Disarming a section of the population, while leaving others untouched has proved to be an invitation to disaster–sometimes of genocidal proportions. The killings and massacres that are reported to be taking place in various sections of the country, notably Dre Dawa, Harar, Arsi, Sidama, Jibat and Metcha, and Danakil, are caused in part by the imbalance created by the government’s lopsided disarmament policy. EPRDF leaders are painfully aware of their minority status, and instead of enforcing the policy equally on all sections of society, they are disarming those who they perceive to be potential rivals or even “enemies” while they leave those who are actively allied to them armed. It is no secret that their allies are doing the killing while EPRDF troops allegedly “watch as passive onlookers.”

President Meles Zenawi is quoted by TIME magazine as saying that “The choice is to disarm the irrational and arm the rational elements,” in the hope that those whom he categorizes as “rational” will chose not to use their weapons. Today in Ethiopia where fear and paranoia seem to rule supreme on all sides, how does one measure rationality or irrationality? Both past experience and the hard reality in the country today utterly contradict this view.