A perfect enemy rules in Ethiopia

September 5, 2005

Meles during an interview with a French journalist in Paris (Photo: Les nouvelles d'Addis)

In the mid-'90s, Meles Zenawi and Isaias Afwerki wanted someone who can sell their good image to the Arab world. They found Eritrean journalist Mohamed Taha Tewekel as the perfect candidate.

According to a report which once appeared on the Eritrean opposition Awate.com,¹ Tewekel admitted he had a budget of about $2 million to run an Arabic newspaper from London. The budget was shared equally between Eritrea and Ethiopia (although Eritrea's money was taken from Ethiopian banks). A few years later, Eritrea and Ethiopia went to war. Mr. Tewekel trusted Meles over Isaias, and retreated to Addis, where he subsequently launched a research center, and lives there to this very day.

The irony is that there were Ethiopian journalists working for the state-owned Al Alem, a weekly Arabic-language newspaper. Why did then Meles fail to pick up one from amongst them? I think it was a matter of trust - even though Tewekel's exposure to the Arab world couldn't be underestimated.

Eritrean Kostentinos G. Egziabher is a private advisor to the UN on Ethiopian affairs. His office in Addis wins occasional contracts from the government. It is not that Meles knows no qualified Ethiopians who can represent Ethiopia at the UN. It is only a mattter of trust: Eritreans and Meles have identical policies on Ethiopia.

When Meles Zenawi's political death looked inevitable last May, that was when the opposition CUD and UEDF swept most parliamentary seats, including in the all-important Addis Ababa, Amhara and Oromia regions, and Meles lost his key men, including second-in-command Bereket Simon, a political earthquake struck Eritrea, and the epicenter was in Asmara.

The question was "would really Meles abandon his Eritrean cause, and hand over power to Ethiopians?" The political tremors were strong across the Eritrean Diaspora. The June 8th killings in Addis, however, assured Eritreans that their man would never abandon his role as "guardian of the Red Sea."

While visiting Paris in April, a French journalist, Alain Leterrier, who interviewed Meles in 1998, 1999, 2003, and this year in April 2005, asked Meles how come he was visiting Paris during a hectic pre-election time in Ethiopia.

The journalist was wondering if Meles Zenawi would stay long in power, and asked him diplomatically: "Will we have a fifth interview in Les nouvelles d'Addis?" To which Meles answers, "Of course, not only for the fifth time but also for the sixth, and..." assuring the journalist (and us indirectly) that Ethiopia would see - despite the "free and fair" elections - no other "leader" as long as Mr. Zenawi is alive.

When Meles Zenawi's envoy to Tigrai region, Tsegai Berhe, visited Washington, DC recently, his dinner party was graced with the presence of a good number of Eritreans. It was solidarity in action.

At a recent Eritrean festival in the German town of Kassel, where thousands of Eritreans live, the guest of honor was Hiruy Amanuel, an Ethiopian-born Eritrean appointed as Meles Zenawi's Ambassador to Germany.

You remember when Meles Zenawi hit the chord with Tina Turner, and played What has love got to do with it? Yes, right there. What has an "Ethiopian ambassador" got to do with an Eritrean festival?

If the Norwegian Yara Foundation based its report on deceptive “economic growth” reports witnessed during Meles Zenawi’s 14-year-old reign, there shouldn’t be any surprise as Meles Zenawi’s top economist is also Eritrean Neway Gebre-Ab, who has a ministerial portfolio, and hence boss of the so-called “Ethiopian Agricultural Research Organization (EARO), a “think-tank” which Norwegian groups found out recently that the group under Neway Gebre-Ab which has been feeding the World Bank and IMF with documents of fictitious “8 percent annual growth reports” in Ethiopia.

This appointment is like Eritrean tyrant Isaias Afwerki having Ethiopia’s noted economist Dr. Befekadu Degfie as his economic advisor; something unthinkable in Eritrea but a reality in Ethiopia.

(FYI: Neway Gebre-Ab is the older brother of former Ethiopian Press Enterprises manager Tesfaye Gebre-Ab, an EPRDF official who was in charge of all state-owned publications like Addis Zemen, Ethiopian Herald, the Oromo-language Berisso, the Arabic Al-Alam, and many more quarterlies entirely under the control of Bereket Simon. Tesfaye was also author of the Terarawochin YanKetekete Twild, a book which talks about TPLF military achievements the credit of which finally flows like a river toward Asmara's EPLF. After he quit Ethiopian Press Enterprises, Tesfaye was “laid off” by EPRDF, and started as executive manager of Efoyta, an Amharic magazine which entered the Ethiopian market in the mid-‘90s under the cover of “private ownership.” Actually Efoyta, whose editor was also Ethiopian-born Eritrean Arefayne Hagos, was enjoying enough government budget. Tesfaye fled Ethiopia in 2001 during the TPLF split, when Meles was as vulnerable as a trapped mouse then-powerful TPLF officials accused the prime minister of being an Eritrean mercenary. Tesfaye convinced himself there was no way Meles would survive the TPLF threat, and fled to Kenya. He was wrong: Meles took swift actions against TPLF dissidents who were later purged and imprisoned. But Tesfaye had no regrets as he had already bagged a public fund amounting to half a million Birr. On top of that, his older brother, Neway Gebre-Ab, is still the top official who has the strongest say on Ethiopia’s national economic policies, which last week bore the fruit we now know as the $200,000 Yara Prize).

Eritreans come and go in key Ethiopian political life. One such Eritrean activist was Yemane Jamaica, who joined TPLF from inception, and finally in 2000, headed the Ethiopian delegation to The Hague. Documents and maps were passed to the other side, even showing the flashpoint of the two-year-old War, Badme, being in Eritrea. Yemane felt "Mission Accomplished," and with wife and family in London, he basks in the after-glow of an affluent life extended into retirement years. His wealth was accumulated over "years of service to Ethiopia." Yemane has no regrets as Eritrea hasn't run out of her children who play the game pretty well in the Ethiopian power house.

Ethiopia has now entered a new chapter, a chapter by the rule of the gun. Ethiopia pins its hopes of survival only and only on the united action of its children - and no room for political squabbling should be left between Dr. Merera Gudina's UEDF and Engineer Hailu Shawel's CUD. Now, it is not a matter of democracy; it is a matter of rescuing the nation from a direct plunge into what some observers say: "A Military Rule by a Perfect Enemy."

¹. Mohamed T. Tewekel (Awate.com)