NAIROBI, Kenya (Reuters) — Ogaden rebels warned of a looming “man-made famine” in Ethiopia’s remote area bordering Somalia and called on Monday for a U.N. investigation into accusations the government was blocking food aid to the region.
On Sunday, a New York Times report quoted Western diplomats and relief officials as saying Ethiopia’s government was blockading emergency food aid and choking off trade to Ogaden.
The Ogaden National Liberation Front, which is seeking more autonomy for its homeland but which Addis Ababa says it is a terrorist group bankrolled by Eritrea, called for a U.N. fact-finding mission.
“The ONLF wishes to affirm to the international community that if there is no immediate intervention in the humanitarian catastrophe unfolding in Ogaden, there will be a man-made famine created by the current regime of Meles Zenawi,” the ONLF said in a statement.
Ethiopian government officials were not immediately available to comment.
On Monday, the ONLF said Prime Minister Meles Zenawi’s administration was engaged in a systematic and deliberate campaign of violence against its people.
“These war crimes include diverting humanitarian assistance for use by the regime’s armed forces … deliberate burning of villages, arbitrary arrests, extrajudicial killings, torture, a blockade on food aid as well as other commercial goods and other forms of collective punishment,” the ONLF said in a statement.
“The United Nations bears a particular responsibility to investigate war crimes in Ogaden given recent reports that its humanitarian assistance is deliberately being diverted to armed forces and militias responsible for these war crimes,” it said.
The ONLF itself has been accused of carrying out atrocities, including an April raid on a Chinese-run oil field in which 74 people were killed and seven Chinese workers taken hostage.
They were later freed but in the wake of the attack, Meles announced a crackdown on the rebels.
It is difficult to get independent information out of the desolate region, which is ethnically Somali.
The U.S. House of Representatives’ Subcommittee on Africa has unanimously approved H.R. 2003 (Ethiopia Democracy and Accountability Act of 2007) today.
The bill, if passed by the full House and the Senate, would restrict, among other things, military assistance to the Meles regime unless the human rights condition in Ethiopia has improved.
The bill would also ban travel to the U.S. by the Meles regime officials who have authorized the use lethal force against peaceful demonstrators in Ethiopia. Such a travel ban directly affects Meles Zenawi himself who ordered his Federal Police and Agazi special forces to use deadly force against civilians.
Meles and his high-powered lobbyists had succeeded in derailing a similar bill in the U.S. Congress last year after it had passed the Subcommittee on Africa.
Congressman Donald Payne has re-scheduled mark-up of H.R. 2003 for July 18, 2007, at 10:15 a.m. We thank Congressman Payne for his commitment to freedom, democracy and human rights in Ethiopia.
On June 26, 2007 (the initial scheduled date for mark-up of H.R. 2003), Zenawi tried to pull the usual “fast one” on Congress by threatening to take the Kality political prisoners hostage. He effectively blackmailed the
members of the Committee by threatening to indefinitely jail the Qality prisoners should the bill be marked-up. At the time, Zenawi’s regime had requested a 2-week postponement of the mark-up so that a negotiated release of the Kality prisoners could be effected. The regime had calculated that it could derail the bill by removing it from the June 26 calendar.
Liar, Liar…
The Qality prisoners were supposed to have been released on or before July 9, 2007, the date set for their “sentencing” by Zenawi’s Kangaroo Kourt. That date, as usual was continued to July 16. With the rescheduled mark-up date, it appears crystal clear that both Payne and the numerous co-sponsors of the bill are no longer willing to put up with Zenawi’s “horsefeathers.”
Our Grassroots Advocacy Efforts Are Working!
Don’t Stop Calling! Don’t Stop Writing! Let’s Get One-Half of the Members of the House to Co-sponsor! There Has Been a Dramatic Increase in the Number of Co-sponsors This Week!
DO NOT UNDERESTIMATE ZENAWI’S DETERMINATION TO DEFEAT H.R. 2003!
The massive telephone call and letter writing campaign we started this week is WORKING. DON’T STOP CALLING, WRITING!
Zenawi will spend millions to defeat H.R. 2003, and deny the people of Ethiopia the opportunity to enjoy freedom, democracy and human rights. He has already spent countless millions to defeat this bill and influence
American policy makers. He has unlimited amount money to pay lobbyists and others to defeat H.R. 2003.
