About three days before I wrote this piece, a friend of mine called and drew my attention to the open letter. My first reaction was an obvious sense of déjà vu. I have this sense of tedious familiarity to papers like this not simply because I know Dr. Tekeda is employed and paid by the TPLF regime for writing speeches and spins like this but mainly because I consider, at times like this, such spasms common from people who are in the belly of a tyrant regime.

I still was able to spare some curiosity to what the errand could have brought this time around by way of reaction to Prof. Clapham. Before I read the open letter I never had the intention to write a comment on a speech written by Tekeda until I have finished reading it.

On many occasions in the past, I resisted both my own urge and strong suggestions from colleagues to write on what Dr. Tekeda did and is doing to the Ministry and its staff.

Neither at indoor discussions, nor in articles addressed to a wider audience had I thought important to dwell on individuals and administrative issues however pathetic they may be. My self-imposed ethics didn’t allow me to waste time on naming names. I have two simple and obvious reasons.1) I believe the problem in our country is in the system established by TPLF and hence the need to focus on the bigger picture, and 2) I consider people like Dr Tekeda as victims of the system not victimizers.

Moreover, it is not uncommon to encounter some people who, with a seemingly nonchalant fashion, are in the habit of complaining about specific administrative problems and pointing fingers on their immediate bosses. (The king good, his entourage bad; Mengistu angel, his generals evil; Meles bright, his ministers and cadres idiot). I have sympathy to those who believe that, in fact it is the other way round.

Accordingly, it was not my intention to write a piece in which the focus would be any individual or Dr. Tekeda Alemu himself.

This idea came to my mind only after having red the open letter addressed to Prof.Clapham. Dr. Tekeda’s letter focused mainly on the credibility of Prof. Clapham than any objective analysis of the situation on the ground to refute what Prof. Clapham asserted to be the real picture in the country. Dr Tekeda seems to apply such Victorian standards as consistency, credibility, intellectual honesty, etc, to judge Prof.Clapham’s views .The Vice Minister applies these tests to judge the Professor based on a claim that he knew the Professor and his views from a previous contribution pertaining to the political situation in the country.

It could not have been easy for me to enter into a dialogue between a distinguished academic, on the one hand, and a TPLF official who has established a niche in writing speeches and commissioned papers like this over a long period of time.

Dear Dr. Tekeda,

I am writing this piece not because I have a concern that the content of your letter could have the potential of misleading any one, but I felt it important to remind yourself that you have applied standards of professional and academic behavior in the face of which you have no chance to stand.

When I read your letter, which is riddled with fallacies and lies and pretentious claims, those standards of consistency in one’s position, credibility and intellectual honesty invoked by you against Prof. Clapham, I saw immediately and vividly Dr. Tekeda, a straw man who could easily be knocked down if weighed against such standards. Knowing Dr. Tekeda over the last 12 years, I and my colleagues felt that our new found freedom would have be meaningless if we let such a letter get away with its pretentious contents.

I read your letter a number of times, on the lines and in between them. I could not see though any inconsistency between what the Professor wrote in 2004 and his recent contribution, even taking your quotes and allegations at face value, which can put his credibility or intellectual honesty in question. Even if there seems to exist some degree of difference or a shift of emphasis between the two contributions from the Professor, I know of no code that binds intellectuals from reevaluating their earlier assessments, revisiting the scenarios they set, examining their subject from a different angle, or even be more explicit and less diplomatic in light of a new development in socio-political issues.

Even if there exists apparent inconsistency between his views held in 2004 and a year after, it is not uncommon for any observer, to expand on and even change one’s view of a subject in light of developments and more insight about a phenomenon. Even if Dr. Tekeda’s observation of the Professor’s view is found to be sound, one wouldn’t be surprised if the professor’s assessment of the political situation in Ethiopia undergoes various phases: from that of hopes, doubts, disillusionment to that of total dismay given the deceptive and chameleonic trait of the TPLF, especially for external observers. We Ethiopians know that the TPLF has a proven gift to display double, triple, quadruple, multiple faces. The ring knows how it should be perceived by what kind of foreign observers. Professor Clapham is not merely a renowned scholar, distinguished researcher and respected Ethiopianist but also ordinary mortal, susceptible to impressions and optimistic on promises.

