The obituary and epitaph for the Thugtatorship of the Tigrean Liberation Front (T-TPLF) was written last year by Bereket Simon, the former “communication minister” and longtime sidekick of the late criminal mastermind of the T-TPLF, Meles Zenawi and Addisu Legesse, “deputy prime minister” to Meles and “deputy chairman” of the T-TPLF front organization called the “Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF)”.
In a secretly recorded conversation, Bereket and Addisu talked plainly about the end of times — the final days, the last days — of the T-TPLF in Ethiopia to a group of their supporters.
According to Addisu:
Looking at it from our situation, it is already getting out of our hands. There is no question about that. We can see that plainly from the way the teachers’ organizations are doing things. When 2/3 of educators are our members (of our party), and they are going out and demonstrating against us, that is the end of the story. I don’t think it is only Arena [party]. Ginbot 7 is also there. In Bahr Dar, I think, [anti-T-TPLF] flyers are being distributed. Haven’t you received any? Papers? [Others present at the meeting chime in response.] It is also [distributed] in Bahr Dar. But we do not know that, if you know what I mean. Flyers are being distributed and they are seen. So, I think they have gone down to the cell level everywhere. It seems like there is something that has organized itself. So I think it is coming from the Ginbot 7 area. (Emphasis added.)
Bereket responded with an example of what he believed is the sign of the end of times for the T-TPLF:
There was a meeting. I went to the meeting. I was eating breakfast. Two individuals came and started talking to me. When they talked to me, they imposed themselves on me. Their appearance did not make me happy (comfortable). When I started to investigate, these individuals are primary beneficiaries of city land acquisition. Primary! These are individuals who will scam left and right and get land beyond what is appropriate. But they had the audacity to accuse our comrades. They were ready to make accusations that so and so did this so and so did that. So when you look at it, what are they talking about? For me, so to speak, I tried to answer them as best as I thought about it. It is not something that one could accept [the accusation]. But the incredible thing is that anyone to have the audacity to say something like this to me, one can see the potential of such individuals to create chaos in the city. So, all those who spread propaganda and people like that must be singled out and we must isolate them. Even those people who have been telling us for a long time that they are our friends in the past are telling us sarcastically (mockingly) , ‘Oh! Don’t worry. We will see each other when it is the election season and stuff like that.’ Such talk does not make you happy… (Emphasis added.)
What exactly is eating Bereket, Addisu and T-TPLF Inc.?
First, it is clear the two T-TPLF head honchos fear the end of the T-TPLF is near. They said so in plain terms. “That is the end of the story” of the T-TPLF.
Bereket, Addisu and T-TPLF Inc. know it is the end of the story because they have used up all of the tricks in their bags to cling to power
For 24 years, the T-TPLF played their game of divide and rule and nurtured ethnic and sectarian hate. Someone once said hate is like a boomerang that misses its target and comes back and hits you in the head. Well, the hate the T-TPLF spread in Ethiopia for the last 24 years missed its target of making Ethiopia a nation of haters. The hate the T-TPLF hate produced is now hammering the T-TPLF on the head.
For 24 years, the T-TPLF played their ethnic federalism game and declared all land belongs to the state.
But to whom does the state belong?
The T-TPLF and the international land scammers, swindlers and poverty pimps bought and sold, pawned and auctioned, peddled and hustled the peoples’ land.
In December 2015, the T-TPLF land scammers and swindlers were served final notice: We are not going to let you steal our land any more. “Enough is enough!”
The larger message to the T-TPLF in December 2015 is resolute:
You stole our dignity for 24 years, and we did nothing but lived in shame. Now, “Enough is enough!”
You stole our human rights for 24 years, and we quietly accepted second-class citizenship. Now, “Enough is enough!”
You stole our voice for 24 years, and we remained silent. Now, “Enough is enough!”
You stole our children’s future for 24 years, and we watched in quiet desperation. Now, “Enough is enough!”
You stole one election after another for 24 years, and this year you added insult to injury by claiming you won the “election” by one hundred percent. Now, “Enough is enough!”
You stole our humanity for 24 years, and today we question our sanity for allowing you to steal our humanity. Now, “Enough is enough!”
After 24 years, we will be damned if we are going to let you continue to steal our land, the land our forefathers died and shed their blood, so you can sell it for pennies to your swindling and crooked international land grabbers and poverty pimps. “Enough is enough!”
We will stand our ground or we will be underground defending our land.
We will not back down even if you clampdown, crackdown, knock us down, push us down, run us down or break us down!
This time we will not back down until you go down!
Second, Bereket and Addisu know it is the end of the story for the T-TPLF because poverty, famine and pestilence are consuming the society as they trumpet their bogus “double-digit growth over the past decade game”. The T-TPLF paid the lily-livered international poverty pimps (excuse me “consultants”) to pimp their economy for them.
The World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, USAID and the whole cackle of international poverty pimps published lies, damned lies and statislies to legitimize the T-TPLF as an economic miracle-maker and powerhouse.
They thought we were too dumb, too stupid and too ignorant to figure out their lies, damned lies and statislies.
Well, they found out we ain’t as dumb as we look.
For the past 24 years, the T-TPLF made themselves the only players in town. They made a playground of Ethiopia. They made Ethiopia their plaything. They had fun. They played to win, but in the end they outplayed themselves.
Now it is GAME OVER for the T-TPLF!
Or in the memorable words of Addisu, “it is the end of the story” for the T-TPLF.
Third, Bereket and Addisu know it is the end of the story for the T-TPLF because the T-TPLF has no friends in Ethiopia.
Bereket and Addisu are genuinely surprised that even their lackeys and bootlickers who became rich under their watch and their “comrades” whose crimes they covered up for so long are actually not their friends. Their “friends” are actually shapeshifter “villains with smiling faces”, to borrow from Shakespeare.
Bereket, Addisu and the T-TPLF now realize that they have only fair weather friends.
They should have known that “there are no true friends in politics. Only sharks circling, and waiting, for traces of blood to appear in the water.”
The “friends” of the T-TPLF — the “friends” they let steal the land and rob the people blind and the criminals they coddle today — are just sharks circling, and waiting, for traces of blood to appear in the water before they join everyone else in the feeding frenzy.
What Bereket, Addisu and the T-TPLF find hard to believe is the fact that there is after all honor among thieves and villains. Certainly, no honor among thugs.
Bereket, Addisu and their comrades in the T-TPLF just don’t understand how their own crop of corrupt businessmen and bottom feeder friends have managed to keep enough traces of virtue to stand up to them and risk going to jail and lose their stolen loot by speaking truth to their faces.
