ICRC expulsion from the Ogaden

The Ethiopian government has now graduated from expelling election observers and journalists to expelling the Red Cross. Why? Because they bear witness to its brutal and inhumane strategy of “starving out the enemy.” The TPLF’s conviction to sink lower at every opportunity would have been amusing if its consequences were not so dire for the Ethiopian people.

It seems at every turn the TPLF is copying from the Dergue play book.

Dagmawi writes:

Who could have imagined that what the Derg did in 1984 would be repeated again 23 years later. Lets have a great Millenium party in Addis Ababa while thousands of Ogadeni-Ethiopians huddle on the bare ground starving to death!

Redeem Ethiopia recently wrote:

Distracting Ethiopians and the international community with large expensive and year-long Millennium parties is now crucial. Mengistu attempted such a distraction with a large celebration of the tenth anniversary of the revolution ... Is Meles so inspired by Mengistu’s old strategies that he will do the same?

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And the Wonk is back!!!

Running in circles

The Ethiopian famine of 1983-1985, preserved in popular memory as a natural disaster of biblical proportions, most fiercely struck those parts of the country that harbored irredentist movements. In a stunning, but telling, rejoinder to international pity for the purportedly hapless Ethiopian government, the Ethiopian foreign minister told a U.S. charge' d'affaires that “food is a major element in our strategy against the secessionists."

David Marcus, Famine Crimes in International Law, The American Journal of International Law, Vol. 97, No. 2. (Apr., 2003), pp. 245-281.

Western diplomats have been urging Ethiopian officials to lift the blockade, arguing that the many people in the area are running out of time. “It’s a starve-out-the-population strategy,” said one Western humanitarian official, who did not want to be quoted by name because he feared reprisals against aid workers. “If something isn’t done on the diplomatic front soon, we’re going to have a government-caused famine on our hands.”

New York Times
July 21,2007

The Kaliti Apology Letter

I am wondering why none of the media that has aligned itself with the Ethiopian opposition is not commenting on the apology letter. It seems people are not reading the letter carefully and are rather following the EPRDF spin on it. The letter publicized by Walta expresses regret for the CUD leadership's proposal to set up a transitional government to replace the current regime in a manner not stipulated in the constitution [the transitional government was supposed to include EPRDF]. In the same letter they agree that any change from here on would have to be made through the mechanisms provided for in the Constitution. The letter clearly stays away from words that are associated with force, or violence and simply says 'change'(lemelewet) rather than 'overturn' (megelbet).

The spinners at Aiga and Bereket Simon have of course seized upon the purposely vague wording [probably a result of days of negotiations] to make it look like the prisoners of conscious have agreed with the government's prosecutors. But that is clearly not the case.