When Your Bluff Is Called, Change The Subject

By: Saleh AA Younis   Aug. 27

Recently, the ever-busy Spokesperson of the FDRE, who is trying desperately to change the subject from the obvious question of "Why won't Ethiopia accept the peace treaty it has been presented by the OAU?" decided to compare and contrast the government in Eritrea and Ethiopia. The purpose of this exercise is unknown. If the point is to say, "we can't accept a peace treaty with the Eritrean Government because we don't trust them" then why did Ethiopia claim to have accepted the Framework Agreement in November and the Modalities just last month? The Government in Eritrea, as far as I know,  hasn't changed since July 1999. Could it be that Ethiopia really never accepted the Framework and the Modalities and was merely paying lip service to paint itself as a peace-loving government?

In any event, here is a true "compare and contrast" between Ethiopia and   Eritrea--written in the format of the Spokesperson. We hope this will help the Spokesperson diffuse the stress of having its government's bluff called and being exposed for the war-mongering power that it is. This time, there is no Salim, no Aptidon, no Campore to run to...It is just Eritrea, Ethiopia and honest brokers.

Sit back, relax, enjoy a cup of coffee and wonder why the birr and
nakfa, whose one-to-one exchange rate request by Eritrea was considered so rude by Ethiopia that it waged war on Eritrea, is exchanging, a year and half  later, at 1 to 1.

(1) Political Parties

The Abyssinian Empire
There are currently 60 registered political parties throughout the country. And every single one of them reports to the Tigray People Liberation Front  (TPLF). Parties that are not beholden to the TPLF and actually enjoy  grassroots support from the Ethiopian Empire, such as the OLF, are liquidated.

Sovereign Republic of Eritrea
In the past 7 years, it would, of course, have been fairly easy for the Eritrean Government to create 75 political parties all beholden to EPLF; after all, the Ethiopian Government was able to create 10 Eritrean political parties within 3 months. However, the Eritrean Government believes that parties will emerge naturally in line with the Eritrean Constitution, which, unlike the Ethiopian constitution, was debated for two years by the citizens.

(2) Elections

The Abyssinian Empire
The May 2000 elections promise to be a repeat of the 1994 elections. In fact, they are likely to be even less legitimate because many of the  Ethiopian citizens that voted for TPLF's ascendancy to power have been stripped of their citizenship and deported to Eritrea by the ethno-obsessed Ethiopian Government. The last time elections were held in Ethiopia,  Ethiopia's armed forces, which are supposed to be apolitical and independent, acted as intimidators of the opposition forces. How else could a thoroughly despised minority party come to power and dominate the disenfranchised Amhara
and Southern Ethiopians?

Sovereign Republic of Eritrea
Presidential and Parliamentary elections were scheduled for late 1998-around the time the Abyssinian Empire declared war on Eritrea. If an election were held today, in secret ballot, the overwhelming majority of Eritreans would vote for the present Government of Eritrea.

(3) Power Legitimacy

The Abyssinian Empire
The Ethiopian government is led by the Ethiopian Peoples' Revolutionary   Democratic Front (EPRDF), a coalition party comprising other political movements. Each of these movements is a satellite of TPLF and has no support in the grassroots of the Abyssinian Empire.

Sovereign Republic of Eritrea
As leaders of the vanguard movement that liberated Eritrea from the shackles of brutal Ethiopian rule and rid the neighborhood of Ethiopia's last bully  (Mengistu), President Isaias and his 'small cohort of elites' are immensely popular and enjoy the grassroot support of the overwhelming majority of  Eritreans. This has been attested to by every independent journalist who  visits Eritrea.

(4) Power Decentralization

The Abyssinian Empire
The Empire's so-called recognition of "the rights of all nations and
nationalities" has resulted in the balkanization of Ethiopia along ethnic
lines where unity is fragile and can only be sustained by trumped up and   non-existent foreign threats. Ironically, TPLF cites the
ethnic-balkanization policy it is responsible for to convince the donor
nations that the unity of Ethiopia is so fragile and could disintegrate
without the TPLF. This entrenches TPLF dynasty and ensures massive subsidies making Ethiopia--or is it Tigray--the largest per capita welfare nation in Africa.

Sovereign Republic of Eritrea
The "recognition" of the rights of diverse nations in a nation comprised of  3.5 million and 9 ethnic groups would result in the balkanization of Eritrea into tiny powerless enclaves which would make it easy pickings for land-locked neighbors. This would be ideal for Ethiopia--which explains the Ethiopian Government's touching soft spot for the Afar Eritreans.