A shocked Bereket said, “It is not something that one could accept [the accusation of corruption and abuse of power of the T-TPLF comrades]. But the incredible thing is that anyone should have the audacity to say something like this to me.”
Bereket and Addisu could not believe that the people they have trained as their lap dogs and let feed unattended at the troughs of corruption and abuse of power for so long would now transform into pit bulls biting the hand that feeds them.
But Bereket “doth protest too much, methinks”, to borrow a line from Shakespeare.
Well, why else would corrupt businessmen and criminal local bosses created by the T-TPLF talk to the top T-TPLF capos with such audacity, with such contempt and fearlessness, unless they felt the T-TPLF is the dregs of society with no future?
The fact Bereket and Addisu find hard to swallow is that they are surrounded by “friends” and “supporters” who will be the first to stick a dagger in their backs and float them down the river in a leaky boat without a paddle at the first opportunity. How can our best friends, “the educators [who] are our members [of our party], go out demonstrating against us… that is the end of the story,” lamented Addisu.
It seems Bereket and Addisu had a late epiphany.
They finally figured out the meaning of Bob Marley song, “Who the Cap Fit”:
Ya don’t know who to trust.
Your worst enemy could be your best friend,
And your best friend your worst enemy.
Some will eat and drink with you,
Then behind them su-su ‘pon [gossip] you, yeah!
Some will hate you,
pretend they love you now,
Then behind they try to eliminate you.
The T-TPLF has no friends in Ethiopia. The T-TPLF has 100 million enemies in Ethiopia.
It is much easier to make friends with a prickle of porcupines than the T-TPLF.
If the T-TPLF leaders feel betrayed now by the “educators demonstrating against them”, they should wait until they get a load of the soldiers, the civil servants, the business owners and merchants and the religious leaders turning their backs on them (or sticking it to them in the back).
The T-TPLF leaders KNOW their “friends” today will be their worst enemies tomorrow.
The T-TPLF minnows KNOW they are swimming in an ocean of 100 million sharks.
The T-TPLF leaders KNOW they are all alone.
Soon enough, the T-TPLF leaders, cronies and supporters will recall Martin Luther King Jr.’s words, “In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”
When the end of the T-TPLF story is told, the T-TPLF friends will be as silent as the grave.
Fourth, Bereket and Addisu know it is the end of the story for the T-TPLF because they have lost their mojo (voodoo) to strike fear and stir fear and loathing in the population.
A distraught Bereket said, “But the incredible thing is that for anyone to have the audacity to say something like this to me.”
A dispirited Addisu said, “I think they have gone down to the cell level everywhere. It seems like there is something that has organized itself.”
The greatest weapon dictators have is the mind of the people they tyrannize.
Fear and loathing are the ultimate psychological weapons of mass control on a population under dictatorial rule.
All dictators have sought to consolidate and maintain their power over their population by fear, loathing and deprivation.
By using fear, dictators present themselves as the invincible and saviors of the people. They hope to convince the people that without them there will be chaos and destruction.
By using loathing, they seek to divide and conquer.
By using deprivation, they seek to impose subservience on an impoverished population.
Despite the T-TPLF’s massive surveillance program in the so-called “ 5:1 system” in which the T-TPLF “monitors the day-to-day activities of other Ethiopians, including friends, family members, colleagues, and neighbors”, the T-TPLF is still paranoid that a well-coordinated grassroots level mobilization to overthrow it is underway. Addisu said, “I think they have gone down to the cell level everywhere. It seems like there is something that has organized itself.”
What Bereket, Addisu and the T-TPLF are in willful denial about is the fact that for 24 years there have been massive quiet riots going on in the hearts and minds of Ethiopians.
Today, the T-TPLF is witnessing the quiet riots shaping into open insurrection. That is just a fact plain for all to see.
When Reeyot Alemu, the heroine of press freedom in Ethiopia declares she is abandoning peaceful struggle for armed struggle, last week declared her commitment to armed struggle to remove the T-TPLF, “that is the end of the story”!
Reeyot is no ordinary person expressing an opinion. Reeyot is the rarest of all Ethiopian she-roes who stood her ground against the TPLF thugs. She never backed down! Never!
Reeyot is much more than a woman of extraordinary courage, conviction and intelligence.
Reeyot is the voice and messenger of her generation.
Reeyot is telling us that her generation has opted for armed struggle and left the path of nonviolent struggle because the T-TPLF has closed down all political space.
When the youth opt for armed struggle, that is the end of the story.
Reeyot did not choose the way of violence and armed struggle. The T-TPLF forced Reeyot to choose the way of violence and armed struggle.
The T-TPLF will soon begin its vilification campaign against Reeyot.
They will say Reeyot is a “terrorist”. She joined a “terrorist” group. They jailed her in the first place because she was engaged in “terrorism”. Blah… blah… blah…
They will soon begin a campaign to demonize Reeyot and scandalize her name. They will put out lies and damned lies about her.
What the T-TPLF should know is nobody gives a damn, a rat’s behind, about what the T-TPLF thinks of Reeyot.
What the T-TPLF should know is that Reeyot is the true personification of the hopes, dreams and yearnings of the young people who constitute 70 percent of the Ethiopian population.
What the T-TPLF should know is that there are millions of Reeyots just waiting to blossom like the Ethiopian rose (Rosa abyssinica/ tinjute) and take over the country.
That is the future I see for Ethiopia. I see an Ethiopia covered from top to bottom with Ethiopian roses.
Fifth, the T-TPLF leaders KNOW it is the end of the story because they have become the “evil” they sought to eradicate.
In the Tigray Manifesto, the T-TPLF declared (p.18), “The goal and aim of the people of Tigray is to launch a national anti-Amhara oppression struggle” and “establish a “Tigrean Democratic Republic.”
One need only listen to Gebremedhin Araya, a former top member of the T-TPLF, who exposed the sleazy and abominable ideology of T-TPLF hate towards all Ethiopians and particularly the “Amhara”. I have the highest respect for Gebremedhin’s patriotism and love for Ethiopia and the truth.
For much longer than 24 years, the T-TPLF demonized, monsterized, vilified and waged a campaign of fear and smear against the “Amhara”.
For much longer than 24 years, the T-TPLF set out to create a strawman “evil Amhara”.
For much longer than 24 years, the T-TPLF has claimed the “evil Amhara” forced their rule by killing, massacring and victimizing their Ethiopian brothers and sisters.
For much longer than 24 years, the T-TPLF said the “evil Amhara” stole the land and “enslaved” their Ethiopian brothers and sisters.
For much longer than 24 years, the T-TPLF claimed the “evil Amhara” abused their power and denied “non-Amhara” people their rights.
