By Selam Yehun
Your words and actions in relation to the war launched in 2020 by the TPLF in Northern Ethiopia are causes for serious concern. You have thrown out the window all pretenses of neutrality and moral standards. You are standing firmly against international law as it pertains to sovereignty, territorial integrity, state responsibility to maintain law and order, and the right to self-defense. You are recklessly throwing around terms like genocide, ethnic cleansing, and famine, merely to sensationalize the conflict and put pressure on Ethiopia and Eritrea. While totally ignoring the egregious crimes of the TPLF group and the enormous suffering inflicted on the victims.
Of course, your illusion of moral superiority might cloud your vision to clearly see what your words and actions amount to, i.e. complicity in, and aiding and abetting high crimes. So, let me put it in words that you will understand. Assume that a soldier deliberately opened gun fire and killed people at a military camp in your country. Security forces take action to stop the killing by disarming or shooting down the perpetrator. In these circumstances, would you request both sides to lay down their arms?
Now, imagine the perpetrator is not 1 person but 250,000 armed men and women. The initial victims were some 30,000 soldiers barracked in about 200 sites. At exactly the same time, on the 3rd of November 2020, thousands of their former comrades and an army of men and women start shooting at them. Thousands got killed, the rest brutalized, some run over by heavy trucks.
The insurrectionists stole all the tanks, artillery, rockets, weapons under Ethiopia’s Northern Command with plans to march to the capital city and capture state power by force; and later on, oust the government of Eritrea and annex Eritrea in part or as a whole.
Now, at what point would you shout ‘ceasefire’?
When the terrorist group is killing unsuspecting soldiers, stealing heavy weapons, killing civilians, looting and destroying property, commandeering humanitarian aid and vehicles, ridiculing calls for ceasefire…or
- When the legitimate government takes action to assert the monopoly of the use of force by disarming or using force to put down the insurrection?
- Over the past two years, this question was posed to you on multiple occasions,
and every time you have chosen B.
We noticed that your love for peace and rejection of conflict depends onthe direction the wind blows. We observed that you turn a blind eye when your favorite insurrectionist group starves civilians and commits war crimes. We know you are not interested in a ceasefire and peaceful solutions when the insurrection was going according to plan. Now that things have ‘spiraled out of control’ for your favorite insurrectionist group, you want a ‘timeout’, for it to reorganize, mobilize more cannon-fodder and launch another round of invasion. What makes you think that any self-respecting state and people will allow your campaign of destruction to continue in a loop?
Thanks to the mouthpiece of the insurrectionists, we know that you would not mind if they toppled governments by force, as long as they add some tokens from other ethnic groups. We know that you would cry with joy if your favorite insurrectionists marched northwards, to dismantle the government you love to hate and cobble together a puppet administration. And that you would look the other way if the insurrectionists annexed Eritrea in part -as they did for 2 decades – or as a whole.
Insurrections are treason, and that states have a legitimate right to self-defense and to cooperate with each other to act against mutual threats. In your country, if a single person killing civilians or security personnel is neutralized using force, why wouldn’t other countries take measures to subdue insurrectionists that vow ‘to go to the depths of hell’ to dismantle the states.
Do not be surprised if we do not take your plea for ‘an end of hostilities and call for ‘negotiations’ at face value? Knowing that you were, and still are, aiding and abetting a terrorist group, and using your media and diplomatic clout to legitimatize the war of insurrection.
With all due respect, you cannot deceive us with your veneer of humanitarianism, human rights and pacifism. We know your true colors, aiding and abetting the TPLF minority regime to wreak havoc in our neighborhood for 27 years. Your cry of ‘hurray’ while directing the insurrectionists to Addis Ababa and Asmara still rings in our ears.
Please note that the winds of change are blowing in our neighborhood, trying to stop them is an exercise in futility.
__
To Publish Article On borkena, please send submission to info@borkena.com for consideration.
Telegram Channel : t.me/borkena
Join the conversation. Follow us on twitter @zborkena to get the latest Ethiopian news updates regularly. Like borkena on facebook as well. To share information or send a submission, use info@borkena.com
Wow. As conscious as I am, glad that me is on the side of this brutally honest writer. So articulate and very TELLING. If it was not for the tenacity, resiliency, strength, collaboration and synergy of Ethio-Eri govts and peoples, and the existence of China-Russia- harbingers of the new Bipolar world, we would be in a direct kinetic war with the ever gross, demented, aging and loser West. Either way., No More! Their lapdog TPLF is in an Intensive Care Unit now, braindead and DNR. Done. The motherland is EVER winner. Self Respect/Freedom/Soverignity people!! Even if it means we could be deprived of meals thrice a day! I would rather die poor yet with honor of FREEDOM and SELF-DETERMINATION, than be showered with money yet die as a slave and opperarive of Western marshmelows. Me Out!!
