Maaloo maalitu situ bade daa'ima ibidatti naquuf caaraaqxa yaa Marara?Duluma keessa ijoolee ebbisuu otoo qabduu abaaraa jirta waan ta'eef safuu sadaadhu!Ta'uu baanaan ijooleedhuma ati boollatti naquuf deemtu kanatu sitti garagaraatii.

Maaloo maalitu situ bade daa'ima ibidatti naquuf caaraaqxa yaa Marara?Duluma keessa ijoolee ebbisuu otoo qabduu abaaraa jirta waan ta'eef safuu sadaadhu!Ta'uu baanaan ijooleedhuma ati boollatti naquuf deemtu kanatu sitti garagaraatii.

At the risk of spouting one of the old platitudes in Ethiopia, I would like to start by restating that the opposition in the Ethiopian politics today has weakened itself through internal divisions and as the result it has leased unduly long life to the brutal repressive regime of Meles Zenawi. What we all may need to do is stop where we are at, take a deep breathe and admit the obvious fact that the division within the freedom and democracy camp (those who are fighting for freedom, justice and democracy in Ethiopia) has helped Meles and will continue to help him until we stop it. Even with regards to the upcoming sham election, some of us support taking part in it however sham and however stifling and hostile the situation has been made by Meles. Others do support boycotting the sham election whose machinery has been designed and built to produce a predetermined outcome we already know regardless of the desire, will and vote or choice of the Ethiopian people. The majority of the Ethiopian people has been confused by the arguments on both sides of the issue and is mostly watching the unfolding events from the safety of the sidelines. Obviously, the only one who is benefiting from the arguments, counterarguments and the ensuing confusion is Meles and no surprise that Meles and his culprits are spreading the confusion like what a wind does to a wildfire in the deserts of California in the hot summer.

Regarding the arguments for and against participating in the Meles’s sham election, both sides have valid points. However, the most important issue at hand here is not only making good arguments or having valid points but it is also about choosing between two bad choices and making a tough decision. We know the world is not as perfect and fair as each of us wish for. We are living in a real world and we are forced sometimes to settle for choices that we normally would not in a perfect world. Sometimes we have to make tough and uncomfortable decisions. In our lives there is a number of moments when we are compelled to make the best out of the worst circumstances and that is exactly what we are facing today right now and right here. We do not have the luxury of kicking the can down the road. The can has been kicked down the road as far as it can get kicked. Therefore, we have to be honest to ourselves and our country and put the all bad alternatives on the balance and weigh out which one is bad and which one is worse. What are the pros and cons of boycotting or participating in Meles’s sham election? It is also prudent to be mindful that the quality of our decision is determined by the quality of our decision making process. Let us put all the facts on the table, list them all and, assess and analyze each objectively being free of emotions. Based on our measurement results or analysis, we have to make a decision right now and right here with a sound integrity and with no prejudice and bias. We make decisions based on the facts we have right now, reviewing relevant past experiences and with a reasonable speculation of the future. No one expects us to have a prophetic insight into the future.

Once we make a decision we are comfortable with under the given the circumstances, we have to work hard to implement our decision putting the right strategy in place. If our hardwork with a little bit of luck pays off and produces the outcome we desire, we celebrate our success with a bottle of champagne and march forward. If we do not succeed, we learn an honest and frank lesson from our mistake, regroup, revitalize, retool, recalibrate and move on. No worry, whatever the outcome of our action, reaction or inaction is, we will be inundated with praises and critiques sometime in the future for the decisions we make now based on the present facts at hand. There are a lot of people out there who take the vantage of a 20-20 hindsight to blame us for doing or not doing this or that. There will be a lot of patting in the back and/or condemnations and ‘I told you so’ moments. We just have to embrace ourselves for all sorts of reactions and judgments, fair or unfair. But what we must not embrace ourselves for is shying away from our responsibilities and from making decisions fearing future criticisms if our decision fails to produce the desired outcome or if it takes us down the wrong path (Hilm teferto saytegna aytaderim). As FDR once said there is nothing to fear but fear itself.

Here, indecision is not an option. Our action or inaction will help or hurt our cause for freedom, democracy and justice in our country. We all have to refrain from inadvertently lending a helping hand to tyrant Meles by our actions or inactions. If we are not supporting those who are struggling for freedom, democracy and justice in Ethiopia, we must be assured that we are indirectly supporting Meles Zenawi and his terrorism against the Ethiopian people. Our denial of support to the opposition is equivalent to an active support for Meles. Our action or inaction must be weighed in light of its impact on both the opposition and tyrant Meles.

Coming back to the argument on whether or not to participate in the upcoming Meles's sham election, I am for participating because of the simple reason that the alternative is worse. If we analyze with sober mind and without any emotion, our boycotting of the Meles’s sham elections hurts us more than it hurts Meles. For those of us for whom emotion and not reason drives our politics, we may not care about the consequences of such irresponsible actions on our part as long as it stops our heartburn. However, our politics must be driven by sound reasons and not by senseless emotions. Those who advocate for boycotting the election have not yet convinced us of the concrete positive outcomes the boycotting produces for the cause of freedom, democracy and justice in Ethiopia. Nor are they being seen to actively work toward mobilizing the Ethiopian people from near or afar to boycott the Meles’s sham election. Mobilizing the Ethiopian people to boycott the sham elections requires as much effort as the campaign for the election itself, if not more. If need be, we have to go down the road of boycotting not because it is an easy thing to do, but it has to be because we are convinced that it helps our cause even if it is a hard and challenging thing to do.

