The winds of change that is sweeping through the Middle East and North Africa cannot be stopped by Meles Zenawi and his thugs. As the African saying goes, “No one can stop the rain.”
No amount of wind bagging about economic growth, divide and rule tactics, and state terrorism will prevent 80 million Ethiopians from demanding their liberty, human dignity, democratic rights, and a better life in their own country.
The time has now come for us to say, “Enough is Enough!” Beka! Gaye! Bass! Yiakel!
Ethiopians shall unite, rise up and take control of their destiny. They stand as one — from the rural villages to the cities and the Diaspora — to remove Meles Zenawi’s Woyanne junta. 20 years of dictatorship is enough! 20 years of massacres… 20 years of corruption… 20 years of abuse of power is enough… 20 years of mismanagement, misrule is enough!.
Meles Zenawi has been a cause of death and destruction. During the last 20 years tens of thousands of people have perished. His security forces have committed crimes against humanity and Genocide in Gambela, the Ogaden region and elsewhere in the country. His abysmal human rights records are well documented by the Department of State, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, the Ethiopian Human Rights Council, the United States Congress and the European Parliament. There is an overwhelming prima-facie evidence for the United Nation’s Security Council to refer the matter to the International Criminal Court.
In 2010 he conducted a fake election, hired a lobby firm in the United States, and claimed that he won a whopping 99.6% of the seats in the rubber stamp parliament. His wicked macroeconomic policy has resulted in hyperinflation, massive devaluation, bank looting, rampant youth unemployment, spiraling cost of living, grinding poverty, and forced migration. His disastrous agricultural policy, despite the so-called big push by the West, is unable to feed the ever-growing population of the country. By the end of 2010 close to 10% of the population is living on food aid. Food aid has been used for political purposes.
Furthermore, Meles is selling the country’s virgin lands to foreigners by evicting poor peasants from their ancestral land, resulting in major land grab, environmental catastrophe and human displacement. Meles has created a landlocked country that is inhabited by more than 80 million people. That is why we, the Global Civic Movement for Change in Ethiopia have resolved that the 20 years of brutal rule of Meles Zenawi must end.
We call upon all Ethiopian civil society organizations, churches, mosques, schools and universities, professionals, business people, laborers and civil servants, the youth, men and women to rise up in nonviolent resistance as their brothers and sisters have done in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya to remove the Meles regime.
We call upon members of the Ethiopian Defense Forces, the police and security services to stand with the people and protect them from the Meles dictatorship. We make a special call to them to refrain from using deadly force against their brothers and sisters in the same way as their counterparts in Tunisia and Egypt have done.
We call upon all Ethiopian civic organizations world wide to engage in consultations with all democratic forces inside and outside of Ethiopia and provide moral and materiel assistance to bring about democratic change in Ethiopia.
BEKA! GAYE! BASS! YIAKEL!
For more information please contact [email protected]
13 thoughts on “Ethiopians Unite Against the Meles Dictatorship”
i believe we must identify the main WOYANE authorities and give them warning. The must be contacted by Phone, Email or fax. I have just found the website of Federal Police with their names pictures of board members. They must be told if people start to demonstrate,that they do not shoot at anyone!
We must not forget Workneh gebeyehu the chief of addis abeba Police, he and meles have ordered the massacred more than 193 ethiopians in June and November of 2005.
http://www.federalpolice.gov.et
Parlama officials can also be contacted to better side with the people instead of with the tyrant.
The names and phone and fax numbers of the mebers aee found on the webiste. http://www.ethiopar.net
Voices from Tigray
We are Tigrayans from Adwa. We have decided to join Ethiopians who love fairness, justice and free from repression. We were member/supporter of TPLF like many Tigrayans. We fought the repressive Mengistu regime with our firm commitment, blood and soul in seeking freedom, justice and liberty to all Ethiopians. Instead Meles and his cronies have been directing us to a rotten system and sinking the country very fast, and we are being led to dark hole. We did not sign up to this corrupt system. We call upon all Ethiopians to unite and rise against Meles, his cronies and cadres. Meles and his henchmen are destroying our country bit by bit.
