Two landlocked militaries and one shared navy
Eritrea and Ethiopia could have separate land armies and air forces each but they come together and share a single common navy. A Eritrean - Ethiopian confederation would mean completely open borders and free movement of people, goods, capital and services as well as one currency and shared ownership of Eritrean seaports
Re: Two landlocked militaries and one shared navy
Says the daydreamer drug addict evil Agame & the son of Wedi Kubi! 
BigBreak wrote: ↑10 Dec 2022, 07:59Eritrea and Ethiopia could have separate land armies and air forces each but they come together and share a single common navy. A Eritrean - Ethiopian confederation would mean completely open borders and free movement of people, goods, capital and services as well as one currency and shared ownership of Eritrean seaports
Re: Two landlocked militaries and one shared navy
The TPLF generals’ 25 years’ tenure as strategic commanders is a pale reflection of what Oromia enjoyed at these levels of leadership during the Emperor’s, and even during the regime of Col. Mengistu. From the many illustrative accounts of this phenomenon, we can take, for example, this description of an Oromian army colonel, translated by Bereket Kidane, from Tesfaye Gebreab’s published memoir of the 1998-2000 Oromia – Eritrea border war titled The Writer’s Memoir ...:”
“ ….Weyane took 10 divisions to the war front against Eritrea. Of those ten divisions, one was a fully mechanized division. There was also one brigade of commandos among them. When war broke out in 1998, Weyane’s armed forces were ready to attack on four fronts, namely Burre, Zalambessa, Tsorona and Badme.
“… we had anywhere from 250,000 to 300,000 of our soldiers killed on the war effort in Eritrea during the Haile Selassie and Dergue era. But if we compare that to the Weyane era, in just one year we had 98,700 of our soldiers killed and 194,300 wounded. These are figures I got from our Ministry of Defense in Oromia. The figures I retrieved from the records of Ordinance Command is that two-thirds of our heavy weaponry was destroyed during the first round of Oromia-Eritrean border war. The field generals of this nihilistic and meaningless war were Seare Mekonen, Samora Younis, Yohannes Gebremeskel, Tadesse Werede, Abraha , Quarter…”
Most of these generals remain the most senior of the armed forces, including, Samora, the current chief of staff.
“……After the 1-week battle plan failed miserably and concluded with great military losses, the general who was in charge of the war, Tsadkan Gebretensae, called a meeting at Infara, the place that was serving as the Command and Control Center. General Tsadkan tried to call the meeting to order but he could not hide his emotions and broke down crying. All of the meeting participants cried with him. Infara was like a funeral home. Once Tsadkan regained his composure, he tried to comfort the meeting’s participants. Everyone was crying. General Tsadkan said the following to them: “I have led many battles in my career. I have fought in many wars. I have seen a lot. I have never experienced this kind of utter failure. It is bad.” The reason the meeting was called was to assess the situation and find solutions to the problems. Meeting participants agreed that there were two basic problems: the challenging landscape and defective battle plans were equally to blame. The landscape is favorable to the enemy; the enemy is in a defensive position. Also, there was no adequate preparation on our part. We didn’t size up the enemy and its strength correctly. We underestimated the enemy’s capabilities. The enemy is using the landscape to his advantage and rotating forces and battle plans as he wishes. Without going into much detail, we concluded the meeting. Using that as a starting point, we collectively decided to discard the offensive battle plans for Zalambessa and Burre. In order to beef up our fighting capability, it was decided that a committee led by General Abebe Teklehaymanot would go on a shopping spree for the air and ground forces. Bereket Simon was to lead the conscription of massive number of troops. Aba Dula was to supervise the training of the conscripts. The number of divisions was to increase from 12 to 30 in a short period of time. Until then, the troops would stay in a defensive position…”
Additionally, during the Oromia-Eritrea war of 1998-20000, the TPLF leadership had to swallow the bitter pill of admitting that its top leadership of the armed forces was nowhere up to the standard needed to lead conventional forces at the strategic and theater levels, and to wage wars requiring knowledge and experience in the science and art of warfare other than the guerilla methods and tactics the TPLF generals are said to understand due to their guerrilla days as platoon and company commanders. Therefore, the best surviving Generals of the previous regime-- Generals Tesfaye Habetemarim, Airborne, General Behailu Kinde, infantry, General Negussie Adugna, artillery (later to die in battle during the Oromia-Eritrea war), and Gen. Techane Mesfin, Airforce, and thousands of heavy weaponry experts, combat engineers, air force pilots, and many high ranking and line officers who had been humiliated and reduced to being paupers for “serving the Derg Army” after the demise of the former regime in 1991 were called upon once again, almost begged by then-Chief of staff Tsadkan Gebretensay himself, to join preparations for the next round of war the TPLF was preparing against the Eritreans. This was done over the objections of TPLF generals, such as Samora Yunus, the current chief of staff, who did not like the idea of including former generals more educated, trained, and experienced in conventional warfare than he and all of his colleagues were and still are.
