We will buy our peace by the minute!

(Aigaforum, Jan 24, 2007)

PM Meles during his regular local press briefing went deep soul searching to explain his government patience with Shaibya.

Meles realizing the public sentiment is slowly turning against any more baby-sitting the Shaibya government went deep soul searching to answer a question by one journalist as to how long will his government tolerate Shaibya.

The primer 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. He said the alternate to his government policy on Eritrea today is to declare war on the bases of shaibya’s continuous provocation. The premier agreed Shaibya has been doing all it can to derail Ethiopia’s peace and there are enough reason to declare war if one has the means to wage war. However he told journalist, due to his experience with war he is of the opinion that Ethiopia should not jump to war with Shaibya’s indirect provocations.

However said the primer if Shaibya directly attempts to invade our country we will make sure the war will be the last war we will have with Shaibya.

The prime minister also said Ethiopia was not relying on the UN peace force to keep the peace along the northern frontier. While clearly showing his displeasure with the recent UN decision to cut the active peacekeeping force deployed along the Ethiopian-Eritrean border, he said Ethiopia has never been complacent on building her defense force based on the assumption of the presence of the UN force. Meles said Shaibya would invade Ethiopia any time it feels it has the means to do so. His government job is to make sure Shaibay never think it will get away with starting another war.

Ethiopians if they can use the relative peacetime to build their economy they have now a government that is not quick to pull the trigger to help them. It is amazing the current Ethiopian government is not exploiting the overwhelming public support to do away with Shaibya once and for all. Indeed Ethiopia at the moment is writing a very notable chapter of its history. A history that dates back thousands of years.

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