Ethiopia: The day after… the firestorm

The handwriting is on the wall. It is the same message the courageous young people chanted at the 2016 Irreecha festival before they were cut down by T-TPLF machine guns, “Down, down, woyane!”

The rats are abandoning the Ship of State T-TPLF (SS T-TPLF).

Today, Zehabesha.com reported T-TPLF president Mulatu Teshome submitted his resignation to his T-TPLF bosses.

Yesterday, it was officially announced that Abadulla Gemeda, the “Speaker of the House of the Peoples’ Representatives”, the rubberstamp parliament in which the Thugtatorship of the Tigrean People’s Liberation Front (T-TPLF) controls 100 percent of the seats, resigned his position.

In a brief statement, Gemeda said he will continue to function as a member of “parliament and will explain the details of his resignation after he confers with his party leaders and other members of “parliament” in the next week or so.  Those in the know say he had a long-belated buyer’s remorse. He is apparently unhappy about the decision of the T-TPLF bosses deploying “federal troops” in conflict areas in the eastern part of the country.

To add insult to injury, T-TPLF kicked Gemeda out of government housing.

Gemeda maintained a stony silence when hundreds of Ethiopians were massacred at the Irreecha Festival in October 2016. He was instrumental in expediting the state of emergency decree through the rubber stamp parliament giving his T-TPLF bosses “legal” authority to sweep up and jail tens of thousands of innocent citizens. Today as the T-TPLF ship is sinking, Gemeda suddenly woke up, saw the light and jumped ship. He is apparently taking his first steps to reinvent himself as a human rights fighter and advocate for Oromiya sovereignty and rights.

Last week, Baye Tadesse Tefferi, the 20-year veteran protocol chief of T-TPLF prime minister  Hailemariam Desalegn defected while attending the United Nations annual meeting and sought political asylum in the U.S.  Baye Tadesse in a Voice of America interview (see below) said he decided to defect because he feared being whacked by the T-TPLF mafia. He said Hailemariam Desalegn is a T-TPLF puppet and captive in the gilded cage of a make-believe prime ministership.

Over the past few days, T-TPLF trolls have been on a disinformation campaign trying to portray Baye as an insignificant “office boy” who shuttles refreshments for the “prime minster” and his guests. What they fail to disclose is that Baye also worked with the late thugmaster Meles Zenawi for over 20 years. He was a trusted insider. It is interesting that the T-TPLF should accredit as a diplomat to the U.N. one of its “office boys”. But anything is possible in the thugplomacy of the T-TPLF.

Last month, Melaku Shiferaw Tiruneh, Brigadier General in the T-TPLF army, also defected to the US while attending an anti-terrorism conference.

What in the world is happening to the SS T-TPLF?

“No people [in the world] will remain smothered, meaning oppressed, for ages.  It is [a] universal [truth]. No people, to the extent that they are people [human beings] and [as evident] in world history will not remain [like an inanimate object] in one place, they will not stay put in one place as one [an oppressor] may want them. When they [people] become very bitter, they explode.  This is a universal truth.  There are no people who will not rise up when they become bitter [can’t take it anymore].  Historically. Now. And in the future.”

Aboy Sebhat Nega, TPLF czar, mastermind, kingpin, godfather, guru, power-behind-the-throne and capo di tutti capi (boss of all bosses) (2015).

“I believe the T-TPLF leaders know with absolute certainty that they are sitting on a powder keg.  As I have written previously, the T-TPLF has built its castles in the sand. The only question is whether those castles will be swept up by a tidal wave of deep public discontent or blown away by the tornadic wind of the people’s fury. In either case, the T-TPLF will be vacuumed and deposited in the dustbin of history. There is an immutable iron law of history the T-TPLF should know if they don’t know it already.  Mahatma Gandhi articulated that law.  “There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible but in the end, they always fall – think of it, always.””

Alemayehu G. Mariam, Commentary, March 8, 2015 “The Poison of Ethnic Federalism in Ethiopia’s Body Politic”.

“There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall — think of it, always.”

I never thought I would make this admission in public.

I completely agree with T-TPLF godfather Sebhat Nega on historical determinism, that is the view which holds events are historically predetermined and historical process have an element of compelling inevitability.

Nega says it is an undeniable “universal truth that when the people become very bitter, they explode” and vanquish their oppressors. I say, following Mahatma Gandhi, “There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall — think of it, always.”  I further believe the T-TPLF crooks will also be removed from power in Ethiopia by hook or crook. “This is a universal truth,” to borrow Nega’s phrase.

The people of Ethiopia are very bitter about the T-TPLF’s 26-year black apartheid rule.

