"I baptize with water but one mightier is coming, the thong of whose sandals I am not worthy to unloose; he will baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire" 
Luke 3:15, 16
I. Hailu Shawel - Redemption 
For a long time I did not think much of Engineer Hailu Shawel�s political maneuvers. Probably old age has thought him some great lessons now on the new political reality of Ethiopia. It is never too late for anybody to learn new strategy and improve ones political perspectives. A clear indication of such political growth is Hailu Shawel�s decision to show up at the candlelight vigil on May 28, 2009, in solidarity with the Unity for Democracy and Justice (UDJ) Party leaders in support of Judge Birtukan Mideksa. Here is one sensible and statesmanlike decision I welcome from Hailu Shawel. I urge Hailu to take the next logical, statesman-like, and patriotic step by cementing his Party�s struggle with the struggle of the other Ethiopian Political organizations and individuals. The first such positive action is to join Medrek (Forum). This is the type of mature decision that could only enhance the roll of individual leaders in promoting the democratic challenge to the brutal oppressive government of Meles Zenawi. 

In the past, I have heard some of the most convoluted arguments in defense of activities of opportunism by some Ethiopian politicians that the activities of those individuals, who aspire to be Meles Zenawi�s Elfign Askelkai, are claimed to be savvy political manipulations to surround Meles Zenawi and control his activities thereby bringing about a measure of democracy into the system. Defending the schemes of power brokering as an activity of statesmanship is the worst form of rationalization of blatant opportunistic and predatory activities that undermines the struggle for true liberation from despotic government. At its best, such activity could only be a selfish promotion of ones own career in government. Examples abound!

As he has done countless times in the past, Meles Zenawi will try all kinds of trickery dividing the opposition and driving wedges in between opposition leaders. It is no secret that Meles and his group have effectively divided and weakened the opposition in the past; for example, AAPO, OLF, CUD et cetera were all victims of the divisive schemes of launching leaders against each other. Thus, it will not surprise me if Meles Zenawi would offer Hailu Shawel the Presidency of Ethiopia in exchange for Hailu�s docility and political betrayal of the opposition. In the alternative he might try to appoint one of the Grandchildren of Emperor Haile Selassie I as President. However, it is far too late for such schemes to work, and Meles has cried �Wolf!� far too often to trap anyone anymore. 

All those political parties in the House of Representatives that are not part of the EPRDF must take as a guiding example of Hailu Shawel�s solidarity with UDJ, at least on that one occasion of candlelight vigil, as the right way and the only way of the general strategic consolidation of the opposition. Specially Lidetu Ayalew of Medhin is the most vulnerable leader in the House of Representatives, and should position himself by softening his animosity with Hailu Shawel and reconcile with the population in Addis Ababa. There is safety in numbers, for the first step to get rid of Meles Zenawi is to isolate him completely. Under such circumstance his own party will have difficulties maintaining a sinking ship, and then all the rats will be abandoning that titanic decomposing political barge. 

II. Meles Zenawi - Dammed to Purgatory
Meles Zenawi not only is a historical disaster but also an abomination for Ethiopia. In anticipation that he may not be able to continue his brutal Government beyond the 2010 elections, Meles Zenawi is desperately seeking someone to replace him whom he could control and keep manipulating the Ethiopian political structure and economy to protect himself from future prosecution for the many crimes he committed against the State of Ethiopia and its people. By setting up some sham structure Meles not only insures that the wealth that is looted in the guise of development endowment, such as EFFORT�s investments would go unaccounted for, but also suppress any investigation on the treasonous arrangements he made with Sudan to cede more than ten thousand square kilometers of Ethiopia�s fertile land and the independence of Eritrea and landlocking of Ethiopia. In order to carry out such diabolical scheme, he would seek someone weak, corrupt, and with limited creative mind who would be controlled with a short leash. Seyoum Mesfin, the current colorless ersatz Foreign Minister is a likely replacement. It is a choice that would leave Meles Zenawi in control even after he officially leaves office. 

Other than the fact that Meles Zenawi conspired with the enemies of Ethiopia to dismantle Ethiopia across ethnic lines, he had also fulfilled the promise he had made to allow Eritrea to cede and become an independent nation completely land locking Ethiopia from its historic Coastal Territories and Territorial Waters in the Red Sea. The most recent and most outrageous activity of Meles Zenawi is ceding unilaterally Ethiopian territory, which he designated as Sudanese territory, comprising of over 60 kilometers in width and over 1,600 kilometers in length of the fertile and highly developable Western Border area of Ethiopia. His decision based on non-binding demarcations following several years later the 1902 treaty, in a note book of a British Military officer during the time of British occupation of the area, is illegal and has no legal binding effect on Ethiopia; however, such activity of a head of government is enough to create long standing problems for Ethiopia with Sudan. 

