I was proud. I was walking tall. I was happy to see my friend. That day the usual two minutes greetings took forever. I was in a hurry to share the source of my joy and pride. If only I knew how wrong I was. I announced that I was on my way back from a celebration. She asked what about. And I was proud to say the commemoration of the battle of Adwa. You know where the African beat a European power, that Adwa, I said.
She just looked at me. She sighed ‘I see’ and was unmoved by my news. Well I was surprised. That is not the response I expected. I thought she might not be aware of the significance of the Victory at Adwa. There was no question that she must have heard of Adwa. I doubt there is an Ethiopian that is not familiar with the battle of Adwa and its significance in our history. I felt I should enlighten her. Give her a piece of my mind, scold her a little for not paying attention to her history and explain the glorious battle at Adwa.
She hushed me. She looked at me with pity and mocked me with her cruel laugh. She said ‘I know all about Adwa, my question to you is what business have you got celebrating other people’s accomplishment?’ What a curious turn of events I found my self in? I did not understand her statement. ‘What is that supposed to mean?’ I shouted. ‘Aren’t the Adwa heroes my ancestors? I have every right to celebrate their victory! What you talking about?’ I retorted.
Well she said ‘I am not against celebration as such but wouldn’t you say Adwa deserves more than speeches and a dinner? To me that is not commemorating the true meaning of Adwa.’ She went on ‘my dear brother our ancestors fought against injustice and refused to submit. When all those around them were falling one after another they stood tall and said No! Those that wanted to subjugate them were stronger but that did not deter our ancestors from doing what was just and right. They knew it was not about wining or losing but rather doing what is necessary. They knew there was a possibility of defeat but the certainty of being a slave was worse than dying.’
She was not done with me. She asked ‘what have you done lately to continue the spirit of Adwa? What makes you think you deserve to mention our bare feet heroes and heroines? Just because you are dressed in your Shemma and carrying the green yellow and red somehow makes you an Ethiopian in the same league as our brave parents? I am sorry to point out to you my dear brother the only thing you got in common with them is your holiday cloth and the flag, fake! Imposter!’ she screamed. I was deflated. I was unmasked. We were both quiet. Myself due to shame and her due to anger.
She was relentless. She continued ‘let me tell you who should commemorate Adwa. Abuna Petros that is who. He internalized the lesson of Adwa. He practiced the spirit of Adwa. He accompanied the King and his army to Maichew. He witnessed the bravery of his people. Upon his return from that slaughter by the invading army Abuna Petros resolved never to rest until the fascist army is driven out of our motherland. This is what he told his fascist interrogators when asked to comply with the order to submit:
“The cry of my country men who died due to your nerve-gas and terror machinery will never allow my conscious to accept your ultimatum. How can I see my God if I give a blind eye to such a crime.”
Our country has produced a lot of Abuna Petroses. We don’t have to go far to find brave Ethiopians that have been imbued with that rare gift of selflessness and courage in the face of overwhelming odds. Tilahune Gizaw of Haile Sellasie University is one. He chose to stand with the majority of his people instead of the few who held power. Assefa Maru of Ethiopian Teachers Association is our modern Adwa. Dr Asrat Woldeyes will never be forgotten by his people for the strength of his resolve and his stubborn refusal to give in to his tormentors. How could I not mention our present day sunshine, our precious leader, Judge /Chairman Bertukan Mideksa. She has been in Woyane prison for four hundred thirty three days, four hours and forty-two minutes as we talk. Her crime is emulating Abuna Petros and saying no to injustice.’
‘You know what’ my dear sister continued ‘the freedom marchers of Selma, Alabama have every right to commemorate Adwa. On March 7th. 1965 six hundred brave souls decided to march from Selma to Montgomery Alabama in support of the ‘voting rights act.’ They were attacked with clubs and tear gas by Alabama State police and returned back. They tried again on March 9th and they were repelled back. On the third try on March 21st. they made it to Montgomery. It was a 54 miles (87KM) journey and it took five days. That is the spirit of Adwa. Relentless, fearless, righteous and proud. Six hundred people of Selma believed in their cause and changed history. Tell me my brother what did you learn from the festivities?’