They are sick and tired of being sick and tired of the T-TPLF. Just like Nega predicted, the people of Ethiopia are rising up against the T-TPLF. In turn, the T-TPLF has declared war on the Ethiopian people.

Nega organized his rag tag TPLF rebel army in the 1970s to put an “end to Amhara oppression”. He wrote it in his 1976 Manifesto and single-mindedly pursued it in T-TPLF policies over the past 26 years. For decades, Nega and his TPLF have demonized and waged virulent vilification campaigns against the Amhara people as “the enemy of the Tigray people” who must be “wiped out” and “destroyed.” After the Irreecha Massacres of October 2016, the T-TPLF has also openly declared the Oromo people are also the enemy of the Tigray people.

Today, the T-TPLF is hated by all Ethiopians, including the vast majority of Ethiopians in Tigray, just as the TPLF hated the “Amharas”.

Today Nega and his T-TPLF crime family have become the very monster they set out to slay. They have become the “New Amhara”.

To cling to power, over the past year the T-TPLF first tried to make a separate peace with Oromos so that it can wage a separate war on the Amharas. When that failed, the T-TPLF declared and is now waging a war of total destruction against Ethiopians in the Oromiya and Amhara regions. Manifestly, that is the reason why Mulatu Teshome, Abadula Gemeda, Baye Teferi and Melaku Tiruneh are abandoning the SS T-TPLF.

The T-TPLF are living their cosmic karma moment. They sat on the throne of hate and ruled for 26 years. They used hate to divide and rule the people. But the T-TPLF’s hate has finally backfired and they are being singed by the backdraft and blow back. The hate that powered their greed for power, wealth and domination is finally consuming them. They thought hate only destroys the hated, and not the hater. They are now self-destructing from the hate they nurtured, but remain in denial. They believe they can remain in power and do business as usual using the power of hate and division.

T-TPLF: Hate game OVER!

The BIG QUESTION

Whether the T-TPLF will be consigned to the trash bin of history is not the question. That is like asking whether the sun will rise up tomorrow morning.

The only questions is what will happen the day after the T-TPLF is dumped on the ash heap and trash bin of history?

I know very few people want to talk openly and publicly about what will happen the day after the T-TPLF crooks are dumped on the trash heap of history by hook or crook. There seems to be an unwritten taboo, particularly among the opposition, against candidly talking about a post-T-TPLF Ethiopia.

But the T-TPLF bosses have no problems talking about it. Their position is, “Apres nous, le deluge.” After us, the flood. Like the proverbial Ethiopian donkey said, “After I am gone, I could not care less, if grass grows.” That is the T-TPLF’s donkey logic.

The late ruthless T-TPLF thugmaster Meles Zenawi warned that after his TPLF goes, there would be the equivalent of an “Interahamwe-type Hutu militia which massacred Tutsis in Rwanda”. Zenawi  repeated it time and again.

Zenawi’s sidekick and step-and-fetch it, Bereket Simon, went one step further when he predicted, “Strife between different nationalities of Ethiopia might have made the Rwandan genocide look like child’s play.”

T-TPLF godfather Nega predicted the people would rise up and wipe out their oppressor when they become “bitter”.  The older boozer was manifestly unaware that he was making a final pronouncement on his TPLF.

T-TPLF general Tsadkan Gebretensaye straight up predicted civil war when the T-TPLF is dumped in the trash bin of history. I have discussed the T-TPLF’s eschatology (what will happen on Judgment Day) in my commentary, “The Dilemma of U.S. Policy in Ethiopia.”

Of course, I disagree with the T-TPLF prophets of doom and gloom. But I can certainly appreciate why the T-TPLF bosses would be worried sick. When Judgment Day comes, it comes like a thief in the night to judge the thief.

I am certain the T-TPLF bosses and their swarms of vermin sucking the blood of the Ethiopian people will be held accountable for the genocide and crimes against humanity they committed over the past 26 years.

But the urgent issue is what will happen the day after the T-TPLF is dumped in the trash bin of history?

No, I am not concerned about Rwanda-style Interahamwe or an ethnic civil war as prophesied by the T-TPLF bosses. I know for sure that will not happen.

What concerns me deeply is the absence of any organized leadership to carry on after the T-TPLF is dumped in the trash bin of history. I am told there are leaders secretly lying in wait and will emerge after the collapse of the T-TPLF. That sounds like the Easter Bunny is going to show up out of nowhere and make everything OK.

As someone without any political ambitions (in fact deeply contemptuous of political ambitions), I can speak my mind freely without holding back. I can speak truth to power, to the powerless, to the out-of-power and to the hungry of power.

My position is very clear. Ethiopia will be plunged into chaos not so much because of the evil the T-TPLF has done, but because of the good the opposition could do but failed to do. Albert Einstein said, “The world is a dangerous place to live, not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don’t do anything about it.”

