However, when Ethiopian Offensive was launched, and the sky came down crushing on the chatter-boxes of Eritrea, they slipped into the ‘depressed mood that engulfed Asmara,” and were never heard of again for over two years, until recently, when they saw promising signs coming from Addis that Badme was indeed slipping back into their hands like Assab, and was time to hail “Great leader Isaias Afewerki,” and in silent prayers, their Eritrean agents in Addis Ababa. But it would not be difficult to feel their pain, their humiliation that ensued after the BBC reported that Asmara was in a depressed mood, even Shaebia officials soliciting western embassies for exit visas, before the advancing Ethiopian troops had caught up with them.

Who reversed the just war that the Ethiopian people gave their 100% support so as Ethiopia’s national honor would be restored by way of securing its Red Sea Afar homeland, so that the baby-killers of Ayder Elementary School would be tried as war criminals? Who turned into a loss the huge sacrifice young Ethiopian heroes paid in the hills of Badme, Tserona, Aiga, Zalambesa, Irob, Bada, Tesenei, Om Hajar, and scores of other frontline sites? Who raised Eritrea from the ashes of war, took her to Algiers with the spirit of a victor as though Ethiopia were on the brink of surrender? Who was the enemy lying in wait to turn Ethiopia’s military victories into shameful national disasters?

Who proposed, and worked feverishly, for the setting up of a Boundary Commission, and ennobled Eritrea through “Algiers Agreement” whose foundation blocks were the defunct colonial treaties Italy had designed to strangulate Ethiopia over 100 years ago? Who sent disguised Eritrean delegates from Addis Ababa to The Hague, and shocked “jurists” who heard Ethiopia had no claim over the disputed areas, and Tserona and Assab being Eritea’s sovereign territories? Do we have to blame Sir Eliyahu, who thanked both parties for making his job easier? Like Meles or Seyoum Mesfin, do we have to “blame” the Boundary Commission for carrying out what they told it to do?

Of course, such questions don’t seek any answers as the answers are in the domain of the Ethiopian public knowledge.

Meles, TPLF, and the Hidden Agenda

When TPLF was at its inception, Meles was in Eritrea, under the auspices of Shaebia leaders like Isayas Afewerki. He had two choices:

a) Either join EPLF, and get lost in Sahel as a low-ranking Eritrean rebel, or

b) Join TPLF where his chances of becoming a TPLF leader were far more greater than with Shaebia due to the fact that the TPLF leadership was in the hands of Aregawi Berhe or Sebhat Nega, individuals from Adua, Meles Zenawi’s hometown.

For instance, in a recent cyber radio interview conducted by Radio Dejen, Aregawi Berhe, former chairman of TPLF in the late ’70s, was heard as saying, ad verbatim, “After having disappeared for about nine months in Eritrea, Meles came back to us, and virtually fell on my feet, bitterly crying to pardon him of his ‘crime of betrayal,’ and let him join us (TPLF). I felt sorry, and allowed him to join us.”

This shows that, unlike any other TPLF recruits who joined TPLF as foot soldiers, Meles had the rare opportunity of meeting the chairman and military commander of an organization, whom he had known personally by virtue of being from the same town.

Of course, it would be a few years before Meles became political director of TPLF, inculcated Shaebia’s ‘colonial history’ into the minds of TPLF rebels, made a mockery of Ethiopian history, built an army of followers, took full control of TPLF, and threw Aregawi Berhe into exile, while eliminating Teklu Hawaz, TPLF’s security chief who strongly condemned Meles Zenawi as an Eritrean agent fighting to turn TPLF into another Shaebia branch in Tigrai. It was too late, and the pre-conscious Teklu was found dead under the usual song: “mysterious circumstances.”

But when Meles joined TPLF, he had also Eritrean comrades-in-arms who came from Eritrea, like Mussie Mehari, who according to former TPLF combatant Bisrat Amare of Columbos, Ohio, was an Eritrean who was a very close friend of Shaebia founder Isaias Afewerki (TPLF officials were lying about Mussie, saying he was a Tigrian who was born and raised in Eritrea).
Yemane Jamaica on his part had on occasions admitted that he was no Eritrean Che Guevara; simply stating that he joined TPLF under the personal orders of Isayas, who wanted him to spy on TPLF, and report if TPLF was straying away from carrying out Shaebia objectives.

