That in less than six months after announcing a 100 percent electoral victory in national elections the TPLF faces a formidable uprising in Oromo regions and in a lesser scale in some parts of Ethiopia constitutes the mother of all irony. Unsurprisingly, the only response known to the government to the popular unrest is massive mobilization of security forces, including the army, and violent crackdowns resulting in deaths, severe beatings, and arbitrary imprisonments. This time, however, there is a difference: the TPLF is badly wounded by the protests and uprisings and seriously weakened.

This is shown by the fact that the TPLF was compelled to publicly drop the Addis Ababa Master Plan in an attempt to quell the unrest. I give no credence to what the TPLF says or promises and remain convinced that it will implement the Plan in one form or another. Still, that the TPLF was forced to back down in the face of popular opposition is the first in kind since it seized power in 1991. No doubt, the official announcement of a retreat was an extremely difficult one in view of the too familiar and boundless arrogance of the TPLF. Like an injured animal attacks left and right, one should, therefore, expect the intensification of repression and a tightening of the control system from the enraged arrogance.

Another manifestation of a weakened TPLF is the surrender of Ethiopia’s exclusive sovereignty of the so-called Renaissance Dam. Despite denials of the Ethiopian government, the recent agreement does stipulate that the filling of the dam requires a prior consensus with Egypt and Sudan; it also specifies that the latter will be given priority for the electricity generated by the dam. One must be a fool not to see that these conditions establish a de facto co-ownership of the dam by the three countries. The surrender is just a confirmation of the TPLF’s conviction that it does not have the national support that it needs to withstand Egyptian demands.

In my view, the current popular revolts are bound to have consequences that will deepen the weakening of the TPLF. Among these consequences, three major ones particularly stand out. The first has to do with the cohesion of the EPRDF itself. As a major partner in the ruling coalition, the OPDO has been humiliated and seriously rebuffed by the uprisings in Oromia. Non-Oromo security forces had to be called to repress the popular protests, obvious as it is that Oromo security personnel were either reluctant to crackdown or the TPLF could no longer trust them. We even heard some TPLF members accusing the Oromo forces of gross incompetence, worse yet, of secretly supporting the protesters. Whatever the interpretation, one thing is sure: a rift that would be difficult to bridge is now visible within the EPRDF.

Another major consequence is the end of the myth of Ethiopian stability under the hegemony of the TPLF. Some such outcome is likely to be of great concern for Western governments and investors as well as for the growing Chinese involvements in Ethiopia. Western governments had so far turned a blind eye on the gross violations of human rights in Ethiopia as a ransom for the guarantee of stability and economic development in a continent too prone to political turmoils and violent conflicts. But when unrests multiply, especially when they come from the Oromo who are supposed to have most benefited from the liquidation of Amhara hegemony and the establishment of federal system of self-rule, they reveal a deep crack in the very foundation of the regime.

The impact of the collapse of the myth of stability is already visible in the recent declaration of the American government expressing deep concern over government’s crackdown on protesters and calling for a “constructive dialogue to address legitimate grievances.” Another possible expression of discontent of the US could be the precipitated shutdown of American base for drone operation in southern Ethiopia: even if military factors must have been the real reason for the decision, its official announcement at a time when the TPLF is losing face in the eyes of the international community looks like a betrayal of an ally that has no longer faith in the regime.

Last but not least, the uprising and the violent crackdown invite a rethinking among opposition forces, notably a heightened awareness of the need to counter the divide-and-rule strategy of the regime by going past ethnic alignments. Many observers are wondering why other ethnic groups, especially the Amhara, are not joining the Oromo uprisings, all the more so as it is but evident that the TPLF would be unable to suppress if the uprisings extend to other regions. Indeed, expanding these protests into a national movement, by which alone other ethnic groups can be coopted, is the sine qua non to defeating and overthrowing the TPLF.

The good news is that appeals for rapprochement between the various groups are being heard here and there and in some places––still very limited––we see a debut of implementation, as in the case of Medrek and Semayawi parties agreeing to work together. There is no doubt that it would be difficult to overcome the descending path created by decades of divisive politics and mutual suspicion, but the spectacle of Oromo protesters abandoned to the violent fury of the TPLF should give us all a pause. The crackdown on Oromo protesters under the eyes of other groups acting as bystanders is simply the spectacle of a people made powerless by its own divisions.

Needed, therefore, is the remaking of unity through the dialectical process of negation and negation of that negation. The original unity was abstract, homogenizing; it was negated by divisions and ethnic fragmentations. The TPLF is trying to solidify the movement of fragmentation. We have to say no by negating the fragmentation, but this time to obtain a synthetic unity, the unity that integrates diversity conquered through the first negation. This is called development, as opposed to fragmentation or secession.

The writer, Professor Messay Kebede, can be reached at mkebede1@udayton.edu

By AFP

Nairobi (AFP) – At least 140 people have been killed in  Ethiopia over the past two months in a crackdown on anti-government protests sparked by plans to expand the capital into farmland, Human Rights Watch said Friday.

“Security forces have killed at least 140 protesters and injured many more, according to activists, in what may be the biggest crisis to hit Ethiopia since the 2005 election violence,” HRW’s Felix Horne said.

The number reported by HRW is almost double the previous toll of 75 the group gave last month.

There was no immediate response from the Ethiopian government, which has previously put the death toll at five.

The protests began in November when students opposed government proposals to take over territory in several towns in the Oromia region, sparking fears that Addis Ababa was looking to grab land traditionally occupied by the Oromo people, the country’s largest ethnic group.

“Over the past eight weeks, Ethiopia’s largest region, Oromia, has been hit by a wave of mass protests over the expansion of the municipal boundary of the capital, Addis Ababa,” Horne said.

“The generally peaceful protests were sparked by fears the expansion will displace ethnic Oromo farmers from their land, the latest in a long list of Oromo grievances against the government.”

– Leaders and journalists arrested –

On December 23, police arrested Bekele Gerba, 54, deputy chairman of the Oromo Federalist Congress (OFC), Oromia’s largest legally registered political party. Bekele was previously convicted in 2011 of being a member of the banned Oromo Liberation Front (OLF), spending four years in jail.

Bekele, a foreign language professor, “was reportedly hospitalized shortly after his arrest but his whereabouts are now unknown,” HRW added. “Other senior OFC leaders have been arbitrarily arrested in recent weeks or are said to be under virtual house arrest.”

The United States, a key ally of Ethiopia, last month expressed “grave concern” over the unrest. Washington has also criticised Ethiopia’s arrest of journalists following the crackdown.

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) say Fikadu Mirkana, from state-run broadcaster Oromia Radio and TV, and Getachew Shiferaw, editor of the Negere Ethiopia online newspaper, were arrested last month.

“By treating both opposition politicians and peaceful protesters with an iron fist, the government is closing off ways for Ethiopians to nonviolently express legitimate grievances,” Horne said.

“This is a dangerous trajectory that could put Ethiopia’s long-term stability at risk,” he warned.

With at least 27 million people, Oromia is the most populous of the country’s federal states and has its own language, Oromo, distinct from Ethiopia’s official Amharic language.

HRW has said the protests — and bloody crackdown — echoed protests in April and May 2014 in Oromia, when police were accused of opening fire and killing “dozens” of protestors. The government said eight people died in the 2014 unrest.

Some 200 people were killed during post-election violence in 2005.

Genet Ayele, a well known Ethiopian author made her way in creating Amharic alphabet keyboard, first in Ethiopia.

The author captured Ethiopian readers when she first published a book about the escapee Ethiopian former president Colonel Mengistu Hailemariam, meeting him in Harare, Zimbabwe where he lives in exile.

Now it is another remarkable work of her in coming up with such a first time creative work.

Amharic is a language that has 126 alphabets which is a bit difficult to use the regular English keyboard. Genet’s new keyboard makes everything easier since every letters are represented by one key on the computer keyboard.

The Ubuntu version tailored specifically for this laptop gives native access to Ge’ez characters as opposed to the application-based solutions.

Dr. Aregawi Berhe expresses support for Oromo Protests.

EPRDF leaders should not continue to delude themselves that their elaborate organizational infrastructure is serving as a two-way communication channel between these two crucial nodes. Local cadres would understandably be reluctant to transmit upwards news they fear to be unpalatable to their overlords, argues Leenco Lata.

Mass protests are once again sweeping throughout the largest and most populous Oromia Regional State of the Ethiopian Federation. Their widespread nature and their persistence for close to a month, make these protests one of the most unprecedented in the history of contemporary Ethiopia. Even the 1974 mass upsurge that spelled the demise of Emperor Haile Selassie’s reign did not involve as many rural dwellers as the protest going on in Oromia at the time of writing.

The Government’s response has taken two forms until now. First, the Government has unleashed it security forces to quell these uprisings by using excessive force and detaining peaceful protesters. Second, instead of questioning if its own failure contributed to popular grievances that culminated in these protests, it has resorted to its usual rhetoric of attributing the protests to its common culprits – “anti-peace and anti-development” groups and persons.

The latter claim would be the focus of this brief commentary for it speaks volumes about the performance of the Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) during a tenure now approaching a quarter of a century. Ever since coming to power in 1991, the EPRDF has posed as the exclusive promoter of economic development and defender of peace and stability. It has rationalized hamstringing the activities of legal opposition parties and restricting freedom of expression as the necessary condition for realizing its dual aim of kick-starting economic development and preserving peace and stability.

As a result, it has had an unhampered and exclusive access to the rural peasantry, which it claims to be its core constituency, for now close to a quarter of a century. And an entire generation was born and raised feeding strictly on the rhetoric of the ruling party and should hence be free from being “poisoned” by the supposedly negative propaganda of “anti-peace and anti-development elements”.

Moreover, the ease with which the Government communicates with the societies it has ruled for so long is not restricted to monopolizing the government-owned mass media backed with its various privately owned outlets. Its organizational structures stretch from Menelik palace all the way to villages and neighborhoods. If EPRDF’s own claim is to be believed, one out of every five individuals has been drawn into its security structure—the so called gox-gore network. No other contemporary party, at least in Africa, has institutionalized such an impressive and extensive contact with members of the society it is ruling.

Given the above facts, how can the Government attribute the ongoing mass protests in Oromia and elsewhere to the highly marginalized and supposedly negatively-oriented “anti-peace and anti-development elements”? The supposedly negative and unconstructive messages of these nefarious elements reach members of society at most through secret whisperings and dissemination of rumors. On the contrary, the Government’s constructive and positive messages are transmitted to the public on a daily basis by the mass media reinforced by its local cadres who harangue the public at the meetings they convene nonstop.

The claim by the EPRDF that the ongoing peaceful protests are instigated by the negative messages of “anti-peace and anti-development” forces underscores its own failure more than anything else. It clearly demonstrates that its own pervasive and constructive messages to society have been overridden by the secret whisperings of these nefarious elements. Sadly, the EPRDF has developed the habit of refusing to acknowledge and take responsibility for its own failures.

And unless it does so, fabricating culprits to take the blame every time something amiss happens would go on ad nauseam. Despite its famed tradition of Critical Self-Evaluation (gimgema), no genuine self-appraisal could ever take place inside EPRDF so long as this ploy is resorted to ad infinitum. And it has two convenient bogeymen, the OLF and Ginbot 7, to serve the purpose of blaming every time something amiss occurs despite its repeated claim that both have been defeated and buried time and again. It has now discovered another bogeyman, the El Nino phenomenon, to take the fall for the famine that is threatening 15 million Ethiopians.

Does the EPRDF realize that such claims constitute the height of suffering defeat at the hands of these so-called “anti-peace and anti-development” forces? How can the ghosts of these forces that are dead and buried successfully communicate with and influence especially the peasantry to stage the kind of widespread protests currently being witnessed in Oromia?

There is an underlying cause for the habit of the EPRDF to blame the ghosts of forces that it has allegedly killed and buried every time protests take place in one locality or another. This is the presumption that members of society are totally gullible as to be easily misled by their detractors because they are too simple-minded to know what is in their best interests. EPRDF rhetoric reveals the presumption that its favorite social sector, the rural peasantry, is particularly in need of the exclusive and wise guidance of “Revolutionary Democrats,” lest it falls under the sway of forces harboring ill-will towards it.

