergue of Colonel Mengistu Haile Mariam in power in Addis Ababa and enjoying Soviet support, the Left opposition needed to get their credentials where they could. The joke at the time was that if the TPLF overthrew Mengistu they would immediately take down the posters of Marx and Lenin in government offices and put up bigger ones.

From the viewpoint of 2006, Meles can now look back on his personal political path and realize that he has been in power for longer than the ruthless Colonel – who still enjoys the hospitality of his fellow dictator Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe. Marx and Lenin have been long since replaced with photos of Zenawi himself, as is common in government offices around Africa. A better reflection of Ethiopian policy than the dynamic duo of the Left might be huge pictures of Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler, marking Meles’ transformation into an African emblem of fascist Ideologist.

Until quite recently Zenawi’s stock in Western circles was very high indeed. Third Way politicians like Bill Clinton and Tony Blair lionized Meles as part of a ‘new generation of leaders for Africa’. He was even made a key figure in Tony Blair’s Commission on Africa in 2005. Here, after all, was a sophisticated, urbane man, willing to listen respectfully to all the Western cant about open markets, privatization and structural adjustment. He was also a no-nonsense politician who provided a facade of political stability. What more could you want?

Sure, there were some doubts when Zenawi entered into a bloodletting border dispute over a couple of kilometres of rock with his distant relative Isaias Afwerki, President of Eritrea, which cost poverty-stricken Eritreans and Ethiopians about 70,000 lives between 1998 and 2000. But nobody is perfect.

However, following widespread protest after the election ‘pretend-victory’ of Zenawi’s TPLF in May 2005 (their third non-victory in a row), Western politicians began scrambling for cover. In the lead-up to the vote an unusual amount of political space had allowed the opposition Coalition for Unity and Democracy to run a campaign that won it widespread support, particularly in Addis and the other main cities. Democracy is okay to showcase – but nobody said anything about losing power. The Government simply ignored the result and more than 199 protesters were shot dead and 763 injured. The number of political prisoners is in the tens of thousands – some say hundreds of thousands. Currently, Meles Zenawi continues to imprison publicly elected Kinijit leaders, civic society advocates, and journalists unjustly and without any legal basis. The sham trial of the innocent leaders and citizens in the kangaroo court is still ongoing. Ethiopia now competes with Eritrea as the country in sub-Saharan Africa with the largest number of journalists in jail. The independent press in both countries has either ceased to exist or sunk into the marsh of self-censorship. Ana Gomes who led the European Union’s observer mission to the May vote concluded that: ‘We have in Ethiopia a ruling class adept at using politically correct rhetoric, pretending they want democracy’.

So what happened? It seems Meles believed for a moment that his popularity was so great that he could risk a little showcase democracy. Alas! Ethiopia is not the easiest country to govern, even with the best of intentions. It is fraught with severe poverty and (mostly rural) starvation in a cauldron of regional/ethnic tensions.

One could sympathize with Meles’ attempt to weather the treacherous crosscurrents of Ethiopian political life if there were some clear social goal. But what has happened to Zenawi in Ethiopia and Afwerki in Eritrea is an African tragedy writ large. Huge sacrifices were made by the idealistic supporters of both, during years of struggle. Many are now bitter and resentful.

Coming to power through force of arms can be a poisoned chalice. The success of the struggle is all too often connected to the success of the leadership in maintaining control. Enemies remain essential. Military thinking substitutes for politics. Dissent becomes treason. Ideals morph into the prerogatives of power.

According to one seasoned analyst (quoted anonymously from Addis): ‘Meles is simply an authoritarian. The idea that there is a “new breed” (of leaders) is nonsense concocted by journalists and Addis Ababa’s attachés. The West is naive and has no interest in African politics.’

It is this last point that is most disturbing. The Clintons, Bushes and Blairs of this world are certainly interested in photo-ops that suggest they are ‘doing something’, but they care little about the complexities of Africa. In their search for ‘partners’ here – as elsewhere in the world – they aren’t particular about their bedfellows.

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Sources: International Freedom of Expression Exchange;

Tom Burgis, ‘Meles unveiled’ ;

Kasahun Woldemariam;‘Tipping points in the Ethiopian political marketplace’;

‘Crisis profile: Ethiopia-Eritrea border trouble’;.

Qaliti Covenant

Honoring courage

Meles Zenawi unveiled