Ginbot7 and ESAT’s bushwa: cutting off the nose to spit the face

By Dilwenberu Nega
London Tigrai Online, July 6, 2015

Ginbot7 and ESAT’s bushwa: cutting off the nose to spit the face.

ESAT’s Breaking News on Saturday 4 July 2015 reported that forces loyal to the so-called Arbenotch Ginbar, whose Chairman is also the Chairman of Ginbot 7, had started war to topple over the democratically elected Government of FDRE.

Is this part of G7–ESAT’s interminable bushwa (Tultula) which the public is sick and tired of, or is it a pre-emptive attempt by Ginbot 7 to nudge the White House to cancel the imminent visit of President Barrack Obama to FDRE on security grounds?

The Chairman of what is now dubbed “feardom,” as opposed to freedom party, Dr Birhanu Nega, has been through a difficult patch over the past 12 months. The surgical removal of his right hand man and the Secretary General of Ginbot 7, Andargachew Tsiege, have reduced Ginbot 7 into a living dead organisation. In fact during a televised interview six months ago Andy, himself, reduced Ginbot 7’s life expectancy to “six months. An all-out effort to convince the electorate to boycott Election 2015 got the thumps down by a public who refused to be lectured by someone who having boycotted to join the Ethiopian Parliament after the 2005 Election is reduced to the factotum of the very man hell-bent on the destabilising Ethiopia – Isaias Afewerki of Eritrea. And when Andy’s 1^st year in captivity arrived, G7 and its rubble-rousers in USA and in Europe, so egged-up the event it somehow tried to ape the “Free Mandela” crusade. This was, however, to boomerang against both G7 and Andy. While G7’s rubble rousers were working hard to jump-start the “Free Andy” Campaign by lobbying the support of the British Government, ( In a naive manner Andy’s wife even pleaded with H.M the Queen) ESAT was busy “cutting its nose to spit its face”, i.e. a needlessly self-destructive over-reaction to a problem.

In order to mark Andy’s 1^st year in captivity, ESAT’s wayward management of vuvuzela politicians sanctioned a documentary which showed Andy’s ‘great’ deeds as a hands-on leader of a group of armed men in Eritrea hell-bent on toppling the Government of Ethiopia. How come the supposedly learned men and women running ESAT did not come to realise that their documentary was at variance with their claim that Andy is a “prisoner of conscience.” What kind of prisoner of conscience would lead an armed struggle to topple a democratically elected government? The British Foreign Secretary, Philip Hammond, will therefore have to think twice before trying to arm-twist the Government of FDRE over the release of Andy. Which international convention or British Law gives the imprimatur for a British citizen to violently overthrow a democratically elected government? Or does the mere fact that Ethiopia is the number 1 recipient of UK Development Aid, allows the Foreign Secretary to ride roughshod over the question of Andy?

G7-ESAT’s ‘declaration of war’ though music to the Government of FDRE demands a calibrated response aimed at, once and for all, cutting Ginbot 7 to size. The Government’s demarche falls on the shoulders of our astute strategist in Washington DC. Ginbot 7’s public declaration of war on the elected government of Ethiopia provides Ambassador Girma Biru with irrefutable evidence to prove to the Obama Administration that Ethiopian Americans are caught in the act of hiding behind their American citizenship to scupper our hard-won freedom, peace and democracy.

The Obama Administration cannot afford to allow Ethiopian Americans to abuse American freedom and democracy by turning a blind eye and deaf ear when its own citizens declare war on a sovereign country with a democratic government at its head. Imagine if you will what the US Government’s reaction would be if Ethiopia were to allow American Ethiopians to declare war on USA.

Ambassador Girma Biru’s onerous duty, in this instance, would have to be to remind the State Department “what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander” – what would be unacceptable for USA’s national interest would equally be unacceptable for Ethiopia in similar situation.