By Elias Kifle
A week ago, on February 22, several Ethiopians joined tens of thousands Eritreans at the worldwide protest rally against the UN sanction against Eritrea.
The sanction was a plot concocted by the Woyanne regime lobbyists in the U.S. headed by Ambassador Susan Rice. When Ambassador Rice and other corrupt officials at the State Department had failed to get a bill passed through the U.S. Senate labeling Eritrea a terror-sponsoring state, they brought together some puppet African dictators such as Museveni of Uganda to push a resolution through the U.N. that accuses Eritrea of providing weapons to Somali Islamist group al Shabab without offering an iota of evidence.
In fact, a UN special envoy accuses Woyanne, the ruling tribal junta in Ethiopia, of selling weapons to al Shabab and others in Somalia.
The real reason behind Woyanne’s campaign to have the U.N. impose sanction against Eritrea is that the Eritrean people and government have been providing moral and political support to Ethiopian freedom fighters such as Ethiopian People’s Patriotic Front (EPPF). The hidden purpose of the sanction is to eliminate any opening for EPPF and others to operate in Ethiopia. Therefore, the U.N. sanction is indirectly imposed on Ethiopia so that the Woyanne regime is free to pillage and plunder the country without any serious opposition.
Ethiopians are well aware of this fact and EPPF chapters around the world held an emergency conference on January 3 to take a stand against the sanction, and to also show their solidarity with the people of Eritrea. They passed a strong resolution condemning the sanction.
Feb. 22 provided another opportunity for Ethiopians to stand in solidarity with Eritreans. The unintended consequence of the Woyanne-Rice UN sanction is that it has brought the people of Ethiopia and Eritrea more closer than ever.
When I and other Ethiopians who reside in the Washington DC metro area arrived in front of the White House, where the protest rally was being held last Monday, Eritreans were out in thousands already. The Eritreans, who arrived from several states in the east coast of the U.S., greeted us warmly and enthusiastically. When a large Ethiopian flag unfurled in the middle of the crowed, Eritreans cheered loudly in an expression of appreciation.
After witnessing the excitement with which the Eritreans received us, I knew there and then that we were making history. For the first time since the Woyanne junta took power, I started to see light at the end of the tunnel for bringing change in Ethiopia and the whole Horn of Africa region, which has been made a perennial war zone by the Woyanne warlords.
The reaction by Woyannes to such solidarity with Eritreans is as expected. They were foaming at the mouth in condemning us for standing with Eritreans. I don’t blame them — such solidarity will cause their demise and they more than any one else are aware of it.
Those of us who advocate Ethiopia-Eritrea solidarity are the prime target of Woyannes. They are coming at us from every direction. So when Ethiopian Review’s server crashed right after the Feb. 22 protest rally under mysterious circumstances, I became suspicious. The web site’s massive database completely disappeared without a trace. We are investigating the cause. Fortunately, anticipating such an incident, we have been keeping back ups of all Ethiopian Review files at multiple locations and we were able to bring most sections of the web site back online in a couple of days.
The alliance of Ethiopians and Eritreans should not be allowed to be derailed by Woyanne or any one else. There is a lot at stake for the people of both nations. As long as Ethiopian Review is up and running, it will continue to be a leading advocate of such collaboration and solidarity, which will lead to the liberation of Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa from a parasite called Woyanne.