I am not oblivious of the fact that I lack the intellectual might to explain, let alone defend, the Professor. Nevertheless, as a former “inmate” in the diplomatic service of the TPLF regime, I have the necessary experience to understand what freedom, freedom to be oneself and be able to express one’s views. On the other hand, Dr. Tekeda has the academic and the technical skill to write spins elegantly, if not persuasively, but can’t come no where near us when it comes to understanding what freedom from that kind of regime means and feels.

Dear Dr. Tekeda, what I am trying to say is that intellectuality means freedom, a freedom to hold any view, freedom to support or criticize with out fear of the consequences. Professor Clapham is not a zombie whose breath or very existence is from the witchcraft of a ruling click he serves. Professor Clapham’s job security is not a magic word away, a magic word from a TPLF cadre to your benefactors who possess the power to undo all the credit points you thought have amassed over 14 years, all with a click of an intercom button.

People like Professor Clapham have the freedom that Dr. Tekeda could not make head and tail of. They have the freedom to speak for or against any regime. That is also, what intellectual integrity demands from them; to observe a situation as it is today and now, not through the prism of a single dogma. Such intellectuals are different from paid advertisers and make up artists who embellish any image or speak well of whom is their highest bidder. Such intellectuals are not in a fixed or permanent seat in the gallery, which is the situation of those who are captives of a totalitarian regime. Intellectuals change seats, choose between different vantage points, and observe from a different angle.

Neutral observers are different from paid advertisers like Mr. Paul Henazi, nor captive balloons like Dr. Tekeda, that they do not see situations in black and white. They are brightly sighted people to see the various shades that are inherent in any socio-political phenomenon. That is why I am sure that observations by Professor Clapham are susceptible to misunderstanding by readers like Dr. Tekeda, whose standards of intellectual honesty are confused with the dogma taken from the day to day alma matter, that of Seyoum’s Board of Directors.

Dr. Tekeda employs a creative tool of analysis, dissecting the Professor into Clapham I and II.What I found unintellectual here is that, having discovered two Claphams, Dr. Tekeda believes that Clapham I is honest, balanced and intellectual while Clapham II is the antithesis. Dr. Tekeda have no problem with any one who speaks well of the TPLF group but have an issue with any one who debase his deities. To that extent, I understand Dr.Tekeda. But I cannot understand how naturally and logically the same person could be intellectually honest and intellectually dishonest at the same time. I understand the duty of a loyal servant to be the Devil’s advocate, but I fail to understand for an academic and professional writer like Dr. Tekeda do base his advocacy on such a clear fallacy and a feeble logic.

We know that Dr. Tekeda could write masterpiece speeches. Nevertheless, if a piece of writing is addressed not only to people confined in a meeting hall, but also to a larger audience in the cyber auditorium, one’s writing need be not only elegant but also sound.

In fact, we are used to the TPLF propaganda, which invariably resorts to some earlier credits or report cards to defend itself, as it does not have anything to show off on the ground. Accordingly, we know that this “look what Mr. X, Y, and Z have said of me last time ”is a typical TPLF argument. This may not be rated as poor argument given the educational background of many of its cadres and Ministers, who either have non or got their diplomas through a day release scheme and public funds. On the other hand, we know that a regime employs spin-doctors expecting them to compose better, creative and smarter arguments. Nevertheless, what the Open Letter from Dr. Tekeda did is just echoing the same argument that “you gave me good marks last time, then you can’t be honest if you give me less mark this time round”.

Such an argument is a childish argument, to say the least. If my memory serves me well, philosophy teachers call this type of fallacy an “appeal to the opponent”. This kind of fallacy is developed from a situation in which we accept and adopt an opinion that is favorable to us and trust only those observers with positive opinion about us. Any child, for example, instinctively understands the wisdom of adopting or believing in the positive remarks from his or her parents.” I cannot be naughty because last time you said I am gentle … ”is, therefore, a common line of reasoning by children.

Dr Tekeda calls the professor’s views “sloppy and utterly un acadamic”. On the other hand, reading your letter word for word, I was not able to find any trace of academic content where you tried to go an inch beyond the rag tag arguments we know from TPLF cadres and repeating same like a mockingbird. D r. Tekeda, for the life of you, is it academic and a well thought argument trying to justify a regime’s continued cling to power simply because you think the TPLF ring fought for years to oust previous regimes? Is it academic or scientific to curse opposition leaders simply because they were not part of the Maoist militia? Are you a good example to your children, students or subordinates when you mimic and promote the view that a group, which once mounted to power through violent means, has better legitimacy than those who dreamt of serving their country through democratic fair play?

