On the contrary, today, we are living witness when the integral part of our country for which Emperor Yohannes gave his ultimate sacrifice is being willingly given away to a neighbouring country at a relatively peaceful time by a person who claims to have come from the same region where Emperor Yohannes came from. Surprisingly enough, Zenawi chose to kill and maim the very people of Ethiopia while part of the country was invaded and occupied for over 2 years by a country he helped to create unceremoniously.
Human history is not new to authoritarian rulers and rules. If we look at only the contemporary history of mankind, the world had witnessed some inhuman dictators like Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Benito Mussolini, Mao Zedong, and Mengistu H/ Mariam of ours who were responsible for the death and destruction of both material and human lives in an unprecedented scale; liquidating dissent, denied freedom of any kind to their citizens, invaded other sovereign nations under the pretext of Nationalism. The barbaric acts of those cruel dictators were heavily limited to a generation or so, but the kind of dictatorship Ethiopia faces today is being felt now and its consequences will badly affect the “infinite” generations of our country yet to come. The above mentioned authoritarian rulers had done some remarkable things for their country despite their cruelty against their people. To say few things about some of them: For Joseph Stalin of Russia, it was indisputably told that the Russian economy was so strong as a result the Russian were able to resist the heavy hit of the Nazi, and finally they were able to reveres the course of the war in their favour; brought Russia to a world power status. Mao Zedong of China had helped to industrialize the country and worked hard for the poor of China to get free education and improved the health-care system. However, I am not in any way glorifying dictatorship of any kind.
In sharp contrast to the misdeeds of the above dictators, by all accounts, Zenawi`s misdeeds against his poor country were not even done by those dictators against their respective countries and peoples. What I talk is not in terms of the number of people who ere killed, imprisoned unlawfully, tortured to death, displaced from their birth place or made to bear untold sufferings under the heavy-handed rules of those dictators, rather I see the threat for Ethiopia to exist as a nation and the dismemberment of its citizens, which Ethiopia face today. None of those tyrants had negotiated on the territorial integrity of their respective countries, none of them had dismembered and divided their people based on ethnicity, race, or language rather they used crude nationalism as a rallying point to advance their vicious ideology, but Zenawi did all those disgusting things against his poor Nation.
The international crisis group had to say the following inn its sep.2009 report on Ethiopia
“The regime transformed the hitherto centralised state into the Federal Democratic Republic and also redefined citizenship, politics and identity on ethnic grounds.”
It is still fresh in our memory that the first thing Zenawi did (after taking the Minilik palace) was to hit hard on the Ethiopian nationalism and nationalists, declaring the right to secede, desecrating our national symbol (flag); lamented some derogatory words for it; at that very time and still now, it has been considered a crime to talk about Ethiopianness (Ethiopian nationalism) and wave its flag high could easily draw enmity from Zenawi and his cadres. It reflects the deep hatred Zenawi has towards the people and the country he rules with an iron-fist. In all of these, Zenawi has violated the tenets of all states bestowed on them- keeping the territorial integrity. The ethno fascist Zenawi wants us all to believe and accept all what he does and say, whatever it is, without questioning it. He wants to be the master (centre) of everything from which every thing has to come; his mind has no place for different ideas from others. This was clearly the unambiguous message that he wanted to send in the last “free and fair” elections he spearheaded single handed. Therefore, for those who say Zenawi is an ordinary dictator like in other countries, my answer is an emphatic no, he is not. He is a petty dictator who vowed to destroy Ethiopia irreversibly if he is not stopped sooner or later.
Zenawi is no an ordinary dictators like those who emerged and vanished, in that he made Ethiopia to lose its access to the sea willingly or ignorantly which was its integral part and under its control for thousands of years- no other sane dictator who attaches a little belonging to his native country did such a traitor act. Here, I am not in any way against the independence of Eritrea, though it was done in a non-transparent way, however, I am of the opinion that still Ethiopia has a legitimate right to pursue access to the sea in a peaceful manner, as it lost it by a petty dictator who has no mandate from the Ethiopian people. The issue reminds me what my friend told me some years ago, suddenly, he raised the issue and asked me to think about the map of Eritrea; he kept on talking about how the map of Eritrea was drawn down to Djibouti by effectively cutting-off Ethiopia from the sea; this was done by those who were aware of what to come in the future and by then the calculation was to deny Ethiopia any access to the sea.” He was, of course, right to say that that long term prophecy was destined to be full-filled by the “smart” Zenawi and his cousin who have perfectly strangled and arrested the development of Ethiopia, and continue to look down its very people jokingly. How pain-full and hapless it is for a country which resisted and fought back many external invaders to see lose its integral part today, which it had control over for many many years by yesterday’s colonial treaty. In connection with the issue of compromising on sovereignty and access to the sea, Asrat Abraham had the following to say in his piece titled ”Mr. Meles and Egypt”, he plainly put it this way, ”
Roughly translated to English, the text in Amharic means:
“Unlike Emperor Tewodros and Emperor Yohannes IV, Mr. Meles will not give his life before his country. It is widely believed that he has a different philosophy than we others when it comes to Ethiopia as a nation. He will never hesitate to present the head of the country on a plate so as to get power, and this has been evident on the issue of Eritrea.”
Although so much has been said about the personality of this petty dictator, it is enlightening to read what Aregawi Berhe wrote recently on Ethiomedia about the sole ruler of Ethiopia today- heartbreaking!
Sticking with the issue of being landlocked, today, Ethiopia pays annually for a Djibouti port almost double what it earns from the sell of its number one export item- coffee. Besides, the accessibility of the port is not sustainable as it is owned and operated by a third Arab nation, with which Ethiopia has historically no good relationship; it could be the case that the fee is increasing every time and the time limit to unload/transport the goods are drastically shortened from two months to seven days now. It seemed to highlight the acute problem of the country that the EU, after the Ethio-Eritrea war of 1998, proposed for Ethiopia to get a free corridor of access to sea in exchange for Badime. It could well explain the reason behind why Zenawi is actively fostering the dismemberment of Somalia and committed genocide there by sending the poor children of Ethiopia, as he has been doing in Ethiopia for two decades. By invading a stateless nation of Somalia for the last two decades, he has also violated the long standing principle of Ethiopia for not being an aggressor in its long history.
Before I conclude my note, I have a message to the Ethiopian parents: currently, you know what is happening in your immediate vicinity and the entire country at large. Zenawi and his associates are engaged themselves day-in and day-out in distorting our history, dismembering the very fabrics of our society, sowing divisions, and mistrust among you. Thus, I urge you parents especially to advise strongly your school children not to accept and internalize as true any of the propaganda of the regime in power.
For every Ethiopian who are engaged in the struggle for a just and democratic Ethiopia, the time is over for pockets of resistance and individual party politics. Therfore, the answer is to team up forces together and stop Zenawi before he wipes-out the name Ethiopia from the globe.
