Mereja.Forum

I just read a story from the old country that tells about the 'imminent' divorce of TPLF from its front associates in the EPRDF. It talks about how the 'divorce' will proceed and finalized. It even tells us about the property settlement where one side will get 3/4 and TPLF will walk away with 1/4 of what is left of the 'estate'. Then I began wondering who will pay back the more $30 billion dollars that was siphoned off from the nation's coffers in just 6 years from 2012 and 2018? We are talking about $30 billion in US dollars!!! We hear a great story out of even Nigeria where close to half a billion in US dollars that stolen by the former dictator Sani Abacha was located and is now back into that nation's coffers. It was not the entire loot but something to be happy about. What I would like to see the Attorney General and Election Board chairman do is freeze the entire property of the former EPRDF until someone starts squeaking with the whereabouts of the looted treasure. 30 billion is not a chump change. Every one of them should start coughing it up. Such drastic and just measure will leave an enduring lesson for any future connivers in leadership roles. Every penny they own now should be declared eminent domain. Meanwhile, this is my advice to the stubborn knuckle heads who are trying to pass as poor victims!!!

I highly suggest to the leaders of the two groups to grow up, wise up and get their priorities straight. The most important issue on their plate should be how they can put their intellectual asset together to take the citizens of the entire country out of abject poverty. Over inflated pride will only stands on the way of such sacred task. That country had potential and opportunity to do a lot for the good of its people in the 1970's but because of its misguided and stubborn elite/intellectuals all went down the tube. The craze then was to eradicate everything that seemed to what they called 'reactionary' with none given the reforming chance. When all was said and done, millions perished and millions others were left with lifetime emotional scar. When those front running know-it-all elites first went at it, they thought all will be done quick and with minimal collateral damage. Many of them perished in it, many others took to the bushes to give it another try, another left the country and several others wanted to work with the demon. They bowed and licked the boots of Mengistu who they wanted to kill just less than a year ago. They joined others in his loyal entourage in deifying him as the 'Center'. They called him the ‘Center’!!!! That means he was the ‘Center’ of the ‘universe’. I could not believe my eyes when I read about it a few years after he ran away. Viva Chairman Mengistu!!! Viva! Viva!!! There are some who still prefer to call him 'Chairman Mengistu'! I once heard one of the reporters of a major Diaspora TV network referring to him so affectionately as 'Chairman Mengistu’! Mengistu was not that unproductive though. When he cut and ran he was replaced by a smarter talking and even more stubborn 'Center'. Another carnage for a long 27 years!!! But still the new front running elites don't seem to learn from the bitter and destructive history of our time. What makes the immediate needs and aspiration of that rural or urban dweller in Tigray so different from that in Oromia, Amhara or any other region? What is it? Does the one in Tigray have priority in 'reclaiming' the lasagna as his main course at the dinner table every night? What is it? Stop being childish and behaving grossly bad!!! Grow up!!!!

As the saying goes " from fools front yard one can cut a tree for taking) ከሞኝ በር ዛፍ ይቆረጣል. While Abiy has all the documents that show how Ethiopia's wealth has been plundered by TPLF criminals at his fingertips, how he agrees that a criminal organization that represents 5% the population is going to share 1/4 of EPDRF property? currently, EPDRF controls 100 % the parliament, which in essence controls 100% of the party property. On what ground it is even possible? And most of all the weyaness have been working night and day to overthrow the Abiy government openly spending millions sowing anarchy in all corners of the country, now is he going to give them more resources to do that. It is mindboggling that he would be so naive to go through this child's play.

One of the problems leaders of the current regime are having is a self inflicted one. I tried to forget about that just to give them the benefit of a doubt. I tried the best I can to put aside the fact that every one of them in the now defunct EPRDF share and justifiably so must share the blame/responsibility for the governing malfeasance during those 26 or so years. One of them might have been seen front running and talking too much more than the others but every one of them had their hands in the mismanagement of the country's resources among many others. Former leaders of the Amhara, Oromia, Tigray and Southern regions cannot blame the others for the ill behavior the country had to endure during those regrettable days. Every one of them was making the calls. They knowingly were turning blind eyes when thieves were plundering at full throttle. They were going like ‘He is one of my own citizen from Tigray; He is my of my heritage from Amhara; He is one of my own from Oromia who got his turn for first time since 1870 and he deserves it; He is one of my own from the South and we were the most marginalized. He deserves the turn!!!’ But all this is just futile with me. I am holding all of them responsible. One of them could have had a tongue sharper than others and more sophisticated skills in sugar coating all the ills but in my eyes all those four groups were in the company of despots and connivers!!!!

