To all our Readers!

(Aigaforum June 24, 2007)-Many of you have asked us to remain positive about the potential release of jailed leaders. Some of you have asked us not to call the leaders convicted leaders and some of you are wondering if the government is interfering in the judicial process. There were also several other questions we received and we hope in due time the answers will be coming. Certainly we suspect Prof Efrem after exhausting all venues will take his proposal to the government to ask a pardon for those who have signed the letter. Our hope is all of the jailed leaders will sign the letter and the government using its constitutional power will find ways to pardon them. Having said that here is what we think about the whole process.

Aigaforum does not believe in vendetta politics. It does not believe holding these leaders in jail for long once they admit guilt and ask forgiveness. Ethiopia has seen so much vendetta politics in its long history and though many of you will get mad at us for saying this we will say it! What Ethiopia is today is an outcome of its history of yesterday! We think it is time to say enough is enough for such politics. For bad or worse the world community has labeled kinijit leaders political prisoners. Though the temptation is to keep them in jail and have them serve their sentence, we think the country can benefit if it gives them a second chance to repay the society. We know they have done many wrongs and have been the cause for the bad image our country is facing today. But in the word of one Aiga reader let bygones be bygones.

We are forced to write this short commentary because we were taken back by emails we received. Some of you may have misunderstood the reason we were posting an update on the process. We started updating the news once the extreme Diasporas started manipulating the “shimglena” news once Ethiopiafirst.com broke it. All along we have told you our dear readers we have made a solemn to fight head on the extremist among us. We have hurt our country and community here by letting the few extremists to run over the Diaspora community. We cannot let them continue doing that any more!

The government did not initiate this shimglena and has not even said a word if they will ever sign to the agreement! Get this right, so far all the shimglena is on the prisoner’s side. Prof Efrem will only take an agreed pardon letter to the government once he is satisfied he has done enough. There are many good Ethiopians working with him and we all should be proud what they are doing. It is not Aigaforum that broke the story and it is not Aigaforum that spin the news. What Aigaforum did was to make sure the public has the record straight.

From what we are hearing the engineer after huffing and puffing for days he may be ready to accept. If and when that happens we are sure the letter will be heading to the government. We hope the government of PM Meles will find a legal means to ask the court to lighten their sentence so these people are set free. What we want to caution our readers is, do not expect the PM to short cut his government by violating the constitution! The jailed leader fate is in the court and not in Minilk palace. What many are saying and we hope it is true is the Ethiopian constitution allows the PM government to pardon any one or through its prosecutors to ask for leniency in sentencing. Let us hope and keep hope alive a better Ethiopia awaits us tomorrow.