George Orwell once wrote about the corrupting influence of political ideology on every day language use. Words mean whatever ideologues want them to mean, often the opposite of their original meaning. The misuses of language, continues Orwell, illustrate the cast of the totalitarian mind, a mind that cannot differentiate truth from falsehood. Words become empty vessels into which arbitrary meanings are poured, meanings only the totalitarian, and not the rest of us, are able to see and feel. Overtime, the words, with all their deformed meanings, become fighting words for which the totalitarian is prepared to kill and maim. Falsehood masquerading as truth becomes the battle cry for which the innocent are sent to their untimely death. One shudders to think how many peasants Lenin and Stalin sent to the Gulags to create that false paradise on earth---the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. As we all know the grand experiment of synthetic federal union hit the dust ten years ago; and all those who perished to build the Stalinist utopia, perished for nothing.

It is eerie how Orwell hit the bull's eye in depicting the misuse of political language in contemporary Ethiopia. In TPLF's Ethiopia language stands on its head, hopelessly and thoroughly corrupted. Words and phrases that are commonly understood one way by the rest of us have totally different meanings in the mind of the shadowy leadership of the Marxist Leninist League of Tigray, the minority ruling-group controlling Ethiopia. Concepts in law and governance lose their usual meaning when used by TPLF officials. For example, the Marxists have created a virtual police state in Tigray, yet they try to present it as Jeffersonian democracy, and God help us, as something to be emulated. And if not emulated voluntarily, then they see their deformed democracy as something to be imposed on their neighbors to the north. Their concept of freedom of the press is to jail journalists right and left. Like Lenin and Stalin from whom they have learned a lot, Tigray's Marxists are bent on creating their version of paradise in Ethiopia, which if history is any guide, their paradise would meet a fate no better than their mentors'.

It is not just abstract concepts that have a perverted meaning in contemporary Ethiopia. During the past twenty months we have seen how easily verifiable concrete concepts that depict distance and time that have been corrupted to fit a political imperative. Go back to the earlier controversy in the Framework Agreements about the meaning of "Badme and its environs." Eritrea asked the OAU the architect of the Agreement what it meant by the phrase. The response was not surprising-Badme and its immediate surrounding. One would think that this is the common definition of "environs." And when one says Badme and its environs, it simply means Badme and its vicinity, knowing full well "vicinity" is measured in terms of a few single digit kilometers on all sides. Guess how the TPLF interpreted "Badme and its environs." The phrase was interpreted not as single digit kilometers rather the entire Eritrea-Ethiopia border, from Umhajer to Bure, almost 1000 kilometers long. In the end it becomes a question of a word assuming a meaning only the TPLF has the power to assign, it matters very little that what is conveyed by the word or concept has no bearing to the dictionary meaning. Obviously the TPLF has its own dictionary where words and concepts have odd meanings.

Even the telling of "time" has not been spared from TPLF's Orwellian assault. Lets go back to June 5, 1998. Ethiopian fighter jets, by most accounts, strafed Asmara at 2:10PM. In retaliation, Eritrean fighters bombed Mekele at around 3:00PM the same day. Ethiopia, however, reported to the world that Eritrea hit first, and Ethiopian fighters retaliated. This was strange because Asmara and Mekele are in the same time zone. So there can't be any confusion about time zone changes. Unless the improbable is true, that is, the hour and minute hands in Mekele's clocks go from right to left, or the Mekele time is purposely set an hour faster, one is hard pressed to understand why 3:00 PM Mekele time could come before 2:00 PM Asmara time, on the same day. It's all confusing to the ordinary person, but not to the TPLF.

The purpose of the official lie was to convince the rest of the world that Eritrea initiated the bombing, and the unfortunate collateral damage that followed was intentional, when it was not. Indeed Ethiopian embassies overseas were advised to say Ethiopia bombed Asmara in retaliation for the killing of civilians. True to form, a concept as simple as time was subverted to fit a political purpose. The principal aim was not only to engineer the condemnation of Eritrea, but also to present Ethiopia to the rest of the world as a victim of "aggression." By playing up the collateral damage, by falsifying the sequence of the two bombings, Ethiopia sought to milk the tragedy for maximum public relations effect.

