“We are a people without running water, electricity or any accessible roads,” a protesting Goitom Yitbarek told the Reporter correspondent in the area. “I lost my three children during the TPLF war against the Mengistu regime. We don’t deserve the kind of punishment we are currently facing from the regime,” an elderly Meles Gebru told the reporter.

“Blaring out threats from speaker-mounted vehicles, government officials ran warnings for one week that the public would be better advised to abandon protests because a ‘factional and defeatist’ group was behind the organization of the planned protest,” Yitibarek said. “No one cared.”

By ‘factional and defeatist,” the government was referring that the protest was being led by sympathizers
of TPLF dissident Siye Abraha, also a native of Tembien, now two years in jail after he and the other purged TPLF leaders accused Meles Zenawi of being an Eritrean mercenary who worked for Asmara prior and during the costly 1998-2000 War.

To offset the campaign of terror the government officials conducted against the Abi Adi residents, rally organizers on their part spent a good time urging residents to face the repressive regime head-on, and be able to stage the protest.

The next day after the rally, worried officials in the regional capital Mekelle rushed a ‘fact-finding’ committee to Abi Adi, which summoned rally organizers for a ‘discussion,’ but instead warned the individuals that they would be responsible for any consequences the Tembien Protest would entail in restive Tigrai, where opposition to Meles – clearly seen as a masked Eritrean agent who would never have an honorable exit from office – has been deepening.

“Unofficial songs and poems of opposition against Meles have been rampant and on the rise throughout Tigrai region,” the Reporter added.

The Abiy Adi Protest would only add fuel to the fire searing beneath the seemingly quiet political scene in Tigrai region, which first and foremost has been gravely affected by the war with Eritrea, and of course an Eritrean ruling clique entrenched in Addis Ababa.

From trying to crush university student protests to trying to wipe out the ethnic Anuak tribe of Gambella region, Meles continues to face widespread opposition throughout the country, despite masquerading as a ‘stable government’ to the outide world.