For much longer than 24 years, the T-TPLF tried to play the fear and loathing game of the “evil Amhara” bogeyman.
For the last 24 years, the T-TPLF has been saying if we go, “evil Amharas will be back in the saddle”. The “evil Amhara” will forbid people from speaking in their language. They will punish people if they practice their culture. They will prevent them from administering their affairs.
For the last 24 years, the T-TPLF tried to scare the people into believing that the “evil Amhara” will return and “take away their land.”
For the last 24 years, the T-TPLF has driven the people off their land and sold it to the Chinese, the Indians, the Saudis and the Turks.
After 24 years, the T-TPLF has morphed into the “new and improved evil Amhara.”
Friedrich Nietzsche wrote in “Beyond Good and Evil” that “He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you.”
The T-TPLF set out to fight the “evil Amhara” monster and in the “end of the story” the T-TPLF became the “new and improved evil Amhara”.
Sixth, the T-TPLF know it is the end of the story because they know their existential threat comes not so much from any particular opposition group but through a leaderless youth movement and youth resistance.
In the secretly recorded conversation Addisu said, “It seems like there is something that has organized itself… Flyers are being distributed and they are seen. So, I think they have gone down to the cell level everywhere.”
Addisu’s and the T-TPLF’s fear is that a leaderless, party-less, organization-less movement is and has been spreading, penetrating and infiltrating society.
I agree with Addisu that “there is something that has organized itself” against them. That “something” has no central command, no hierarchy and no particular ideology. That “something” has “gone down to the cell level everywhere.”
That “something” I believe is a multiethnic and multi-religious youth movement.
The youth may organize at the “cell level” and react independently to local situations or in defense of narrow interests.
What the T-TPLF fears the most is a united leaderless youth movement that emerges organically and is sustained by a shared belief in human and democratic rights and total repudiation of the T-TPLF and its oppressive rule. At the cell level, the youth agitate one-on-one and mobilize against the T-TPLF.
It is impossible to stamp out a leaderless youth movement.
It is impossible to destroy such movements as there is nothing to destroy.
The simple truth is: ETHIOPIA’S YOUTH UNITED CAN NEVER BE DEFEATED!!!
My advice to Ethiopia’s youth is: Dissect and study the tragic fate of Egyptian youth in the Arab Spring; and make sure not to repeat those mistakes.
Seventh, the T-TPLF leaders think they can delay the end of the story because America and the European Union will turn a blind eye as they continue to unleash their campaign of massacres, torture and mass incarceration of their opponents.
I will not say their assumption is entirely unfounded.
America and the European Union, the chief bankrollers of the T-TPLF, turned a blind eye and remained silent when the T-TPLF massacred and maimed nearly a thousand people after the 2005 election.
In fact, within two years of the massacres, the U.S. increased its aid to the TPLF from nearly $1.8 billion in 2005 to nearly $3.5 billion in 2008.
America and the European Union remained silent and turned a blind eye when the T-TPLF massacred hundreds of innocent people in the Gambella region in December 2004.
America and the European Union remained silent and turned a blind eye when the T-TPLF massacred thousands of innocent villagers in the Ogaden region in 2007-08.
America and the European Union remained silent and turned a blind eye (and gave millions of dollars of military aid) and when the T-TPLF massacred and displaced hundreds of thousands of Somalis between 2006-09.
Will America and the European Union remain silent and turn a blind eye when the T-TPLF begins another round of massacres of protesting children and citizens in December 2015 and intensifies its murderous campaign in 2016?
I don’t know.
What I know is what I learned from Henry “Methuselah” Kissinger who said, “America has no permanent friends or enemies, only interests”.
I broadly interpret that to mean when push comes to shove, America for sure – and possibly the European Union and even China — will discard those who do not serve its interests like a bagful of garbage festering in the backyard.
When the people of Egypt rose up against Hosni Mubarak in February 2012, America dumped him in a New York minute. Barack Obama said:
The people of Egypt have spoken. Their voices have been heard, and Egypt will never be the same. By stepping down, President Mubarak responded to the Egyptian people’s hunger for change. But this is not the end of Egypt’s transition. It’s a beginning. I’m sure there will be difficult days ahead, and many questions remain unanswered. But I am confident that the people of Egypt can find the answers, and do so peacefully, constructively, and in the spirit of unity that has defined these last few weeks. For Egyptians have made it clear that nothing less than genuine democracy will carry the day.
In March 2011, when the Libyan people rose up against Muammar Gadhaffi, Obama threw him into the dustbin of history before the Libyan people did.
I don’t think anybody disputes that Gaddafi has more firepower than the opposition. I believe that Gaddafi is on the wrong side of history. I believe that the Libyan people are anxious for freedom and the removal of somebody who has suppressed them for decades now. We are going to be in contact with the opposition, as well as in consultation with the international community, to try to achieve the goal of Mr. Gaddafi being removed from power.
Whenever the people of Ethiopia rise up against the T-TPLF, I will bet my bottom dollar Obama will say the same thing:
The people of Ethiopia have spoken. Their voices have been heard, and Ethiopia will never be the same. By giving up power, the T-TPLF responded to the Ethiopian people’s hunger for change. But this is not the end of Ethiopia’s transition. It’s a beginning. I’m sure there will be difficult days ahead, and many questions remain unanswered. But I am confident that the people of Ethiopia can find the answers, and do so peacefully, constructively, and in the spirit of unity that has defined these last few weeks. For Ethiopians have made it clear that nothing less than genuine democracy will carry the day.
I believe that the Ethiopian people are anxious for freedom and the removal of somebody who has suppressed them for decades now. We are going to be in contact with the opposition, as well as in consultation with the international community, to try to achieve the goal of removing the T-TPLF from power.
The T-TPLF ignoramuses believe America, Europe and China will stand with them to the bitter end.
Did I mention the Chinese bankrollers of the T-TPLF? They follow the ancient principle of “see no evil, hear, no evil and speak no evil.”
When the people rise up and the s**t hits the fan, Obama and his crew, the European Union, China and the rest of them will abandon the T-TPLF like rats on a sinking ship.
“Sayonara, T-TPLF! Nice knowing ya! We’re outta here!”
That is exactly what is going to happen, when the time comes, when the people of Ethiopia rise. Rise, they shall.
In the words of Maya Angelou,
Just like the moons and like suns
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still [they] will rise.
Just like the moons and like suns, Ethiopians shall rise. But “Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands unto God.”
America is not going to save the T-TPLF when the Ethiopian people rise up like the moons and like suns.
When the people of Ethiopia rise up, America will abandon the T-TPLF like a toxic dump site.
That’s what America did to Fulgencio Batista in Cuba in 1959.