It is clear that the US supports TPLF. What is not clear is why? This gets compounded when one considers the length the US goes to support this terror group!
The interventionists are running around destroying countries for the past 30 years. In the old days America used to criticize European colonialists while at the same time brutalizing Blacks and other colored minorities at home. Even that is not totally true, for Ronald Reagan and Margaret Tacher were united in their decision to the continuity of white minority apartheid mis rule in South Africa. Ethiopian passports at that time won’t allow citizens to travel to SA in protest of apartheid. Ethiopia missed at least one Olympic game in Canada for the same reason in 1976 and again in LA and Korea. I’m not sure why about the other two and have to look it up later, if i don’t forget.
This world has never been fair and there is always someone oppressing somebody. If white people in Europe can’t get black people to oppress they do it to each other. The Catalonia in Spain, sorry Barcelona fans, and the Irish in UK for example. The colonial stories of Asia can be just as horrible. But the thing is some old civilizations were killing each other long before the Europeans arrived and told them to fight even more. Some evil ‘historians’ and ‘researchers’ of European descent always ‘discovered’ a reason for the poor brown people to kill each other more. For example they’ve convinced Indians they were their saviors from brutal invaders of some religion from far away. The irony is the Brits too were from far, far away and won’t leave until they were forced to. The Brits won’t consider a Greek man as equal in London but be proud of some ‘half-great Alexander’ people , whole tribes of people that were supposedly breed three hundred years before Christ. For the next 2000 years that seed of Alexandar the great wasn’t diluted of course. Indians are made believe they were freed by the Brits and should be grateful and they are. They make movies like Bending It Like Beckham and a lot of other movies to please and show their gratitude. The real colonialism was in 712 they say, by a guy called Qasim. And went on until the British arrived to save them in 1800s. In all those years the certain religion people were and still are foreigners mind you while the white people in Australia and Americas are not. The Italian Colombos couldn’t squeeze money from his own and Spain got him some. He got lost while trying to discover the already discovered India from the other side and to this day the original people of America are called Indians. Everybody realized soon after it was wrong but they are still called Indians.
Ethiopia is a stubborn country and spoiled the game in 1896. Christianity or Islam couldn’t be used as weapons b/c they were already there for the longest. As Andargachew Tsige said on his TV interview a few months ago, If it wasn’t for that battle victory, Africa would’ve been just another Australia or America north and south. No countries at all but tribes and their chiefs in Africa and nothing else. The Ethiopians had no idea what the plan was and flocked to Jerusalem and bought property there to get close to heaven.
In 1534 Aba Mikael was arguing with Martin Luther about church reform in Germany in broken Italian and he was chosen by Rome from the Ethiopian monastery there. And I was thinking couldn’t he just e-mail him instead of riding on a horse or a mule all the way to Germany from Italy? Those uncivilized Ethiopians. They have no shame. The freed Indians from brutal Qasim of 712 by the British in 1800s came all the way to Mekdela to show Aste Tewodros II of Ethiopia that he just can’t say no to the white man in 1860. Yohannes IV got their weapons when he was Dej Kassa and used it to become emperor himself. The Brits were smart people back then and took off right away b/c these were crazy people the Portugues and the spanish failed to ‘subdue’ couple of hundred years before. For sure we have done terrible things to each other but so had the Europeans, to each other. Like St Patrick was a slave from Scotland to Ireland or the other way around. I forgot. I knew an Ethiopian guy that liked drunk Irish girls on the day dedicated to that Irish guy who killed all the snakes and probably caused famine b/c the rats ate all the potato when no snake was there to eat rats or something.
Marxism is a dangerous ideology and somebody needs to tell the photogenic PM it is never pronounced Mark, among other things. Bur according to Marx this world is divided b/n oppressors and the oppressed since the beginning of time. Never read Das Kapital in original German or did he write it in English first? I never read Gash Sebehat’s Amharic translation either. But I’ve seen some copies and they are huge, to lift from the book shelf at the library and probably dusty. But for the sake of an argument let’s pretend I read it. Why was EPRP saying there should be an elected peoples’ gov’t with marxist ideology? Once the marxists get into power they say goodbye to elections and represent the proletariat in gov’t forever. And since the proletariat had no education, the very reason why he is working 28 hours per day and being exploited, the college guys who read Das Kapital will have to rule on his behalf, forever of course. DERG was brutal, no doubt about it, but at least he was honestly brutal. It were the EPRP that were already brutal before they came to power that piss me off now that I see the light. The pictures of my uncles who never graduated from high school that were brave enough to be tortured to death without fingering the higher ups that recruited them in 9th grade. Had they known EPRP would collapse in just a year, they would’ve certainly sang instead of beaten up to death with their so called iron discipline. Fikre at the university, I heard, was running away from the same EPRP when he got caught by DERG-Cadre and of course tortured. And he famously said ‘you won’t get anything out of me’ and died in the torture chamber while being beaten up. He was not seeing eye to eye with his former comrades that were trying to catch and kill him but he won’t give their names away and chose to die, per iron discipline he swore to. God knows what he swore on to b/c Marxists don’t believe in God. Fikre happened to be uncle of Dr Berhanu Nega. There were hundreds of Fikre’s in those time, ready to die. When one criminal mass murderer was asked why he killed so many his only defense was the fact that they shouted EPRP YACHENIFAL while he and his shooting squad shot them to death with machine guns.
