Dear Patriotic Ethioians and Friends of Ethiopia:
Please find an interesting dispassionate article about the Horn and especially Ethiopia, written by a person of high repute and extraordinary experience in the Horn and here in the United States of America.
Please read the Shabia response and my assessment of the current situation below to indicate the gravity of the situation.
Belai Habte-Jesus, MD, MPH
Global Strategic Enterprises, Inc &
Partners for Peace and Prosperity
Ethiopia and Somalia
DISCLAIMER All the news, articles, and statements posted and views and opinions expressed on this Web Site are not and do not reflect the opinions or stand of IRROB.ORG. The authors, sources or agencies of the news or articles or statements are solely responsible for their contents and accuracy. IRROB.ORG is not responsible either for their contents or accuracy or inaccuracy. They are posted here smply for informative purposes only
ETHIOPIA AND SOMALIA
by
Paul B. Henze
Introduction: A lack of relevant fact and background information characterizes most reporting on recent developments in Somalia. Media performance has been shallow: full of hype and repetition, little background, no historical perspective, highlighting of negative comments and predictions. The Ethiopian operation was not undertaken because the US urged it. Ethiopia has no desire to occupy or dominate Somalia--only to keep it from being a danger to the region.
Introduction: A lack of relevant fact and background information characterizes most reporting on recent developments in Somalia. Media performance has been shallow: full of hype and repetition, little background, no historical perspective, highlighting of negative comments and predictions. The Ethiopian operation was not undertaken because the US urged it. Ethiopia has no desire to occupy or dominate Somalia--only to keep it from being a danger to the region.
Ethiopia was invaded by Somalia in 1977 and invaded by Eritrea in 1998--it did not simply "fight a war" with them. Meles did not act to divert attention from internal troubles. Somalia has no historic existence as a state. It has been a disruptive element in the Horn of Africa since it came into existence in 1960. It has been in a condition of anarchy since 1991. The Islamic Courts declared war on Ethiopia and claimed Ethiopian territory... The AU, the UN, the US and most Western countries recognize Ethiopia's entitlement to act in its own interests as well as those of the Somali people...
History:
History:
Ethiopia is one of the oldest continually existing states in the world. In the 7th century BC local rulers in what is today northern Ethiopia and Eritrea were already constructing massive stone buildings, dams and roadways. Emigrants from South Arabia mixed with native Africans, developed writing and high technology that culminated in the great obelisks at Aksum, the largest monolithic monuments in the world of that time. The Aksumite Empire, based on agriculture and trade, ruled an area stretching from the Nile to the Red Sea and across to Yemen.
It adopted Christianity in the 4th century. Ethiopian Christianity was influenced by Judaism. Communities of Jews in Ethiopia survived into the 20th century. When the country fell under communist rule in the 1970s most of them emigrated to Israel. Ancient Ethiopia was not hostile to Islam. When the Prophet Mohammed began his mission in the 7th century, his earliest followers were persecuted by the oligarchs of Mecca. Tradition relates that Mohammed advised them to go to Ethiopia "for the king there will not tolerate injustice and it is a friendly country." The tombs of these first Muslims at the Tigrayan town of Negash remain a pilgrimage site today.
Aksumite influence spread southward into the mountains and gorges that form the Roof of Africa. The country became known to Europeans as the mysterious Land of Prester John. Its history was often turbulent, always colorful. Britain mounted a huge expedition against Emperor Theodore in the late 1860s. Defeated, he committed suicide and Britain withdrew its soldiers, lacking a desire to take on the task of colonizing the mountain kingdom and Ethiopia remained the only independent part of Africa south of the Sahara.
But the scramble for Africa was on. Italy had its eyes on Ethiopia and sent a huge expedition through the newly opened Suez Canal to conquer it. Emperor Menelik dealt a fatal blow to Italy's ambitions at Adwa in 1896 and the world took notice. Menelik set a modernization process in motion and built a new capital at Addis Ababa.