I remember reading John Kennedy’s speech in his presidential campaign in 1960 when he condemned Batista as a murderous monster.
Fulgencio Batista murdered 20,000 Cubans in seven years … and he turned Democratic Cuba into a complete police state — destroying every individual liberty. Yet our aid to his regime, and the ineptness of our policies, enabled Batista to invoke the name of the United States in support of his reign of terror.
I can imagine the same statement being made by Obama or his successor when the Ethiopian people rise up and show the exit to the T-TPLF:
The T-TPLF murdered hundreds of thousands of Ethiopians in over two decades. Our aid to the T-TPLF, and the ineptness of our policies, enabled the T-TPLF to invoke the name of the United States in support of its reign of terror.
That’s how America dealt with dictator Anastasio Somoza García in Nicaragua in 1979.
That’s how America dealt with dictator Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi in Iran in 1979.
That’s how America dealt with dictator Omar Torrijos in Panama in 1981.
That’s how America dealt with dictator El Abidine Ben Ali of Tunisia in 2011 and Ali Abdullah Saleh of Yemen in 2012.
No fuss. No mess. Used ‘em, now lose ‘em. That’s how they roll in Washington, D.C.
“America has no permanent friends or enemies, only interests”. That’s just the way it is!
Eight, the T-TPLF leaders believe the end of their story will be delayed because the current uprising will blow over like a breeze and things will go back to normal, business as usual will continue.
After all, the T-TPLF cracked down on peaceful Muslim protesters and “silenced” them. (Did they really?)
They cracked down on opposition political parties. Nothing happened.
They clamped down on the press. Nothing happened.
They massacred protesting university students. Nothing happened.
They committed genocide in Gambella, the Ogaden and Somalia. Nothing happened.
They are allowing 15 million Ethiopians be consumed by famine. Nothing happened.
Why should it be different this time?
The T-TPLF leaders believe they can play a game of “kick the can” with the people’s demands, hopes and dreams. Their view is that they can go on and on by deferring and delaying the people’s demand for another week, month, another year.
The T-TPLF leaders take it one day at a time. As long as they stay in power one more day, it’s all good for the T-TPLF guys.
What the T-TPLF guys are willfully ignorant about is the fact that behind every wind of protest that blows over, there is a tornado of pent up by anger, rage, resentment, hatred, bitterness and the irrepressible desire for revenge building up.
Maybe the current protests will blow over. But I don’t think so.
It would be wise for the T-TPLF to know the difference between a wind storm that passes through and a tornado that ploughs through as they strategize how far they will go in massacring their opponents and peaceful protesters.
Ninth, the T-TPLF leaders KNOW the end is near and they must garb their money and run.
I am led to believe by those who know (not those who think they know) that the T-TPLF head honchos would just as soon have the end of the story so they can go to wherever they have stashed their millions and live out their last days in peace. They are dog-tired of running a sinking ship. They desperately want to abandon ship before the ship sinks and takes them and everyone down.
The T-TPLF leaders, their cronies and supporters KNOW their only choice is to run.
Get your money and run to America, the land that welcomes all types of criminals against humanity.
Run to your money in America that turns its back on the victims of criminals against humanity.
The “end of the story” is that it is time for the T-TPLF to run. It is better for the T-TPLF to run than to be run down.
Tenth, the T-TPLF know it is the end of the story, but they have no idea how their story will end. I know they are betting their story will have a very bad ending.
People ask me how and when the T-TPLF dictatorship will end.
I have no idea how or when the end of the T-TPLF story will be written.
The last chapter of the story of the T-TPLF could be written days, weeks, months or years. I cannot predict. I don’t have the power of prophesy, but I know the power of prophesy.
I know as sure as the sun will rise tomorrow that the T-TPLF’s tyrannical rule will come to an end.
But don’t take that from me.
Take it from Bereket Simon and Addisu Legesese. They are telling you it is the end of the story for the T-TPLF.
Mahatma Gandhi said, “Remember that all through history, there have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they seem invincible. But in the end, they always fall. Always.”
What is the difference between saying, “in the end, tyrants always fall” and “it is the end of the story” for the T-TPLF tyrants?
So, the question as far as I am concerned is whether the T-TPLF story in Ethiopia will end with a bang or a whimper.
I hearken to T.S. Eliot’s poem “The Hollow Men” as I think of the end of the T-TPLF.
Does the fate of “hollow men” and “stuffed men” like those of the T-TPLF end in a “bang or a whimper”?
Eliot said the world of “hollow men” and “stuffed men” ends “not with a bang but a whimper”.
I am not sure that will be the case with the T-TPLF.
I feel Robert Frost’s verse, “Fire and Ice” is closer to the truth.
I believe the end of the story of “hollow men” and “stuffed men” is neither fire nor ice. Their end is hate.
In the words of Frost:
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
I am a student of dictatorships with a specialty in thugtatorships.
I despise all dictatorships. I despise thugtatorships even more.
I wholeheartedly agree with Winston S. Churchill’s description of dictators:
You see these dictators on their pedestals, surrounded by the bayonets of their soldiers and the truncheons of their police … yet in their hearts there is unspoken fear. They are afraid of words and thoughts: words spoken abroad, thoughts stirring at home — all the more powerful because forbidden — terrify them. A little mouse of thought appears in the room, and even the mightiest potentates are thrown into panic.
I believe I am the first person to propose a proto-theory of “thugtatorships”. (See my “Thugtatorship, the Highest Stage of African Dictatorship”.)
I have studied “the end of the story” of many dictatorships.
The “end of the story” for most dictatorships is replacement by another dictatorship in a coup followed by the emergence of a clone of the overthrown dictatorship. Occasionally, post-dictatorship regimes emerge as benign dictatorships that present themselves as “mutant democracies”, to invent a phrase, legitimize their rule through anointment by America specifically and and the West generally.
African dictatorships almost always end in African dictatorships, the musical chairs soldiers have played on the continent for over six decades.
Between 1946 and 2004, there have been nearly 400 coups of all types in Africa. During this time, there have been only a handful of genuine democratic transfers of power in Africa.
Most so-called democratic elections held under African dictatorships are rigged to legitimize iron-fisted dictators in velvet gloves.
Some African “elections” are so ridiculously rigged that one wonders if the regimes claiming victory have any sense at all.
In May 2015, the T-TPLF claimed to have won 100 percent of the seats in the “parliament”.
To add insult to the injury of the Ethiopian people, the T-TPLF imported Barack Obama to their den of corruption and election rigging and had him make a public confession that their 100 percent rigged election victory was one hundred percent “democratic.”
