Introduction

At present, the TPLF gangs ruling Ethiopia are clearly panicked by the internal, well organised and relentless people’s uprising in Oromia and in the Amhara parts of Ethiopia and by the resultant acute political crisis which is troubling and threatening their internal cohesion and unity.

Thus the coward Tigrian political gangs ruling Ethiopia, who hope to divert the Ethiopian people’s attention from focusing on the internal problems emanating from the TPLF misrule of Ethiopia, are demonising and accusing Eritrea day-in and day-out for causing Ethiopia’s internal problems. They are also making active military preparations to invade Eritrea with the clear political objective of disturbing its internal peace and unity.

The fact of the matter is that (for reasons of political expediency), since the start of the 1998-2000 Eritrea-Ethiopia war, it has been an established political norm (tactic) in TPLF-ruled Ethiopia that, whenever there are internal political problems – even when Ethiopia is hit by drought and famine, as is the case at present – damning but baseless accusations are hurled against Eritrea which is even accused of having influenced the weather over Ethiopia.

The root causes of the present unrest

Ostensibly, the origin of the problems which triggered the people’s anger in Oromia in November 2015 was the TPLF’s plan to expand the boundaries of Addis Ababa into the Oromia region. However, the root causes of the problem are much deeper. The true cause of the ongoing people’s uprising in Oromia and other parts of Ethiopia is the mode of governing and the total failure of TPLF’s unworkable ethnic-based politics and quasi-Bantustan type of federal arrangement.
The truth of this explanation is confirmed by the fact that, when the minority TPLF rulers realised the mounting opposition from the Oromo population towards their expansionist plans, they dropped the project on January 12 2016. However, despite the TPLF’s capitulation to the demands of the Oromo population, the spontaneous angry demonstrations and protests continued unabated against TPLF rule in spite of the brutal response of the Tigrian occupation army.

So far, according to Human Rights Watch, in the Oromo region alone, the TPLF occupation army has murdered more than 200 unarmed protesters. The legitimate bitterness of the people in Ethiopia has therefore reached the point of no return.

The fact of the matter is that, since its entry into the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, in May 1991, the TPLF gangs ruling Ethiopia have acted as a foreign invasion force. Indeed, to this day, Ethiopian cities, towns and rural areas, especially the Amhara, Oromo, Somali and southern regions, remain dotted with machine-gun mounted vehicles and have Tigrian soldiers manning their streets.

Thus incessant daily checks, harassment, intimidation and killings have become the order of the day in TPLF-misruled Ethiopia. It is these accumulated and unaddressed frustrations, bitterness and grievances that have exploded over the past two decades to become the catalyst for the uprising of the Oromo and other oppressed people in Ethiopia. Some of us knew and predicted a long time ago that a violent revolution to destroy the basis of Woyane rule in Ethiopia was in the making.

Famine and the land issue

In the last century, Ethiopia has been hit severely by periodic famine and drought which took the lives of millions of people and cattle. Similarly, the still unresolved land question in the country has also been a cause of multiple peasant uprisings and disorder. In a way, history is repeating itself in much the same way in Ethiopia, from feudal rule through military rule to the rule of the TPLF junta.

Indeed, once again, under the rule of the TPLF junta, in spite of double-digit economic growth, the Ethiopian people are exposed to a large-scale famine and drought affecting the lives of about 15 million Ethiopians. Though Mother Nature is at times cruel, the present famine cannot be attributed simply to the vagaries of nature. This famine is man-made. In other words, the root cause of the present famine can rightly be attributed to the callousness and greed of the Tigrian group ruling Ethiopia.

For the TPLF ruling junta, instead of providing modern farm implements and fertilisers, advisers and education to the needy farmers, with the goal of making Ethiopia become self-sufficient in its food needs, in the last decade, the myopic TPLF government leaders have been busily snatching land from its rightful owners and selling it to land-hungry countries at give-away prices.

History testifies that land in all rural societies is both the guarantee and means of survival for the present and future generations, securing freedom and identity for its possessors. Consequently, a people who are deprived (robbed) of their means of survival and identity cannot guarantee their future survival and are thus condemned to become gradually extinct.

No sensible and responsible government with a sense of purpose would want to sell land which collectively belongs to the people to greedy corporations, other than a criminal mafia group such as the TPLF gangs. This is a group that wants to get rich quick at the expense of the immediate and long-term interest of the Ethiopian people.

At present, Saudi Arabia, China, India and greedy corporations possess millions of hectares of land, bought at give-away prices from the TPLF, and are exporting grain produced in Ethiopia to their own countries for their own citizens.