Though it would be beyond the capacity of this short commentary to narrate activities that prove TPLF was, and is, under disguised Eritrean agents, the following major evidences would web into a solid pattern that TPLF was indeed another Eritrean wing in Ethiopia:

1. Numerous Tigrian rebels who challenged why TPLF was fighting for Eritrea were fed to the death squads of TPLF leaders (Courtesy of Girmai Bahli, a former TPLF combatant, who escaped from Aiga, a graveyard where many brave Tigrian rebels were murdered and burried. This hitherto-secretly held story would come out in the future once former TPLF members in America and Europe break the silence, and put their thoughts together into a book).

2. Once in power, Meles continued to serve Eritrean interests, by way of consolidating Eritrean power militarily, economically and diplomatically. This would continue until 1995.

3. Meles would send ‘diehard’ TPLF leaders back to Tigrai, under the pretext of devolving the power of the central government among other Ethiopian political parties affiliated to EPRDF. In reality, what Meles was doing was consolidating his power by bringing in those who would never betray him, such as the Eritrean Bereket Simon, an EPRDF politburo official who would also control the Information Ministry to this day. When TPLF officials were banished to Tigrai, Meles was left alone, enjoying the rare opportunity of deploying his own henchmen both at national level, and at international level at Ethiopian embassies around the globe. When Meles usurped the constitution and fired his TPLF superiors (a.k.a. TPLF dissidents), there was no single ambassador or diplomat who resigned protesting against the criminal activities of the prime minister. This is a strong evidence that the diplomatic community was the domain of Meles Zenawi, Seyoum Mesfin, and of course Yemane Jamaica.

4. When Meles and Isaias raised their friendship to a higher ground of co-operation to the extent of even fighting Yemen over Hannish Islands in 1995, one major hurdle to their objective had to be removed. General Hayalom Araia was murdered by an Eritrean assassin. His death still remains, under the usual song, “a mystery.”

5. When in 1997 Eritrea set itself upon expanding its military power menacingly, and when there were ample evidences from Eritrean military defectors that the preparation was to invade Ethiopia, Meles continued to ridicule warnings that were coming from the Tigrai-based TPLF dissidents.
Once TPLF dissidents were out of the political game, Meles became the undisputed superman, and the ride toward solving the border dispute became a cake walk.

a) He gave his go-ahead to the Boundary Commission he volunteered to set up with Isayas in the first place.

b) Like Eritrea, Ethiopia was forced to base its border disputes on the defunct colonial treaties of the 1900s that when implemented would only reward Eritrea, and further punish the country that was reeling as a landlocked nation.

c) Meles Zenawi’s delegates to The Hague turned out Eritrean interest defenders by clearly stating that Ethiopia had no claims over the disputed areas of Tserona because Tserona was an Eritrean territory. On the Assab front, the delegates Meles Zenawi sent to The Hague took the jurists by surprise, stating that the 60-km wide territory of Eritrea should be measured from the dry coast, and not 12 miles in to the waters of the Red Sea. Since that was the stand of the Eritreans as well, the jurists thanked the Meles delegates for making their job easier, and awarded Eritrea a further 12-mile from the land that should have fallen into Ethiopia, even if we say Ethiopia has lost her Red Sea Afar coast earlier when Meles used Ethiopia as the first country to recognize Eritrea as a sovereign nation with two controversial ports.

d) When the April 13, 2002 Boundary Commission ruling was announced, Meles and Seyoum Mesfin, as usual tried to fool the Ethiopian people by declaring that Ethiopia has won over Eritrea both militarily and diplomatically. A small paid agents tried to beat the drums in the streets. No one was bought into their game.

e) The Border Commission, which knew what “Ethiopian” leaders were doing in the secret chambers of the Commission, and what they were doing in front of the people they were ruling, had no second thoughts but to reward Eritrea with almost all areas it had asked from Ethiopia.

f) To further confuse the public, Meles sent a 151-page booklet to the Boundary Commission, seeking further explanation to the document he first wholeheartedly approved, despite widespread Ethiopian opposition, that it would be “final and binding.” The commission rejected the demand, saying the evidence Ethiopia submitted was “poor,” and had no reason to doubt Eritrea’s claims from Ethiopia.