I was tongue-tied. I am finding out that I was devoid of personal responsibility. I was using the bravery of my ancestors to hide my cowardice. I am always the first to crow about the three thousand years history of my people and the fierce independent spirit interwoven in my DNA. I wave the Ethiopian flag every chance I get. I have the flag hanging from the rear view mirror in my car, a bumper sticker for all following me to see and another one in my home. I eat Injera every day of the week and consume Starbucks coffee from Yirga Chefe. I listen to Teddy Afro and watch Shemsu and Meskerem on You tube. I thought I was a good Ethiopian. My sister was confusing the hell out of me. I shouted ‘what do you want from me?’ ‘Why are you doing this to me?’ I pleaded.
‘Honesty my brother’ she said. ‘Let us stop playing games. Let us all stop pretending. It is shameful to stand in other peoples shadow and take credit for their action. It is time you take a good look at yourself. It is time you grow up my brother. I have been watching you and I don’t like what I see. I notice that you and your friends are always in the forefront to celebrate other peoples struggle and victory. That is not fair to those that sacrificed. Mentioning Adwa, quoting MLK or honouring Nelson Mandela is not a substitute for following their foot steps.’
She was on fire. She was furious. ‘Tell me’ she said ‘ I have heard that someone took it upon himself to organize a ‘sister city’ agreement between your town and Bahir Dar and considering that the people of Bahir Dar have no say in how their city is run how come you haven’t done something about it? How come you allow individuals to make decision on your behalf? You live in a democratic system where you can demand accountability and transparency in the decision making process. Why are you quiet when your right is being trampled on? Oh I see so many of your friends are upset; they are seething with anger but behind closed doors. You see Abuna Petros was angry but not in hiding. The citizens of Selma were angry but not in secret. What I would like to see is your two faces merging into one. The brave Ethiopian and the subservient Ethiopian should meet in Adwa. The pretender and the honest should have an honest conversation in that murky brain of yours. I wish you luck my spineless brother!’
She left me shell shocked. She left me to contemplate my humiliation. Thus I sat down and decided to have that conversation she mentioned with myself. What I found out is not something to write about. I thought of the little more than five hundred cadres bullying 80 million people and compared that to the six hundred Selmans. I imagined Abuna Petros alone standing in front of the firing squad defiant to the end. I remembered Dr. Asrat looking at death but serene and UN afraid. The picture of Ras Abebe Aregay relentless harassment of the fascist forces played in my head. The bravery of Abraham Deboch and Moges Asgedom tickled my brain. Oh god what has become of me? Why am I self-destructive? Where did I get this idea that I can outsource the struggle for freedom?
[the Woyanne regime in] Ethiopia criticized a British official’s call for the release of an Ethiopian opposition leader, saying it displayed “warped symptoms of a neo-colonial disposition.”
In a statement published on March 6 in the Addis Ababa-based Reporter newspaper, British Minister of State for Africa Baroness Glenys Kinnock said Ethiopia’s imprisonment of opposition leader Birtukan Mideksa “undermines” trust in the Horn of Africa country. A copy of the statement was e-mailed to Bloomberg today by the British embassy in Addis Ababa.
Kinnock also urged Meles Zenawi’s government to probe “serious allegations” that the distribution of foreign aid in Ethiopia was being used to win votes for the ruling party in elections scheduled for May 23.
Ethiopia’s government was surprised at “the temerity with which she took on the role of a mission-school mistress whose task it is to supervise the natives lest they slide back to their ‘primitive’ ways,” Ethiopia’s government’s said in a statement in the state-owned Ethiopian Herald yesterday.
Ethiopia’s opposition has claimed that it faces continued harassment and intimidation in the run-up to this year’s vote.
On March 2, an opposition candidate for parliament was stabbed to death in a restaurant he owned in northern Ethiopia. Earlier that week, a second opposition candidate was hospitalized after being beaten.
Opposition leaders have said Meles’ ruling party was behind both attacks. The government has denied the claims, saying both men were attacked by people who were not ruling party members.
