An open letter to Seyoum Mesfin
By: Concerned Ethiopians in California.
The honorable Seyoum Mesfin
Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Addis Ababa, EthiopiaJune 16, 2001
Dear Sir:
As Ethiopians, we all have a historic duty to play a role when our nation's future is in danger. After saying that, the highest regards to you and the critical leadership position you hold as Ethiopian's Foreign Minister, motivated us to write this open letter to you concerning the current crises and the security issues facing the nation in particular. At this crucial time, where no one has clues the nation is heading, there exist a big fear and suspicion that what the consolidation of power by your group, suppression of civic and legal institutions, mass killings, arresting and harassing of opposition party leaders, and removal of leaders within your own party accomplishes at a time of the on going negotiations with Eritrea. The letter touches the conflict with Eritrea, access to the sea, and handling of the current political crisis, highlighting the absence of a clear vision, disrespect to the rule of law, and anti-democratic tradition your government uses to solve the nations problems.
Critics say that given what has been done before the war to favor Eritrea, the Prime Minister's move at this particular time is intended to compromise Ethiopias's sovereignty. Among this include to silence the people in order to block the port issue, not to accept any challenging questions from which the Ethiopian army is withdrawn, and to give additional land to Eritrea, so that it will walk free on the grave of our martyrs fallen to defend the nation using your support.
On the question of DemocracyAbove all, the fascistic killings of 41 and wounding more than 252 unarmed high school students, on April 18, 2001, in Addis Ababa, indicates that your ruling party is determined to rule by force in contrary what has been trying to portray itself. We thought that the system of fascism is gone forever when the Derg was collapsed. But now, the recent merciless massacre, the torture practiced against the students in Sendafa, the cruel and inhuman act of taking street children from the city and abandoning them in remote wooded areas such as Dukem, Sebeta, and Kara Qore, to be eaten by Hynes, and the brutal beatings of innocent women and children inside their house by police, mostly on the head to cause permanent damage, eye-witnessed by world media, suggests that it is incorporated back as a means of governance. Perhaps, such a move at this magnitude relates to what dictators do when they think time is running against them. If possible, it is designed to silence every sector of the society not to question about their rights and not to say anything in the face of the destruction of their country. While your organization preached so hard to pretend as if democracy exists in the nation, the recent massacre showed the whole world that you have failed to honor your own constitution. It is also an embarrassing event to see the way you try to link human rights organizations and opposition groups with the riot as a pretext to suppress dissent views. A wise solution would have been giving answers on time rather than ignoring and sending a police force to turn a peaceful gathering into a public unrest. As far as timing is concerned, the coordinated actions taken, one after another, including removal of leaders with in your own ruling party, the mass arrest, killings, and the harassment of people at such magnitude is also alarming. The public questions what the Prime Minister and his group want to do before demarcations takes place, and the question of our access to the sea get an answer, on the ongoing negotiations with Eritrea.
We strongly condemn such a barbaric crime against humanity to a great extent a word can describe. This massacre is way beyond what most Ethiopians love to hate, the fascist Derg, has done to students in a couple of days. If your government killed such a large number of high school students supporting an academic freedom, perhaps it would have been in several thousands if the students were carried national slogans such as 'Access To The Sea', where your ruling clique always try to disregard in favor of Eritrea. Even though we not supporting the looting, the response taken by the special force is too cruel by any standard. Someone wonders what an extreme hate the ruling party and its supporters have when they take such a mass murder on a broad day light to the people who pay their bills.
For long, millions of Ethiopians have made a call for a multi-party democracy, a free and fair election system, the establishment of an independent judicial branch, the freedom of the independent press without restrictions, and the freedom of assembly and public demonstrations since your front took office in 1991. Most of the questions raised, however, are not implemented or addressed at all until the present day. If a democratic system has been in place for checks and balances, it would have prevented someone or a group from putting itself above the law as we see it today - in violation of governing principles laid out as foundations. Time has proved us right that the present crises has evolved due to the lack of such democratic institutions, and the tendency of disrespecting the rule of law as a common practice of solving differences. Perhaps, someone might be purged from a political organization with adequate reasons and based on highly damaging ethical conduct related to organizational statues, but not for procedural suggestions made how to accomplish a given agenda or a walk out that takes place to protest a troubled session.