Even the so called public works, which are often put on pedestal for display to show how far different and development-oriented the TPLF and its leaders are compared to Haile Selassie and his Regime, are all mere covers to loot the wealth of the people of Ethiopia. The major public works, such as highways, dams, College and School buildings, airports and runways et cetera are schemes to move public money from the Ethiopian treasury to the private purses of companies controlled by Meles Zenawi and his group, who become contractors, sub contractors and suppliers to all such projects. 

Even one famous tenacious thinker, who is usually sympathetic and defender of Meles and his Party, in recent articles brought up the issue of the corruption of the TPLF and its Leadership as a subject of discourse. People are fearful even to ask the legitimate question of proper accounting of the great wealth of TDA, EFFORT et cetera that has been accumulated for over thirty years in the name of the people of Tygrei. Neither do we have proper auditing of tax and other proceeds and deposits from international investments. For example, there is no accounting of the gold being mined and looted by Al Amoudi that easily exceeds hundreds of millions of dollars. It is delusional to think that Meles Zenawi and company do not have a share in that venture. The fact is that the TPLF is now an exploding sham organization of unheard of magnitude of corruption. And in the guise of investment for local ethnic based development in Tygreai, Meles Zenawi and associates have looted and fleeced Ethiopia, whereas ordinary Tygrean brothers and sisters are being blamed for their ethnic background, who are in reality equally victimized by the corrupt economic monopolization by Meles Zenawi and his clique. There is nothing to compare to the disaster brought on Ethiopia by Meles Zenawi and his Political Party in the long and torturous political and economic history of Ethiopia. 

It is absolutely mind boggling how limitless the greed of Meles Zenawi is when we consider also the types of legislations he is now pushing through his rubber-stamping House of Representatives�legislations that would reward him with exorbitant amount of retirement fund, security detail, secretarial service, health care for his entire family, in a country where people are starving with annual income of less than one hundred dollars. Meles Zenawi now wants also �cooks� in his household as part of his retirement package to be paid by the Ethiopian people�an immodest extortionist demand by a man from a family of modest means. It is absolutely unconscionable for Meles, after racking the nation for eighteen years with disastrous political and economic self-serving schemes, to expect so much money and protection from the very people he starved, tortured, and squashed down in poverty and degradation. Instead, he should be looking down the road for long prison term or the gallows for all the betrayal and treasonous crimes he committed against Ethiopia and Ethiopians. 

III. Issayas Afeworki � In Fantasia
I watched with amazement the recent interview of Issayas Afeworki conducted by Elias Kifle (Ethiopian Review) and Seleshi (Arbegnoch Gimbar) in Asmara. I have read also a number of comments against Elias Kifle for conducting such interview with predisposition to promote Eritrean interest over that of Ethiopian interest. For example, Mintesnot Haile in a pointed article listed a number of questions that should have been raised with Issayas that was never mentioned by the two journalists. [See �Beating drums on behalf of Issayas Afeworki� by Mintesinot Haile ǀ May 22, 2009, abugidainfo] Another concerned writer expanded the issue to include the impact on Ethiopians when their leaders are denigrated by Elias. [See �Elias Kifle: a hero or a villain?� By Mamush Beyadglign, June 3, 2009, Abbay Media] That may be so as a matter of opinion and personal judgment. The more important issue to me is whether the two gentlemen fulfilled their journalist duty to benefit us all. Despite the fact that they may have avoided some important direct questions as to the necessity of the independence of Eritrea for example, and also the major concern and question of the type of benefit Ethiopia would derive from such close economic integration with Eritrea, they did raise several interesting questions in that interview with Issayas Afeworki.

