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Dear Aiga, I appreciate your effort for giving us a chance to discuss the most important issue of our country. I used to say that Ethiopians should not pay more lives and a drop of blood to make an End to Shaebia-the source of all evils in the region. It is Eritrean's responsibility to fight with it. we do not have to fight their fight even though it is also our concern. But now I do not think this argument or logic works any more. There is only one threat of our peace and stability and that is Shaebia, which is practically on war against Ethiopia since 1998.From Badme to Ras Komboni. The logic our government used with the Islamist extremists should work in Asmera. It is more relevant out there than any other. Unless our government wants to commit another more failure, the Algiers agreement (cease fire and so...so...)is not existing any more. Shaebia has violated it repeatedly and I thank the mad Dog for it. The very action to accept the non-existing Ethio-Italian treaty was a huge failure. My people, I do not have any problem with the independence of Eritrea but we need to have a fair and peace loving neighbour. It is time for Ethiopia to deal with it now and should not wast time. Ethiopia should not give shaebia more chance to put a bomb in our towns. Eritrea is turned to terrorits training camp and breeding center of all evils in an intention to destroy Ethiopia. Therefore I do not see any reason to wast time to undue the situation. We have repeatedly witnessed that peace can not come only from one side. All arguments given by our brothers previously and now why we have to take action against shaebia is enough and are true. I thank you G.Selassie Selam Aiga-Forum, I am an Eritrean living in the US and if my comments does not agree with your point of view concerning the issue you have raised, you just can delete this message. I am dismayed to see on your "have your say" column the following “So we ask you our readers to write us why you think the Ethiopian government should or should not deal with Shaibya the way it did with UIC” I would like to thank my Eritrean brothers for making the point very clear. All I can add is Eritrea ’s Political problem is only Issyas Afewerki and his close circles. As one of my Eritrean brother/sister commented here in this message board, all PMZZ has to do is allow demarcation to go on. If PMMZ does that I am 100% sure that will be the end of PIA. However if PMZZ tries to do the same what he did in Somalia, all I can say is that the PM is doing a huge miscalculation just like his Cousin PIA. Thank you PS: we both have(on the Eritrean and Ethiopian side) ultra haters. Let us not listen to this extremists. Hitting drums of war from overseas is just selfishness!! When i comment as an Eritrean and peace lover, if you dissatisfied with my comment yo can delete it. I am totaly against the topic that you have raised. We all know what problems we have in our country. And when you are making war propaganda, the only think I can say is that you are not living in Tigray. Because the people of tigray and eritrea knows what war means. Hitting a war drum from overseas is just selfishness. As you have said the prime minister said "if we can buy a minute of peace even though Shaibya is making it hard to find a minute of peace in the horn he would gladly buy that minute". When he said this, it isnot just for the sake of diplomacy or what. He knows what can happen if war ignited between Eritrea and Ethiopia. Dont be too silly, the Eritrean opposition will also be on the ethiopian side. I can assure that will never happen. So no solution will come from war. If war is ignited both governments will live more by confusing their people at the pretext of war. Sirak Dear Aigas, I am Eritrean and if you find that I am not eligible to give comments concerning the issue you have raised, you just can delete this message. But I felt compelled to share my own perception of the situation with your readers. Have you ever asked to yourselves why Eritreans are so passive in engaging anti-Shabya political manoeuvres? Do you think Eritreans overlook the issue of democracy and peace in Eritrea? There is no Constitution in Eritrea, needless to say. General elections are postponed indefinitely. There is no free-press in whatsoever level in Eritrea. 