Meles Zenawi

Both the on-going meetings among the residents as well as the Diaspora community of the Somali Regional State (SRS) in Ethiopia to deliberate more and more about abuses in the hands of Ethiopia and the most recent resistance mounted by the opposition parties in Addis Ababa are seemingly signs that Zenawi's days in power are numbered, or may we say it is what Somalis say: “Taliska Nugul ee Naxashka saaran,” A Frail regime in its coffin.

On June 4, 2005, Mr. Abbay Sahaye, Minister for Federal Affairs of Ethiopia, held an unprecedented and rare town hall meeting in Jigjiga to let traditional clan leaders square off with its corrupt and feeble government. Along with him were the un-elected ruling government's clients, and two of the least popular individuals in the region, the chairman of the Somali Peoples Democratic Party, Mr. Mohamud Dirir, and his hand picked interim Regional Administrator, Mr. Abdi Jibriil.

Mohamud Dirir - SPDP Party Chair	Abdi Jibril _ Interim President of SRS

Mr. Abbay Sahaye, a close confidante of Meles Zenawi reportedly came to Jigjiga to (1) resuscitate and rescue the creditability of a dying and dysfunctional regional administration, and (2) to secure the undivided support of the Somalis for his party in the upcoming belated and meaningless August 2005 elections.

During an unrestrained town hall meeting, however, the elders representing some of the most important Somali clans listed innumerable grievances against the government and the leadership of the party. Chief among these grievances are bad governance in the region and the illegal chopping off of significant portions of Somali districts, which are illegally transferred to the Oromia region. Participants in the town hall meeting aired out their anger with a sense of frankness that reflected their attitude of “we hit rock bottom and we are no longer afraid.” With such attitude, participants at the Jigjiga town hall meeting told Mr. Sahaye that, with the exception of Mr. Dirir and Mr. Jibril, neither the Regional Parliament nor the Somali community at large recognize the transfer of the Somali land to the rulers of the client regional state of Oromia. The Somali elders vehemently let the visiting dignitary know that they still consider Jinacsani, Babile and Ma'ayso as their land and would not deviate from the position, no mater what.

The so-called October 2004 plebiscite, which the EPRDF says authorized the transfer of Somali districts to Oromia, was the result of yet another sham and shameful political exercise. Somalis have said one by one at the town hall meeting that they will not accept the concocted and viciously designed sham plebiscite to loot their land, a little over a Century after Menilik II colonized them. With the exception of one lone speaker, all the elders who met Mr. Sahaye told him that “enough is enough,” and they expect the fedral government to stop its unfettered abuses of the Somali Regional State.

The Jigjiga meeting seems to have been spiritually united in its thoughts with many activities underway in the Diaspora. A case in point is a meeting held in San Jose, California, which was organized for the Somali-Ethiopian community to discuss the political crisis in their region and what they called the unresponsive and condescending attitude of the Zenawi government towards Somalis. This meeting, which has reportedly drew participants from a cross section of that community, took place on May 28, and was one of the biggest events to take place in the Bay Area, San Francisco, California. As many as 243 people, including women, men and youngsters attended the meeting. The participants called on the residents in the SRS to (1) be united internally; (2) resist government's divisive policies and; (3) return the transferred Somali districts from the Oromia state.

Ethiopian police stop Ethiopian students as they demonstrate outside Addis Ababa Tegbareed Industrial College in the capital's Mexico area, Tuesday, June 7, 2005.

On June 6, 2005, only two days after Abay Sahaye was grilled with political and as well as governance questions in Jigjiga, the administrative center of the Somali National State, Addis Ababa, the administrative seat of the Federal government of Ethiopia, erupted with civil unrest that has been steadily brewing for the last 14 years under EPRDF rule. The immediate cause of the unrest, though, was when supporters of the opposition parties, Coalition for Unity and Democracy (CUD), who won over 80% of the votes cast in Addis Ababa, marched in the streets of Addis Ababa and overwhelmed Addis Ababa's Revolution Square, formerly know as Cross Square, to demand a fair count of the results of the election of May 28, 2005. The Zenawi government defiantly ordered its special troops, freshly redeployed from his home state of Tigray, to shoot to kill. As a result, over 22 people are reported dead and hundreds of protestors are badly wounded.

This latest action of the Zenawi regime earned him significant scorn from different quarters and has caused the EU to flat-out reject Zenawi's claim that his party won the majority of the votes (300) out of a total of 547 seats of the national parliament. In an unprecedented but over due denouncement of the Zenawi regime, the British opposition party leader called on Tony Blair to cancel Meles Zenawi's membership of the Britain-sponsored prestigious Commission on Africa.

The opposition's allegations that the government and its troops intimidate and even kill anyone who opposes the government and its policies outside Addis Ababa is all the more proven right by the June 6 th killings of protestors in Addis Ababa. Worse, Zenawi and his government have not wavered from their position that the killing of political demonstrators was justified and would do so again if opportunity arises.

Ethiopian police beating students with clubs

The behavior of Zenawi's regime, a clear and unambiguous practice of an authoritarian regime, is finally seen by his Western benefactors and is also a vindication of the cry and protestation by the Somalis who have alleged all along that the federal government and its laky (“taladaafi, in Amharic) albeit feeble administration in Jigjiga staged the so-called October, 2004 plebiscite, which illegally transferred a significant number of Somali districts to the Oromia state, ruled by a member of Zenawi's EPRDF coalition.

Therefore, now is the right time for Somalis to take their protests regarding their land and all other grievance to the eyes of the world. It is in that context that we at WardheerNews applaud and support the courageously and correctly crafted statement released by the collective elders of the Somali Regional State on June 10, 2005. In it, the elders finally demanded that the upcoming August elections be fair and free, and that the federal government rescind its incendiary and land grabbing policy towards the Somali Regional State. As we said in our previous editorial on April 24, 2005, “Dhaqasho iyo Mar bay kaayihiin Dharago Xaaraane; Dhashaaday sugtaa Xaajadaad Dhowrataa abide. ....” Aluta Continua and the Struggle Continues!

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