Sebhat Nega's capitalism and power

Tedla Asfaw ǀ June 11, 2009

Ato Sebhat Nega's thirty minutes interview (June 9 and 10) with Adissu Abebe of VOA Amharic was much informative than the recent one we heard on Hagerfiker radio and the paltalk room. The questions were short followed by short answers on many categories and the follow up questions also helped us to learn from the interview. Sebhat Nega and his multimillionaire Woyane clique were trying their best to build "capitalism" on backward Ethiopia.

When capitalism fully developed under the leadership of TPLF/EPRDF Sebhat said, movements of capital and people will unite the Ethiopian people who have not known each other for more than hundred years. "We never knew each other before and we were just ruled by guns and tanks" in backward Ethiopia.

Thanks to the TPLF he said, we do not have angry people but only angry individuals. To support his thesis of angry people he never believed that TPLF was formed by few "angry" individuals. Sebhat said, TPLF/Woyane was a result of angry people and people rebellion but the truth of the matter is Tigray was relatively peaceful province under Emperor Haile Selasse and even under Mengistu's Derg except its last year.

During the "Edeget Behibret" campaign by high school students and universities at the early years of Derg thousands of students went to Tigray and all provinces of Ethiopia to educate and learn from the masses. By the way some learned the language of the people too and the talk of we do not know each other is just nonsense. Except few places like Badme which was my campaign post later on closed because of security reason there are many who participated on that program and got a life time experience.

Under feudal Ethiopia many nationalities immigrated to cities like Addis Ababa, Asmara, Harar etc looking for better life and that is why we have large Tigray and other nationalities lived mixed up with others far from their birth places. According to Sebhat Nega these people did not know each other, what a joke !!!

Sure Capitalism bring investment on regions expecting good return on the way bringing mobility of people. Had it not Italy's invasion of Ethiopia was not beaten by our gallant fighters more than seven decades ago we might end up being a "developed country" like Eritrea, a former colony of Italy. Many Eritreans believed that federation with backward Ethiopia in the 1960s was not to their advantage.

Most Eritreans are still proud of their "developed" Eritrea and after their Independence in the 1991,however, the Eriteran elites flocked to backward Ethiopia for a joint "development" with TPLF. The main cause for the split of Shabia and TPLF in the late 1980s was pure greed fighting for the loot.

Sebhat Nega on the paltalk was accusing Isaias' Shabia for starting the Badme war after TPLF refused to "develop" Ethiopia jointly with Shabia. The same TPLF who said no to Isaias is now giving our fertile land and water to foreign investors. In case of our Western boundary outright sell of huge land and water more than 30,000 sq km to Sudan has generated huge cash flows to TPLF's Endowment Fund for the Rehabilitation of Tigray (EFFORT) which is under control of few TPLF leaders including Sebhat Nega.

Sebhat Nega who failed to tell us EFFORT's present capital on the VOA Amharic interview confirmed to the wider audience back home that it is the number one investor in Ethiopia, hardly a secret. EFFORT is "legally" a "Tigrean Region Investment" that operates in other regions of Ethiopia also to bring accelerated capitalism to allow the middle and the bourgeois class to emerge eventually to take power from TPLF/EPRDF.

The TPLF elites rush to educate their region at full speed is most likely to bring those who will take power after EPRDF is "gone", "Setefa" according to Sebhat Nega. Sebhat Nega knows very well that power in capitalism comes through education and money. The TPLF aged warlords believe that Ethiopia's future is depending on this new to come middle and bourgeois class.

The road to "capitalism" is now clear and many Tigrean elites are fully controlling the source of the capital. The TPLF 's military job is to make sure that we have only angry individuals but not angry people. The TPLF generals are now the richest people who are paid to defend TPLF from any challenge. "Holy Capitalism ", uncontested under the leadership of TPLF's EFFORT for extraordinary growth that will make Ethiopia an Africa China.

The problem here is China do not have many angry people like Ethiopia who are battling the regime daily. The Oromos, Somalis and the Ethiopian nationalists have been battling this regime for the last decade. This is not news for the Chinese because they have been a victim of such war in Ethiopia's Ogaden few years ago working to develop the gas and oil potential of the region jointly with TPLF.

The idea of building capitalism in war torn Ethiopia is impossible. Capitalism and democracy are inseparable too and country like China mostly homogeneous can develop but ethnically diverse Ethiopia's road to capitalism under few Tigrayan elites will fail because it is unaccountable Mafia Economy.