A mountain of lies fails to bury the grains of truth
· A brief analysis on the ‘Meles Report’ (Part 1)

By Abebe Gelaw
Prime Minister Meles Zenawi has made countless speeches in his lifetime. Since he mounted himself at the helm of political power by force a decade and half years ago, he has been misusing the public media, directly and through his proxies at the Ministry of Misinformation, to record, publish and broadcast every word he says and every move he makes in electronic and printed formats. Apparently, he inherited this malpractice of media misusage and abusage from his predecessors, tyrant Colonel Menigistu and Emperor Haile Selassie I, who were also heavily dependent on the public media to inculcate fear and reverence amongst their hapless subjects. The difference between the three is quite evident. Meles is much smarter and sharper than the foolhardy Colonel and the outmoded absolute monarch in many ways. His qualities are too many to list. He is a gifted Machiavellian, being cunning, calculating, manipulative, devious, tricky, artful, evasive, and foxy, to say the least.

However, being a ruler who has chosen to earn his living in politics, the Prime Minister lives under the watchful eyes of the public. Whether he likes it or not, he should live with fact that he has not only admirers who extol his wisdom no matter what he does, but also many critics who have never failed to voice their concerns over his misdeeds. Given the PM’s relentless efforts to cultivate what he called the ‘seeds of democracy’ in Ethiopia, he must listen more attentively to his critics who can help him to mirror his inadequacies as a leader than his worshippers who exalt and praise him like Almighty God. After all he is a man with strengths and weaknesses like any other mortal human beings. The exaltation of both Mengistu and Meles by their respective inner circles, backed up by the same public media using similar tactics, hardly helped them to polish their tarnished images as well as their tyrannical rules.

Like all tyrants, Meles prefers to be feared than loved. Niccolo Machiavelli, who wrote the infamous bible of tyrants, The Prince, offers his advise to rulers like Meles as: “Since love and fear can hardly exist together, if we must choose between them, it is far safer to be feared than loved... Fear preserves you by a dread of punishment which never fails.”

Despite the huge cloud of fear that the Meles regime has successfully sustained in our wretched land, we need to be mindful of the words of one of the prominent leaders of the American War of Independence, Thomas Jefferson, who said: “When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.” The oppressed people of Ethiopia have been aspiring to bring about liberty for ages. Though our fundamental aspiration for leaders accountable to the people has never been fulfilled yet, sooner rather than later, we will have a representative government that reveres and respects Ethiopians as one nation regardless of their ethnic, linguistic or cultural background. There is little doubt that great hurricane of change that has already created terror in the Grand Palace cannot be reversed with tanks and bombs.

“The tyrant always talks as if he's preserving the best interests of his people when he actually acts to undermine them,” says the political thinker, Ramman Kenoun. The recent 14,000-word Election Report that Meles Zenawi published in The Ethiopian Herald under the guise of a ‘letter to the editor’, which is reported to be the longest ever published in a newspaper, has significantly undermined not only the election process, but also the aspiration of the Ethiopian people to elect their representatives. Needless to repeat what has already been said, the tantrum, whether it was written by the PM himself or a ghost-writer to reflect the arrogance and egoisms of the declared author, is unethical, unprincipled and illegal.

If any of the contesting parties are unhappy with the conclusions of the EU Election Observation Mission, they should respect the terms of the accepted grievance procedures rather than resorting to libellous attacks with the “wilful and malicious intent of injuring the dignity, honesty, integrity and reputation of the intended victims, ” as the law says. If the Prime Minister feels free to resort to publishing such a highly unethical defamation, it begs the question why he and the ‘First Lady’, along with their entourage, have decided to the cross the Atlantic Ocean to hire expensive U.S. libel lawyers to defend their ‘reputation.’

There must be an acceptable complaints procedure as the EU and the electoral board signed a legally binding memorandum of understanding in March, through Ambassador Timothy Clarke, and Chief Justice Kemal Bedri, who signed the document, not on behalf of the Federal Supreme Court, but the National Electoral Board of Ethiopia (NEBE).