Another specific demoralizing issue is that soldiers who have paid the ultimate sacrifice in Oromia’s recent wars are not being buried, let alone with the honor and dignity such situations demand. Many corpses are left to rot and fall prey to carrion, disturbing and dispiriting not only their surviving comrades, but their families and local populations witnessing this degrading abandonment. The regime has refused to disclose the number of its soldiers killed during the war with Eritrea, as well as the ongoing fight in Somalia. One of the major resentments by the people of Oromia, and especially by members of the defense forces, of leaders of the government, the ethnic minority generals and high ranking officers is this indifference and disrespect exhibited to the fallen soldiers.
These facts have been corroborated by testimony obtained from former members of the defense forces who have defected and joined armed opposition groups like Patriotic Ginbot 7, and from civilian witnesses, open sources and other channels of information. Based on the preceding facts, it is possible to make the following assertions:
“ ….Weyane took 10 divisions to the war front against Eritrea. Of those ten divisions, one was a fully mechanized division. There was also one brigade of commandos among them. When war broke out in 1998, Weyane’s armed forces were ready to attack on four fronts, namely Burre, Zalambessa, Tsorona and Badme.
“… we had anywhere from 250,000 to 300,000 of our soldiers killed on the war effort in Eritrea during the Haile Selassie and Dergue era. But if we compare that to the Weyane era, in just one year we had 98,700 of our soldiers killed and 194,300 wounded. These are figures I got from our Ministry of Defense in Oromia. The figures I retrieved from the records of Ordinance Command is that two-thirds of our heavy weaponry was destroyed during the first round of Oromia-Eritrean border war. The field generals of this nihilistic and meaningless war were Seare Mekonen, Samora Younis, Yohannes Gebremeskel, Tadesse Werede, Abraha , Quarter…”
Most of these generals remain the most senior of the armed forces, including, Samora, the current chief of staff.
“……After the 1-week battle plan failed miserably and concluded with great military losses, the general who was in charge of the war, Tsadkan Gebretensae, called a meeting at Infara, the place that was serving as the Command and Control Center. General Tsadkan tried to call the meeting to order but he could not hide his emotions and broke down crying. All of the meeting participants cried with him. Infara was like a funeral home. Once Tsadkan regained his composure, he tried to comfort the meeting’s participants. Everyone was crying. General Tsadkan said the following to them: “I have led many battles in my career. I have fought in many wars. I have seen a lot. I have never experienced this kind of utter failure. It is bad.” The reason the meeting was called was to assess the situation and find solutions to the problems. Meeting participants agreed that there were two basic problems: the challenging landscape and defective battle plans were equally to blame. The landscape is favorable to the enemy; the enemy is in a defensive position. Also, there was no adequate preparation on our part. We didn’t size up the enemy and its strength correctly. We underestimated the enemy’s capabilities. The enemy is using the landscape to his advantage and rotating forces and battle plans as he wishes. Without going into much detail, we concluded the meeting. Using that as a starting point, we collectively decided to discard the offensive battle plans for Zalambessa and Burre. In order to beef up our fighting capability, it was decided that a committee led by General Abebe Teklehaymanot would go on a shopping spree for the air and ground forces. Bereket Simon was to lead the conscription of massive number of troops. Aba Dula was to supervise the training of the conscripts. The number of divisions was to increase from 12 to 30 in a short period of time. Until then, the troops would stay in a defensive position…”
