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Reading excerpts from the ‘nationalist’
flavored sermon given to the puppet
Ethiopian parliament on November 29th
by the head of the autocracy in the Addis
Ababa, Meles Zenawi, one would have thought
that Ethiopia was under imminent attack from
foreign militants.
Zenawi, in his
theatrical speech, pressed the panic button;
trumpeted his suspect Ethiopian nationalist
credentials; and sounded as if militants
with extremist ideologies have been
marauding downtown Mekele, his Tigrian
hometown, for a while.
His claim that
‘Jihadists in the Union of Islamic Courts [UIC],
in collaboration with Eritrea, have already
invaded Ethiopia…’ was not only alarming to
the uninformed but it was also a baseless
propaganda intended to portray Ethiopia as a
victim of a territorial aggression from
foreign nations.
Nothing could
be further from the truth hence our
intension in this terse editorial to call a
spade a spade on Zenawi’s mind-boggling
machinations. Zenawi has admitted to the
world and only after repeated denials that
his troops are deployed in many parts of
Somalia.
In fact his
troops are stationed as far as in the
vicinity of Mogadishu, the Somali capital,
yet he had the audacity to claim that
Ethiopia was invaded by Somalia. He also had
the pretension to wrap himself on the
Ethiopian flag with the request to the
puppet parliamentarians for authorization of
a Somali invasion whose train has left Addis
Ababa eighteen months ago.
Other than
politicking to get a buy in from the Western
world for his Somali project, two
intertwined events appear to have confounded
Meles and his minions in Addis Ababa. The
hope is, as explained in earlier editorials
and Ogaden staff reports, that the Somali
project might provide a diversion for the
Ethiopian public from the nation’s abysmal
state of affairs.
First
Ethiopian military successes against the
Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) army
appear as illusive as they were in early
February this year. Instead of driving ONLF
fighters into oblivion in Ogaden as was
envisioned by Zenawi and his minions on the
onset of the current counter insurgency
operations carried out by Ethiopia, ONLF has
gained the upper hand militarily in every
encounter.
As if the
military losses in Ogaden, Oromia and many
parts of Ethiopia were not bad enough, the
well-oiled Amhara political movement has
succeeded in eroding any support Zenawi have
had from the Western world in the name of
‘democracy’. The arrest, extra judicial
killings, and the prosecution of elected
members of the new parliament have put the
final nail in the coffin of Zenawi’s
democracy project.
Engaging in a
reckless behavior of interfering the affairs
of the Somali nation militarily is the last
hope Zenawi has in clinging onto power whose
foundation has already cracked. The world
community should not be fooled by Zenawi’s
machinations. Mogadishu is thousands away
from Mekele and no militants be they Somalis
or ‘Jihadists’ have invaded Ethiopia.
editorial@ogaden.com
Ogaden Online Editorial
Dec 06, 2006 | 
