AREGAWI BERHE AND HIS THESIS OF DECEPTION!!

A Case of “Liars are victims of their own Lies”

Historical Background

For centuries, philosophers have asserted that it is impossible for a habitual liar to tell the truth. According to Acquinas, Lying is a statement at variance with the mind. Kant elaborates on the same subject matter by stating, Lying is a waste, and, as it were destructive of human dignity.



Aregawi Berhe, ex-officio of TPLF, is as usual hot in the business of deception and vulgarity. In his thesis, “The Origin of the Struggle of Tigray People,” he deceptively misinforms his readers by stating that the Tigray People Cultural Organization (TPCO) was founded by Mr. Gessesse Ayele and Mr. Hagos Alemayehu. This claim is historically and categorically wrong! By completely misrepresenting the truth, Aregawi is continuing to sow the seeds of destruction, division and mistrust among the people, who at the present time, sorely need messages of peace and unity for their very survival.



Let us state the facts upfront. We are talking here about a timeframe when Hagos Alemayehu was a 7th grade student in Mekelle, and Gessesse Ayele was working in far away Harar province. Only a person of Aregawi’s caliber can bring distant people together into a virtual reality meeting to achieve his goal of misleading the reader. With Aregawi, the end always justifies the means. This is a fabrication of lies, or call it distortion of facts, which is common among half-baked and malicious individuals like him.



Yet, the fact is that the Tigray People Cultural Organization (TPCO) was established for the first time by the then Haile Selassie University students, Mr. Abebe Tessema and Mr. Desta Bezabih, during their University National Service year (1969 – 1970). By the way, TPCO was one of the political, social, economic and cultural organizations that Abebe Tessema effectively employed, in order to raise the political consciousness of fellow Tigrayans. He is one of the very few people who initiated the modern struggle of the people of Tigray. As a matter of fact, it is widely known by Abebe’s contemporary elites that the kickoff meeting for the movement/struggle was conducted by him, at the Political Science Department of the Haile Selassie University in January of 1966.



If memory serves me well, Abebe Tessema began the discussion by raising core issues affecting the people of Tigray in the presence of Mr Atsbeha Hailemariam. Mr. Atsebeha was the son of the first weyane leader, Belata Hailemariam. The core issues pertained to Tigray’s economic exploitation, political marginalization, social suppression, and cultural oppression, such as the misguided policy of relegating the Tigrigna language to deliberate extinction by assimilation. Both Abebe and Atsbeha came to a consensus to pursue mobilizing the public by raising their consciousness. I hear that Abebe is working on a book that has these very issues as its main scope. I am confident his coverage will bear me out on the facts.



A Futile Attempt to Re-write History

Aregawi has committed a gross fallacy of “suppressed evidence,” in which he determined to ignore the facts and advance a “make-believe” scenario on the historic establishment of TPCO. It is evident that this was done to enhance his new political image. However, it is clear that this newly refurbished, and hastily packaged image will not fly among astute readers in the corridors of power.



In addition, the standard of a solid premise comprises of a provision that the premise considers important aspects of the testimony. Consequently, since Aregawi ignored allowing such a testimony, no doubt he committed a gross fallacious argument in the process. Indeed, an important piece of salient evidence has deliberately tossed out. Although Aregawi saw to it that concealing such evidence was the way to go, his attempt to rewrite his been mediocre, at best.



In other words, although Aregawi is one of those who come heavy on wishful thinking, his ability to connect the dots is nonexistent. His wishful thinking to create a memory gap could not stick when he failed to either support it by a remotely workable methodology or substantiate it by correct data. With Aregawi, reality and its corresponding image do not move in the same direction. By forcing garbage down the throat of the unsuspecting reader, he felt he could easily resurrect a political career that was long dead and burried.



Armed with the correct history and a formidable common sense to identify half-truths, the esteemed reader could easily debunk Aregawi's mumbo-jumbo easily. His desperation to get traction in the fast paced politics of the 21st Century is easily recognizable. It is of paramount importance to challenge Aregawi and his likes with a serene mindset and an unflinching dedication so that they don't get that wrong message of credence and collaboration in order to perpetrate their crimes against humanity one more time. They should not be allowed to insult the intelligence of the reader with impunity.



By way of highlighting the contribution of the Tigray People's Cultural Organization, it is to be remembered that this profound historic event has been well documented by the contemporary press, the media, books and other supplemental literature. In fact, the Haile Selassie regime publicized the glorious cultural event without any clue as to its political implications to the political survival of the regime itself. If Aregawi was not an eyewitness to the event, he should have done a simple search of the literature before venturing headlong into such a mendacious undertaking.



Considering his scant knowledge of the Tigrean/Ethiopian history and his inability to examine the past critically, Aregawi ended up sounding completely incompetent and incoherent. A simple verification of the facts by noted historians and journalists of the day could have saved him the embarrassment. However, overwhelmed by a gigantic political short-sightedness and imbued by a baseless political expediency, he exposed the extent of his infantile politics to the general readership. Instead of coming up with a mediocre thesis that trivialized the history and contribution of Tigreans/Ethiopians to the just struggle of the 1970's and 1980's, he should have prepared himself for a scholarly output that is supported by a well-researched endeavor. Unfortunately, this might be asking too much from a warlord and a man of localized mentality. Clearly, his account lacks the proper resume of scholarship and the integrity to tell the truth wherever the chips may fall. That is the mark of a true scholarship!!



Conclusion

It is curious why Aregawi had to wait until Atsbeha Hailemariam and Desta Bezabih passed away to unleash such an evil goal of stealing their identity. Thank God, people like Abebe Tessema are alive and kicking. Truth would be restored to its rightful historic accountability once such prominent eyewitnesses step up forward and tell it like it was.



Long before Aregawi attempts to gain traction in a new political career, he has a humongous list of issues to address and resolve over who did what to whom in Tigray in the 1970's and early 1980's when he run the show. How can he credibly teach us on the history of the just struggle when he is still mum about the gross destruction of life and property under his watch? Unless he faces up and accounts for the violations of human rights and extra-judicial killings that he and his cohorts perpetrated against the people of Tigray, it will be hard to fathom how his victims and their relatives will have the patience to listen to his revisionist historical rumblings. Without tackling these outstanding issues of life and death, Aregawi's new polemics on history and politics will definitely fall on deaf ears.



Most importantly, Aregawi needs to reassure the people that he has really reinvented himself by demonstrating serious atonement for his criminal past against the peace-loving people of Tigray. Until that happens, beware Tigreans/Ethiopians! Aregawi, as a born again politician is being groomed by certain right wing Ethiopian Organizations in order to license and authorize him to repeat the same mess by being in charge of the security and/ or the military apparatus in Ethiopia. Unfortunately, another round of Aregawi Berhe is a curse that Tigreans/Ethiopians cannot stand.



Until Aregawi comes to terms with the destructive fratricidal engagements he has perpetrated on Tigreans/Ethiopians so far, he should never be considered to play a constructive role in Ethiopia’s future!!




Mehari Yohannes,

USA