George Orwell once opined “The truth, it is felt, becomes untruth when your enemy utters it.” If such clash between the Government’s truth and that of others was restricted to the opposition forces it demonizes, one would not be surprised. But truth, according to the EPRDF, goes further to become the photographic negative of the truth known to members of society. Where the EPRDF sees growth and alleviation of poverty, evidently peasants seem to see devastation, eviction and the exacerbation of poverty. When one’s truth is perceived as the untruth of the other, a relation of mutual enmity threateningly prevails. This binary oppositional relation between their truth and that of particularly the peasants (their self-selected favorite constituency) should really worry the leaders of the EPRDF.

Any kind of truth, particularly political truth, is not absolute but relative because the truth of one social category could be the untruth of another. There are only two ways to reconcile the conflict between these kinds of oppositional truths: EPRDF’s style of muzzling those espousing truths contrary to its own, or heeding the call to sit down for dialogue and negotiation with others to accommodate all views.

The latter alternative makes imperative allowing loyal opposition parties to table their own policies reflecting the truth as they see it and tolerating the public at large to exercise its freedom of expression. This set-up would serve the ruling party more than anybody else. It would allow the ruling party to pre-empt dangerous and unexpected eruptions of societal expressions of discontent by making timely adjustments of the articulation and implementation of policies. When a ruling party muzzles all those airing different ideas, there is no alternative for the airing of discontent but to gather steam out of sight and hearing only to come into the open through popular upsurge of mass protests—like the volcanic eruption currently sweeping Oromia and threatening to spread throughout the country. Muzzling popular expressions of discontent, even if within the means of Ethiopia’s ruling party, cannot forever forestall its eventual reckoning with the truth of others.

Here it appears pertinent to bring up Marx’s famous statement: “In direct contrast to German philosophy which descends from heaven to earth, here we ascend from earth to heaven.” In like manner in the EPRDF-led political order, political views and interests only “descend from Menelik palace to the villages” because their “ascent from villages to Menelik palace” is blocked. EPRDF leaders should not continue to delude themselves that their elaborate organizational infrastructure is serving as a two-way communication channel between these two crucial nodes. Local cadres would understandably be reluctant to transmit upwards news they fear to be unpalatable to their overlords.

The policy of muzzling the expression of different views in the public arena inevitably seeps back into the hallowed ranks of the members of the EPRDF. As a result, the reality EPRDF leaders know based on the fabricated reports of their local cadres over time increasingly departs from what actually prevails on the ground.

EPRDF leaders rationalize their policy of hamstringing opposition parties and restricting public freedom of expression on the grounds of according priority to economic development and preserving peace and stability eclipsing all other values. No sane person would disagree that poverty alleviation by speeding up economic development and preserving peace and stability should be prioritized. No single stakeholder in Ethiopia is saying the country need not develop. No single stakeholder in Ethiopia is saying peace and stability should not prevail.

The question comes down to what kind of peace we are talking about. Rousseau’s famous question runs “There is peace in dungeons, but is that enough to make dungeons desirable?” He puts his finger on a very important point for there are two kinds of peace – peace in dungeons and just peace. Peace in dungeons is preserved by its walls and cells as well as the club-wielding prison officer. Any state runs the risk of descending into preserving peace in the dungeons when it increasingly relies on naked force alone to maintain order.

Just and democratic peace, on the contrary, relies on instituting and stringently upholding the rule of law applicable not only to the ruled but also the ruler. Many generously interpreted the EPRDF’s rhetoric about peace when they came to power close to a quarter of century ago as the aspiration to institute this particular type of peace and not peace in the dungeons. A review of their actual performance during this period would go a long way to show which version of peace predominated. The same review in the economic and other endeavors deserves to be conducted in an inclusive dispassionate atmosphere.

Consequently, all stakeholders should press EPRDF leaders to conduct such an inclusive review process coinciding with their Silver Jubilee next May. Many hoped against all hopes that such a re-appraisal will take place only to be disappointed. It is high time for all other stakeholders to conduct a self-appraisal of their own on their own and oblige EPRDF to come to its senses or face the inevitable consequences of its arrogance and blind-sightedness.

Ed.’s Note: Leenco Lata, an author, is one of the persons that laid the cornerstones of Ethiopia’s multi-national federation and currently President of the Oromo Democratic Front (ODF). The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of The Reporter. He can be reached at leenco.lata@yahoo.com.

The obituary and epitaph for the Thugtatorship of the Tigrean Liberation Front (T-TPLF) was written last year by Bereket Simon, the former “communication minister” and longtime sidekick of the late criminal mastermind of the T-TPLF, Meles Zenawi and Addisu Legesse, “deputy prime minister” to Meles and “deputy chairman” of the T-TPLF front organization called the “Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF)”.

In a secretly recorded conversation, Bereket and Addisu talked plainly about the end of times — the final days, the last days — of the T-TPLF in Ethiopia to a group of their supporters.

According to Addisu:

Looking at it from our situation, it is already getting out of our hands. There is no question about that.   We can see that plainly from the way the teachers’ organizations are doing things. When 2/3 of educators are our members (of our party), and they are going out and demonstrating against us, that is the end of the story. I don’t think it is only Arena [party]. Ginbot 7 is also there. In Bahr Dar, I think, [anti-T-TPLF] flyers are being distributed. Haven’t you received any? Papers? [Others present at the meeting chime in response.] It is also [distributed] in Bahr Dar. But we do not know that, if you know what I mean. Flyers are being distributed and they are seen. So, I think they have gone down to the cell level everywhere. It seems like there is something that has organized itself. So I think it is coming from the Ginbot 7 area. (Emphasis added.)

Bereket responded with an example of what he believed is the sign of the end of times for the T-TPLF:

There was a meeting. I went to the meeting. I was eating breakfast. Two individuals came and started talking to me. When they talked to me, they imposed themselves on me. Their appearance did not make me happy (comfortable). When I started to investigate, these individuals are primary beneficiaries of city land acquisition. Primary! These are individuals who will scam left and right and get land beyond what is appropriate. But they had the audacity to accuse our comrades. They were ready to make accusations that so and so did this so and so did that. So when you look at it, what are they talking about? For me, so to speak, I tried to answer them as best as I thought about it. It is not something that one could accept [the accusation]. But the incredible thing is that anyone to have the audacity to say something like this to me, one can see the potential of such individuals to create chaos in the city. So, all those who spread propaganda and people like that must be singled out and we must isolate them. Even those people who have been telling us for a long time that they are our friends in the past are telling us sarcastically (mockingly) , ‘Oh! Don’t worry. We will see each other when it is the election season and stuff like that.’ Such talk does not make you happy… (Emphasis added.)

What exactly is eating Bereket, Addisu and T-TPLF Inc.?

First, it is clear the two T-TPLF head honchos fear the end of the T-TPLF is near. They said so in plain terms. “That is the end of the story” of the T-TPLF.

Bereket, Addisu and T-TPLF Inc. know it is the end of the story because they have used up all of the tricks in their bags to cling to power

For 24 years, the T-TPLF played their game of divide and rule and nurtured ethnic and sectarian hate. Someone once said hate is like a boomerang that misses its target and comes back and hits you in the head. Well, the hate the T-TPLF spread in Ethiopia for the last 24 years missed its target of making Ethiopia a nation of haters. The hate the T-TPLF hate produced is now hammering the T-TPLF on the head.

For 24 years, the T-TPLF played their ethnic federalism game and declared all land belongs to the state. 

But to whom does the state belong?

The T-TPLF and the international land scammers, swindlers and poverty pimps bought and sold, pawned and auctioned, peddled and hustled the peoples’ land.

In December 2015, the T-TPLF land scammers and swindlers were served final notice: We are not going to let you steal our land any more. “Enough is enough!”

The larger message to the T-TPLF in December 2015 is resolute:

You stole our dignity for 24 years, and we did nothing but lived in shame. Now, “Enough is enough!”

You stole our human rights for 24 years, and we quietly accepted second-class citizenship. Now,  “Enough is enough!”

You stole our voice for 24 years, and we remained silent. Now, “Enough is enough!”

You stole our children’s future for 24 years, and we watched in quiet desperation. Now, “Enough is enough!”

You stole one election after another for 24 years, and this year you added insult to injury by claiming you won the “election” by one hundred percent. Now, “Enough is enough!”

You stole our humanity for 24 years, and today we question our sanity for allowing you to steal our humanity. Now, “Enough is enough!”

After 24 years, we will be damned if we are going to let you continue to steal our land, the land our forefathers died and shed their blood, so you can sell it for pennies to your swindling and crooked international land grabbers and poverty pimps. “Enough is enough!”

We will stand our ground or we will be underground defending our land.

We will not back down even if you clampdown, crackdown, knock us down, push us down, run us down or break us down!

This time we will not back down until you go down!

Second, Bereket and Addisu know it is the end of the story for the T-TPLF because poverty, famine and pestilence are consuming the society as they trumpet their bogus “double-digit growth over the past decade game”. The T-TPLF paid the lily-livered international poverty pimps (excuse me “consultants”) to pimp their economy for them.

The World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, USAID and the whole cackle of international poverty pimps published lies, damned lies and statislies to legitimize the T-TPLF as an economic miracle-maker and powerhouse.

They thought we were too dumb, too stupid and too ignorant to figure out their lies, damned lies and statislies.

Well, they found out we ain’t as dumb as we look.

For the past 24 years, the T-TPLF made themselves the only players in town. They made a playground of Ethiopia. They made Ethiopia their plaything. They had fun. They played to win, but in the end they outplayed themselves.

Now it is GAME OVER for the T-TPLF!

Or in the memorable words of Addisu, “it is the end of the story” for the T-TPLF.

Third, Bereket and Addisu know it is the end of the story for the T-TPLF because the T-TPLF has no friends in Ethiopia.

Bereket and Addisu are genuinely surprised that even their lackeys and bootlickers who became rich under their watch and their “comrades” whose crimes they covered up for so long are actually not their friends. Their “friends” are actually shapeshifter “villains with smiling faces”, to borrow from Shakespeare.

Bereket, Addisu and the T-TPLF now realize that they have only fair weather friends.

They should have known that “there are no true friends in politics. Only sharks circling, and waiting, for traces of blood to appear in the water.”

The “friends” of the T-TPLF — the “friends” they let steal the land and rob the people blind and the criminals they coddle today — are just sharks circling, and waiting, for traces of blood to appear in the water before they join everyone else in the feeding frenzy.

What Bereket, Addisu and the T-TPLF find hard to believe is the fact that there is after all honor among thieves and villains. Certainly, no honor among thugs.

Bereket, Addisu and their comrades in the T-TPLF just don’t understand how their own crop of corrupt businessmen and bottom feeder friends have managed to keep enough traces of virtue to stand up to them and risk going to jail and lose their stolen loot by speaking truth to their faces.

A shocked Bereket said, “It is not something that one could accept [the accusation of corruption and abuse of power of the T-TPLF comrades]. But the incredible thing is that anyone should have the audacity to say something like this to me.”

Bereket and Addisu could not believe that the people they have trained as their lap dogs and let feed unattended at the troughs of corruption and abuse of power for so long would now transform into pit bulls biting the hand that feeds them.

But Bereket “doth protest too much, methinks”, to borrow a line from Shakespeare.

Well, why else would corrupt businessmen and criminal local bosses created by the T-TPLF talk to the top T-TPLF capos with such audacity, with such contempt and fearlessness, unless they felt the T-TPLF is the dregs of society with no future?

The fact Bereket and Addisu find hard to swallow is that they are surrounded by “friends” and “supporters” who will be the first to stick a dagger in their backs and float them down the river in a leaky boat without a paddle at the first opportunity. How can our best friends, “the educators [who] are our members [of our party], go out demonstrating against us… that is the end of the story,” lamented Addisu.

It seems Bereket and Addisu had a late epiphany.

