Treasons of this scale and persistence for over a decade cannot be isolated incidents of a transient nature. Crime of treason is rather modus operandi of EPRDF�s conduct of government. The regime makes use of the nation�s wealth to conduct crimes of treason with debilitating consequences. Its habitual crimes are contrary to what must be a government�s duty of nation building. Corruption, duplicity and disinformation are distinguishing characteristics of EPRDF�s government intertwined with the works of its crimes.

Corruption and treason are corollaries of the decadent administration pervasive of more or less all levels of government and institutions. They are well entrenched in EPRDF�s own affiliate ethnic parties and mass organizations, including the diplomatic core, the bureaucracy, the security, the national defense, etc. The treasonous system of government, though a unique political phenomenon born to Ethiopia�s decades of adverse political development, is proven by the nihilist ideologues in the EPRDF to be a viable system of government, like fascism, communism, and Nazism are in their own way. The viability of the treasonous system of government is not contingent upon political repression alone; ethnic politics, akin to treason in many ways, perpetuated treason as a political system. Ethnic politics as a manifestation of a dissolute form of political expression by the public is inevitably exploited by the regime for its destructive purposes.

Boston University developed Control of Corruption Index where Ethiopia scored �0.35 in the year 2002. The study uses index ranging between the highest point 2.5 and the lowest �2.5. Corruption takes purely an economic and cultural connotation when applying an index to measure good governance among countries of the world. Corruption for the EPRDF administration, however, has political significance, making it a promotional item due to the special component of treason. EPRDF leaders are seen encouraging corruption overtly, and not controlling it, as the above index would suggest of a legitimate government; they also use corruption as a double-edged sword in the name of combating corruption to implicate their political opponents on false corruption charges. Prime Minister Meles zienawi committed a crime far beyond corrupting his political power when he drafted a bill overnight to put to prison his accusers of treason like the former Defense Minister Siye Abreha.

The EPRDF encourages corruption, embezzlement of public funds, and unethical practices in state administration for the following two reasons: one, it employs corruption to blemish the integrity and practice of public service thereby eroding the contractual relations between the state and the people. The delivery of quality government amenities that took root since the time of Emperor Haileselasie, the school system, the army and police, justice system, etc are at their lowest standard; and two, as an indispensable part of treason, EPRDF has made corruption attractive to the bureaucracy and to all those who can send their hands into it by corrupting the police and court system. Acclimatized as a normal practice, corruption has been instrumental in sustaining the EPRDF. It helped it to minimize or neutralize the political impact of treason arising from the army or even the bureaucracy. Corruption and fraudulent administrative practice also helps the EPRDF to conceal evidences of treason as in the example of one major case where the leaders arranged the illegal transfer of funds in the tune of two billion Birr to Eritrea prior to the war; the same would be true for the embezzlement of national wealth in the billions of dollars to foreign personal accounts.

Manipulation of information has become a treacherous undertaking that can afflict vulnerable states in today�s world. Specially handled information on non-existent Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq by the Bush Administration was sufficient enough to rally public support and start the war against Sadam.

The EPRDF by its treasonous nature is well adept to deceitful use of information in facilitating its crimes. It never refrained from fabricating information to mislead or influence public opinion in an attempt to execute its objectionable policies. The blatant use of deceptive information is transformed into coercion when eventually met by strong public opposition as in the border fiasco.

The use of information has an instantaneous global reach with the advent of the Internet. Western nations with their colossal news networks use information to sway global politics in their interest and often against the interest of the weaker nations in an intrusive and interventionist terms. It is no coincidence that the EPRDF finds the Western media an indispensable collaborator in blackmailing Ethiopia using skewed information. For instance, Western news coverage of the border war was explicitly directed at weakening Ethiopia�s position creating tremendous pressure on the Ethiopian people to accept the agreement. Information is used as an instrument of foreign policy to infringe on national sovereignty of countries like Ethiopia since the paradigm shift in global politics after the cold war.

Falsification of facts for ethnic consumption is another equally daunting problem showing abuse of information. Misrepresentation of ethnic issues is one known reason that has created a barrier on open dialogue between ethnic groups. The insinuation of false information on development initiatives by the EPRDF in Tigray, for example, is extremely common among other ethnic groups. It is expressed in the following malicious manner: �the province of Tigray is sinking from property overload looted from the rest of Ethiopia�. This communication pattern is an upshot of corrupt government policies for the last century where the state either granted or denied development opportunities according to ethnicity. The public�s view of development is something that is dealt out by the state based on its ethnic orientation and not a free enterprise left to the endeavor of all Ethiopians according to their entrepreneurial merits and potential where the state should play a secondary role fostering it.

The relative freedom of expression in Ethiopia that came at a heavy cost to the Ethiopian people is wrongly accredited to the EPRDF. Informational blackout sanctioned by the EPRDF in Ethiopia today marks a deep ethnic divide in information gap. Ethiopians have very little means of learning what actually goes on from one end of the country to another, for instance from Welega to Mekelle to be able to reach a political consensus on matters of national interest contrary to the rumors that feed into the divisive ethnic politics. Hence, the fight against EPRDF�s incursions into what is left of the freedom of expression in the smallest segment of the country, i.e. Addis Ababa is a precarious one. On the other hand, the lack of sincerity on part of the local private media concentrated in the capital is partly to blame for promulgating ethnic politics.