When he died in 1913 the country fell into confusion. Ras Tafari, eventually crowned Emperor Haile Selassie in 1930, emerged to set it on a path to progress but was cut short by Mussolini. Seeking to revenge Adwa, his Fascists brutally conquered Ethiopia using poison gas. Patriot guerrillas mounted steady resistance to Italian occupation. Haile Selassie came back through Sudan with British Commonwealth forces in 1941.
Ethiopia was the first country liberated in World War II. At the end of the war America became Ethiopia's major benefactor, Under Haile Selassie's vigorous leadership the country prospered and progressed with aid from the US, a dozen European countries and Japan. A military junta called the Derg deposed Haile Selassie in 1974 and turned the country toward the Soviet Union. Derg rule was a catastrophe.
More History:
Somalia has a briefer and simpler history. Somalis, perhaps a half million of them, lived as scattered tribes in the lowlands along the Indian Ocean for centuries. They became lightly Islamized but their way of life as nomads herding camels and goats precluded the formation of governments and states. The walled city of Harar on the edge of Somali country, which became a great center of Islamic civilization, owes its rise to a Semitic people, the Adare, who speak a language akin to the national language of Ethiopia, Amharic, rather than to the Somalis.
The great Muslim warrior, Ahmed Gragn, who terrorized the Ethiopian highlands in the 16th century and was finally defeated by the Portuguese, is now often claimed as a Somali, but his ethnicity is obscure. Until recently religion was far more important than nationality in this part of the world.
Three European powers--France, Britain, and Italy--competed for footholds on the Somali coast in the late 19th century and each acquired territory. Emperor Menelik, threatened by colonial advances, took over the vast Ogaden desert which was also populated by Somali nomads. Britain added the southernmost Somali-populated area to Kenya. By the early 20th century, boundaries which still exist today had been drawn by Europeans.
Somalia as a state did not exist until 1960 when the British and Italian colonies were joined to form a Somali Republic. Its new leaders adopted a flag with five stars to express their aim of uniting all territories inhabited by Somalis--including Djibouti and huge chunks of Ethiopia and Kenya. British academics idealized Somali nomadic culture as "pastoral democracy". The concept proved inadequate as a basis for a viable governmental system.
Recent History:
Independent Somalia was a disruptive element in what until then was a relatively stable region. Meddling by the Soviet Union made it more so. Moscow, which had sought a hand in Eritrea in the immediate aftermath of WWII, had failed to manipulate common adherence to Orthodox religion to gain influence in Ethiopia. Unlike so many new African rulers, Haile Selassie saw no fascination or promise in Marxism or any kind of "African socialism". Moscow began shipping arms to Somalia in the mid-1960s in quantities far greater than American military aid for Ethiopia. Somali guerrillas started operations in the Ogaden.
In 1969 the Russians backed the Somali chief of staff, General Siad Barre, in a coup which deposed what until then had been a formally democratic government in Mogadishu and introduced Marxism. Siad Barre's ambitions seemed realizable when Mengistu, the Ethiopian Marxist dictator, reduced the country to such a state of commotion and confusion that it appeared ripe for collapse.
The Soviets did nothing to hinder Siad Barre's invasion of Ethiopia in 1977. Mengistu had just severed most relations with the United States. The double game the Soviets had begun to play soon left them with no alternative to sending in Cubans and great quantities of arms to prevent the Somalis from defeating Mengistu. By 1978 Moscow appeared to have gained hegemony over the entire Horn of Africa.
All the major forces that contended in the area for the next decade and a half were nominally Marxist--Mengistu's Ethiopia, Siad Barre's Somalia, Marxist rebels in Eritrea and in the northern Ethiopian province of Tigray. But Marxism did not encourage any of these competing Marxists to cooperate. While Mengistu tried to turn Ethiopia into a classic Stalinist police state, Moscow sent him 12 billion dollars worth of arms to fight against the northern Marxist guerrillas.
