An editorial by The Vanguard, a Nigerian newspaper
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EDITORIAL
Rescuing Ethiopia
The Vanguard
ECHOES of tyranny and its attendant discord in Ethiopia have been sources of major concern to democrats from other parts of Africa. Attempts at gagging the opposition have resulted in stiff sentences and convictions of human rights activists and journalists. As is often the case in many parts of the continent, the contentious issue is the result of last May’s elections, which was in favour of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi. There have been mass protests. The opposition challenged the results on the streets.
The government was miffed. It ordered police to disperse the unarmed demonstrators with maximum force.
Official figures put the dead at 193, 99 of who were women and children while six police officers were said to have died. In addition, 1,000 demonstrators were wounded. In annoyance, the Zenawi government arrested and arraigned 100 people opposed, to it, for “plotting against the constitution”.
Among the persecuted were members of the Coalition of Unity and Democracy, an opposition party, Professor Mestin Wolde Mariam, founder, Ethiopian Human Rights Council and many others, including some journalists. Last July, 30 accused were sentenced to life imprisonment, five others were sentenced in absentia — two journalists and other s were sentenced to various jail terms.
From the manner the trial was conducted, it is doubtful if the accused persons were given fair hearing. Zenawi did everything to hang those who dissented with him. Abraham Tetmke, state prosecutor, asked the court to impose death penalty on some of the accused just for standing up against official trampling on their political rights.
Zenawi is holding to the power he got 16 years ago, when the military chased Mengistu Hailemariam out of office. Mengistu had been in power for 16 years, following his coup that ended the reign of Haile Selassie, Africa’s longest ruling despot, who ascended the throne at 38 and was killed in the 1975 coup, 45 years on. Zenawi has learnt well. In the past 77 years, he is Ethiopia’s third ruler.
Its development is also indexed on the fact that each of these three rulers spent his time battling for their long stay in power.
National and international umbrage does not seem to matter when the conviction of his perceived political foes is his focus. For Zenawi, the throne is his and no rivals are permitted in what is deemed a democracy. The world must stand up against Zenawi’s conduct. The world is now a global village where every country should abide by civilised conduct. Belated responses to the situations in Iraq, Zimbabwe, Sierra Leone, Sudan and Liberia allowed them to degenerate to colossal loss of lives and pure agony for those who survived.
International pressure is required to make Ethiopia, where the African Union, with its Human Rights Commission, is ironically still headquartered, to comply with the ideals of the founding fathers of that organisation, ideals rooted in protecting the rights and dignity of our peoples.
4 thoughts on “Ethiopia needs to be saved from Zenawi, now”
Dear editor,
Zenawi is a dangerous force to be reckoned with and a lot is expected from the media to teach the public at large in times of confusion. If you observe the woyane gangs, they are playing a foul game by falsely representing Hailu on one side and Nega on the other end. The innocents seem to oscillate from one end to the other by consuming a very calculated propaganda pieces. We need leaders and media that can see beyond the cloud of confusion and lead its people, like Mose, across the tide of this turmoil. If ourselves play their game it is shame on us and must leave the forum to competent and well seasoned professionals.
We have legitimate causes and should not suffer any kind of casualty from any enemy corners be it propaganda or division. Despite the fact that woyane stood on shaky ground , it still sustains its secrecy in conspiring to divide and poison the public. We are way behind woyane in playing the games.
My dear brothers please wake up to the plot
Jimy
It is a wonderful comentary. this generation has to stand up and fight for his country. this generation has to take the responsibilities from the Derg,EPRP,EDU, Meson,OLF, TPLF, EPLF,…etc. era politicians. They didn’t bring peace and dimocracy for Ethiopia. The new generation only with the new idea and stragle will bring peace and democracy for his country as well as for the continent of Africa. No more suffering by hardliners old politicians.
Freedom for Africa!
Dear Editor (of The Vanguard)
We Africans are brothers. We have to reveal the devilish act of tyrants to the world.
Your article is precise and timely. Keep on fighting for democracy for african people. Democracy should not be a commodity distributed by African governers to their people> It is and should remain as a gift fro the Almighty God.
Thanks
Dear The Vanguard,
What a succintly accurate piece you have printed in your esteemed nespaper, The Vanguard! I never thought Nigerian journalists would have such detailed insight on Ethiopian domestic politics, as the despotic rule of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi does not want any journalist from anywhere to snif up for any of its secret vendetta war against the Ethiopian people.
Let the truth be told, Prime Minister Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia has created a pretty deceptive and highly mischieveous police state whose officials are allowed to pillage, plunder and bleed the country with impunity in a highly corrupt political system, where opposition is constantly deliberately confused with rebellion and dissent is punished with primordial savagery by Tigrean thugs at the helm of political power!
The ethnic bantustanisation of Ethiopian politics is a tactical ploy employed by a primordially very parochial, narrow nationalist and vicious ethnic Tigrean mafia gang under the despicable leadership of Meles Zenawi.
Meles Zenawi is the infamous communist leader of a rather mean, greedy, corrupt, and savagely cruel clique of vicious and vindictive Tigrean thugs who claim to represent only 3 million out of the 80 million of Ethiopia’s 86 ethno-lingustic population.
They have established a political program espousing ethnic federalism based solely on language, with the intention of dividing and conquering the other 85 ethnic groups of the country and eventually of declaring their northernmost province of Tigray as an “independent republic” through Article 39 of their constitution, which the Tigreans took the liberty to impose on the rest of Ethiopia, which had no part to play in its official adoption in the early 1990s.
It is a matter of public knowledge that Meles Zenawi’s Tigrean People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), more commonly known in the local vernacular as WOYANE, never espoused an Ethiopianist agenda from day one of its inception; rather, it set itself back in 1976 with the task of seceding from the rest of Ethiopia and establishing an “independent republic of Tigray”.
TPLF created, in its own image, a host of ethnic political parties out of captured soldiers of Mengistu’s regime and mediocre political opportunists as what are called “allies” in the so-called “coalition government”.
This is rather commendable, dear The Vanguard, and you should keep it the good work up in future!