Did Isaias Afwerki Betray Andargachew Tsige?
By Berhane Kahsay
Tigrai Online, Sept. 16, 2014
Elias Kifle, the proprietor of the downmarket Ethiopian Review website is sharpening his knives to gore his former boss Esayass Afewerki. The editor-in-chief has made public his two months long ‘’investigation’’ into the repatriation of Andargachew Tsgie from Yemen to Ethiopia, and concluded that ‘’ Esayass passed Andagachew’s itinerary to TPLF, but more importantly, he gave green light to Yemenis to carry out the kidnapping.’’ Elias used to idolise the Eritrean dictator and the complete volte-face may be directly attributable to the loss of decade’s long monetary support that came his way from his cold-blooded handler.
It is to be recalled that Esayass’s boy selected the tyrant as’’ The 2008 Person of the Year’’ and his justification among others was that ‘’ There is no country in the world, perhaps with the exception of the U.S ,where the rights and freedom of Ethiopian refugees have been fully respected and protected as much as Eritrea.’’ It wasn’t entirely obvious what refugees the owner of Ethiopian Review was referring to.
In any case, how is it possible that a ruthless dictator who has been oppressing his own people since independence could possibly respect the ‘rights’ and ‘freedom’ of others? At the time of his selection as ‘Person of the Year’, the Eritrean leader shut down all free press that existed; detained political opponents, congregated the youth in Sawa military camps, abrogated the justice system and hundreds and thousands of Eritreans fled their country to circumvent unremitting persecutions. Right now, Ethiopia is hosting 630,000 refugees from Sudan, South Sudan, Somalia and Eritrea, and out of these, 100,000 are Eritreans. According to UNHCR report, Ethiopia is sheltering more refugees than any other African country and the UN agency has commended the nation for respecting the rights and freedom of the displaced people.
The so called ‘investigation’ conducted by Ato Elias can only be classified as a shame. What has been released into the public domain was merely a gossip compiled from various Starbucks outlets. Only a totally naive person would aver that Esayass was responsible for Andaregachew’s arrest and eventual deportation to Ethiopia. The explanation for this action according to the editor-in-chief of the tabloid website is that, Andy angered his boss and his officials for requesting that G-7 be allowed to bring all Ethiopian opposition groups in Eritrea under the command of G-7, and for approaching the Egyptians directly to plead for finance which made Esayass feel ‘disrespected’ and ‘double-crossed.’ Elias further stated that assassination was not an option because the tyrant would be blamed if the deputy leader of G-7 was to be killed in Eritrea.
We all know Esayass doesn’t care what the world says about him, and if he wanted to kill Andy, he would have done it without any hesitations. Is Signor Elias not aware of the fact that the entire members of G-15 have been languishing in freight containers since 2000 and the champion of ‘human rights’ and ‘freedom’ ignored repeated calls from the international community to release his former comrades? Esayass even refused to allow his former comrade Naizgei Kiflu, who died in London, from being buried in Asmara despite huge protestations from Diaspora Eritreans. To claim that the Eritrean leader chose to betray Andy instead of eliminating him in order to avoid being ‘blamed’ for his murder is simply and utterly poppycock. Esayass has always been a killer and wouldn’t waver from sorting out those who cross his path if he believes it would help him to prolong his stay in power. His track records amply show that he doesn’t shy away from taking any action deemed necessary irrespective of its implications.
The truth of the matter is that, Andy’s arrest was not down to Esayass but the splendid and meticulous efforts of the Ethiopian Secret Service. Elias has come up with a total garbage to deny ‘TPLF’s’ success in netting the second in command of G-7. How is it possible that Esayass would hand over Andy to his sworn enemy?
