Part II
Professional liars and Washington hawks
Telling lies and killing innocent people are the two most important specialties of the TPLF since its birth. Washington and the West believe the lies and ignore the killings simply because there is a convergence of interest between the two. Washington’s hawks may be unsuspecting or do not care about the real motives of the TPLF elites because they are interested to promote their regional agenda by hook or by crook. The US is angry at the rise and irresistible advance of China as a new economic power. So is the TPLF because it lost Ethiopia from which it used to amass fabulous wealth by stealing from the national coffer and by impoverishing the masses and turning itself from rags to riches in a matter of two decades.
America was hostile against the post-EPRDF reforms from day one. It was not happy when the new government launched a market-oriented economic reform program which is a radical shift from the thinly veiled “gangster state capitalism” of the EPRDF years. The US sometimes professes democracy but when Ethiopia held relatively cleaner elections earlier this year as an expression of the popular will despite their shortcomings. America refused to recognize the election results which amounted to an insult to the sovereignty of the Ethiopian people and utmost lack of respect for the tens of millions of Ethiopians who cast their ballots. This should not however come as a surprise since in 1973, Washington put in power the fascist military Junta led by General Pinochet after engineering the overthrow of the democratically elected government of Salvador Allende.
Washington as the guardian of democracy?
We have recently seen how American elections have been flawed, as they were hijacked by racist and neo-fascist forces and individuals unfit to manage a school let alone a presumed democracy of more than 300 million citizens. Therefore, the US lacks the moral credibility to evaluate elections in African countries where democracy takes baby steps.
Who else but their likeminded partners in the diplomatic wild West would believe them when they are posturing themselves as the minders of democracy in this wide world? America should cast its self-made illusions of grandeur and accept that every sovereign country in the world is entitled to their own specific road to democracy and that the US model can neither be imposed by force or by deception since America has lost its moral high ground sunk to the level of the TPLF merchants of death?
Another gruesome fact is that when the TPLF previously held its own unconstitutional election which was a mockery of democracy and emerged the uncontested winner, the Americans did not lift their small finger to question its authenticity. America portrays itself as the bastion of democracy and free enterprise but when Ethiopia barely embarked on the same path of reform, it not only ignored it but connived with forces that were already set to spoil the show and, if possible, effect a regime change.
The TPLF has always been the most hated, the greediest and most criminal group in Ethiopia’s modern political history whose legitimacy was based only on a systematic reign of terror, ethnic chauvinism, a ruthless spying network worse than the NKVD (the former KGB) under the hated Lavrenty Beria during the Stalin terror years and a Mafia-like criminal conspiracy. And this group has now become the darling of the Washington hawks and their TPLF collaborators hiding behind the smokescreen of international NGOs who are as always ready to do the job of destabilizing Ethiopia on their part.
As much as America wants to be the dominant power in the Horn of Africa, TPLF also dreams of a return to power to reclaim Ethiopian politics. This is of course a dream only someone in an asylum for the mentally deranged would entertain. This kind of mentality is worthy of only people victimized by what psychiatrists call a state of catatonic stupor.
Surviving on borrowed time
The TPLF has completely lost its political credibility or relevance to Ethiopian politics as it has totally squandered its political capital. Its final resting place is in the dustbin of history. It is now like a patient in intensive care unit whose life is sustained with the dwindling amount of political oxygen Washington and the West are providing it with. TPLF’s 30-year reign of terror is fresh in the minds of the people of Ethiopia like the memories of Khmer Rouge barbarism in Cambodia back in the 1970s are stuck in the collective conscience of Cambodians.
This is exactly what the TPLF is doing in the case of Ethiopia since it lost its domination. It is trying to stage a comeback or turn the country into a Libyan-style chaos with the help of the Americans. TPLF’s newest lie is that it is fighting for federalism, confederacy or such hotchpotch. This is total sham to hide its real motives. Some of its leaders are acting as if they were invited to Addis to take over power, oblivious of the monumental political atrocities and looting they committed while they were in power. This would be an insult to the conscience of Ethiopians who patience and tolerance of oppression, lies and deception has already gone past breaking point.
TPLF seems to be pushing a dual strategy of trying to come back to power if possible, which is really crazy as an idea, or forcing Ethiopia into becoming a failed state in order to fish in troubled waters which is also a dangerous gamble to say the least. In other words, this is also a prospect worthy of lunatics. Smart as it always considers itself, the TPLF expects to be paid lavish ransoms for holding Ethiopia hostage to covert foreign intervention. This is only another road to its inevitable political suicide.
The TPLF committed the first suicide when it refused to go along with the reforms and stay in the corridors of power. By alienating itself from the process that had enjoy the support of the majority of the Ethiopian people, it has forced itself into the path of
BY MULUGETA GUDETA
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD DECEMBER 10/2021