Meles must have known as a leader of a country that there are standards of professionalism and decency that are expected of him as a ruler. Any layman knows the fact that grievances and complaints should always be addressed through the legally accepted mechanisms and channels. No one can expect a fussy ruler like him to gracefully accept a critical report, which highlighted the evident irregularities and flaws in the May 15th election. However, any complaints regarding a general election, which is obviously one of the most important democratic expressions, need to be legally regulated. If every leader of a contesting party is allowed to insult, defame and blackmail not only critically sharp foreign observers, but also his or her political rivals, then the election will turn into a dangerous farce that can have far-reaching consequences. This has already been the case in Ethiopia. No legal system in the world, save ours, would let go anyone who commits such serious offences unpunished and unbridled.

Although it seems an insurmountable task to analyse and comment on a 14,000-word convoluted report full of insult, derision, scorn and unsubstantiated claims, one can ‘easily remove the garbage that has covered the lumps of truth.’

In the first paragraph of the ‘letter’, which I prefer to refer to as ‘the report’, Meles told us that it was the first time in his entire political life that anything was published in his name. Lawyers have a euphemism for a lie, which they modestly call misrepresentation. This claim is an obvious misrepresentation. I beg to differ from such an absurd assertion. Unless the Premier’s memory is suddenly erased due to the mounting stress, it is public knowledge that his numerous full-text speeches have been published under his name in Abiyotawi Democracy, The Ethiopian Herald, Addis Zemen, Berisa, Wegahta, Al-Alem, Walta, Aiga Forum, Hmbasha.net etc. Supersonic messengers from the Office of the Prime Minister always rush into newsrooms with hardcopy texts of His Excellency’s speeches, whether or not it is worth publishing or broadcasting. The ‘editors’, who are well-trusted cadres, do not change a single word even when they find unambiguous mistakes and improper words. This is because they operate under a guiding motto, “The ruler is always right.’ Anyone who dares to question this motto must be either a ‘reactionary’ or an ‘anti-democratic element.’ The absolute control of Meles and his party on the public media is evident not only to the public but also to any election observer.

In spite of the undeniable facts of a one-man show in Ethiopian politics, Meles wrote: “Party publications, however, take time because every word has to be agreed upon by the relevant bodies.” This leads us to a conclusion that the TPLF is a truly democratic party that debates on ‘every word.’ It must be a new practice, which came into force after the series of purges and charges that undertook within the TPLF to cleanse it from any dissenting voices. One thing that Meles failed to tell us from the outset was whether he was speaking on behalf of his party, as Prime Minister of the Federal Government or whether he just felt the need to belt out his personal emotions.

Under normal circumstances, a party leader is not allowed to make highly contentious and inflammatory statements on his own that can undermine the credibility of his party. Bringing a political party into disrepute is a serious charge punishable by at least dismissal from membership. The offence of bringing a government and a nation into disrepute and undermining an election process are serious felonies, which can surely land the offender in a high-security jail. If a leader of a country wants to practice yellow journalism, he is free to do so. However, he must resign from his positions of responsibility as an obvious conflict of interests would arise that can render his position untenable.

Imagine what could have happened if the editor of the Ethiopian Herald had been a real editor who dared to tell the PM to rewrite his letter in the an acceptable style and in no more than 500 words. In reality though, Meles is the absolute owner of the public media who can publish or broadcast anything he likes. His words are final. If he says publish, one must do more than that. Do you know anyone else in the world that can freely publish a 14,000-word long letter to the editor? If the PM knows anyone who commits such a gross act of misconduct, other than himself, he should humble and shame us by exposing our ignorance.

Journalism has its own minefields. If Meles chooses to practice journalism of any kind, yellow or otherwise, he will have to kill or imprison every editor at work and appoint himself or his proxy an editor because his articles are highly likely to end up in the dustbins for use of foul and libellous languages. If he comes up with a 14,000-word letter to the editor, any sensible editor will definitely give him the frustrating task of condensing the junk in no more than 500 words.