The guerrillas captured much of this weaponry and used it against Mengistu's armies. Siad Barre, in spite of support from the Carter and Reagan Administrations, failed to turn Somalia into a bastion of pro-Western strength. Somalia collapsed into bloody chaos in early 1991. As the Soviet Union moved closer to collapse itself, Gorbachev cut off the flow of weapons to Mengistu.
Meanwhile the Tigrayan guerrillas led by Meles Zenawi came to understand what was happening in the world. Unlike the Eritreans, they had never enjoyed Soviet support. They shifted to a pro-Western stance and drew other anti-Derg groups into an Ethiopian Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF). It pushed Mengistu's armies southward during 1989 and 1990. He fled to Zimbabwe in May 1991 and EPRDF forces marched into Addis Ababa a few days later. The Eritrean Marxists liberated themselves and achieved de facto independence which became official in 1993.
Ethiopia since 1991:
The EPRDF restructured Ethiopia along ethnic lines, devised a liberal constitution, and energized the economy. During the 1990s Ethiopia again became a respected member of the international community. Good harvests and competent management reduced the chronic threat of famine.
The country made steady progress toward an open society, a market economy, and democratic governance. Until the mid-1990s Eritrea, too, appeared to be on its way to prosperity and international respectability, but Isaias Afewerki found it difficult to abandon authoritarian habits he had acquired as a young Marxist trained in Communist China. He picked quarrels with Yemen, Sudan and Djibouti. Internal dissatisfaction grew.
In the spring of 1998 he suddenly sent his army across the Ethiopian border, claiming territory that had never been part of Eritrea when it was an Italian colony. His real purpose in invading Ethiopia was to divert attention from mounting domestic problems and tighten his control. Though Ethiopia had left its norther border unprotected and reduced its military forces, Meles Zenawi shifted course and mobilized. By spring 2000 Ethiopian forces had driven deep into Eritrea.
International pressure kept Meles Zenawi from sending them on to Asmara to topple Isaias--a mistake comparable to the first President Bush's failure to finish off Saddam Hussein at the end of the Gulf War in 1991, and with similar consequences.
Eritrea:
Peace with Eritrea has proved unattainable. A UN observer force patrols the border region but has had no effect on moderating Eritrea's behavior. Eritrea, with less than 4 million people maintains an army almost as large as Ethiopia's, which is drawn from a population of 75 million.
A mutually agreed border commission failed to come to examine the border, looked at old maps and "awarded" territories that had always been Ethiopian to Eritrea. Ethiopia refuses to surrender its citizens and their land to an oppressive police state, so the border remains undemarcated. Isaias has jailed most journalists, closed Asmara University and incarcerated many of his own officials.
Eritrea's economy is a shambles, its budget in hopeless deficit. Isaias extorts money from diaspora Eritreans by threatening their parents. Starting with international good will and a potential to have become the Switzerland of the Horn of Africa, Eritrea has degenerated into an oppressive rogue state comparable to North Korea.
Ethiopia's Progress:
Defeating the Eritrean invasion was costly to Ethiopia. So is the necessity of staying well armed. But Meles Zenawi has built a highly effective fighting force, as its performance in Somalia has just shown.
At the same time Ethiopia has made good use of aid from the World Bank, the EU and numerous donor countries, including the United States, Germany and Japan. New highways, dams, irrigation systems, factories, hotels, housing, schools, health stations and universities have sprung up throughout the country.
Economic growth is approaching 9% annually. There has been progress in democratization. Elections in May 2005 were certified free and fair by President Carter. In their wake, however, an opposition party infiltrated by former Derg elements provoked violence with the apparent aim of sparking a "Rose Revolution".
The government's police and security forces responded with force. Some opposition politicians were arrested and jailed and some newspapers were suspended. The situation remains to be resolved. Former Dergists, most of whom have taken refuge in the United States, continue to denigrate Meles, but their agitation has had no effect on American support of Ethiopia as an ally in the war against terrorism. Meles has been clear about his commitment to continue to expand democracy and adhere to international standards.
