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Meles discussing ‘trash’ and ‘garbage’

By Yilma Bekele.

As you all know Ethiopia held what is referred to as ‘elections’ last May. The ruling TPLF party won 545 of the 547 seats in Parliament. One can tell from the results that either the TPLF party is the most popular association in the country or the election was rigged and the outcome was tainted.

Ethiopians were resigned to the fact that the Prime Minster’s Party will be declared the winner. It was also assumed the regime will allow the so-called opposition to win some seats to save face and appease the Ferenji donors. Those aligned with Medrek actually were willing to look the other way when Ato Meles jailed their leader, murdered their candidates, denied them gathering places and threatened them with criminal charges if they criticized the regime’s polices in the heat of the moment. It did not save them from extinction.

Ato Meles did not stop there. He picked and choose the international observers and trained his own cadres to be election observers. He tried but was unable to deny the European Union from sending independent observers. Welfare recipients sometimes have limited choices. He did mange to curtail their activities to show his people that he will not be pushed around.

Well the report by European Union election observers was made official last week. For us Ethiopians there was nothing new there. We live the nightmare thus there is no need to read about it. Our collective response was a loud duh!

On the other hand our ‘fearless leader’ for life has a different response to this carefully written report. According to Barry Malone of Reuters, the PM chosen words were ‘”trash that deserves to be thrown in the garbage.” He did not stop there, elucidating further, he went on to say “The report is not about our election. It is just the view of some Western neo-liberals who are unhappy about the strength of the ruling party… anybody who has paper and ink can scribble whatever they want.”

Charming isn’t he. You would not expect such ‘trash talk’ from a leader of a country do you? One would think when you ascend to be a leader there are certain diplomatic norms to be maintained and style of talk to abide. One can disagree without being crass. The office one holds dictates one’s behavior and choice of words. Well, it is Ethiopia and international norms, rules and regulations are suggestions left to the individual’s discretion.

It took the EU Election Observation Mission (EOM) six months to issue the official report. EU EOM was headed by Thijs Berman, a Dutch member of European Parliament and 10 Core Team members (analysts) 90 Long Term Observers and more than 60 Short Term Observers from 22 EU member states, as well as Norway, Switzerland, and Canada. The report is a carefully written document giving credit where credit is due and pointing out some discrepancies where improvement is needed to make the system work better. None of the observers hold any bias against our country and people that we know of. Their stated mission was to observe and report so what ever happened will be well documented and help future decision makers to see where to put their resources to help Democracy take root in our country.

When it comes to our country things just don’t move in a reasonable and rational way. You can sense the crudeness of the TPLF regime when it denied the team access to Ethiopia to present their findings. According to Mr. Berman ‘”This is the first time that a host country has denied the EU observation mission access to return to present its report,”

The regime chose to impeach the character of the EU mission instead of responding to the detailed findings by the observers. First to comment was our good friend Shimeles Kemal (yes he is still around), the mentally unstable paranoid Communication Affairs Minster who said ‘the report is nothing but a biased political analysis of Ethiopia and was made under pressure from Human Rights Watch (HRW) which led the government to reject the report.” He was not satisfied with one enemy thus he threw in HRW for added effect.

The PM decided to lower bar further down. He was not about to be outdone by a junior miscommunication chief. He decided to leave the insulting and name calling to me. Twenty years at the helm has given him the license to dispense insults, demeaning words and bully his people with immunity. That is what he did five years ago in response to EU’s report regarding the 2005 elections. In fact he was so proud of his penmanship he published his response on his newspaper ‘The Ethiopian Herald.’ This is what he wrote:

The statement has come as a great surprise to me. I had expected that the statement would have very few if any nuggets of truth, and, if any, that these would be buried under so much garbage that it would be virtually impossible to excavate them. As it turned out, the statement has some big, really big, lumps of truth in it, and it is relatively easy to remove the garbage that has covered those lumps of truth. While I was expecting a huge garbage dump all I got was newly started garbage dump that was unable to bury the truth. The letter cannot but therefore start by identifying and highlighting the lumps of truth in the statement.

There you have it a head of state calling the Honorable Ana Gomez and her team’s report ‘garbage’.

Looks like time has not mellowed the PM. Why do you think he is stuck in this funky mode? Do you think just may be we have something to do with it? Is it possible we encourage this dysfunctional behavior? Are we part of the problem?

These are good points to ponder while we look at the PM and his isolated existence in a bubble. You see the truth is verbal abuse, demeaning of fellow citizens is nothing but the first step leading towards higher forms of criminal behavior. Ato Meles has made it a habit of knocking down our flag, country and culture. We are so enamored by his crass behavior that we ascribe such adjectives as ‘wend new’ ‘jegna new’, etc. that only emboldens his crudeness. He of course thinking it is cute goes on to apply it in his relationship with foreign dignitaries. It is true children repeat what they hear. Thus one is always careful about language around two-year-olds. They blurt out that ‘new’ word they just heard in a public setting.