Even if one would want to buy your pathetic argument that power belongs to those who took it by force, the TPLF ring was neither the pathfinder nor part of the vanguard patriots who fought both the Imperial and the Dergue regimes. I do not think, Dr Tekeda that, this adventurous group you glamorize were among the whistle blowers or part of that generation of Ethiopians that fought for freedom, justice and the right of nations in our country. Moreover, the dream of that generation, I think, was not to replace hegemony in the name of one community by hegemony in the name of a new one. Without any doubt, the dream of that generation for a nation it perceived of being “a prison of its nations” was not a mere change of the prison guard but the total liberation of its inmates.

Dr Tekeda, you accuse leaders of the opposition as narrow group of people greedy for power. One must be dumb, to use your words, or intellectually hoax to think that it is a crime for opposition groups to want to take government power. Taking government power is the only means to the end of serving one’s country for any well-meaning opposition. But those leaders of the opposition, whose intellectual achievement and distinguished record in public service, dwarfs that of yours must have gone out of their wit to miss the shortest path to power, creeping and crawling through the safest path you followed over the last 14 years. Any one with “mundane greed for power” cannot choose the risky venture of confronting a vampire regime that has no mercy for all those who stand in its way to eternal power.

On an other dimension, I think your letter has tried to cover a new ground, which was normally not with in the jurisdiction of your job description of “mere messenger and speech writer”. (You know these are not my words but are the words of non other than your boss, Seyoum Mesfin). It seems that some liberty has been added to your job description, a liberty to utter few words on the ideological affiliation of the TPLF.Reading the paragraph dealing with Communism, my first concern was that Meles may not be happy with that kind of emphatic denial of his alma matter which is still kept under his sleeve. You may or may not be right when you say that every member of your generation was a Communist. On the other hand, you may be right that the world has changed. Nevertheless, if you are suggesting that Communism is only a logo from which you infer that TPLF is not Marxist because it is not using that logo, then you have not merely a philosophical problem but mainly a medical problem to solve. In deed as the world stands today, Marxism is not marketable and it does not make a good laissez-passer to move around the world especially for regimes totally rejected home and depend on the west not only for funds but also for legitimacy.

However, Marxism is more than a logo. It is a behavior, mentality, a tradition of repression and a trait that is more visible in your day-to-day adventures than your policy documents. It is a smart way of doing business. It is Marxism, Dr. Tekeda that makes you think that a group that fought to oust past regimes should continue to rule. A Communist believes that power is based on a credit account of who did what to oust past regimes. It is the hangover from Communism that makes you that makes you think that those who come as opposition only after the terrain is paved are criminals .You may be right that many of your generation were Marxists as young men and women. That is not the problem Dr. Tekeda. The problem is that mentally and ideologically arrested people like Meles, it seems includes you, do not grow out of that childidhood fantasy. However, you are right, by default that TPLF is not a communist in the sense that it subscribes to no specific ideology. It is ready to espouse any theory that is profitable on the current political stock markets. Its only permanent ideology is that of hatred and bitterness towards certain communities and their leaders in the country.

There is still one more verse that surprised me as I came across it. Some where in the letter you have a paragraph that talks about the sanctity of rules of any game. I cannot agree more when you say that you change neither the rules nor the referee in the middle of the game. When I read this line, my first thought went to the room upstairs from where you are. I could not be sure if this paragraph has secured the blessing of the boss, who is known for his primitively rude comments he right onto the margins of drafts presented to him from subordinates. In any ways, I would like to remind you that the sanctity of rules is a two-edge sword. How do you rate the TPLF government against this principle; a government that disembowels the powers, responsibilities and resources of the Addis City the day after it went to the opposition; a government that issues one of its instant and fast cooked laws to change the rules of the Parliament. Dr. Tekeda, changing the rules in the middle of the game may be a fowl play but it is a luxury compared to a shameless measure of changing the rules at the end of the game, when you realize that you lost it completely. Please! Leave “Rule of Law” alone. It is a different genre of the TPLF drama on which it has other charlatans in the person of Kamal Bedri.

