No sacrifice for Zenawi’s imperial ambitions
[AV Editorial, Sep 30, 2008] At a time when Ethiopia is once again gripped with the specter of famine, the ethnocentric kleptocrats, led by Meles Zenawi, are spending millions of dollars every single day to fulfil the imperial ambitions of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front. A few days after Zenawi invaded Somalia in 2006, he declared victory over the Islamic Courts Unions. Despite Zenawi’s “victory” bravado, the volatile nation has become more anarchic, millions of Somalis have been displaced, and civilians have been killed, injured, tortured and starved to death en mass. Now it has been proven, as analysts predicted accurately, that Zenawi is stuck in a bloody quagmire in Somalia. Somali insurgents are gaining the upper hand and Zenawi’s puppet regime in Mogadishu is under threat.
Zenawi was cock sure that he would withdraw his invading force within a few weeks. It has been nearly two years since the Tigrian tyrant invaded Somalia under the pretext of waging “war on terror” with the tacit support of the Bush Administration. While Zenawi is oppressing and starving Ethiopia, telling the international community that there is no famine while millions of our compatriots are facing the fangs of hunger, he is wasting money, badly needed resources and lives to fulfil his dream of controlling every single soul in the Horn of Africa.
Despite Zenawi’s appeal to the United Nations to deploy peacekeepers, the Security Council has refused to clear his mess in the stateless nation. The poor Ethiopian taxpayers, the majority of whom are poor peasant farmers with almost nothing to eat, should not pay the hefty cost of fulfilling a tyrant’s imperial dreams. Ethiopian troops, drawn from poor peasant families, are dying everyday. They are sacrificing their lives, not for Ethiopia but for a destructive tyrant. It is high time Ethiopian troops withdrew from Somalia. If at all there is a national army, it should fight the tyranny of Meles Zenawi, the root cause of our destruction.
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Sacrifice on Somalia becomes unbearable
By Kirubel Tadesse [Capital] Sept 29, 2008
The Ethiopian Democratic Party (UEDP-MEDHIN), which supported the government’ decision of going to Somalia, urges Prime Minister Meles Zenawi to set a time table for troops withdrawal stating that Ethiopia’s sacrifice in Somalia has become unbearable.
Opposition Member of Parliament (O.M.P), Professor Beyene Petors, Chair of the United Ethiopian Democratic Forces (UEDF), calls for an immediate withdrawal of troops which another O.M.P., Temesgen Zewdie, Deputy Chair of the Unity for Democracy and Justice (UDJ) echoed this week.
In the letter signed by Chair Lidetu Ayalew (MP), UEDP-MEDHIN, affirming its support to the troop’s involvement in Somalia, demands the Prime Minister to set a final exit timetable.
Professor Beyene, who sees UEDP-MEDHIN’s move as an effort to gain possible publicity, doesn’t see the need to set a timetable. “The government has continued to sacrifice out citizens for a zero result which needs not a treatment but a complete stop,” Beyene told Capital. “The matter is not something to deal with exchange of letters, it should have been presented in parliament. However, the bottom line is our troops should come back to our borders and defend the nation from there against stated threat.”
“From the start we opposed going to Somalia but that was never listened. Even if we opposed it, we were advising for the government to adopt an exist strategy but that too was seen unimportant remark, “Temesgen explains, “ we support any decision that takes our troops back to our border line now as it is better late than never.”
All the three parties see Ethiopian troop’s sacrifice and expenditure toll reaching beyond tolerable point. UEDP-MEDHIN is also concerned about the nation’s honor which it says is continued to be trashed by the international media and human right institutions.
Temesgen told Capital that he fears the finance spend in Somalia could be one of the reasons that paralyze the government from saving the nation’s living standard from deteriorating. “It is distracting our attention and resources from our development, “Temesgen added, “I think somebody should be accountable but for now the urgent action should be to take back our troop’s position to our border line.”
Few months back, Responding to UEDP-MEDHIN’s questions in Parliament, Meles explained that the main goal of Ethiopia’s troops was met and it was for the interest of the Somalia people and government the troops were staying.
According to experts the challenge which remains unaddressed is a concern of fearing to create a power vacuum. The solution- the 8,000 peacekeeper troops which should have been deployed by now- is to be realized in short period of time.
Ethiopian government says that the current situation in Somalia better than portrayed and priority should be given to the political differences to which the major players were brokered a road map recently here in Addis Ababa.
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