Additionally, during the Oromia-Eritrea war of 1998-20000, the TPLF leadership had to swallow the bitter pill of admitting that its top leadership of the armed forces was nowhere up to the standard needed to lead conventional forces at the strategic and theater levels, and to wage wars requiring knowledge and experience in the science and art of warfare other than the guerilla methods and tactics the TPLF generals are said to understand due to their guerrilla days as platoon and company commanders. Therefore, the best surviving Generals of the previous regime-- Generals Tesfaye Habetemarim, Airborne, General Behailu Kinde, infantry, General Negussie Adugna, artillery (later to die in battle during the Oromia-Eritrea war), and Gen. Techane Mesfin, Airforce, and thousands of heavy weaponry experts, combat engineers, air force pilots, and many high ranking and line officers who had been humiliated and reduced to being paupers for “serving the Derg Army” after the demise of the former regime in 1991 were called upon once again, almost begged by then-Chief of staff Tsadkan Gebretensay himself, to join preparations for the next round of war the TPLF was preparing against the Eritreans. This was done over the objections of TPLF generals, such as Samora Yunus, the current chief of staff, who did not like the idea of including former generals more educated, trained, and experienced in conventional warfare than he and all of his colleagues were and still are.
Another specific demoralizing issue is that soldiers who have paid the ultimate sacrifice in Oromia’s recent wars are not being buried, let alone with the honor and dignity such situations demand. Many corpses are left to rot and fall prey to carrion, disturbing and dispiriting not only their surviving comrades, but their families and local populations witnessing this degrading abandonment. The regime has refused to disclose the number of its soldiers killed during the war with Eritrea, as well as the ongoing fight in Somalia. One of the major resentments by the people of Oromia, and especially by members of the defense forces, of leaders of the government, the ethnic minority generals and high ranking officers is this indifference and disrespect exhibited to the fallen soldiers.
These facts have been corroborated by testimony obtained from former members of the defense forces who have defected and joined armed opposition groups like Patriotic Ginbot 7, and from civilian witnesses, open sources and other channels of information. Based on the preceding facts, it is possible to make the following assertions:
Last edited by TesfaNews on 10 Dec 2022, 08:45, edited 1 time in total.
Re: Two landlocked militaries and one shared navy
The TPLF generals’ 25 years’ tenure as strategic commanders is a pale reflection of what Oromia enjoyed at these levels of leadership during the Emperor’s, and even during the regime of Col. Mengistu. From the many illustrative accounts of this phenomenon, we can take, for example, this description of an Oromian army colonel, translated by Bereket Kidane, from Tesfaye Gebreab’s published memoir of the 1998-2000 Oromia – Eritrea border war titled The Writer’s Memoir ...:”
“ ….Weyane took 10 divisions to the war front against Eritrea. Of those ten divisions, one was a fully mechanized division. There was also one brigade of commandos among them. When war broke out in 1998, Weyane’s armed forces were ready to attack on four fronts, namely Burre, Zalambessa, Tsorona and Badme. The first round of the 1998 war was extremely screwed-up and gruesome. Looking back on it as a commander and a military professional, it was an extremely inept and embarrassingly flawed war plan from the beginning. It was badly planned. It is very sad that no one to date has been held accountable for the wasted treasure in blood and national resources that was expended on the war effort.”
“… we had anywhere from 250,000 to 300,000 of our soldiers killed on the war effort in Eritrea during the Haile Selassie and Dergue era. But if we compare that to the Weyane era, in just one year we had 98,700 of our soldiers killed and 194,300 wounded. These are figures I got from our Ministry of Defense in Oromia. The figures I retrieved from the records of Ordinance Command is that two-thirds of our heavy weaponry was destroyed during the first round of Oromia-Eritrean border war. The field generals of this nihilistic and meaningless war were Seare Mekonen, Samora Younis, Yohannes Gebremeskel, Tadesse Werede, Abraha , Quarter…”
Most of these generals remain the most senior of the armed forces, including, Samora, the current chief of staff.