Supporters of H.R. 2003 do not have millions of dollars to lobby in support of the bill. The only things we have in our struggle for human rights and freedom in our homeland are: TRUTH, JUSTICE AND THE HOLY CAUSES OF LIBERTY AND HUMAN RIGHTS.
We are standing up against the giant lobbying firm of DLA Piper. As David has defeated Goliath, we shall also defeat the mighty lobbying firm of DLA Piper. But we must struggle in every way to win. Our grassroots efforts in Congress are working! But we can not afford to let up! Zenawi’s boys are working double overtime to defeat H.R. 2003.
We must work harder than ever to defeat the merchants of misery who will lobby as long as they are paid a hefty sum for their services. KEEP CALLING ALL OF THE MEMBERS OF THE HOUSE FOREIGN AFFAIRS COMMITTEE. ASK THEM TO CO-SPONSOR H.R. 2003. WORK CLOSELY WITH THE OFFICE OF YOUR CONGRESSIONAL REPRESENTATIVE AND GET THEM TO CO-SPONSOR THE BILL. ASK ALL COMMITTEE MEMBERS TO VOTE FOR H.R. 2003 IN COMMITTEE, AND RECOMMEND IT TO THE FLOOR FOR PASSAGE.
To Those Who Have Not Joined the Struggle for Human Rights in Ethiopia
If you are sitting on the fence thinking that your participation or contribution will not make a difference, or feel success in this legislation is unattainable, take heart in what President Abraham Lincoln said: “The probability that we may fail in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just.”
The cause of freedom, democracy and human rights in Ethiopia is a Just Cause. Embrace it for yourself! Uphold and preserve it for generations yet unborn! Treasure it forever!
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SUBCOMMITTEE MEETING NOTICE
Committee on Foreign Affairs
U.S. House of Representatives
Washington, D.C. 20515-0128
Donald M. Payne (NJ), Chairman
July 12, 2007
TO: MEMBERS OF THE COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
You are respectfully requested to attend an OPEN meeting of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, to be held
in Room 2172 of the Rayburn House Office Building, for the purpose of marking up the following
legislation:
DATE: Wednesday, July 18, 2007
TIME: 10:15 a.m.
MARKUP OF: H.R. 2003, Ethiopia Democracy and Accountability Act of 2007
NOTE: Measures may be added. By Direction of the Chairman
The Committee on Foreign Affairs seeks to make its facilities accessible to persons with disabilities. If you are in need of special accommodations, please call 202/225-5021 at least four business days in advance of the event, whenever practicable. Questions with regard to special accommodations in general (including availability of Committee materials in alternative formats and assistive listening devices) may be directed to the Committee.
WASHINGTON — One dramatic act sets Ethiopia apart from the array of countries with poor human rights records that have become United States counterterrorism allies since the September 11, 2001, attacks: With U.S. backing, it invaded a neighboring country and overthrew a Taliban-like Islamist movement.
The country that Ethiopia invaded is its neighbor to the east in the Horn of Africa, the disintegrated state of Somalia, where the Islamist movement, called the Union of Islamic Courts, had taken over much of the country and was suspected of harboring al Qaeda members. Ethiopia remains militarily embroiled there today.
In its latest human rights report for 2006, the U.S. State Department painted a grim picture of the Ethiopian government’s human rights record, one that has changed little over the years. “Although the constitution and law prohibit the use of torture and mistreatment,” the report says, “there were numerous credible reports that security officials often beat or mistreated detainees. Opposition political parties reported frequent and systematic abuse of their supporters by police and regional militias.”Nevertheless, Ethiopia received a huge increase in military assistance from the United States in the three years after 9/11 — from $928,000 in the period 1999-2001 to $16.7 million between 2002 and 2004. In fact, in 2005 — a year of contested Ethiopian parliamentary elections when government forces detained, beat and killed opposition members, journalists and intellectuals — Ethiopia received $7 million in Foreign Military Financing funding, an amount nearly equal to the FMF total from the previous two years combined.
While both governments deny a quid pro quo, the increased military funding came after the largely destitute African nation became an early member of the “coalition of the willing” and a close ally of the United States in the global war on terror. Influential Washington lobbyists, including a former majority leader of the House of Representatives, worked on behalf of the Ethiopian government to secure the funding.