We have read many message boards, forums, online article written and posted by some Ethiopians who think that the Tigrayan people are part of the Meles’s corrupt government or the Tigrayan people are benefiting from Meles’s corrupt government. This is far from it. Yes, there are a few Tigrayans are benefiting from Meles’s corrupt administration. Those are Meles’s family, his cronies, his security service, his cadres, the police, and the corrupt officials affiliated to his ill fated policies in every public and civil sector but not the Tigrayan people. The Tigrayan People are the main victim here which we have no say in any policies Meles Zenawi pursues. We would like to put the record straight to our Amhara, Oromo, Gurage, etc., brothers and sisters that what Meles is doing is – it is not in the name of the majority of the Tigrayan People. The Tigrayan people are held hostages in their own towns and villages without their will by Meles and his henchmen (cadres). The Tigrayan People are silenced by force not to oppose Meles’s Policies. No Tigrayan dear to criticise the TPLF top brasses. This is not going to carry on like this. As some brothers and sisters have said, “Tigrayans are silent” and “we are not voicing and speaking out”. Yes you are completely right. We (Tigrayans) do not speak but we know everything and we are not happy what Meles is doing at all. We are just waiting patiently for the right moment to strike against Meles and his cronies. We have had enough of Meles’s government maladministration, cronyism, nepotism and corruptions. We ought to clean Meles’s corrupt system.
The fundamental TPLF policy and commitments used to be a corruption free administration. This worked very well during the struggle against the Derg. Many non-TPLF members used to admire the zero tolerance on an anti-corruption policy TPLF used to have but now under Meles this fundamental policy shifted to unforeseen corruptions in huge scale and swindling public money by Meles, his family and cronies. We believe Ethiopia is over taking Kenya and Nigeria when it comes to corruption, cronyism and nepotism. We are very saddened to see the Tigrayans’ good character (name) is mudded and stained by Meles’s and his cronies’ greedy behaviours for personal gains and the Ethiopian people are paying a heavy price. We must stand firm together against injustice, repression, human rights abuses and etc. committed by Meles and cronies/cadres. Meles is building a mafia state within a state which the majority of Tigrayans are not part of it. Meles’s vision/policy is to divide and rule using ethnic division and tension which is the same old tactic used by Emperor Haileselassie and the Derg.
We argue every Ethiopian to recognise that the majority Tigrayan people are also the victims of Meles’s corrupt system. Businesses people who try to make a living are taxed heavily by corrupt and arrogant officials on behalf of Meles and his cronies. In some cases many hard working business men and women have lost their business and livelihood systematically if they are not affiliated to Meles’s TPLF corrupt system. Many Tigrayans have come to their conclusions that corruptions, cronyism and nepotism are getting out of hand under Meles’s government which are epidemic in every government departments including Kebeles, the police, City Municipalities, Revenues and Customs Authority, housing Development and in every public and civic sector. Meles, his family, ministers, custom and excise officials, Meles cadres and security service personnel are fleecing the public money into foreign bank accounts and building villas while the many Ethiopians have nothing to eat.
The Tigrayan people supported the TPLF top brasses and the TPLF cause with their whole hearted during the struggle in return the People of Tigray are being betrayed in grand scale. Now the situation in Tigray is in boiling point. Enough is enough. Meles and his henchmen will not use Tigray as a hiding place. Meles and his cronies are all finished. Even the People from Meles’s own home town, Adwa, we start to see his evil ideology. The majority of Tigrayans, I am sure of it, will not support Meles and his corrupt system any more nor give him a shelter in Tigray. The majority of Tigrayans want him stand trial and face the Ethiopian people justice for his evil crime against human rights abuses, corruption and misuse of public funds.
Meles is an embracement to the people of Tigray, psychologically flow, economics illiterate, and unfit to be a leader to our beloved country and people. He does not represent the majority Tigrayan people and we do not see him as our leader any more. We want him out. We will not tolerate his unimaginable idiocy. Our fathers lost their live in the battle field to defend our freedom, liberty and land but Meles has chosen to sell our land for money. This is an unimaginable betrayal ever seen in the history of Ethiopia. We call on Ethiopians who have expertise in computers and Internet technologies to use their know how to paralyse Meles’s government. Of course, this must be done within the law permits. We do not encourage anyone to break the law of the country they live. We should be wise to uphold the rule of law not to play the same game as Meles’s and his henchmen do. We must also learn form the Egyptian protestors who subdued the Mubarak Government peacefully. We must abstain from burning public properties as these are belongs to the Ethiopian people.