100s of thousands of youngsters are rotting in war trenches. Parents are either detained or asked to pay 50,000 nakfa for a missing son. Do you think we are happy with this government? The only reason why we are not engaged actively in opposing this lawless regime is that it cleverly managed to justify all this abuses by the absence of demarcation of the Ethio-Eritrea border. I say the only way to defeat Isseyas and his juntas is by allowing demarcation to commence. I remember Isseyas said recently, while in Djibouti, that the country has no border problems with Ethiopia. When we Eritreans heard this, we have started to question that if we have no problem in the border so why on hell is he oppressing the people. But, soon the Eritrean media outlets began to “clarify” what he meant when he said that we had no border issues with Ethiopia. The point I am trying to make is, Meles should accept demarcating the border. That is the only, but surest, way to defeat Isseyas. That move would explode the people’s silence so far. Ethiopia does not need to fire even a single bullet. I suppose you would agree with me that Eritreans are capable of taking care of their domestic disturbances. The stats-quo will only encourage Isseyas to continue being a cancer to his own people, to Ethiopia and to the entire region. If you want to help curing that cancer, let’s demarcate the border first. another peace hungry Eritrean, Take care. Dear Aiga Editor, You deserve appluase for this superb job. I hope our leeaders are measuring the temperature of their people reagarding the rogue state in the north. This public attitude has been consistent since day one of EPRDF's policy regarding Eriteria and I believe it is worth feeling. There is no reason left for our prime minister to defend dealing with shaibia. The reason he has been mentioning " we can't afford war" has been wronged by chain of provocations and wars of the jungle state. Now our prime minister is trying to hinge on the idea that " as long as they don't distract us from doing development" is subject to debate. It is difficult to see a conclusive victory against poverty in the presence of an animous and insane government that acts devilishly against us. Development needs a sane mind totaly devoted to development. A half minded person can only half bake his/her cake. Hence it is time to strategize for a conclusive victory on peace, security and poverty in the region and Ethiopia's access to the sea. No sane Ethiopian mind can understand our stand over the port. Many people all over the world and many states ironically belive that the recent wars we had with eriteria and somalia are related to access to the sea. And they mention that they understand our intentions. Paradoxically our government doesn't understand why we shouldn't fight for the sea out let. The only thing I understand our policy regarding Eriteria is " containment policy for a limited time ". I support this policy for two reasons: a) The eriterians should fully understand their government's actions and should embrace Ethiopia's future action like the Somali's did and b) Eriterians should learn doing their lanudry by themselves. We don't have to pay our beloved young men to solve Eriterian problems as long as it doesn't bring significant economic and political importance for us. The Eriterians have began to realize their shattered over ambitions, but they are not still bold enough to take action. It seems they expect Ethiopia to do the job for them. I guess this is not acceptable. Hence I support our prime minister' policy of containment in this reagrd. But the what worries me is the fact that eriteria could continue to be supported by Arabs to destablize Ethiopia, and the political wind at the white house can not be predictable. Hence it is time to make a wise decision by our primer to make his developemnt and peace legacy in Ethiopia lasting. I hope and pray that he will work to make us remeber him in grace for ever. I am confident many sane minded Ethiopians recognise his economic achievement in that country. Weldegerima Dear Aigaforum, Thanks for your efforts. Hope you can do more! To wish and work for the downfall of Shabiya may be one thing – to project and determine what would likely become of Eritrea ’s political landscape in the post-Shabiya situation is quite another. We need to ask few questions in this regard: Who are the potential significant power brokers in the Eritrean political landscape at the moment? Who would most likely take charge of Eritrea if Shabiya were to be weakened and ultimately removed? How would the balance of power be tilted in such an uncertain configuration also linking it with the broader global and regional interests? In particular, how would it affect the relative power of Eritrean highlanders who dominate in the present constellation of powers vis-à-vis the Eritrean lowlanders? Would Ethiopia be able to influence the outcome and the processes? What is the implication of this for Ethiopia ’s peace, stability and development? Looking at all these, perhaps a reformed Shabiya (notably minus Isayas Afeworki) might be a preferred option. As they say, ‘don’t throw your dirty water until you get a fresh one’. Perhaps this may help explain the current tolerance of the Ethiopian government in the face of unremitting provocations by the Eritrean government. Who knows, it may as well be taking account of the interest of those who are presently dominant in Eritrea ’s politics that Ethiopia ’s current leaders are quite troubled to knock Shaibya off balance, and instead chose to maintain the status quo, despite the enormous and growing costs as well as mounting public outcry over how the matter has been handled. TT Dear Aiga, Thank you for the very good job you have been doing defending the truth.