In the three years after 9/11, Ethiopia received increased funding from the FMF program (to buy U.S.-made weapons and services); the International Military Education and Training program; and the Pentagon’s new post-9/11 Regional Defense Counterterrorism Fellowship Program, which trains foreign forces in counterterrorism techniques.
In addition to the Somalia invasion, the role Ethiopia has played in the war on terror includes tightening border security, outlawing and restricting financial practices used by suspected terrorists and becoming a key intelligence partner of the U.S. in the Horn of Africa. It was in December 2006 that, with U.S. support and backing, it sent troops into Somalia and overthrew the Union of Islamic Courts; the United States suspects the UIC of harboring members of al Qaeda, including suspects associated with the 1998 terrorist bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
In January 2007, in the midst of Ethiopia’s offensive against the Islamists in Somalia, the U.S. government allowed Ethiopia to complete a secret arms purchase from North Korea, The New York Times reported in April. The deal, a possible violation of United Nations restrictions imposed on North Korea in October 2006 because of the country’s unwillingness to cooperate with international nuclear weapons inspectors, appears to be another example of the difficult, and sometimes contradictory, compromises the Bush administration has had to make in the war on terror. The U.S. had been one of the most important sponsors of the North Korean sanctions at the United Nations.
Lobbyists to the rescue
The State Department’s continued negative human rights assessment could have threatened continued U.S. military assistance to Ethiopia under long-standing human rights restrictions enacted by Congress. But thanks to a concerted lobbying effort on behalf of the Ethiopian government and objections from the State Department, supporters of the Ethiopian government managed to stop a bill in Congress that would have cut off security assistance on human rights grounds.
The Ethiopia Freedom, Democracy and Human Rights Advancement Act, introduced by Rep. Christopher Smith, R-N.J., in June 2006, proposed to put limits on military aid to Ethiopia — with the exception of peacekeeping and antiterrorism programs — until the government released all political prisoners and provided fair and speedy trials to other prisoners held without charges.
The bill swiftly passed the House International Relations Committee with bipartisan support. That’s when both advocates and opponents of aid to Ethiopia became active.
The Ethiopian diaspora in the United States launched a letter and e-mail campaign to push the legislation in Congress. To counter that grass-roots effort, the Ethiopian government hired a well-established law and lobbying firm in Washington, DLA Piper, to quash the bill; DLA Piper says its work on Smith’s bill was only part of its $50,000 per month representation of the Ethiopian government.
The lobbying team included former House Republican majority leader Dick Armey and 12 other lobbyists. DLA Piper also produced and distributed a nine-page memo highlighting the Ethiopian government’s opposition to the bill.
In the memo, the lobbyists said that the bill compromised “the national security interests of both the United States and Ethiopia.” They also raised concerns about Somalia that Ethiopia and the United States shared. “The bill will prohibit critical security assistance to Ethiopia at a time when volatility in Somalia and instability in the Horn of Africa region more than ever demand that the U.S. make full use of the intelligence and defense cooperation of Ethiopia, its strongest and only democratic ally in the region.”
Mandatory lobbying disclosure records filed with the Department of Justice show that from April to August 2006, DLA Piper lobbyists talked on the phone and met numerous times with the staffs of the House International Relations Committee; Rep. Mike Honda (D-Calif.), chairman of the Congressional Ethiopia and Ethiopian American Caucus; the congressional affairs section of the Department of State; and Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), a member of the Congressional Black Caucus and 2008 presidential candidate.
The bill never made it to the House floor. The Bureau of African Affairs at the State Department objected to the bill as being “too punitive” and getting in the way of U.S. foreign policy, according to a source with knowledge of the negotiations surrounding the bill. “They did everything they could to sabotage it,” the source said.
A State Department spokesman, Steve Lauterbach, told the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) that the bill was “prescriptive” and “limiting” on how foreign aid to Ethiopia should be spent.
One of the few actions the U.S. took in light of the disclosed human right abuses was to stop the sale of additional Humvee military vehicles to Ethiopia after the Ethiopian government used some Humvees to crack down on civilian protesters in the riots that followed the May 2005 elections. The United States had sold 20 of the vehicles to Ethiopia for use in counterterrorism operations.