They finally figured out the meaning of Bob Marley song, “Who the Cap Fit”:

Ya don’t know who to trust.
Your worst enemy could be your best friend,
And your best friend your worst enemy.
Some will eat and drink with you,
Then behind them su-su ‘pon [gossip] you, yeah!
Some will hate you,
pretend they love you now,
Then behind they try to eliminate you.

The T-TPLF has no friends in Ethiopia. The T-TPLF has 100 million enemies in Ethiopia.

It is much easier to make friends with a prickle of porcupines than the T-TPLF.

If the T-TPLF leaders feel betrayed now by the “educators demonstrating against them”, they should wait until they get a load of the soldiers, the civil servants, the business owners and merchants and the religious leaders turning their backs on them (or sticking it to them in the back).

The T-TPLF leaders KNOW their “friends” today will be their worst enemies tomorrow.

The T-TPLF minnows KNOW they are swimming in an ocean of 100 million sharks.

The T-TPLF leaders KNOW they are all alone.

Soon enough, the T-TPLF leaders, cronies and supporters will recall Martin Luther King Jr.’s words, “In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”

When the end of the T-TPLF story is told, the T-TPLF friends will be as silent as the grave.

Fourth, Bereket and Addisu know it is the end of the story for the T-TPLF because they have lost their mojo (voodoo) to strike fear and stir fear and loathing in the population.

A distraught Bereket said, “But the incredible thing is that for anyone to have the audacity to say something like this to me.”

A dispirited Addisu said, “I think they have gone down to the cell level everywhere. It seems like there is something that has organized itself.”

The greatest weapon dictators have is the mind of the people they tyrannize.

Fear and loathing are the ultimate psychological weapons of mass control on a population under dictatorial rule.

All dictators have sought to consolidate and maintain their power over their population by fear, loathing and deprivation.

By using fear, dictators present themselves as the invincible and saviors of the people. They hope to convince the people that without them there will be chaos and destruction.

By using loathing, they seek to divide and conquer.

By using deprivation, they seek to impose subservience on an impoverished population.

Despite the T-TPLF’s massive surveillance program in the so-called “ 5:1 system” in which the T-TPLF “monitors the day-to-day activities of other Ethiopians, including friends, family members, colleagues, and neighbors”,  the T-TPLF is still paranoid that a well-coordinated grassroots level mobilization to overthrow it is underway. Addisu said, “I think they have gone down to the cell level everywhere. It seems like there is something that has organized itself.”

What Bereket, Addisu and the T-TPLF are in willful denial about is the fact that for 24 years there have been massive quiet riots going on in the hearts and minds of Ethiopians.

Today, the T-TPLF is witnessing the quiet riots shaping into open insurrection. That is just a fact plain for all to see.

When Reeyot Alemu, the heroine of press freedom in Ethiopia declares she is abandoning peaceful struggle for armed struggle, last week declared her commitment to armed struggle to remove the T-TPLF, “that is the end of the story”!

Reeyot is no ordinary person expressing an opinion. Reeyot is the rarest of all Ethiopian she-roes who stood her ground against the TPLF thugs. She never backed down! Never!

Reeyot is much more than a woman of extraordinary courage, conviction and intelligence.

Reeyot is the voice and messenger of her generation.

Reeyot is telling us that her generation has opted for armed struggle and left the path of nonviolent struggle because the T-TPLF has closed down all political space.

When the youth opt for armed struggle, that is the end of the story.

Reeyot did not choose the way of violence and armed struggle. The T-TPLF forced Reeyot to choose the way of violence and armed struggle.

The T-TPLF will soon begin its vilification campaign against Reeyot.

They will say Reeyot is a “terrorist”. She joined a “terrorist” group. They jailed her in the first place because she was engaged in “terrorism”. Blah… blah… blah…

They will soon begin a campaign to demonize Reeyot and scandalize her name. They will put out lies and damned lies about her.

What the T-TPLF should know is nobody gives a damn, a rat’s behind, about what the T-TPLF thinks of Reeyot.

What the T-TPLF should know is that Reeyot is the true personification of the hopes, dreams and yearnings of the young people who constitute 70 percent of the Ethiopian population.

What the T-TPLF should know is that there are millions of Reeyots just waiting to blossom like the Ethiopian rose (Rosa abyssinica/ tinjute) and take over the country.

That is the future I see for Ethiopia. I see an Ethiopia covered from top to bottom with Ethiopian roses.

Fifth, the T-TPLF leaders KNOW it is the end of the story because they have become the “evil” they sought to eradicate.

In the Tigray Manifesto, the T-TPLF declared (p.18), “The goal and aim of the people of Tigray is to launch a national anti-Amhara oppression struggle” and “establish a “Tigrean Democratic Republic.”

One need only listen to Gebremedhin Araya, a former top member of the T-TPLF, who exposed the sleazy and abominable ideology of T-TPLF hate towards all Ethiopians and particularly the “Amhara”. I have the highest respect for Gebremedhin’s patriotism and love for Ethiopia and the truth.

For much longer than 24 years, the T-TPLF demonized, monsterized, vilified and waged a campaign of fear and smear against the “Amhara”.

For much longer than 24 years, the T-TPLF set out to create a strawman “evil Amhara”.

For much longer than 24 years, the T-TPLF has claimed the “evil Amhara” forced their rule by killing, massacring and victimizing their Ethiopian brothers and sisters.

For much longer than 24 years, the T-TPLF said the “evil Amhara” stole the land and “enslaved” their Ethiopian brothers and sisters.

For much longer than 24 years, the T-TPLF claimed the “evil Amhara” abused their power and denied “non-Amhara” people their rights.

For much longer than 24 years, the T-TPLF tried to play the fear and loathing game of the “evil Amhara” bogeyman.

For the last 24 years, the T-TPLF has been saying if we go, “evil Amharas will be back in the saddle”. The “evil Amhara” will forbid people from speaking in their language. They will punish people if they practice their culture. They will prevent them from administering their affairs.

For the last 24 years, the T-TPLF tried to scare the people into believing that the “evil Amhara” will return and “take away their land.”

For the last 24 years, the T-TPLF has driven the people off their land and sold it to the Chinese, the Indians, the Saudis and the Turks.

After 24 years, the T-TPLF has morphed into the “new and improved evil Amhara.”

Friedrich Nietzsche wrote in “Beyond Good and Evil” that “He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you.”

The T-TPLF set out to fight the “evil Amhara” monster and in the “end of the story” the T-TPLF became the “new and improved evil Amhara”.

Sixth, the T-TPLF know it is  the end of the story because they know their existential threat comes not so much from any particular opposition group but through a leaderless youth movement and youth resistance.

In the secretly recorded conversation Addisu said, “It seems like there is something that has organized itself… Flyers are being distributed and they are seen. So, I think they have gone down to the cell level everywhere.”

Addisu’s and the T-TPLF’s fear is that a leaderless, party-less, organization-less movement is and has been spreading, penetrating and infiltrating society.

I agree with Addisu that “there is something that has organized itself” against them. That “something” has no central command, no hierarchy and no particular ideology. That “something” has “gone down to the cell level everywhere.”

That “something” I believe is a multiethnic and multi-religious youth movement.

The youth may organize at the “cell level” and react independently to local situations or in defense of narrow interests.

What the T-TPLF fears the most is a united leaderless youth movement that emerges organically and is sustained by a shared belief in human and democratic rights and total repudiation of the T-TPLF and its oppressive rule. At the cell level, the youth agitate one-on-one and mobilize against the T-TPLF.

It is impossible to stamp out a leaderless youth movement.

It is impossible to destroy such movements as there is nothing to destroy.

The simple truth is: ETHIOPIA’S YOUTH UNITED CAN NEVER BE DEFEATED!!!

My advice to Ethiopia’s youth is: Dissect and study the tragic fate of Egyptian youth in the Arab Spring; and make sure not to repeat those mistakes.

Seventh, the T-TPLF leaders think they can delay the end of the story because America and the European Union will turn a blind eye as they continue to unleash their campaign of massacres, torture and mass incarceration of their opponents.

I will not say their assumption is entirely unfounded.

America and the European Union, the chief bankrollers of the T-TPLF, turned a blind eye and remained silent when the T-TPLF massacred and maimed nearly a thousand people after the 2005 election.

In fact, within two years of the massacres, the U.S. increased its aid to the TPLF from nearly $1.8 billion in 2005 to nearly $3.5 billion in 2008.

America and the European Union remained silent and turned a blind eye when the T-TPLF massacred hundreds of innocent people in the Gambella region in December 2004.

America and the European Union remained silent and turned a blind eye when the T-TPLF massacred thousands of innocent villagers in the Ogaden region in 2007-08.

America and the European Union remained silent and turned a blind eye (and gave millions of dollars of military aid) and when the T-TPLF massacred and displaced hundreds of thousands of Somalis between 2006-09.

Will America and the European Union remain silent and turn a blind eye when the T-TPLF begins another round of massacres of protesting children and citizens in December 2015 and intensifies its murderous campaign in 2016?

I don’t know.

What I know is what I learned from Henry “Methuselah” Kissinger who said, “America has no permanent friends or enemies, only interests”.

I broadly interpret that to mean when push comes to shove, America for sure – and possibly the European Union and even China — will discard those who do not serve its interests like a bagful of garbage festering in the backyard.

When the people of Egypt rose up against Hosni Mubarak in February 2012, America dumped him in a New York minute. Barack Obama said:

The people of Egypt have spoken. Their voices have been heard, and Egypt will never be the same. By stepping down, President Mubarak responded to the Egyptian people’s hunger for change.  But this is not the end of Egypt’s transition.  It’s a beginning.  I’m sure there will be difficult days ahead, and many questions remain unanswered.  But I am confident that the people of Egypt can find the answers, and do so peacefully, constructively, and in the spirit of unity that has defined these last few weeks.  For Egyptians have made it clear that nothing less than genuine democracy will carry the day.

In March 2011, when the Libyan people rose up against Muammar Gadhaffi, Obama threw him into the dustbin of history before the Libyan people did.

I don’t think anybody disputes that Gaddafi has more firepower than the opposition. I believe that Gaddafi is on the wrong side of history. I believe that the Libyan people are anxious for freedom and the removal of somebody who has suppressed them for decades now. We are going to be in contact with the opposition, as well as in consultation with the international community, to try to achieve the goal of Mr. Gaddafi being removed from power.

Whenever the people of Ethiopia rise up against the T-TPLF, I will bet my bottom dollar Obama will say the same thing:

The people of Ethiopia have spoken. Their voices have been heard, and Ethiopia will never be the same. By giving up power, the T-TPLF responded to the Ethiopian people’s hunger for change.  But this is not the end of Ethiopia’s transition.  It’s a beginning.  I’m sure there will be difficult days ahead, and many questions remain unanswered.  But I am confident that the people of Ethiopia can find the answers, and do so peacefully, constructively, and in the spirit of unity that has defined these last few weeks.  For Ethiopians have made it clear that nothing less than genuine democracy will carry the day.

I believe that the Ethiopian people are anxious for freedom and the removal of somebody who has suppressed them for decades now. We are going to be in contact with the opposition, as well as in consultation with the international community, to try to achieve the goal of removing the T-TPLF from power.

The T-TPLF ignoramuses believe America, Europe and China will stand with them to the bitter end.

Did I mention the Chinese bankrollers of the T-TPLF?  They follow the ancient principle of “see no evil, hear, no evil and speak no evil.”

When the people rise up and the s**t hits the fan, Obama and his crew, the European Union, China and the rest of them will abandon the T-TPLF like rats on a sinking ship.

“Sayonara, T-TPLF! Nice knowing ya! We’re outta here!”

That is exactly what is going to happen, when the time comes, when the people of Ethiopia rise. Rise, they shall.

In the words of Maya Angelou,

Just like the moons and like suns
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still [they] will rise.

Just like the moons and like suns, Ethiopians shall rise. But “Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands unto God.”

America is not going to save the T-TPLF when the Ethiopian people rise up like the moons and like suns.

When the people of Ethiopia rise up, America will abandon the T-TPLF like a toxic dump site.

That’s what America did to Fulgencio Batista in Cuba in 1959.

I remember reading John Kennedy’s speech in his presidential campaign in 1960 when he condemned Batista as a murderous monster.