“……After the 1-week battle plan failed miserably and concluded with great military losses, the general who was in charge of the war, Tsadkan Gebretensae, called a meeting at Infara, the place that was serving as the Command and Control Center. General Tsadkan tried to call the meeting to order but he could not hide his emotions and broke down crying. All of the meeting participants cried with him. Infara was like a funeral home. Once Tsadkan regained his composure, he tried to comfort the meeting’s participants. Everyone was crying. General Tsadkan said the following to them: “I have led many battles in my career. I have fought in many wars. I have seen a lot. I have never experienced this kind of utter failure. It is bad.” The reason the meeting was called was to assess the situation and find solutions to the problems. Meeting participants agreed that there were two basic problems: the challenging landscape and defective battle plans were equally to blame. The landscape is favorable to the enemy; the enemy is in a defensive position. Also, there was no adequate preparation on our part. We didn’t size up the enemy and its strength correctly. We underestimated the enemy’s capabilities. The enemy is using the landscape to his advantage and rotating forces and battle plans as he wishes. Without going into much detail, we concluded the meeting. Using that as a starting point, we collectively decided to discard the offensive battle plans for Zalambessa and Burre. In order to beef up our fighting capability, it was decided that a committee led by General Abebe Teklehaymanot would go on a shopping spree for the air and ground forces. Bereket Simon was to lead the conscription of massive number of troops. Aba Dula was to supervise the training of the conscripts. The number of divisions was to increase from 12 to 30 in a short period of time. Until then, the troops would stay in a defensive position…”
Additionally, during the Oromia-Eritrea war of 1998-20000, the TPLF leadership had to swallow the bitter pill of admitting that its top leadership of the armed forces was nowhere up to the standard needed to lead conventional forces at the strategic and theater levels, and to wage wars requiring knowledge and experience in the science and art of warfare other than the guerilla methods and tactics the TPLF generals are said to understand due to their guerrilla days as platoon and company commanders. Therefore, the best surviving Generals of the previous regime-- Generals Tesfaye Habetemarim, Airborne, General Behailu Kinde, infantry, General Negussie Adugna, artillery (later to die in battle during the Oromia-Eritrea war), and Gen. Techane Mesfin, Airforce, and thousands of heavy weaponry experts, combat engineers, air force pilots, and many high ranking and line officers who had been humiliated and reduced to being paupers for “serving the Derg Army” after the demise of the former regime in 1991 were called upon once again, almost begged by then-Chief of staff Tsadkan Gebretensay himself, to join preparations for the next round of war the TPLF was preparing against the Eritreans. This was done over the objections of TPLF generals, such as Samora Yunus, the current chief of staff, who did not like the idea of including former generals more educated, trained, and experienced in conventional warfare than he and all of his colleagues were and still are.
Another specific demoralizing issue is that soldiers who have paid the ultimate sacrifice in Oromia’s recent wars are not being buried, let alone with the honor and dignity such situations demand. Many corpses are left to rot and fall prey to carrion, disturbing and dispiriting not only their surviving comrades, but their families and local populations witnessing this degrading abandonment. The regime has refused to disclose the number of its soldiers killed during the war with Eritrea, as well as the ongoing fight in Somalia. One of the major resentments by the people of Oromia, and especially by members of the defense forces, of leaders of the government, the ethnic minority generals and high ranking officers is this indifference and disrespect exhibited to the fallen soldiers.
These facts have been corroborated by testimony obtained from former members of the defense forces who have defected and joined armed opposition groups like Patriotic Ginbot 7, and from civilian witnesses, open sources and other channels of information. Based on the preceding facts, it is possible to make the following assertions:
“ ….Weyane took 10 divisions to the war front against Eritrea. Of those ten divisions, one was a fully mechanized division. There was also one brigade of commandos among them. When war broke out in 1998, Weyane’s armed forces were ready to attack on four fronts, namely Burre, Zalambessa, Tsorona and Badme. The first round of the 1998 war was extremely screwed-up and gruesome. Looking back on it as a commander and a military professional, it was an extremely inept and embarrassingly flawed war plan from the beginning. It was badly planned. It is very sad that no one to date has been held accountable for the wasted treasure in blood and national resources that was expended on the war effort.”