Sir, if we take the case of Ato Gebru Asrat, for example, it was said several times that he was elected in Tigray by the general public. If so, closing his office and blocking him from public administrative duties where he is elected to serve, or agitating or forcing the Tigray parliament members to support the action taken by your group for his removal under no legal basis, simply because he walks out of a half-divided TPLF Central Committee meeting, violates the constitution drafted by EPRDF and its affiliate organizations to serve its purpose. The same measures taken against others using illegal petitions collected by loyal cadres to deny their parliament membership is also unacceptable that undermines voter's rights. This raises questions that the total "election system" throughout the country perhaps is a fiasco, and supports several complaints made earlier by opposition parties about the fakeness and open cheating of the system.
More over, the constitution allows the freedom of assembly, but you try to prohibit students for using that right; you put Journalists in jail while advocating for the press freedom; you invite opposition parties to work freely, but you arrest and harass them for commenting on flawed government policies and exposing missteps. The most suffered seem those who take your words and the constitution at face value and joined to work side by side as opposition parties. But, critics say that you used their existence to sort out a group's or an individual capability of being a challenging critique to the government and to arrest them. Sir, if that is the case, why inviting them in the first place? If you ignore your own constitution, who do you think will respect it? If both the government and its law enforcement organ violated the constitution, then it would be unfair to tell others to respect it. Because of such double standard policy, several thousand respected Ethiopian citizens, and academics are in jail. Such a move invites an absolute dictatorship and the suffering of the people. For those of us who support you during the Ethio-Eritrea war, living abroad, it is a slap on the face, and for the Ethiopian people in general your government betrayed them. If you call the people to fight and die for the country, what gives your group special eligibility to harass the masses or ignore the fundamental right of equal protections to every citizen in a peace time?
Accusing the dissidents, your group told the western media, that they are Communists, Hard-liners, corrupted officials and working for a Tigrean supremacy. If so, where have you been when they do this for so long, or why telling us now at a time of the split? And who gave you the certificate that your group is clean from all of those charges? Well, let us say what we have to say.
It is hard to believe that series ideological differences exist within the TPLF top leaders. Looking into press releases given by both groups recently, everybody agrees on the means of incorporating both the western and the communist ideologies, some in here to pretend as if something exists and some in there to have a one party dominance as a guarantee for power. Both groups promote the divide and rule policy of ethnic-based federal system, or ethnic apartheid, so that when a repressive action is taken against the people of one corner, the other will stay neutral and vice versa. Or instigate one group to rise up against the other, while the government sits and watch when helpless masses suffer, as what happened in Welega against 12,000 Amharic-speaking Ethiopians. The recent unsuccessful trial of isolating Oromo Students from the rest, within the AA University students, demanding for greater academic freedom, is also a perfect example of the shameful policy of divide and rule. All of you support a one party dictatorship, a symbol parliament and want to implement an exclusive organizational rule on the nation rather than a popular one. Both groups think that the TPLF is a democratic organization before the split and tries to accuse one another as if undemocratic tendency appears recently when it knocks its own doors in the last few months. But the truth is that it never was yesterday and it is not today as far as we know. Unless the several hundred imprisoned Ethiopians, such as the illegally removed University Professors, Academics and human right activists, suffered journalists, several opposition elements, who still are in jail are considered as second class citizens and removed from the list of equal protection, undemocratic actions were business as usual in the eyes of other Ethiopians for the last 10 years. Almost all are prisoners of conscience. Perhaps it existed within your own circles. We say to you that TPLF followed undemocratic and repressive paths yesterday and is a more repressive and kidnapping institution today. Because of the extreme blind and narrow nationalistic mentality, it failed to reach, recognize, or care to any one other than its own loyalists. The campaign of both groups on this democracy subject, then, probably is designed to gain support among the TPLF rank and files, but not from other Ethiopians who know the fact on the ground.
The same is true in areas of Corruption. The people say that almost everybody is involved through family ties, such as a Daughter, Son, Wife, Cousin or Best friend. If your group had a concern to address the corruption issue, the best way is not to take criticism and self-criticism within the TPLF Central Committee. If so, under Meles's chairmanship, his supporters will go free and his opponents will put in jail. Taking it back to the TPLF's congress, to hide the organization's embarrassment from the Ethiopian public, will not be the right way to do it either. The best way would have been to assign an independent body from the parliament, investigate every government official and announce it to the Ethiopian public with recommendations, in a free and fair manner. As a matter of fact, it is your group that opposed the need for the Independent Committee. If you have the courage to expose corruption, then, Sir, what makes you afraid of the Independent Body? Because of such dilemma, people do not think that is the cause of the split either.
