There is a desperate move to subvert the April 9-11 Conference on Ethiopia and Horn of Africa at Double Tree Hotel in Arlington, Virginia. The subversive move by Ethiopian government hirelings comes at a critical time when US lawmakers are openly expressing their concern over the widespread human rights violations in Ethiopia.
For instance, US Congressman Donald Payne (D-NJ) recently said: “I’m deeply concerned and troubled about the deteriorating conditions in Ethiopia. The EPRDF regime is becoming increasingly totalitarian.” Previously, Senator Russ Feingold (D-Wis) also called on President Obama not to hesitate to stand by the side of the Ethiopian people. Such calls by two prominent US lawmakers were followed by the State Department’s damning Human Rights Report on government atrocities in Ethiopia.
The Conference is aimed at fostering dialogue, peace and reconciliation in a troubled region, and motive of the campaign to subvert it is worth probing, understanding, and taking counter measures.
Despite the hype by hirelings of the despot, Meles Zenawi, who exalt their boss as a “statesman leading Africa,” Ethiopia has long suffered injustice under the regime in power since 1991.
Over the last 19 years, the TPLF regime led by Meles Zenawi has taken measures aimed solely at destroying what generations of Ethiopians have died for building up. Ethiopians recall vividly how Meles Zenawi went on national radio and TV and desecrated the Ethiopian flag as a piece of rug. The intense campaign to break Ethiopian morale as free and independent people started with earnest. He also tried to dismantle the Statue of Emperor Menelik in Addis Ababa. By defeating European colonial forces at the 1896 Battle of Adwa, Emperor Menelik not only honored Ethiopia as a sovereign, independent nation, but more importantly, his leadership and crushing military defeat to colonialists served as a beacon of hope to all black peoples who have been struggling for freedom and independence. The victory of Adwa set precedence to a long and arduous struggle and sacrifice, culminating in the independence of countries like Ghana under the leadership Kwame Nkrumah – a visionary intellectual who dedicated his life to the creation of African Unity.
Unfortunately, the leader of the TPLF regime saw an enemy in Menelik, and hence the attempt to desecrate the Menelik Statue. Meles was the architect of ethnic federalism that has fragmented Ethiopia into eighty-three (83) ethnic groups. Though promoting the inflammable politics of ethnicity is outlawed and treated as treason in a country like the emerging model of democracy in Africa, i.e. Ghana, the politics of ethnicity and division is deliberately promoted in Ethiopia. To keep the people divided and weak, ethnicity is promoted under the guise of promoting “the rights of nations and nationalisties.” It is a sugar-coasted venom. By pursuing the detrimental politics of ethnicity, Meles has proven not only an enemy to Ethiopia but also to Africa as well. His actions speak for themselves that he is a deadly enemy of African unity. That is why he is hell-bent to subvert conferences on regional stability and greater unity.
The international community has collected records of gruesome acts of atrocities, including crimes against humanity, war crimes and genocide.
Right from the start in 1991, the Zenawi regime has never had the trust of the Ethiopian people who helplessly saw their country’s crucial national interests violated, traded for or severely compromised. Under Meles, Ethiopians have realized the fall of their country to the worst enemy in their history. Evidences abound to justify this claim. The measures taken by the TPLF regime transcend national boundaries, which, unfortunately, do not promote regional co-operation but destabilization. Today the Horn of Africa is in turmoil and it doesn’t take to be a genius to understand who threw the region into chaos. A few evidences are suffice to support our claim that TPLF:
Dismembered and landlocked Ethiopia, thus exposing Africa’s second most populous nation to regional insecurity and the concomitant poverty and underdevelopment associated with being landlocked,
Invaded Somalia and expedited the birth of Islamic extremism, such as Al Shabab of Somalia
Committed genocide against the Anuak people of Ethiopia.
Have reduced Ethiopian farmers to landless serfs, thereby encouraging food aid dependency, while on the other hand, ‘leasing’ the country’s most fertile farmlands and virgin forest areas to giant international corporations to periods that range up to 99 years. No one for sure knows how much billions of dollars are the country’s agro farms are being sold out mysteriously and at an alarming rate.
Carried out a daylight robbery of votes at the 2005 polls; killed at least 193 unarmed citizens in cold blood and detained tens of thousands of opposition supporters.
Has locked up Birtukan Mideksa, the prominent opposition leader millions upon millions of Ethiopians regard as their leader who can rescue the country that has been openly abused and misused by the incumbent ruling party of Mr. Zenawi. It is worth noting here what the US State Department Report on Human Rights on Ethiopia stated on March 11, 2010:
“Opposition UDJ party president Birtukan Mideksa, whose pardon was revoked and life sentence reinstated in December 2008, remained in prison throughout the year. She was held in solitary confinement until June, despite a court ruling that indicated it was a violation of her constitutional rights. She was also denied access to visitors except for a few close family members, despite a court order granting visitor access without restrictions. There were credible reports that Birtukan’s mental health deteriorated significantly during the year”.