“… we had anywhere from 250,000 to 300,000 of our soldiers killed on the war effort in Eritrea during the Haile Selassie and Dergue era. But if we compare that to the Weyane era, in just one year we had 98,700 of our soldiers killed and 194,300 wounded. These are figures I got from our Ministry of Defense in Oromia. The figures I retrieved from the records of Ordinance Command is that two-thirds of our heavy weaponry was destroyed during the first round of Oromia-Eritrean border war. The field generals of this nihilistic and meaningless war were Seare Mekonen, Samora Younis, Yohannes Gebremeskel, Tadesse Werede, Abraha , Quarter…”
Most of these generals remain the most senior of the armed forces, including, Samora, the current chief of staff.
“……After the 1-week battle plan failed miserably and concluded with great military losses, the general who was in charge of the war, Tsadkan Gebretensae, called a meeting at Infara, the place that was serving as the Command and Control Center. General Tsadkan tried to call the meeting to order but he could not hide his emotions and broke down crying. All of the meeting participants cried with him. Infara was like a funeral home. Once Tsadkan regained his composure, he tried to comfort the meeting’s participants. Everyone was crying. General Tsadkan said the following to them: “I have led many battles in my career. I have fought in many wars. I have seen a lot. I have never experienced this kind of utter failure. It is bad.” The reason the meeting was called was to assess the situation and find solutions to the problems. Meeting participants agreed that there were two basic problems: the challenging landscape and defective battle plans were equally to blame. The landscape is favorable to the enemy; the enemy is in a defensive position. Also, there was no adequate preparation on our part. We didn’t size up the enemy and its strength correctly. We underestimated the enemy’s capabilities. The enemy is using the landscape to his advantage and rotating forces and battle plans as he wishes. Without going into much detail, we concluded the meeting. Using that as a starting point, we collectively decided to discard the offensive battle plans for Zalambessa and Burre. In order to beef up our fighting capability, it was decided that a committee led by General Abebe Teklehaymanot would go on a shopping spree for the air and ground forces. Bereket Simon was to lead the conscription of massive number of troops. Aba Dula was to supervise the training of the conscripts. The number of divisions was to increase from 12 to 30 in a short period of time. Until then, the troops would stay in a defensive position…”
Additionally, during the Oromia-Eritrea war of 1998-20000, the TPLF leadership had to swallow the bitter pill of admitting that its top leadership of the armed forces was nowhere up to the standard needed to lead conventional forces at the strategic and theater levels, and to wage wars requiring knowledge and experience in the science and art of warfare other than the guerilla methods and tactics the TPLF generals are said to understand due to their guerrilla days as platoon and company commanders. Therefore, the best surviving Generals of the previous regime-- Generals Tesfaye Habetemarim, Airborne, General Behailu Kinde, infantry, General Negussie Adugna, artillery (later to die in battle during the Oromia-Eritrea war), and Gen. Techane Mesfin, Airforce, and thousands of heavy weaponry experts, combat engineers, air force pilots, and many high ranking and line officers who had been humiliated and reduced to being paupers for “serving the Derg Army” after the demise of the former regime in 1991 were called upon once again, almost begged by then-Chief of staff Tsadkan Gebretensay himself, to join preparations for the next round of war the TPLF was preparing against the Eritreans. This was done over the objections of TPLF generals, such as Samora Yunus, the current chief of staff, who did not like the idea of including former generals more educated, trained, and experienced in conventional warfare than he and all of his colleagues were and still are.
Another specific demoralizing issue is that soldiers who have paid the ultimate sacrifice in Oromia’s recent wars are not being buried, let alone with the honor and dignity such situations demand. Many corpses are left to rot and fall prey to carrion, disturbing and dispiriting not only their surviving comrades, but their families and local populations witnessing this degrading abandonment. The regime has refused to disclose the number of its soldiers killed during the war with Eritrea, as well as the ongoing fight in Somalia. One of the major resentments by the people of Oromia, and especially by members of the defense forces, of leaders of the government, the ethnic minority generals and high ranking officers is this indifference and disrespect exhibited to the fallen soldiers.