What I find laughable in the answers given by Issayas Afeworki at that interview is the fact that he still thinks he can warm his way back to Ethiopia�s grace by professing his silly concern about the development of Ethiopia. In the first place, he does not seem to acknowledge the fact that he personally is the cause of the current hateful animosity that started out as a family feud between the people of Ethiopia and Eritrea, he who created a fantasy in order to dismantle a family to satisfy his ego built around the illusional identification with colonial masters�the Italians. We discern similar psychological dwarfism in members of the elite class of most former colonies of European powers all over the World; for example, in some sever cases of self hate and loss of identity, we find ex-colonial subjects claiming that they are �British� or �French� et cetera. Similar trend is developing also in South Africa where you find illiterate poor South Africans identifying with their Apartheid former overlords and insulting even violently attacking Black Africans from other parts of Africa. Now, going back to Issayas Afeworki, he wants economic integration with Ethiopia for the sole selfish purpose of having unrestricted access to the wealth and underdeveloped abundance of Ethiopia�s resources without the attending responsibility to share in the struggle to maintain a political structure. When asked about recent discussions held between Eritreans and Ethiopians in the United States, he went as far as elevating the stake by suggesting meetings of such types to be held in Asmara too. At least Professors Daniel and Tesftsion had the decency to think in terms of political as well as economic assimilation and integration when they presented their respective views on possibilities of either Federation or Confederation between Ethiopia and Eritrea. 

At any rate, I do not trust Issayas nor trust the system of his government that is in place for me to consider economic integration leading to political integration at this point. He does not even have a constitution to guide him in his own backyard in democratic governance, how do we expect any better treatment from such flawed individual. Before thinking to have close relationship with Ethiopia, he should clean his own mess in his person and in Eritrea. It is absurd for a man to speak of peaceful coexistence and economic integration with a country whose official language he could not bring himself to speak although for most of his life as an Ethiopian he spoke that language very well starting from young age. In his own propaganda production of the interview conducted by Elias and Seleshi, Issayas could not even want to speak Amharic when he is being asked questions in Amharic, a language he knows perfectly well and grew up speaking in Dessie and else where in Ethiopia. He chose to answer in English, a foreign language, a colonial language, to him and the Continent itself. Let me remind everyone the fact that Issayas was an Ethiopian for most of his life, and an �Eritrean� very recently since the secession and independence of Eritrea in 1993.

Even if Ethiopia agrees to some form of economic �integration� with Eritrea with a promise of a more complete political unity in the future, it will not work. Why would an exploitative group diminish its privileged position, taking in all the benefits without the responsibility of maintaining the political system of the exploited party? And why would it forgo such privilege by merging and becoming part of the exploited entity? We already are suffering the fleecing of Ethiopia by Meles Zenawi and his TPLF. Why should we add another hungry hyena to devour us even more? Moreover, the past record of Issayas Afeworki is dismal. Ethiopians must not trust and relay on the words of this chameleon leader. We must not so easily forgive or forget. It is part of our history now, and we know how he butchered Ethiopian prisoners of war, atrocities that must be seen quite different from atrocities past Ethiopian Emperors committed against their own people all over the nation including people in the present day Eritrea, which was part of the Ethiopian territory for all of historic time except for a short hiatus. Let us not gloss over either how Issayas looted Ethiopia�s wealth starting from confiscating bank deposits to pulling the gold teeth of Ethiopians he forcefully deported from Eritrea. He looted from warehouses goods disembarked at Assab destined for Ethiopia worth hundreds of millions of dollars, and he was suspected of printing counterfeit Ethiopian currency and using it to buy commodities in Ethiopia creating shortage and economic distortions. The quixotic nature of the situation was such that Eritrea was listed at one point (over twelve years ago) as a major exporter of Coffee! And let us not forget the fact that Meles Zenawi did facilitate the activities of Issayas Afeworki and he even endlessly boast about such treasonous betrayal of Ethiopia and its people as a mark of his loyalty to the people of Eritrea.

Ethiopia must have in hand first the blueprint for a clear federal political structure to integrate Ethiopia and Eritrea fully and fairly that is negotiated at arms length between democratically elected representatives of Ethiopia�s vital interest and their counterpart�s legitimate Eritrean representatives to consider close economic relationship with Eritrean people and their Government in the future. Such blueprint must designate our coastal territories of Afar (currently occupied by Eritrea illegally) clearly to be part of the Province of Wollo for administrative purposes, where most of the Ethiopian Afar are located, for any form of relationship to be viable with Eritrea. The issue of Afar Coastal territory is a matter of security and national survival for Ethiopia more than an economic one. It is absurd to allow an illegal situation of land locking a sovereign nation of eighty million people by an narrow strip of land the length of the entire coastal front of Ethiopia by an artificially created and unconscionable maneuver of the United States and Arab nations (Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Gulf States et cetera) to check the possible strategic importance of a future powerful and independent minded Ethiopia. Both Meles Zenawi and Issayas Afeworki equally collaborated for such eventuality. It is time for people to put those two in their places for the disaster they brought about on us all.