Fulgencio Batista murdered 20,000 Cubans in seven years … and he turned Democratic Cuba into a complete police state — destroying every individual liberty. Yet our aid to his regime, and the ineptness of our policies, enabled Batista to invoke the name of the United States in support of his reign of terror.

I can imagine the same statement being made by Obama or his successor when the Ethiopian people rise up and show the exit to the T-TPLF:

The T-TPLF murdered hundreds of thousands of Ethiopians in over two decades. Our aid to the T-TPLF, and the ineptness of our policies, enabled the T-TPLF to invoke the name of the United States in support of its reign of terror.

That’s how America dealt with dictator Anastasio Somoza García in Nicaragua in 1979.

That’s how America dealt with dictator Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi in Iran in 1979.

That’s how America dealt with dictator Omar Torrijos in Panama in 1981.

That’s how America dealt with dictator El Abidine Ben Ali of Tunisia in 2011 and Ali Abdullah Saleh of Yemen in 2012.

No fuss. No mess. Used ‘em, now lose ‘em. That’s how they roll in Washington, D.C.

“America has no permanent friends or enemies, only interests”.  That’s just the way it is!

Eight, the  T-TPLF leaders believe the end of their story will be delayed because the current uprising will blow over like a breeze and things will go back to normal, business as usual will continue.

After all, the T-TPLF cracked down on peaceful Muslim protesters and “silenced” them. (Did they really?)

They cracked down on opposition political parties. Nothing happened.

They clamped down on the press. Nothing happened.

They massacred protesting university students. Nothing happened.

They committed genocide in Gambella, the Ogaden and Somalia. Nothing happened.

They are allowing 15 million Ethiopians be consumed by famine. Nothing happened.

Why should it be different this time?

The T-TPLF leaders believe they can play a game of “kick the can” with the people’s demands, hopes and dreams. Their view is that they can go on and on by deferring and delaying the people’s demand for another week, month, another year.

The T-TPLF leaders take it one day at a time. As long as they stay in power one more day, it’s all good for the T-TPLF guys.

What the T-TPLF guys are willfully ignorant about is the fact that behind every wind of protest that blows over, there is a tornado of pent up by anger, rage, resentment, hatred, bitterness and the irrepressible desire for revenge building up.

Maybe the current protests will blow over. But I don’t think so.

It would be wise for the T-TPLF to know the difference between a wind storm that passes through and a tornado that ploughs through as they strategize how far they will go in massacring their opponents and peaceful protesters.

Ninth, the T-TPLF leaders KNOW the end is near and they must garb their money and run.

I am led to believe by those who know (not those who think they know) that the T-TPLF head honchos would just as soon have the end of the story so they can go to wherever they have stashed their millions and live out their last days in peace. They are dog-tired of running a sinking ship. They desperately want to abandon ship before the ship sinks and takes them and everyone down.

The T-TPLF leaders, their cronies and supporters KNOW their only choice is to run.

Get your money and run to America, the land that welcomes all types of criminals against humanity.

Run to your money in America that turns its back on the victims of criminals against humanity.

The “end of the story” is that is time for the T-TPLF to run. It is better for the T-TPLF to run than to be run down.

Tenth, the T-TPLF know it is the end of the story, but they have no idea how their story will end. I know they are betting their story will have a very bad ending.

People ask me how and when the T-TPLF dictatorship will end.

I have no idea how or when the end of the T-TPLF story will be written.

The last chapter of the story of the T-TPLF could be written days, weeks, months or years. I cannot predict. I don’t have the power of prophesy, but I know the power of prophesy.

I know as sure as the sun will rise tomorrow that the T-TPLF’s tyrannical rule will come to an end.

But don’t take that from me.

Take it from Bereket Simon and Addisu Legesese. They are telling you it is the end of the story for the T-TPLF.

Mahatma Gandhi said, “Remember that all through history, there have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they seem invincible. But in the end, they always fall.  Always.”

What is the difference between saying, “in the end, tyrants always fall” and “it is the end of the story” for tyrants?

So, the question as far as I am concerned is whether the T-TPLF story in Ethiopia will end with a bang or a whimper.

I hearken to T.S. Eliot’s poem “The Hollow Men” as I think of the end of the T-TPLF.

Does the fate of “hollow men” and “stuffed men” like those of the T-TPLF end in a “bang or a whimper”?

Eliot said the world of “hollow men” and “stuffed men” ends “not with a bang but a whimper”.

I am not sure that will be the case with the T-TPLF.

I feel Robert Frost’s verse, “Fire and Ice” is closer to the truth.

I believe the end of the story of “hollow men” and “stuffed men” is neither fire nor ice. Their end is hate.

In the words of Frost:

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

I am a student of dictatorships with a specialty in thugtatorships.

I despise all dictatorships. I despise thugtatorships even more.

I wholeheartedly agree with Winston S. Churchill’s description of dictators:

You see these dictators on their pedestals, surrounded by the bayonets of their soldiers and the truncheons of their police … yet in their hearts there is unspoken fear. They are afraid of words and thoughts: words spoken abroad, thoughts stirring at home — all the more powerful because forbidden — terrify them. A little mouse of thought appears in the room, and even the mightiest potentates are thrown into panic.

I believe I am the first person to propose a proto-theory of “thugtatorships”. (See my “Thugtatorship, the Higesht Stage of African Dictatorship”.)

I have studied “the end of the story” for many dictatorships.

The “end of the story” for most dictatorships is replacement by another dictatorship in a coup followed by the emergence of a clone of the overthrown dictatorship.  Occasionally, post-dictatorship regimes emerge as benign dictatorships that present themselves as “mutant democracies” , to invent a phrase, legitimize their rule through anointment by America specifically and and the West generally.

African dictatorships almost always end in African dictatorships, the musical chairs soldiers have played on the continent for over six decades.

Between 1946 and 2004, there have been nearly 400 coups of all types in Africa. During this time, there have been only a handful of genuine democratic transfers of power in Africa.

Most so-called democratic elections held under African dictatorships are rigged to legitimize iron-fisted dictators in velvet gloves.

Some African “elections” are so ridiculously rigged that one wonders if the regimes claiming victory have any sense at all.

In May 2015, the T-TPLF  claimed to have won 100 percent of the seats in the “parliament”.

To add insult to the injury of the Ethiopian people, the T-TPLF imported Barack Obama to their den of corruption and election rigging and had him make a public confession that their 100 percent rigged election victory was one hundred percent “democratic.”

I still wonder if the T-TPLF also rigged the coffee Obama had just before he gave a press conference and said, “We are opposed to any group that is promoting the violent overthrow of a government, including the government of Ethiopia, that has been democratically elected.”

I have never been more ashamed of Barack Obama than the day he stood should to shoulder with the most ruthless African thugs and declare to the world “the government of Ethiopia, that has been democratically elected.”

I learned long ago that when a defining moment comes along, I either define the moment or the moment will define me.

In July 2009, Obama told Africans in Accra, Ghana, “Africa doesn’t need strongmen, it needs strong institutions.” On that day Barack Obama defined the moment.

In July 2015, Barack Obama stood shoulder-to-shoulder with thieving thugs and called the 100 percent electoral victory of the T-TPLF “democratic.” On that day Barack Obama let the moment define him. 

That’s how Obama’s  fell from grace to disgrace!

The evidence on the end of thugtatorships is sparse, but I believe “thugtatorships” end in a qualitatively different way than the garden variety dictatorships.

The “end of the story” for thugtatorships I believe is likely to be cataclysmic  and result in the most extreme social cost to society.

I don’t know how or when the end of the story of the T-TPLF will be told.

My commitment, as proudly displayed on my website, is to “Speak truth to power”. That also includes misusers and abuser of power and power mongers.

I tell the truth. I don’t tell stories.

This time, I don’t have to tell the story of the end of the T-TPLF.

This time, I don’t have to speak truth to the T-TPLF.

This time, I will let the truth talk to the T-TPLF.

This time, I will let the truth talk to the T-TPLF as told by two  T-TPLF “truth tellers”.

This time, I would like Ethiopians to hear the truth from the horses’ mouths (I did not say hyenas’):

Looking at it from our situation, it is already getting out of our hands. There is no question about that.   We can see that plainly from the way the teachers’ organizations are doing things. When 2/3 of educators are our members (of our party), and they are going out and demonstrating against us, that is the end of the story.”

Amen!

Personally, I don’t think it is the end of the story of the T-TPLF in Ethiopia.

I think it is the beginning of the end of the story of the T-TPLF in Ethiopia.

I think it is the end of the beginning of the story of the T-TPLF in Ethiopia.

Story of the

The Horn Times Newsletter 28 December 2015

By Getahune Bekele/South Africa.

Instituting widespread censorship, banning political activities, arresting and torturing or even executing political opponents in police-state Ethiopia didn’t bring some sort of respite to the homicidally insane and suicidally gloomy Tigre Peoples Liberation Front/TPLF top dogs who are ruling the impoverished nation with brutal iron fist. Instead, some newly formed guerrilla groups, yet to become full-fledge guerrilla combatants are taking the struggle for freedom to the doorsteps of the extremely nervous ruling elite in Addis Ababa.

Cowed by the month long disproportionate use of force against the ongoing anti land grab protest in the country, Opponents are hitting back, using the feared ideological bomb of propaganda, leafleting cities and towns across Ethiopia. Observers said the recent mass distribution of colourful leaflets in Addis Ababa by Eritrea-based rebel group; Patriotic Ginbot-7/PG7 has brought an endowment of shame upon the Tigre Peoples Liberation Front/TPLF’s intelligence apparatus led by arch terror guru, the impenitent killer Getachew Assefa.

“Simply breathtaking and death defying. Those who carried out this mission are the real daredevils with invincible spirits. Amhara Democratic Movement Force/ADMF is a little known contemporary guerrilla force operating independently in northern Ethiopia, but penetrating and infiltrating the heavily guarded Addis Ababa and leafleting it? Well, that is heart-warming to us who are longing for regime change. I am impressed especially seeing some leaflets and posters placed near puppet PM Hailemariam Desalegn’s office in Aratkilo.” A retired journalist who cannot be named for security reasons told the Horn Times.

“All major taxi ranks, bus terminals and busy intersections were awash with posters, letters and colourful pamphlets on Friday morning. We are touched by the massages. ADMF patriots didn’t advocate genocidal raids against the genocidal TPLF supporters or propagate vicious ethnic strife like the ruling Tigre Peoples Liberation Front/TPLF often does. I performed a bit of content analysis and the carefully worded leaflets reflected the political maturity of the ADMF leadership. Their political objective is very popular. Kings to them.” The elderly journalist added.

Amhara Democratic Movement Force/ADMF was established in the agriculture and livestock rich northern Amhara province of Gonder, otherwise known as Africa’s forgotten Palestine. Over the course of 25 years, Gonder lost almost half of its fertile farmland to the sub-state Tigray Republic and more than one million ethnic Tigres were resettled on Gondere land, forcibly removing the Amharas from areas of surplus to areas of scarcity. The story of Gonder under TPLF rule has been the story of the biggest unreported genocide of our time, according to an ADMF senior commander.

Speaking to this writer from secret location in north Gonder, the ADMF field commander said the Amharas who survived the 25 years systematic genocide are currently living in overcrowded shanty towns as farm labourers, surrounded by the homes of very wealthy Tigray settler farmers.

“Tigre settlers are openly calling themselves Israelites while the subdued Amharas are referred to as Palestinians. Tigre settlers are well protected by heavily armed militia and the central government provides new arrivals with generous bank loans, free lessons on cattle herding, bee keeping and oil seed farming. Then what is produced by cheap slave labour on occupied Amhara land makes its way to international market via Port Sudan to Israel, China and Turkey. If you want proof of what i have just told you, please travel to the former Amhara towns of Humera, Abderafi,  KefitaHumera, Dansha, Metema or Bereket and see how they became ethnically homogenous Tigre exclusive towns. The entire ethnic cleansed and annexed land is no longer called northern Gonder. It is now officially western Tigray.” The commander stated, warning that failure to urgently investigate such blatant peace time holocaust and ethnic cleansing would lead to revenge attacks and encourages desperate Amhara slaves to take the law into their own hand.