Somalia since 1991:
During the past 15 years, while Ethiopia was moving ahead to become an open and prosperous society, Somalia festered in anarchy. So-called warlords, some regional leaders who tried to maintain order and elementary services for the population, others self-seeking strongmen, competed with each other.
The US/UN misadventure in famine relief in the years 1992-95 was a disaster. Much of the humanitarian aid provided by NGOs has been diverted to support rival clan and tribal factions. The former British northern region, Somaliland, fenced itself off from the chaos in the south and has become for all intents and purposes an independent country. It has even achieved a degree of democracy. Somaliland is more deserving of international recognition than Eritrea.
Ethiopia has consistently supported international efforts to improve the situation in the rest of Somalia. These finally led two years ago in Kenya to the creation of the Temporary Federal Government which was set up in Baidoa. Meanwhile, however, Somalia became a target of Islamic extremists and terrorists who wished to use it as a base. Somali-based pirates menaced Indian Ocean shipping.
The southern part of the country degenerated into lawlessness that was overcome only when the Islamic Courts Group imposed Taleban-like control in mid 2006. Leadership fell to extremists who revived old calls for unifying all Somali-populated lands, claiming territory in Ethiopia and Kenya. In November 2006 they declared war on Ethiopia. Ethiopia tried first tried to bolster the Baidoa government, then concluded that the Islamo-fascist regime had to be deposed.
The Future?
Under Ethiopian assault the forces of the "powerful Islamic Courts" crumbled with surprising speed and fled. Ethiopia has temporarily at least eliminated a terrorist threat to itself and the world at large.
Eritrean adventurism has been frustrated. But neither Meles Zenawi or any other Ethiopian can feel assured that Somalia will not again fall into anarchy. Somalia needs regional and international help. It must not again be permitted to become a terrorist haven. The UN-recognized government now moving into Mogadishu must be assisted in creating conditions where the long-suffering people of Somalia can enjoy the kind of security and development to which most peoples in the world feel entitled.
Washington, VA
30 December 2006
The author, a former US National Security Council Staff Officer, has been a student of, and periodic participant in, affairs of the Horn of Africa for almost half a century. He has published several books on the region and visits it frequently, having most recently spent two weeks in Ethiopia in December 2006 as the crisis in Somalia was coming to a head.
Copyright© 2003-2007, Irob Relief and Rehabilitation Operations Brotherhood (IRROB), Inc. All rights reserved.
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Dear Patriotic Ethiopians and Friends of Ethiopia;
Re: The Millennium Challenge:Postive Ethiopian Image Campaign (The Adwa Legacy!
An Appeal for all Ethiopians and Friends of Ethiopia:
Here is Dr Amare Tekle's (aka: Sophia Tesfamariam/isayas afeworki) response to Dr Paul Henze's piece on American Chronicle.
Remember the previous article by the same author? This is how the former breed of former Ethiopian Student Union in North America (EUSUNA), now Shabia agents utilized the rather disorganized Ethiopian Student Movement that conveted into MEOSON/EPRP/DERG Network and later a series of liberation fronts, etc.
Imagine, the same breed now in some office in Asmara present themselves as Eritrean Government and try to challenge facts with fiction, once more again to undermine our beloved Ethiopia and the Horn.
This is where the new battle ground is to win the hearts and minds of not only Ethiopians or Eritreans or Africans for that matter, but policy makers here in the US and the West in general.
Can you see how the letter writing campaign organized by Ethiopian Review (read as Terror Review) and the recent open letter to President bush made by the American host of the former Ethiopian Commission Judges wrote. I am not judging the content, but to show how well organized are the Anti-Ethiopia forces.
Here again, Patriotic Ethiopians have to wake up and ask the following questions as they are encouraged to write 100,000 letters here in the Diaspora and may be 80 Million Letters from Ethiopia might be needed to counter balance this highly organized campaign against Mother Ethiopia.
Wake up! My people, see the current highly organized campaign against our people and our future. Wake up and respond before it is too late. Shabia has been to Libia, Iran and now via the Vocal Diaspora it is doing exactly what it did 40 years ago.