We want to warn all Ethiopians that Meles and his security services are listening to and recording all mobile and landline telephone calls. The Internet is also being monitored extensively by filtering websites in order to deny the public from having access to information.
As all of us know, Meles was asked by the African Union to represent Africa in the negations with developed countries on climate change. He (Meles) lectures everyone the importance of preserving forestry for the survival of human race in Africa. He is trying to use the climate change political platform to skim money from the rich counties which will not benefit the Ethiopian people. If he (Meles) genuinely believes that the climate change will affect us which it will, he should not have been implementing the bad policy – selling our land forestry to foreign companies (i.e. India, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and China) in the name of investments by evicting Ethiopians from their own home and land. This is completely is not on. He (Meles) seems to shoot his own foot on this bad policy i.e. Land for sale. He is hypocrite and has no shame in the eyes of his own people and world community pretending that he is negotiating on behalf of the African continent while he is destroying our forestry land in exchange for money.
We all remember well the ill fated policy of the resettlement programme by the Derg during the 1980s to resettle Tigrayans/Wollo people without their will to the South West Ethiopia. Meles took advantage of this bad policy by the Derg which was the main turning point for the Tigrayans people to support the TPLF.
We (Ethiopians) should fight the faceless tyrant Meles regime by any means peacefully. Without land there is no freedom. He and his cronies have no humanity, ethics and they are ruthless bunch of thugs. We should exercise our democratic right to evict Meles and his cronies from power. We should not shy away from fighting to form a democratic, elected, and accountable and corruption free government in Ethiopia so we all ethnic groups (Tigrayans, Amahras, Oromo Gurage, etc.,) can live peacefully together in our beautiful country.
To accomplish the well deserve freedom, liberty and justice, we (all Ethiopians) must unite together and leave our differences to one side and start to get rid of Meles government before he causes an irreversible damage to our country. We ought to avoid the blames and recriminations amongst ourselves otherwise we will play into the hand of Meles and his henchmen. We must wise up and respect each other if we want to succeed in removing this corrupt government otherwise our struggle for freedom, liberty and justice will be a distance dream. We (all Ethiopians) should remember that we have a duty to the future generations to hand over a good, accountable and democratic government that serves the Ethiopian people. We owe this to our future generations.
We must gather information of all assets (financial and properties) owned by Meles, his family and cronies including the security services and corrupt officials and put them in the public domain. Many Ethiopians are living in utter poverty which is not acceptable in this modern world while Meles and his cronies fleece the public money into foreign bank accounts and building villas. The housing market is beyond the reach of middle income families at the moment. Corruption, cronyism and nepotism are epidemic. Unemployment is rising fast whilst Meles’s giving a large chunk of employment contract to an Indian company (i.e. the Ethiopian Airlines Call Centre) whilst many unemployed young Ethiopians have no jobs and languishing in sheer despair. We must not tolerate the human rights abuses, corruption, cronyism, nepotism and abuse of power. We must expose bad policies and maladministration that harm the Ethiopian people. If we work together and unite as one entity, the victory is on our side. God bless Ethiopia. God bless you all.
PS. Would you lease post the above article on your website under the Top Stories with Title/heading “Voices from Tigray” for everyone to read in order to show our solidarity to against Meles and his cronies?
You may also edit any mistake we have made such grammar, spellings, etc.
Thank you for the grreat job you are doing.
The fire is under his feet and will exploid any time by any moment.Agazi is only 10,000 and are from Adi Grat and Aduwa.The Ethiopian people deserv better now.The son is rise and the side of dark is into fall.