Instead of doing his job properly or resigning, the editor of the Ethiopian Herald informed us that the PM’s letter was unprecedented. How come this one was different from his unedited full-text speeches or ‘interviews’ that they have published on countless occasions?

The chief Herald propaganda scribbler may benefit from being informed that one of the most unprecedented and outrageous letters the Prime Minister has ever written was dated 13 December 1991. Nearly six months after he came to power, he wrote a letter to the U.N. pleading the world body to help him secede Eritrea.

In his letter to the U.N. Secretary-General, who was then the newly elected Mr. Boutros Boutros-Ghali, the President of the Transitional Government of Ethiopia, Mr. Zenawi, wrote: “The people of Eritrea have the right to determine their own future by themselves ... the status of Eritrea should be decided by the Eritrean people in a referendum to be conducted in the presence of international observers." Such a letter can truly qualify to be labelled ‘unprecedented’ as the national interests of a sovereign nation was surrendered by an unauthorised, unelected, unrepresented, unqualified and inexperienced president. When the content of the letter and the phoney nature of the referendum came to light in 1993, thousands of students at the AAU, took to the streets to voice the concerns of the people. Being an overenthusiastic political science sophomore, I was amongst the crowd shouting on top of my voice for justice. Unfortunately, the PM’s loyalist troops used bullets and bayonets to disperse the crowd. He explained in his trademark of arrogance that the Transitional Government had no experience and skills in crowed control. Around forty prominent lectures were subsequently fired and thousands of us ended up in extremely harsh jails for expressing our legitimate concerns. Though the author of that unprecedented letter is still reaping the whirlwind he sow, its costly implications are still haunting the whole nation.

Unfortunately, the man has gone to great lengths to facilitate the separation of Eritrea, his motherland, from his fatherland, Ethiopia, under the deceptive Marxist-Leninist philosophy of self-determination backed up with his fifty-cent logic of voluntary divorce. He did not even bother to demarcate the boarders and properly define the status of the 1000-km Red Sea coastline. Now this very man stands to obstruct the free will of the people to elect their leaders. It is a free and fair election, which truly guarantees self-determination for every citizen. Only elected leaders who can be entrusted with the onerous task of leading a nation can protect and promote our national interests.

After savagely attacking the Chief EU-EOM, H.E Ana Gomes, one of the most powerful and experienced EU officials in Brussels, the PM declared to reporters: "What the implications of this will be in terms of relations between Ethiopia and the EU we will have to wait and see. But I don't think you will be surprised if Ethiopia were to insist that it should not be patronised." Was he talking on behalf of the Ethiopian people when he uttered these words of arrogance? It is a great tragedy the ‘good gentleman’ is under the illusion that he owns the whole nation. As far as the majority of the Ethiopian people are concerned, they respect the verdict of the observers. The majority insist that they are not to be patronised by one man.

(To be continued)
www.nazret.com

I believe Meles should resign without wasting his time.

Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.

~ Thomas Jefferson

Unreasonablness,blind hate and Irrational complaining culture is weakness, not the solution. Therefor I advice all these braindead dummy Amhras to cease complaining and do their share to reconstruct and fix what The Amhas destroyed for the last 200 years of Amhras domination of Ethiopia.

Email: gomera@Hotmail.com

City: Madison

'Gonderew' cousin of Meles. You are unreasonably lending your support to a tyrant. I can guess why!

Gonderew Gomera,

You are embarassment. Why don't you become Tigrean and live in Mekele. You can help them destroy us. Moron.

City: planet earth

'Gonrew' is actually a TPLF member. He didn't even read the article.

Do not get distracted by 'get-loose-woyane-agents.

IGNORE THEM. DO NOT REPLY! STAY FOCUSED. BY DOING SO,
YOU'LL GIVE YOURSELF TIME TO DISCUSS THE MAIN ISSUE.

Try it and you'll see!

They're paid to do that...for a while actually until the Ethiopian people will take over!

bye

City: Canada

The Weyanes are upset because their emperor is proved to a pathetic monster. No mask to wear anymore...even the Ferengis know who really is...

Group of voiceferious.

Gebremeles...why don't you reply to the article.