Military maneuvers
Ethiopian forces invaded Somalia after the Union of Islamic Courts forces began to threaten the fragile United Nations-backed transitional government based in the southern Somali city of Baidoa. The Islamists had been backed by Eritrea, Ethiopia’s longtime bitter rival with which it went to war in 1998 in a still-unresolved border dispute. In addition, internal Ethiopian insurgent groups were operating from the area controlled by the UIC, according to Terrence Lyons, a George Mason University scholar on the region.
But there was much more to the cooperation between the U.S. and Ethiopia.
Besides providing intelligence assistance and satellite imagery to Ethiopian forces, American AC-130 gunships were allowed to take off from an airstrip in eastern Ethiopia to target al Qaeda suspects fleeing with the retreating UIC forces, The New York Times reported in February 2007, quoting sources to whom it had granted anonymity. Ethiopian government officials strongly denied giving access to the gunships. American special forces units were also allowed to deploy to Kenya and Ethiopia, and from there they ventured into Somalia to try to confirm the identity of those killed in the AC-130 attacks, the newspaper reported.
The United States and the international community are providing diplomatic and economic support to the transitional Somali government, which is facing a guerrilla insurgency in the capital of Mogadishu despite Ethiopian forces having routed the UIC. More than 320,000 people have fled Mogadishu. “The transitional government had problems to begin with because it was connected to Ethiopia, the regional rival,” said Lyons, “and now has further problems because it’s connected to the United States.”
According to Lyons, the U.S. bombings in Somalia made the transitional government weaker. “From the global-war-on-terror framework and not from a peace-and-security-in-the-Horn-of-Africa framework, the attack made sense. Actually, it would make sense if they had in fact correctly targeted the [right] people,” he said (American officials told The New York Times that none of the top al Qaeda operatives in the Horn of Africa had been killed or captured since the invasion of Somalia began in December). “From the point of view of creating a stable government and building up a constituency … having a very powerful, very dramatic U.S. gunship come and attack did real damage to the transitional federal government.”
Cooperation between Ethiopia and the United States was not limited to the Somalia invasion. After weeks of outcry by local human rights groups, Ethiopian officials acknowledged that they had secretly detained 41 terrorism suspects from 17 countries who had been fighting with the Somali Islamists. It’s unclear whether Ethiopia acted unilaterally or in conjunction with the U.S. government in detaining the suspects, but American officials told the Times that its agents had interrogated the suspects in Ethiopian prisons. U.S. officials denied that the prisoners taken into Ethiopian custody were part of any “extraordinary rendition” program, under which terrorist suspects are detained outside of the rule of law and often transferred to third countries, many times those known to employ torture.
Back in Washington, human rights groups and the Ethiopian diaspora are continuing to press Congress on restricting military assistance to the Ethiopian government of Meles Zenawi. The United States has been “giving too much to Ethiopia and asking too little from it,” Lynn Fredriksson, Amnesty International’s advocacy director for Africa, said in an interview with ICIJ. In November 2006, she testified at a congressional hearing, arguing that “Ethiopia is an important U.S. ally, but that does not give us the liberty to ignore egregious rights violations.”
Advocates of Smith’s bill say that the legislation will have a better chance of succeeding under the new Democratic-controlled Congress. Smith’s bill was re-introduced on May 9 while a very similar version was introduced by Rep. Donald Payne, D-N.J., on April 23.
Meanwhile, $2 million of new FMF funding for Ethiopia was requested in 2007 by the Bush administration. The United States also made the country eligible to receive used weapons and equipment for free or at reduced prices under the Excess Defense Articles program.
Meles, the prime minister, is “the victorious-against-terrorists United States friend,” said Lyons. “He is not worried if the [U.S.] ambassador says we are concerned about prison conditions. He would just laugh at us.”
Assistant Database Editor Ben Welsh contributed this report.
Comments made on EthiopianReview.com are being scrutinized by one of the largest foreign investors in Ethiopia, Al-Amoudi, and his high-powered lawyers, for possible legal action against the magazine’s publisher. Al-Amoudi, A.K.A. the “Sheik”, has embraced the Tigray People Liberation Front (TPLF) economically, socially and politically. Because of this, TPLF-funded media have joined the onslaught against Ethiopian Review. These TPLF media say that no matter what our grievances against the ethnic oligarchy in Addis Ababa, we should always defend Ethiopia against groups such as the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF). This advice ignores the goals and history of the TPLF, which have always been the destruction of the Ethiopian nation state. For the last 33 years–17 years from Mount Dedebit and 16 years from the seat of power in Addis–TPLF has consistently been laying the basis for the possible disintegration of Ethiopia.
