The TPLF is riding a tiger thinking that the beast was a mule. What a catastrophic screw up. The Marxist-Leninist League of Tigray will soon discover that riding the tiger was the easiest part; it's the safe dismounting that's the problem. By foolishly escalating a containable minor border dispute into a full-scale war, the Mekele warlords find themselves lacking the capacity to continue the war or the courage to make peace.

Let's not mince any words. The war they have declared is against Eritrean independence. Why? No particular reason, other than to fulfil some idiotic fantasy about some republic they are trying to establish in Ethiopia. Bereft as they are of discernible traces of wisdom to cease and desist from their mad adventure, they are also incapable of even entertaining any honorable peace gesture to end the misery they have imposed on themselves, their people, and their neighbors.

These warlords, victims of their rhetorical excesses, are stuck in a no man's land. Their intention is to take the world down with them. They cannot win the war; nor can they survive the ensuing peace. When and if peace comes, they have to explain to their people the reasons for the war. They have to explain why thousands had to perish. They have to explain why they squandered scarce resources, and for what end purpose. They have to look straight in the face of the thousands of mothers from Oromia and other parts of Ethiopia why the TPLF used their sons as Fenjiregatchs (human-mine-sweepers). These mothers have to know. They have to have the answers. Of course the TPLF people know the answers but they dare not tell the truth. How could they?

The minority government's best hope as reflected in their current strategy appears to be to sit tight. Saying "yes" to the Framework Agreements and "no" to the Technical Arrangements fits into their strategy of buying time. They have pinned their hope on a change of guard in the OAU Chairmanship, buying time until the next general election and most important of all to force Eritrea into an economic and political exhaustion. These are all dubious strategies, based on equally dubious assumptions.

At its core, the strategy is based on a demographic illusion. The TPLF's strategic thinkers are obsessed with the idea that with more people and better endowment of resources Ethiopia can outlast Eritrea in a "no war no peace" environment. Surely Ethiopia's population is twenty times greater than Eritrea's, and the economy is seven folds bigger. But this assumes Ethiopians will continue to bleed in people and resources to allow the Mekele warlords to proceed with their pet projectthe establishment of the Republic of Tigray at Ethiopia's expense. This is a dubious assumption that no one who knows anything about Ethiopia will take seriously. Ethiopia may have been dubbed the "accursed land," but its people cannot be expected to remain forever blind or deaf to their current rulers deceits. If history is any guide, the TPLF will go the way of Emperor Haile Selassie and Colonel Mengistuspat out by Ethiopia's oppressed nationalities way before Eritrea is exhausted economically.

The strategy of waiting it out has several elements. The TPLF is daring the Security Council to impose an economic sanction as a punishment for Ethiopia's rejection of the OAU sponsored peace package. There has been a lot of brave talk coming out of Addis that the government there was not afraid of economic sanctions. This is mostly a bluff targeted for domestic consumption and the calculation that the sanctions will never be imposed. The UN should call Ethiopia's bluff and impose sanctions on Ethiopian Airlines. Deny the national carrier the right to land and take off from anywhere, and it will go the way of Afghanistan Airlines. It will rot beyond repair. Then we will see if the brave talk will still continue.

It's no secret that the OAU under President Bouteflika of Algeria has become the TPLF's worst nightmare. The TPLF detests the Technical Arrangements the OAU under President Bouteflika has been pushing both sides to accept. Mekele's principal gripe against the OAU's initiative is that if implemented as currently phrased, the Arrangements will permit demarcation on the basis of the OAU Charter. This is TPLF's nightmare. Paying lip service to the OAU Charter is one thing, but accepting decisions based on the Charter is another. Bouteflika's OAU is telling TPLF to put up or shut up.

The TPLF lacks the guts to pick on Bouteflika and the OAU because that would mean Ethiopia is taking a stand contrary to what the African Heads of State decided during the Algiers Summit last summer. So what does Meles do? He puts the blame on the Americans for asking him to accept the Technical Arrangements, which he said, deviated from the Framework Agreements. It did not matter that the OAU and Bouteflika have been telling Meles that the Technical Arrangements and the Framework Agreements were one and the same. Meles' real problem is that for the first time since the conflict started the OAU under Bouteflika is acting not as an extension of the Foreign Ministry of Ethiopia, but rather as a neutral body trying to bring peace to the region. The TPLF's tantrum against the U.S is a cover for Ethiopia's dissatisfaction with Bouteflika's evenhandedness.

