CUD: STOP YOUR FUTILE PURSUANCE OF A DESTRUCTIVE AGENDA

By Mathza

March 09, 2006

The opposition’s allegation of vote stealing by the incumbent government, resulting in depriving the former’s victory, was used as a pretext for pursuing the CUD destructive agenda of usurping power by all means, including all the June and November disastrous and regrettable incidents. Thanks to EU-EOM Anna Gomez’s bias in favor of the opposition and leaking wrong information which emboldened CUD’s hallucination, the CUD has, apparently, succeeded in hoodwinking a part of the international community. This happened despite the declarations of the African Union and the Carter Center that the incumbent government was the winner of the national and regional elections and the Ambassadors’ donor group had confirmed the EPRDF’s majority in Parliament.

The truth will reveal itself in time and the opposition will be held accountable for the consequences of all their reckless, destructive and endless utterances and actions. This is already apparent from the statements made and actions taken by foreign government officials, diplomats and international experts and institutions. The following are examples of their recent statements:

§ Tony Blair, British Prime Minister, in regard to the May election and subsequent events: “(election) most free and fair ever held in the country…the government won the election,… This is not a question of a government stealing an election to try to hang on to power, it is the government reaction to the reaction to the result that we consider — if I may be undiplomatic — to be an overreaction.”

• Jendayi Frazer, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs: “opposition takes stones and pelts the police forces… There are some who are demonstrating to sit in parliament, to create greater democratic space. [There's] others who are demonstrating to overthrow the government… [there's] democrats within the opposition and there are non-democrats within the opposition."
• The Irish Charities In Plea Over State Aid For Ethiopia: “The Ethiopian Government had been hailed for running free and fair multi-party elections.”
• U.S. Government: “It was the only country in the region moving towards democracy.”
• Yasuhisa Shiozaki, Japanese Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs: lauded “the current efforts under way to maintain good governance and democracy in Ethiopia.”
• Renard, Belgian Ambassador to Ethiopia: “the prevalence of a strong administration and a fairly corruption-free environment.”
• Marjata Rasi, Undersecretary of State of Finland's Foreign Ministry, pledged “Ethiopia's cooperation with the EU will be pushed to a higher level” when Finland takes over the presidency of the European Union the coming summer.
• Adam Ereli of the U.S. State Department: “we've seen violent protests by the opposition…some protesters engaged in violence but said the government acted irresponsibly as well.”

The opposition and the Diaspora Ethiopians have wasted and are still wasting so much of their time and resources to deprive Ethiopia from obtaining aid. How much good would have come to the people if such wastage were instead harnessed to help their poor compatriots? Despite their persistent and satanic actions in this regard, no aid has been cut. On the contrary, larger flows of aid continue, some in multiples of previous allocations. In regard to foreign investment, by the admission of a CUD member/supporter, the “overall business investment in the country is skyrocketing.” This is true indeed. Current examples of aid agreements signed between the government and donors include:

• Donald KaberukaM, President of the African Development Bank (ADB): a $64.32 million grant with the former declaring “Ethiopia is remarkably performing in the economic sector… registering a remarkable economic growth in recent years… the cooperation between Ethiopia and the ADB is at [a] "excellent stage."

§ Kuwait: a $46. 7 million to finance two development projects.

Other positive outcomes and indications related to continuing aid and debt cancellation include:

• World Bank: “important progress was achieved in Ethiopia during the past decade.” The Bank and other donors have planned to give Ethiopia some $2.2 billion.
• Gilbert Houngbo, UNDP Africa Regional Director: “UNDP would further strengthen its assistance to Ethiopia in the years ahead.”
• Officials of UN Country Team: up to $1 billion to be made available through the UN Development Assistance Framework (II), Ethiopia being one of seven priority countries selected to prepare a scaled-up investment plan for the Millennium Development Goals.
•  Dionisios Kountoureas, Greek Ambassador to Ethiopia: “his government would scale up humanitarian and development assistance to Ethiopia… top beneficiary country among those developing countries which receive support from Greece.”

• Senator Mantica of Italy: reaffirmed “that his government would intensify development assistance to Ethiopia per the agreement.”
• The Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA): would provide UNICEF with $26.5 million to support Ethiopian children.
• The International Monetary Fund (IMF): cancelled $161 million debt. 

The IMF cancellation of debt is a result of Ethiopia meeting the required IMF conditions. This success has positive implications as the IMF serves as some kind of a credit report clearance agency. It opens the way for other institutions and countries to cancel debt the country owes them. It enhances the possibility for increased assistance, both in grants and loans, as well as the flow of foreign direct investment in the future.

CUD and its cronies use changing strategies to attain their goal. One of the strategies relates to concocting lies, denial and spinning of truths. This is their never-ending occupation. It is hard to find any written and spoken materials emanating from them that are not dotted with any or a combination of lies, spins, fabrications, denials, exaggerations, deceits, understating, vengeance, distortion of facts, etc. The following are among recent examples:        

• Ethiopian Review: “Hailu Shawul lost his eye sight…security forces took CUD chairman Hailu Shawel to a hospital so that Mr Michel (of European Union) cannot see Ato Hailu's health condition...”
• Denial and dismissal of the assessment by the Country Director of the World Bank for Ethiopia and the Sudan that “there has been accelerated development performance in Ethiopia over the past two years while economic growth has been about 10 per cent.”
•  An article titled “LIES LIES LIES” by Abebe Gelaw, December 31, 2005:  “For nearly fifteen years, the government has successfully convinced Western donors to inject nearly $1.8 billion annually… Up to 40 per cent of the national budget… comes from external loans and grants.” Similar lies were repeated by A. Mesfin in Ethiomedia.