. Therefore, this leaves us to the one most important remaining agenda that relates to the way of handling issues concerning Eritrea. Perhaps, the fear of embarrassment of discussing with this issue, given what has been done in the past, is what turns the Prime Minister to disregard every law in the land and go his own way to a degree no one expected. For this, he uses your support as a stepping ground and gave false justifications for the extra miles he traveled in the opposite direction.
Likewise, several publications and inside sources indicated that the focal point of the split within the TPLF Central Committee takes place on the burning issue of "YeEritrea Guday", in which most Ethiopians seem to accept. Recent reports from the dissident group within the TPLF Central Committee and independent sources proved that you, the Foreign Minister, were on the other side of the coin supporting Meles to accept the flawed "Technical Arrangements", which in turn means to humiliate the Ethiopian people and to keep us at bay and short of victory. Desperate Eritrea, who was kicked out of Badme, wanted to show at least something to the world. Then, started campaigning an international propaganda by claiming that it had killed hundreds of Ethiopian soldiers in Tserona and wanted to stop the war right there to save its own face against a backlash of its own people. It is this time also your group tried hard to save Eritrea and give such a face-saving opportunity, by making a full campaign to convince other members to accept those "Technical Arrangements". When the Prime Minister failed to persuade the majority, Eritrea got the signal and attempted to regain Badme by launching several offensive with no success. Your group tried again and again using different tactics, but nothing was changed. Sir, even though your group accepted the majority vote to carry out the final preparations to score a victorious outcome, we were not expecting your opposing stand in the first place for that matter. Imagine the outcome, if your group had been successful on its repeated trial of stopping the war; the shining victory we gained would have been blocked.
Leaving behind political differences, millions of Ethiopians rallied behind the flag to undo aggression and defend the nation during the Ethio-Eritrea war as our forefathers did in Adwa against the Italian Fascists in 1896. But, Sir, critics say that your group is trying to take the country back to the pre-war scenario by disregarding the sacrifice we paid to defend the nation. Recent consolidations of power by your group, the promotion of full or half - Eritreans such as Bereket Seamon, to the front seat, the secret meetings in Saudi Arabia, Kinfe's trip to the US, and the rash for economic cooperation your government is trying to promote with Eritrea, before our young soldiers whereabouts is known, collectively seem to suggest this case. What for? God knows.
For the last couple of years, during the Ethio-Eritrea conflict, Sir, your role as a foreign minister puts you on the spot light to sell your views regarding the conflict to millions of Ethiopians and foreign diplomats around the world - explaining how the aggression took place, the plot and mechanisms needed to reverse it, as well as how to bring a lasting peace to the region. It was this particular time and the subject of Eritrea's aggression that gave you a large audience to play as an actor on the center stage and grasp public attention at that moment. Knowing perfectly well that your government came to power by force rather than a public mandate, and knowing that you are a party appointee, we gave you the support you needed for defending our beloved country. At that time, then, Sir, when you stood firm and tall in front of everybody, we looked into your eyes, listened your encouraging words, felt confidence and were assured to have you representing Ethiopia on the stage ground as its political lawyer. Your repeated assurances in reversing the aggression and maintaining the nation's sovereignty through diplomacy if possible, if not with all options opened, including the use of force, lead us to accept you as a concerned political leader on the position you serving.
We also thought that you are a nationalist who needs our support at a time when our sovereignty is at stake. Lots of people wrongly assumed that the foreign minister perhaps is a resolute political leader, who stands by his word, and wanted to give a lasting lesson to Eritrea. But, to our dismay, while we count on you, by accepting your words at face value, the appearance of the crisis, information leaked within your secretive TPLF circles, and the group you are standing at this stage proved us to be wrong. The voting records of the PM and yours were kept secret for a long time from the general public. It is embarrassing, once we know. And with no doubt you were getting credit on behalf of others hard work - particularly the dissidents.