No one can foresee how the Woyane junta can stop the wave of resistance once it is started even in the smallest village in Ethiopia except from Tigray,where Tigray is the benificeries of the ruling class, for example Teff is cheaper in Tigray than in Addis Ababa which is subsidised by TPLF to shut their mouth up, so forget Tigray for now they are circled with many TPLF thugs. All is in our hand to organize the diaspora in one umbrella for the last move and to creat interm goverment here and now, it will be too late once chaose ensues, and all the opposition journalists and websites like this one(ER) need to push hard for preparing for good transion in ousting this blood sucking ticks once for all. They know it time is up, just waiting when we will uprise and roar. Their one leg is outside 4 killo. Lets do a demonstration here in Washington as a lead for the finish. We can do it.
Regards,
Tesf.
The time has now come for us to say, “Enough is Enough!” Beka! Gaye! Bass! Yiakel!
Amen!
the truth is well expressed in the article 20 years of exploitation and distruction and devaluing ethiopia and ethiopians – all this in the eye of so called democratic captialist nations such as the western powers and the united states – as for chinaese they are financial scavangers of the world their record for humnan right and justice is same as meles and most chinese that come to ethiopia are there to serve their prision terms
We are so disappointed with Ferej Bereketela,Häkaringen Stockholm Sweden – Response 3, Tesf – Response 4 nand others ) in regard to their unacceptable comments being posted about the Tigrayan people. You guys need to live in the real world. Hatred has no place in civilised society. You must avoid the childish attitude, devulsion and extreme dislike towards to Tigrayan People. If you are going to have a bias and prejudice opinion against the Tigrayan people, you are drumming on empty theatre, and you are not doing a favour to anyone but you are giving the ammunition to Meles and his henchmen to stay on power for many years to come.
The responses and comments about the Agazi and people of Tigray by Ferej Bereketela and Tesf are an insult and a set back to our cause. They won’t help to our unity against the common enemy. Remember the 10,000 Agazians from Axum, Adigrat, Shire, Tembein, Adwa and Enderta are the once they disposed the Mengistu regime. Most Tigrayans and ex-TPLF Fighters are still well armed. If you want to understand the majority of Tigrayan despair and anguish, please read and understand carefully the Voices from Tigray (Response 2) posted above before you put off many Tigrayans from joining the good cause to oust Meles’s Tyrant and corrupt regime.
We are working hard here in the ground in the heart of Tigray (Adwa, Mekele, Axum, Shire, Tembien, etc,.) to persuade ex-TPLE fighters, member of Armed forces, intellectuals and active member of TPLE/EPRDF to join our cause in order to clean up the corrupt system which we are win over of the many at the moment. Please do not spit your poison and unfounded opinion to wreck our cause which you have no idea what it going on the ground in Tigray and how the Tigrayan people live. We (Tigrayans) are living in a total misery like every Ethiopian.
Without the Tigrayan people help the struggle to oust Meles and his cronies will not succeed. You must wise up and leave you silly opinion into one side and start to recognise that the majority Tigrayan people are also the victims of the Meles’s corrupt system. You have to come to terms to live in side by side and respect the Tigrayan people, and you must also recognise the misery and despair inflicted by Meles’s and his cronies on their own people – “the Tigrayan people” otherwise we can’t achieve our freedom, liberty and justice if we are disunited and blaming the Tigrayan people collectively.
Unity is paramount in order to eliminate this corrupt regime.
Thank you vary much Elias Kifle, This is the right message on the right time for all Ethiopians where ever they live,what religion or political party they belongs and what ever it coasts.
Please listen,read,ask and come togather and unit.yes! the time is now to react. Melse Zenawi segeragation based politics should be end now.
All Tigrians are not woyane but all woyans are tigrans those killing innocent,corrupted, saling the frtail land of the country,distroing our history.
Time to unity for all Ethiopians.our strugle must stat in the centre, the fire in the centre is the only optsion to burn woyane.
The Voice of Tigrans, It is really vary good commentn and good idea. the reall Tigrans/Ethiopians/ should wake up now befor to late. they must have to cooperate with the majority, majority is the winner at the end of the day. the strugle of the majorty will never stop, It is the matter of time.