In that same paragraph, you talked about the duty of “teachers” like Prof. Clapham to uphold the rule of law to prevent looting and violence. Dr. Tekeda! Hmmmm… you said so! Is it to avoid looting, to uphold rule of law that children as young as 4 and 10 are killed and maimed? Was it to prevent bank robbery that mother of seven was killed in her cottage? May I continue to remind you all the horrors and stories that we know and still are emerging? I cannot! Because this is too painful, and out of respect to readers. However, I am not surprised to hear this from you. I was in Addis before during and few months after the election. I have several pieces of evidence on how this genocidal adventure was concocted and planned. It was planned partly, not exclusively of course, as a response to the distress call from members of so-called EPRDF and by people in your situation who, prior to the election were so confident of victory by the regime that they were expecting to partake their share of the spoils.

Dear readers, allow me at this stage to briefly turn from that of Dr. Tekeda’s letter to that of Dr. Tekeda himself.

My colleagues and me have known Dr. Tekeda for the last 12-14 years. I know him as a vice Minister and a boss, or grand boss, or even great grand boss to be specific (I mean hierarchically). Dear Dr Tekeda, although I know that you were a lecturer in political science at A.A.U., at some point, and are a competent academic, nonetheless, I leave it to you to ask yourself, given they way you carry your position in the Ministry, if your subordinates could have regarded you as their teacher and mentor, the way you could speak of Prof. Clapham.

Although I can’t claim a privy to your personal, professional and academic life, nonetheless as your subordinate for 12 years I know enough about you to sketch what you look like when you weighed against the standards you applied against Prof. Clapham.

In writing this comment, I do not want to reduce myself to the level of a talebearer by publishing all I know first hand and all that view many of our colleagues held about you. My experience of working with many TPLF cadres whose only skill and preoccupation as diplomats is that of a tale-tale, between embassies and the various TPLF/EPRDF committees, made me more ambivalent against dwelling on individuals, even though I am convinced that they are abusive to employees and chronic obstacles to the development of institutional modus operandi in our country.

However, here I put myself on record, in public for a scrutiny by colleagues who know you, to say that you are far from being regarded as a selfless individual, with a motive to serve your country and your people, a person with right moral standards, with consistency in your supports and alliances, with a courage, gut and mannerism of an educated person let alone intellectual honesty. As far as I know, your badge of honor in the Ministry is that of a person with no ordinary code of etiquette in your treatment of the entire staff of the Ministry.

I know largely what powers you have and what you do not as a vice Minister in the ministry and I have no doubt in my mind that the decision to write a response to Clapham was reached by your superiors. I can even graphically imagine the kind of conversation that could have taken place between you and the boss through that intercom, in connection to which we had several satirical jokes. Like all other speeches you prepare for the bosses, we know the genesis of this piece. I know from the language that the brush stroke and the garnish are from you but the scheme and design was from the patron.

Though I understand that writing a response to the most damaging factual and expert witness as Clapham was an obvious necessity and a command you can’t afford to grumble about, you could have find, given your skills to design a layout of a spin, other yardsticks to challenge Clapham than the yardsticks you dwell on, which neither you nor the TPLF ring-members have a clue as to what they really mean.

Although I am not very knowledgeable on your professional life during the pre-TPLF regime, I know that you served the Dergue regime in the same Ministry. More than what I could imagine what you did and said about the TPLF, at the time it was lurching to power, those friends and colleague of yours who are now in exile, have several more stories to tell about you and your personality than you could tell about Prof. Clapham from a one meeting encounter.

After the Dergue, you were not only retained by the TPLF regime but also accorded the post you hold till this day, not because you were less part of the Dergue regime than many of your colleagues and friends who were summarily fired by the regime. Many colleagues who witnessed events of the time attest that it was because you are second to non-when it comes to the readiness and the quality to please whoever comes to power. I have no doubt in my mind that this is mainly the case because we know that the TPLF officials are talent-spotters par-excellence, when it comes to detecting talents of opportunism and other gifts of yes-men and women.

In my stay in the Ministry, for more than a decade, I remember you, as a boss who is very good at mimicking the curses and insults coined by the Minister against employees of the Ministry. I know you not as a Minister with powers and responsibilities of your own but as helpless individual with no guts even to defend his personal dignity when a TPLF cadre calls you to a room, put one of his foot on the lap of the other, puffed his chest and pushed his shoulders back, tighten his lips, flare his nostrils with contempt, and arrogantly shout at you “didn’t I tell you that it is non of your business to try…” The rest is between God and me. You know what I am talking about as I learned this from the very cadre who did this to you narrating the story with pride.