We should not confuse issues here either. The current decision by the Ethiopian Government to return confiscated property of Eritreans (who were Ethiopians at the time of the event even if they may have voted to secede in 1993) to their lawful owners is not to me a question of rewarding Eritreans for their misbehavior, but an issue of respecting human rights, as well as a question of respecting (in a way) the decision of the Eritrea-Ethiopia Claims Commission Hearings and partial awards. At any rate, it would not have mattered to me to whom the property is being returned as long as the individuals entitled to such property are legitimate and the property being returned is in fact theirs. As a matter of principle, it would not have mattered to me if such property was returned to individuals even if they were Eskimos, for instance. In order to respect the property rights of individuals, it is not necessary to pay inordinate attention to the identity of such individuals. I would not have changed my stand on that issue of respecting and safeguarding the universal human rights of all human beings whether they are individuals from this group or that group. Of course, the despicable treatment of Ethiopians by the Eritrean Government would instigate us to retaliate by treating Eritreans by the same inhuman measure, but that would be giving up our decency to low standard of morality. As long as we are dealing on individual basis of respecting the human rights of such individuals, even more power to us. 

IV. Diaspora Tygreans � Standing in Crossroads
The surest way to get squashed by moving vehicles is to stand in crossroads; not a bright idea either. �When You Come to a Fork in the Road, Take It!� Yogi Berra�s famous indecipherable statement is appropriate to quote here when writing about the aloofness of a number of Diaspora Tygreans on the burning question of Meles Zenawi and our national survival. However, such aloofness is not limited to a number of Tygreans but also includes many other Ethiopians from different parts of Ethiopia. One cannot last that far in time standing at the crossroads of history from being crushed and run over. Indecision is as bad as bad decision, maybe even worse. There is no question that a number of Tygreans find life extremely stressful having to live with the treasonous day to day activities of Meles Zenawi on one side and the rest of Ethiopia pointing fingers at Tygreans from the other side, a case of guilt by association. However, not all Tygreans are victims either, for some are beneficiaries of the corrupt system established by Meles Zenawi in fleecing Ethiopia.

I am now speaking the language of Meles Zenawi�s narrow ethnicism that has eaten away the very foundation that had maintained Ethiopia as a nation for thousands of years. I urge Tygreans for their own survival and sanity and for the sake of symmetry, especially if they take pride in the achievements of some of the Tygrean heroic figures in history that they should also truly be ashamed of the many individuals from Tygreai who served with Meles Zenawi in the TPLF, who have caused us all such destruction. At no time in Ethiopia�s long history, there can be found an Ethiopian leader who had committed the types of crimes committed by Meles Zenawi and his associates and their Political Party against the State of Ethiopia and its people--not even Mengistu. This deafening silence of a sizable number of Diaspora Tygreans in the face of Meles Zenawi�s destruction of Ethiopia and the Ethiopian people is not acceptable. Yes, it is true a number of individuals from other parts of Ethiopia have not shown the type of patriotic concerns about our national security and national survival too. 

As a matter of fact and also as a case of living up to principles, I believe that anything based on ethnicity will always lead to insidious corruption and brutal suppression of the rights of many. I hear and read often views whereby the �Tygrenet� of Meles Zenawi is stressed as the illness in his Government. Those that accuse the current Government of Meles Zenawi as a Government of Ethnic minority are committing the same crime they are accusing Meles of committing for establishing an ethnic organization. The problem is not that of Tygrean ethnicity or Oromo ethnicity or Amhara ethnicity or Gambela ethnicity et cetera, but with the concept of basing a government on the basis of ethnic identity. It will not change the elements of antidemocratic and abusive governance whether a country is run by an ethnic majority or an ethnic minority, for a system that is not based on respecting universal principles of individual rights would always be an oppressive system violating the rights of individuals in some groups in society. Thus, all this outcry of minority ruling the country is a reflection of the political immaturity of even those who should know better. 

The Tygrean commanders and functionaries of the Ethiopian military and security forces should really take a second look at their activities. They must by now realize that they have become parasites feeding on the poor people of Ethiopia, but serving the interest of Meles Zenawi and his Party and not the people of Ethiopia or that of the State-interest of Ethiopia. They have proven no less corrupt than the civilian Party members of the TPLF/EPRDF. Unless such individuals mend their ways, they too will suffer the same fate of Mengistu�s Officers and soldiers. Meles Zenawi and his close associates have in place their escape strategy and stashed sufficient fund to see them through hard times. The rest of you do not be suckers, for you have no escape route nor do you have fund stashed in foreign banks and corporations. Think about your future and the future of your children in Ethiopia facing a hundred million outraged and starving Ethiopians. Do you really think you can win over an entire national population? Thus make sure that you all are on the side of the People of Ethiopia and stop acting as Janissaries. 