I still wonder if the T-TPLF also rigged the coffee Obama had just before he gave a press conference and said, “We are opposed to any group that is promoting the violent overthrow of a government, including the government of Ethiopia, that has been democratically elected.”
I have never been more ashamed of Barack Obama than the day he stood should to shoulder with the most ruthless African thugs and declare to the world “the government of Ethiopia, that has been democratically elected.”
I learned long ago that when a defining moment comes along, I either define the moment or let the moment will define me.
In July 2009, Obama told Africans in Accra, Ghana, “Africa doesn’t need strongmen, it needs strong institutions.” On that day Barack Obama defined the moment.
In July 2015, Barack Obama stood shoulder-to-shoulder with thieving thugs and called the 100 percent electoral victory of the T-TPLF “democratic.” On that day Barack Obama let the moment define him.
That’s how Obama fell from grace to disgrace!
The evidence on the end of thugtatorships is sparse, but I believe “thugtatorships” end in a qualitatively different way than the garden variety dictatorships.
The “end of the story” for thugtatorships I believe is likely to be cataclysmic and result in the most extreme social cost to society.
I don’t know how or when the end of the story of the T-TPLF will be told.
My commitment, as proudly displayed on my website, is to “Speak truth to power”. That also includes misusers and abusers of power and power mongers.
I tell the truth. I don’t tell stories.
This time, I don’t have to tell the story of the end of the T-TPLF.
This time, I don’t have to speak truth to the T-TPLF.
This time, I will let the truth talk to the T-TPLF.
This time, I will let the truth talk to the T-TPLF as told by two T-TPLF “truth tellers”.
This time, I would like Ethiopians to hear the truth from the horses’ mouths (I did not say hyenas’):
Looking at it from our situation, it is already getting out of our hands. There is no question about that. We can see that plainly from the way the teachers’ organizations are doing things. When 2/3 of educators are our members (of our party), and they are going out and demonstrating against us, that is the end of the story.”
Amen!
Personally, I don’t think it is the end of the story of the T-TPLF in Ethiopia.
I think it is the beginning of the end of the story of the T-TPLF in Ethiopia.
I think it is the end of the beginning of the story of the T-TPLF in Ethiopia.
Story of the end to be continued….
The “End of the Story” for the T-TPLF in Ethiopia?
Posted in Al Mariam's Commentaries By almariam On December 27, 2015In a secretly recorded conversation, Bereket and Addisu talked plainly about the end of times — the final days, the last days — of the T-TPLF in Ethiopia to a group of their supporters.
According to Addisu:
Bereket responded with an example of what he believed is the sign of the end of times for the T-TPLF:
What exactly is eating Bereket, Addisu and T-TPLF Inc.?
First, it is clear the two T-TPLF head honchos fear the end of the T-TPLF is near. They said so in plain terms. “That is the end of the story” of the T-TPLF.
Bereket, Addisu and T-TPLF Inc. know it is the end of the story because they have used up all of the tricks in their bags to cling to power
For 24 years, the T-TPLF played their game of divide and rule and nurtured ethnic and sectarian hate. Someone once said hate is like a boomerang that misses its target and comes back and hits you in the head. Well, the hate the T-TPLF spread in Ethiopia for the last 24 years missed its target of making Ethiopia a nation of haters. The hate the T-TPLF hate produced is now hammering the T-TPLF on the head.
For 24 years, the T-TPLF played their ethnic federalism game and declared all land belongs to the state.
But to whom does the state belong?
The T-TPLF and the international land scammers, swindlers and poverty pimps bought and sold, pawned and auctioned, peddled and hustled the peoples’ land.
In December 2015, the T-TPLF land scammers and swindlers were served final notice: We are not going to let you steal our land any more. “Enough is enough!”
The larger message to the T-TPLF in December 2015 is resolute:
You stole our dignity for 24 years, and we did nothing but lived in shame. Now, “Enough is enough!”
You stole our human rights for 24 years, and we quietly accepted second-class citizenship. Now, “Enough is enough!”
You stole our voice for 24 years, and we remained silent. Now, “Enough is enough!”
You stole our children’s future for 24 years, and we watched in quiet desperation. Now, “Enough is enough!”
You stole one election after another for 24 years, and this year you added insult to injury by claiming you won the “election” by one hundred percent. Now, “Enough is enough!”
You stole our humanity for 24 years, and today we question our sanity for allowing you to steal our humanity. Now, “Enough is enough!”
After 24 years, we will be damned if we are going to let you continue to steal our land, the land our forefathers died and shed their blood, so you can sell it for pennies to your swindling and crooked international land grabbers and poverty pimps. “Enough is enough!”
We will stand our ground or we will be underground defending our land.
We will not back down even if you clampdown, crackdown, knock us down, push us down, run us down or break us down!
This time we will not back down until you go down!
Second, Bereket and Addisu know it is the end of the story for the T-TPLF because poverty, famine and pestilence are consuming the society as they trumpet their bogus “double-digit growth over the past decade game”. The T-TPLF paid the lily-livered international poverty pimps (excuse me “consultants”) to pimp their economy for them.
The World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, USAID and the whole cackle of international poverty pimps published lies, damned lies and statislies to legitimize the T-TPLF as an economic miracle-maker and powerhouse.
They thought we were too dumb, too stupid and too ignorant to figure out their lies, damned lies and statislies.
Well, they found out we ain’t as dumb as we look.
For the past 24 years, the T-TPLF made themselves the only players in town. They made a playground of Ethiopia. They made Ethiopia their plaything. They had fun. They played to win, but in the end they outplayed themselves.
Now it is GAME OVER for the T-TPLF!
Or in the memorable words of Addisu, “it is the end of the story” for the T-TPLF.
Third, Bereket and Addisu know it is the end of the story for the T-TPLF because the T-TPLF has no friends in Ethiopia.
Bereket and Addisu are genuinely surprised that even their lackeys and bootlickers who became rich under their watch and their “comrades” whose crimes they covered up for so long are actually not their friends. Their “friends” are actually shapeshifter “villains with smiling faces”, to borrow from Shakespeare.
Bereket, Addisu and the T-TPLF now realize that they have only fair weather friends.
They should have known that “there are no true friends in politics. Only sharks circling, and waiting, for traces of blood to appear in the water.”
The “friends” of the T-TPLF — the “friends” they let steal the land and rob the people blind and the criminals they coddle today — are just sharks circling, and waiting, for traces of blood to appear in the water before they join everyone else in the feeding frenzy.
What Bereket, Addisu and the T-TPLF find hard to believe is the fact that there is after all honor among thieves and villains. Certainly, no honor among thugs.
