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Major central Somali town falls to insurgent fighters

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MOGADISHU (Xinhua) — Insurgent fighters took over the provincial capital of central Somali region of Beledweyn hours after Ethiopian Woyanne troops withdrew from the city, residents said Saturday.

The fighters arrived in the town early in the morning taking positions and keeping guard at the streets.

Locals ransacked the offices of the regional and municipal administration and the whereabouts of the regional Governor and mayor of the city of Beledweyn are not yet known, resources in Beledweyn, 300 km north of Mogadishu, told Xinhua.

Commanders of the insurgent fighters spoke with local residents saying they will fight with Ethiopian Woyanne troops if they returned to the city which has fallen to the insurgents early this year but the insurgents withdrew hours after they took over.

Sources in the city said that Ethiopian Woyanne troops who since they returned to Beledweyn after they left early this year had been stationed in the town with the newly installed administration trying to consolidate their authority in the region.

The new Governor had said early this year that insurgents were inside the region and had been trying to reign in. Ethiopian Woyanne troops were deployed in the town and the former governor’s forces disbanded.

Ethiopian Woyanne troops were reportedly heading to towns in the central region of Mugud. It is not clear why they withdrew from Beledweyn or went to the Mudug Region

4 thoughts on “Major central Somali town falls to insurgent fighters

  1. Ulinta or wileta?

    Has Meles Zenawi ever visited his troops in Mogadishu and encouraged them to continue fighting the insurgents, and has he given some rewards to some of them since they have been there in that desert land for the benefit of their commander – Meles Seitanawi – not of course for the benefits of the Somalians? I wonder why he has failed to frequently visit them; for example, George W. Bush has visited the American soldiers in Iraq several times, greeted them, shaken their hands, eaten lunch with them, and listened to some of their grievances.

    Why is Meles afraid of visiting his troops at least once or twice a year? I know why he is not visiting them because, if he does, some of those frustrated Woyanne soldiers may shoot him for good and end his era of terror. In case, he visits them and asks them if they have any problems so that he could help them, I assure you, no one is going to say he/she has any problem, for every Woyanne soldier is panicked in front of Meles the terrorist. The soldiers simply keep their grievances in their hearts without saying a single word to their Commander-in-Chief, Meles Seitanawi.

    This Ethiopian culture called ulinta has been with us for a long time, and it is in our blood that we could not avoid it, and as a result of this ulinta, some Ethiopians do not want to embarrass their leaders by asking difficult questions why many Ethiopians are starving to death, and why the Woyanne government is jailing people without any reason. Many Ethiopians are not used to ask questions; they simply accept what their leaders tell them to do. When other countries are not happy with their leaders, they assassinate them; however, assassinating one’s own bad leader is not common in Ethiopia because of ulinta, not because of one of the Ten commandments that says: “You shall not kill,” and to this day, I do not know how Emperor Haile Selassie and Abune Theophelos, the second Patriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church died; were they assassinated, chocked to death, beaten up, hanged, or just died of natural death even though they were good leaders compared to Meles Zenawi?

    On the other hand, Meles should not be scared of being assassinated by one of his soldiers since he has trained all of them that they will have no futurity, and they will have no jobs to raise their family if Meles is killed, so the soldiers take this kind of training very seriously because they know the death of Meles is their death and the death of their family. He has completely brainwashed them, and that is why we don’t see any movement against him in the army. If some of the soldiers have grievances, they simply live or defect to Eritrea or go to another country, and from there they start telling all their grievances to the whole world.

    Respecting one’s own good leader and obeying him/her is not just ulinta but a duty every Ethiopian citizen should adhere to; however, the Ethiopian people, guided by the Ethiopian Orthodox Church leaders, have been respecting, and obeying to, the evil leaders without raising their hands against them because of ulinta and the teaching of the Church: “Obey your leaders and submit to their authority. They keep watch over you as men who must give an account” (Hebrews 13:17). This Scriptural teaching is deep in the hearts of the Ethiopian Christians and in the hearts of the Ethiopian Muslims, and leaders such as Meles Zenawi and others have no fear of being assassinated by one of the Ethiopian soldiers, so they continue to lead their country in the wrong direction.

    The only time I remember that there was a movement in the army against the Ethiopian leader was when King Haile Selassie was visiting South America, and even that movement was not completely supported by the entire army; any way, it was a movement initiated by the body guard (kibur Zebegna) of the Emperor, and the ring leaders of this movement were Workineh Gebeyehu and Germamie Newai. Finally, of course, the Emperor boasted by crashing the leaders of the movement by saying: “You fought like brave men, and now you hide like a woman.” The only army movement that succeeded in bringing down the most powerful King in the African continent is the Teferi Bantie and the Mengistu Haile Mariam movement. Other wise, the ulinta-loving Ethiopians have been very submissive to their leaders, bad or good, for many centuries, and, I think, it is time for the Woyanne army to ask difficult questions why they are in Somalia, fighting their neighbors and dying there for nothing and their dead bodies being drugged in the streets of Mogadishu.

    The Ethiopian people have suffered enough under this evil Dictator Mengistu Zenawi, and it is time for the Woyanne army to hatch a coup d’état and to overthrow him for the sake of the suffering Ethiopians and for sake of those who are in jail and in exile. The time of ulinta should be over and be replaced by the people’s wileta.

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