One of the most intractable problems of ethnic politics is that it obstructs openness in information exchange that could enhance national unity and political consensus as a solution to the political crisis posed by the EPRDF. There cannot be a unified political front to combat the regime without open dialogue to solving political problems. The real motive behind the crime of treason is one that as fallen prey to ethnic categorization stipulated the main reason for the crimes. The quest for the root causes of treason is a lost cause as long as the self-defeating ethnic politics continues to dump EPRDF�s crimes in unlikely places. One would think that the there would not be controversy over the motives for treason since EPRDF�s crimes of treason transcend ethnic politics. The misguided public perception about the EPRDF being an ethnic dominance is in essence self-serving when the other organizations also part to the crimes are deliberately ignored. It is even cowardly to remove these parties from the crime seen for the purpose of vilifying one ethnic group. This no doubt will alienate Tigary in the long run from the national political movement unless the opposition parties and the public alleviate this problem by encouraging the culture of openness and constructive use of information in the local media.

TPLF�s military agility and tremendous success over the Dergue was often interpreted as an indication of its political maturity and independence. Contrary to popular believes, the TPLF was unable to acquire political maturity or independence once it submitted to the mentorship of the more powerful and senior EPLF in the 1970s; �After the Tigray National Organization accepted the EPLF�s view that Eritrea was a colony and therefore had a right to secede from Ethiopia, they were promised support� writes John Young (Young, J. 1997 p. 85) A strategic issue of national sovereignty was negotiated for material gains of trivial nature by the TNO (the precursor of the TPLF). The EPLF wasted no time taking control of the TPLF by implanting its agents in key positions. The EPRP getting into the same quagmire in its infancy with the EPLF (still inexcusable for its treasonous implications) later retracted its policy on the independence of Eritrea. TPLF leaders on the contrary expedited the separation of Eritrea. The TPLF, in other words the people of Tigray, were made to pay heavy price in terms of human and material cost to make Eritrea�s separation a reality.

Infatuated by ELF/EPLF�s creation of new identity suited for a would be modern Eritrean state, antithetic to the cultural history of Ethiopia, TPLF leaders with Eritrean connections are emotionally attached to Eritrean nationalism of its colonial history. They are disciples of a school of thought created by the ELF and EPLF that spent a good portion of three decades warping Eritrea�s historical and cultural identity. The postcolonial generation lacked a historical point of reference to place Eritrea in a historical context before and after the colonial period except for the Eritrean mythology created by the movement. It is led to believe that colonialism is the most favourable historical incident that has shaped Eritrea in body and soul. It is this historical perspective of the EPLF that sets Eritrea apart from Ethiopia engendering it with the only necessary condition to establish itself as an independent state. The separatist and anti-Ethiopian sentiment, no doubt, has also shaped Meles� identity constantly pulling him towards Eritrea. While he expressly shown his disdain for Ethiopians and their country, at the same time, he managed to put the issue of his partly Eritrean heritage out of bound for discussion as the source of his conflict of interest and the root cause for his crimes of treason.

The more realistic motive and most pressing one for handing over Ethiopian territories by Meles Zienawi is to free Eritrea from its economic predicament by allowing it to expand southwards into the mineral rich, vast agricultural lands and fertile valleys of Tigray and the Afar territories. It is expected that Eritrea could alleviate part of its chronic deficit in food production by annexing more lands from Ethiopia. As part of the meticulously planned aggression, Eritrean geologists and engineers held a meeting with their counterparts from the Ethiopian side on an investigative mission to learn the availability of mineral and precious metals on the border areas of Tigray weeks before the EPLF army invaded these lands. Eritrea conducted extensive groundwork study for its invasion on which basis it identified areas it claims today.

Soon after independence, it became clear that Eritrea�s inherent economic problem came to the forefront as a major concern for the TPLF and the EPLF leaders alike. Unwilling to accept a natural defeat that followed the struggle for Eritrean independence, they devised a comprehensive ploy against Ethiopia to garner all that Eritrea needs in resources and market. Tekeste Negash takes us back in time to the 1952 federation to discover what was true then weighs even more for Eritrea today; �The economic reason for the incorporation of Eritrea into Ethiopia was grounded in the widespread appraisal of the period that the former would not survive economically if granted independence. Its dependence on Ethiopia for vital food imports was repeatedly stressed. � (Tekeste Negash 1996 p.60). Albeit Eritrean mythology of superior human potential thanks to Italian colonialism, century later the economy becomes the battleground for current and future relations between Eritrea and Ethiopia. Meles zienawi in an interview to the BBC talks candidly what his five-point peace initiative exactly meant to Eritrea�s economic dilemma: �The boundary issue became a problem when our economic and political ties became a problem. So even if we're to have a perfect resolution to the boundary issue, unless we address the root causes - the economic and political relationship issues - we're not going to have sustainable peace.� (Meles Zienawi�s interview to BBC Radio of January 19, 2005). No one could speak for sure more than Meles himself that the border wasn�t the reason for the conflict.

Abiy Araia, July 2001 �the rise of an Eritrean clique from the womb of TPLF