“The brutal Tigray sub-state’s bestial degradation of the forgotten ethnic Amharas cannot be allowed to continue.” The commander added calling for the immediate arrest of former Tigray sub-state president Abbay Woldu and current foreign minister of Ethiopia- proper, Tewdros Adhanom, for the century’s yet to be exposed or investigated genocide and illegal annexation of Amhara land. We withheld the name of the commander for security reasons.

Furthermore, patriot Getnet Anagaw, another fearless sunshine patriot in charge of ADMF’s public relations confirmed to the Horn Times the leafleting of Addis Ababa on charismas day, 25 December 2015.

“We did it under the cover of darkness almost undetected, thanks to gallant ADMF urban gourrilla unit members and the people of Addis Ababa. The unpopular totalitarian junta’s massive security cluster has been outwitted. As you know, 25 years of peaceful resistance to effect regime change didn’t bring forth the desired result. Ethiopia has become the world’s unofficial apartheid state while we keep talking peace with trigger-happy regime. Time to change strategy, of course.” patriot Getnet told the Horn Times by phone from the white hot desert of Eritrea.

However, he ruled out utilizing military actions such as bombing key regime installations, sabotage and targeted assassinations of top TPLF war criminals in Addis Ababa.

“For now our main focus is saving Gonder through a mix of Mobile warfare and guerrilla warfare strategies. The illegal occupation of our ancestral land in Gonder and Wello must end now. Otherwise, we will make the coast of occupation of North Gonder unbearable and rural Gonder totally ungovernable to sub-state Tigray Republic. We have also a massive responsibility of defending our people from the continued cross border raids of Mehadi Jihadists of North Sudan. And please pass my message to our people here at home and abroad that ADMF guerrilla fighters need their help, both morale and material. Where there is will, there is always a way.” The likable rebel leader, Patriot Getnet Anagaw concluded.

infohornti

Dejenie A.Lakew (PhD)

When TPLF went around telling false stories to different parts of Ethiopia that the Amharas did these things to you,
building false and scare craw statue of an amputated breast as a constant reminder to keep them hating each other, not to be able to work together for greatness and prosperity due to their unity, further creating divisions within indivisible units in Gondar by saying Kimant-Amhara, creating unknown distrust so that their ones is removed and start internecine wars of delusion and then survival will eventually be their fate, in order not to reclaim Welkaite-Tegede-Telement as theirs but instead remain TPLF resource of fortunes and wealth of power for all time, we all knew that it was just a strategy. This strategy of psychopaths of divide and rule (divide et empera ) is not new, it was what the earlier colonialists and their learnt subjects from Egypt were doing against Ethiopia, creating false wars and conflicts of Ethiopian people against Ethiopian people(the Eritrea-Ethiopia conflict of nonsense reason and lunacy of smallness ) so that the river Abay keeps flowing unhampered and unused to get it for their developments. We have seen these efforts that bear results, the constant civil wars that EPLF and ELF waged for decades against their own country Ethiopia resulted in the situation we see today in both sub-countries, Ethiopia-Eritrea.

As a best strategy, past Egyptian leaders resorted such conflicts as a sole way of keeping Ethiopians busy fighting each other so that they get what they needed, which we have again witnessed in the Moris government cabinet meeting, where members were explicitly saying, they have to create and train political opposition groups and make Ethiopian fight a survival self wars. That is exactly what Tigray army and its hollow headed political leaders did for the last decades and continue doing as we speak and want to do for all time, enriching themselves from corner to corner taking every resource of fortune of the country and making the people poor, beggars, and guards at best in their own country or resort to leave their country to live a life of servitude in other countries or remain in prison if question a right and freedom and political power.

We heard Tigray people political leaders saying to the Oromo people who oppose them and protest for their rights as possessed of demons, the other one said, they should be catered in open barracks like domestic animals which are needed only for services and consumption, if prisons are full, ordering university students squatting (kuch –bidig punishment) like children, killing indiscriminately innocent Ethiopians just for asking their natural and human rights to live on the places where they are born and lived, when their lands are robed forcefully for real estate buildings of past beggars of Tigray but today’s wealthy persons of corruption in Ethiopia and be onlookers of their life of luxury and at best be guards to them on their own lands with no economic benefits what so ever, to enhance their lives. As recently as this week, arsonists kidnapped and beat an Oromo political opposition leader and telling him either to keep quiet and live a life of animals or they will make him disabled or killed by running over him with a car and released him. This is scarier and an indication of what life is in Ethiopia today and for whom Ethiopia is, sole property of people from Tigray, with a complete absence of rule of law and total absence of freedom for its citizens but heaven and a place of luxury for people from Tigray, protected up close by a special army from Tigray and by majority foot soldiers from outside commanded by TPLF generals and commanding officers.

On the Gondar front, we read cases where cadres from Tigray terrorizing the people of Humera, Welkaite-Tegede-Telemt not to speak Amharic and not to play Amharic music and further went on saying, they learnt Amharic from Azmaries not because they are Amharas- surprising expression of delusional beggars but changed to cancer cells from over grown syndrome of unusual consumption and unfair possession of resources that are not theirs. There is a saying in our country “ sorry for those who are over consumed than those who are starved” which TPLF represents the over consumed animal of our society in the parable. They stripped employments and barred from further employment of people because they supported that Welkait-Tegede-Telemt are Amharas of Gondar, not tirgres of Tigay and the illegal takeaway of their lands should be returned to Gondar and their Amhara identity should be recognized. To counter attack this and further weaken the society, TPLF arsonists created a purposeful further division in Gondar – Kimant-Amhara dichotomy for the same intent I have mentioned above.

All these things clearly indicate what TPLF wanted and wants for all time – to be the sole owner of what is called Ethiopia as their real estate land mass of their own resource of wealth and power for eternal domination. I read the other day, the wife of the con – man and crook Meles Zenawi saying, she is afraid and worried for her properties and family – indicating they have no a vein of Ethiopian attachment and leadership characters, living only as colonizers of a luxury living of wealth obtained from the resources of the country as sole owners – like the European colonizers in south Africa or in colonized countries of Africa, when the people were demanding their rights of their lands and social unrest happened, the words and feelings Azeb expressed were used in the same way. But leaders do not have special business or property to worry about when the safety and security of their country is threatened and be at stake, as their sole purpose is to keep and maintain the safety and security of their country and provide true leadership for genuine equal prosperity and peaceful coexistence of their society.

On one of my recent posts, a Tigray mindless boy, a sympathizer of TPLF was trying to convince us (how foolish he is to fool others who are not fools but wise ) his nonsense, saying how the ethnic distribution of Ethiopian army is fair and to make a mindless conclusion for that, how TPLF runs a democratic system – a joke only for children or for fools of his types whom the con-man Meles fooled them, but not to grown up people who have a capacity to think, reason and know what is truth and falsehood. The Italian army of Mussolini in Ethiopia during the wars – traditionally known as the army of askaries, foot soldiers from Eritrea and Tigray to fight against Ethiopian heroes and heroines of independence, were the majority (in fact more than 90%) but that did not make it an army for Ethiopia, with a 1% or 0.5% of army Italian generals with sole power to order and command the majority army what to do. This is exactly what is happening in Ethiopia today, where TPLF keeps on saying the army is well distributed in ethnicity proportion (as if Ethiopians demand that) run , commanded and ordered by few generals of Tigre people for the sole purpose of their hegemony over Ethiopians, which makes it an army of colonization of its own country – that is what the Ethiopian people are saying. The Ethiopian people are not so naïve or incapable of thinking to know these differences, differences between what an army of subjugation and what an army of people from the people for the people and commanded by members of its own people.

The good thing is that the Ethiopian people are well understand not only the intent but the actual actions TPLF is doing and want to do all the time and therefore you have to be determined to get rid of this arsonist group of no conscience for once and for all, to keep fighting in any form, anywhere where their representatives live and where their sources of revenue exist. There is no any future benefit what so ever to create conditions to compromise with this arsonist group, as Ethiopians witnessed time and again what compromise means to them, it is to create temporary conditions of softness and seemingly possible breakthrough for democratic governance to flourish but instead to get someone in to their disposal and keep in prison, abuse him/her and eventually die of health complications because of severe abuse and emotional stress.

The difference between humans and animals is that humans learn and keep what they have learnt in their memory to use it for future purposes, either to solve problems or stay away from problems but create advanced techniques to solve harder problems, while animals trained but forget what are trained and always captured with the same trick and with the same trap. TPLF cannot do that anymore as Ethiopians are not animals who cannot learn tricks of deceptions for more than two decades.

The damnation of Ethiopia by the T-TPLF

Last week, before the ink had dried on the “new agreement” on the so-called Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, Egyptian President General Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi toldEgyptians during the inauguration of a national farmland project, “I totally understand the concern of Egyptians as water is a matter of life or death. We already agree with our brothers [the Ethiopians] that they want to live as we want to live. I have not led you astray before and I will not lead you astray now.”

Is that military-speak for something?

“Water is a matter of life and death?” “They want to live as we want to live?” “I will not lead you astray now?”

When generals (even in civilian suits) speak about “life and death” and “living” and not “leading astray”, I get really concerned. I may be biased but I think generals say they will not lead their people astray because they only know one path, the warpath. This kind of talk coming from generals really freaks me out. Am I being oversensitive?

Generals often speak with forked-tongue. They will not come out and say, “We are going to bomb this or that.” They will talk about an “air campaign on targets”. Generals won’t talk about “torture”. They will talk about “coercive interrogations”.  They talk about “collateral damage” or “friendly fire” but never about how “we killed our own soldiers or people by mistake or negligence.” Generals don’t talk about a “blitzkrieg” (lightening war) but “shock and awe”.

El-Sisi does not seem to be mincing words here. To me he is saying something very profound. But what exactly is he saying?

To be precise, what exactly is El-Sisi telling (assuring) the Egyptian people?

What exactly is he messaging the Thugtatorship of the Tigrean People’s Liberation Front (T-TPLF) when he says for Egyptians the Nile water is a “matter of life and death”?

What is El-Sisi telling his “Ethiopian brothers” when he says “they want to live as we want to live”. If we don’t live, they don’t live?!

What is he telling the regional neighbors? What is he telling the American and European powers that be?

Is El-Sisi saying that he knows what he is doing now and in the future and that the Egyptian people should not worry?

El-Sisi’s comments have prompted me to probe into his strategic intentions and capabilities and examine what appears to me to be brinksmanship military-speak.  I hear El-Sisi saying the so-called Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam will be built when the Nile freezes and the devil goes ice skating.

In the interest of full disclosure, I need to make certain clarifications.

First, I do not agree with President El-Sisi on a wide variety of human rights issues. I  agree with Human Rights Watch’s assessment that under El-Sisi  Egypt “has overseen a reversal of the human rights gains that followed the 2011 uprising.”

On the other hand, El-Sisi has been “Ethiopia’s Friend in Need”. I must give credit when it is deserved.

When El-Sisi first heard of the beheading of 30 young Ethiopian migrants in Libya in April 2015 by the ruthless self-styled terrorist thugs known as “Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant” (ISIL) (also known as “Islamic State of Iraq and (Syria) al-Sham (ISIS)” because they were Christian, he came out immediately and expressed his condolences on behalf of the Egyptian people who were “pained by the gruesome beheading of innocent Ethiopians in Libya.”

El-Sisi was the man who sent Egyptian troops to Libya to rescue the remaining Ethiopians from certain beheadings and bring them back to Egypt safely on a chartered plane.

When the T-TPLF leaders heard of the Libya beheadings, they did not even want to acknowledge the occurrence of the inhuman acts.

Redwan Hussein, a T-TPLF spokesman said, “It’s being widely reported that ISIS purportedly shot, killed and beheaded Ethiopians. The Ethiopian government is doing its level best to confirm whether the victims were Ethiopians.”

El-Sisi rose to the occasion as the T-TPLF sat on its duff on the sidelines looking all bewildered, powerless and helpless, twiddling its thumbs and scratching its head.

