Meles Zenawi’s surrogates were in Dallas today to address a hand picked audience from the Ethiopian Diaspora. The local Woyane/EPDRF operatives have been preparing for this meeting in “secret” for some time now. Tipped by insiders and similar event participants in Houston, a coalition of all opposition supporters in Dallas faced the Woyane cadres and challenges them why a government which claims to be open and democratic plans and holds meetings in secret with a selected few. The reasons for this are of course obvious.

If Woyane wants a discourse with Ethiopians, it should do it at home. We know at home our people are made captive audiences of its propaganda barrage by fiat and control. If not dialogue what is it that then Meles and Co. are looking for from Diaspora? They have seen in the last two years how the Ethiopian Diaspora has become an effective voice for its people. They want to silence that voice by:

1. Influencing some of the Diaspora members to collaborate with Meles in the name of investment. As a dispenser of all rural/city land, Meles is working hard to buy the loyalty of some of us with a promise of land or property in Ethiopia. To this effect, the participants of meetings with government/embassy officials will be identified first and invited to attend privately through personal mail and/or telephone call. There will be no public announcement of the meeting.

2. The attendees of the meeting will be lectured on the democratic and development virtues of the Meles Zenawi’s regime while they are being video taped for repeated propaganda play and replay on Ethiopian TV. This is supposed to embolden its supporters at home and subdue its opponents.

There is no other agenda or goal in these meetings. Knowing this, the supporters of all oppositions groups in Dallas together with other fellow Ethiopians made a decision to make sure that if a meeting is held that the true voices of the Ethiopian Diaspora is heard. If Meles’s proxies can’t swallow that then they have to be forced to cancel the meeting. This is exactly what is attempted and what aborted from happening on April 24, 2008 in Dallas, TX at the Quality Inn & Suites.

Around 5:00 PM, the demonstrators made their way to the meeting hall at Quality Inn with placards and pictures of victims who were murdered by the Woyanne Agazi forces. In the Hall, there were only 15 people; three of whom were aligned with the demonstrators. Out numbered almost 8 to one, the official organizers called security guards — and later the police — to ask the demonstrators to leave the Hall. The protesters continued with their slogans until the police arrived.

The speakers of the meeting were supposed to be Ato Taye and Ato Muluye from the Woyanne consulates in Los Angeles and Washington DC. When they saw that they have no chance to lecture a captive audience and record a video for propaganda display on Ethiopian TV, the speakers chose not to speak. They asked the police to evict the demonstrators out of the Hall. The police recognized the right of the demonstrating Ethiopians to attend the meeting with their placards as long as it is shown in a peaceful manner. The police had to finally ask everybody, including the embassy officials and the surrogates of Meles in Dallas to leave the hall as tension grew. The attempt of the agents of the butcher of Addis Ababa to silence the Diaspora voice in the name of investment opportunities ended in total fiasco.

Fellow Ethiopians everywhere, take lesson from today’s action in Dallas, Texas: Never allow the agents of the butcher of Addis Ababa to silence us through a promise of a piece of land. Who is he to give us back our own land? To those of us who want to invest in Ethiopia, go home quietly and invest in your family and with your family. Please don’t be used to cover the crime of a brutal regime.