One would think that something as "human rights" would have a universally acceptable meaning-a respect for the autonomy of the individual, social, political, economic, and spiritual. Unfortunately, not in TPLF's Ethiopia. A couple of weeks ago Walta Information Center interviewed Ato Tekle Woyni, the director of the Relief Society of Tigray (REST). Ato Tekle charged that the international donor community should be "condemned" for violating the "human rights" of Ethiopians. It boggles the mind that REST, a wholly owned and operated subsidiary of the TPLF, is calling for the condemnation of the donor community, after what the community has done for Ethiopia since famine and drought became uninvited visitors to the unlucky land. But REST's unfair accusation is there, in black and white, at Walta's web page, another TPLF owned and operated subsidiary.

Biting the hand that feeds is a common TPLF trait. A disturbing pattern has already been established in which yesterday's allies become today's adversaries. The campaign of vilification by Walta's stable of ghostwriters against the U.S and Eritrea is part of the pattern. Unless the current rulers of Ethiopia have a short memory, and every indication is that they do, someone has to remind them that it was U.S. diplomacy and EPLF tanks that escorted Prime Minister Meles to Menelik II Palace, the seat of power in Ethiopia. Yet in the truest doublespeak form, when gratitude is called for, the TPLF and its auxiliary organizations spew out ingratitude because they see a short-term advantage in doing so. This is why they condemn when a note of appreciation is called for.

Why did the REST condemn the donor community? According to Ato Tekle, the donor community has insisted in mixing politics and humanitarian assistance in refusing to respond to Ethiopia's request to provide humanitarian aid to 830,000 victims of internal displacement due to the war and other victims of drought. What is the politics Ato Tekle is talking about? The donors' continues to insist that Ethiopia settles its conflict with Eritrea, peacefully. So how come the plea for peace has been interpreted as a violation of human rights? Only in TPLF's Ethiopia where language routinely stands on its head, does the call for peace be dismissed as a violation of the human rights of those innocent victims, the fenjiregatch, and the minority government has slated for a meaningless death. The donor community's point is this-what is the point of more death when the formula for an equitable peace is on the table?

It would be one thing if there were no alternative to the present war, but there's an alternative, one the government of Ethiopia had previously agreed to. It would also be another thing if Ethiopia had the resources of its own to fight the war. It does not. It wants to continue fighting the war using the donor community's resources. Simply put, there is no way Ethiopia could support a military force of 655,000 (CIA's estimate for 1998) and look after the 7 million or so of its people who are in need of emergency aid. The international donor community earned REST's condemnation because it refused to continue financing a war that's turning peasant farmers into fenjiregatch.

A good argument can be made that the border was started as an accident that could have been settled with enough good will. An equally good argument can be made that it was allowed to fester in its murderous ways because the Ethiopian government did not wish for the war to stop. The various attempts at finding a solution were frustrated because the Ethiopian government kept revising and expanding on its demands to the point where common language lost its relevance. Words and concepts lost their usual meaning because the TPLF insisted on its interpretation of commonly understood concepts and phrases as a way of creating a stalemate, believing that a stalemate was in its interest. The improbable gyration the TPLF has given to meanings of common words and phrases is to force Eritrea to reject Ethiopian interpretation, to justify continuation of the stalemate. So far the plan has not worked because Ethiopia's ploy has become too obvious. Even the countries and organizations that had taken a pro Ethiopia stance for most of the dispute, are now frustrated by TPLF's intransigence in refusing to accept the meaning of concepts, as most of the world understood them. It has interpreted "status quo ante" as an exercise of Ethiopian sovereignty over the disputed territory, an interpretation the U.S and the O.A.U have rejected insisting on interpretation no one but Ethiopia recognizes has become a form of intransigence.

There is a transparent objective for the intransigence. The purpose is to blackmail Eritrea and the international community to accept Ethiopia's terms, to gut the Framework Agreements, and ultimately to proceed with demarcation on the dictated terms. The intransigence is backed by a threat of war to force Eritrea to spend down its resources with the assumption that in a continuing stalemate Ethiopia is in a better position to outlast Eritrea. The tortuous search for a lasting peace has demonstrated that the TPLF will continue to use words and phrases only in so far they serve to frustrate the continuing search. When language is used by the TPLF, most often, it stands on its head. This is the art and practice of TPLF rhetoric when language is used not to enlighten, but rather to confuse.