El-Sisi stood at the head of a red carpet reception line at the Cairo Airport and greeted the rescued Ethiopians one by one, giving them encouraging words. Not one T-TPLF representative showed up at the receiving line.

Some may suggest that El-Sisi took advantage of a public relations opportunity and maxed it out.

My answer is simple: “A man who is drowning does not care who tosses him a rope!” A man facing certain beheading does not care who rescues him or the reasons his life is saved!

The simple fact is that President El-Sisi ordered the rescue of the young Ethiopians because he wanted to; because he could; because he believed it is the right thing to do; because he believed in the brotherhood and sisterhood of the people of Egypt and Ethiopia; because he cared about Ethiopians Christians as Christians and as human beings who deserve to be treated with justice and dignity.

President El-Sisi, by acting courageously and swiftly to rescue the kidnapped Ethiopians in Libya, cemented the millennia old friendship and sisterhood between two of the world’s oldest civilizations.

I say the foregoing to say the following: I do not believe El-Sisi wishes harm to the Ethiopian people. I do not believe he wants war with Ethiopia. I believe El-Sisi will do his level best to find diplomatic and technical solutions to the myriad problems anticipated in the  construction of the so-called Grand Renaissance Dam. I believe El-Sisi will try to reason with the T-TPLF leaders to come up with a fair resolution to the problems.

I also believe El-Sisi’s diplomatic efforts with the T-TPLF will fail totally and completely, not for lack of trying or good faith on El-Sisi’s part, but because of the ignorant arrogance of the T-TPLF leaders.

I believe that if push comes to shove and there is any depletion in Nile water flow to Egypt, El-Sisi will have no option but to resort to military means to ensure the so-called Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam will not harm or threaten to harm existing Egyptian farmlands, hydroelectric power production and reclamation of land for future farming purposes to feed the rising Egyptian population.

My view is that what El-Sisi said after the “new agreement” must be examined in historical context and scrutinized for strategic intentions and capabilities. Simply stated, going forward, I believe there are only two questions that need to be answered with clarity and certainty:

1) Has El-Sisi ruled out war or other military action to protect the 97 percent of all water Egypt gets from the Blue Nile and rely exclusively on diplomatic means to resolve all outstanding issues?

2) Does El-Sisi now, or will he in the intermediate future have the military capability to make sure the status quo on water flow to Egypt continues?

In my analysis, there is no question that El-Sisi and his military chiefs have come to theirreversible conclusion that the so-called Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam is a total and complete existential threat to Egypt and that the only solution to deal with the threat is a military one.

This position is not something El-Sisi developed in a vacuum. The military option has always been the core strategic option of successive Egyptian regimes who have regarded any dam construction on the Nile is an imminent existential threat to Egypt which must and will be resisted by any and all means necessary.

I believe all of the diplomatic dance and do-see-do that we see today amounts to nothing more than delaying The Inevitable.

Since the onset of the Arab Spring in early 2011, the T-TPLF has sought to capitalize on Egypt’s political instability, fragility and regime change. The T-TPLF leaders thought they could take advantage of Egypt’s internal problems to forge ahead with their construction and diversion of water from the Nile without much Egyptian pushback.

El-Sisi and his generals understood their own political vulnerabilities and played along with the diplomatic game for the last three years.

El-Sisi and his generals were biding their time with diplomacy. As Will Rogers said, “Diplomacy is the art of saying ‘Nice doggie’ until you can find a rock.”

My analysis of the situation is that El-Sisi is in a much stronger position than he was two years ago. The instability and turmoil that gripped Egypt between January 2011 and June 2013 is no longer a factor. There are no mass protests threatening to overthrow El-Sisi’s government. El-Sisi has consolidated power and his military regime is internally unified. The crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood, I suspect, has wide support among the elites, the military, the bureaucracy and other civil institutions. There even appears to be broad consensus among the elites that El-Sisi is likely their man to prevent Egypt’s descent into civil strife and religious conflict.

El-Sisi today is confident enough to tell Egyptians not to worry about the Dam. He will not lead them astray. He knows exactly the path he will be taking when push comes to shove. He is not going to let them down. The “Ethiopian brothers” are not dumb enough to present Egypt with an existential threat by damming the Nile because “they want to live as Egyptians want to live”.

In other words, El-Sisi today has found his Rogerian rock. He does not have to say ‘Nice doggie’ to the T-TPLF anymore. The only question is when El-Sisi will roll with his rock!

My analysis is that El-Sisi and his military planners have set on a multi-phasic and stepwise progression to the Inevitable.

I believe the strategic intention of the Egyptians is to go to war over the so-called Grand Renaissance Dam only as a last resort. They believe they have the military capability now or could easily obtain it in the future to neutralize any threat from the Dam. They see no need to take preemptive use of military force now.

I believe the Egyptian strategy will proceed along the following lines though not in this order.

First, there is substantial evidence to show that the Egyptians have lobbied the international loaners and donors not to give money to the T-TPLF for the construction of the Dam. Egypt has launched such a campaign along two tracks: 1) by having “Egypt’s ministers of water and foreign relations meet with their counterparts in countries with influence in the Nile Basin” and 2) by having Egypt’s ambassadors lobby against funding in these countries. This strategy has been successful as the T-TPLF has not been able to get loans or other financial support for the construction of the Dam.

Second, I believe El-Sisi will undertake efforts to delay construction of the Dam by requiring the completion of an endless series of technical studies and analysis. The “agreement” last week to have further technical studies on the Dam’s impact to start in February 2016 and take up to 15 months is just the latest example of such tactics. Undoubtedly, more studies will be requested in the future. I also believe findings from the technical studies will reveal evidence and conclusions (as various studies to date have shown) that the Dam will adversely impact Egypt in a variety of ways.  I believe in the end El-Sisi and his generals will use these technical and engineering studies as casus belli (cause justifying  military action).

Third, through delays and other means, El-Sisi will aim to incur massive cost overruns in the construction of the Dam, eventually making it financially impractical to build and maintain.

Cost overruns in the construction of large dams are common in the ordinary course of events. In the largest and most comprehensive scientific study on the economic viability of large dams ever done, Oxford University researchers Atif Ansar, Bent Flyvbjerg, Alexander Budzier and Daniel Lunn analyzed all large dams which were built between 1934 and 2007 for which reliable costs and schedule figures are available. That study concluded large dams suffered average cost overruns of 96% in constant local currency terms.  Project implementation suffered an average delay of 44%.

Cost overruns in dam construction in Ethiopia are commonplace. For instance, the Tekeze hydroelectric dam on the Tekeze River, a Nile tributary, in northern Ethiopia was initially estimated to cost USD$224 million, but when it was completed seven years later in 2008, its cost skyrocketed to USD$360 million.  Structural problems caused by poor engineering and substandard materials in dam construction are also commonplace. Gilgel Gibe II Dam on the Omo River in February 2010 experienced “tunnel collapse[which] closed the largest hydropower plant operating in Ethiopia, only 10 days after its inauguration.”

Fourth, I believe El-Sisi will insist on the longest possible time to fill the reservoir if the Dam is ever completed and thereby delaying power production while increasing the operating cost for the T-TPLF. According to a Norwegian engineering study, it will take seven years to fill the reservoir with 67 billion cubic meters of water assuming all goes according to plan. Few things go according to plan. The super-secretive T-TPLF has not published its plans for the initial reservoir filling to meet its power production targets. Regardless, initial reservoir filling and evaporation after the reservoir is said to result in significant reduction of water flow to Egypt.

I am informed by experts that the reservoir filling process is a critical phase which must be handled with extreme care. Reservoir filling is affected by a whole host of factors including determination of filling rate, seasonal changes in water volume, means of controlling the rate of reservoir rise, remediation of problems that might develop during initial filling, placement of elaborate surveillance technology to detect problems during filling, planning for dam inspection and variable impact on  downstream areas prior to and during filling, and so on. The reservoir filling period is likely to be a high-magnitude flash point between Ethiopia and Egypt.

Fifth, if the Dam is ever completed, El-Sisi will undertake efforts to limit its financial viability by denying it a market. According to the T-TPLF, the power from the “Grand Renaissance Dam” is to be sold to the Sudan, Egypt and the Arabian peninsula once construction is complete.

According to an October 2015 report, Azeb Asnake, “CEO” of “Ethiopian Electric Power”said “Ethiopian Electric Power spends nine US cents to generate one kwh of energy but sells it at a price of six US cents.”

“Ethiopian Electric Power” is currently selling power at a 33 percent loss. At that rate, the so-called Grand Renaissance Dam will be profitable only on Planet T-TPLF where they practice the voodoo economics of their late master Meles Zenawi.

Various studies have shown that electricity costs in Africa could be reduced substantially if there is regional integration and cross-regional collaboration in power production. The problem has been that such collaboration has been undermined by the absence of trust among African countries not only in cost sharing but also in the control and management of dams for mutual long-term benefits.

The tragic irony is that in the current dispute between the T-TPLF and Egypt over the Dam, there is absolutely no trust. There is no evidence to support the view that the three neighboring countries will ever collaborate as development partners to build a reliable power sector. That is just a fact!

Sixth, if the Dam should be completed and become operational, it is highly likely El-Sisi will take tactical short-term action to disable power grids, transmission and distribution lines, substations and the like. Such actions could result not only in prolonged and severe power outages and disruptions but also in the degradation of the Dam’s infrastructure and performance capacity.

Seventh, I believe El-Sisi will exhaust every diplomatic and legal approach including mediation, arbitration, judicial proceedings and U.N. intervention to protect what he considers to be an existential threat to Egypt before resorting to military action.

Eighth, if the Dam should be completed and become operational, I do not believe El-Sisi will wait for any adverse economic effect to occur in Egypt before taking action. I believe he will go after the Dam with everything he has got within days of the completion of the project in a lightning strike. I have no doubts about that!

Ninth, there is one undeniable fact all must accept: There is no question whatsoever that the so-called Grand Renaissance Dam will have a significant and adverse impact on the water flow to Egypt. Egypt today is facing water shortages amid a growing population. It needs more water, not less. The Dam will result in significant loss of water flow to Egypt.

According to the United Nations, “Egypt is already below the United Nations’ water poverty threshold, and by 2025 the UN predicts it will be approaching a state of “absolute water crisis”. Simply stated, Egypt could run out of water by 2025! Any reduction in Nile water flow will be catastrophic on Egypt.

A Stratfor Global Intelligence report last week concluded that the “removal of volume from [Nile River] into the reservoir — which could take up to six years — could greatly reduce water supplies into Egypt. Eventually, the static water in the reservoir will also lead to a reduction in volume because of evaporation, which could deteriorate water quality.”

According to a 2012 Norwegian study, during the seven year period it will take to fill the reservoir with 67 billion cubic meters of water, the Nile flow into Egypt could be cut by 25%. Such a reduction in water flow will be catastrophic for Egypt. Once the reservoir is filled, there could be up to a 50 percent reduction in the flow of water to Egypt.

A 2014 report by the  Massachusetts Institute of Technology concluded that it was a pipedream for the parties to find a solution to the various problems created by the Dam:

Egypt, Ethiopia, and Sudan are currently hoping that a team of international consultants can quickly find technical solutions to these challenging problems to which they can agree. From our perspective, this is likely wishful thinking. The hard negotiations ahead will require that foreign policy and water experts from each of the three countries have a shared understanding of the technical issues and a willingness to compromise while hammering out detailed agreements on reservoir operation policy, power trade agreements, dam safety, and salinization control.

I believe the die is cast.

Today’s rumors of war on the Nile will prove to be water wars on the Nile tomorrow. I believe that is foreordained and inevitable so long as the T-TPLF is determined to deprive Egypt significant water flow from the Nile despite protestations to the contrary.

The Egyptians have long said water is a matter of life and death for them. By 2025, it will literally be a matter of life and death for them!

In 1979, Egyptian president Anwar Sadat said, “The only matter that could take Egypt to war again is water.” Reduce Egypt’s water by 25 percent and there will be war.