Was it not the TPLF that, under article 39 of its constitution, gave secessionist groups the right to secede from Ethiopia?
Was it not the TPLF that allowed the OPDO to massacre poor Amhara peasants in Harar and Arsi.
Was it not the TPLF that refused to ensure Ethiopia’s rights to sea ports?
The list is endless. Some who seem offended by Ethiopian Review’s stand choose to have amnesia about their advice to the terrorist regime of the TPLF soon after the May 2005 stolen election. The AIGA forum web site, on September 30, 2005, proudly posted a press release from the ”UNION of TIGRAYANS in NORTH AMERICA,” a sister organization of TPLF, in which Meles Zenawi was urged to take whatever action to reverse TPLF’s defeat at the polls. We all know what these actions were. As most Ethiopia watchers remember, the theme of the press release was summarized by the phrase “Decisive Measures” or “YEMAYADAGIM IRMIJJA” to be taken against the opposition. Why do they whine when others take “Decisive Measures”?
Now, TPLF and its supporters are shedding crocodile tears for the people killed in the Ogaden region. Six months ago, when they decided to invade Somalia, they had no sympathy for the civilians of Somalia or anyone in the “Somali Kilil”. None of the noisy Tigrayan and their opportunist allies media condemned the war crimes that were committed by the TPLF in Mogadishu. Let us not forget that even when it comes to the opposition camp, Ethiopian Review does not shy away from exposing corruption while the rest of us were paralyzed by “yelugnta” and fear.
Whatever you feel about Ethiopian Review’s coverage of events in Ethiopia, or the opinions posted on the web site, it is important to distinguish between the TPLF and the “Sheik’s” goal of suffocating anyone who dares expose their greed, corruption and human rights violations, versus those who consistently call things by their proper name, specifically Ethiopian Review.
The TPLF and Al-Amoudi never cared for Ethiopia and its honorable people. In the controversy between Ethiopian Review and the “Sheik”, it will not be difficult to show the connection between money, political favors, profits and human rights violations in Ethiopia. Is it a coincidence that DLA Piper represents the “Sheik” in his quest to silence Ethiopian Review, while the TPLF is represented by the same law firm to lobby against bills in the U.S. congress that call for respect of human rights in Ethiopia?
A couple of years ago it was Tensae radio that was the target of the TPLF’s legal intimidation. This time the target is Ethiopian Review, and the TPLF’s richest and strongest supporter is spearheading the campaign.
Beware of these political and economic alignments before you pass judgment on Ethiopian Review. If the campaign against Ethiopian Review succeeds, there is no telling which web site or political group will be the next target. Remember, money is no object to either Meles or the “Sheik”.
Most Ethiopians, particularly the hardline Nationalists, hold the perception that Eritrea is still conspiring with the woyanne regime against the interests of Ethiopia. They believe that even the bloody border conflict between the two countries is an attempt by their incumbent leaders to deceive the Ethiopian people and the international community and is designed to tighten their grip on power in their respective countries.
Evidences on the ground seemed to have validated this perception until the year 2000, as the leadership of both countries had been trying to consolidate power by eradicating those who oppose their rule.
However, Woyannes Economic sanction on Eritrea, the border conflict, and the events in the aftermath of the conflict, not to mention events in Somalia, has brought a major shift in the relationship between the two countries’ leaders.
With the withdrawal of Eritrea’s support to the TPLF regime, the leaders of TPLF have been concerned with their relations with Eritrea, hoping that it work out in the end, despite the firmness of the Eritrean position.
This has led the TPLF to switch their strategies between normalizing relations with Eritrea with or without the EPLF, while continuing to assert themselves militarily to consolidate power in Ethiopia and avert any possible danger from Eritrea or elsewhere.