Protesters Killed
Security forces loyal to Meles killed 193 protesters in unrest following a disputed 2005 vote and jailed many leading opposition leaders, including Birtukan. European Union observers concluded that the election fell short of international standards and was marred by irregularities in vote-counting.
Ethiopia also accused Kinnock of being “an ardent champion” of Eritrea, which fought a 1998-2000 border war with Ethiopia.
In addition, it said Kinnock had colluded with the 2005 EU electoral observer mission in an effort to foment a “revolution” to overthrow Meles’ government.
The dispute with Kinnock comes as Ethiopia’s Supreme Court today ordered four newspaper publishers that were closed after the 2005 ballot to pay fines imposed as a result of the treason trials that followed that year’s election.
The U.K. granted Ethiopia 220 million pounds ($333.2 million) in aid in the current fiscal year, according to the British embassy in Addis Ababa.
If democracy is a government of the people, kleptocracy is a government of thieves.
Last week the secret world of Meles Zenawi’s kleptocracy, famine aid-sharking and money laundering in Ethiopia was exposed by two of his former comrades-in-arms in the Tigrean People’s Liberation Front (TPLF). Gebremedhin Araya, a former treasurer and TPLF co-founder Dr. Aregawi Berhe, detailed the scam used to swindle, hustle and con millions of dollars from international famine relief organizations in the mid-1980s. The two former top leaders accused the TPLF leadership, including Zenawi, for taking tens of millions of dollars earmarked for famine relief in the Tigrai region to buy weapons and enrich themselves. Gebremedhin said he personally handed cash payments and checks in the hundreds of thousands of dollars to Zenawi and Sebhat Nega, the top two TPLF leaders who controlled the cash flow of the organization. Although Gebremedhin was the treasurer, he said he was not privileged to know what happened to the money after he delivered it to Zenawi or Nega. The incriminatory evidence, (including a candid photograph of TPLF cadres counting and recording wads of cash handed over to them by a foreign aid worker from a large satchel on the floor), is shocking as it is damning and irrefutable.
In 1984/5, at the height of the catastrophic famine, nearly a quarter of a billion dollars were raised internationally for famine relief in Ethiopia. Michael Buerek of the BBC who visited the Tigrai region at the height of the famine in 1984 described the situation as “a biblical famine in the 20th Century” and “the closest thing to hell on Earth” (See video[1]).
According to the available evidence, normal delivery of emergency humanitarian aid to the Tigrai region in 1984 was virtually impossible because of rebel activity in the outlying areas and bombardment by the military junta. The road normally used to deliver aid supplies to the Tigrai region from the capital had become unusable because of rebel military activity. The various international famine relief non-governmental organizations (NGOs) had to find alternate routes to quickly deliver relief aid to victims in rebel-controlled areas. Many of these NGOs eventually set up shop in eastern Sudan close to the Tigrai border in an attempt to deliver aid quickly. The large concentration of NGOs and the publicity surrounding the enormous fundraising efforts by various international celebrities for Ethiopian famine victims caught the attention of the TPLF leaders who saw a lucrative business opportunity for themselves delivering relief aid to victims in areas their controlled.
According to the former TPLF leaders, Zenawi and his top cadres hatched out and successfully executed a scam to use a front “humanitarian relief” organization called “Relief Society of Tigrai” (REST) for aid delivery. The TPLF leaders managed to “convince” the various NGOs operating out of the Sudan that REST is a genuine charity organization completely separate from the TPLF, the declared military wing. In fact, REST was the other face of the TPLF coin.
The evidence further indicates that to magnify the severity and extremity of the famine situation for the NGOs, the TPLF leaders ordered the exodus of large numbers of victims into the Sudan creating a mushroom of refugee settlements in the Sudanese border areas overnight. Using different techniques and methods, the TPLF leaders stage managed an elaborate marketing “drama” for the NGOs to buy and deliver aid to the large famine-stricken population inside Tigrai. This was done principally by organizing a small group of their most trusted and inner circle members to pose as “grain merchants” and solicit business from the NGOs.