Bereket, Addisu and their comrades in the T-TPLF just don’t understand how their own crop of corrupt businessmen and bottom feeder friends have managed to keep enough traces of virtue to stand up to them and risk going to jail and lose their stolen loot by speaking truth to their faces.
A shocked Bereket said, “It is not something that one could accept [the accusation of corruption and abuse of power of the T-TPLF comrades]. But the incredible thing is that anyone should have the audacity to say something like this to me.”
Bereket and Addisu could not believe that the people they have trained as their lap dogs and let feed unattended at the troughs of corruption and abuse of power for so long would now transform into pit bulls biting the hand that feeds them.
But Bereket “doth protest too much, methinks”, to borrow a line from Shakespeare.
Well, why else would corrupt businessmen and criminal local bosses created by the T-TPLF talk to the top T-TPLF capos with such audacity, with such contempt and fearlessness, unless they felt the T-TPLF is the dregs of society with no future?
The fact Bereket and Addisu find hard to swallow is that they are surrounded by “friends” and “supporters” who will be the first to stick a dagger in their backs and float them down the river in a leaky boat without a paddle at the first opportunity. How can our best friends, “the educators [who] are our members [of our party], go out demonstrating against us… that is the end of the story,” lamented Addisu.
It seems Bereket and Addisu had a late epiphany.
They finally figured out the meaning of Bob Marley song, “Who the Cap Fit”:
Ya don’t know who to trust.
Your worst enemy could be your best friend,
And your best friend your worst enemy.
Some will eat and drink with you,
Then behind them su-su ‘pon [gossip] you, yeah!
Some will hate you,
pretend they love you now,
Then behind they try to eliminate you.
The T-TPLF has no friends in Ethiopia. The T-TPLF has 100 million enemies in Ethiopia.
It is much easier to make friends with a prickle of porcupines than the T-TPLF.
If the T-TPLF leaders feel betrayed now by the “educators demonstrating against them”, they should wait until they get a load of the soldiers, the civil servants, the business owners and merchants and the religious leaders turning their backs on them (or sticking it to them in the back).
The T-TPLF leaders KNOW their “friends” today will be their worst enemies tomorrow.
The T-TPLF minnows KNOW they are swimming in an ocean of 100 million sharks.
The T-TPLF leaders KNOW they are all alone.
Soon enough, the T-TPLF leaders, cronies and supporters will recall Martin Luther King Jr.’s words, “In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”
When the end of the T-TPLF story is told, the T-TPLF friends will be as silent as the grave.
Fourth, Bereket and Addisu know it is the end of the story for the T-TPLF because they have lost their mojo (voodoo) to strike fear and stir fear and loathing in the population.
A distraught Bereket said, “But the incredible thing is that for anyone to have the audacity to say something like this to me.”
A dispirited Addisu said, “I think they have gone down to the cell level everywhere. It seems like there is something that has organized itself.”
The greatest weapon dictators have is the mind of the people they tyrannize.
Fear and loathing are the ultimate psychological weapons of mass control on a population under dictatorial rule.
All dictators have sought to consolidate and maintain their power over their population by fear, loathing and deprivation.
By using fear, dictators present themselves as the invincible and saviors of the people. They hope to convince the people that without them there will be chaos and destruction.
By using loathing, they seek to divide and conquer.
By using deprivation, they seek to impose subservience on an impoverished population.
Despite the T-TPLF’s massive surveillance program in the so-called “ 5:1 system” in which the T-TPLF “monitors the day-to-day activities of other Ethiopians, including friends, family members, colleagues, and neighbors”, the T-TPLF is still paranoid that a well-coordinated grassroots level mobilization to overthrow it is underway. Addisu said, “I think they have gone down to the cell level everywhere. It seems like there is something that has organized itself.”
What Bereket, Addisu and the T-TPLF are in willful denial about is the fact that for 24 years there have been massive quiet riots going on in the hearts and minds of Ethiopians.
Today, the T-TPLF is witnessing the quiet riots shaping into open insurrection. That is just a fact plain for all to see.
When Reeyot Alemu, the heroine of press freedom in Ethiopia declares she is abandoning peaceful struggle for armed struggle, last week declared her commitment to armed struggle to remove the T-TPLF, “that is the end of the story”!
Reeyot is no ordinary person expressing an opinion. Reeyot is the rarest of all Ethiopian she-roes who stood her ground against the TPLF thugs. She never backed down! Never!
Reeyot is much more than a woman of extraordinary courage, conviction and intelligence.
Reeyot is the voice and messenger of her generation.
Reeyot is telling us that her generation has opted for armed struggle and left the path of nonviolent struggle because the T-TPLF has closed down all political space.
When the youth opt for armed struggle, that is the end of the story.
Reeyot did not choose the way of violence and armed struggle. The T-TPLF forced Reeyot to choose the way of violence and armed struggle.
The T-TPLF will soon begin its vilification campaign against Reeyot.
They will say Reeyot is a “terrorist”. She joined a “terrorist” group. They jailed her in the first place because she was engaged in “terrorism”. Blah… blah… blah…
They will soon begin a campaign to demonize Reeyot and scandalize her name. They will put out lies and damned lies about her.
What the T-TPLF should know is nobody gives a damn, a rat’s behind, about what the T-TPLF thinks of Reeyot.
What the T-TPLF should know is that Reeyot is the true personification of the hopes, dreams and yearnings of the young people who constitute 70 percent of the Ethiopian population.
What the T-TPLF should know is that there are millions of Reeyots just waiting to blossom like the Ethiopian rose (Rosa abyssinica/ tinjute) and take over the country.
That is the future I see for Ethiopia. I see an Ethiopia covered from top to bottom with Ethiopian roses.
Fifth, the T-TPLF leaders KNOW it is the end of the story because they have become the “evil” they sought to eradicate.
In the Tigray Manifesto, the T-TPLF declared (p.18), “The goal and aim of the people of Tigray is to launch a national anti-Amhara oppression struggle” and “establish a “Tigrean Democratic Republic.”
One need only listen to Gebremedhin Araya, a former top member of the T-TPLF, who exposed the sleazy and abominable ideology of T-TPLF hate towards all Ethiopians and particularly the “Amhara”. I have the highest respect for Gebremedhin’s patriotism and love for Ethiopia and the truth.
For much longer than 24 years, the T-TPLF demonized, monsterized, vilified and waged a campaign of fear and smear against the “Amhara”.
For much longer than 24 years, the T-TPLF set out to create a strawman “evil Amhara”.
For much longer than 24 years, the T-TPLF has claimed the “evil Amhara” forced their rule by killing, massacring and victimizing their Ethiopian brothers and sisters.
