Eskinder Nega Has Nothing in Common With Getachew Reda and Abiy Ahmed

by Alex Bekele

I read Zemene Mesafint’s Borkena article of May 26, 2025, titled “Abiy Ahmed, Getachew Reda and Eskinder Nega: Making Ethiopia like Syria” with a curiosity to learn something. I was interested in the author’s bold assumption of similarities and commonalities amongst these three different and discrete personalities, and was in a haste to learn how their similarities and commonalities are making Ethiopia Syria. After I finished reading it, I concluded the author had failed to establish any tangible commonalities amongst them, making his major premise false, and failed to establish that any one of the three were being manipulated by foreign powers, making his minor premise false, and hence his whole argument hollow. Let us see the three personalities more closely.

There is no Academic record showing Abiy Ahmed had completed Junior High School anywhere in the nation. Late in his life, he had a college diploma from one of those diploma-for-sell colleges and then a dubious Doctoral degree which had often become a source of controversy. He was raised, trained and promoted to a rank of Colonel in the TPLF led Ethiopian Army. He served TPLF with unquestioning loyalty until the last minute he turned against it. He had no record of dissent, as he lacked a good grasp of justice, fairness, and human rights, and the altruism dissent in Ethiopia demanded. His hatred of the people of Amhara, imbibing Oromumma’s hateful propaganda, was always palpable. He is carrying out an outrageous Amhara genocide. Fully convinced of his mother’s wizardry, he claimed to have prepared himself to be the 7th king of Ethiopia all his life until he became the Prime Minister. After he became the Prime Minister, he acted exactly like a cruel king, always above the law, with utter disdain for rules and norms. In power, he was known for civil wars, genocide, gross human rights violations, war crimes, and crimes against humanity all over Ethiopia.

There is no controversy around Getachew Reda’s Law Degree. He was also an Associate Professor of Law, I guess, at Mekele University. It is earned, and it shows: He has a brilliant mind and a sharp tongue. The controversy is around his identity. He is a Raya Amhara who, by opportunistic acrobat, became a Tigrayan. He served TPLF for decades with remarkable loyalty and dedication. Observing his current willingness to embrace Abiy Ahmed, his ‘opportunistic acrobatics’ appears to be his second nature. His unbridled hate of the people of Amhara is exhibited to the world during TPLF’s failed invasion of the Amhara region between 2021 and 2022. He waged a genocidal war on Amhara, and never showed any remorse about it.

Eskinder Nega attended Sandford International School in Addis as a child, completed his high school in the U.S. and earned his first degree in Political Science from American University in Washington, DC. He worked as a journalist, a blogger, and a human rights activist. He suffered two decades of persecution under TPLF-EPDRF and Abiy Ahmed’s Prosperity Party for his human rights advocacy and peaceful political dissent. While free in Addis he published various journals that were widely read wherever they were distributed. When Prof Asrat Woldeyes formed the ALL Amhara party, Eskinder joined. When most were deceived by Abiy Ahmed Ali, Eskinder saw through his lies and deceptions and opposed him. When Oromumma started its campaign of changing the demography of the capital, he decried it as pernicious and warned the residence of Addis. When all avenues for a peaceful struggle were closed, Eskinder dared to go to the jungle, pick up arms and organize. After his tiny band of freedom fighters managed to progress into a large army, armed to its teeth, Eskinder was elected to be the Chairman of the AFPO—the organization 9 Regional Commands of Fano formed, and out of which 4 of them splintered later. Speaking truth to power, unflinching struggle for justice, and resisting torture and despising wealth and power that comes by bowing down to his enemies are what he is known for. He staunchly resisted the Amhara genocide and made it his life’s mission.

If anyone can detect any commonalities amongst the three synopses above, it would be between that of Getachew Reda and of Abiy Ahmed—their long service and loyalty to TPLF, their hatred towards the Amhara people, and their crimes of Amhara Genocide. You may add to this, their willingness to change sides for more wealth and power. Both didn’t hesitate to jettison their former bosses when they envisioned more power and glory under another one.