Addis Ababa came up with a lot of jokes for therapeutical purposes after the Red Terror. No matter how funny the jokes they can be indication of something else like the Jewish jokes are funny for two thousand years in all kinds of European and middle East languages. The torturers joined the tortured in USA and a lot of other western ‘imperialist’ countries they condemned raising their left arms and shouting after DERG used them up chewed and spit them out, with no shame. Many joined religions that practice mass craziness in order to hide under. One drop of fake tear and a few words of equally fake confession and you are one of the family. I imagine the pastors would nudge them once in a while to ‘give more’ or not to think of replacing them.
When you mess up your own country like that the enemy will have a field day on your country. Egypt had been at it for the longest time and the money goes out and American money comes in, it is like a spare change really. There is a GAME to play and you got to have the best team possible. Sometimes you get a break like the war in Ukraine. Some other times it looks like the whole world is against you. But you got to be able to speak up. Get a translator. Really. Admitting of not being able to speak some other foreign language has been a problem. I never heard Putin speak English. The Chinese don’t speak English either, they’ll have to translate that.
Speaking of which, I once heard something different than the usual from a contender of power for old Menelik’s power. The question was ‘do u believe Gragn Mohammad was Ethiopian hero or even Ethiopian?’ from the audience. The contender took the mike and said “I don’t know. Look, I’m not a historian and there are a lot of things that I don’t know” I was stunned. The politician didn’t have any shame at all. At that time he was lecturing mostly white American students in graduate school. And then his friend and the movement’s fulltime leader got kidnapped in Yemen. That day I watched him on YouTube again. He was angry but he was trying not to show how much. By then he was a middle aged man and not nearly as fit to go to the battle ground. And then he did. He was already out of the school when the professorship was announced.
FFW to 2021, westerners would’ve a hard time with such kind of guy. Had he won the election and became PM of Ethiopia he would’ve been labeled just another Issayas, not b/c he was in Eritrea but b/c he would’ve done things they don’t like at all. He is from a minority community but acts like he owns the whole country. His upbringing might’ve something to do with that. But most of all, he is very confident and the country’s best organizer. Westerners would have loved to hate him. He would’ve 12 Aklilu Habtewold’s and Yilma Deresas’s in the foreign department and PR, fluent in English language and make hardtalkers journalists on corporate TV not take a breathe or annoy them with slow talker through translators from English to Amharic and Amharic to Afan Oromo and then to Gamo and then back all the way to English.
But before that the Oromo would’ve held hands with Tigre in the form of OLF and TPLF against him while the rest of the country celebrates. He would’ve to fight some dangerous battles with super patriotic ‘Ethiopians’ and on his side. At times he would be cornered and at other times he would be very harsh on those closest to him, losing them. It would’ve been a great experience for Ethiopia. The guy is much more complicated and has no dictatorial tendencies but he won’t be able to get over the hurdles the extremists will throw at him. By the time he got the right team, it can be too late though. Or better yet they would succeed to shoot him in the head. Ethiopia would mourn him and keep his memory forever but he would be the yard stick. Nobody will fit in his shoes, people will say. The learned people of Ethiopia from Dr Aklog Birara to Dr Yonas Biru and dozens of others in between would forget the harsh words he said to them while they were only trying to give him some advice for free and mourn the loss. They would say nice things like ‘setting the bar high for the next leader’ from the bottom of their hearts. Teddy Afro would come up with another stunning hit within three hours of the death of the leader who gave it all.
And even the above fiction won’t be enough but it is worth dying for. The countries that really made it had some kind of similar stories, denounced by their oppositions but the wealth distribution was so cool that millions were pulled out of poverty. Ethiopia will be using Assab port 24/7 and it will be totally Ethiopian even if it belongs to Eritrea. All Eritrea is craving for is right there to take. Peace will reign forever and there will be a time citizen won’t even care who wins elections. Private sector will blossom and corruption will die once payments go online. Corrupt people are too lazy to steal invisible money. They will quit their jobs and live on what they stole, letting new innocent college kids get in. The education will improve by ten folds in the next few and all those ‘tech’ people that are eating away on foreign currency and other stuff will be replaced by domestic graduates.