The tachectice and the idea of the strugle we can see now in Tunissia, Egypt and Libia was well established in Ethiopia by Ethiopian people in 2005, but we were not successfull the same as Tunissia and Egypt because some of us misgided our people. we must learn from our past unit and organised again togather we will be a winner.For our free do we must pay price, freedom is not fee.
I like the slogan “BEKA! GAYE! BASS! YIAKEL!”. It is true enough is enough. It is time for us to be free from subjugations free from corruptions and so on. Let Almighty God help us to be united and stand for our freedom. It is a time to STAND UP FOR OUR HUMAN RIGHT.
BEKA! GAYE! BASS! YIAKEL
Voices from Tigre,
This is a moment of truth. The People of Tigray are sensing the prevailing condition in the country, and are coming in to terms with situation by making their voice heard. What is, even, exciting is the fact that this message originated from Meles’s home town: it speaks about the waning days of Melese‘s regime. There is some thing raised by the writers which are common behavior of the Melese regime. The civil servants of the regime place heavy burden upon business people in the country demanding bribery. For instance, it is common to force merchants for close their business through heavy taxation. If a business person fails to pay bribery for the local tax collecting agencies, he will be threatend with higher tax. I know this form of bribery is rampant outside Tigray, but are shocked to learn it takes place in Tigray. So much for democracy.
Melese has turned Ethiopia in to possession of family and friends: EFROT and MEDROKE empire.
Thanks to the new spirit of the moment, all over the world citizens are rising up against tyranny and demanding the removal of repressive regimes. This change and political renewal being sought by the citizens who had it enough is unlikely to be restricted to the regions of North Africa, and Middle East alone. The people’s movement has its own dynamics. Since its
Start two months ago, it has been gathering momentum;so far, it remains a single galvanizing catalyst, and main stay of head line news. The western governments in general and the U.S.A in particular have lent active support that the demand of the people be met. Change is the characterizing word of this movement: and regime change its object. Tunisia and Egypt have dethron their regimes. Baharin, Jordan and Yemen, due to their peculiar circumstances, will likely introduce sweeping political reforms. The Libyan leader Gaddafi seems to have miscalculated the forces that are arraying against him ,and his act has taken bizarre twist. Nevertheless, every passing days time is abandon him in to his own isolation. The Libyan resistant must devise a plan to isolate Gaddafi from his military leaders and aattempt to secure his capture. If privately approached the Military leaders might be willing to secure his capture or bring his head in the platter. Offering clemency and a privilege in the new government to those who dare to act against him is the best option for the opposition.
Elias on a short notice I have this message for you, after you read it please remove this paragraph. I try to register to twitter and learned some one is already using my nick name as a result I with drew from it. I am not in face book or twitter. Please check who is using my name and take appropriate action. Possible candidates for this are Weyanes or Eritreans.
wel,defining and rectifying direction is of paramount importance.
Ethiopians from all walks of life and ethinicity need to stand together
in order to topple the meles junta. I can see some light in here ,halelujaaa.
To Voices from Tigray
Tigrians have been isolated in all four corners, from north, south, east and west in east Africa because of the Meles regim/Weyane-juntas, and Tigrians have been blindly supporting Weyane or have been quite when the weyanes wage war in Somalia, Eritrea & when they have been engaged in ethinic cleansing & massacres in Ogaden, Gambela, Oromia etc., and killing over 200 peaceful demonstrators in Addis and arrested over 80,000 people in 2005. It has been getting too late for the people of Tigray to reverse all the damages done and all the enemities created by Weyane on the name of Tigrians. Voices from Tigray has been quite for the last 20 years while Ethiopians has been suffering and demanding their liberty for freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, free and fair elections, human diginity, democratic rights etc., they have been slaves in their own country.
Any way, I wish good luck to the voices from Tigray. As to the rest of us, as stated above the these days sologan is ” Ethiopians shall unite, rise up and take control of their destiny. They stand as one — from the rural villages to the cities and the Diaspora — to remove Meles Zenawi’s Woyanne junta. 20 years of dictatorship is enough! 20 years of massacres… 20 years of corruption… 20 years of abuse of power is enough… 20 years of mismanagement, misrule is enough!.”
