What is on the Minds of Ethiopians – the Disputed Border or the Disputed Election?
There is an Amara proverb: One cannot awaken he who is determined to be asleep. The person who coined that proverb must have had a premonition of the fate of his countrymen in the first decade of the 21st century. For this has been a difficult and lonely time to be Ethiopian.
Our best hope for a free and democratic Ethiopia was rudely dashed by one who had repeatedly and consistently refused to entertain any notion that Ethiopia is anything but his private dominion. Our women are killed while trying to protect our children from beating and deportation to concentration camps. Snipers and machine gunners trained to engage organized enemy forces are set on our men and boys who peacefully march to express their grievances. Hundreds of thousands of men, women and children are held in open air concentration camps infested with all sorts of tropical maladies from malaria to poisonous snakes. The less fortunate among our leaders are summarily executed, with the more fortunate ones only rounded up, charged with treason or other similarly contrived charges and held in prison for years without trial, without definite dates for release. Members of the private media and leaders of civic society organizations who express dissenting opinions face similar fates. The state controlled media is reduced to serving as the private propaganda outlet of the hostage takers, inundating the captive population with a never ending barrage of carefully orchestrated program of misinformation, intimidation and character assassination. What little private press survived a 14 year reign of harassment and intimidation, was brought to an end when publishers, editors, reporters and newspaper vendors met the fate of our elected officials during the final campaign to rid the landscape of anyone and anything that smells like a threat.
It is in the face of this unprecedented and complete lockdown of the big prison that is Ethiopia that Ethiopians looked for help from the unified global community of which they believed to be a member in good standing. The people were confident that the world would stand with them. After all they had just performed marvelously in the democratic game played under the rules established by the new world order. Ethiopians believed that central to the new order is the notion of government of the people, by the people, and for the people – a government which the people set up and which the people can change peacefully, through the ballot, if they so choose. Having exhibited the kind of discipline, resiliency and single mindedness in the pursuit of the democratic alternative reminiscent of the performance of their Olympic heroes, the Ethiopian people believed that they are fully justified in demanding that the arbiters of the new world order step in and ensure that their victory is not appropriated by the slight of hand of their suppressors.
Words cannot describe the disappointment and dismay of the Ethiopian people. Those who so repeatedly and publicly pledged to stand with anyone anywhere in the world who fights for freedom, those who lead the very country which leads ‘the free world’ and those who “vetted” and “certified” the commander of the Ethiopian gulag to be “a new kind of African leader”, “a renaissance man”, and a man who can be trusted to be a strong ally, now anxiously look the other way when they face the anger and wrath of Ethiopians worldwide. In the early days, they even had the audacity to condemn the victim for inciting the killer into violence. Though they have given up on that that particular line, they are still unwilling to meet their obligations to Ethiopia and to the new global order.
Today, when Ethiopians in London, in Washington, in Ottawa, in Brussels, in Paris and elsewhere confront the world’s power brokers, they try to change the subject to something, anything. Their new found and preferred diversionary tactic is to point to the dark clouds of war hanging over Ethiopia. At every forum where Ethiopia merits a mention, they speak of the gravity of the crisis on the Eritrean border. They report on the count of the army divisions deployed by one or the other side. They discuss the length and depth of the trenches dug and of the deployment of tanks and field guns. They rehash the body count from the last bloody episode. Each of these is meant to scare the Ethiopian people into believing that they face something which is of greater danger to their immediate security than their domestic problem. It is also intended to show that they have not really forgotten Ethiopia and the plight of Ethiopians. This is meant to alert us that they are just working on something even more urgent which must be addressed right away, lest Armageddon be visited upon us.
Perhaps the end of the days is around the corner. How else can I explain agreeing with Isayas Afworki of all people—not once but twice? Of course, the border crisis was manufactured to divert attention from what is going on across Ethiopia, from Addis, Ambo and Awassa to Zege, Zuway and Zarema. Only one other time, when he called the AU the club of dictators, had I ever agreed with Mr. Afworki. Never mind that calling these two issues correctly would not exempt Mr. Afworki from a straight jacket; as one who likes to give the devil his due, I must admit he called each of these correctly.
Why don’t they ask us what matters to the average Joe in Abeshaland? If they did, we would tell them that Eritrea is Meles’ problem. Our number one problem today is Meles. If another war starts, it would cost us the lives of our children, but in the end it would not change anything. In the last war, more than 70,000 of our young men lost their lives and limb. And just what did we get out of it? Absolutely nothing!!. That war was not fought for us. It was like one of those children’s arguments over whose prick is longer. It was fought to protect the egos of the two contestants, and contestants we were not.