V. Birtukan Mideksa � the Symbol of New Ethiopia
Birtukan Mideksa is the truly great leader for the future of Ethiopia. Birtukan is the only light at the end of this long tunnel of darkness that has engulfed Ethiopia under the brutal Government of Meles Zenawi and his corrupt supporters for the last eighteen years. I am not making such assertion without having thought of all of the implications of my statement. The one item that stands out above all things is the fact that Birtukan has progressively become more of a unifying personality in contrast to most political leaders whose political presence is in regression. As far as I am concerned what is most needed in Ethiopia at this historic juncture of the real threat of national disintegration is a leader that would symbolize Ethiopian unity and territorial integrity and lift our spirit from hopelessness. Birtukan�s relative youth and inexperience in the intricacies of running a government or a highly intricate organization is not that much important. In fact, her limited experience is an asset�a clean slate for new beginning for a new Ethiopia.

Already the fact that Meles Zenawi singled out Birtukan as his target of violence and brutal oppression, tells us how frightened this fraction of a leader must be feeling at the moment�he must be shaken far more than he is showing. The imprisonment of Birtukan has the opposite effect on her from what Meles wanted. Instead of breaking her spirit and human dignity, it has built further her heroic and virtuous personality�she has now become a great symbol to all who are unjustly imprisoned by the treasonous and brutal Government of Meles Zenawi. We should never forgive or forget the fact that Meles Zenawi has betrayed Ethiopians of our Sovereignty and territorial integrity, and looted our national wealth. 

There are several important factors that distinguish Birtukan as the future leader of Ethiopia to replace Meles Zenawi. To begin with, she is not blood thirsty and has not killed or caused the death of any Ethiopian unlike Meles Zenawi whose political life is drenched with the blood of thousands of Ethiopians. She comes from a decent family, who has never betrayed Ethiopia to Italian occupiers in the 1935-41 Italian aggression. I do realize the fact that she is surrounded in the executive members of UDJ leadership with some individuals whose moral integrity and political maturity I find lacking. We see these occasional disruptive flare-ups between such executive members of UDJ that tell us some serious pruning or reorientation and discipline is long overdue. But that is not Birtukan�s fault; one has to work with what is available warts and all. 

In the last five years Birtukan has shown great political maturity and the enviable capacity to mobilize Ethiopians from all corners of Ethiopia. She is able to create a common denominator for all. In a way Birtukan Mideksa is our version of Barack Obama replacing George Bush who had lost the trust of his people in his inability to lead analogues to the dismal performance of our own leader Meles Zenawi. Of course, there is no comparison between the two (George Bush vs. Meles Zenawi) when it comes to the severity and extent of human rights abuse of their respective Citizens. In short, in Birtukan�s story I find myself, and so do millions of Ethiopians. I suppose it is very easy for most Ethiopians to identify with her.

Conclusion
There can only be very limited options left to Ethiopians to deal with Meles Zenawi and his political organization. At this juncture of our political life as a nation, it seems to me too late to reform the TPLF and/or the EPRDF. The corruption, the gross misconduct, the abuse of power, and the treasonous activities of the leaders of TPLF and all other political parties that are Members of the EPRDF have rendered all such political organizations pariahs, untouchable outcasts, of little use to anyone. The economic corruption, nepotism, misguided ethnic loyalty et cetera had alienated both the political organization (TPLF) and the leaders. The five million Members claimed by EPRDF is a ghost number that has no reality and would disappear like morning dew when there raises a democratic sun. 

Ye leba aine derek lib yaderq, is the illustrative Ethiopian proverb that best describes the shameless Government of Meles Zenawi�s accusations of conspiracy of some thirty five individuals, with all forms of terroristic activities when in fact that same Meles�s government is the worst terrorist entity around in Ethiopia. The imprisonment of Political leaders, such as Birtukan Mideksa, the appointment of Azeb Mesfin to be in charge of the money-bag (EFFORT), the extensive arrest and intimidation through out Ethiopia of opposition leaders and members of political parties, the violent oppression of supporters of Arena in Shire, Adowa et cetera in Tygrei, and the new and dangerous people�s revolt lead by a priest/monk that is attracting tens of thousands of Christians in Addis Ababa et cetera are all symptomatic of a highly volatile society and a very weak and unpopular Government whose sole crutch for survival is its well paid almost pampered military security forces. But in the face of growing discontent and hate for Meles Zenawi as an individual, there can be no military power to stand against the welling wave of people who want Meles Zenawi and his Party replaced by a political leadership devoted to Ethiopia and its people and no one else. 