The deception games, or more accurately the famine aid-sharking scheme, played on the Western NGOs were varied. At the onset of the scam, they used a three-staged process. In stage one, one group of TPLF/REST officials masquerading as legitimate grain merchants would approach the myriad NGOs and offer to sell them substantial quantities of grain for quick delivery to the famine victims. At the time, the TPLF had acquired and stashed in secret warehouses grains from various sources, including NGOs, for use by its fighters. These secretly stashed grain stockpiles were in fact being offered for sale to the NGOs. The TPLF/REST “grain dealers” would complete the sale transaction and return back to their hideouts with the payment from the NGOs. Gebremedhin said he delivered to Zenawi and Sebhat Nega the cash and check payments from the NGOs. He described the scam with mind-numbing simplicity:
I was given clothes to make me look like a Muslim merchant. The NGOs don’t know me because my name was Mohammed. It was a trick assigned (created) by the top leaders for the NGOs. I received a great amount of money from the NGOs and the money was automatically taken by (the TPLF) leaders. The money, much of it, the leaders put it in their accounts in Western Europe. Some of it was used to buy weapons. The people did not get half a kilogram of maize.
Once the purchase was made another group of TPLF/REST operatives would take over the responsibility of delivering the relief aid inside Tigrai. In the second stage, TPLF/REST officials would facilitate spot checks of grain stockpiles in their own secret warehouses. But the warehouses were tricked out. Gebremedhin said, “if you go there, half of the warehouse was stacked full of sand.” The NGO representatives would perform visual inspections of the stockpiles, give their approval and cross back into the Sudan to conduct additional grain purchases.
In the third stage, the same or different group of TPLF/REST officials would go back to the NGOs and make a pitch for additional sales of grains for delivery in a different part of Tigrai. These offers did not involve any new or fresh supplies of grain. Instead, stockpiles of grain already in secret storage facilities in various locations throughout Tigrai were trucked around to new locations, giving the appearance to the NGOs that fresh supplies of grain were being bought in and delivered. Since the aid workers have no means of independently verifying the grain that is being shuttled from one location to another from completely fresh shipments, they would perform cursory inspections and make payments. In that manner, TPLF/REST was able to sell and resell multiple times the same previously acquired stockpile of grain (and sand) to the NGOs generating millions of dollars in revenue. TPLF/REST used various ways and techniques in 1985 to maximize its business transactions with the NGOs and in selling grain shipments sent by donor countries.
Dr. Aregawi told the BBC that of the $100 million that went through TPLF hands at the time, $95 million was diverted for weapons purchases and other purposes not related to famine relief. He stated that the TPLF stage-managed “dramas” to “fool the aid workers”. A recent BBC investigation identified a 1985 official CIA document which concluded: “Some funds that insurgent organizations are raising for relief operations, as a result of increased world publicity, are almost certainly being diverted for military purposes.” Robert Houdek, a senior US diplomat in Ethiopia in the late 1980s, was quoted by the BBC saying that TPLF members at the time told him that some aid money was used to buy weapons. An aid worker named Max Peberdy stated that he had personally delivered to TPLF/REST officials $500,000 in Ethiopian currency to purchase grain.
The prima facie evidence of massive relief aid diversion by the TPLF is compelling and damning[2]. Those accused of involvement in the wrongdoing have dismissed the evidence as “rubbish”; they have not called for a full fact-finding inquiry to clear their names of such serious and grave charges. Until such inquiry takes place, the evidence of aid-sharking and theft stands unchallenged and unrefuted. To be sure, very little of the famine aid money in 1984/5 channeled through the TPLF went to help the hungry, poor and dying in Tigrai. Nearly all of it (95%) was diverted for military and other purposes. Bob Geldof who organized Live Aid/Band Aid in 1984 collecting tens of millions of dollars in donations recently threatened, “If there is any money missing I will sue the Ethiopian government.”
The systematic plunder and pillage of Ethiopia over the past two decades can now be put in clear perspective.
