BY ALEM FISSHATZION
According to the laws of Thermodynamics and Physics, accelerating intensity in entropy (commonly understood as disorder), inevitably leads to disintegration. That act of disintegration is perhaps more illustriously referred to in the Irish Poet William Butler Yeats’ poem “The Second Coming” of 1919 where Yeats so finely observes that “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold”.
This can’t be more true than the unfolding events we are currently witnessing in the rapidly deteriorating of the TPLF-led Ethiopian State machinery. TPLF (The Tigray People’s Liberation Front) are fervently struggling to hold together the last binding shreds that used to cement their infamous rule of terror.
They have survived with the reins of power for so long as a minority group through sheer division and ruling of the close to hundred million population. The whole world, especially their allies in the West, have consistently turned a blind eye as they suppressed all forms of rights of the other ethnic groups in the country and also creating havoc and instability in the whole of the region of the Horn of Africa.
Their pretext was that they were engaged in the forefront of “the war against terror”, for Heaven’s Sake.
With the world alarmed by the ever growing and bolder acts of terrorism, anyone who seemed to be taking any measures to thwart this new global threat was welcomed with open arms into the fold of the “good over
evil”.
Ethiopia was quickly given a carte blanche mandate more or less to hold the fort in the Horn region; a particularly strategic but very volatile area in the theater of operations. The bandits of Tigray were only too happy to assume their new position to settle scores with rivals and old enemies both inside and beyond the borders of Ethiopia, and also to pursue their expansion aspirations. They were very quick to forget that prior to the independence of Eritrea, both they and Eritrea shared the same yoke of bondage from the same oppressor, and that while Eritrea broke the shackles of bondage in their fight to gain independence, liberated them as well.
President Isiais of Eritrea even advised them in a famous speech in 1990 to use their newly found freedom to unite all the five main ethnic groups of Ethiopia in inclusive governance for the common good of all Ethiopians. This advice apparently fell to deaf ears as the minority TPLF regime has all along maintained a
policy of “divide and rule” and grave systematic violation of the rights of all other ethnic groups than their own; especially the Oromo and Amhara.
As for Eritrea, the TPLF has tried all sorts of nasty schemes to occupy and loot that nation. Having failed that, they resorted to tactics of advocating Regime Change in Eritrea and to taint the image of Eritrea in the eyes of the International Community.
Being the staunch ally of the West in the so-called war on terror, the TPLF, together with their mighty supporters managed to convince the lame and impotent United Nations that Eritrea was funding and arming Al-Shabbab terrorist operations in Somalia.
Although everyone including the UN themselves knew that these utterly baseless piece of fabrication came from the Ethiopian drawing board with friends like the powerful American Security Adviser Susan Rice and other unscruppulous Western lobbyists sharpening the pencils; Eritrea became increasingly isolated and sidelined.
The TPLF never stopped fanning the flames to blemish Eritrea while their friends at The White House, Capitol Hill and Brussels never stopped poking the fire either. All this resulted to the wrongful and unjust United Nations Security Council Sanctions against Eritrea.
The TPLF has been so busy lying and conniving with their allies in their obsession to taint and discredit the State and Government of Eritrea that they have even neglected their duty to provide food and security to the Ethiopian People. Drought and famine have always been the order of the day in the Sahel Region but where others in the neighborhood have been exploring ways and means of coping with and taming those adversities, the TPLF were increasingly relying on alms and handouts to feed their growing hungry millions.
The Ethiopian populace, subjected to all forms of atrocities and human rights violations on top of staring starvation right in the face have now reached the point where they say “enough is enough”.
Of late, Ethiopians are showing the world that the saying that “a hungry man is an angry man” is nothing but the truth, and the fury they are now unleashing against the TPLF badboys of Ethiopia and the subregion knows no bounds.
The TPLF machinery has indeed come to realize that their past sins have all come to haunt them. The International Community has turned on the volume in their increasingly open criticism of the human rights violations in that country whereas they used to feign ignorance. Even the UN Security Council have admitted that the evidence linking Eritrea to Al-Shabbab and terrorism upon which they based sanctions against Eritrea was unfounded. Hmmm, where did that fairy tale stem from in the first place, and why are the UNSC not swallowing their pride (whatever’s left of it) to lift those illegal sanctions?
Perhaps one of the most prominent elements of propaganda that the TPLF used to taint the image of Eritrea with was that of “demonization”. Now caught red-handed with the pants down, the TPLF has been bared for all to see who the real demon of the neighborhood is!
The simple tactic that TPLF used was that they never bothered to hide the atrocities and shortcomings they were committing domestically (no one would object anyway) but cooked up a whole array of insinuations against the Government of Eritrea, which their powerful and vociferous allies were always quick to “acknowledge and validate”.
Most of those allies have now understandably so gone suddenly quiet. It is increasingly becoming very embarrassing to be coupled with Ethiopia and TPLF. Ethiopia has turned out to prove to be the very picture she and her friends were painting of Eritrea while Eritrea through vision, perseverance, resolute and good planning has emerged from the arduous journey a winner in every sense of the word.
When I watch the events as they unfold in Ethiopia, I can’t help think about all those ardent and deeply sincere feelings of hatred that the enemies of the Eritrean Government and people have harbored over the years. One such arch enemy of Eritrea is Dr. Mirjam van Reisen.
She was once asked in an interview what her understanding of the current political situation in Eritrea and Eritrean diaspora initiated at the time. This is what she had to say:
“Eritrea reminds me most of East Germany, before the fall of the Berlin wall, where people would risk their lives to escape. What is also similar to the situation between East and West Germany is the relationship between Eritrea and Ethiopia. The split between the countries is very artificial. Most of my friends have family on both sides of the border. We need Meles to play the role of Chancellor Kohl, who in 1989 set everything (including important outstanding border issues) aside to overcome the artificial separation, which made the East German regime to crumble”.
Van Reisen has clearly shown whom she was siding with, and whom she perceived as good and evil respectively. Well her wishful thinking did not work out quite as she would have liked it to be; Meles is no more (good riddance to an obstacle in regional peace and stability), and it is not Eritrea who is crumbling, but rather, her precious Ethiopia.
Let me get this straight for Dr. Van Reisen and anyone else who has any misconceptions of the fact: the two peoples of Ethiopia and Eritrea are mutually bonded as brothers and sisters. There is no malice or hard feelings between the two people. What they have in common, however, is their hatred of the despicable minority TPLF regime which is the primary cause of a lot of insecurity and instability in the whole region of the Horn of Africa. Eritrea is growing steadily stronger in her commitment to feeding her people and providing for them all that is required from a striving and stable nation.
It is Ethiopia where the centre is no longer holding, and where things are falling apart. Ask all those diplomats and high ranking officials of the Ethiopian military and government officials why they are jumping ship and fleeing. The answer, Van Reisen, is that [the regimes] is crumbling.