The last example seems to be among the most recent favorites and therefore deserves some refutation here. Except for the last two years when financial inflow (loan and aid) sharply rose to about a billion dollars annually, the flow has been at the level of hundreds of millions of dollars. It was negatively affected during and for a couple of years after the Ethio-Eritrean war. According to information released recently, budgetary support accounted for only 10% of the budget, not 40%. In any case, although a billion dollar may sound enormous to most Ethiopians, except the miniscule so-called “educated” who purposely and unduly exaggerate the magnitude of the inflow, it translates into the lowest per capita aid given to developing countries. This means an Ethiopian benefits much less than his counterpart in other developing countries. This they know very well but do not want people to know. Any person with sane mind can reason that with this level of aid the country cannot be expected to do more than what has been done despite the fact that whatever aid was available was, according to donors, properly used. Now, with the chaotic situation created by the opposition and its cronies, the fast growing assistance which was expected to bring the per capita aid up to a reasonable level may be negatively impacted, at least, in the short-term, although this may not be the case as shown above. Who will continue to suffer? Obviously, the poor, not the Diaspora Ethiopians or the rich who deliberately finance the creation of instability in the country.

Numerous demonstrations, lobbing and begging government officials and members of Congress and parliaments in the US and Europe (including the EU Parliament) as well as international institutions are among the strategies used by the hate mongers to oust the incumbent government. Their satanic tactic is that elimination of assistance will result in the people suffering economically thereby leading the people to rise against the government thus paving the way for them to grab power. What they do not seem to understand, however, is that, at the end of the day and after all is said and done, it is the governments (the executive branches) that directly and indirectly decide measures to be taken. Governments’ decisions are made with first hand knowledge and understanding of the situation in Ethiopia, not on lies and hearsay concocted by the opposition and their supporters and put down the throat of parliamentarians. They are based on facts gathered on the spot and at the right time by their embassies, representatives and other sources. It is unbelievable to hear opposition and their supporters accusing executive officials of donor countries for doing their work. Shame on them for insulting the intelligence and integrity of such officials. 

We have been told many times and for a long time that the TPLF/EPRDF was finished. According to the prophecies of the opposition and their cronies, TPLF/EPRDF should have been out of power a long time ago. They continue to conjure its imminent demise and evaporation from the scene. Yet here is the TPLF/EPRDF doing more than what it has been doing in the past, developing the country. Their’s is a futile exercise. Continuation along the path of CUD, exemplified by the recent arrest of a group linked to CUD with a cache of explosives and weapons ready to unleash their terrors in Addis Ababa, will only fulfill CUD leadership’s prediction of 10,000 to 15,000 deaths, the sacrifice to be made by the poor in order for CUD to snatch power. They are not satisfied that the target still stands at about 9,920 to 14,920. These figures, apparently, do not include the seven security forces killed by the mobs in the 80 dead repeatedly reported by the opposition.

The people are waking up from the evil spell of the chauvinists and facing the harsh reality. They are discovering that they have been misled. Some are openly admitting that they have been hoodwinked by the opposition’s and supporters’ hatred, lies and fabrications. A case in point is Aklilu Abreha, the author of “Gondar Diaspora, it ain’t a sleeping giant no more.” Originally against the incumbent government, Aklilu changed his view of the government after having personally witnessed the reality on the ground, i.e. after visiting Gondar and researching the actual situation there. His three part article could serve as an eye opener for those who are in similar situation he had been in. By the way when a responsible person comes out with a writing based on facts that are not palatable to the chauvinists he/she is labeled a Tigre/Woyane. This is the tag that was glued on the Gondarian Aklilu.

It is time for Ethiopians who have been silent to follow the path of Aklilu and others before him whom I recognized in my last two articles. By their silence they are encouraging CUD’s distorting facts and destructive activities to plunge the country into chaos which could, in the worst case scenario, disintegrate the country. Of course, those who have stake in and benefit from the federal system of government, by far the majority, are not going to accommodate CUD’s back to square one agenda. They will fight back to maintain the system. Recent pronouncements made by ethnic individuals and groups are clear warnings of what could happen. In the very unlikely situation where the CUD will triumph they will definitely continue to fight for secession which will be the end of Ethiopia. What the CUD is doing is instilling doubt about the continuity of the federal system in the minds of the nations and nationalities and hence encouraging them to pursue cessation.

If we love our country, I believe most of us do, let us come out of the closet and say a spade is a spade. Let us say enough is enough. Let us refute every lie, spin, allegation, etc. that is uttered and written by the opposition and their cronies, if and when we are convinced that they deserve to be treated as such. Let us take measures and actions to prevent the disaster that CUD is fomenting. Let us save the country from sliding to a situation which could be worse than what has been happening to Somalia for the last 15 years. If a country like Somalia with basically one ethnic group, speaking one language and practicing one religion can disintegrate into clan warfare for 15 long years, what can one expect in Ethiopia with over 80 ethnic groups, not clans? I end here with the hope that the readers will ponder on this question and start to act before it is too late.