Opposition
a Blessing to Ethiopia
By
Berhane Gidey
December
8, 2001
For
almost one year, the Tigrean community in particular and Ethiopians in
general both inside and outside the country have been ensnared in a continuous
quarrel about why the rift between the leadership sprang up and how it
should have been settled without the consequences, which followed the crisis.
The seriousness of the matter is not as simple as putting people in a basket
and label them as anti-Meles or so-called anti-reform groups. No one could
be blamed other than the people in power for the outcome of this extremely
dangerous situation both in the history of the TPLF and the coalition partners
of the TPLF/EPRDF government. The discussions are justified to the extent
that the country has a Constitution to be abided by anyone including the
PM. Violation of the very foundations of the Constitution and the dismemberment
of elected people through illegal means, tricks and maneuvers from their
seats in the Ethiopian and regional Parliaments are not only impediments
to democratization but are also impeachable according to the law of the
country.
The
internal fight within the TPLF was not confined within the organization
itself. The fire of the so-called renewal process (tehadso) has rather
consumed prominent figures within the other member organizations of the
EPRDF, dashing the hope of conflict resolution and settlement in a civilized
way and bringing the conflict to even a higher degree of contradiction
among the regions and nationalities of Ethiopia. People who allied themselves
or had the same view as the dissenters on sovereignty issue found themselves
after the “triumphant cadre meetings” stigmatized, ostracized and imprisoned
under the pretext of corruption and abuse of power. The very concocted
idea of renewal process was and is still intended to get rid of true Ethiopian
patriots, so that Meles could single-handedly carry out his longstanding
plan of “settling” the Eritrean issue once for all without any criticism
within his own party or participation of the Ethiopian people. The cadres
or persons behind Meles have at this moment become so sensitive and abusive
that if people mention any question or policy formulations regarding Eritrea
during the armed struggle, the eight years which followed the Eritrean
independence or the current Ethio-Eritrea war, then the epithet you get
is “war-monger”, “racist”, “ Enemy of Eritreans ”, “liquidationist”, “protectionist”,
“chauvinist”, “narrow nationalist” and all the other negative associations,
so that the Eritrean issue or our access to the sea are not debated and
remained buried forever. By just contemplating the silly idea of certain
leaders, wives or husbands having parents from here or there, they want
to obstruct and silence people using these illicit methods from expressing
the basic human rights of airing one’s own thoughts. Their judgement could
hardly be motivated unless they declare that the Constitution is solely
owned and managed by a single person. After all there has never been a
deliberation to the extent of “if we don’t like the color of your eyes….”-type
of classical and historical speech!
The
war with Eritrea has had a disastrous effect especially for the people
of Tigray and Afar. Being border areas to the rouge nation, the socio-economic
conditions of the people have gone from bad to worse. Consumer goods are
always on the hype due to the huge presence of the military buying everything
from every village in the region. Who would after all have the interest
to keep them in every town and village to bring the people under siege
and under the guise of military threat from Eritrea other than the people
in Addis. The war, which was practically concluded, was lastly aborted
by the Commander in Chief of the Army realizing the fact that he would
face trials after a total victory. This war was unique among modern-day
warfare, which showed that with hundreds of thousands of troops entrenched
for two years,
tens
of thousands killed, their economies devastated and with the winning part
deep into the enemy’s territories, could be suddenly called off without
terms and conditions of surrender. Both leaders Issaias and Meles are in
need of perpetual threats in order to strengthen their hold on to power
and crack down on every kind of opposition and free press. Thus, with the
war hanging over us, we are still there as hostages either to accept a
dictatorship or otherwise as to the allegation of the cohorts find ourselves
ending up in the abyss, entrapped in a continuous war with Eritrea, loss
of power and influence for Tigreans in the government and in an eventual
civil war with the imaginary partition of the country as were the cases
in ex-Yugoslavia, ex-Soviet, DR Congo, etc.
Ethiopians
and especially Tigreans are at this moment very afraid of uttering any
word, which could implicate them for taking side of the splinter group.
Government employs are now and then asked to fill forms and show their
loyalty and support to the newly organized TPLF according to the provisions
and selection processes of Meles. Everybody could see from the lists and
taking a simple statistics of those elected to the Politburo, Central Committee
and Zone and Woreda administrators without me going into details about
how well-represented they are from the different places of Tigray. I think
Berhane GhebreChristos, Ambassador to the USA in his tour and meeting in
Toronto had made it clear in his remarks about this new formation or reorganization
of the TPLF. What I would like to say is that experienced or new breeds
of diplomats, depending on how we perceive them could sometimes make a
slip of the tongue and muddle, although the prime intention was not meant
to hurt or upset Tigreans. This was not the first time people in high positions
and diplomacy were making such blunders and treasonous speeches and got
away with them. We can only establish the simple fact that the disease
of dad and son or rather master and disciple has aggravated to the extent
of spreading to some innocent members of the society, who are prone to
be easily infected without any remedy.
Let
me to start with go to some vile and vulgar articles, which appeared on
some Websites, whose ulterior motives were nothing more than creating confusion
and putting wedge among the people of Tigray. They were formulated in an
obsolete and clumsy way that one can ignore them without any reply or notice
as flimsy arguments. But the problem is if such sinister statements and
fallacies are left unchallenged then the consequences will be fatal to
our society. It is our duty to confute and refute wrong and deceitful arguments
and show the truth with incontrovertible facts and reasoning.
One
writer mentions that Mekelle a tiny small village some thirty years ago
and compared to a once prospering town in Tigray has become the Paris of
our age with high buildings and skyscrapers! My question is then, could
we ever believe this guy to be really from Tigray or a messenger of our
sworn enemies? How many times didn’t we hear from people saying huge fortunes
flowing to Tigray, that the region is drowning or Issaias enviously stating
“Mekelle Paris koina, Asmara dma geza tanika koina”, which literally means
that “Mekelle has been transformed into Paris, while Asmara is made up
of corrugated iron”. The irresponsibility of advancing spiteful and hate
propaganda directed against each other lies not only on the person involved
but also rests on the persons accommodating or encouraging people to write
and post them on their Websites.
Another
bold measure taken by a guy was his statistical overview or knowledge about
the compositions of the different awrajas in Tigray. He says that already
in the middle of the 80s a certain awraja, though little to its area, had
1/3 of the population from 3 million people. OK, good for you. But what
is the motive behind this statistical obscurity or can we call it creativity?
According to reliable sources and close estimations from the 1994 population
census, which was at 3,136,267, the current population size of the state
is approximately 3,500,000. If we assume a net population growth rate of
2 % per year (very low compared to most developing countries), then the
total increase of the population in that specific place or awraja would
have exceeded 1,4 million people by the year 2000. This means that the
total growth for the whole population could have been ascribed to the high
fertility rate of that place, while there was only a slight increase of
100,000 for the rest of the population, which had 2 million people in 1985!
This
was really a game with figures to be considered for people, who are meddling
in statistical ploy without corroborating on facts to justify a specific
purpose with deliberate deception. The problem with these kinds of people
is not how and why they use these scientific methods as a proof to insult
our intelligence and let us subjugated by oppressive regimes. The prime
objective of these people is to disrupt the unity of people so that we
get caught in a small-village-mental-malady and forget the biggre cause-the
cause to fight tyranny and dictatorship. Those who are day and night fighting
to expose the undemocratic rule of Meles and his henchmen organized or
otherwise, don’t feel discouraged and never give up. Opposition to dictators
has never been tolerated in the history of mankind and is a welcome blessing
to Ethiopia.