Ethiopia will be a dangerous place to live after the T-TPLF is history not only because of the evil the T-TPLF did over the past 26 years, but also because the opposition has failed to come together and do the right thing in the twilight of the T-TPLF.

The day before… Why are they abandoning the sinking T-TPLF ship?

Last week, Baye Tadesse Tefferi, the 20-year veteran protocol chief of the puppet (strike that), captive prime minister (PPT) of the Thugtatorship of the Tigrean People’s Liberation Front defected to the U.S. and requested political asylum in the U.S. He was  a member of the high level T-TPLF delegation attending the annual U.N. General Assembly meeting.

In a brief interview he gave to the Voice of America Amharic Program, Baye painted a portrait of Hailemariam as a virtual T-TPLF political prisoner held in the gilded cage of the “prime minister’s office”.

Reading between the lines, Baye’s interview provided hitherto unavailable insights into the chaos, turbulence, division and dysfunctionality in the T-TPLF regime. Here are the kernel points gathered from Baye’s interview:

Hailemariam Desalegn, the T-TPLF prime minister, is not merely a puppet but a political prisoner.

The carefully cultivated image of a monolithic T-TPLF marching lock step in their master plan to permanently dominate Ethiopia is just a fantasy. The T-TPLF regime today is like a cackle of hyenas fighting over carrion. They are wracked by infighting and internal divisions. Everyone has their long knives out for everyone else. There are major divisions not only among T-TPLF bosses but also at the lower levels in the military, political and security forces. There is little trust between and among T-TPLF leaders and factions hell-bent to eliminate each other. The T-TPLF is careening towards implosion, on the verge of collapse.

Baye decided to “high tail it out of dodge”, as the expression goes, because he does not want to be caught up in the chaos and pandemonium that will follow the collapse of the T-TPLF regime.  He is abandoning the T-TPLF ship because it is sinking and does not want to go down with it.

Hailemariam is a T-TPLF captive puppet whose office is under around-the-clock surveillance by T-TPLF officials who want to know what he is doing every second and every minute. The T-TPLF is over Hailemariam like white on rice. They trust him as far as they can throw him. They want to inspect documents and papers in Hailemariam’s office. Hailemariam is in a constant state of life-threatening danger; one false move and he is toast, a goner.

The T-TPLF bosses think they are still operating in the bush. They have a compulsion to snoop around the “prime minister’s” office to see if he is doing something naughty behind their backs. By snooping around, they think they are outsmarting the “prime minister”. They have no sense of protocol, process, formalities or decorum. After 26 years in power and despite the designer suits, they have yet to understand simple bureaucratic process. They treat the inner sanctum of “prime mister’s office” like a guerilla hideout in the bush where they feel free to come and go as they please. As I have always said, “You can take the thug out of the bush, but you can never take the bush out of the thug!”

The T-TPLF maintains control by inspiring fear, spreading loathing and making threats directed at specific individuals associated with the “prime minster”. Hailemariam and his aides live under a constant threat of being whacked by T-TPLF goons. Baye has received regular threats to his life by T-TPLF bosses. To protect himself and Hailemariam from getting whacked, Baye said he kept his mouth shut.

The “wars” (a word Baye used) in the Amhara and Oromo regions are not only stretching T-TPLF’s resources to the limits, they are also creating deep divisions between those fighting the wars and those sitting in the capital sipping cognac.

Baye’s interview makes it clear that Hailemariam Desalegn, the titular prime minster, is indeed a political prisoner of the T-TPLF, except his jail is the gilded cage of prime ministership.

Solomon Kifle reported that Baye had shared with him “documents” without further clarifications. In a veiled remark, Baye expressed his hope that the T-TPLF will not retaliate against his family who know nothing about his private decision to defect and seek asylum in the U.S. It seems rather obvious that if the T-TPLF should mess with his family, he will make the “documents” public.

What could be in those documents?

I believe Baye has the goods on the T-TPLF. The documents in Baye’s possession will likely damn the T-TPLF. Baye could single-handedly bring down the T-TPLF, and they know it. He not only has the key to the “prime minister’s office”, literally, but also the key to the T-TPLF House of Secrets and Crimes. The T-TPLF must be doing nature’s call right in their pants with the “documents” in Baye’s hands. Baye knows where the T-TPLF skeletons are hidden, literally and figuratively.

Baye’s interview in translation with VOA reporter Solomon Kifle 

Solomon Kifle: … Why did you decide not to return to Ethiopia?

Baye: The reason I decided not to return [to Ethiopia] is because of the problem created in the government and threats made against me personally.

Solomon Kifle: What were the problems?