This, in my view, is contrary to the dominant perception among most Ethiopians that views both governments as working together, and needs to be changed if things on the ground are to change. I believe that after the last May election in Ethiopia, strategizing opposition struggle demands the opposition to change its unwarranted perception and think in terms of forming alliance with Eritrea that could work to the long-term interests of both countries.
The writer believes that a negotiated alliance of opposition with Eritrea is a key in the struggle for democracy in Ethiopia and peace and prosperity in Eritrea. This requires a rethinking of existing relations with Eritrea.
The TPLF Dominance in Today’s Ethiopia
There is no doubting to the fact that the TPLF established itself as a major force to reckon with, both as a national and regional force, in the eastern part of Africa. How did this happen? What contributions did domestic and international factors made to this reality? I do not dare to delve into the series of historical events that led to this event, as it is not the main topic of this article. But, the fact is TPLF emerged and updated itself as a regional force from its gorilla status. Existing trends are indicative of this dominance.
The TPLF has managed to establish its own puppet government in Ethiopia for the last sixteen years and is determined to continue to do so in the absence of any major unfragmented opposition.
The woyannes are now almost in control of all the national and regional institutions of social, economic and political structures. The TPLF cadres are in control of all key government posts in Ethiopia and have well established themselves in the federal government. They have political cadres in all the regions to watch regional colleagues behave exactly as they are programmed. They do this with the help of a well-crafted incentive system which makes regional bosses bow to the will of their TPLF masters in Addis Ababa.
The TPLF policy of patronization is key to its dominance in Ethiopia. The idea of getting political support in exchange for money or other benefits is not seen as corruption by the regime. The creation of patrons who are willing to support the regime politically in exchange for resources is a means to implement the revolutionary democracy of Zenawi in all the regions of the country. Many are willing to be patronized because of poverty in Ethiopia.
The woyannes have made good neighbors at a huge cost of Ethiopia and Ethiopians. The TPLF policy with Ethiopia’s neighbors has always been one of “let us be at peace what ever it takes.” This is primarily aimed at denying any possible safe haven to potential armed opposition in neighboring countries. The so-called border commissions and border trade relations with Kenya and the Sudan are designed to serve this objective. Obviously, this is something a nationalist democratic government is not willing and able to do.
A Weak opposition: why?
Despite the TPLF hegemony in Ethiopia, the opposition remains very weak and fragmented lacking unity of purpose. It has been made so by the well-crafted policies and deceptive diplomatic efforts of the regime.
The absence of leveled political playing field is one of the many causes contributing to the weakness of the opposition in Ethiopia. The Regime’s game of political opposition is based on the idea of loyal political opposition in which opposition political parties are expected to think and act within the framework of the woyanne constitution. Any independent thinking outside this framework is treated as being a traitor and criminal.
The regime uses elimination policy to kill the opposition leaders. In fact, intimidating, imprisoning and killing leaders who dissented is a major strategy for weakening the opposition. Capable leaders who take initiative to enlighten and organize people are always marked for detention and torture. Many leaders suffered this way even long before kinijit leaders come into the political scene.
Weakening the opposition is also meant to legitimize TPLF rule in the pretext of a weak opposition that cannot run the country even if it is given the chance to take power. Meles and his colleagues has always used this phrase to misinform their friends abroad, as if they are the ones who got certification from the Gorilla school in the jungle making them the best leaders of the nation playing by the rules they learned in the jungle.
I also believe that the opposition weaked itself. The Ethiopian opposition forces allowed themselves to be divided by their own making and by the enemy tactics. Most opposition members even today failed to agree on a common national agenda. Even worse, they let their differences remain even when their people are suffering from dictatorship. Their internal weakness opened the door for their common enemy to further subdivide them. They are weak because they still fail to realize the fact that it is their unity the enemy fears most, not how many men they have on the ground or how many supporters they have in the west. The call for meaningful unity is still unheaded or arrogantly ignored.
Misperception on Current Ethiopia-Eritrea Relations: Reality check?
Some Ethiopians still think that woyanne and the eritrean leadership are still working together and conspiring against the Ethiopian people. I, a strong nationalist, am of the view that this requires some degree of reality check.
I believe that there is a strategic gap between TPLF and EPLF since the border conflict broke or probably dating back to the times of the gorilla struggle. Contrary to popular perception, the events of at least the past six years indicate the strategic gap between woyanne leadership and the eritrean leadership. I call it strategic because it is related to the long-term interests of woyanne and Eritrea.