I think there is a hierarchy of responsibility and blames as to what happened in the past 27 years of weyane dominated Ethiopia, but to put all in the same category is a big mistake. To begin with, Weyane has designed the government to serve its own narrow interest and any political activist that weyane considered to be contrary to its designed end had been removed violently or through other means. No political organization was speared from this kind of treatment including OLF. The other three EPDRF members were allowed to participate in political or economic corruption as long as they facilitated the lion share of the corruption to go to weyanes, whenever they go astray from weyane’s program they used to find themselves penniless and out of work, and some in prison. Are they supposed to go scat free for corruption they themselves were involved with, NO. However, the capos in these case weyanes who organized this criminal political and economic enterprise are more responsible for Ethiopian people suffering, and justice has not been served so far. Abiy’s reluctance to expose the extent of the crime weyans have committed against the Ethiopian people has emboldened even more to delegitimize Abiy. That has to stop. We don’t have to fall prey for weyane propaganda that all EPDRF equally responsible for what took place for the past 27 years, cause all were never created equal in weyanes Ethiopia.

Those in the leadership of the TPLF, which in my opinion was founded for a noble cause but later forcefully confiscated by despotic smart alecks, could have been those who initiated the system but we should never forget the fact that they were in their minority. If they did not have the Tamrat Layne's who successfully summoned tens of thousands of youth from Gondar and Gojjam as beasts of burden for the Sebhat Nega's, if Abba Dula Gemeda did not gift the TPLF wise alecks with tens of thousands of battle tested Oromos as beasts of burden, they would never be able to set their foot on an inch of land in the Amhara and Oromo regions. Those collaborators did that voluntarily with no one holding a gun on their heads. They did not stop picky bagging the Sebhat's from the forsaken joint in the northern escarpments all the way to Addis(Finfine) but they were playing active roles in facilitating the suppression of dissent after they grabbed the mantle of ruling the country in May 1991. If a protester was gunned down in that small village in Western Hararghe where I was born, it was not a Berhe from Mekele who pulled the deadly gun but it was one of our own and locally bred home boy. Yes, those who came up with the blue print of the system were the smart alecks within the TPLF but they were not the only ones who put it to practice. A minority will never be able to rule over the entire country without the critical help from enthusiastic supporters in the majority. It would never happen. That is where all depots are the best at. They have unmatched skills in manipulating the majority. They know who and where in the majority they should plant their drum beaters. That was what they had and did in the old country. Please note that I am not incriminating every rank and file that was used as mules during the oppressive 27 years but those who were the leaders of the four groups that made up the EPRDF should also share the responsibility. They all had their hands in it. I remember what the then leader of Oromia told his security forces in 2016. He told them not to show any mercy to the protesters. Wasn't it the same instruction we heard from the previous prime minister? When that did not work and when young members close to the leadership decided to put their foot down and said 'enough is enough’ to the killings, maiming, jailing and bad governance(Lemma & Gedu Team) then these two decided to 'resign'. That is what I am saying. If the Tamrat's and Gemeda's declined to play as guides to the rag tag ruffians beginning 1988 the Abay's and Meles' would not any clues where they were in Amhara and Oromia regions. They were willing and zealous participants but Lemma and Gedu were not who helped bring the oppression to an abrupt end in 2018 that is because the despotic leaders of the TPLF were carrying an Achilles Heel all along. They were a small group of talkative and murderous individuals. All it needed was courageous individuals from the majority to stand up to the despotic minority which The Gedu and Lemma Team did. It was suddenly over just as it started in 1988. All these former willing collaborators should do is to stop blaming their comrades for the ills the old country but come out leveling with the citizens of the old countries who have lost their loved ones during those dark days and ask for forgiveness. They should bow down and prostrate at the feet of the citizens and sincerely apologize. Our glorious people known for their magnanimity will forgive them. All I can say to them is ‘stop hitting around the bush but throw yourself to the ground and genuinely contrite.’