From: Biniam Haile \(SWE\) (eritrea.lave@comhem.se)
Date: Fri Jun 12 2009 - 00:37:24 EDT
The imperative for Ethiopians dealing with Eritrea
June 11th, 2009
By Neamin Zeleke
There is a fundamental change in our thinking process. There is a shift
of attitude among Ethiopians. A positive and essential change. Fuzziness
of thought is giving way to clear thinking. A state of being in a limbo
and inaction are succumbing to decision and a resolve for action.
Vacillation and lack of confidence are clearing way to faith in oneself
and confidence in the ability to change an utterly unacceptable life
under an ethnocentric and brutal dictatorship. Confidence and faith that
no one else but only Ethiopians can liberate our country from the
fascistic and ethnocentric dictatorship of the minority Tigrean elite.
Confidence that we are able and willing to do it by forging alliances
with who ever accepts our need and willing to work with us towards our
national salvation. Ethiopia's national salvation could only be a
reality if Ethiopian patriotic and democratic forces have a base, and
outside support to wage their multi-pronged struggle. The requisite is
for a sovereign country to become a trusted ally of Ethiopian opposition
forces and provide them all around support.
Such is the defining moment in the making indeed. A surge of a critical
mass of Ethiopians who are yearning for freedom and wiling to do
whatever it takes. Ethiopians are saying "give me death or give me
liberty." No more tribal dictatorship! The people of Ethiopia are coming
to the final and unequivocal resolve. Our people are saying we must,
once and for all, take the destiny of this generation and that of
Ethiopia's posterity into our hands. A paradigm shift is taking place, a
shift towards the view that in order to liberate Ethiopia from the
anti-Ethiopia ruling Tigrayan mafia, Ethiopians need to make a strategic
alliance with the State of Eritrea. The Rubicon has been crossed.
Ethiopians abroad and at home recognize that the quest for peaceful
struggle is hopelessly dwindling. Whatever little political space there
was for peaceful forms of struggle in the country have been blocked by
the TPLF regime to essentially cripple Ethiopian opposition groups from
gaining any meaningful support from the Ethiopian people. The regime has
devised numerous machinations to prevent a repeat of the 2005 phenomena
from unfolding again.
Serfdom or Liberty
Tigrayan minority dictatorship has made it clear time and again that it
will never heed the call and the demand for our freedom, the quest for
real and genuine multi-party democracy, and the thirst for justice and
yearning for the rule of law by the people of Ethiopia. It would not
listen to our demand for equality and doing away with the domination of
a single and minority ethnic elite in all spheres and aspects of the
Ethiopian state, economy, military, etc. Meles Zenawi's Gestapo known as
Agazi, Federal Police and the other death squads of the ruling Tigrean
mafia committed all that carnage against our people during the 2005
election. Millions endured humiliation and tens of thousands were
crushed by the brutality unleashed against them. The old and young,
women and children alike were rounded up by the tens of thousands to be
taken to the concentration camps in Dedesa, Birr Shelko, and Ziway.
Savage and sub-human treatment were meted out against unarmed, peaceful
protesters and those who watched on the sidelines. The entire massacre
in the hundreds, the inhuman torture and imprisonment of tens of
thousands of Ethiopians by the TPLF regime was with one and sole
objective of ensuring the continuation of its illegitimate rule.
As well known at various times during its tenure, the TPLF has unleashed
its atrocities against the Amhara; it has committed atrocities against
the Oromo people. It has committed genocide against our people in the
Ogden region, and crimes against humanity against our people in
Gamebela. Thousands of people from southern parts of Ethiopia were
killed at various times due to the TPLF's deliberate fanning of ethnic
differences to divide and rule. In the name of constitution and
"constitutional order" it has instituted a political system where there
is a rule of the "jungle", as Prof. Mesfin Woldemariam once dubbed the
reality in Ethiopia, in contradistinction to the rule of law. Each and
every article of the so-called constitution has been violated by the
regime itself. Essentially a constitution is a social contact between
the governed and the governors. And that social contract has been
breached time and again none other than by its own author, the TPLF. To
begin with, the so-called constitution was designed in such a way that a
single and minority ethnic elite under the leadership of the TPLF and a
group of satellite organizations and feeble individuals from other
ethnic groups would be able to control every aspect of life. Much that
has been made public in words and writings vividly and in no uncertain
terms prove the unprecedented and hitherto unseen drive of minority
Tigrean elite for domination of Ethiopia and the concomitant relegation
of all other ethnic groups to a second class citizen status. Any threat
to such domination by minority ethnic elite under the TPLF leadership is
labeled a crime against the "constitutional order" and the
"constitution".