Baye: For instance, the problems that have arisen in the Amhara region and certain situations.  I have received personal threats [from TPLF bosses] that you [TPLF bosses enjoying life in the capital]  while we are waging war over there. I am afraid this situation could result in life-threatening danger to me. As is known in the country, and the rest of the world knows, there are some problems in the Amhara and Oromo regions. Because of the extreme division that has been created in the government [which has now passed a critical point] and the danger it poses for the country and myself, I have decided to remain [seek asylum] in the U.S.

Solomon Kifle: Why are you facing such personal threats?

Baye: There are restricted areas in the prime minister’s office where people are not allowed to go in. My room [office] is a restricted area [not generally accessible]. When they [TPLF bosses]  want to barge in, I refuse them admission.  Because of that, they have personal hate against me and have made personal threats. We have restricted areas because that is the area where we prepare special documents for the prime minister. At the time they want to enter, I don’t let them in. So they cannot enter into that room. They also want to go into other [restricted] areas. That is when they turn it into personal hate and personal threats. They don’t take documents out but the [aim] is to prevent them from entering the restricted area. These are high level officials.

Solomon Kifle: As an aide to the prime minister, you have the responsibility to tell the prime minister that his office is being rummaged [by TPLF bosses]? Why didn’t you tell the prime minister?

Baye: I wanted to protect the prime minister from danger.  If he complained about his office being rummaged, they will not spare him or me who told him about it.

End of the T-TPLF hyena riding the hu(a)ngry Ethiopian tiger and lion

In August 2016, I wrote a commentary entitled, Ethiopia: The Volcano, the Beast and the Tiger. I developed twin themes from President John F. Kennedy observations about revolution and change. He said, “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.”  He also said during his inaugural address, “Those who foolishly sought power by riding the back of the tiger ended up inside”.

I have always maintained that the T-TPLF has been riding the Ethiopian tiger for a quarter of a century. They know one day they will have to dismount the tiger. When they do, they will be looking at the sparkling eyes, gleaming teeth and pointy nails of one big hungry tiger!”

In 2017, the T-TPLF is looking into the sparkling eyes, gleaming teeth and pointy nails of the Ethiopian tiger, and lion too! Gemeda, Tehsome, Teferi and Tiruneh are high tailing it out of Ethiopia to avoid being tiger dinner.

T-TPLF is still in a state of emergency

Since the T-TPLF declared a state of emergency in Ethiopia on October 2016, I have been saying that state of emergency declaration was for the T-TPLF itself and no one else. Ethiopia has been in a de facto state of emergency since the T-TPLF rag tag rebel army invaded the capital in 1991.

The T-TPLF is unravelling because the people have lost their fear of the T-TPLF. As Robert Holmes argued, “Power dissolves when people lose their fear. You can still kill people who no longer fear you, but you cannot control them. Political power requires obedience, which is fueled by the fear of pain to be inflicted if you refuse to comply with the will of those who control the instruments of violence. That power evaporates when the people lose their fear.”

The days of ruling Ethiopia by brute force are over. Regardless of the military and security power of the T-TPLF, it cannot rule without some degree of genuine cooperation and support of the people. Popular support for the T-TPLF in Ethiopia, if it ever existed, vanished long ago. The people of Ethiopia are showing their defiant resistance by means of civil disobedience, nonviolent resistance and noncooperation with the apartheid oppressors.

The T-TPLF cannot expect to remain in power in an apartheid system indefinitely without accepting the absolute necessity for change, that is massive and radical change. The time for incremental change at a pace dictated by the T-TPLF is gone. Long gone.

It does not matter how many soldiers, guns, tanks and warplanes the T-TPLF has to lord over 100 million people. Unless it is able to adapt to the urgent and emergent circumstances in Ethiopia, the T-TPLF will not survive. It could prolong its rule at most by a few years, but survive and thrive as the apartheid masters of Ethiopia forever, it will not!

The T-TPLF bosses know they are in late-stage regime decay. They “lifted” their state of emergency decree as a last ditch effort to reconsolidate power and go on with the business of apartheid as usual. But they are paralyzed in a “siege mentality”, a psychological state of emergency. They believe they are completely surrounded by enemies. They feel they are in constant danger from everything and everyone. They are frightened to death by the very people they rule with an iron fist with a trigger finger. They can’t sleep at night and can’t stop looking over their shoulders during the day. Because judgment day is coming!

The forest fire of ethnic hatred the T-TPLF ignited and fanned over the last 26 years is consuming them. Will consume them. As I have always prophesied many times before, regardless of the billions the T-TPLF bosses and lackeys have stolen from the Ethiopian people, in the end they shall only inherit the wind of a firestorm!

The question that should be uppermost in the mind of every Ethiopian today is what will happen after the firestorm?