EPRDF’s rushed statement to placate anarchists in Gondar

By Berhane Kahsay
Tigrai Online, Ethiopian News, August 29, 2016

EPRDF has just released a long winded press statement accusing the TPLF and ANDM, which has been heavily infiltrated by Eritrea through its surrogate organisation G-7, for the anarchy in Northern Gondar and its environs. Mobocracy seems to have become a common phenomenon in this part of the Amhara region, and to give credence to their illegal and unconstitutional deeds, the instigators of the wanton mayhem have been using the Welkiet issue as a rallying theme.

It is pretty certain that there are destructive elements firmly lodged within  ANDM who are hell bent on creating chaos and bloodshed for the benefit of foreign enemies determined to scupper the unity of the people and the continuous efforts to lift the nation out of abject poverty.

We would not be in the stage we find ourselves in if stern and timely measures were taken against the culprits who have been flouting the law of the land with complete latitude. Not long ago, businesses owned by Tigrians in Shifa Metema Wereda and elsewhere were razed to the ground by the same perpetrators during the Nations, nationalities and people’s day celebration. For lack of justice in the region, the victims had to trudge all the way to the metropolis to present their predicaments to the Prime minister as the President of the Amahra state as well as the leader of ANDM & Deputy Prime Minister refused to meet them to resolve their desperate plights.

A similar incident against Ahmara residents in SNNP, Gura Ferada, was concluded in a judicious manner by the pertinent authorities of the region, and Shifaraw Shigute, the former President of SNNP, went out of his way to explain in graphic details how the issue was expeditiously settled during ANDM’s 35^th anniversary celebrations in Bahir-Dar in 2015.

Well done ANDM for ensuring its resolution unlike the TPLF that failed to do the same for its constituents whose difficulties would not have come to light if it was not for Aiga-forum’s extensive audio report. It was also VOA Tigrigan program that reported the kidnapping of miners in Western Tigray by the out-law regime in Eritrea when the TPLF went silent hoping that the incident would not come to the public’s attention. It is very sad indeed to witness Tigrians being singled out for harassment, intimidation and humiliation by fellow compatriots despite their colossal contributions in turning Ethiopia from a basket case into one of the leading economies in Africa.

A collection of illegally armed criminals with no respect for the law of the land have set a dangerous precedent in the country and the party in power has succumb to their demands by issuing a statement calling for the Welkait issue to be reviewed by the regional administration of Tigrai. There is no justification what so-ever for revisiting this matter as it was resolved in 1991/1992 when national/regional self-governments were established based on identity. The issue here is not Welkait because the people are fully aware of their identity and that their fathers and for-fathers have been in occupation of the area in question for generations, and there are numerous historical documents that amply substantiate this irrefutable fact.

Of course some members of ANDM such as Kassa Tekleberhan, Federal Affairs Minister, have come out publically stating that Welkait was part of Tigrai; and according to a recent article released by the Voice of Justice, a Qemant Forum, the minister’s home was set on fire by members of his party for stating the truth.

The real motive of the strife as orchestrated by G-7 is to simply remove the present government by using unlawful means including instigating ethnic hatred exclusively directed at the Tigrian people ; because this has always been the long standing and burning desire a of the rogue regime in Eritrea which happens to be the sponsor of the proscribed organisation. What is interesting to note is that when the Qimant/Agaw people legally requested a special zone status for their region, nearly a hundred people were massacred by the regional administration in 2015.

And yet this barbaric action was not condemned by the EPRDF and it was only the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission that published a report in June 2016 condemning the atrocities and advising the government that high officials of the ruling regional party be tried for the crimes they perpetuated against innocent Qimants. On August 2016, Agaw Democratic Party released a statement stating that ‘’…. key officials in Amhara Region suspected of 2015 Qemant Genocide have joined opposition parties.These officials who waged genocide against Qemants for demanding self-rule have neither legal nor political credibility to lead the Ethiopian people for democratization.’’   This is a clear evidence of the level of infiltration of ANDM by G7 operatives, and prior to the recent unrest in Gondar, large numbers of weredas and kebeles were managed by members of the banned entity. And the regional administration took no corrective measures to curtail the illegal activities of its disloyal and unpatriotic individuals within its ranks. Moreover, ESAT was able to announce unrests, specifying precise times and places, before they occur because it was receiving information from its moles within ANDM.

The armed violence in Gondar was wholly unacceptable and the EPRDF administration should have dismissed the regional President, Gedu Andargachew and his associates, for failing to predict destructive armed unrests and for not brining the situation under control in a swift and conclusive manner. In order to prevent similar situations from recurring, the EPRDF has to undergo a major overhaul and ensure that undesirable elements within its ranks are tossed to the garbage bins. Also the EPRDF has to strongly empower the developing regions so that they could be in a better position to take on chauvinists and narrow nationalists head-on in order to further enhance the resilience of the country. Last but not least, TPLF members should also seriously consider damping the current leadership and replace them with competent individuals, from within or outside, who are able to stand-up to the chauvinists within the hierarchy of ANDM.              

But what must be abundantly clear to the enemies of the nation is that Ethiopia is forging ahead in all spheres and the people are aware of this fact. A localised unrest in a population of 100,000,000 people would definitely not lead to the fracture of the country.