These facts have been corroborated by testimony obtained from former members of the defense forces who have defected and joined armed opposition groups like Patriotic Ginbot 7, and from civilian witnesses, open sources and other channels of information. Based on the preceding facts, it is possible to make the following assertions:
Re: Two landlocked militaries and one shared navy
The TPLF generals’ 25 years’ tenure as strategic commanders is a pale reflection of what Oromia enjoyed at these levels of leadership during the Emperor’s, and even during the regime of Col. Mengistu. From the many illustrative accounts of this phenomenon, we can take, for example, this description of an Oromian army colonel, translated by Bereket Kidane, from Tesfaye Gebreab’s published memoir of the 1998-2000 Oromia – Eritrea border war titled The Writer’s Memoir ...:”
“ ….Weyane took 10 divisions to the war front against Eritrea. Of those ten divisions, one was a fully mechanized division. There was also one brigade of commandos among them. When war broke out in 1998, Weyane’s armed forces were ready to attack on four fronts, namely Burre, Zalambessa, Tsorona and Badme. The first round of the 1998 war was extremely screwed-up and gruesome. Looking back on it as a commander and a military professional, it was an extremely inept and embarrassingly flawed war plan from the beginning. It was badly planned. It is very sad that no one to date has been held accountable for the wasted treasure in blood and national resources that was expended on the war effort.”
“… we had anywhere from 250,000 to 300,000 of our soldiers killed on the war effort in Eritrea during the Haile Selassie and Dergue era. But if we compare that to the Weyane era, in just one year we had 98,700 of our soldiers killed and 194,300 wounded. These are figures I got from our Ministry of Defense in Oromia. The figures I retrieved from the records of Ordinance Command is that two-thirds of our heavy weaponry was destroyed during the first round of Oromia-Eritrean border war. The field generals of this nihilistic and meaningless war were Seare Mekonen, Samora Younis, Yohannes Gebremeskel, Tadesse Werede, Abraha , Quarter…”
Most of these generals remain the most senior of the armed forces, including, Samora, the current chief of staff.
“……After the 1-week battle plan failed miserably and concluded with great military losses, the general who was in charge of the war, Tsadkan Gebretensae, called a meeting at Infara, the place that was serving as the Command and Control Center. General Tsadkan tried to call the meeting to order but he could not hide his emotions and broke down crying. All of the meeting participants cried with him. Infara was like a funeral home. Once Tsadkan regained his composure, he tried to comfort the meeting’s participants. Everyone was crying. General Tsadkan said the following to them: “I have led many battles in my career. I have fought in many wars. I have seen a lot. I have never experienced this kind of utter failure. It is bad.” The reason the meeting was called was to assess the situation and find solutions to the problems. Meeting participants agreed that there were two basic problems: the challenging landscape and defective battle plans were equally to blame. The landscape is favorable to the enemy; the enemy is in a defensive position. Also, there was no adequate preparation on our part. We didn’t size up the enemy and its strength correctly. We underestimated the enemy’s capabilities. The enemy is using the landscape to his advantage and rotating forces and battle plans as he wishes. Without going into much detail, we concluded the meeting. Using that as a starting point, we collectively decided to discard the offensive battle plans for Zalambessa and Burre. In order to beef up our fighting capability, it was decided that a committee led by General Abebe Teklehaymanot would go on a shopping spree for the air and ground forces. Bereket Simon was to lead the conscription of massive number of troops. Aba Dula was to supervise the training of the conscripts. The number of divisions was to increase from 12 to 30 in a short period of time. Until then, the troops would stay in a defensive position…”
Additionally, during the Oromia-Eritrea war of 1998-20000, the TPLF leadership had to swallow the bitter pill of admitting that its top leadership of the armed forces was nowhere up to the standard needed to lead conventional forces at the strategic and theater levels, and to wage wars requiring knowledge and experience in the science and art of warfare other than the guerilla methods and tactics the TPLF generals are said to understand due to their guerrilla days as platoon and company commanders. Therefore, the best surviving Generals of the previous regime-- Generals Tesfaye Habetemarim, Airborne, General Behailu Kinde, infantry, General Negussie Adugna, artillery (later to die in battle during the Oromia-Eritrea war), and Gen. Techane Mesfin, Airforce, and thousands of heavy weaponry experts, combat engineers, air force pilots, and many high ranking and line officers who had been humiliated and reduced to being paupers for “serving the Derg Army” after the demise of the former regime in 1991 were called upon once again, almost begged by then-Chief of staff Tsadkan Gebretensay himself, to join preparations for the next round of war the TPLF was preparing against the Eritreans. This was done over the objections of TPLF generals, such as Samora Yunus, the current chief of staff, who did not like the idea of including former generals more educated, trained, and experienced in conventional warfare than he and all of his colleagues were and still are.