As mentioned above, the election machinery in today's Ethiopia has been designed and built to ensure the perpetuity of Meles, his family members and members of his small circle in power in Ethiopia for decades and may be centuries to come. Meles’s mind has been obsessed with nothing other than with how to continue to tightly control, maintain and perfect this election machinery of his at all costs. However, if we the people are determined, united and smart, we can use this same machinery to produce an outcome that tallies with the will of the Ethiopian people. This is possible. We have been there, seen and done it. Suffice to mention Meles's last sham election in 2005 in which we totally defeated Meles. Is there any body out there who in his sane mind argues against the fact that, as yet, the most effective challenge and threat to the last 19 years of Meles’s absolute dictatorship was posed at the May 2005 sham election? Meles himself conceded this fact in one of his recent interviews. Dictator Meles used the same election machinery then too. Yet we defeated him in the broad day light.

Yes, we all know that the situation has been made much more difficult and hostile to our freedom and democracy torch bearers back home through the terror perpetuated by Meles and his loyalist thugs. The response to this difficulty and state perpetuated terrorism by Meles, however, is not to throw the towel and abandon the field. Leaving the playing field means making Meles's dream come true and allowing him to jump up and down and roam in the field freely while on the other hand we are putting ourselves out of the game field and hence technically out of the game. This is not the high road any self respecting Ethiopian will take and allow it to happen. It is a defeatist position nobody in his sane mind entertains. We must not allow Meles to push us off the field because we, as Ethiopians, have the right to be on that field. Meles has no right, none whatsoever, to revoke our God given rights as Ethiopians. We must not be easy pushovers and allow a paranoidal dictator to bully us around and deny us our rights. We must find or force our way back to the field even if Meles and his janjawid thuggish militia push us off the field we rightfully belong to. Expecting Meles to play fair of his own volition must be nothing but the height of political naïvety, to say the least.

On the other hand, we must not expect the Western diplomats to pressure Meles to make the playing field of the election level for everybody nor do we have to expect them to play referee. Nor do they have any obligation to put us in the field or protect and defend us in the field. We should not expect the West to fight our fight for us either. That will never happen. The primary responsibility of democratizing our country squarely lies on our shoulder and on no body else’s. The West only act in accordance with what they deem is in their own best interest based on their assessment of the reality on the ground at a given time. They do not have permanent friends or enemies but they do have permanent interests. Whether that is morally right or not or even whether it is in their long term best interest is a different matter. Everybody fends for himself and that is exactly what they are doing and that is exactly what we are supposed to do for ourselves.

If and when the West see enough signs of popular mobilization on our side and when as the result of which they see enough signs of a shift in the balance of power on the ground in the country, they might then be forced to revisit their strategic calculus and recalibrate their policy on Ethiopia accordingly. The facts on the ground and the realpolitik dictate the foreign policy of any country and that includes the West. It does not take to be a rocket scientist to understand that the West always look at the balance of power and that their policies are formulated and calibrated based on their perception of the balance of power in that particular country. So the prerequisite for changing the West’s policy on Ethiopia is changing the balance of power in the country and that is primarily our own responsibility. God also helps those who help themselves. Blaming and cursing the West or occasional demonstrations in front of their foreign offices in their capitals only do not do the job. That is at least what we all must have learned from our own experiences in the last 19 years. We need to do our homework first before we expect any meaningful change of heart and support from the West. There will come a time when they will offer us an unsolicited support once we do and complete our own homework. Until such time, do not expect naively a miracle to happen.

Moreover, doing our homework among others includes getting organized, supporting organizations of our choice and encouraging and pressuring them to work together to create conducive conditions for democratic transformation in Ethiopia. Despite their differences in their ideologies and programs, they can and must work together to empower the Ethiopian people first. The first and primary sacred solemn duty and responsibility of any party that aspires to serve the Ethiopian people must be empowering the Ethiopian people. Empowering the Ethiopian people takes precedence over any party ideology or program. Therefore, genuine political parties in Ethiopia must work together first to empower the Ethiopian people. Party leaders must not be allowed to hide behind party programs not to work together. We should not allow them to use party programs as excuses to destruct each other with a slyness of promoting their personal egos. Each of them must forgo their personal ego for the common good. Parties have to at least shelf their differences until such a time when the Ethiopian people are empowered to elect their leaders in freedom. They must not be allowed to use party programs as a lame excuse to derelict their timely responsibility of working together for the democratic transformation of our country.

Once the Ethiopian people are empowered, the parties can present their programs to the Ethiopian people, compare and contrast themselves, make their cases and receive the verdict of the people. That is what democracy means and that is what we want to see in our country. As long as the parties are ready to abide by the verdict of the Ethiopian people, there would be no reason in the world for them not to work together towards creating the condition in which the people are the final arbiter. We must pressure them to work together as a team no matter what their differences are for without their teamwork we cannot bring about freedom, democracy and justice in Ethiopia. The most essential quality in a leader is to be a teamplayer and forgoing personal ego for the common good.