Sir, when the war ended with Eritrea, we thought things will change for the good and political differences will be narrowed to make national reconciliation, which will help us to work collectively against our greatest enemies such as poverty, ignorance, and disease. But, we never thought, you will take us back to the era of the Derg. The accusation of political organization and human rights groups as scapegoats to cover the mistake made by police and its highest organ that gave the signal to carry out its fascistic killings was another illegal move. It simply is an extra step designed to harass or quash your opposition party leaders and their members. Above all, the arrest of the country's most known academics and human rights activist, Professor Mesfin Weldemariam, and his collogue, Dr. Birhanu Nega, wonders the public what your government is getting up to.
Based on such circumstances, then, Sir, we say to you, as a Tigrean, you were not concerned to shorten the sufferings of people in the border region. You were on the wrong side to prolong the sufferings of the Irob-Zalanbesa vicinity, Tigray-Ethiopians, when you try to accept the 'Technical Arrangements', at a time and in a formula the arrogant Shabiya wanted it, to achieve its goals, in the back door diplomacy. As an intellectual, you lack a clear vision to raise the security and strategic interests of our nation. As a veteran TPLF leader, you contributed to the violation of. the rule of law within your organization. When the TPLF Audit Committee tried to settle things with its own jurisdictions, for example, you raised your hand for its humiliation, orchestrated by Meles and his loyal cadres in the Mekelle gathering. As an Ethiopian leader, you failed to honor or implement your own constitution that guarantees basic democratic rights and kept silent when high school students supporting questions related to academic freedom are massacred. Even to our surprise, your ministry justified it. As an Ethiopian foreign minister, you betrayed the people by not mentioning our access to the sea on the ongoing process siding yourself with Shabiya's supporters. What else can you do, sir?
Sir, perhaps you will regret in some ways or another when you evaluate public opinion and find your name on the list as a contributor to the damage. Here, the designed goal is not to accuse you to the extreme, but to show what people expected from you and the stand you chose instead in the opposite direction. Government changes hands, or when one leader leaves another will emerge. In the absence of the rule of law, what happens to others will also happen to you tomorrow. Eventually, you will leave your post after the damage is done and the scar stays with you for the rest of your life and beyond.
We say no to demarcations on the Asseb side, until leaders promoting Ethiopian interests are put in place. If you still have a slight chance of listening, Sir, we ask your Excellency, on the name of the martyrs and the Ethiopian people in general, to do your job as Ethiopian Foreign Minister, as defender of its interests, and contribute your historic obligation rather than sitting and watch. Back in the liberation movement, Sir, it is your organization that saved Shabiya from a humiliating total defeat at an operation called the 'Key Kokeb Zemecha'. Even though, the Eritrean Mafia, the EPLF, down played the help they get from your front, leaving out TPLF's rescue mission at their last breath would have exposed it for a total annihilation by the Derg. The support they get enabled them to reorganize and come back later with massive US material, financial and intelligence help as well as interventions in moving Colonel Mengistu Haile Mariam to Zimbabwe for the collapse of the army. Weaken and divided Ethiopians, then, were forced to lose Eritrea in 1991. Because of your helping hand again, they were profiting with our port of Asseb, for the last 8 years, bought weapons, and attacked us in the back. And now, we won the war with a great price, but it is your organization for the third time that tries to make us a loser by not mentioning the question of port on the right time.
On the crucial fight between Ethiopian leaders and pro-Eritreans within the TPLF, Sir, you chose the wrong side for unknown reasons. Mr. Foreign Minister, you said several times that "... we have to stand together on fundamental national issues concerning the security of Ethiopia and its interests." But our "trusted leader", your Excellency, we challenge you that neither you were on the people's side, on the question of the flawed 'Technical Arrangements' issue, nor the question of Ethiopia's access to the sea seem to concern you for that matter. We ask why? But still puzzled.
Holding back our emotions, Sir, if you allow us to say some positive things about you, the communication skill you show to people, the low profile and professionalism approach that you have, and the ability of not using vulgar words to insult people like other TPLF leaders in public, such as the PM or his defender and the most arrogant, Mr. Sibhat Nega, it has gained you a respect in the Ethiopian public, perhaps more than others. But, we pray for you to gain additional characters such as a clear vision to see things around you (the mass suffering), a willingness to hear the loud cry of the nation for the absence of democracy, and a bright outlook to do something to your own nation and its people rather than to be submissive to those who love to destruct it.