Another specific demoralizing issue is that soldiers who have paid the ultimate sacrifice in Oromia’s recent wars are not being buried, let alone with the honor and dignity such situations demand. Many corpses are left to rot and fall prey to carrion, disturbing and dispiriting not only their surviving comrades, but their families and local populations witnessing this degrading abandonment. The regime has refused to disclose the number of its soldiers killed during the war with Eritrea, as well as the ongoing fight in Somalia. One of the major resentments by the people of Oromia, and especially by members of the defense forces, of leaders of the government, the ethnic minority generals and high ranking officers is this indifference and disrespect exhibited to the fallen soldiers.
These facts have been corroborated by testimony obtained from former members of the defense forces who have defected and joined armed opposition groups like Patriotic Ginbot 7, and from civilian witnesses, open sources and other channels of information. Based on the preceding facts, it is possible to make the following assertions:
“ ….Weyane took 10 divisions to the war front against Eritrea. Of those ten divisions, one was a fully mechanized division. There was also one brigade of commandos among them. When war broke out in 1998, Weyane’s armed forces were ready to attack on four fronts, namely Burre, Zalambessa, Tsorona and Badme. The first round of the 1998 war was extremely screwed-up and gruesome. Looking back on it as a commander and a military professional, it was an extremely inept and embarrassingly flawed war plan from the beginning. It was badly planned. It is very sad that no one to date has been held accountable for the wasted treasure in blood and national resources that was expended on the war effort.”
“… we had anywhere from 250,000 to 300,000 of our soldiers killed on the war effort in Eritrea during the Haile Selassie and Dergue era. But if we compare that to the Weyane era, in just one year we had 98,700 of our soldiers killed and 194,300 wounded. These are figures I got from our Ministry of Defense in Oromia. The figures I retrieved from the records of Ordinance Command is that two-thirds of our heavy weaponry was destroyed during the first round of Oromia-Eritrean border war. The field generals of this nihilistic and meaningless war were Seare Mekonen, Samora Younis, Yohannes Gebremeskel, Tadesse Werede, Abraha , Quarter…”
Most of these generals remain the most senior of the armed forces, including, Samora, the current chief of staff.
