Ethiopia – Memoirs of a dying regime
By Obbo Qeeyroo*
August 11, 2006 — It has often been said that, “A week in politics is a life time”. If that is the case then how many weeks are there in 15 years? How many lifetimes have the Ethiopian people wasted patiently awaiting change that was hinted countless times but never delivered. How long can the former Tigrai rebels maintain the status quo without even making the necessary transition from a rag tag rebel army, to a responsible government capable of governing 80 nations on the side of its Tigrayan minority which composes only 1/20th the Ethiopian population. So how did it live to see its 15th birthday since its arrival to Bolee in May of 1991, and how many more birthdays will it live to see?
These are all questions the organization asks itself, as its based on a day to day survival strategy. “How can we eat today?”, seems to have become not only a question of high priority, but a source of motivation to wake up in the morning on the part of Meles and his cabinet. It is safe to say that Meles’ administration has used and reused every tactic of sabotage it has come to be familiar with from its years in the bush to its years since, all in an effort to answer its own question, aswell as the questions raised by those who are percieved to be of any political or potential threat to the minority based regime. But in its 15 years of responding to political threat and the 17 years previously spent posing as one, this is a regime that has never even made an effort to pull a new trick out of its hat. Its 15th year aniversary was brought in just like any other, with more sabotage of public property, and not with fire works but rather with bomb blasts in Finfinne/Addis, and Dirre Dhawaa, the regime created and capitalized on yet another oppertunity to play the blame game pointing fingers at the Oromo Liberation Front (the voice of 40 million ethnic Oromos), the government of Eritrea, the CUD (an organization outlawed after making major gains in the elections of May 2005), the ICU (a new polito-military movement based in the Somali capital, threatening TPLF’s long time dream of establishing a proxy regime in Somalia) and countless others.This is a regime that doesnt have enough fingers or toes to point at all the enemies its made over the years, so for how much longer will refer stick to such a tired and ridiculously one dimensional approach when pressed with?
One can single handedly make the argument that the only difference between TPLF in the bush, and TPLF in parliament is its broadened capability to do damage now more than ever. For 17 years they were limitted to literally holding a nation of 3 million hostage for its military and political gain. A classic example of course being the implementation of a food for war program, seizing and reserving food aid shipments exclusively for its foot soldiers and families while fathers, mothers, sons and daughters of Tigrai were obligated to make life or death decisions for the family in picking up a gun on behalf the TPLF. Todays broadened capability and area of operation of this mafia turned parliamentarians has put all Ethiopians in need, under this very predicament. But as recent events have proven, it is a condition that will collapse from inside and out in the near future. But for the time being, in the coming months we may see more signs of internal crumbling (meaning further defections of a dying regimes political and military assets, followed by futher sabotage among other acts of frustration). For the Ethiopian people tomorrow comes after the dark, so let the count down to destruction begin, and well overdue.
* Obbo Qeeyroo is an Oromo college student and community activist residing in Canada. He can be reached at [email protected] .