We now know:
Why Ethiopia’s only outlet to the sea was signed, sealed and delivered, overriding contrary advice by international diplomats;
What went down in the deal to hand over Badme to the aggressor in binding international arbitration following the aggressor’s decisive military defeat at the cost of over 80,000 Ethiopian lives;
How the May 2005 elections were stolen in broad daylight;
Why the missing millions of dollars worth of gold bars from the national bank in 2007 are still missing; Of the secret sweetheart deals that turned over the country’s gold mines to cronies at bargain-basement prices;
How state enterprises were given out to family, friends and supporters for pittance in the name of privatization;
About the secret deals made to demarcate the border between the Sudan and Ethiopia;
About the fire sale of millions of hectares of farmland to foreign “investors”;
About the no-collateral bank loans in the millions of dollars to friends and supporters and the 1.7 billion birr ($141.6 million) loan to Messebo Cement Factory, one of the many companies owned by the “Endowment Fund for the Rehabilitation of Tigray” (EFFORT a/k/a Zenawi, Inc.,), which sent the Development Bank of Ethiopia careening into insolvency);
About the monopoly of the cement business by Zenawi, Inc./EFFORT;
About the multi-million dollar child-trafficking business in the name of inter-country adoptions;
About the secret deals to sole source the construction of the Gilgel Gibe dams to an Italian company;
About the “genocide and interhamwe” scare talk;
About the corrupt procurement and contracting practices that direct state business to cronies, supporters and friends;
About the rampant nepotism, patronage and clientelism;
Why draconian “laws” we enacted to criminalize NGOs and the independent press; and on and on and on.
We know because we now have the blueprint for the perfect kleptocracy!
One must grudgingly admire these con men for their sheer audacity, genius and creativity in ripping off so much money from the charities in the mid-1980s (and for the last two decades from the Ethiopian people). Even Ali Baba and his 40 thieves could not have pulled off such a brilliant scheme to sell and re-sell the NGOs the same sand as grain over and over again. Even Hermes, the Greek god of thieves, would not have been able to come up with such an exquisitely perfect plan to hoodwink and bamboozle gullible NGOs of millions of dollars. They truly deserve the title, “A New Breed of African Thieves”.
The facts are plain to see. We know now that these thieves did not stand for the people of Tigrai at the critical hour in 1984. They sure as hell do not stand for the people of Ethiopia today. They stand for themselves and no one else. They will try to cling to power by creating enmity and polarization between the people of Tigrai and their brothers and sister in the rest of Ethiopia. That is the ONLY way they can stay in power. As an old Ethiopian saying teaches, disorder and chaos creates ideal conditions for thieves (Gir gir le leba yimechal.) The Ethiopian opposition today is in a state of gir-gir (disarray, discord and mess). When the core of opposition political activity revolves around ethnic bashing, finger pointing and finger wagging, the ideal conditions for thievery are created and maintained. But there is a way to deal with Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves:
Close ranks regardless of ethnicity or regionality; reaffirm our basic humanity in our Ethiopianity; renounce our old enmity; openly declare our steadfast unity and trumpet our Ethiopian nationality at every opportunity.
When we have done these things, we will have freed ourselves from domination and rule by a kleptocracy — a government of thieves, by thieves, for thieves!
We should all thank BBC’s Africa Editor, Martin Plaut, for his extraordinary investigative work in this affair.
FIGHT CRIME. SAY “NO” TO THIEVES!
[1] See 1984 BBC video at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8321043.stm
[2] See details of the scam in excerpts from Gebremedin Araya’s Amharic manuscript: Pt. 1, http://www.ethiomedia.com/course/telat_ena_ethiopia.pdf
Pt. 2, http://www.ethiomedia.com/course/tplf_crimes_against_humanity.pdf
Alemayehu G. Mariam, is a professor of political science at California State University, San Bernardino, and an attorney based in Los Angeles. He writes a regular blog on The Huffington Post, and his commentaries appear regularly on pambazuka.org, allafrica.com, newamericamedia.org and other sites.