If we could select our fights, we would fight to be free from tyranny. We would fight to protect the dignity of the Ethiopian man who must cower in fear in front of his wife and his children not to displease the commissar lest he might be beaten up or taken away. If we could choose our fight, we would fight to protect our women from the indignity of rape and beatings by the cadres of our master and their friend.
The border conflict is a contrived story talked about to serve as a diversion from our real issues. When Mr. Yamamato travels to Addis and to Asmara to discuss the border issue, when the disgraceful Koffi Annan sends his special envoy to persuade Meles to stand down, the Ethiopian people know you are not doing it for us. If we could talk to them, if they had asked us, here is what we would tell these two gentlemen. If you really want to help, please, tell the hostage takers to release the political prisoners and to allow the winners of the last election to form a government. We will tell you to take some of the loot you are scheduled to send to Ethiopia and spend it on chartered flights to destination they prefer to go...Zimbabwe included. There would be no hard feelings.
When Javier Solana treks from the snow and cold of Brussels to Addis and Asmara, they would ask him why he and the rest of the European Commission would spend European taxpayers’ money on a large election monitoring team if they didn’t intend to act on their findings. They would ask him why, if the Commission cares about the other 77 million Ethiopians, it would continue to hold the bloody hands of the one tyrant. Finally, the Ethiopian people would advise him that if he cannot understand or appreciate their pain, he should expend his energy where it might be more fruitfully deployed.
As to the AU... The AU is an embarrassment to all Africans. It sits quietly right there in Addis, not a full block removed from where some of the killings took place. It allows its own compound to serve as a holding pen for those rounded up. The AU leader Konare rides to Berlin and to Abuja with the Butcher of Addis in a chartered jet paid for by the Ethiopian people while innocent Ethiopians were still being killed in his back yard. This goes on before the ink dries on the new peer review provisions of the AU charter. What a disgrace!! The only comfort I draw about the AU is in the knowledge that if we could hold a referendum, the people of Africa would vote overwhelmingly against it. The AU is neither created nor governed by the people of Africa. It is, as Mr. Afworki said, a club for tyrants, established by tyrants.
Our best hope for a free and democratic Ethiopia was rudely dashed by one who had repeatedly and consistently refused to entertain any notion that Ethiopia is anything but his private dominion. Our women are killed while trying to protect our children from beating and deportation to concentration camps. Snipers and machine gunners trained to engage organized enemy forces are set on our men and boys who peacefully march to express their grievances. Hundreds of thousands of men, women and children are held in open air concentration camps infested with all sorts of tropical maladies from malaria to poisonous snakes. The less fortunate among our leaders are summarily executed, with the more fortunate ones only rounded up, charged with treason or other similarly contrived charges and held in prison for years without trial, without definite dates for release. Members of the private media and leaders of civic society organizations who express dissenting opinions face similar fates. The state controlled media is reduced to serving as the private propaganda outlet of the hostage takers, inundating the captive population with a never ending barrage of carefully orchestrated program of misinformation, intimidation and character assassination. What little private press survived a 14 year reign of harassment and intimidation, was brought to an end when publishers, editors, reporters and newspaper vendors met the fate of our elected officials during the final campaign to rid the landscape of anyone and anything that smells like a threat.
It is in the face of this unprecedented and complete lockdown of the big prison that is Ethiopia that Ethiopians looked for help from the unified global community of which they believed to be a member in good standing. The people were confident that the world would stand with them. After all they had just performed marvelously in the democratic game played under the rules established by the new world order. Ethiopians believed that central to the new order is the notion of government of the people, by the people, and for the people – a government which the people set up and which the people can change peacefully, through the ballot, if they so choose. Having exhibited the kind of discipline, resiliency and single mindedness in the pursuit of the democratic alternative reminiscent of the performance of their Olympic heroes, the Ethiopian people believed that they are fully justified in demanding that the arbiters of the new world order step in and ensure that their victory is not appropriated by the slight of hand of their suppressors.
Words cannot describe the disappointment and dismay of the Ethiopian people. Those who so repeatedly and publicly pledged to stand with anyone anywhere in the world who fights for freedom, those who lead the very country which leads ‘the free world’ and those who “vetted” and “certified” the commander of the Ethiopian gulag to be “a new kind of African leader”, “a renaissance man”, and a man who can be trusted to be a strong ally, now anxiously look the other way when they face the anger and wrath of Ethiopians worldwide. In the early days, they even had the audacity to condemn the victim for inciting the killer into violence. Though they have given up on that that particular line, they are still unwilling to meet their obligations to Ethiopia and to the new global order.