It is with such background that the Zenawi regime is masquerading to the outside world as if he were a leader of an emerging democracy whose country would hold elections next month. But how free and fair would such elections be?
In his letter to President Barrack Obama “on the fragile state of democracy in Africa” Senator Russ Feingold on March 5 said: “There is no way that elections can be fair, let alone credible, with opposition leaders in jail or unable to campaign freely. At the bare minimum, the international community should push for the release of these political prisoners ahead of the elections. And if nothing changes, we should not be afraid to stand with the Ethiopian people.”
Indeed, nothing is changing in the country. In fact, things are going from bad to worse as Meles Zenawi has launched his attack on the international media after decimating much of the local press following the ill-fated 2005 elections. Zenawi’s insanity is now aimed at silencing the Voice of America broadcasting from Washington, DC.
He brazenly stated that his government was working to build up a capacity to jam the Voice of America Amharic Service broadcasts to Ethiopia.
The world should gauge his motive when he deliberately made this shocking statement:
“We have been convinced for many years that in many respects, the VOA Amharic Service has copied the worst practices of radio stations such as Radio Mille Collines of Rwanda in its wanton disregard of minimum ethics of journalism and engaging in destabilizing propaganda.”
The comparison of radio programs run by highly qualified VOA journalists to the thugs of Rwanda who carried out the 1994 genocide is indeed scary, not for the powerful nation on Earth – America – but for the poor country that has endured 19 years of brutal role by Meles Zenawi.
Nothing can powerfully warn the international community in what predicament is Ethiopia given that the prime minister’s intentions are embedded in the Rwanda Genocide. In fact, this is the second time Mr. Zenawi has referred to the Rwanda genocide. In 2005, when he suffered a humiliating defeat at the polls, and resorted to mass arrests and extra-judicial killings nationwide, Mr. Zenawi compared the winning opposition party to the thugs that carried out the genocide. He compared respected opposition leaders he later threw into prison with the Interahamwe militia who carried out the Rwanda genocide.
But his blatant statement didn’t go by unnchecked. He was caught off guard by Ana Gomes, the charismatic leader of the EU delegation that monitored the election, who warned him that he was responsible for importing a term from the Rwanda genocide into a country that was at peace with itself and had no remote resemblance with the dreadful genocide that Rwanda is associated with. He shamelessly accused Mr. Anna Gomes of being the ‘viceroy of colonliasm’ – knowing that the word ‘colonialism’ would keep honest critics like the Honorable Gomes at bay. Actualy for the Ethiopian people, Meles Zenawi is a mercenary enemy worse than the colonialists that had tried to invade Ethiopia in the past.
The regime is totally isolated by the Ethiopian people, and it looks like it has run out of ideas. So in retreat from its overly exaggerated claim in development activities, it is brandishing its image that it is the only strong power to ensure stability in the fragile region of the Horn of Africa – which in fact is a region destabilized by the regime since it expedited the secession of Eritrea in 1993, engaged itself in the 1998-2000 Ethiopia-Eritrea War that claimed 100,000 lives, and invaded Somalia in 2006, which proved catastrophic.
The Conference on Ethiopia and Horn of Africa was organized by well-intentioned people who would like to contribute to the healing of a region so much torn by war, death and destruction.
The Conference signals the beginning of consolidating a robust unity of opposition forces with diverse views that Ethiopians have been so earnestly craving for decades. Its success is instrumental in what would be arduous but rewarding march to victory over tyranny. Pundits participating in the Conference have historic responsibility to seize upon this long-awaited opportunity to correct their past mistakes in a new mindset of paradigm-shift to bring stability. They owe this much and more to the Ethiopian people who have been victims of abject poverty, bad governance and arbitrary breach of the rule of law for the last 19 years.
The Conference organizing Committee should be congratulated for naming Birtukan Mideksa its Honorary Chairperson of the Conference. This is a fitting tribute to the distinguished lady languishing being tormented in the dark dungeons of Zenawi for telling the truth about the negotiation leading to her release in 2007. Birtukan’s 72-year-old mother and five-year-old daughter are under the same ordeal in the larger prison, which Ethiopia is.
The Committee should also be appreciated for its courage, tenacity, and foresight in organizing the Conference that will bring together participants with diverse views.
Release Birtukan Mideksa and all political prisoners!