In 2010, President Hosni Mubarak presumably made a deal with the Sudanese leader Omar al-Bashir for the construction of a small air base to be used as a staging point for a military assault on hydroelectric facilities. Reduce Egypt’s water by 25 percent and there will be a major airbase on Egypt’s southern border.

In June 2013, then-President Mohammad Morsi said, “Egypt’s water security cannot be violated in any way. As head of state, I confirm to you that all options are open. We are not calling for war, but we will never permit our water security … to be threatened.  If it loses one drop, our blood is the alternative.” Reduce Egypt’s water by 25 percent (or “one drop”) and there will be war.

In June 2014, Egyptian Major General Talaat Mosallam said, “Now the options are very few. Diplomacy is the first, but Egypt’s leverage is ‘at rock bottom,’ and if talks fail, Egyptian military commanders may decide that ‘it is better to die in battle than to die in thirst.’” Reduce Egypt’s water by 25 percent and Egyptian military commanders will decide that ‘it is better to die in battle than to die in thirst.

Some leading Egyptian political leaders have suggested various methods of destroying the Dam, including support for anti-T-TPLF elements.

According to “credible” intelligence sources, Egypt has military plans to deal with any dam built on the Nile “after all diplomacy options fail”:

If it comes to a crisis, we will send a jet to bomb the dam and come back in one day, simple as that. Or we can send our special forces in to block/sabotage the dam. But we aren’t going for the military option now. This is just contingency planning. Look back to an operation Egypt did in the mid-late 1970s, I think 1976, when Ethiopia was trying to build a large dam. We blew up the equipment while it was traveling by sea to Ethiopia. A useful case study.

Reduce Egypt’s water by 25 percent and El –Sisi will send his jets to “bomb the dam” or “send his special forces in to block/sabotage the dam.”

Tenth, in my view, the construction of the Dam for the Egyptians is, under no circumstances, a matter of negotiation, dialogue, mediation, arbitration, etc. for Egypt. Think about it. How can Egypt negotiate on a “matter of life and death”?

The late head honcho of the T-TPLF, Meles Zenawi said, “I am not worried that the Egyptians will suddenly invade Ethiopia. Nobody who has tried that has lived to tell the story.” (I believe this was one of the very few times Meles actually used the word “Ethiopia”. He almost always referred to Ethiopia as the “country”. I feel he was ashamed to say the word, “Ethiopia”. I have never heard Meles describe himself as an “Ethiopian”. NEVER! I would like to stand corrected if anyone can produce a documented instance in which Meles said in public that he is an “Ethiopian”.)

I am glad Meles takes great pride in Ethiopian military prowess. Of course, Meles is accurate in his historical observation. Ethiopia has maintained its independence and sovereignty for over three thousand years repelling all forms of invaders.

Emperor Menelik II vanquished the invading Italian Army at the Battle of Adwa in 1896, barely two years after the Conference of Berlin where Europeans carved up Africa to establish colonies. It is rather ironic that Meles should take pride in Menelik, the one Ethiopian leader he hated more than anyone. After Italy invaded Ethiopia in 1935, Italy was once again vanquished by Ethiopian patriotic resistance leaders from all parts of the country. That is why I believe ETHIOPIANS UNITED CAN NEVER BE DEFEATED BY A FOREIGN OR DOMESTIC ENEMY.

I am not sure Egypt, as Meles must have anticipated, has a land invasion plan for Ethiopia if the Dam is completed. I would venture to guess that El-Sisi would opt for surgical air strikes and covert commando operations.

There are some analysts who suggest that an Egyptian military operation against the Dam could be difficult as Egypt may not have the military capability (e.g. in-flight refueling capability for its jets) to strike over a long distance. It would appear Egyptian military planners would factor for such contingencies.

It is definitely worth noting that in September 2015, El Sisi ordered the purchase of two French aircraft carriers and 24 “omnirole” Dassault Rafale fighters with a range of 1,850 km and a service ceiling of 50 thousand feet.

It worth considering how El-Sisi could exploit regional dynamics to his advantage in any strategic or tactical moves he may wish to make.

I have stated clearly my personal views on the Dam in my commentary, “The Dam Dammed by Cash Flow?”.

I am not against the construction of dams in principle. But I proudly wear the tag “Tree Hugger.” I wholeheartedly believe in environmental protection and conservation anywhere in the world. I believe smaller dams are better than large ones. My view is supported by a substantial body of scientific research.

I have a different view on the whole question of “power” in Africa, the political and electrical one.

I believe it is important to first empower the people of Africa through improved governance and accountability before powering their homes and businesses. Dam construction in Africa, and particularly in Ethiopia, where dams are built on non-competitive bid contracts, the only thing that is produced in the dams is corruption, corruption and more corruption.

I recently had opportunity to visit one of the most impressive dams on the Colorado River. It was a great learning experience for me. I believe constructing and operating a large hydroelectric dam is an extraordinarily demanding task which carries substantial risks. I am not sure that those who are incapable of running Gilgel Gibe III could manage a dam that is going to be the largest in Africa.

As I stated in my April 2014 commentary, “Dam! White Elephants in Ethiopia?”, the “Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam” is a white elephant that does not make economic sense. Development Today, the independent journal on aid, specializing in political, business and environmental issues related to Nordic and multilateral development assistance, called the Dam a “highly politicized prestige project of the late Prime Minister”.

The “Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam”, formerly the “Millennium Dam”, was the brain child of  Meles Zenawi who, like all of his predecessor African dictators, suffered from delusions of grandeur. The Aswan High Dam in Egypt stood as a monument to Gamal Abdel Nasser. Meles wanted to have a concrete memorial that could immortalize and glorify him as the little “Big Man” of Africa.

I believe the Dam will be a flashpoint for water wars between Ethiopia and Egypt.

Every time I write a commentary about the so-called Grand Renaissance Dam, the nattering lackeys and toadies of the T-TPLF kick into gear and call me “unpatriotic”, “hateful to the T-TPLF”, etc. They will say I will never miss an opportunity to talk negatively about the T-TPLF, its “accomplishments”, and what it wants to do for the country’s development. I don’t believe the T-TPLF lackeys and toadies can read and understand the analyses I offer in my Monday Commentaries.  If they did, they would challenge me on the facts and my reasoning. But they never do!

To invoke the famous line, “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn” what the nattering T-TPLF lackeys and toadies say.  I tell the truth as I see it, as I think it, as I understand it and as I feel it.

But here is a challenge to anyone who wants to take it. Present an analysis of a scenario(s) in the construction of the “Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam” which will not provoke Egypt into resorting to military action as  an ultimate act in defense of what Egyptians believe is a “matter of life and death” to them!

I have made my case. Now, make yours!

Let’s debate the issues. Let’s examine the facts. Let the people be informed. Let them be forewarned of what could be the consequences of the Dam. Let the people know the truth about the Dam!

I would like to be proven wrong in my analysis here because I do not wish to see water wars or any other conflict in the region. Nothing would give me greater pleasure than seeing regional integration and cross-regional collaboration in power production between Ethiopia, the Sudan and Egypt. Such collaboration is likely to be found in the world of fantasy, not in Northeastern Africa.

Those who disagree with my analysis should consult the report  issued by Stratfor Global Intelligence last week:

… As long as the region remains divided on the dam, actual construction could be disrupted at any time. The dam is reported to be about 50 percent complete right now, and water is being diverted around the construction site. Still, even though construction is far along, Ethiopia has been unable to secure foreign investment for the project, and less than 30 percent of the total $4.8 billion price tag to complete the dam has been secured. Unless Ethiopia manages to secure the required funding, completion of the dam could easily be delayed by several years. This is precisely why negotiations are so important: The better negotiations go, the better Ethiopia’s chances for obtaining funding.

What happens to the Dam is not in El-Sisi’s hands.

It is in T-TPLF hands to make the Blue Nile red.

Damn! After all, it may all be much ado about nothing!

No dam money, no damned dam!

A Happy New Year to all of my loyal readers who have followed my Monday Commentaries (or as some would like to affectionately call them “sermons”)  for almost ten years.  

That in less than six months after announcing a 100 percent electoral victory in national elections the TPLF faces a formidable uprising in Oromo regions and in a lesser scale in some parts of Ethiopia constitutes the mother of all irony. Unsurprisingly, the only response known to the government to the popular unrest is massive mobilization of security forces, including the army, and violent crackdowns resulting in deaths, severe beatings, and arbitrary imprisonments. This time, however, there is a difference: the TPLF is badly wounded by the protests and uprisings and seriously weakened.

This is shown by the fact that the TPLF was compelled to publicly drop the Addis Ababa Master Plan in an attempt to quell the unrest. I give no credence to what the TPLF says or promises and remain convinced that it will implement the Plan in one form or another. Still, that the TPLF was forced to back down in the face of popular opposition is the first in kind since it seized power in 1991. No doubt, the official announcement of a retreat was an extremely difficult one in view of the too familiar and boundless arrogance of the TPLF. Like an injured animal attacks left and right, one should, therefore, expect the intensification of repression and a tightening of the control system from the enraged arrogance.

Another manifestation of a weakened TPLF is the surrender of Ethiopia’s exclusive sovereignty of the so-called Renaissance Dam. Despite denials of the Ethiopian government, the recent agreement does stipulate that the filling of the dam requires a prior consensus with Egypt and Sudan; it also specifies that the latter will be given priority for the electricity generated by the dam. One must be a fool not to see that these conditions establish a de facto co-ownership of the dam by the three countries. The surrender is just a confirmation of the TPLF’s conviction that it does not have the national support that it needs to withstand Egyptian demands.

In my view, the current popular revolts are bound to have consequences that will deepen the weakening of the TPLF. Among these consequences, three major ones particularly stand out. The first has to do with the cohesion of the EPRDF itself. As a major partner in the ruling coalition, the OPDO has been humiliated and seriously rebuffed by the uprisings in Oromia. Non-Oromo security forces had to be called to repress the popular protests, obvious as it is that Oromo security personnel were either reluctant to crackdown or the TPLF could no longer trust them. We even heard some TPLF members accusing the Oromo forces of gross incompetence, worse yet, of secretly supporting the protesters. Whatever the interpretation, one thing is sure: a rift that would be difficult to bridge is now visible within the EPRDF.

Another major consequence is the end of the myth of Ethiopian stability under the hegemony of the TPLF. Some such outcome is likely to be of great concern for Western governments and investors as well as for the growing Chinese involvements in Ethiopia. Western governments had so far turned a blind eye on the gross violations of human rights in Ethiopia as a ransom for the guarantee of stability and economic development in a continent too prone to political turmoils and violent conflicts. But when unrests multiply, especially when they come from the Oromo who are supposed to have most benefited from the liquidation of Amhara hegemony and the establishment of federal system of self-rule, they reveal a deep crack in the very foundation of the regime.

The impact of the collapse of the myth of stability is already visible in the recent declaration of the American government expressing deep concern over government’s crackdown on protesters and calling for a “constructive dialogue to address legitimate grievances.” Another possible expression of discontent of the US could be the precipitated shutdown of American base for drone operation in southern Ethiopia: even if military factors must have been the real reason for the decision, its official announcement at a time when the TPLF is losing face in the eyes of the international community looks like a betrayal of an ally that has no longer faith in the regime.

Last but not least, the uprising and the violent crackdown invite a rethinking among opposition forces, notably a heightened awareness of the need to counter the divide-and-rule strategy of the regime by going past ethnic alignments. Many observers are wondering why other ethnic groups, especially the Amhara, are not joining the Oromo uprisings, all the more so as it is but evident that the TPLF would be unable to suppress if the uprisings extend to other regions. Indeed, expanding these protests into a national movement, by which alone other ethnic groups can be coopted, is the sine qua non to defeating and overthrowing the TPLF.

The good news is that appeals for rapprochement between the various groups are being heard here and there and in some places––still very limited––we see a debut of implementation, as in the case of Medrek and Semayawi parties agreeing to work together. There is no doubt that it would be difficult to overcome the descending path created by decades of divisive politics and mutual suspicion, but the spectacle of Oromo protesters abandoned to the violent fury of the TPLF should give us all a pause. The crackdown on Oromo protesters under the eyes of other groups acting as bystanders is simply the spectacle of a people made powerless by its own divisions.