There is no doubt that the mass unrest followed the demand for academic freedom by Addis Ababa University students is a reflection of public discontent against your government for failing to address issues related to democracy, access to the sea, handling of the conflict with Eritrea, state sponsored corruption, and the ethnic apartheid federal system you put in place. Known this fact, however, the Chief Of Staff, on your foreign ministry, Yemane Kidane, on behalf of your office, tried to justify the fascistic killings of our innocent children and high school students in the interview he gave to Routers on 23 April 2001. We are greatly disappointed that you have gone that far to say yes to the unimaginable killings.
Sir, your organization accused the Derg regime for using force and not handling the social and political problems facing the nation correctly, when you were in the jungle for propaganda purposes. But now, when it comes to you, and replaced his seat, you forgot everything you said and your organization is ridding the same train in the same direction. What you used to condemn is now forgotten and justified, and killings become business as usual. If you accepted the fact of answering democratic questions by the use of force during the Derg's regime, and it worked against the Junta, we ask you, Sir, what makes you believe it helps your regime to stay in power this time? We strongly believe that, Sir, it is the government's arrogance, inability to read its own constitution, and the usual tendency of ruling by force that escalates the problem. Perhaps you can get away telling lies to the people as always is, but what would you say to the world at large who witnessed the massacre and followed the events? Your police force started shooting inside the campus before the riot. Or how can you take your words back after the Education Ministry officially admitted what was wrong in the first place? Let God give you the courage to think.
It is also amazing to watch your ministry's interference on administrative duties that belongs to the Education Ministry and the Federal Police. We ask why you designate a spokesman on your behalf to justify the massacre. We say to you, Sir, you could have better served the country by addressing our sovereignty and the nations interests than confusing issues and covering up known mistakes that is not under your authority. It is embarrassing to see how things are messed up in your separate government administrative branches. Even at the time of the Emperor, Sir, students enjoyed and had rights to complain for academic freedom in a much better way than your repressive system. Other things might be forgotten as time goes by, but such a mass murder and the rhetoric and cover up given to make the people more angered will not. It is embarrassing to yourself, your government, and the TPLF organization you belong for that matter. As Red Terror officials of the previous regime, the Ethiopian people will keep asking those who take this action and officials who order it to come in the court of law for the crime they committed.
Mr. Foreign Minister, when hundreds of families mourn for their loved children, your group might be laughing and giving out provocative news briefings or tell us who cares. Such a brutal action, to make a living by killing, however, increases the government's isolation with the people for not respecting its own constitution. This fascistic killings taken by merciless special forces in Arat-Kilo reminds us the same measure taken by fascist Italian forces against our people when our hero Moges Asgedom and Abrham Deboch tried to assassinate Graziani more than half a century ago. The difference perhaps is, the students were asking legitimate questions related to academic freedom this time, and high school students supporting their voice were not armed and considered to be a threat to your government. It is in this vicinity that the monument representing the victims and our Martyrs is standing in Arat-Kilo. A second monument will be erected in the same location to remind the next generation what your government using special forces have done to the Ethiopian children in the same tragic place where no one was able to defend them. Not only your government is undemocratic and advocates killings rather than solving it peacefully, but also works against Ethiopia's security and national interests in contrary of what the people are asking. Undermining the people and ignoring their voices perhaps is a grave mistake unless those who are in charge are aristocrats.
Access to The SeaSir, the paramount issue, Ethiopia's Access To The Sea, for example, is not simply answered in phrases as both the Prime Minister, Meles, and The Foreign Minister, Seyoum Mesfin, your Excellency, tried several times to tell us: we can use Djibuti, Sudan or Kenya. We don't really have no clues what you and your boss, Meles, mean by International Law either. If there was an international law, the aggression would have not been visible in the first place, or Eritrea was supposed to abide by that law to remove its forces from our territory without bloodshed and proceeded its claims in courts. That would have saved the lives of our brothers who gave up their lives, paying the highest price, for nothing, at younger ages and at a huge number.
Sir, Access to the Sea is not only a source for economical growth, but also is an outlet for our national security. A nation surrounded by enemies should consider the issue as a question of survival. It is amazing that we let our people starve to death while we can use our rivers for irrigation. This of course will lead us to the need of a strong army including a sea outlet with naval force to protect our projects that will be constructed using our share of water. Blocking our access to the sea, however, will put us in a square box surrounded by enemies and weaken our capacity to defend the nation. This in turn will make it difficult our ability to import the necessary military hardware we want when using rented ports for that purpose. And finally, blocking our access to the sea outlet will give enemies a possible close range and stepping ground to attack our people for the years to come using a third nation as a host.