ADDIS ABABA (Bloomberg) — News broadcasts to Ethiopia by the Voice of America’s Amharic-language service are being electronically jammed, the Washington-based broadcaster said.
“VOA deplores jamming and any other form of censorship of the media,” Danforth Austin, director of the U.S. government-owned news service, said in a statement read to Bloomberg News by spokesman David Borgida. The broadcaster hasn’t been able to identify the source of the interference, Borgida said.
Shimeles Kemal, a spokesman for the Ethiopian government Woyanne regime in Ethiopia, said it was not responsible.
“Ethiopia has a constitution which outlaws any act by any official organ to restrict the dissemination of broadcast material from abroad,” he said in an interview today from the capital, Addis Ababa.
VOA along with Germany’s Deutsche Welle provide the only two news broadcasts in the local language not controlled by Ethiopia’s government or Prime Minister Meles Zenawi’s Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front.
Ethiopian opposition parties have complained that the government is using the media for pro-Meles propaganda ahead of elections on May 23. In December, the U.S. Embassy in Ethiopia said it was concerned that private media in the country face alleged “harassment and intimidation” by the government.
Last year the state suspended the press accreditation of two Ethiopian VOA reporters for three days. One of them was later jailed for 17 days on tax charges and was released after being acquitted.
Last month, a reporter for an Ethiopian publication was jailed for criticizing Meles in a newspaper column, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. At least a dozen Ethiopian journalists fled the country in 2009 citing government harassment, the New York-based organization said in a statement last month.
A September study by the Open Net Initiative, a collaboration between Harvard University and two Canadian laboratories, found Ethiopia’s state-owned phone company blocked domestic Internet access to Web sites about human rights and political reform.
Last week, a couple of interesting political statements grabbed the cyber headlines. One was a truly entertaining piece entitled “Letter from Ethiopia,” by the indomitable Ethiopian journalist Eskinder Nega. Eskinder’s “Letter” sought to make sense of the power jockeying that is apparently taking place backstage to replace dictator Meles Zenawi. The other was a bombastic speech given by Zenawi to a captive audience in Mekele in observance of the 35th anniversary of the founding of his liberation movement. In that speech, Zenawi unleashed a torrent of vitriol against his opponents and critics to rival Hugo Chavez’s, and indulged in a little bit of megalomaniacal braggadocio and self-glorification for democratizing Ethiopia and inundating it with prosperity.
Using the so-called election scheduled for May, 2010 as a backdrop, Eskinder crystal-balled the inevitable implosion of the ruling “EPDRF” party, and sketched out the qualifications of the motley crew of droll characters standing in line as heirs-apparent to succeed Zenawi on the “throne”.
Scratch beyond the surface and the EPRDF [Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front] is really not the monolithic dinosaur as it is most commonly stereotyped. [It has become] a coalition of four distinct phenomenon: the increasing confusion of the dominant TPLF [Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front], the acute cynicism of the ANDM [Amhara National Democratic Movement], the desperate nihilism of the OPDO [Oromo People’s Democratic Organization] and the inevitable irrelevance of the incongruent SEPM [South Ethiopian People’s Movement] (a grab bag of some 40 ethnic groups from the southern part of the country). ”
In the battle royal for the “throne” are a number of goofy and cagey characters including “OPDO’s Girma Biru” who is said to be “managerially competent” but a dud and a wimp when it comes to formulating a “grand vision and [lacks] the ruthlessness deemed crucial to keep the EPRDF vibrant and intact.” OPDO chairman Abadula Gemeda, the butt of “the city’s political jokes”, is considered a possible contender and given full credit for his own “comical intellectual pretensions.” ANDM’s Addisu Legesse is said to be held in “particular high esteem” by Zenawi for his servility and slavish loyalty beyond and above the call of duty. Then there is the Svengalian master of intrigue, Bereket Simon whose “influence is expected to wane once Meles eventually leaves the limelight.” The crocodilian Sebhat Nega, “king maker for two decades”, has apparently “chosen to leave TPLF’s politburo” but remains a member of the Central Committee as puppet-master extraordinaire.