From the Eritrean side, while this had been the case up until the border conflict in the year 2000, it is no longer so. The events following the conflict severed the strategic link between the two dominant powers in the eastern part of Africa. The conflict led to massive human, material and financial losses on both sides. The bloody war cancelled the generation long ties and grew antagonism between the two powers.
From the TPLF side, though, all hope is not lost. TPLF leaders still see their future with Eritrea. Their long-term strategic goal of achieving independence for their tigray region, they think, can best be achieved with the help of Eritrea. The TPLF policy on Eritrea is one of tolerance and defensiveness until recently. Even, the strong stand of the eritrean leadership on tigray secession did not seem to have deterred them from seeking strategic alliance with Eritreans, to say the least. The normalization agenda and mediation through a third party are all tactics for restoring relations with Eritrea as a means to a strategic goal of full independence.
The Eritrean leaders have made it clear that they do not want to see independent Tigray, lest it would mean a lot of things including insecurity for the port of Assab and a threat for the territorial integrity of Eritrea.
However, the TPLF leadership seemed to have lost patience in recent times due to the perceived way the Eritreans act despite the former tolerance towards Eritrea. As a result, the language and rhetoric of normalization seem to have given way to a “Regime change” in Asmara that would enable them to continue with the strategic relationship with the future Eritrea without the EPLF. The effort of some TPLF cadres to work together with some Eritreans, both inside and outside, is a strategy to isolate the leadership in Asmara from its people. As such, it is not a sign of “working together” at the leadership level as most Ethiopians would like to believe. Whether the independence and regime change agendas are feasible options for TPLF leaders, only time will tell.
The Derg Era: Woyanne Alliance with the EPLF
Who could have thought alliance with Eritrea, at a time when all Ethiopians believed Eritrea did not have to break away from Ethiopia, is a key strategy for defeating the Derg Regime, a common enemy, and gain control of power in Ethiopian state? Eritrean strategy does not surprise me because it is precisely this strategy that could secure their independence, that without a proxy control of power in Ethiopia, secession would be practically impossible.
What I think a creative strategy is the one TPLF used to snatch power from the Ethiopian state that has long been the vangard of the nation of Ethiopia. I do not want to mention the stupidity of Derg leaders in acting rigidly, not creatively, to the eritrean question. The woyannes of Tigray thought the unthinkable and did the unexpected to achieve their objective of controlling power in Ethiopia. I believe this gives a lesson to opposition in Ethiopia in terms of strategizing opposition struggle. I believe the kinijit leadership in the USA has made a smart move along those lines which needs to be appreciated and build up on in the future.
The TPLF Aspiration of Independence for its Tigray Region
Despite its grip on power in the state and government of Ethiopia, TPLF leaders has not so far abandoned their paranoid and unrealistic ambition of independent Tigray. They did not even change their TPLF name while forcing other member parties in Ethiopia to change theirs.
Zenawi and his friends are still desirous of librating Tigray from the mainstream Ethiopian land. They made all regional states in Ethiopia to have their own constitution and flags. Their own constitution in Tigray indicates that Tigray people will remain in the unitary government as long as they retain their dominance in Ethiopian politics and state in the name of peace and democracy. Zenawi hinted this in his recent “secret document” circulated among the TPLF leaders in which he spoke of “self-reliant Tigray in the new millennium.”
They have incorporated this aspiration in the Ethiopian constitution and are waiting for their first opportunity, which hasn’t come yet. They see the independence struggle of the OLF and ONLF as a premature move that cannot be granted at this time. To me, the article that allows independence from Ethiopia is the “ let us secede together when TPLF want it” agenda that is planned to be realized after the homework is done: fuelling, instigating and masterminding hatred, tension and conflict among the Ethiopian nations and nationalities to force them decide in favor of secession.
Fortunately, this move has suffered a major setback. The Eritreans has taken a firm stand on the independence of tigray. The Eritreans has already made it clear that they do not like to see independent tigray, and that they want to work with a unitary government of any sort short of woyanne in Ethiopia. The problem they have is the mistrust towards Ethiopian people; especially conservative Ethiopians who does not want to accept the reality of independent and UN accepted country. Sorry, but that is the reality and the bitter pill we need to swallow. Historical mistakes on the part of Ethiopian leaders created this reality. We cannot correct this, however wishful we might be. We can only correct it through peaceful means through dialogue and mutual acceptance and thrust, which will be the core foreign policy agenda of the future government and state of Ethiopia.