The whole world knows that some countries are behind Eritrea's separation from Ethiopia. These countries also encourage and help Terrorists in the Ogaden area and push Somalis to protest against Ethiopia, with Eritrean partnership, to destabilize our nation for their own interests. Perhaps there are speculations that they have played a back-on-the-seat role on the current Ethio-Eritrea conflict too, providing weapons on the enemy side.
Sir, as soon as the war with Eritrea ended and the PM., Meles, tells VOA that Asseb port should remain as Eritrean port, thanks for his advocacy, against the voice of the masses of the Ethiopian people, Djibuti has changed its course, hired an outside company and brought a tariff- increase knowing that Ethiopia will not have any chances other than accepting what is offered by itself. The much talked about agreements between the two countries (Ethiopia and Djibuti) faded away. Likewise, it will happen tomorrow on the other corner if Eritrea is unchallenged and Asseb stays in its hands. To help terrorists close by and put pressure on our nation, those countries who have conflict of interests with us will move into the Asseb port or send a friendly nation on their behalf as we see it in Djibuti. Because of this, a possible triple-fold tariff increase and an intimidation is likely to affect Ethiopia's economy and national security for the years to come. And that is why Ethiopians are talking louder more than ever to inform the current Ethiopian leadership, who has no clear vision at all and controls our destiny by holding state power, to listen what the general public says from day one up to now. It is sad to tell the coming generation, how a wrong leadership in the wrong time that works in favor of Eritrea while sitting in our palace and using our resources, exposes the nation to unimaginable a great damage the nation has never gone through in its entire history. Although critics say that some leaders have hidden missions, we are saddened about you more than others for working in this direction and giving your open hands to them to hurt your own people and nation in exchange of a position.
Sir, make no mistakes, in today's world; If what we consider our brothers, the Eritrean leaders, tried to stub us in the back, it is possible for others to take the same measures tomorrow due to conflict of interests.
While Eritrea owns Massawa, Dahlak, Smaller Hanish and several other spots that can be turned into ports, with a population of 3.5 million, denying access for 60 million people and awarding Ethiopia's port of Asseb, in addition of what it has, is a tragic mistake. With no doubt, leaders who favor Eritrea, must be the only ones who supported such an outcome.
Sir, it is your front that allowed Eritrea to separate from Ethiopia, without public mandate, in 1993. We had neither a government chosen by the people nor a free parliament to discuss or debate issues concerning our national security and the means of preserving our access to the sea, which we own it and die for it for thousands of years as an independent nation. The same is true today. It remains as a non-functional parliament and a collection of 'yes - people' without an authority. The fate of 60 million people hangs by a deciding vote of 30 TPLF Central Committee members; even worse recently, by 15 of you, who got the upper hand in the coup orchestrated by the chairman. Therefore, you were the Foreign Minister when Eritrea was separated and you still are at your post at this dramatic moment. For ignoring the people's voice and abandoning Ethiopia's interests, both in 1993, and now, after tens of thousands of our brothers and sisters given up their dearest lives fighting Shabiya, believing that there is a leader behind them, you failed them and you failed the nation. History will not forgive you for that.
By standing together to defend the nation, against Eritrea's war of aggression, we are able to gain a shining victory, send a clear massage to our enemies, and to register a similar score that gave us pride and make our country one of the independent nations in the world. Let time takes its own course and we will do it again if that is the only option we have.
We blame all the TPLF leaders and their supporters for lots of damages to their own country, when you work hand and gloves, keeping the public in the dark, in the last 10 years. But now, armed with lots of information, we have a target to shoot - your group. We give our thanks to those dissidents at least for having the courage to provide us some information in identifying the leaders who work day and night for the destruction of the nation sitting in our house. National issues always rise above politics. Even though their struggle is limited to their own group and their supporters, distancing themselves from saying the absence of democracy and the sufferings of other Ethiopians, the change in attitude and the stand they take to confront dictators within their own party is a plus, given their background - well come abroad. The conflict with Eritrea and the split within the TPLF Central Committee gave Ethiopians an opportunity to know how the TPLF was functioning and the role of individuals in the hidden political game that have been played in the name of Ethiopia.