More dramas waiting for us in store

To quell public anger, Meles may order his junior cadres to stage some dramas, while secretly giving his unequivocal support for the implementation of the Border Demarcation. But the outcome is a foregone conclusion: Ethiopia is subjected to lose more and more. Unless some miracle is created that would lend wisdom and power to the opposition parties that are expected to lead nationwide protests against the regime, the further decline and downfall of the country is a matter of time. After all, Ethiopia is under a regime that fought and liberated Eritrea, and when Eritrea was defeated, it was this same regime that pulled Eritrea up from the ashes of War, and honored it through the Meles-engineered Algiers Agreement, which led to the Meles-Isayas joint effort: The Boundary Commission.

Meles Had No Option But To Move On With The War Effort To Evade Public Backlash, even if that means deporting Eritreans

When Shaebia shocked Ethiopians by bombing Ayder School, and killed over 50 children and their parents, Ethiopia was already in no-point-of-return to punish the rogue regime in Eritrea. At this time, Meles had no option but to keep a low profile at first, and when things got better, he reared his head in the direction of the the wind of war against Eritrea. Anything less than that would have cost him dearly, as he was publicly believed to being Eritrea’s man in Ethiopia. Moreover, the public expectation was the “powerful” TPLF dissidents would take a swift action to remove the agent, and do the country justice.

However, a slogan perhaps forwarded by Meles himself, came into the play of national psych. “Ke-badme mels Wede Meles!” This was a blessing in disguise for Meles Zenawi: instead of facing immediate action by TPLF officials, the unofficial slogan that became like a national anthem helped Meles buy the precious time that he had never had particularly after Eritrea invaded Ethiopian territories. TPLF leaders fell into that trap, that they would deal with Meles after Badme was secured, on the unwise decision that “removing the Prime Minister when the country was facing a formidable enemy was boosting the morale of the enemy further.”

For that reason, Meles achieved plenty of time to appear as if he were leading the war that he was sabotaging every stage of its development. In fact, around the end of the war, Meles took over the job of Selome Tadesse, the government spokeswoman at that time, and acted as a government mouthpiece himself. This role was bolstering the image of Meles Zenawi, while greatly diminishing the power of TPLF dissidents who were seeking impeaching Meles as a traitor once the war was over.

Once the war was declared by the “commander-in-chief,” however, those who had sought accusing Meles became mere spectators of the theatrics of Meles Zenawi, as Meles moved further by paving the way for the victory of Eritrea through the Algiers Agreement to the formation of the Boundary Commission under the agreement of the two: Isaias and Meles.

Meles was aware of the danger that would come from the angry TPLF leaders, and he was fully prepared to deal with them decisively, though at first they would be given a hypnotizing 700-page document called “The danger of Bonapartism in Ethiopia.” Poorly organized, the TPLF dissidents challenged Meles on “treason charges.” The outcome was evident: While they were scrambling to use their non-existent constitutional rights to oust an entrenched enemy peacefully, Meles was ready to use two ways to eliminate them: either he would bore them with endless Bonapartism sessions into exhaustion (surrender), or if that was not possible, he would use the firepower of his bodyguards to silence his opponents. He chose the first because he found the exit of the TPLF dissidents very smooth.

All the while when the nation is focused on the other scourges like famine, disease, and national repression and betrayal, Meles is consolidating his power base in two fronts: Addis Ababa and the hotbed of tension: Tigrai.

1) Addis Ababa: Meles has in the recent past taken swift measures to weaken the following institutions, and throw them into the hands of his own henchmen:

a) Ethiopian Air Force
b) Addis Ababa University
c) The City Council of Addis Ababa
d) Federal and State Security
e) Ethiopian embassies abroad

2) Tigrai: Sebhat Nega has a full control over the affairs of Tigrai, a region which is on the brink of uprising in the face of continued repression and the chopping away of sovereign territories to Eritrea. “Why Tigrai?” One may ask. Tigrai is that bore the brunt of Eritrea’s war of aggression, and the one that endured 17 years of war to remove a military dictatorship but died a double-death when it realized that the TPLF which carried the name “Tigrai” had in its womb carried Eritrean agents who would fight and destroy all the values and interests Ethiopia has stood up defending over the ages.

For this reason, Sebhat Nega, who realized that Tigrai may become a graveyard for his likes, is recruiting his henchmen.

An Evil Design in Tigrai

The rise of Tigrians in unison against TPLF and the formation of the Tigrian International Solidarity for Justice and Democracy (Solidarity) has been a bone in the throat of the Meles-Sebhat Nega ruling clique. This civic organization has on numerous occasions made its stand clear that its programs are shared by other demoratic Ethiopian groups who are striving to see a unified Ethiopia where the rule of law and respect of human rights are in place. Solidarity is a perfect microcosm of Tigrai region. While boosting the morale of Ethiopians on the one hand, Solidarity has been sending shockwaves to Meles and his accomplices that no amount of conspiracy would divide Ethiopians.