The So-called Peaceful Struggle: What did it achieve?
It has always been the deceptive tactic of the TPLF that opposition politics is always framed in the name of peaceful struggle which aims at blocking any thinking and effort towards alternative form of struggling in Ethiopia. The peaceful struggle framework is still the overriding agenda and helped the regime to intimidate and chain opposition hands even when TPLF wants to strike supporters of opposition. Woyannes do not like to see any gun or a resort to gun on any one, especially in opposition hands. When that occurs, they are ready to negotiate. That is exactly where their weakness lies and that is when they start to shake to their knees, and ready to negotiate.
We should ask ourselves, where did the so-called “ Peaceful struggle” led us? The big question that the peaceful struggle has so far failed to answer is, can a peaceful struggle bring about democratic governance in a country characterized by 3000 years of tyranny?
The peaceful struggle has only led to the massacre of innocent civilians including the future leaders of Ethiopia who were not willing to bow to the idol of hatred and revolutionary democracy in Ethiopia. It led to the mass arrests and torture of Ethiopians. It misled our fathers and brothers who are well trained to serve their beloved people and country. It seduced them to work with a schizophrenic enemy to their suffering.
The events of the May 2005 election teaches us that we need to open our eyes to alternative forms of struggling without which the peaceful struggle does not bring the results we want in the shortest possible time.
So, the big question remains, are we going to repeat the mistakes of the past and let woyanne cheat us into believing that there is still a chance for a peaceful transition of power in Ethiopia through democratic means? If we do that, history would prove us wrong. We cannot topple a tyrant through peaceful, democratic means alone.
Room for a Negotiated Agreement
As things stand now, I do not agree with the conspiracy theory when it comes to relations with Woyanne and Eritrea. But, I do believe that Ethiopia and Eritrea need each other to fully develop in a short time.
I still believe that there is room for negotiation between Ethiopian opposition and the leadership in Eritrea for the common good. Issues like economic relations or benefits, access to the sea, normalization of relations, etc can be made if there is a political will on both sides. Both Ethiopians and Eritreans should cease to see each other as enemies. We were on the same boat and we can lead Africans together on the sustainable path of development. This is what the 21stcentury demands from both of us. The Ethiopian opposition should have this vision and attitude. So do Eritreans and their allies.
The perception that woyannes and the EPLF are on the same boat emanates from the conspiracy theory. In my opinion, this is not the case any longer. That is why we need to work together with our eritrean brothers to eradicate the woyanne monster from east Africa to avoid the threat to our survival. We should take lessons from its madness and brutality that is being committed against innocent Somali civilians in the name of fighting Islamists and terrorists. If we fail to act now, there is no guarantee why the same thing cannot be applied on the peoples of Ethiopia and Eritrea tomorrow.
Conclusion
The Bible tells us that when God wants to rescue His people, He raises warriors to challenge and defeat the enemy of the people. It is time for Ethiopians, irrespective of whether we are Protestants, Catholics or orthodox, Moslems, to pray to God so that men of Valor like Gedion and Samson would raise their hands against the enemy.
When the enemy is merciless, so does the wrath of God. The Woyannes have repeatedly shown their unforgiving attitude even when they have every thing under their control. Their sub-conscious is sick and wounded, and they refused to get treated and healed. Their wound and hatred is still fresh in their mind since their time in the bush. They persistently refused to forgive the Ethiopian people, let alone those who wronged them. That is why we need to rise up in unison to pray and challenge the politics of hatred and exclusion before it destroys all of us.
At the same time, it is important to seek peace and promote reconciliation with Eritrea and its allies, both at opposition level and at population level, for the common good of both Ethiopians and Eritreans. I believe that it is only through peaceful means that one can get what it wants from the other. There is a lot that we can exchange between the two countries if there is a way to communicate and build trust among our peoples and nations. This is God’s way of making peace and reconciliation that has long inflicted both of us. This is the way to mutual blessing and peace. This is God’s will for the peoples of Ethiopia and Eritrea.