Furthermore, our strategies for democratizing Ethiopia needs to include participating in the sham elections despite the fact that it is stage-managed by the tyrant, Meles. We must use all available openings however small they are to promote the cause of freedom, democracy and justice in Ethiopia. We have to be pragmatic. We may not see the desired fruits right away. We should not be discouraged by that. We must weigh our efforts not only in terms of their immediate short term impacts but also we need to view them in terms of their strategic importance in the long run. If our participation in the sham elections appears to benefit Meles in the short run, so be it. There might be times when we participate in some battles we are sure of losing simply because it has some strategic benefits and because it helps us win the war in the long run. You do not have to win all the battles in order to win the war. More often than not, a winning and realistic strategic calculus is a one that includes losing some battles here and there but ensures winning the war in the final analysis.

No doubt, our participation in the sham elections, however repressive and hostile the situations are, takes the brutal regime of Meles one step closer to its grave. Some might be worried that taking part in the sham elections orchestrated by Meles is giving undue legitimacy to his regime and rightly so. It is unfortunate that this happens and this falls, as some say, into the category of the laws of the unintended consequences. However, whether or not we participate in the sham election, Meles will continue to enjoy the massive financial support from the West so long as he is in power be it through the sham elections or through free and fair elections. It is the power of the incumbency and it comes with the territory. We have seen that in the last 19 years and we have no reason to believe or expect things to change by our boycotting of the upcoming sham election. To the contrary, the only time the West have been forced to reassess, albeit temporarily, their aid to Meles in the last 19 years is when we participated in the sham election in May 2005 and took the opportunity to further expose the unbridled brutality and fascistic nature of Meles. Our victory was so spectacular, the savagery of Meles was so naked and the total rejection of Meles by the Ethiopian people was so obvious that the West could not pretend to not have seen it. True, our participation in the last sham election did not finish Meles as we all wished but there is no denying that it wounded him severely. Since then Meles has become a wounded beast and we all have been observing how the wounded beast Meles has been acting since. He could not even hide it. If we work hard, the next strike will finish him off or at least put him on the precipice of his grave if not in his grave.

As far as the upcoming sham election is concerned, I urge everybody to support MEDREK that has the best chance of stopping Meles’s untamed dictatorship and brutality. Those who support other opposition parties participating in the sham election, I respect your choice and encourage it. However, when we support and vote, our supports and votes must be based not only on the programs and personalities of the parties but it must also take into account the strategic consequences of our supports and votes. Tactical voting is the order of the day. We have to be smart enough to know how to extract the most bang for our buck. Yes Meles is using terror, brutal force and the threat of the use of force to weaken and defeat us. However, at least at this moment, Meles is bent more on using creating and spreading confusion to divide, weaken and defeat us than he is using the actual brutal force and the threat of the use of force (Tor kefettaw, wore yefettaw). At least, we must not allow Meles to divide, weaken and defeat us by threatening us with the use of brutal force let alone by creating and spreading confusion. Should Meles choose terror and the use of brutal force to stop our efforts of making the elections free, fair and democratic in our country, that is the decision we have no control over, none whatsoever, except bringing him and his accomplices to justice in due course of time. The use of brutal force is Meles’s and only Meles’s choice and decision but for our part we refuse to be intimidated by the threat of the use of force by Meles. If we may, we advise him to think twice before unleashing his thuggish janjawid loyalist militia against the innocent citizens.

The threat of the use of force and Meles’s janjawid terrorist militia will not deter us from pursuing freedom, justice and democracy in Ethiopia. We will not stop short of total freedom, genuine democracy and unadulterated justice in Ethiopia by the threat of the use of force by Meles. We will not submit to Meles’s terror and relinquish our God given rights. We refuse to be intimidated by Meles and his thuggish janjawid milita. We will not relent our efforts of making the playing field of election in Ethiopia level for all the contestants. We will not stop our struggle to make the election free, fair and democratic. We will continue to strive to make it an election in which the will of the Ethiopian people is freely expressed and their decision fully respected. Not only the right of the Ethiopian people to electing their leaders freely must be respected but also their right to getting their votes counted properly must be upheld. Short of that we accept nothing and we will not be deterred by Meles and his thuggish janjawid militia.
Birtukan Haile

Obbo Gudinaa,
please stop playing games with the abysinians
oromo people belong in battle field

Does EPRDF's Shimelis think everyone is stupid? In Tigray a grenade is thrown at Medrek members house and EPRDF claims 'they have done it themselves'. Here, they are telling us the video camera was seized because of dispute over pay with the cameraman. Even if it was a dispute over pay, which i doubt it is, EPRDF probably used the cameraman to get it hands on the Camera. They are known for their dirty work. When it serves their purpose they are everywhere. And they expect us to believe their white lies!

no wonder!! TPLF wants only EDP to become famous in ethiopia

Medrek is the new EPRP for the new Derg in town