The question is what does Eskinder Nega have in common with the two? I say nothing, and the author asserting, “These three seem to have something in common after all” didn’t substantiate. He only told us who led which war and who later made peace. This is not establishing commonalities.

Worse still, he asks what appears to be a very important question saying, “What are the goals and missions of these people?” and left us waiting because he never gave us the answer. After meandering around how those who study patterns of events in the world “can identify a pattern of reasons strategies, tactics and individuals involved, in general” tells us about nations such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Syria, Yemen, and Libya as examples of nations and societies weakened and destroyed by forces that work against them. He mentioned how global forces destroyed those nations without drawing any plausible parallel to our situation. In the process, he completely forgot to answer his own question, “what are the goals and missions of these people?”

In fact, in his meandering argument, after mentioning these countries as examples destroyed by global forces, he said Ethiopia is different from them. I wondered, then, why mention them? In a crooked detour, he told us how stable Ethiopia registered steady growth for two consecutive decades under Meles Zenawi led TPLF-EPDRF. A big lie in which I will not dwell here. Suffice to say there was neither growth nor stability. The absurd part is the insinuation of making global forces responsible for the untimely death of Meles Zenawi, and the author’s audacious claim that since then Ethiopia was targeted by Western forces who were engaged in the Cold War, because Meles showed greater inclination toward China as seen by China’s big gift to AU in Addis. What a fairy tale? The West’s support to Meles Zenawi was robust until his death. This blindly bold and very serious claim is supported only by Henry Kissinger’s simple remark of ‘a Second Cold War as of 2018.’

By way of conclusion he harked back to Syria and tried to draw a parallel to Ethiopia. Syria’s historical conflict with Israel, Israel’s annexation of the Golan Heights, Syria’s giving safe haven to Hamas, U.S.’s claim of Syria harboring international terrorist groups and hence its direct involvement in the conflict, Russia’s involvement on the side of Assad, Iran’s support to the Ba’athist government of Syria, and the mix of the interests of the various Arab and Islamic nations of the area makes the Syrian case the most complicated and intricate historical mess in the world. It in no way can serve as a positive or a negative example for Ethiopia. In Ethiopia, the most powerful nations of the world do not have vital interests in our conflict. Even the relatively small powers like the UAE and Turkey have only an opportunistic interest to exploit our stupidity. They do not have any vital interest they want to attain by all means necessary.

Contrary to his assertion of, “Sudan’s troubles fit into the picture of the aforementioned nations [Syria was one of them], while Ethiopia’s case seems different” he painted the darkest picture of Syria, and told us Getachew, Abiy, and Eskinder wanted to make Ethiopia Syria, implying Ethiopia is similar to Syria. Then, based on this prevarication, he called upon us to abandon the three political figures and unite. Unite how, under what, and to do what? The Author gave us no clue. Mind you, Getachew had lost his political power and had become Abiy’s mouthpiece as he was TPLF’s. The author was not appealing to Abiy’s followers to abandon him, for he knew they wouldn’t. The targets were Eskinder Nega’s followers, as if they were the only people who espoused armed struggle, and as if there were no other Fano groups and guerilla forces in Ethiopia fighting against the regime. Syria was the bugaboo the author chose to scare our people. His mission was to cause confusion, and sow the seeds of distrust in the Amhara struggle. It is part of Abiy Ahmed’s Prosperity Party fear-induced propaganda against Eskinder and the formidable force he is a chairman of. No, this will not work. It is way beneath the Amhara mind and experience. AFPO will triumph, and Eskinder Nega will be vindicated.

Editor’s Note : Views in the article do not necessarily reflect the views of borkena.com

__

Subscribe  : https://borkena.com/subscribe-borkena/ 

Join our Telegram Channel : t.me/borkena

Like borkena on Facebook

Add your business to Ethiopian Business Listing / Ethiopian Business Directory  Business Listing Toronto 

Join the conversation. Follow us on X (Formerly Twitter)  @zborkena to get the latest Ethiopian News updates regularly.  Subscribe to YouTube channel To share information or for submission, send e-mail to info@borkena.com