For much longer than 24 years, the T-TPLF said the “evil Amhara” stole the land and “enslaved” their Ethiopian brothers and sisters.
For much longer than 24 years, the T-TPLF claimed the “evil Amhara” abused their power and denied “non-Amhara” people their rights.
For much longer than 24 years, the T-TPLF tried to play the fear and loathing game of the “evil Amhara” bogeyman.
For the last 24 years, the T-TPLF has been saying if we go, “evil Amharas will be back in the saddle”. The “evil Amhara” will forbid people from speaking in their language. They will punish people if they practice their culture. They will prevent them from administering their affairs.
For the last 24 years, the T-TPLF tried to scare the people into believing that the “evil Amhara” will return and “take away their land.”
For the last 24 years, the T-TPLF has driven the people off their land and sold it to the Chinese, the Indians, the Saudis and the Turks.
After 24 years, the T-TPLF has morphed into the “new and improved evil Amhara.”
Friedrich Nietzsche wrote in “Beyond Good and Evil” that “He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you.”
The T-TPLF set out to fight the “evil Amhara” monster and in the “end of the story” the T-TPLF became the “new and improved evil Amhara”.
Sixth, the T-TPLF know it is the end of the story because they know their existential threat comes not so much from any particular opposition group but through a leaderless youth movement and youth resistance.
In the secretly recorded conversation Addisu said, “It seems like there is something that has organized itself… Flyers are being distributed and they are seen. So, I think they have gone down to the cell level everywhere.”
Addisu’s and the T-TPLF’s fear is that a leaderless, party-less, organization-less movement is and has been spreading, penetrating and infiltrating society.
I agree with Addisu that “there is something that has organized itself” against them. That “something” has no central command, no hierarchy and no particular ideology. That “something” has “gone down to the cell level everywhere.”
That “something” I believe is a multiethnic and multi-religious youth movement.
The youth may organize at the “cell level” and react independently to local situations or in defense of narrow interests.
What the T-TPLF fears the most is a united leaderless youth movement that emerges organically and is sustained by a shared belief in human and democratic rights and total repudiation of the T-TPLF and its oppressive rule. At the cell level, the youth agitate one-on-one and mobilize against the T-TPLF.
It is impossible to stamp out a leaderless youth movement.
It is impossible to destroy such movements as there is nothing to destroy.
The simple truth is: ETHIOPIA’S YOUTH UNITED CAN NEVER BE DEFEATED!!!
My advice to Ethiopia’s youth is: Dissect and study the tragic fate of Egyptian youth in the Arab Spring; and make sure not to repeat those mistakes.
Seventh, the T-TPLF leaders think they can delay the end of the story because America and the European Union will turn a blind eye as they continue to unleash their campaign of massacres, torture and mass incarceration of their opponents.
I will not say their assumption is entirely unfounded.
America and the European Union, the chief bankrollers of the T-TPLF, turned a blind eye and remained silent when the T-TPLF massacred and maimed nearly a thousand people after the 2005 election.
In fact, within two years of the massacres, the U.S. increased its aid to the TPLF from nearly $1.8 billion in 2005 to nearly $3.5 billion in 2008.
America and the European Union remained silent and turned a blind eye when the T-TPLF massacred hundreds of innocent people in the Gambella region in December 2004.
America and the European Union remained silent and turned a blind eye when the T-TPLF massacred thousands of innocent villagers in the Ogaden region in 2007-08.
America and the European Union remained silent and turned a blind eye (and gave millions of dollars of military aid) and when the T-TPLF massacred and displaced hundreds of thousands of Somalis between 2006-09.
Will America and the European Union remain silent and turn a blind eye when the T-TPLF begins another round of massacres of protesting children and citizens in December 2015 and intensifies its murderous campaign in 2016?
I don’t know.
What I know is what I learned from Henry “Methuselah” Kissinger who said, “America has no permanent friends or enemies, only interests”.
I broadly interpret that to mean when push comes to shove, America for sure – and possibly the European Union and even China — will discard those who do not serve its interests like a bagful of garbage festering in the backyard.
When the people of Egypt rose up against Hosni Mubarak in February 2012, America dumped him in a New York minute. Barack Obama said:
In March 2011, when the Libyan people rose up against Muammar Gadhaffi, Obama threw him into the dustbin of history before the Libyan people did.
Whenever the people of Ethiopia rise up against the T-TPLF, I will bet my bottom dollar Obama will say the same thing:
I believe that the Ethiopian people are anxious for freedom and the removal of somebody who has suppressed them for decades now. We are going to be in contact with the opposition, as well as in consultation with the international community, to try to achieve the goal of removing the T-TPLF from power.
The T-TPLF ignoramuses believe America, Europe and China will stand with them to the bitter end.
Did I mention the Chinese bankrollers of the T-TPLF? They follow the ancient principle of “see no evil, hear, no evil and speak no evil.”
When the people rise up and the s**t hits the fan, Obama and his crew, the European Union, China and the rest of them will abandon the T-TPLF like rats on a sinking ship.
“Sayonara, T-TPLF! Nice knowing ya! We’re outta here!”
That is exactly what is going to happen, when the time comes, when the people of Ethiopia rise. Rise, they shall.
In the words of Maya Angelou,
Just like the moons and like suns
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still [they] will rise.
Just like the moons and like suns, Ethiopians shall rise. But “Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands unto God.”
America is not going to save the T-TPLF when the Ethiopian people rise up like the moons and like suns.
When the people of Ethiopia rise up, America will abandon the T-TPLF like a toxic dump site.
That’s what America did to Fulgencio Batista in Cuba in 1959.
I remember reading John Kennedy’s speech in his presidential campaign in 1960 when he condemned Batista as a murderous monster.
I can imagine the same statement being made by Obama or his successor when the Ethiopian people rise up and show the exit to the T-TPLF:
That’s how America dealt with dictator Anastasio Somoza García in Nicaragua in 1979.
That’s how America dealt with dictator Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi in Iran in 1979.
That’s how America dealt with dictator Omar Torrijos in Panama in 1981.
That’s how America dealt with dictator El Abidine Ben Ali of Tunisia in 2011 and Ali Abdullah Saleh of Yemen in 2012.
No fuss. No mess. Used ‘em, now lose ‘em. That’s how they roll in Washington, D.C.
“America has no permanent friends or enemies, only interests”. That’s just the way it is!
Eight, the T-TPLF leaders believe the end of their story will be delayed because the current uprising will blow over like a breeze and things will go back to normal, business as usual will continue.
After all, the T-TPLF cracked down on peaceful Muslim protesters and “silenced” them. (Did they really?)
They cracked down on opposition political parties. Nothing happened.
