In an increasingly unsafe world
where dictators of all shapes and colours are flexing their muscles and taking
on the unsuspecting, if one does not put up a rearguard, not to mention an
impregnable forefront defence, one is in for a big surprise. Regrettably, that
was exactly what happened to Ethiopians living in the north this time a year
ago. The Ethiopians were struggling to make ends meet, when they were cruelly
and undeservingly strafed and confronted by Eritrean tanks rolling over and
armoured cars trundling in and occupying their lands, killing many and chasing
the rest out of their homes and residences to the hills and valleys. Houses and
properties were looted and burned, environs and sacrosanct religious relics
desecrated after depredation had taken its toll.
These people have not been
recently planted by any means. They can invariably trace their ancestral roots
to the lands including Badme, until recently occupied by the Eritreans. Badme is
now spared from the indignity and humiliation of being ruled by a fascistic
aggressor from Eritrea. But freedom did not come without a dear price in blood
spilt, flesh mangled and bones crushed - leaving the accountants the material
losses to deal with.
The question one ought to ask,
if the people and the lands now under the occupation - discounting Badme - are
Eritreans indeed, as Asmara claims they are, why wouldn't the very people in
question welcome the men in uniform and their tanks with open hands rather than
seeking refuge in caverns and ridges in their droves? Likewise, why would the
force that marched in to liberate and protect lives and the environs it
allegedly cherishes as one of its own, which had been unlawfully taken away by
the Ethiopian government since independence, adopt a scorched earth policy on
anything that moves and/or anything the people of the regions value? No! On the
contrary the evidence on the ground attests to something else. The Eritrean
forces in uniform and the people of the regions dislike each other and cannot
see eye to eye. Instead, from the moment they set foot in the region, the
Eritrean forces wanted to eradicate anything Ethiopian and put in place new
Eritrean images. They forced, at least tried when they could, some of the
inhabitants to acquire Eritrean citizenship, while at the same time they hastily
prepared crash-courses for the people to undertake so as to internalise
Eritreanism. But if the Eritrean invading force was hoping that the landscape
and the people would be transformed into a perceived image, they had got a shock
coming - pretty soon too.
The people cogently rejected
the experiments and like dictators, which they are, the Asmara new breed
potentates got themselves vexed that their experiments failed to operate as
devised which then drove them to a new level of madness by resorting to more
outlandish and whirling measures.
Notwithstanding this, even the
image of Eritreanism that were deceptively displayed, both for multiple internal
and external consumption purposes - from the lamp posts, trenches and public
gathering places in the occupied regions, started to rapidly fade away and the
aggressors began to lose face. Now the Eritreans say they will withdraw, if only
...! Now they say they will not withdraw. But we know, as events are
unfolding in the way they are, they will eventually withdraw, if only they could
save themselves from the determined fists of the Ethiopian people! Putting aside
what we believe would happen, it is interesting to note that they are in such a
state of mind - a state of mind all aggressors suffer from when they are in a
cleft stick for igniting uncalled for and inordinately adventurous aggression -
that they seek the helping hands of paid mercenaries the likes of Alexander Last
(who is married to an Eritrean, the sister of the wife of the ex-ambassador to
Ethiopia H.E Girma Asmerom), David Hirst and the Toronto Sun News columnist by
the name of Peter Worthington..
Such paper and pen toting
mercenaries not only enjoy the luxuries and pay they get from their hiring
masters but also thrive on negative publicity. A few words need to be said.
Again this is done not to appeal to their conscience - they have not got only -
nor to educate them, they are not dirigibles. It is done to show their crassness
and by the same token that of the newspaper magnets for employing them.
David told the world, on behalf
of his Eritrean paymasters, that "the Eritreans were forced to take arms to
regain their lost land (Zalambessa) which was taken over by the Ethiopians since
1991. Now in the same breath he tells the same world that the Eritreans are
standing guard behind tanks and armoured vehicles and buried in trenches up to
their necks to balk the Ethiopians from walking over Eritrea to regain access to
the wider world via the Red Sea so as to relieve their suffocated landlocked
dreams."
The same David, who seems to
read no other than his own column in the newspaper filled with similar gossips
and intrigues, had the audacity to lie in public when he said Ethiopia has a
hidden agenda other than border dispute. He asseverates, in no uncertain terms,
that Ethiopia's dream and hence its naked aggression on Eritrea has got to do
something with the sea. Well, he might have fooled many if we all were born
after May 1998. But we are not. Too bad for David Hirst!
I have one more question I might want to pose to this ogre who devours truth: why would the present Ethiopia Government want to reclaim the land to which it has given its blessing in public to go it alone against all odds? Why would it now want to renege on its earlier commitments regarding the independence of Eritrea? Only to lose friends right and left, or to put it differently, to incur enemies on both sides of the equation? Frankly speaking, such journalists are a disgrace to the profession. The profession needs some sort of thorough scouring, if only the entrepreneurs themselves were free from such complications.