We just want to let all Ethiopians what is happening here in Tigray. As you can see almost half a million Tigrayans are living in utter despairs in unimaginable scale. Several farmers, business owners and traders in Tigray have been intimidated and threatened with imprisonment by the faceless and ruthless Meles’s cadres (loan sharks) if they don’t pay back the loan they took out from Dedebit Microfinance.
Dedebit Microfinance http://www.decsi.com.et has been engaged in handing out loans very aggressively up to 10,000 birr since 1994 without explaining the risks involved with term of the loans to unsuspecting rural farmers and urban residents to be used for buying fertilisers and setting up businesses. The interest rate ranges from 9.9 to 18 percent far more than the traditional banks interest rates (i.e. between 4 – 7%). In most cases some farmers assume the money they are taking is a gift and they do not think they have to pay the money back.
The main shareholders (owners) of Dedebit Microfinance are Relief Society of Tigray (REST) and the government of Tigray Regional State. REST was established by TPLF as charity organisation to provide charitable assistance. But it has been used by Meles and his cronies to collect and skim money from western countries and from expatriate Tigrayans living In Europe and North America. The same scum is employed by Tigray Development Association (TDA). TDA is a registered charity in the UK. We argue everyone who gives donations to REST and TDA to stop giving to these so called charity organisation instead please give your money to the needy directly either to your less well of relatives and neighbours or to the most disadvantage individuals you know in your village and town. As you know TDA’s CEO is former Ambassador to Sweden and a member to the TPLF/EPDF Central committee. REST is controlled by Meles and His wife (Azeb Mesifn) and the same goes to the Amhara Development Association (ADA). These so called charity organisations and Microfinance institutions are used to control the lives of many Ethiopians and are causing miseries and despairs to many vulnerable in our society. Every one of us knows about Azeb Mesfin how she swindles public money so we are not going to duplicate about the situation as many of you have already exposed the sheer volume of her involvements in many different companies. Another microfinance needs everyone‘s attention is TIRET. TIRET is run by Tadesse Kassa, a member of TPLF/EPRDF central committee. It does the same business operations as Dedebit Microfinance in Amhara state as we call them pyramid investments, loan sharking and the rest of it.
We ask every Ethiopian to campaign and exposed this modern slavery and day light robbery being inflicted by Meles and his cronies on the Tigrayan/Ethiopian people in a massive scale using different financial intuitions and companies. For example REST gets funds and aid grants from charitable organisations in Europe and North America mainly Norway. We ought to let the donors that their money is misused and channelled to indebt large population in Tigray and other part of Ethiopia.
The majority borrowers have no means of paying back the loan they took. Farmers could not produce enough crops and unable to meet the repayment and business owners could not make enough profit because of the demand of unjustified huge taxes by corrupt officials as well as the mounting interest on the loan. 464,622 Tigrayans are exposed to loan sharking by Dedebit Microfinance since 2008. Please visit http://www.decsi.com.et/brochure.pdf to see the number of Tigrayans in debit and the outstanding amount they owe to Dedebit Microfinance. The brochure contains a shocking practice by claiming to help the poorest of the poor while Dedebit Microfinance is charging 9.9 – 18% interest on the outstanding loans more than the traditional banks.
Guess who run Dedebit Microfinance (loan shark financial institution) – Meles’s loyal henchmen i.e. Tsegay Berhe (President of Tigray), Ataklty kiros (General Manager of Dedebit Microfinance) and Teklewoini Asefa (Board Chair Person of Dedebit Microfinance). Please visit http://www.decsi.com.et/messages.html to see the glossy and conniving literature on the Dedebit Microfinance website that is designed to full everyone.
There are many farmers, business men and women all over Tigray in this terrible situation. Meles and his henchmen are fleecing the most vulnerable people as Dedebit Microfinance calls them helping the poorest of the poor. Anyone with common sense can’t charge a shocking interest of 9.9 – 18% interest if the main aim is to help the poorest of the poor in society. We want all Ethiopians to know that Meles and his cronies are using Dedebit Microfinance, REST, TIRET and other financial institutions and companies as a weapon to silence people in Tigray and else where in Ethiopia by forcing them into debits.
Beka, Gaye, Bass, Yiakel.
Enough is enough!