They clamped down on the press. Nothing happened.
They massacred protesting university students. Nothing happened.
They committed genocide in Gambella, the Ogaden and Somalia. Nothing happened.
They are allowing 15 million Ethiopians be consumed by famine. Nothing happened.
Why should it be different this time?
The T-TPLF leaders believe they can play a game of “kick the can” with the people’s demands, hopes and dreams. Their view is that they can go on and on by deferring and delaying the people’s demand for another week, month, another year.
The T-TPLF leaders take it one day at a time. As long as they stay in power one more day, it’s all good for the T-TPLF guys.
What the T-TPLF guys are willfully ignorant about is the fact that behind every wind of protest that blows over, there is a tornado of pent up by anger, rage, resentment, hatred, bitterness and the irrepressible desire for revenge building up.
Maybe the current protests will blow over. But I don’t think so.
It would be wise for the T-TPLF to know the difference between a wind storm that passes through and a tornado that ploughs through as they strategize how far they will go in massacring their opponents and peaceful protesters.
Ninth, the T-TPLF leaders KNOW the end is near and they must garb their money and run.
I am led to believe by those who know (not those who think they know) that the T-TPLF head honchos would just as soon have the end of the story so they can go to wherever they have stashed their millions and live out their last days in peace. They are dog-tired of running a sinking ship. They desperately want to abandon ship before the ship sinks and takes them and everyone down.
The T-TPLF leaders, their cronies and supporters KNOW their only choice is to run.
Get your money and run to America, the land that welcomes all types of criminals against humanity.
Run to your money in America that turns its back on the victims of criminals against humanity.
The “end of the story” is that it is time for the T-TPLF to run. It is better for the T-TPLF to run than to be run down.
Tenth, the T-TPLF know it is the end of the story, but they have no idea how their story will end. I know they are betting their story will have a very bad ending.
People ask me how and when the T-TPLF dictatorship will end.
I have no idea how or when the end of the T-TPLF story will be written.
The last chapter of the story of the T-TPLF could be written days, weeks, months or years. I cannot predict. I don’t have the power of prophesy, but I know the power of prophesy.
I know as sure as the sun will rise tomorrow that the T-TPLF’s tyrannical rule will come to an end.
But don’t take that from me.
Take it from Bereket Simon and Addisu Legesese. They are telling you it is the end of the story for the T-TPLF.
Mahatma Gandhi said, “Remember that all through history, there have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they seem invincible. But in the end, they always fall. Always.”
What is the difference between saying, “in the end, tyrants always fall” and “it is the end of the story” for the T-TPLF tyrants?
So, the question as far as I am concerned is whether the T-TPLF story in Ethiopia will end with a bang or a whimper.
I hearken to T.S. Eliot’s poem “The Hollow Men” as I think of the end of the T-TPLF.
Does the fate of “hollow men” and “stuffed men” like those of the T-TPLF end in a “bang or a whimper”?
Eliot said the world of “hollow men” and “stuffed men” ends “not with a bang but a whimper”.
I am not sure that will be the case with the T-TPLF.
I feel Robert Frost’s verse, “Fire and Ice” is closer to the truth.
I believe the end of the story of “hollow men” and “stuffed men” is neither fire nor ice. Their end is hate.
In the words of Frost:
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
I am a student of dictatorships with a specialty in thugtatorships.
I despise all dictatorships. I despise thugtatorships even more.
I wholeheartedly agree with Winston S. Churchill’s description of dictators:
I believe I am the first person to propose a proto-theory of “thugtatorships”. (See my “Thugtatorship, the Highest Stage of African Dictatorship”.)
I have studied “the end of the story” of many dictatorships.
The “end of the story” for most dictatorships is replacement by another dictatorship in a coup followed by the emergence of a clone of the overthrown dictatorship. Occasionally, post-dictatorship regimes emerge as benign dictatorships that present themselves as “mutant democracies”, to invent a phrase, legitimize their rule through anointment by America specifically and and the West generally.
African dictatorships almost always end in African dictatorships, the musical chairs soldiers have played on the continent for over six decades.
Between 1946 and 2004, there have been nearly 400 coups of all types in Africa. During this time, there have been only a handful of genuine democratic transfers of power in Africa.
Most so-called democratic elections held under African dictatorships are rigged to legitimize iron-fisted dictators in velvet gloves.
Some African “elections” are so ridiculously rigged that one wonders if the regimes claiming victory have any sense at all.
In May 2015, the T-TPLF claimed to have won 100 percent of the seats in the “parliament”.
To add insult to the injury of the Ethiopian people, the T-TPLF imported Barack Obama to their den of corruption and election rigging and had him make a public confession that their 100 percent rigged election victory was one hundred percent “democratic.”
I still wonder if the T-TPLF also rigged the coffee Obama had just before he gave a press conference and said, “We are opposed to any group that is promoting the violent overthrow of a government, including the government of Ethiopia, that has been democratically elected.”
I have never been more ashamed of Barack Obama than the day he stood should to shoulder with the most ruthless African thugs and declare to the world “the government of Ethiopia, that has been democratically elected.”
I learned long ago that when a defining moment comes along, I either define the moment or let the moment will define me.
In July 2009, Obama told Africans in Accra, Ghana, “Africa doesn’t need strongmen, it needs strong institutions.” On that day Barack Obama defined the moment.
In July 2015, Barack Obama stood shoulder-to-shoulder with thieving thugs and called the 100 percent electoral victory of the T-TPLF “democratic.” On that day Barack Obama let the moment define him.
That’s how Obama fell from grace to disgrace!
The evidence on the end of thugtatorships is sparse, but I believe “thugtatorships” end in a qualitatively different way than the garden variety dictatorships.
The “end of the story” for thugtatorships I believe is likely to be cataclysmic and result in the most extreme social cost to society.
I don’t know how or when the end of the story of the T-TPLF will be told.
My commitment, as proudly displayed on my website, is to “Speak truth to power”. That also includes misusers and abusers of power and power mongers.
I tell the truth. I don’t tell stories.
This time, I don’t have to tell the story of the end of the T-TPLF.
This time, I don’t have to speak truth to the T-TPLF.
This time, I will let the truth talk to the T-TPLF.
This time, I will let the truth talk to the T-TPLF as told by two T-TPLF “truth tellers”.
This time, I would like Ethiopians to hear the truth from the horses’ mouths (I did not say hyenas’):
Amen!
Personally, I don’t think it is the end of the story of the T-TPLF in Ethiopia.
I think it is the beginning of the end of the story of the T-TPLF in Ethiopia.
I think it is the end of the beginning of the story of the T-TPLF in Ethiopia.
Story of the end to be continued….
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