Disagreements arise over boundary ruling

Today TPLF exists only on paper. Since Meles purged the dissidents – such as jailed dissident Siye Abraha and Aregash Adane in March 2003 – what was left of TPLF was an organization without steam: it is staffed by junior loyalists who live in “remote” Tigrai, virtually with no power to challenge any EPRDF official in Addis, leave alone Meles Zenawi. They are only used for “yes-votes” to buttress Meles’s strategy of weakening the country. They will be better heard if they make the “noise of a traitor” like Kinfe Abraha, the tiny bespectacled latest debutant into the Ministry of Foreign Agents. Kinfe wrote off Badme, Irob and other areas as worthless, and his star shone brightly in the Office of the Prime Minister.

The measure that any remaining TPLF official would remain a TPLF official (just a mere ticket to earn money) is by the degree of loyalty he or she shows to Meles.

Tsegay Berhe was heard threatening a meeting of attorneys in Mekelle as “rebelling faction” opposed to the leader. Tsegay used Kinfe Abraha’s ticket, and said Badme should be given to Eritrea so that Ethiopia would not starve to death (when aid is withheld). He knows he cannot blame the US govenment, as usual, for pressuring Meles to accept the Boundary Commission’s ruling (the US has made it clear it has never tried to interfere in the affairs of the sovereignty issues of the country). With the US discarding Meles-TPLF allegations that Ethiopia is under US pressure, even the vestigial elements of TPLFin Mekelle “wised up”, and said: “war with Eritrea was aborted because the Ethiopian army had no ration to feed itself and move on to wipe out the enemy in Asmara.” Would Ethiopians buy that? Nope.

Therefore, the Economist report is a blend of deliberately misleading sentences. Seyoum Mesfin, for instance, is projected as if he is at odds with Meles. Kinfe Abraha is brought as if he is over Seyoum. Where is the Numero Uno? Yemane Jamaica, the Eritrean agent who bosses Seyoum and Kinfe around? All foreign diplomats arriving in Ethiopia are cleared through Mr. Jamaica, and any minister must first get the permit from him, for any meeting, whether talking about fertilizer or the fiery border. But the Economist report pulled Yemane out of the game, and left the turf to the impotent Seyoum and wannabe-minister Kinfe so that the public would say at least the game is between TPLF officials, and not Eritrean agents.

There is no one from the emptied TPLF who would drop a pebble and stir the waters of Meles Zenawi. But “commendable” reports such as the Economist’s have to be purchased to create a mirage of “turbulence.” Ladies and gentlemen, the world where Meles reigns supreme, i.e. the TPLF or EPRDF, all is quiet. Meles is shadow-boxing with himself. Meles versus a non-existing opposition within his camp!

The bottomline is the revolution of change that is brewing within the society would come out of the society and not from the house of Eritrean agents who dryly tell us they are divided over Badme. Twelve years passed since they weakened us over our history, our flag, our sovereignty, our Red Sea, our being, our meaning in life. And again today, they keep turning the rumor mill at high speed, churning out the stuff that has dazed us into the state of “national coma.” With the nation now opening its eyes up to the masked agents, and as more opposition party mergers surface, it looks at last we are about to break the spell of division the enemy had cast upon us, and drive out the Eritrean demons haunting the country from the Menelik Palace. – Ed.