Commentary

I read the following article on BBC News by Elizabeth Blunt “Key leaders absent in Ethiopia polls” Mon, 03 Mar 2008

Is Elizabeth Blunt in Addis Ababa and the “key leaders” in America that she can’t conduct a one on one or group interview in these day and age of countless ways of communication? Did she instead have to interview Desalegn Rahmato? Your guess to the answer on these key concerns are as good as mine. If Elizabeth really wanted to address the issue of political participation by the key leaders in the coming election, she should have made every effort to contact Dr. Berhanu Nega and Eng. Hailu Shawel. Rather than interview these individuals who live in a dream of assumption, she lists her assumptions that don’t make sense as far as I am concerned. Let’s take a look at these assumptions one at a time:

"Perhaps they feel they no longer have the momentum and excitement that they felt in the 2005 elections. That momentum is lost now,"

Well may be. But the momentum is lost because of what Mr. Rahmato?

Ø Would you say their un reconcilable differences between the Berahnu's group and the Hailu’s group is exposed more now than before?

Ø Would you say it is because what happened with the MONEY that was collected?

Ø Would you say they mislead their followers and the followers pursued other political parties?

Ø Would you say there are four or five groups with the same name CUD and the followers got confused?

Ø Or would you say the key leaders wanted to pursue other carrier path than going back and galvanizing their base for the coming election.

Political analyst Desalegn Rahmato points out that although the government said publicly that those released from prison had had their full civic rights restored, there may have been conditions in the agreement which secured their release which were never made public.

Ø If that is the case, then, why were they traveling from one state to another and giving speeches and collecting MONEY for their upcoming election? What other conditions would there be in the agreement to secure their release more than the damage they have done here in the US by testifying in front of US Congress against the Ethiopian government.

Also, he said, the former prisoners, as individuals, "might be feeling a bit disorientated after two years in jail".

Ø The question is how can they be disoriented after two years in jail? If they had a clear mission and focused objectives to represent their constituents, they should have used the time in jail to organize and plan for your next election instead of abandoning the constituents and come to America and take up other career projects.

Who knows? The article by Blunt doesn’t warrant reading but prompt you to ask a question, why write an article that needs an answer from the players than the observers.

Au Twothousend

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/7256370.stm