Ethiopia’s khat-addicted dictator has replaced many of his bodyguards from the Tigray ethnic group with Eritreans, according to Ethiopian Review Intelligence Unit sources in Addis Ababa.
Deputy security chief Esayas Woldegiorgis, Meles Zenawi’s Beria, who is Eritrean, has also been given authority over all security matters. Getachew Assefa, the current security chief, is relegated to being only a figure head. Esayas is responsible for torturing political prisoners and carrying out political killings in Ethiopia and neighboring countries.
Meles has decided to replace his Tigrean bodyguards because of the increasing dissension among Tigreans over the amassing of enormous wealth by him and his wife while the lives of most Tigreans have not improved despite all the construction projects that are underway in Tigray region. On top of that, Meles has recently invited Eritreans to come to Ethiopia, and those who arrived already have started marginalizing Tigreans both in politics and business.
Meles is fearful of revolt inside his own army that is dominated by Tigreans, so he recently forced 300 colonels and 13 generals to retire, as reported here.
Tigreans are also angry that Meles has pitted them against other ethnic groups. They fear that when a popular uprising explodes, Meles and his family will leave, while the average Tigrean, in whose name Meles is ruling, could face the wrath of other ethnic groups.
Inside the TPLF leadership, Eritreans are consolidating their power, as reported here. Currently, more than half of the TPLF leadership is Eritrean.
In the mean time, the Eritrean government itself is being infiltrated by Meles Zenawi’s agents who are undermining Isaias Afwerki’s administration with the intention of replacing him with a leader who is friendly with the Meles dictatorship or a puppet. Ethiopian Review will publish an investigative report on how TPLF agents are working to overthrow Eritrea’s president Isaias Afwerki. Stay tuned.
Meles Zenawi’s federal and local police opened fired on students in the western Ethiopian town of Nekempt to disperse a protest, according to VOA.
Students in Hossana, southern Ethiopia, and Addis Ababa are also staging protests demanding respect for their rights… [read more in Amharic here]
The outcome of the various reconciliation programs is the promotion of national unity and transformation, and the healing of a traumatized, divided, wounded and polarized people by searching the truth, accountability, justice, forgiveness and healing. However. the implementation strategy, tactic and process is not a one-size-fits-all that is easily understood across cultures, identities, nations and societies. Hence, different people, from different parts of the globe, having been affected in distinct ways, by different conflicts, have a different and peculiar understanding of the concept of reconciliation and how the process should be engaged to influence the outcome… [read more]
MOMBASA, Kenya, (Xinhua) — Twenty-six suspected Ethiopian refugees were arrested in Kenya’s coastal town of Mariakani on last Thursday, police said.
The refugees, who had hidden in a container on a truck, were arrested by police in Mariakani after they were dropped by the driver, Kaloleni district police chief Betty Gachago confirmed Friday.
They are said to be aliens with Somali-Ethiopian origin and were to be taken to Mombasa for an unknown mission.
Gachago said the suspects, mostly male adults or youths, were dropped from the container after it became apparent to the driver that they would not succeed in passing Mariakani.
This was attributed to heavy police presence at the road blocks leading to Mombasa. Kenyan authorities recently launched a campaign against illegal aliens, trying to search members and sympathizers of Al-Shabaab, which was blamed for a series of grenade attacks in Kenya.
An witness said, those aliens, who could not speak Kiswahili or English, were found by local villagers. The villagers suspected them to be Al-Shabaab militants, and informed the authorities immediately.
Gachago also confirmed that the suspects were charged with entering the country illegally, and they all pleaded guilty.
By Messay Kebede
Meles Zenawi’s blatant hatred of Ethiopia is a puzzle that Ethiopian intellectual circles have in vain tried to {www:decipher}. While some propose the suggestion that the hatred betrays his commitment to his Eritrean side, others consider it as an expression of his ethnic racism. Still others remain baffled, unable as they are to understand how he revels in denigrating the object of his obsession, namely, state power. One thing is sure, however, they all agree on the idea that his overall policy and its day-to-day implementation make sense only from the vantage point of a project to ransack Ethiopia’s resources and leave the rest to the vultures of ethnic secessionism. Harsh dictators have ruled Ethiopia in the past, but all considered themselves as Ethiopians. What is new with Meles is his anti-Ethiopian stand and his open contempt for whatever is Ethiopian.
Yet, one important element liable to explain Meles’s hatred has been with us for quite some time. I have in mind the history of his family, which is a history marred by collaboration with the occupying Italian forces. Notably, his grandfather not only worked for the Italians, but he was also an appointee and an office holder. What this means is that Meles had to deal very early with this family shame, which according to testimonies brought scorn and isolation on his family.
Now, there are two ways of dealing with this kind of existential {www:predicament}. There is the positive way according to which the person affected by family disgrace tries to behave in such a way as to repair the fault. In the case of Meles, this would mean showing a renewed and active commitment to Ethiopia. This is the path of expiation, which requires a serious self-examination and, mostly, a great amount of courage. All the available and trustworthy testimonies about Meles agree on the fact that courage was and is not one of his virtues.
There remains the second path, which is negative and consonant with the lack of courage. It is the path of denial, that is, the denial of betrayal. In order to accomplish this metamorphosis, Meles has to demean Ethiopia and devalue all its accomplishments. The more he belittles Ethiopia, the more he weakens the gravity of the family betrayal, and the less guilty and stained he feels. There was no betrayal since what his family supposedly betrayed was just a trash.
The path of denial nurtures hatred for the simple reason that hatred is a self-defense, a counter to the feeling of being despised by others. When you feel that other people despise you, you react by developing an intense dislike for them as a way of protecting yourself. If you hate them, you get rid of all scruples and sensitivity and adopt the principle that all means are good to hurt them.
This hatred partially explains Meles’s rapid rise to the leadership of the TPLF. Who else could best express and incarnate the rage of the TPLF against the Ethiopian state and army but Meles, who in addition to sharing with other members the resentment against the marginalization of Tigray, had on him the personal scar of national betrayal. While anger motivated most members, Meles had a stronger torment: he was humiliated and could not rest until he humiliated the source of his own dishonor.
Meles’s characterization of the Ethiopian national flag as nothing but a trash, his persistence in reducing Ethiopian history to mere conquest and subordination, his delight in debunking Ethiopian heroes, his ritual of jailing pro-Ethiopian leaders and releasing them after forcing them to sign degrading letters, etc., are all part of his strategy to humiliate Ethiopia in order to feel good about himself. Add to this that his long-standing hatred has been reignited by his electoral defeat in 2005, which defeat he was quick to interpret as another attempt to humiliate him. Because the defeat revived an old wound, his crackdown on the opposition and protesters was bound to be brutal.
This is, then, an appeal to Meles urging him to psychoanalyze himself so as to become aware of the deep wound that constantly perverts his policy and contradicts his dream of becoming a great leader. As we all know, in matters of spiritual illness, awareness of the cause is an efficient cure so that the second path, the path of expiation through great deeds is still open to him. No amount of power can erase his shame so long as Meles continues to hang his rehabilitation on the trashing of Ethiopia. For the more he lowers Ethiopia, the less gratifying becomes his dominion. This contradiction is the reason why he wants more power, even though the discredit of the nation cheapens his power. In other words, the cure lies, not in the mistreatment of Ethiopia, but in its promotion, that is, in the commitment to overcome his shame through good works.
(Prof. Messay Kebede can be reached at [email protected])