Use the unsuspecting Diaspora for its new Campaign to undermine our people. Those of us who are alive and are witnesses to the past carnage should not allow the new one.
I encourage all Patriotic Ethiopians to start a new wave of "Postive Image for Ethiopia Campaign" before it is too late.
Remember: The western democracy is based on publilc opinion and we cannot discount Amare Tekle/aka isayas afeworki's effort via the decoy name Sophia Tesfamariam as some zombie die hard communist.
The message is act before it is too late. We have been warned. There is no excuse for us not to match the 'Brilliant Military Success of Badme and Baidowa in 2000 and 2007 with a complementary" Brilliant Deplomatic Campaign"
The Adwa Legacy for this generation is to win the Deplomatic, Economic and Military Challenge of our time!
Let us not disappoint those brilliant Ethiopian Female Pilots and the Gallant and Heroic Ethiopian Defense Forces, by allowing the snaky shabia and their Diaspora operatives succeed.
Now is the time to act, and the campaign is deplomatic. Write letters to all leaders of the West and East and articulate your support for the Peace Dividend of the Gallant Ethiopian Defense Forces.
With regarad and seeking your creative alternatie complementary suggestions, I remain
Yours sincerely
Belai Habte-Jesus, MD, MPH
Global Strategic Enterprises, inc &
Partners for Peace and Proseperity
http://www.solmoniccrown.org/
http://www.globalbelai4u.blogspot.com/
Please read on
http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/viewArticle.asp?articleID=21033
Source: American Chronicle
Paul Henze on Somalia: Futile Attempt to Justify Ethiopia's US-Backed Invasion
Sophia Tesfamariam
The author regularly publishes commentary on the Eritrean government
website: http://www.shaebia.com/
Sophia Tesfamariam
February 21, 2007
Paul B. Henze, the ex-CIA man and Meles Zenawi’s advisor and confidante is back to defend his premier client in the Horn-the minority regime in Ethiopia.
In defense of Meles Zenawi’s malfeasance and lunacy, he is trying to pass another one of this childish propaganda pieces for an intellectual analysis on the crisis brewing in Somalia today.
This latest paper, with its nonsensical comparisons and outright fabrications and distortions of easily verifiable facts, is filled with incoherent long winded non sequitur arguments, further exposing his intellectual dishonesty and degenerating morals.
His paper “Ethiopia and Somalia” is a deceptive piece designed to mislead, misinform and deliberately confuse the facts surrounding Ethiopia’s US-backed invasion of Somalia.
Acknowledging the international community’s acquiescence, the African Union and United Nations’ impotence and presenting them as justifications for the invasion of Somalia, and conveniently omitting the fact that Ethiopia and its western partners, including Henze himself, were directly responsible for the dismal state of affairs in Somalia for the last 4 decades, Henze wrote:
“…Meles did not act to divert attention from internal troubles. Somalia has no historic existence as a state.
It has been a disruptive element in the Horn of Africa since it came into existence in 1960. It has been in a condition of anarchy since 1991.
The Islamic Courts declared war on Ethiopia and claimed Ethiopian territory. The AU, the UN, the US and most Western countries recognize Ethiopia's entitlement to act in its own interests as well as those of the Somali people…”
Paul Henze knows that the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) asked Meles Zenawi to remove his forces (8000 of them) from sovereign Somali territories that Meles had violated and occupied. Irregardless of what the self serving Western countries recognize, Ethiopia’s invasion is still a violation of international law, and the AU and UN Charters.
The duplicitous and hypocritical US led international community has not taken any punitive actions because Meles Zenawi was acting on their behalf. It should be recalled that Jendayi E. Frazier and the UN officials at the planning meeting held in Ethiopia in June 2006 had already decided that there would be no condemnation of Ethiopia for violating Somalia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.