All said and done, Dr. Tekeda, it is not what Paul Henzi or Prof. Clapham say; it is what the people of Ethiopia say about the whole matter. What did the people say through the May 15 election? I am sure you didn’t step out of your door on that election day except briefly to your Kebele to cast your vote for the TPLF candidate, as per the instruction and because you had to show the indelible ink on your finger to the boss. I for one have been to several poll stations in Addis and rural areas some 100 km from Addis. The language, the aspiration and the hope of the people were the same everywhere.

Dr Tekeda, I am aware of the fact that there are colleagues who know you and the situation in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs much better than I do. I wrote this piece not because I have anything new about this subject but to invite other colleagues with deeper insight about the situation to come forward and share us their view. I also believe that democracy is not solely about democratic laws or democratic politicians. It is equally, if not more, about democratic followers, citizens who are free from inhibition and fear, zealous of their rights and dignity. Having worked for ten years in a setting dominated by TPLF cadres and where all others are dehumanized, I was increasingly convinced that sycophant followers are as equal impediments to democracy as tyrants. One of the most lucrative businesses of the regime and its source of strength has been our resignation, silence and apathy. This has ended for millions of Ethiopians.

I know writing such papers is your occupation. This is not your first piece and you are not the only one. Considering the number of lobbyists, solicitors and advisors the TPLF deploys in Europe and America, you are not even the best spin-doctor the TPLF money can buy. However, you are in a different position than the likes Mr. Paul He-nazi. Every morning and evening you are driving on a road stained by blood, the blood of children the same age as yours. You must have heard of the mass graves orchestrated to disguise the number of people killed. You have all the information about the TPLF “Fatwa” passed against selected opposition leaders well before the June incident and any “violence” used by the regime as a pretext, was started. You know that the massacre and the mass arrest, taking place throughout the country is not about upholding the rule of law. You know that it bears all the hallmarks of an orchestrated genocide. I can tell that you could miss many of the stories. I know that you spend the whole day and a good part of the night, weekdays and weekend in your office. 99% of what you hear is that of Mr. Seyoum’s version. There is no radio, no free press in the country. However, I know that the regime so far has not decided to close the Internet, mainly because it is themselves who have the access. I know you too have the access and can see those graphic and disturbing images of dead children and wailing mothers.

I heard from colleagues that you have two, or three, very young and beautiful children. Imagine, and may God forbid, some of those corpses are of your own children, killed by the forces of any regime, democratic or not. How do you explain that let alone justify it? To try to justify what TPLF forces are doing now in the country, it is not enough to be a member or supporter of this regime, one must also be a cruel person with a sadistic disposition.

Dear Dr. Tekeda, I have a piece of advice for you. By overplaying the script you are assigned by Seyoum, you may think that you won their heart. I assure you, you did not. The more you try to be part of them, the faster they move the goal post away from you. Today, you are defending them for killing children of other parents. Believe me, tomorrow they may kill one of your beautiful children and expect you to officially justify the death of your kid alleging that he was a bank robber, jail breaker and a chauvinist Amhara. Are you ready to provide such justification to those Ambassadors and other diplomats who come to your office, had one of the victims been one of your kids? Even if you do this tomorrow to save your post, your life or the life your other children, the day after tomorrow, they will command you to shoot your other children with your own hand. Unbelievably, that is what this type of cult-like organization calls “commitment”, their test of devotional homage to “Revolutionary Democracy”.

I cannot tell for sure if your commitment to the group could take you that far. However, I can tell you for sure, as to what will happen if not. Serving this kind of regime is like being in the belly of a beast. Sooner or latter, there will come a situation where you cannot meet the conditions presented, and then the fangs of the beast will no doubt turn to you. Haven’t we lost counting the number of members, cadres, ministers, etc. of the group whom once used to swear in the name of the TPLF, and where are they now? Please, you are entitled to any political opinion or support any group including the TPLF, but when it comes to atrocities like this, you have to step out of the belly of the beast and get onto the heart of the people. That is what a person with values of morality, intellectual honesty, exemplary father and teacher, a democrat, and a person who really understands what rule of law means, does under such circumstances.

I continue to believe that people like you are victims under such a system. You are a victim who happened to step onto TPLF’s old trap of staining innocent people with the blood of other innocent people. The people of Ethiopia hold nothing against junior officials like you. My own aspiration for my country is not an improvement in the personnel structure of the regime but liberation of our country from total insanity, which in the first place allows cruel and visionless individuals to come to high public offices.

Workie Briye and Other former diplomats