In other words, the politics of “succession” to Zenawi’s “throne” has become a veritable theatre of the absurd. The personalities waiting in the wings to take over the “throne” (or to protect and safeguard it) bring to mind the witless characters in Samuel Beckett’s tragicomedy play Waiting for Godot, arguably the most important English play of the 20th Century. In that play, two vagabond characters anxiously wait on a country road by a tree for the arrival of a mysterious person named Godot, who can save them and answer all their questions. They wait for days on end but Godot never shows up, but each day a young messenger comes to tell them Godot will be there tomorrow. As they wait each day, they try to find something to do. They keep busy chatting, arguing, singing, playing games, swapping hats, taking their shoes off, napping and doing all sorts of trivial things just “to hold the terrible silence at bay”. Each day, the characters tell each other that they can not go on waiting. They are so tired of waiting day after day that they contemplate suicide. Godot never shows up but the two characters keep returning to the same place day after day to wait for him; but they can not remember exactly what happened the day before. Godot never came.
Waiting for Zenawi to leave power is like waiting for Godot to arrive. It ain’t happening. He is not only the savior and the man with all the answers, he is also the Great Patron who makes everything work. In his Mekele speech, Zenawi made it clear that he is staying put and the great business of state business will go on as usual; and but for the wicked opposition elements and pesky critics, how things could really be awesome! But he did not hold back in visiting his wrath on his opposition and critics. With rhetorical flourish, he lambasted his former comrade-in-arms, opposition elements and critics with the Amharic equivalent of “muckrakers”, “mud dwellers” and good-for-nothing “chaff” and “husk”. He accused them of being “anti-democratic”, “anti-people” fomenters of “interhamwe”. He called them “sooty”, “sleazy”, “gun-toting marauders”, “pompous egotists” and every other name than could be pumped out of the Insulto-Matic machine. He repeatedly denounced his opposition for rolling in a quagmire of mud and trying to smear mud on the people. After all was said in that speech, it was clear that he was the one doing all the mud-slinging and mud-rolling (chika jiraf and chika mab-kwat). (It must have been a bad hair day for him [no pun intended]!)
Zenawi pulled no punches slamming and vilifying his opponents and critics:
There are those who maintain an eagle eye on the regime with bitter animosity and sully it by painting and drenching it in soot. Regardless, our country has marched into democracy confidently and irreversibly.
Anti-democratic and anti-people forces have so much contempt that they badger our uneducated people telling them chaff is wheat. However, our people are used to winnowing the chaff in the wind and keeping the wheat. Our enemies are peddling chaff to the people and trying to find holes to sabotage our peoples’ democracy, peace and development. But since our organization knows that our operation is airtight, we are not concerned.
The chaff hope to provoke the people into anger and incite them to undemocratically resort to violence. Although they (the “chaff”) can not dirty up the people like themselves, they may try to smear the people with mud in the hope of inciting them into lawlessness.
It was an unstatesmanlike speech, to say the least. But there were a few odd things about the speech itself. Even though the speech was given to a captive audience in Mekele, the clear impression that is created for the listener is that the people of Tigray will be doing the winnowing of the useless “chaff” from the valuable “wheat.” The contextualization of the speech subtly cuts off the people of Tigray from the rest of the country. The incredible amount of venom in the speech could make a snake puke. The allusion-fest to “mud”, “soot,” “chaff”, “wheat”, etc., and the thinly veiled ad hominem attacks, derision and disparagement of opponents and critics points to a deficit of intellectual discipline and rigor to argue and fiercely debate the issues in the court of public opinion. Instead of name-calling, one ought to use hard evidence and logical analysis to disprove the allegations, contentions or analysis of the opponents and critics. In this regard, there is a rather humorous tu quoque (two wrongs make a right) logical fallacy that infuses the whole speech. Zenawi takes the position that since his critics “wallow” in mud and keep slinging it at him, it is right for him to wallow in and sling mud and muck back at them while professing to command the moral high ground. In other words, it is right to “fight mud with mud.” The problem of a mud fight is that everybody gets dirty. It is morally superior and infinitely more pragmatic to fight the “mud slingers” by slinging back at them, not mud pies, but facts, evidence, data and logical analysis.
