The Thugtatorship of the Tigrean People’s Liberation Front (T-TPLF) has been pursuing a systematic program of religious persecution and fomenting religious antagonisms in Ethiopia for quite some time.
After the T-TPLF seized power in 1991, it sought to ingratiate itself with the Ethiopian Muslim community by making symbolic gestures of equality and tolerance.
The patronizing outreach to Muslim communities proved to be a Trojan horse.
The T-TPLF’s hidden agenda was to co-opt and politicize Muslim leaders and institutions for its own sinister political purposes.
America’s global “war on terror” (which Meles Zenawi said was “a god sent”) changed things.
Meles’ proxy war in Somalia became the ideological foundation for the demonization of Ethiopian Muslims.
Magnifying the outrageous and inflammatory rhetoric of a few self-appointed and self-important Muslim leaders, the T-TPLF began a systematic campaign of demonization and vilification of Ethiopian Muslims.
In December 2011, the T-TPLF launched its first broadside attack by broadcasting a trash documentary (docutrash) called “Alekdama”, which I condemned and denounced as scandalous and vicious fear mongering in my commentary entitled, “Ethiopia: Land of Blood or Land of Corruption?”.
In that docutrash , the T-TPLF sought to graft the crimes against humanity committed by international terrorists in the name of Islam on Ethiopian Muslims. The T-TPLF’s aim was to create rabid public hysteria against Muslims in Ethiopia and justify violent crackdowns against them.
In June 2012, I fought back against the late Meles Zenawi’s attempts to foment religious strife between Christians and Muslims under the bogus pretext of “homegrown Muslim terrorists” in Ethiopia in my commentary entitled, “Ethiopia: Unity in Divinity!”
With a subtlety of a Black Mamba snake, Meles tried to paint all Ethiopian Muslims as “Salafist” and “Wahhabist” extremists and Al Qaeda sympathizers.
Meles, in his signature diabolical way, sought to portray the young Muslim religious activists as stooges of international radical Islamists and jihadists with terrorists designs on Ethiopia.
Meles told his kangaroo parliament:
One cannot say all Salafis are Al Qaeda. That’s a mistake, a crime. But all Al Qaeda are Salafis. For the first time, an Al Qaeda cell has been found in Ethiopia. Most of them in Bale and Arsi. All of the members of this cell are Salafis. This is not to say all Salafis in Ethiopia are Al Qaeda members. Most of them are not. But these Salafis have been observed distorting the real teachings [of Islam]. They [Salafis] say most people in Ethiopia are Muslims. They say the official statistical reports are false. They say since most Ethiopians are Muslims, there must be an Islamic government. Such agitation is currently underway on a mass scale by these fundamentalist agitators…
It was intended to be fresh “red meat”. With his alarmist rhetoric, Meles hoped to inspire fear, anxiety, suspicion, dread and panic among Christians.
To read the rest of the commentary, CLICK HERE.
Or use this link: http://almariam.com/2015/08/16/ethiopia-our-need-for-unity-in-divinity-facing-adversity/