Currently a significant number of diplomats are leaving the regime, fleeing direct persecution and opposing the regime’s policy of repression and persecution in Ethiopian and the policy it follows towards Ethiopians living abroad. The regime has already replaced all its previous ambassadors by the likes of Genet Zewedie, Dawit Yohannes (TPLF’s new representative to the United Nations in New York) and others who lost their seats in the House of Representative to CUDP in the May 15, 2005 National Election. True to the nature of the regime, most of the recently appointed ambassadors are well known TPLF cadres who are notorious persecutors of their staffs and fellow Ethiopians in their fifteen years loyal service to the hated regime of Prime Minister Zenawi.

According to former Ethiopian diplomats, the Ethiopian Foreign Ministry is becoming the central focus of the regime’s reign of repression riding on the back of Dr.Tekeda Alemu, under his godfather Seyoum Mesfin, one of the TPLF men loyal to Zenawi.

The same sources in the Ministry confirmed that the regime seems to have vowed to rid the Ministry of all professional and career diplomats whom it suspects of sympathizing with various opposition groups. According to the same source, the ministry has completed its preparation to take further measures against diplomats whom it considers not loyal to TPLF policies of divide and rule. According to some former Ethiopian diplomats currently leaving in North America, the ongoing action of clearing professionals from the Foreign Ministry and Embassies could be equated with the summary dismissal of Addis Ababa University Professors and Ethiopian Airlines senior management team, soon after the current regime came to power in 1991.It is to be recalled that a number of senior Ethiopian diplomats have already left the regime for fear of persecution and major policy objection against the regime who ruled Ethiopia for fifteen years with apartheid-like ethnic policy of divide and rule.

The source at the Ethiopian Foreign Ministry also disclosed that the TPLF regime has recently recalled and suspended over seventy career diplomats, which clearly show the utter failure and isolation of the ruling regime even in its own overseas posts. The regime’s embassies in Washington D.C., Geneva, New York, London, The Hague, Rome, Stockholm, Vienna and Ottawa are vacated and cleared off all professional and career diplomats waiting to be filled by loyal TPLF cadres. These acts come at a time when the regime continues its indefensible acts of human rights abuses through arbitrary and extra-judicial killings, detentions, torture and other gross human rights violations which have become indefensible to ant diplomat. Most diplomats describe the ongoing human rights abuses in their country as “the unspoken Darfur of Ethiopia.”

According to the same source at the Foreign Ministry, many of the diplomats recently called from various Embassies could face treason and genocide charges depending on their ethnic identity, the identity of the opposition party affiliation they are suspected of and the amount of intelligence report gathered on them through the TPLF cadres while working at the various Embassies. Former Ethiopian diplomats and observers believe that the ongoing clearance of Ministry and diplomatic missions of professional and career diplomats by the regime is also motivated by ethnic and political considerations, as most of these diplomats are from the Amhara, Oromo and Gurage and other Southern minority nationals. The Oromo’s are said to be the most affected by this dismissal since the representation of the Oromo’s in the Ministry and the embassies has been almost non-existent in an institution highly dominated by TPLF cadres. According to the same source, the measure also demonstrates the lose of confidence by the TPLF regime of diplomats of Oromo and Amhara identity, since the regime’s significant loss during the last year national elections came from these the two most populous regions in the country.

The regime has already embarked on replacing professional and career diplomats with loyal TPLF cadres and members that could defend the daylight robbery of Ethiopian peoples’ vote in May 2005 national election, and the kangaroo court drama of fabricated charges of genocide against opposition leaders, journalists and civic society members. The TPLF Embassies in Washington D.C. and many others are reportedly staffed by newly recruited TPLF cadres. Sources disclosed that the only task these pseudo-diplomats are assigned to is that of spying on Ethiopians and Americans of Ethiopian origin in greater Washington D.C. area and the United States as a whole and reporting to the terrorist regime in Ethiopia.

Our sources have indicated that several spy agents and TPLF members spying on Ethiopians and Ethiopian-Americans have been deployed among Ethiopians in great numbers. Many of these agents are in the US and Europe under the guise of refugee and asylum status facilitated by TPLF through its Embassies in Washington and Europe. Former Ethiopian diplomats who closely follow the situation confirmed that these spy agents receive direction, finance and other necessary logistics from the cadre-diplomats recently assigned at the Embassies in Washington, New York and Brussels, the largest diplomatic missions that are effectively turned to TPLF spy-hubs. It is to be recalled that Ethiopian Media Forum has recently made public a secret plan of the regime to attack Diaspora Ethiopians, and Americans and Europeans of Ethiopian origin .The Plan details action plan as to whom to target, how to attack and terrorize the entire Diaspora in a bid to weaken its struggle for democracy in its mother land. Our sources have also managed to get many of the names of these agents and will be made public in due time in order to alert Ethiopians and Ethiopian-Americans and Europeans to protect themselves, family members and their relatives from these agents.

On the other hand, sources close to TPLF Embassies in North America and Europe further warned that the TPLF regime has adopted a grand scheme for harassing and intimidating Diaspora Ethiopians and nationals’ of Ethiopian origin ,in the coming years. Former Ethiopian diplomats who are closely following the situation advise that, although this kind of by the Government demonstrates the level of internal crisis and frustration, Europeans and Americans of Ethiopian origin living in these countries need to alert and pressurize their respective governments to take appropriate political, diplomatic and security measures against this illegal spy network, including the issuance of persona non greater (a kind of diplomatic measure by the host state of denying recognition to the person of the diplomat ) against these pseudo-diplomats engaged in such activity which is clearly goes against international law and the domestic law of these countries. Ethiopians are also urged to expose those TPLF agents who are scattered among the community under bogus Asylum and Refuge status.

It is known that the regime has already charged a number of Diaspora Ethiopians and nationals of Ethiopian origin with fake genocide charges for the sole purpose of intimidation and harassment. According to the TPLF document recently posted by Ethiopian Media Forum, the regime’s plan includes harassing and intimidating family members, relatives and friends of opposition leaders, members, supporters as well as community leaders and civil society groups both abroad and in Ethiopia.

Although the genocide charges against the five Voice of America journalists, Americans of Ethiopian origin, were later dropped, the measure taken by the US Administration and its Embassy in Addis Ababa was not satisfactory and fell far short of minimum standards to protect the interest of the United States and its nationals both in America and abroad. Observers believe that American and European governments have a duty to protect the interests of their nationals’ and legal residents (including those seeking their protection) here and abroad from regimes like the TPLF led terrorist government of Ethiopia. Ethiopians and nationals of Ethiopian origin from every walk of life in the United States and in Europe are called upon to report and write petition letters to their Foreign Ministries (State Departments) and Offices of Presidents concerning the detailed activities of TPLF “diplomats” and cadres in their respective nations. Concerned Ethiopians are also calling for their compatriots and the various opposition groups in the US and Europe for a detailed action plan to be developed with a view to dismantling this new TPLF scheme of terror and intimidation.

(Additional reporting by Workie Briye in North America)