Paradoxically, there are at present about 14 million Ethiopians starving to death while millions of tons of grain are leaving Ethiopia to feed the people of other countries – grain produced on land forcefully taken from local people.

In other words, while Ethiopians are starving to death, ships belonging to India, Saudi Arabia and China are loading in the Djiboutian, Kenyan and Somalian ports thousands of tons of grain and other cereals produced in Ethiopia but now destined to feed the people of other countries.

The Woyane rulers of Ethiopia have also shamed Ethiopia and its people by allowing the Ethiopian army to become the US mercenary army in the Horn of Africa. The TPLF-controlled Ethiopian army is busy doing the dirty work for the American government in Somalia, Eritrea and other places in Africa.

This is why, during his last visit to Ethiopia, US President Barack Obama openly stated that the US government did not need to send troops to Somalia because it had a highly trained Ethiopian army that could do the job.

It is no wonder, then, that under the thuggish and fascist rule of the TPLF, the Ethiopian people have been exposed to all types of national indignity, including diseases and periodic man-made famine.

Eritrea: the Scapegoat for the TPLF’s Systemic Failure

The explanations I have provided above clearly show that the internal problems plaguing Ethiopia, which have shaken the TPLF gangs ruling Ethiopia, have hardly anything to do with Eritrea.

Eritrea is therefore being accused to paint it as a scapegoat to cover for the TPLF’s systemic failure. Consequently, the games that the politically retarded TPLF gangs ruling Ethiopia have been playing over recent decades, with the express purpose of cornering, isolating and weakening Eritrea, both economically and militarily, have resulted in the tables being turned on the TPLF gangs themselves.

Some Concluding Remarks

The TPLF regime is now at war with the Ethiopian people. Strictly speaking, Eritrea is also on a war footing with TPLF-ruled Ethiopia and there is a likelihood that the TPLF gangs will initiate unprovoked war with Eritrea.

However, the TPLF mercenary regime has now entered its death throes and, no matter what it does, there is no power on earth which could salvage its political ship from sinking to the bottom of the sea.

In other words, like all totalitarian and fascistic regimes before it, there is no doubt that the TPLF/EPRDF is now surely heading at an accelerated rate into its final resting place, i.e. the museum of history.

This said, however, just like the drowning man trying in vain to save himself by his own hair, in their desperation to survive, the TPLF gangs ruling Ethiopia pose a tremendous danger to Eritrea and its people as well as to the Ethiopian people.

At this turning point in the history of the region, the Eritrean people and their defence forces, therefore, have no alternative except to be on full alert to defend the sovereignty and dignity of Eritrea and its people if and when an unprovoked attack takes place against them.

Consequently, Mdre Bahri calls upon Eritreans in the diaspora and inside the country to stand firmly and loyally on the side of Eritrea, its freedom-loving people and its gallant defence forces.

On the Price of Collaboration with the Enemy

As is the case, the Woyane Nazi-gangs ruling Ethiopia and their tiny band of Eritrean collaborators are the most vicious enemies of independent and sovereign Eritrea and its people, just as Nazi Germany and the Vichy government and other collaborators were for France in the 1940s.

At this crucial period in Eritrea’s history, it must therefore be clearly understood by all Eritreans that the hidden political agenda of the enemies of independent Eritrea and their Eritrean collaborators is to defeat Eritrea militarily and make it a satellite of Tigray.

Obviously, this is just a pipe-dream and will always remain so. For Eritrea is a country populated by a people who, no matter what the cost, will never kneel down to foreign aggressors. Nevertheless, Eritreans must remain vigilant and ready for all eventualities.

It is also important that every Eritrean clearly understands that there is a heavy price to pay for collaborating with the enemies of Eritrea, just as there will be a reward for those Eritreans who loyally and bravely defend and serve their country.

I hope and expect that the coming democratic Eritrean government and its sovereign parliament will introduce legislation enabling the fully mandated Eritrean government to punish severely all the Eritrean political groups, some of the unpatriotic intellectuals and those working hand-in-glove with the Nazi Woyane rulers of Ethiopia and other foreign powers to undermine Eritrea’s sovereignty under the pretence of furthering human rights and bring national shame to Eritrea and its people.

The legislation to which I am referring will be similar to the ordinance introduced in France in August 1944 by General Charles de Gaulle.

This ordinance was meant to condemn and punish those French people who had collaborated with the Nazis during the Nazi occupation of France from 1940 to 1944.

The punishment of “National Degradation” was given to persons convicted of “National Indignity” and included removing from convicts their civil and political rights, notably their right to vote, the right to employment of certain types and the right to possess arms.