Therefore, the dissidents who support the nations sovereignty, exposed the leaders who favors Eritrea, and played a key role in defending the nation against Shabiya should be thanked. For this reason, those dissidents have public sympathy. And we believe that the designed political coup perhaps is intended to avoid the Eritrean issue in particular. Killing and harassing the whole society is not the answer. We suggest that the best way to solve the countries problems is to listen the people, and respect dissent views of all sectors, and do the right thing to solve it. Everybody is watching the political circus and the blame goes to your group who undermines the rule of law. If you call a group who wants to sell out his own nation, loves to see his country land-locked, disregards his constitution, and keep the people under terror a reformer, Ethiopians at large and the whole world would be laughing. It is that kind wrong thinking that makes your organization stubborn for a change from its narrow mindedness.
For example, the whole world knows that when Eritrea was separated from Ethiopia, there was no clear demarcation between the boarders of the two countries, including the port of Asseb. And this truth has been posted hundreds of times on the Internet, by the media around the world. Known this fact, however, Government Spokes Person, Solome Taddese, was told to read a statement from the PM office saying that, "When Eritrea was separated, we already knew that we will be land-locked." ooops.
To those of you who said the criticism against the PM is unfair, with respect to your opinion, we have something to say: How would you think he would say (the above statement) that if he is the country's Prime Minister? By saying that whom do you think he is favoring? We leave the answer to you.
Sir, we have also this to say: On behalf of all concerned Ethiopians, let our collective voice, in all corners around the Globe, reach you with no uncertain terms, loud and clear, Sir, blocking our access to the sea without negotiating Ethiopia's interest and national security issues in 1993, and now, to our dismay, supporting the Prime Minister, Meles, by not raising it to favor Eritrea as well as ignoring the voice of the masses, perhaps will be seen as the greatest damage an Ethiopian Foreign Minister ever made to hurt his own nation in our entire history.
Sir, after loosing tens of thousands of our brothers and sisters to Eritrea's war of aggression, it seems Eritrea will walk free getting a helping hand from your group as usual. While sitting in the position where our hero, Aklilu Habtewold, once occupied, recalling his remarkable fight with the UN to gain Eritrea back, you failed the nation for the second time by not standing for your own people and speak about the port and other issues related to our sovereignty. Given the situation that most Ethiopian Intellectuals being excluded in your government, both the lack of people in your ministry, who have the knowledge in Ethiopian history, and the regionalism attitude you immersed in prevented you to float on the top as a nationalist. Even, in the fight between Ethiopians and pro-Eritreans in your own political organization, it makes us wonder looking the side you chose and how you failed our martyrs, and the greatest cause they die for, the nations sovereignty, by selling out your conscience.
On the other hand, regarding the recent massacre, while several citizens mourn for the loved ones, and the whole world regrets and condemns the excessive force used, showing a great sympathy for the students, you are in denial. If what you are saying, defending public property is taken at face value, the Derg would have been a "government for the people", rather than a fascist. Because, when ever he killed, kidnapped and carried out a torture against innocent citizens, the explanation was that it was done for the people and against enemies of the people. Even knowing that the Ministry of Education admitted the first illegal entry and shootings by the police inside the campus; it is sad and shame to hear from your ministry's spokesperson about the justification of the massacre. No doubt it is for this and other reasons that your image is shadowed. Our expectations and hope on your part is faded. What can you do more than this, Sir?
Ethiopians, who become to know you during the conflict with Eritrea, were expecting at least some contribution on your part - when the war is over. For example, paving a civilized way of dialogue between the government and opposition parties still at large, working towards the formation of a democratic government through national reconciliation, and defending the nation's interests. But, Sir, none of those seem on your list. Even worse, your government is driving backwards. Well, if land-locked Ethiopia, based on the divide and rule policy of ethnic-federalism (ethnic apartheid), under a system of tyranny, run by Shabiya's ambassadors, that makes fascistic killings of innocent high school students, practices state sponsored kidnappings, and beats to death women and children to the degree that shocks the whole world is what you would like to see, you are on the winner's side and Ethiopians are the losers--------- congratulations. We respectfully dissent.
Sincerely:Concerned Ethiopians in California.
[Opinions in this article are solely that of the writer.]