Just as he is today, Paul Henze was a staple on Ethiopian television and other media during the Eritrea Ethiopia border conflict, making excuses for the minority regime’s lawlessness. He contributed to Meles Zenawi’s propaganda campaign as the war mongering regime waged the destructive aggressive war of invasion and expansion against Eritrea. Henze wrote endless distorted articles to confuse and misinform the Ethiopian people and garner international support for Meles Zenawi’s recklessness and belligerence. Paul Henze egged the minority regime to reject dialogue with Eritrea and choose violence and war.
He downplayed Ethiopian casualties during the war and exaggerated Ethiopia’s military capabilities to hoodwink the Ethiopian people.
Instead of calling for peace, he called for more war. Encouraged by Henze’s support (he is white, American and CIA), mistaking his deliberate and willful fabrications and exaggerations for friendship, the minority regime, which suffers from an incurable inferiority complex, escalated the seemingly minor border issue into a full blown war.
This sinister individual encouraged the deportation of over 80,000 Eritreans and Ethiopians of Eritrean origin from Ethiopia at the height of the Eritrea Ethiopia conflict and the confiscation of their hard earned properties valued at over a billion dollars. He also advised Meles to boycott Eritrean ports in the hopes of weakening Eritrea and strangulating its economy.
The senseless Eritrea Ethiopia border war cost the lives of over 120000 Ethiopians when they were used as cannon fodder and minesweepers in Meles Zenawi’s war of aggression and invasion of Eritrea. Paul Henze worked with Meles Zenawi’s deceptive regime to hoodwink the Ethiopian people and is also the key propaganda architect behind the “Ethiopia won the Eritrea Ethiopia war” fallacy that Ethiopians were led to believe.
When the Eritrea Ethiopia Boundary Commission (EEBC) delivered it’s Final and Binding decision, reaffirming Eritrea’s sovereignty over Badme, the casus belli for the war, he lashed out and insulted the world-renowned Commissioners for standing up for justice and the rule of law. Manipulating the facts, in a futile attempt to cover up the minority regime’s malfeasance and lunacy, he produced numerous opinions and analyses attacking the Commissioners and praising Meles Zenawi’s lawlessness in an effort to amend, revisit, re-write, and reverse the Final and Binding decision. This self serving senile analyst, parading as an Africa specialist, does not have the moral or intellectual capacity to challenge the legal findings of the world renowned, respectable, distinguished, eloquent Commissioners.
For an extensive background on Paul Henze’s record in Ethiopia, I recommend reading “Open Letter to Paul Henze , written by an Ethiopian intellectual. It covers all of the above mentioned instances of Henze’s duplicity and hypocrisy as well as his disdain for the people of Ethiopia. This shameless old man has earned his keep by going to extraordinary lengths to portray Meles Zenawi, the deceptive, flip flopping mercenary, in a favorable light, in spite of the facts and the record. Unable to hide or defend Meles Zenawi’s known and documented crimes against the people of Ethiopia, his violations of international law, numerous Security Council resolutions, and his violations of the UN and African Union Charters is today trying to elevate Meles Zenawi’s diminutive stature by once again distorting the truth and misrepresenting the facts in Somalia.
In his latest ramblings “Ethiopia and Somalia”, this senile apologist attempts to re-write Ethiopian, Eritrean and Somali history. Here is what he wrote in the 1 January 2007 paper:
“…As the Soviet Union moved closer to collapse itself, Gorbachev cut off the flow of weapons to Mengistu. Meanwhile the Tigrayan guerrillas led by Meles Zenawi came to understand what was happening in the world. Unlike the Eritreans, they had never enjoyed Soviet support. They shifted to a pro-Western stance and drew other anti-Derg groups into an Ethiopian Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF). It pushed Mengistu's armies southward during 1989 and 1990. He fled to Zimbabwe in May 1991 and EPRDF forces marched into Addis Ababa a few days later. The Eritrean Marxists liberated themselves and achieved de facto independence which became official in 1993…”
Paul Henze, an ex- CIA operative who was one of the engineers behind the annexation of Eritrea by Ethiopia, and whose hands are tainted with the blood of thousands of innocent people, neither has the moral grounds to talk about Eritrea, a country he has not visited since 1993, nor about its hard working, incorruptible, magnanimous leadership and people.