“……After the 1-week battle plan failed miserably and concluded with great military losses, the general who was in charge of the war, Tsadkan Gebretensae, called a meeting at Infara, the place that was serving as the Command and Control Center. General Tsadkan tried to call the meeting to order but he could not hide his emotions and broke down crying. All of the meeting participants cried with him. Infara was like a funeral home. Once Tsadkan regained his composure, he tried to comfort the meeting’s participants. Everyone was crying. General Tsadkan said the following to them: “I have led many battles in my career. I have fought in many wars. I have seen a lot. I have never experienced this kind of utter failure. It is bad.” The reason the meeting was called was to assess the situation and find solutions to the problems. Meeting participants agreed that there were two basic problems: the challenging landscape and defective battle plans were equally to blame. The landscape is favorable to the enemy; the enemy is in a defensive position. Also, there was no adequate preparation on our part. We didn’t size up the enemy and its strength correctly. We underestimated the enemy’s capabilities. The enemy is using the landscape to his advantage and rotating forces and battle plans as he wishes. Without going into much detail, we concluded the meeting. Using that as a starting point, we collectively decided to discard the offensive battle plans for Zalambessa and Burre. In order to beef up our fighting capability, it was decided that a committee led by General Abebe Teklehaymanot would go on a shopping spree for the air and ground forces. Bereket Simon was to lead the conscription of massive number of troops. Aba Dula was to supervise the training of the conscripts. The number of divisions was to increase from 12 to 30 in a short period of time. Until then, the troops would stay in a defensive position…”
Additionally, during the Oromia-Eritrea war of 1998-20000, the TPLF leadership had to swallow the bitter pill of admitting that its top leadership of the armed forces was nowhere up to the standard needed to lead conventional forces at the strategic and theater levels, and to wage wars requiring knowledge and experience in the science and art of warfare other than the guerilla methods and tactics the TPLF generals are said to understand due to their guerrilla days as platoon and company commanders. Therefore, the best surviving Generals of the previous regime-- Generals Tesfaye Habetemarim, Airborne, General Behailu Kinde, infantry, General Negussie Adugna, artillery (later to die in battle during the Oromia-Eritrea war), and Gen. Techane Mesfin, Airforce, and thousands of heavy weaponry experts, combat engineers, air force pilots, and many high ranking and line officers who had been humiliated and reduced to being paupers for “serving the Derg Army” after the demise of the former regime in 1991 were called upon once again, almost begged by then-Chief of staff Tsadkan Gebretensay himself, to join preparations for the next round of war the TPLF was preparing against the Eritreans. This was done over the objections of TPLF generals, such as Samora Yunus, the current chief of staff, who did not like the idea of including former generals more educated, trained, and experienced in conventional warfare than he and all of his colleagues were and still are.
Another specific demoralizing issue is that soldiers who have paid the ultimate sacrifice in Oromia’s recent wars are not being buried, let alone with the honor and dignity such situations demand. Many corpses are left to rot and fall prey to carrion, disturbing and dispiriting not only their surviving comrades, but their families and local populations witnessing this degrading abandonment. The regime has refused to disclose the number of its soldiers killed during the war with Eritrea, as well as the ongoing fight in Somalia. One of the major resentments by the people of Oromia, and especially by members of the defense forces, of leaders of the government, the ethnic minority generals and high ranking officers is this indifference and disrespect exhibited to the fallen soldiers.
These facts have been corroborated by testimony obtained from former members of the defense forces who have defected and joined armed opposition groups like Patriotic Ginbot 7, and from civilian witnesses, open sources and other channels of information. Based on the preceding facts, it is possible to make the following assertions:
Re: Two landlocked militaries and one shared navy
Ethiopia will soon have a legitimate peace partner:
THE REPUBLIC OF AFAR
Period. The rest is a joke. The Hamasseins or the mountaineers has no business to hang around the Red Sea.
THE REPUBLIC OF AFAR
Period. The rest is a joke. The Hamasseins or the mountaineers has no business to hang around the Red Sea.
Re: Two landlocked militaries and one shared navy
aye tigreway you were busy a year ago killing and depopulating afar in Ethiopia u better shut up cause eritrra has divisions in afar 
Re: Two landlocked militaries and one shared navy
It's possible Eritrea and Ethiopia in theory remain two separate countries but in practice unite to form one loose federation modelled after Bosnia and Herzegovina. Eritrea can resemble the Republika Srpska entity and Ethiopia resemble the Federation entity
Re: Two landlocked militaries and one shared navy
May the souls of your one million agame hordes haunt you in your sleep.
Re: Two landlocked militaries and one shared navy
Wisheeye
Are those the same Afaris who you recently invaded, loot, burned their mosques, rape their women and men???
What ever happened to your “Greater Tigray Republic “?
አየ አንቺ ባንዳ ዓጋመ
ሁሌ በሰው ብልት እንደፎከርሽ ነው
Are those the same Afaris who you recently invaded, loot, burned their mosques, rape their women and men???
What ever happened to your “Greater Tigray Republic “?
አየ አንቺ ባንዳ ዓጋመ
ሁሌ በሰው ብልት እንደፎከርሽ ነው