We are ashamed that the PM did not find a grown up method of disagreeing in a civilized manner. Language is very important in diplomatic circles. Words carry great weight.

8 thoughts on “Meles discussing ‘trash’ and ‘garbage’

  1. This guy got away with every single insult, name calling and verbal abuse of all sorts for a long time. He insulted our flag, the Ethiopian people, our integrity, psyche etc. He called trash and garbage every international organization and country that criticized his wrong doings. All this is because he thinks he is the frog that tried to bloat itself to the size of a bull and scare off its natural enemies or any possible threat to its survival. Meles, by doing what the frog did thinks he is feared and unchallenged no matter who his critics are.

    Is it not time to deflate this hot-air inflated person and stop him making Ethiopia and its people a laughing stock world wide once and for all? He has bluffed for so long to our detriment. Is it not time now to stand firm against his despotic rule and terminate him?

  2. Meles is known for trash talk. Since the time he took power nothing but trash talk. It is the main characterstic of a beggar. The so called the city beggars are well versed for trash talking. As quiet understand this little man with a big mouth will never stop from trash talking even for those people who already gave and are giving him alms. Some time I feel like is this man for real. Neo-libral what the f–is he talking about. This embicel is dragging that country back two generations. The idiot himself follows dectatorial rule on top of narrow nationals and has the nerve to talk about neolibral, stupid, stupid stupi.

  3. Mario jilu #1, who is the laughing stock of the world? You chose to live in denial. That’s why you fail to see the respect and admiration he recommends in the global stage at large. Nothing wrong to call a garbage a garbage – you are also part of that plastic garbage.

  4. This reminds me the old days when Mengistu H/Mariam made slogan at every revolution day to destroy American Imperialism, while at the same time begging for their wheat and corn.

    The irony is Meles has been their best man/interest-keeper in the Horn of Africa since his ascension to power. So, let them enjoy the consequence of their making.

  5. Ato YELMA
    Leaving in the western world and talking about [our suffering] in ethiopia,Man get real your time has come and gone ,you could spin it any way you want, but your writing is still garbage

  6. አንድ ሰው የሚያውቀውን ብቻ ነው የሚጠቅሰው፡፡ መስማት የተሳነው ሰው የሚያወራው ከመደንቆሩ በፊት የሰማውን ነው፡፡ አሁንም የገጠመኝ ችግር ያንን አይነት ነው፡፡ በ2007 በተካሄደው ምርጫ ወቅት የተሰጠውን የአውሮፓ ዩኒየን ዘገባ የቆሻሻ መጣያ ሙንጭርጭር ተባለ፡፡ ደሞ ሌላም ምርጫ መጣና አሁንም የአውሮፓ ዩኒየን ታዛቢዎች ዘገባቸውን አቀረቡ፡፡ አሁንም እንዳለፈው ወቅት ሁሉ የቆሻሻ መጣያ ሙንጭርጭር ተባለ፡፡
    እኔን ያልገባኝ የኒህ ሰውዬ የቆሻሻ መጣያ ውስጥ ምን አስቀምጠዋልና ነው ቆሻሻ መጣያ ውስጥ የተጣለ ዘገባ የሚያጋጥማቸው ነው ወይስ ሃሳብ የሚፈልቅላቸው፤ መልስ ለሚቀርበው ሂስ ሁሉ የሚያገኙት ከዚያ ከቆሻሻ መጣያ ነው!

  7. If the election result does not meet International standards, then it is a trash as well as garbage.

    Here, Meles has spoken the truth. Anything that is not considered as internationally acceptable cannot be by any measure fine and elegant as well as worthwhile.

    By the way who is the garbage collector?. Perhaps, the Ethiopian people!?

    Both the EU and Meles spoke the same thing. It meant the same. One is the supplement of the other.

    Who is the loser?
    The Ethiopian people and the so-called Opposition parties.

    How long should the cycle continue as it is? Indefinite.

    I’m wondering why and how the author of the above article wishes to teach Meles the proper morality and approach vis à vis foreign missionaries. The rude behavour of Meles is not equivalent to the proudness and moral integrity of the Ethiopian people. He is only an individual. As he came to power, he will go away sooner or later.
    You can recommend him to read Del Carnage, “How to win friends and …”

    What we should think/worry collectively is that how we repllace him and who should be the next appropriate person to run the future Ethiopia.
    We have to engage on ourselves how we fix the problems and change the whole garbage system.

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