First of all, at no time in the history of the 30 year long Eritrean people’s struggle for independence did Eritreans EVER receive any support from the Soviet Union or from the West. That is a flat out lie. The gallant Eritrean People’s Liberation Front used the enemy’s own weapons to fight it-wherever it came from. Haile Selassie was supported by the West and Menghistu was supported by both.
EPLF amassed a huge inventory of armaments taken from the Ethiopian forces. So Eritreans were never pro-Western or pro-Marxists, they were always, and remain to this day, pro-Eritrea. As for Ethiopia’s pro-western stance, pray tell us what it has done for the people of Ethiopia other then plunging them into endless conflicts and keeping them perpetually dependent on their “aid” and food handouts.
Paul Henze is once again attempting to distort the facts and the record. He knows that the EPLF entered Asmara the capital of Eritrea on 24 May 1991. EPLF’s mechanized units were instrumental in driving the Derg regime out of Ethiopia, not Meles Zenawi’s militia. Meles Zenawi and the EPDRF troops supported by EPLF mechanized units entered Addis Ababa on 28th May 1991…4 long days later. Eritrea’s history does not need the validation or justification of self serving technocrats; it stands tall on its own merit. It is an unparalleled history of courage, determination and perseverance and most of all, self reliance.
The likes of Paul Henze cannot distort Eritrea’s history, the facts speak for themselves.
This following statement exposes Henze’s and Meles Zenawi’s selfish and sinister agendas for the permanent Balkanization of Somalia:
“…The former British northern region, Somaliland, fenced itself off from the chaos in the south and has become for all intents and purposes an independent country. It has even achieved a degree of democracy. Somaliland is more deserving of international recognition than Eritrea…”
It not up to Meles or Henze to decide Somaliland’s fate, it is up to the Somali people. As for Eritrea, Henze must know that the people of Eritrea fought for over thirty years to liberate their country from the clutches of colonialists, and not for recognition from the hostile international community that had denied them their rights to self determination and forced them to wage the bitter armed struggle in the first place. Paul Henze must also know that the 30 year struggle in Eritrea was not only for Eritrea’s liberation and independence, but that it was also a war against condescending, patronization, and self-serving operatives such as him.
The Eritrean people are not fooled by the likes of Henze who are paid handsomely to spend their days searching for ways to blemish Eritrea’s impeccable image, undermine the Government of Eritrea’s strong, legal and moral position on the border demarcation issue, undermine Eritrea’s religious and ethnic diversity and harmony, and selfless commitment and hard work to develop their own country.
Finally, neither the Government and people of Eritrea, nor the distinguished Eritrea Ethiopia Boundary Commissioners, nor the suffering people of Somalia have the time, or the inclination, to stoop to his gutter level to respond to his erratic, irrational, senile ramblings written in defense of Meles Zenawi. But for the record, allow me to refresh the denier’s geriatric memory with these undeniable facts that clearly show that his client, Meles Zenawi, the leader of the genocidal vote rigging minority regime in Ethiopia remains the biggest threat to peace and security in Ethiopia in particular, and the entire Horn of Africa in general:
•Meles Zenawi's security and military apparatus massacred 44 University students in cold blood in Addis Ababa in 2001.
•On May 2002, Meles Zenawi's forces massacred over 100 people in Awassa, his forces committed illegal acts against innocent citizens who were demonstrating against a change in the administrative status of Awassa. Security agents used machine guns mounted on armored vehicles to fire into a group of unarmed peasants, workers, women and children. Twelve of those killed were children.
•In what was described then as "Africa's Kosovo", the shameless bigoted leader of the Tigrayan minority regime in Ethiopia, in 1998 and 1999 deported over 80,000 innocent Eritreans and Ethiopians of Eritrean origin and confiscated over a billion dollars worth of their hard earned belongings right under the watchful eye of the African Union, UN and EU Ambassadors. Manifesting his ignorance of Japanese-American history, he had the audacity to say, "The Ethiopian government has the unrestricted right to expel any foreigner from the country for any reason whatsoever.