Today, when Ethiopians in London, in Washington, in Ottawa, in Brussels, in Paris and elsewhere confront the world’s power brokers, they try to change the subject to something, anything. Their new found and preferred diversionary tactic is to point to the dark clouds of war hanging over Ethiopia. At every forum where Ethiopia merits a mention, they speak of the gravity of the crisis on the Eritrean border. They report on the count of the army divisions deployed by one or the other side. They discuss the length and depth of the trenches dug and of the deployment of tanks and field guns. They rehash the body count from the last bloody episode. Each of these is meant to scare the Ethiopian people into believing that they face something which is of greater danger to their immediate security than their domestic problem. It is also intended to show that they have not really forgotten Ethiopia and the plight of Ethiopians. This is meant to alert us that they are just working on something even more urgent which must be addressed right away, lest Armageddon be visited upon us.
Perhaps the end of the days is around the corner. How else can I explain agreeing with Isayas Afworki of all people—not once but twice? Of course, the border crisis was manufactured to divert attention from what is going on across Ethiopia, from Addis, Ambo and Awassa to Zege, Zuway and Zarema. Only one other time, when he called the AU the club of dictators, had I ever agreed with Mr. Afworki. Never mind that calling these two issues correctly would not exempt Mr. Afworki from a straight jacket; as one who likes to give the devil his due, I must admit he called each of these correctly.
Why don’t they ask us what matters to the average Joe in Abeshaland? If they did, we would tell them that Eritrea is Meles’ problem. Our number one problem today is Meles. If another war starts, it would cost us the lives of our children, but in the end it would not change anything. In the last war, more than 70,000 of our young men lost their lives and limb. And just what did we get out of it? Absolutely nothing!!. That war was not fought for us. It was like one of those children’s arguments over whose prick is longer. It was fought to protect the egos of the two contestants, and contestants we were not.
If we could select our fights, we would fight to be free from tyranny. We would fight to protect the dignity of the Ethiopian man who must cower in fear in front of his wife and his children not to displease the commissar lest he might be beaten up or taken away. If we could choose our fight, we would fight to protect our women from the indignity of rape and beatings by the cadres of our master and their friend.
The border conflict is a contrived story talked about to serve as a diversion from our real issues. When Mr. Yamamato travels to Addis and to Asmara to discuss the border issue, when the disgraceful Koffi Annan sends his special envoy to persuade Meles to stand down, the Ethiopian people know you are not doing it for us. If we could talk to them, if they had asked us, here is what we would tell these two gentlemen. If you really want to help, please, tell the hostage takers to release the political prisoners and to allow the winners of the last election to form a government. We will tell you to take some of the loot you are scheduled to send to Ethiopia and spend it on chartered flights to destination they prefer to go...Zimbabwe included. There would be no hard feelings.
When Javier Solana treks from the snow and cold of Brussels to Addis and Asmara, they would ask him why he and the rest of the European Commission would spend European taxpayers’ money on a large election monitoring team if they didn’t intend to act on their findings. They would ask him why, if the Commission cares about the other 77 million Ethiopians, it would continue to hold the bloody hands of the one tyrant. Finally, the Ethiopian people would advise him that if he cannot understand or appreciate their pain, he should expend his energy where it might be more fruitfully deployed.
As to the AU... The AU is an embarrassment to all Africans. It sits quietly right there in Addis, not a full block removed from where some of the killings took place. It allows its own compound to serve as a holding pen for those rounded up. The AU leader Konare rides to Berlin and to Abuja with the Butcher of Addis in a chartered jet paid for by the Ethiopian people while innocent Ethiopians were still being killed in his back yard. This goes on before the ink dries on the new peer review provisions of the AU charter. What a disgrace!! The only comfort I draw about the AU is in the knowledge that if we could hold a referendum, the people of Africa would vote overwhelmingly against it. The AU is neither created nor governed by the people of Africa. It is, as Mr. Afworki said, a club for tyrants, established by tyrants.
posted by eth4life | 7:11 PM
1 Comments:
You make great points and I agree with you on the AU. It keeps pissing me off. By the way, great blog.
I've been to the border area and to those people, especially the Irobs--the issue is as real as it gets. So many people suffered (for what, I don't know).
We'll wait and see.
Peace
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