
By Elias Kifle,
THIS week late on Monday, Ethiopia’s ruling Tigray People Liberation Front (TPLF) summoned all intelligence officers from different regions of the country for a meeting in Addis Ababa.
On the second day of the meeting, deputy security chief Isayas Woldegiorgis started berating agents who came from the Amhara region, accusing them of being double agents, leaking state secrets to opposition media, and ignoring orders.
He also showered them with insults. He called them “fandiya” (horse dung), “shermuta” (prostitute), “shintam,” “niftam,” to mention just a few of the insults he hurled at the agents.
Some of the agents have had enough and when they started to talk back to Isayas, the meeting erupted into a shouting match. At this point, Isayas’ bodyguards approached two of the more vocal ones and shot them at point-blank range. Both agents, who came from the Amhara region, died on the scene, according to sources.
Isayas left right after the shooting and the TPLF agents, who were the only ones allowed to carry weapons that time, dispersed the meeting.
TPLF has a slave-master type relationship with the other members of the EPRDF “coalition,” but recently OPDO and ANDM are showing some signs of independence.
Meanwhile, Bereket Simon, a senior member of the ruling party in Ethiopia and an adviser to Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn, has been admitted to Bugshan Hospital in Saudi Arabia.
According to reliable sources, he is critically ill but in a stable condition of coronary heart disease and receiving treatment at the cardiology department.