To reverse this new development, Meles and Sebhat are working to put an evil design in Tigrai. It would be better to signal the warning against the evil design today than when it is too late to do any good. The architect of the evil design is Sebhat Nega, the TPLF hangman, who is plotting to incite an intra-Tigrai conflict by trying to pit the people of Adua against their own people in the rest of Tigrai. Sebhat Nega is deliberately recruiting and empowering with administrative and security powers individuals from Adua. Unlike Solidarity where Tigrians stand in unison, and where our brothers and sisters from Adua play a key role in strengthening Solidarity, Sebhat Nega is sowing the seeds of hate over a people who have lived as one family. Whether they are from Adua or not, disguised TPLF leaders have hit rock bottom, and TPLF’s disappearance as a criminal and mercenary group is a matter of time. But we warn everyone to be aware of the dangers of what Sebhat is doing, and paid-agents must refrain from being the tool of one individual whose loyalty to the Eritrean-agent prime minister is beyond any shadow of doubt.

These are very trying moments for the Ethiopian people who lost their children in defense of the Motherland, but have ended up losers thanks to the behind-the-scene activities of the Meles regime. The loss of Badme and Irob would certainly spark a new conflict as the Ethiopian people would not simply accept to be sold out to Eritrea like commodities. This fact is even being shared by local TPLF officials in Tigrai, who whether ordered by Meles or on their own volition, have warned the loss of Ethiopian territories would spark further clashes and bloodshed with the Eritrean regime. We have to be aware that it is Meles and his accomplices in power who should be held responsible for their crimes. We can achieve our victory over our internal enemies if we Ethiopians stand in unison without falling prey to the endless political intrigues being hatched in offices of Meles Zenawi in Addis, and Sebhat Nega in Tigrai.

A Testing Time for Opposition Leaders

It is to be recalled that recently commander of the Mekelle Flight School had defected to Eritrea along with the school’s flight training plane. Captain Teshome Tenkolu was earlier during the Ethiopia-Eritrea War accused by the Defense Forces of working for the enemy, and even inflicting heavy losses on our Defense Forces who were engaged against the enemy. He was allegedly reported to have committed a crime against his own country. He was jailed. But later on, the captain was released under the orders of Meles Zenawi, who further rewarded him with some hefty money, and appointed him as director of the Flight School in Mekelle.

Meles, who himself was reported to have committed a war crime along the Tsorena Front by launching an ill-timed offensive despite opposition from military commanders, was actually rewarding his own type in the likes of Captain Teshome Tenkolu. This was done once Meles fired former Air Force Commander General Abebe Tekle-Haimanot, and the Chief-of-Staff Tsadkan Gebretensae, fearing the army generals who bombed Asmara Airport without Meles’ knowledge, were suspected supporters of the purged TPLF dissidents. Subsequent reports indicate that the Ethiopian Air Force was losing its veteran combat pilots and senior flight staffers due to the continued threats from the agents of the Meles Zenawi regime.

This is to bring to the attention of Ethiopian opposition parties that the systematic loss of Ethiopian victory to Eritrea was being orchestrated from the heart of the Ethiopian capital, and that the nation was counting on their joint action to challenge the enemy regime in power. Today should have been a day when opposition leaders stand hand in hand, leading nationwide protests to remove a regime which 28 years ago set out with agendas that would re-build Eritrea at the expense of a dying Ethiopia, and not a day when opposition parties would trade accusations that make Meles grin from ear to ear.

Once again, the opposition forces have to brush their minor differences aside, and do or die to live up to the expectations of the Ethiopian people. It is the united action of opposition parties that can win the minds and hearts of the defense forces to rise up against those who have gambled upon the deaths of tens of thousands of Ethiopian martyrs. It is the opposition parties who can make it clear to the Ethiopian Defense Forces that the army’s loyalty must not be to one Eritrean agent, but to the Ethiopian people. Any opposition weakness is tantamount to lending a helping hand to those who are rubbing salt into our wounds. There could not be any further shame and humiliation than seeing a people’s victorious war being reversed in our own eyes, and sovereign Ethiopian territories being handed over by none other than those who have qualified themselves to be addressed as disguised Eritrean agents in Ethiopia.