You will be remembered for standing up to the truth in a very turbulent
period of our history. First let me share my concern with having a public
debate on a very sensitive issue like marching to war. Remember the CUD
leaders?, they asked weather to join the parliament or not the very own
people who they were supposed to lead. I strongly believe that public
debate gave the I have read all the comments. I understand the frustration but I respectfully disagree with most of them. Let me put my points in perspective. I understand that Shabia is doing everything under the sky and working overtime to destroy our government but to no avail. Pre May 2005 election the no-war no-peace situation worked perfectly to confine Shabia in its cage and Shabia didn't have any option but die a slow death. However the May 2005 election brought multiples of variables with it that gave Shabia a breathing room. Here we have to be honest with ourselves and face reality. Shabia is just fishing from the troubled water. We have to admit that Shabia is not lone in doing all this. Yes, Shabia has partners in our own backyard. I think we have to stop blaming everything on Shabia and admit the sad truth. Do we forget the people who said "Ika wede kebele Tegre wede Mekele"? Do we forget " We will send them back to wherever they come from"? Do we forget the orchestrated campaign to isolate Tigrians during the election? "Buna enkuan endatetetu"? Do we forget all the ethnic slurs and hatful messages from CUD hooligans? I for one heard with my ears Ato Hailu Shawel on the aftermaths of the June street violence on his parties internet radio (I think it was on AEUP web-site) saying the government was intentionally killing non-Tigrians. How come one identifies the ethnic identity of a person in the middle of a violence? Imagine what kind of message that sends to the public. If that is not inciting hatred, I don't know what it is. We may forgive, but we will never forget. I don't think Shabia is pointing a gun at treasonous CUD extremists who
are flocking to Asmara to visit Eppf (armed wing of extremist CUD). If
you visit one of paltalk rooms, you will see it for yourself the level
of hate The other variable I want to mention is that we have to make it clear
that we don't need an inch of Eritrean land. Mind you paranoid Isayas
is using "they are going to invade us" card in Eritrea to persuade
the public. Talking bout Assab will only push fair minded and anti-Isaias
Eritreans towards Shabia camp. Isaias is using the "Demarcation first
" card to burry The last point I want to make is that the pressure we are exerting on our government to wage war on Shabia might bring an unwanted adverse result which is division within the party. Remember 2001? We can not afford that at this critical time. I agree with our prime minister. I have of the opinion that as long as
we get assurance from the international community that Shabia behaves
like a normal government and evicts all anti-Ethiopia elements from its
land, and all the issues concerning the people at the boarder are solved,
demarcate it and we can live with it. After all we are destined to be
neighbors if we can Thanks Daniel Gebrekidane I am in agreement with the Prime Minister's approach. In fact, in complete agreement. First, the happy trigger, shoot first and ask later mentality, is I believe within the psyche of most Ethiopians. Zerafe Zerafe belewe gidelewe meneabatu yehonale mentality, is dare I say, in almost all of us. Where has that taken us? To a place of misery and death. The time is for peaceful coexistence and concentrated effort towards the alleviation of poverty. Yes, I , like the Prime Minister, will pay for a minute of peace. That should be the core that defines us. Such an approach has advantages. First, it maximizes the possibility of peace. Secondly, it also recognizes the reality of War. Accordingly, when all peaceful measures, when all peaceful overtures, when all calls for dialogue fails, and war is declared, this approach executes war in the most clear manner. Clear in the necessity of war. Clear in the necessity of complete victory. Alas, Islamic Court Union. I urge all Ethiopians to push further towards incorporating a core grounded in Peace. We become stronger. Especially when we know we have to fight. Ask the ICU. Peace and Love, Mike. |