The TPLF is painfully aware that it lost its best opportunity for influencing the final outcome when Bouteflika replaced Campore in the OAU's chair. With the supporting cast of Gulled of Djibouti and Mugabe of Zimbabwe, and with Salim A. Salim as the impresario, the TPLF fought hard to get the OAU on record accepting TPLF's characterization of the disputed territories as "sovereign" Ethiopian territories. President Campore tried to accommodate TPLF's needs, but hard as he tried in the end, could not. President Bouteflika has refused to entertain TPLF's characterization of the dispute as a significant act of Eritrean aggression. Hence the TPLF thinks the best thing to do is to wait for President Bouteflika to step down in July. Better to try its luck with the next OAU Chair. Next year it will be Togo's President.

The TPLF has masterfully used the politics of war to gain acceptance among Ethiopians. By mislabeling a border dispute into an attack on Ethiopia's sovereignty, the TPLF has cynically mined Ethiopians' legendary pride in standing to "foreign" aggression. It should not be lost on students of TPLF allegiance to Ethiopian history that for all practical purposes TPLF's leaders are born again Ethiopians, who, until recently belittled Ethiopian history as a history of Amhara domination which they were committed to ending. The TPLF's deathbed conversion to Ethiopianism is as unconvincing as a Basque's fealty to Spanish nationalism, if it were to be expressed under similar and disparate circumstances.

By fanning the fire of Ethiopians nationalism, the TPLF's crude strategy is meant to appeal to that segment of Ethiopian population still unreconciled to Eritrea's independence. For a while the strategy worked. By dangling the "return" of Assab in the unofficial press as one objective of the war, the TPLF has managed to "buy" the support for the war among Ethiopians still grieving about the "loss" of Eritrea. The TPLF very badly wants to stay in power, if possible, through elections. The best way to influence the outcome of the election is for the TPLF to appear that it is striving to "return" Assab to Ethiopia. It does not matter that it can't deliver on the promise, but the fact that it has created an impression of its objective, will be enough to keep its political opponents off balance.

The last assumption is that the people of Eritrea will be so exhausted from the economic pressure that they will force a change of government in Asmara. A fantasy if ever there was one. Surely, the war continues to put economic pressure on the day to day living of Eritreans. But anyone, friend or foe, who thinks Eritreans will buckle under knows not what Eritreans are made of. Eritreans know what is at stake; they are aware of the lustful glances of their neighbor from the south. They know the would-be "founding fathers" of the yet-to-be Republic of Tigray have trained their eyes on Massawa as their outlet to the sea. Oh boy, don't Eritreans know. Don't they know?

The Woyane's gall never ceases to amaze. These are the same people who are trying to "pass" as Ethiopians, and as if that were not stupendously fantastic enough, they are now telling Eritreans that the TPLF will help Eritreans "introduce" democracy into Eritrea. I am sure taller tales have been told somewhere, but I doubt if anything could come close to this particular shameless lie. TPLF's commitment to democracy, like its affectation of Ethiopianism is as hollow as an empty water tank. If the TPLF practices any democracy at all, it's of the Mekele kind, a peculiar and deformed brand. I suspect one day political theorists would probably name the Mekele brand a democracy with Dawn-Syndrome--with apologies to the disabled.

There isn't a single soul in Eritrea who does not understand that the TPLF's primary purpose is to undermine Eritrea's independence and national sovereignty. All the crude demonetizations of President Isaias and his government in the TPLF smear campaign have failed to impress Eritreans in and out of the country that the TPLF is a dependable ally of the people of Eritrea. The TPLF's agenda of trying to bring Eritrea under Mekele's control is so transparent that its no longer a laughing matter. The tragedy is that the TPLF does not know it's riding a tiger, nor is it aware of the tragic consequences to its body and soul if it tries to bail out, safely.