In a nut shell, this brutal dictatorship has strangled the Ethiopian
people for the past eighteen years and bleeding us dry. It is this
reality which proves time and again that such an evil force will not
relinquish power unless forced to do so by a force through a determined,
steadfast, and bitter struggle waged on all fronts by our people using
all the available and necessary means.
The people of Ethiopia from all ethnic groups have crossed the threshold
where any human being can carry abuse, total humiliation, deprivation,
and being reduced to sub-human beings, second class citizens a la
apartheid South Africa. There is now fundamental recognition that is
permeating across a broad spectrum of Ethiopians that the source of all
ills, all malaise, and our national agony is none other than the TPLF
mafia holding the levers of state power. And that dictators rarely give
up state power unless forced through a bitter struggle.
Freedom can not be realized without a sacrifice that is needed from each
every one of us. Liberty can never materialize without fighting for it.
And dictators will not give up unless we fight for our rights. And as
Thomas Jefferson, one of the founding fathers of the United States,
aptly observed two centuries ago, the tree of liberty has to be watered
with the blood of tyrants in order for it to blossom. Today, the
Ethiopian people are not only demanding for their liberty but willing to
fight and make all kinds of sacrifice for it. We are at cross roads; we
either choose freedom or accept and leave in serfdom.
No Permanent Enemy
If Ethiopians are serious about our freedom, rule of law, genuine
democracy; if we care for our liberty from tyranny, we must think of
outside "the box". We must think on our own terms and stand on our
grounds regardless of what our arch enemies define as to who Ethiopia's
enemies are and who is not. The TPLF regime, Ethiopia's arch nemesis and
internal cancer that is eating away our national fabric, must not be
allowed to dictate and set the agenda as regard to who is for Ethiopia
and who is against Ethiopia, as it has no moral grounds whatsoever, nor
historical track record to tell us so. If allying with Eritrea is found
useful, rational, necessary and sustainable - after examining all the
hard facts and looking at all the strategic advantages and disadvantages
of doing so - then it should be done on these criteria alone. Least of
all, not because the Tigrayan dictatorship and its mouthpieces abroad
dictate to us and attempt to bombard us shamelessly as to who should be
our allay and who should not. There is no doubt in the mind of any sane
Ethiopian that Ethiopia's national interest has never been one and the
same with that of the TPLF's interest and agenda. It never was and nor
will it ever be.
It is then imperative for Ethiopians to deal with Eritrea towards
strategic steps, in the long term interest of the two peoples.
Understandably, for many of our fellow Ethiopians this may leave a
bitter taste. But we can not continue to leave and relive in the past.
We have to move forward and look towards the future, although no single
soul would dare question the fact that Ethiopia and the people of
Ethiopia lost much when Eritrea became an independent state. So did the
people of Eritrea. They too lost. That is then, but we are here now. For
the sake of both Ethiopians and Eritreans, we should be able to put all
agendas on the table. The loses, in all their manifestations that
attended the separation of the two countries, could be worked out for a
mutually advantageous gain for the two countries and their peoples'
future peace and development, be it economic, security, and maritime
matters central to both countries - an issue extensively addressed by
the President of Eritrea during his recent interview. We Ethiopians
should be bold enough to start honest dialogue along this line.
Lord Palmerson, the often quoted British statesman, aptly said that
nations do not have permanent friends or enemies, but permanent
interests. The central question then becomes, if Woyane allied itself
with EPLF to promote its strategic interest, why can't the current
Ethiopian opposition do the same? The President of Eritrea asked the
same question in his recent interview with Elias Kifle and Sileshi
Tilahun. But the differences between what the TPLF stood for then and
what the Ethiopain patriotic and democratic forces stand for now is like
that of light and darkness. Moreover, the President of Eritrea has made
it public that his country has no intention of working against
Ethiopia's unity. What we expect is for him to live up to his public
pronouncements.
Hence, the people of Ethiopia have to see the incontrovertible reality
eye to eye. We have to come to terms with the unfolding reality. The
cruel reality, the undeniable fact, the incontestable truth that has
come out loud and clear. Ethiopia's current agony and the excruciating
pain our people have been forced to endure each and every day have their
immediate, clear and present causes not with Eritrea, but the TPLF-led
minority regime that claims to represent less the 6% of the population
strangulating and suffocating a nation and 80 million Ethiopians.
(The author can be reached at neaminz@aol.com)
http://www.ethiopianreview.com/content/the-imperative-for-ethiopians-dea
ling-with-eritrea/