by Girma Hadas
Former Ethiopian diplomat

I am obliged to write this short note after I heard the new Ethiopian UN Ambassador Tekeda Alemu’s, my former big boss, interview on the EPRDF pal-talk gezategaru a week earlier. The points he forwarded in the interview are provocative and therefore demand a reply and correction. He cannot escape using the usual EPRDF deceiving tactic of making up a story to disguise itself as being somebody that it really is not. From my personal knowledge of the person

The ambassador mentioned that the reason he returned in 1974 to Ethiopia after he completed school in the USA was because he believed the Derg was progressive at the time and Ethiopia was at war with Somalia.

Well, I do not contest his initial argument. However, that does not explain why he remained cozy with the Derg people for the next 17 years with out any opposition or resistance to their untold human rights violations and horrific killings of innocent Ethiopians. While Ethiopians were slaughtered on the streets and its smartest and brightest were imprisoned and tortured, the so-called Dr. was serving the Derg regime full-heartedly and defending its bad deeds in the diplomatic sphere. On the interview he gave, he also mentioned that he was in the OAU meeting in West Africa when Woyane took power, and he said he came and joined them after Addis fall in their hands. Therefore, as he did during the oppressive Derg period he started serving the ethnic-psycho TPLF hegemonic rule in Ethiopia since the very day they came to power. Until the day he was sent to New York as Ambassador he has firmly stood in the side of those rulers who blocked the door that takes Ethiopia from autocracy to democracy and from poverty to development.

While we were at the ministry the Dr. was willing and happy to execute and endorse the decisions and actions of his TPLF bosses. When many intellectuals opposed the system at different times and resigned from the ministry the so-called Dr is still the proud son of TPLF. The Dr. has never said a word nor has he expressed any resentment at any point. As he shuts his mouse under the Derg oppressive system for years he has exhibited the same opportunist character under the current administration that is balkanizing the Ethiopian polity. This will definitely begs for the obvious question, how is the Dr.’s moral compass set and what is the meaning of his knowledge? Unless used to serve fight deceit and defend justice knowledge is the same as ignorance!

The other point the Ambassador raised in the interview was that he is not a member of EPRDF. He said that neither he nor the government had asked the question and so he is not a member.

To begin with, nobody cares whether Tekeda is a member or not. After all everybody knows that Tekeda is equally responsible for all the blunders and persecutions committed against Ethiopians and Ethiopia as Meles Zenawi is. The question is what have you done to hurt the cause of democracy, development and justice in Ethiopia, not whether you have received a membership paper to be EPRDF. Today Ethiopians at colleges and universities, civil services, businesses and farmers are being coerced to be a member of EPRDF. Failure to do so results in discrimination in employment, getting government services, fertilizers and others. The rhetoric that the Doctor is not a member is a cheap political game that will never save him when the popular peoples’ movement washes away the illegitimate Woyane junta from its place.

He used to insist diplomats at the ministry join EPRDF, at different times treated them as enemy, and has collaborated in firing many diplomats by accusing them as accomplice of CUD and other opposition parties. In his diplomatic status, he has sold Ethiopian interests in collaboration with the TPLF juntas. When the Ethio-Eritrea boundary commission awards Eritrea the Badme region the Doctor has collaborated in deceiving Ethiopians by telling us that it was decided in our favor. As a State minister for Foreign Affairs he should have debated and promoted Ethiopian cause. However, the sorry thing is that the Doctor is working to please his TPLF bosses, nothing more. The same holds true with respect Ethiopia’s right to get access to the sea and the issue of Western Gondar land given away to the Sudan. In all these cases the Doctor has done nothing except running and barking after the ball his TPLF lords thrown before him.

I could have said a lot about the weaknesses the Doctor exhibits and opportunism that seriously co-opted his character to the core. Due to lack of time I cannot say any more. I will add a follow up as soon as I got time.