In a recent article Robert Kaplan has made a striking remark that the study of geography is best suited to give us much better grasp and understanding of the problems of our troubled world beset with war, famine, environmental degradation, cultural upheavals et cetera than either history or political science. [Robert D. Kaplan, �The Revenge of Geography,� FP Foreign Policy, May/June 2009. One may say that Kaplan�s view is the framework for Jared M. Diamonds� Guns, Germs, and Steel: Guns, germs, and steel: the fates of human societies, (New York NY: WW Norton &Company, 1997).] Such truly remarkable insight �outside of the box� on humankind�s demographic movement and struggle for power and resources might help us understand our Ethiopian saga far more intimately than going over and over on our history or politics. In citing these books here, I am not engaged in some form of perverted ad pompam. I am also aware of the possibility that there may be at the subconscious level some normative judgments, a sort of bias against non Caucasians sub-Saharan people, in the cited literature above.

I am sincerely attempting to understand how we fit in the scheme of things in the larger picture of our place in the universal human struggle for survival in an increasingly bewildering World. Maybe we will learn from such experience items that could be helpful in solving our recurrent problems of the failure of our consecutive leaders in the last hundred years. Maybe our inadequacies may have very little to do with our biology (IQ), or our ethics and social skills, but rather with the geography of our land. There is hope for us! Ω

Tecola W. Hagos
Washington DC (June 4, 2009)


Appendix

JAILED OPPOSITION LEADER BRINGS RIVAL PARTIES TOGETHER 
Ethiomedia | May 29, 2009 

"We need to work together:" - AEUP president Hailu Shawel Jailed UDJ leader Birtukan Mideksa five months in solitary confinement, and no end in sight for her ordeal. 

ADDIS ABABA - Two opposition groups who have been eyeing each other as sworn adversaries spent the evening of May 28 at a candle-light vigil together, and they say the unifying force is jailed opposition leader Birtukan Mideksa. 
Unity for Democracy and Justice (UDJ) leaders and supporters were seated for a monthly candle light vigil when they found themselves welcoming suprise visitors: a delegation from their rival group headed by Hailu Shawel, former leader of the Coalition for Unity and Democracy (CUD). 

Now president of All Ethiopia People's Organization (AEUP), Engineer Hailu Shawel has not been on speaking terms with UDJ leaders ever since CUD's disintegration following the leaders' release from prison in 2007. 
"We've been going on in our own seprate ways, but again tonight, the unifying force of love and peace Birtukan Mideksa has brought us together," a joyous Engineer Gizachew Shiferaw, vice president of UDJ, told his guests to a deafening applause. 

AEUP and UDJ evolved after the collapse of CUD-Kinijit but the split was a morally-crushing phenomenon for the Ethiopian people while it was a windfall Meles Zenawi's party, which is very much reviled throughout the country. 
"We need to brush aside all the hearsay and work together," Engineer Hailu Shawel said. "We need to weed out the political riff-raff." 

On the occasion, Professor Mesfin Woldemariam, also a UDJ executive, presented a paper on the issue of "Non violence struggle in Ethiopia." The 78-year-old noted human rights activist said the Meles Zenawi regime dreads a peaceful form of struggle as it relies on the culture of gun-totting and violence." 
"The regime has been trying to shut down all avenues of peaceful struggle but the Ethiopian people carry their hopes high and have remained loyal to their cause," Professor Mesfin said. 

In the meantime, free-text messaging service, banned since opposition successes at the stolen 2005 elections, was allowed for only 24 hours because May 28 is a day Meles Zenawi's group came to power way back in 1991. 
Reminiscent of the days of the run-up to the May 2005 elections, UDJ supporters made a swift use of the rare chance and spread news about the special programs that were due for the evening. The turnout for the Birtukan Mideksa candle-light vigil was impressive that the hall was packed. And the appearance of Engineer Hailu at Birtukan's party headquarters was like icing on the cake, according to Awde newsletter. 

Ethiopia remains an impoverished, enemy-held territory denied the benefits of technology services as basic as mobile phones. Mobile phone distribution in South Africa, for instance, stands at 87%; but the figure for Ethiopia is a shocking 1.45%, according to ITU. 
Ethiomedia | May 29, 2009