Needed, therefore, is the remaking of unity through the dialectical process of negation and negation of that negation. The original unity was abstract, homogenizing; it was negated by divisions and ethnic fragmentations. The TPLF is trying to solidify the movement of fragmentation. We have to say no by negating the fragmentation, but this time to obtain a synthetic unity, the unity that integrates diversity conquered through the first negation. This is called development, as opposed to fragmentation or secession.

By:Asress Mulugeta
The current government in Ethiopia has been in power for a total of almost 25 years, and it is based on a single ethnic minority group from the north part of Ethiopia, Tigray. From the very beginning, Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) has utterly been undemocratic by its nature. TPLF has stolen democracy and votes from ethiopian people in all the previous national elections. All the elections held in 1995, 2000, 2005, 2010 and 2015 were either  fake and/or Scandalous. TPLF has also made sure to control all sectors of the country with its own ethnic group. The military, religious, and economic sectors have always and still continue to revolve around the Tigray ethnic group.

The ruling government has been using the divide-conquer strategy to stay in power forever. Among about the 20 countries in the world  that implement federal system of government, it is only Ethiopia that uses ethnicity as the fundamental organizing principle of its federal system of government. In ethiopia, teritorial boundaries are drawn in a way that maximizes ethnic homogeneity. In contrast to ethiopia, western federations (eg. Canada and Switzerland) usually catagorized as multinational federations don’t promote ethnicity as the chief instrument of state state organization and mobilization.

TPLF has pitted several ethnic groups against each other and particularly the major ethnic groups, the Amhara and Oromo. The major ethnic groups feel they’ve been deprived of their legitimate participation in governance because of the Tigrayan dominance of the political and economic aspects of the country. There have been several genocides, massacres, and ethnic cleansing that have taken place throughout the country, and not one individual has been held accountable for all those killings and massacres. No one is safe in Ethiopia, except members of the TPLF.

In  December 2003, the TPLF lead military attacked and abused Anuak civilians in Gambella region – delibrately killing, raping, beating, torturing, and harassing civilians. TPLF massacred over 400 Anuak civilians in Gambella. These abuses left Anuak villagers fearful of leaving their homes at night, going to the fields and farms outside of town, or fetching water from the water pumps or streams.

In the aftermath of the 2005 election, the TPLF regime’s Special Forces killed more than 200 innocent people and threw to jail leaders of a party that won the election. Between 2005 and 2010, the Ethiopian parliament passed three bills (Media, NGO and Anti-Terrorism bills) that criminalize dissent and the free expression of ideas, and in the meantime, the regime made it sure that no viable opposition party exists in Ethiopia. As a result, the incumbent ruling party won 99.6% of the seats in a 547 seat parliament in an election that reminded us a typical Soviet era socialist election.

In 2012 and 2013, hundreds of thousands of poor farmers of Amhara ethnic group were forcefully evicted from the southern part of Ethiopia and the Benishangul-Gumuz area. similarly, TPLF’s ethnic dictatorship policy has made many people homeless and claimed many lives in many parts of Ethiopia.

Recently, starting from November 2015 untill now, the Oromo people have been peacefully protesting against the TPLF devised plan to grab land from the Oromoia region near the capital. But the Tigrayan military, police and security apparatus responded by waging war and terrorism on Oromo school children, farmers, teachers and elderly people; until today, they massacred more than 140 people, imprisoned more than 20,000 Oromo, and beaten and disfigured thousands of individuals. European Union 28 member countries called emergency meeting to discuss  the issue on January 11, 2016.

The sad part is that if the ruling ethnic minority group from Tigray continue terrorizing and killing people from other ethnic groups unabetedly; Ethiopia’s future will not be any different from the current Syria.

The Post’s View

By Editorial Board

IN THE latest chapter of Ethiopia’s escalating authoritarianism, young people, journalists and musicians have been the targets of the ruling regime’s quest to silence political dissent. For several weeks, students from the Oromo majority ethnic group have been protesting the government’s “master plan” to expand the capital territory of Addis Ababa into Oromo lands. Instead of addressing the concerns through dialogue, the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) regime has responded with devastating violence. At least 140 people have been killed by police and security forces in the Oromia region, according to reports from Human Rights Watch. The government claims five have been killed and insists that protesters are trying to “destabilize the country” and that some have a “direct link with a group that has been collaborating with other proven terrorist parties.” Last month, police arrested Bekele Gerba, deputy chairman of the Oromo Federalist Congress, Oromia’s largest registered political party. The government also has arrested and allegedly beaten Hawi Tezera, an Oromo singer, in connection with her song about the protests.

Ethiopian authorities also have begun attempting to silence media covering the demonstrations. According to reports, the government has arrested and charged several journalists, including Getachew Shiferaw, editor in chief of the Negere Ethiopia news site, under the country’s 2009 anti-terrorism legislation. Fikadu Mirkana, of Oromia Radio and TV, has also been arrested. The U.S.-based television channel ESAT, which has been covering the Oromo protests, claimed that the Ethiopian regime jammed one of its broadcasting satellites.

Ethiopia has long been celebrated by the United States for its economic growth and its willingness to engage in the battle against the Somali extremist group al-Shabab. Generous U.S. aid has been granted. But the EPRDF regime, which won 100 percent of parlimentary seats in last year’s elections, is not interested in democratic reform or human rights. It continues to clamp down on independent media and censor information. The country remains among Africa’s most prolific jailers of journalists.

In statements last month, the Obama administration expressed concern over the clashes in the Oromia region and the arrest of journalists but stopped short of explicitly urging the Ethiopian government to refrain from violently cracking down on protesters. The United States praised Ethiopia for releasingfive of the detained Zone 9 bloggers shortly after President Obama’s visit to the country in July. But last month, the government summoned five bloggers back to court after they were cleared of terrorism charges. Government prosecutors are appealing their acquittal.

The Obama administration said last month that the “United States has consistently applauded Ethiopia for being a model and a voice for development in Africa.” But as long as Ethiopia’s authoritarian master plan for development includes the suffocation of political opposition, a blatant disregard for human rights and cracking down on media, U.S. praise of the EPRDF regime will continue to undermine its claim to support democracy on the continent.

Addis Ababa – Niger and Ethiopia drew 1-1 in a soccer friendly match played here today as part of the two teams’ preparations to the upcoming CHAN competition, which will be held in Rwanda from January 16 to February 7.

It was the visitors who opened the score thanks to Idrissa Halidou Garba just 8 minutes into the game and Ethiopian fans had to wait until the 89th minute to see Gatoch Panom convert a dubious penalty kick. Niger’s players vehemently protested the referee’s decision but to no avail.

Following the penalty kick, Ethiopia had an opportunity to win the match but Mulualem hit the crossbar.

Ethiopia (4-2-3-1):
Abel Mamo (GK),
Seyoum Tesfaye (C), Yared Baye, Aschalew Tamene, Tekalign Dejene,
Gatoch Panom, Tesfaye Alebachew
Behailu Assefa, Elias Mamo, Ramkel Lok,
Tafesse Tesfaye

Niger XI (4-4-2):

Soumaila (GK),
Amadou, Inoussa, Souleymane, Katkdre,
Moussa, Youssouf, Mahamadou, Yacouba,
Koudize, Garba

Ermias Amelga, the founder and chairman of Access real estate is arrested following the mismanagement of the company since 2013.

He was brought back to Ethiopia after 8 months of negotiation with government to settle issues in the company.

After his arrival few months ago, there has been hopes that the issues will be settled. However, the authorities decided to arrested him for un known reason.

Ever since he came back from the United States in the mid-1990s, he has been selling his new initiatives. He took over an edible oil mill from the state and turned it into the first water bottling plant; established the first private equity i.e Access Capital Services S.C. He also promoted and became board chairman of Zemen Bank, a commercial bank initially operating with a one-branch concept, relying on much technology, but currently operating with additional branches. His later growth was the establishment of ARE.

ARE was originally formed by five shareholders, with a 50,000 Br registered capital namely, Ermias, its CEO and chairman of the board, Access Capital, Haileleul Tamiru, partner of Deloitte, a global consulting firm, Tekle Alemneh, a person who was with Ermias in forming Zemen, and Amsalle Bayu, his lawyer. Later on, the number of shareholders increased to 652 and its capital grew to 41.6 million Br. Of this, 34 million Br is paid-up.

OPDO accuses TPLF of killings in Oromia region

By Tesfa-Alem Tekle

January10, 2016 (ADDIS ABABA) – Ethiopia says it has finalized preparations to make a new bid to secure a non-permanent seat in the UN Security Council, government officials said on Sunday.

A UN Security Council session in New York (Photo courtesy of the UN)

According to officials at the ministry of foreign affairs, Ethiopia is currently the only candidate from the East African region and has wider chances of becoming a non-permanent member of the United Nations’ Security Council (UNSC).

Ethiopia’s bid for a non-permanent membership in the Security Council started after Seychelles agreed to leave its candidature for Ethiopia,

Addis Ababa is currently doing lobbying activities and election campaigns by drawing best experiences from member states.

Recently, Ethiopia’s Foreign Affairs Minister, Tedros Adhanom, said the country has done fruitful activities at the Arab-Africa and Africa-South America summits held on the sideline of the 70th United Nations General Assembly in New York which would back the country in its efforts to secure seat at UNSC.

At different occasions, Ethiopian officials are expressing confidence that it won’t be difficult for Ethiopia to secure two-third vote from the present member states in order to be accepted by the UN influential body.

According to the foreign ministry, Ethiopia has swept 186 votes of the total 190 in elections for UN Human Rights Council membership, saying that is an indication that the country is in “pole position” to become a non-permanent member.

Previously the horn of Africa’s country had expressed its position at the ministerial and heads of states meeting held on South Sudan and Burkina Faso at the African Union as well as at the UN peacekeeping mission and UNSC meetings on terrorism.

There are a number of supporting factors that would help Ethiopia in its efforts to attain a non-permanent seat in the Security Council.

One among others – Ethiopia is the seat of the African Union (AU) and it has a significant role in marinating regional peace and security.

Ethiopia is also amongst the leading peace force contributors to the UN peacekeeping missions and has taken part in various peacekeeping missions.

The country has also an experience in serving a non-permanent seat in two occasions in 1967-68 and 1989-90.

The U.N. Security Council includes 10 non-permanent members, with five elected each year.

China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States make up the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council.

(ST)

Ethiopia’s government has abandoned plans to expand the boundaries of the capital, Addis Ababa, which have caused months of deadly protests.

Demonstrations by people from the Oromo ethnic group have been sparked by fears that Oromo farmers could be displaced.

Human rights groups have estimated that at least 140 people were killed by security forces during the protests.

The ruling party in the Oromia region said it was dropping the plan following discussions with local people.

The Oromo People’s Democratic Organisation (OPDO) made the decision after three days of talks, the state broadcaster EBC reports.

The OPDO, along with the Addis Ababa city authority, would have been responsible for implementing the “master plan”.

Oromia is Ethiopia’s largest region, and completely surrounds the capital.

The government has disputed the death toll quoted by the New York-based Human Rights Watch, saying the figure was an overestimation.

Abiy Berhane from Ethiopia’s London embassy told the BBC’s Focus on Africa radio programme that the government “has been trying to avoid confrontation”, but the protests were hijacked “by people whose intention it was to induce violent confrontation”.

The recent wave of protests began in November last year, but anger over the proposed expansion of Addis Ababa goes back to 2014.

Observers say that the Oromo protests build on long-standing complaints that the community has been excluded from political and economic power.

At the last census in 2007, the Oromo made up Ethiopia’s biggest ethnic group, at about 25 million people out of a population at the time of nearly 74 million.

We are continually learning that for the past one-month shocking and horrible news from the seat of Africa Union that is Ethiopia with great humiliation and grief. The protests have been sparked by fears young suburbs habitat of Addis Ababa and other constituencies against land grab that is planed by Addis Ababa municipality to expand the capital with an integrated master plan. As a result, the Ethiopian security forces have killed more than 144 protesters who took part in mass anti-government demonstrations since mid November.-–—Read More——-