Playing with fire as EPRDF pries in religious and ethnic affairs

This article is prompted by The Horn Times News breaking
news dated 03 Feb 2013 titled: “Ethiopia: ‘Judas of Wollayta’ shattered as
pagan TPLF warlords cancelled his bizarre Sunday mass” written by Ethiopian
heroic fighter for freedom – resident of South Africa.

Article 27 of the TPLF-imposed constitution stipulates a
secular Ethiopian state; it permits freedoms of conscience, expression,
association, and religion among others in conformity with United Nations
Declaration on Universal Human Rights. 
It is therefore discriminatory and wrong for the PM taking advantage of
his political position to allow members of his Pentecostal church to hold mass
at the Palace built at the expense of the Ethiopian people to run their national
affairs.

It is to be recalled that Ethiopian leaders in the past worshipped
in churches in sharp contrast to the venue in Menilik Palace deliberately
chosen by Prime Minister (PM) Hailemariam Desalegn partly to sow discord among
Ethiopians and partly to be build his power base. This constitutes utter lack
of sensitivity to the 90 million multicultural citizens of Ethiopia of various
creeds that the PM is supposed to represent impartially. Is the PM fit to rule?

The stance of the PM carries a double-edged sword,
division along ethnic and religious lines both leading to internecine carnage.
This is the demonic legacy of the late tyrant Meles Zenawi that the PM has
publicly vowed to perpetuate intact.

Followers of Orthodox Tewahedo Christians and Muslim
faiths constitute 77% of the Ethiopian people; the latter have shown determined
and sustained demand for the respect of their right to elect their leaders freely
at Mosques without government interference as stipulated in the constitution
standing bravely for their right for over a year. Tewahedo Christians should
match the bravery of their Muslim citizens and forge unity to force the brutal
EPRDF regime to respect its own constitution.

Unfortunately the Holy Synod in Addis Ababa is in
leadership crisis and is therefore impotent to rally Christians and demand government
involvement in religious such as forcefully spearheading the replacement process
for the late illegitimate Patriarch Aba Paulos. This pathetic situation has to
change by the demand of the faithful in Addis Ababa noting that the proportion
of the followers of the Orthodox faith has fallen from 60% to 45% in the last
21 years owing to the split of the Holy Synod.

Need for Ethiopian
secular state

The Moslem Brotherhood is accused of hijacking the
Egyptian revolution of the people, opposition political parties, and activists
for change to a democratic dispensation. Egyptians are back in their hundreds
of thousands to Tahrir Square in Cairo and other major cities in protest.
Leaders in the opposition are calling on President Morsi for a dialogue aimed
at establishing a national unity government in order to check popular unrest,
stabilize the country, and taste the fruit of the revolution in a secular
democratic state. President Morsi is in deep political trouble owing to
economic decline and social unrest.

Ethiopian Christians and Muslims should enter into
covenant to struggle for a secular democratic state in which freedom of
conscience is inviolable. In doing so they are advised to take into
consideration the current Egyptian predicament and the following narration on religion
and ideology.   

1. By visiting Google readers will, in an article posted by Scott From South Cackalacky dated 10/17/2009, find that “Christianity and Religion Have Caused More Deaths Than Anything Else in History”. The author argues on the basis of the Holy Bible and history that “Religion and ideology are secondary causes of war and the primary cause of war is sin”, vide:-
   • “What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? You want something but don’t get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures”,
     James 4:1-3

   • “For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander”, (Matthew 15:19).
   • “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9).

   “The LORD saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time” (Genesis 6:5)

2. By visiting Google under the title “Is religion the cause of most wars?” readers will find the argument that the primary cause of war is “our wicked hearts; religion and ideology are simply the means through which we exercise the wickedness in our hearts.” It is further stressed that “… true religion keeps fallen humanity in check; without it, wickedness and sin would reign supreme.”

Historical tells us that non-Christian wars caused the
death of 90 million compared to 6 million deaths attributed to Christian wars,
vide:-

“By all accounts, the 20th century was one of the
bloodiest centuries in human history. Two major world wars, which had nothing
at all to do with religion, the Jewish Holocaust, and the
Communist Revolutions in Russia, China, Southeast Asia and Cuba, have accounted
for anywhere between 50-70 million deaths (some estimate upwards to 100
million). The one thing these conflicts and genocides have in common is that
fact that they were ideological, not religious, in nature. We could easily make
the case that more people have died throughout human history due to ideology
than to religion. Communist ideology necessitates ruling over others. Nazi
ideology necessitates elimination of “inferior” races. These two ideologies
alone account for the death of millions, and religion had nothing to do with
it. In fact, communism is by definition an atheistic ideology.”

