Ethiopia- The evil merchant of bogus terror threats
By Aklilu Demissie
March 20, 2007 — As the Horn of Africa slips in to quagmire because of the work of a single individual (Meles), one wonders where is the rest of the world or at least Africa. The notoriety and viciousness of the Meles regime has gone beyond pale.
The dictator has become a threat even to other African nation’s independence. What is being seen in East Africa is the capitulation of freedom to slavery which was attributed to colonial masters .The adept maneuvering of world political status quo by treacherous murderers is paying off enormously to their advantage.
Repressive regimes do not have to go far if they want to hang on to power if they are successful in selling terror threat. It sells like hot cake. It has made individuals successful and rich as starkly observed in Ethiopia.
Esayas Afeworki of Eritrea who spews fire at America has not been successful. His fire has not been able to burn the haystack of fighting terror that is on the market for survival in power in East Africa.
Another stunt in the field is Robert Mugabe who could have successfully endeared himself with the West if he succeeded tagging the white farmers and Morgan Tshivangari with a global terror threat coming out of the sky.
Who would have him besmirch him for what ever sordid human rights abuses he has been committing?
Omar AlBashir also could have presented some Al-Qaeda operatives, be it genuine or otherwise, from amongst Darfur rebels to the market. Or, he could have worked out how to necklace SPLA with terrorism tag. Then, who would have accused him the genocide in Darfur?
For the morbidly inebriated Meles Zenawi, despite his ailment has successful been able to sell his at times ridiculous terrorist threat claims. The hot cake of the day is to instigate bomb blasts in cities and towns and kill what has become a cheap and expendable life of Ethiopians and put it on sell for market.
Formulate a Jihadists threat from Somalia under the pretext of national security, and then you will instantaneously win the auction of terrorism threat bonds.
With all the debacle in Somalia, the next lucrative market is to the North-Eritrea- which is a land of misery quite comparable to that of Meles of Ethiopia.
Now the regime has also produced its new list of terrorists to bank roll its own gruesome atrocities on citizens.
The tagging of opposition parties and their members as terrorists or their tools is taking the usual course of presenting them for outside consumption. Because, unsuspecting buyers are there in the market for its face value.
Genuine asylum seekers who fled persecution for being members of opposition political parties such as OLF, EPRP and others have been having difficulties with asylum officers and supervisors brandishing terrorist list copy papers from the MIPT terrorism knowledge base website. What they pretend to forget is that TPLF being the mastermind of kidnappings, bank robberies, bombings and executions since its inception to present day.
In Meles’ world the easiest way to survive in power is neck lacing opposition parties and individuals with a terrorism tag.
Nations surrounding Meles should carefully pay attention .The making of a nation Meles style in Somalia is beginning to take shapes. The gagging of the free press, killing of human rights activists and innocent civilians, curtailing freedom of movement, the charge of being a terrorist for opposing Yusuf or Geidi –for that matter de facto Meles rule – is non other than Meles’ practicum.
The burning of homes for Internally Displaced People (IDPs) in Mogadishu may look accidental but it did happen in Ethiopia.
The desperate Meles’ artillery has resorted to firing salvos for each pistol shot or mortar fire by insurgents in to densely populated civilian quarters of Mogadishu.
Chaos and political turbulence are by what Meles rules and survives.
With all the support he gets from mighty democratic America, suppression in Ethiopia and Somalia will continue.
The damning State Department 2006 human rights report on Ethiopia will stay with no recourse as long as Meles’ terrorism innuendo holds tight.
Yammamoto, who has effectively replaced the despicable Simon Bereket as advisor to Meles, has continued lambasting the hope of democracy by relentlessly harassing the legitimate, elected leaders of the country, who are rotting in jail, in to capitulation to tyranny.
The regime’s rethoric of deceit that democracy is in its infancy and that is why people are being mowed down in Ethiopia is just comparing present day America to stone ages.
Our world is being challenged by terrorists bent on destroying the fabric of democracy, religion, freedom, choice and life style. And standing up to defeating the threat is unquestionable. Weeding out repressive regimes and those tyrants -the likes of Meles who are terrorizing citizens is of paramount importance; and the blood that is being paid in fighting global terrorism would not be in vain.
The never dying words of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr will always reverberate, “Our lives begin to end the day we became silent about things that matter. In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”
In the end, tyrants will be defeated and America will come out to be a truly genuine ally of Ethiopians, although unbelievably indecorous as the current records affirm.
* The is based in the USA. he can be reached at [email protected]