(5) Freedom of The Press

The Abyssinian Empire
Freedom of the press is constitutionally guaranteed…but Ethiopia's Prime Minister, Meles Zenawi, has been cited as Enemy of The Press for three consecutive years by two international journalists associations. This is because the Ethiopian Government, despite its free press pretensions, regularly and routinely imprisons and disappears members of the press who are critical of its policies. The offices of an independent Ethiopian paper that
dared to criticize the Empire's policy of deportation and looting were burned down and its editors arrested. Others were paroled on condition that they write hateful and irrational pieces for Walta.

Sovereign Republic of Eritrea
There are 6 private papers and three government-owned newspapers in Eritrea. The independence of the free press is maturing, every year, and the press shows an increasingly independent streak. Eritrea has a longer "free press" history than Ethiopia--as anyone who read the independent papers during the Federation Era will testify.

(6) Transparency

The Abyssinian Empire
Ethiopia routinely denies access to independent and politically untainted journalists to keep Ethiopians in the dark about the ramifications of its misguided war against Eritrea. The press is denied access to the concentration camps Ethiopia runs in Blatien where young Eritreans are held without charge and some tortured and others die in captivity. The poor Eritreans that have been deported by Malawi to the Mother of Deportations, Ethiopia, are likely to face torture and abuse in the "democratic" and "rule of law" abiding Ethiopia.

Sovereign Republic of Eritrea
Eritrea's treatment of POW is exemplary and has been commended by many independent organizations. The Eritrean Government treats prisoners of war humanely not to please donor nations or get a pat on the head from moral crusaders but as a matter of principle and decency. It is this decency that allows Ethiopian pilots to be downed, imprisoned, released and come back to bomb again.

(7) Signing Treaties vs Implementing Treaties

The Abyssinian Empire
Ethiopia respects international law and the sovereignty of its  neighbors…except on those occasions when it imprisons members of the press, tortures prisoners, steals elections, bombs civilians. It regularly crosses international borders in "hot pursuit" of "terrorists" to every single one of its neighbors: Eritrea, Sudan, Kenya and Somalia.

Sovereign Republic of Eritrea
Eritrea has made a habit of asserting its rights in a neighborhood where looting of its material resources and abusing its citizens was accepted for years. Eritrea's efforts are directed towards stabilizing the Horn of Africa, which, for decades, and under the hegemony of Ethiopia, has been a tinderbox. Ethiopia, on the other hand, sees Somalia as a threat and is engaged in activities to turn that nation into tiny clan fiefdoms.

(8) Makeup of Armed Forces

The Abyssinian Empire
The Ethiopian "defense forces" includes mercenaries from Eastern Europe, conscripts from Southern Sudan, children from Oromia to be used as cannon fodder, and famous war criminals from the Mengistu Regime who gained notoriety by inflicting pain on innocent civilians---including the innocent citizens of Tigray. All, of course, reporting to Tigrayan officers. The Ethiopian Government is so commited to war, it sees no contradiction in trying people for war crimes and then hiring them to commit more of the same.

Sovereign Republic of Eritrea
Many small nations surrounded by large and militarily ambitious government like that of Ethiopia have found it necessary to provide military training to their citizens. The military training Eritreans receive is only a fraction of the national service which includes reconstruction projects and "Get To Know Your Country" tours to rural areas where Eritreans get meet their compatriots of different ethnicity--in keeping with the Eritrean Government's policy of minimizing ethnic differences. This may be shocking in the ethno-segregation policy pursued by the Ethiopian Government. National  Service is considered an honorable and great tradition in Eritrea and, prior
to the war waged by Ethiopia, the send-off of the youth was greeted
cheerfully by mothers of the youth.

(9) Treaties and their meaning

The Abyssinian Empire
Ethiopia has signed many conventions and treaties even during the brutal Mengistu Regime. Ethiopia attaches great significance to signing forms--even when it knows fully well that it has no intention of implementing what it signs. Surely, a government that respects treaties would not deport its own citizens and strip them of their citizenship and property. Ethiopia's signatures are all done for the appeasement of the donor nations upon whom the Ethiopian economy relies for its daily sustenance. The TPLF used to advocate that Eritrea was a colony of Ethiopia and that territorial disputes should be resolved based on colonial treaties. Now that it has agitated itself to the throne of the Empire, it is adopting the language of elite that it replaced.

Sovereign Republic of Eritrea
Eritrea has signed many international conventions that it supports and are in its national interest. Unlike Ethiopia, its economy is not reliant on foreign largesse and it has no intention of signing documents that it has no intention of implementing--even when this results in withholding of funds by the donor nations.

In the end, this is what separates truly free nations who chart their destiny from neo-colonial empires that subjugate their people and live off the handouts of donor nations, year in and year out.