Since the
Ethiopian Revolution of 1974

Massive civil unrest prior to the 1974 Ethiopian
Revolution culminated in the voluntary resignation of the cabinet of Prime
Minister Aklilu Haptewold. It was a bloodless change to the credit of the
Monarch refusing to use force to silence mutinous soldiers and dissident
students.

Unfortunately, copycats of communist ideology hijacked
the peaceful change and engendered a bloody theatre of war in which millions of
able-bodied, most of them children of peasants of tender age lost their lives
not to mention the tens of thousands wounded or disabled. This has been and
still is the results of the sad saga of misplaced communist ideology that the
Ethiopian Marxist-Leninists were forcing to impose on an agrarian feudal
society.

The vestiges of the ideology are still resisting change
enamored to their reckless adventure unaware that the issue in the 21^st
century is respect for human rights and building a free society with zero
tolerance for corruption. They should apologize for their past mistakes and
genuinely unite in order to shorten the days of TPLF in power. 

At this juncture it is fair to note and express high
appreciation for G-7 for becoming a strong voice for the voiceless; for its
incisive research vividly exposing to the world the multiple ills of the minority
TPLF genocidal thugs; for its convincing Editorial dated February 02, 2013
titled “ትግሉ የሚጠይቀውን መሰዋእትነት ለመክፈል እኛም ዝግጁዎች ነን!” (We too are ready to pay the sacrifice
that the struggle requires).This inclusive   Editorial is commendably is different from
the divisive motto “Proletarian Internationalism” adopted by the Derg
regime and other Marxist-Leninist groups which glorified only the working
class.

EPRDF’s ‘Defense Force
Week’

   In regard
to the ongoing show of force staged by the repressive TPLF regime I say:-

The
mighty former superpower the USSR disintegrated due to internal contradiction
and popular anger over bad governance and corruption;

The
leaders of the new superpower China are worried that corruption threatens to
topple the government and the Communist Party of China.

President
Museveni of Uganda is spearheading the fight against rampant corruption in his
country and he is getting thumbs up from donors like the European Union,  and overwhelming support of Ugandans.

But
the EPRDF PM, acting under duress by TPLF top thugs, is desperately playing
with fire by displaying military muscle, pitting Orthodox Christians against
Muslims to ignite violence, and playing the vicious ethnic card to prevent
united opposition.

Salient points to
note in conclusion   

There
is no doubt that “the 20th century was one of the bloodiest centuries in human
history”; 90 million lives were lost due to ideological wars, 15 times more than
for religious wars estimated at Six (6) million. These destructive wars will
have no place in the 21^st century where the quest for moral
rearmament, respect for universal human rights, rule of law, tackling youth
unemployment and zero tolerance for corruption in a free democratic society will
take the center-stage;

Both
the capitalist and the communist systems, the latter at a high human cost, have
produced enormous wealth but concentrated in few hands in each case. The people
in both systems in this information age are increasingly angry at the irrational
wealth distribution. This corrupt situation is untenable!

It
is incumbent upon us Ethiopians in the Diaspora to do our best in bolstering
opposition political parties at home. The recent call by the UDJP to contribute
to its campaign to raise one million Birr in four months is justified in the
face of its inability to print its newspaper at printing press anywhere in
Ethiopia.   I hereby commit to contribute.

Ethiopian
Orthodox Tewahedo Christians and Muslims constituting 77% of the Ethiopia
population, should as a matter of urgency bolster unity and mutual trust and
work together in fighting for their rights and not to fall prey to the plot of
the misruling divisive regime;

Ethiopia is a multicultural society comprising nations
and nationalities. By default the kind of federal system of government should
be one that would emulate the US system of federal arrangement, which has stood
the test of time. The
destructive ethnic-based federalism of EPRDF regime playing with fire is a detrimental
example to other African states and must be stopped;

The plight of the masses has been articulated and
recorded more than sufficient number of times to warrant action in unison to bring
down the repressive ruling regime.

The
Almighty God has done His part leaving to us what we in the opposition can do
to remove the divisive regime from power. 

Release all political prisoners including Andualem Aragie,
Eskinder Nega, Bekele Gerba, Reeyot Alemu, Leaders of the Ethiopian Muslims et
al!

LONG LIVE ETHIOPIA!!!