The speech is also noteworthy for its self-righteousness, messianic fervor and dogmatic certitude in the speaker’s rectitude: Everybody is chaff except the winnowed wheat. Everyone is a member of the Evil Empire except the anointed Jedi Knights of the TPLF who are the guardians of peace and justice in the Republic (to borrow from a popular American motion picture “Star Wars”). Such a Manichean worldview (Weltanschauung) of good and evil and chaff and wheat is symptomatic of narcissistic self-absorption, a behavioral pattern well documented in the psychological literature; and empirically observed in terms of faulty reasoning, acute hostility towards others groups, rigid character attributes and blindness to one’s failings.
The real issue is not about name calling, mudslinging or even determining the true bearers of the democratic cross. The real issue is about the accountability of a personalist dictatorship that is sustained through a self-aggrandizing oligarchy that now craves a veneer of legitimacy by staging a democratic “election” for international donors. The fact remains that no amount of mudslinging, soot smearing or bombastic speech can mask the true nature of an election in a dictatorship. One can put the finest lipstick on a pig, but at the end of the day the pig is still a pig.
As Zenawi’s speech shows, he exercises absolute imperial power for self-gratification and self-glorification; and his declared aim is to mold Ethiopian society in his own image. His ruling regime fundamentally believes that political power grows out of the barrel of the gun (not from the consent of the people), fully aware of their own feebleness without the gun. Their raison d’etre is to amass and centralize political and economic power at all costs and maintain themselves in power by greed, fear and blind ambition.
We fully accept the metaphor of “chaff” and “wheat” as a judicious and appropriate way not just to understand Ethiopian politics today but also as a practical way of resolving the crises of confidence in governance and proper determination of leadership succession. It is the right time now to put the metaphor to a real test: Let the Ethiopian people winnow the “chaff” from the “wheat” in the calm winds of a genuinely free and fair election in May 2010! That seems highly unlikely; and the chaff that stands in the way of the people “shall inherit the wind”.
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Alemayehu G. Mariam, is a professor of political science at California State University, San Bernardino, and an attorney based in Los Angeles. He writes a regular blog on The Huffington Post, and his commentaries appear regularly on pambazuka.org, allafrica.com, newamericamedia.org and other sites.
Former members of the Tigrean People’s Liberation Front (Woyanne) led by Seye Abraha are preparing to challenge those in power led by Meles Zenawi in Woyanne’s own turf — Tigray. J. Sirak of opride.com reports the following:
TPLF finds itself having to defend its home turf, the Tigray region, in the upcoming elections. Medrek, a coalition of eight opposition parties, is going after the big names. Despite a growing anxiety about TPLF’s use of force to rig the election, the opposition is fielding candidates in the ruling party’s strong hold areas.
* Seye Abraha a former TPLF politburo member is running in Qola Tembein.
* Gebru Asrat, the former president of Tigray State and chairman of Arena Tigray is running for the parliament seat in Mekele.
* Asgede GebreSelassie, one of the leading TPLF founders, is running against Abay Tsehaye, TPLF’s Minister of Federal Affairs and National Security Advisor to the PM. Abay Tsehaye, was elected to the House of Peoples Representatives from Selekleka in 2005.
* Aregash Adane, the top woman during the TPLF struggle and one of the most revered fighters will run in Adwa against Meles Zenawi. This is a key post because at the event Meles loses the parliament seat, according to Ethiopian constitution, he cannot stand for the Premiership post. Article 73 of the constitution states that the Prime Minister “shall be elected from among members of the House of Peoples’ Representatives”. Reliable sources also tell Opride.com that Mr. Zenawi might run in Addis Ababa.
* Arena Tigray also announced that it will field candidates in 34 of the 38 constituencies in Tigray. The remaining four seats will be contested by Tigreans in UDJ.
Yet despite such interesting strategic moves by the oppositions, it’s inconceivable to think that the TPLF will allow the opposition to pick limited seats in Tigray, let alone win majority.