Any foreigner, whether Eritrean, Japanese, etc., lives in Ethiopia because of the goodwill of the government. If the Ethiopian government says 'Go, because we don't like the colour of your eyes,' they have to leave." Nevertheless, he got away with his bigotry and crimes.
•Dubbed “Operation Sunny Mountain” by Meles Zenawi and his minority regime, plans to procure Annuak territory, a zone coveted by corporate interests for its oil and gold, were laid out at a top-level cabinet meeting in Addis Ababa led by Meles Zenawi on September 2003. At that meeting, “the militant ethnic cleansing of the Anuaks” was openly discussed and a coordinated military operation to systematically eliminate Anuaks began on 13 December 2003. The minority regime in Ethiopia willfully burned villages, massacred hundreds of Anuaks and Nuers and caused over 15,000 inhabitants of Gambela to flee to neighboring Sudan and Kenya.
• Meles Zenawi’s minority regime rigged the May 2005 Elections, stole the people’s votes and ignited the nationwide protests that have plagued Ethiopia for the last 8 months. Having declared a “State of Emergency” on 16 May 2005, and after taking full command of the police, security and army apparatus, the genocidal regime has detained all the opposition leaders, journalists, civil society leaders and opposition supporters on trumped up charges of treason and inciting violence, and detained over 40,000 Ethiopians all over the country while its military and security forces have massacred over 100 people since the elections.
•Ethiopian police shot and killed two people and wounded many more during disturbances at celebrations marking the Orthodox Epiphany in 2006. Hundreds of riot police were deployed in various parts of Addis Abeba, adding to the terror in the city.
•Misusing arms and equipment originally intended to boost Ethiopia's “antiterrorism efforts” along the country's border with Somalia, the US Ambassador to Ethiopia has acknowledged Meles Zenawi’s regime’s usage of “Humvees”, US military vehicles, to harass, intimidate and terrorize Ethiopians in the city.
•The regime continues to harbor and finance Al Queda trained operatives parading as “liberation movements” in Mekele, Gondar and Addis Ababa. These terrorists have carried out attacks across the Eritrea-Ethiopia border, across the Ethiopia-Kenya borders and also the Ethiopian-Sudan borders, killing innocent civilians and destroying private and state properties.
Paul Henze, remaining true to his nature, has served successive repressive Ethiopian regimes from Haile Selassie, to Menghistu and now Meles. He is not a friend of Ethiopia, but a dangerous, self serving, vindictive enemy, just like Meles.
The people of Ethiopia are also not fooled by Henze’s cover up for the TPLF regime’s crimes in Ethiopia, Meles’ lawlessness and bellicosity, and Henze’s deliberate misrepresentation of the dismal state of affairs in today’s Ethiopia under the Tigrayan Prime Minister Meles Zenawi and his minority clique.
Paul Henze ought to consider retiring his geriatric mind and find a suitable retiring spot for his equally degenerating body-preferably out of Africa… He has done a lifetime’s worth of damage ….!
The rule of law must prevail over the law of the jungle!
Sophia Tesfamariam
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if ( ++callCount > 10 ) { msg.style.visibility = "visible"; }
if ( callCount msg.clientHeight ) {
msg.style.height = ( msg.scrollHeight + delta ) + "px";
}
delta = msg.offsetWidth - msg.clientWidth;
delta = ( isNaN( delta )? 1 : delta + 1 );
if ( msg.scrollWidth > msg.clientWidth ) {
msg.style.width = ( msg.scrollWidth + delta ) + "px";
}
msg.style.overflow = "hidden";
msg.style.visibility = "visible";
}
function imgsDone( msg ) // for Firefox, we need to scan for images that haven't set their width yet
{
var imgList = msg.getElementsByTagName( "IMG" );
var len = ((imgList == null)? 0 : imgList.length);
for ( var i = 0; i
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