From the outset TPLF defines itself as a liberator for one specifically racially
defined group. And still after two decades on power, irrespective of its
ostensible claim that it is under the umbrella of EPRDF, people of the same
origin monopolistically has held the whip-hand; and the whole country has been
cash cowed by one specific racial group while the majority is being treated as
impediments.
The apartheid nature and characteristics of TPLF’s policies and behavior is as
covert as possible to throw the majority into total muddle until it is too late. To
put it bluntly, the fledgling apartheid system of TPLF is emerging through a frog
boiling tactic.
The TPLF’s apartheid system can be described as a subtle state action designed
to secure and maintain the Tigrian domination by furthering their Economic and
Political interests through control over the majority Non-Tigrian population.
The following categories make the necessary, sufficient, and defining
characteristics of the emerging tender-plant apartheid system in Ethiopia:
1. Economic Interest
Furthering the Tigrean economic dominance is mainly achieved through a
threefold economic sabotage: i.e.,
a. Through the creation of Tigrian tycoons in every facet of the economy;
b. By building extractive business empire;
c. Through emasculation of Non-Tigrian business firms.
Let’s see each of the above points in detail.
1.1The incubation of the Tigrian Racketeers: Unlike the loosely
dispersed and individualistic Non-Tigrian business men, the Tigrian
racketeers are a highly organized kleptomaniacs that are exclusively
nurtured by the under-table action of the government in a way that:
- Favoring to get loan from state-owned banks with least or no
collateral;
- Facilitating the bureaucratic process in the Custom office with least
search procedure while this government office intentionally delays the
items that belonged to the Non-Tigrian business men.
- Government toleration for their criminal act of tax evasion.
- For the Tigrian importers, letter of credit will be processed easily and
access to hard currency is almost unlimited; whereas the Non-Tigrians
must wait a minimum of 4 to 6 months since their application.
- The government has granted them key business sites under low bid.
- The government conducts special training programs and video
conferences to create situational awareness among them and update
them with first hand information. At this point, we must not forget that
nowadays information is equivalent to money.
On top of that, they have been informed /’’trained’’/ and equipped with the
following racketeering tactics.
a. Insider Trading: Obviously all key governmental positions are occupied
by the Tigrian; which means any policy or information particularly related
with business reaches to the Tigrian racketeers before the crowd gets it so
they adjust everything in advance to suit to the new condition. And due to
such a prior knowledge they net millions from insider trading.
They also have foreknowledge on every government auction however the
Non-Tigrians get it lately from news papers. For insider information
equals ‘’money’’ in a modern market economy, it is a great power in the
hands of people who are the most cohesive and organized criminal group
like the Tigrian racketeers. As a matter of fact, insider information is
illegal both from moral and law perspective.
b. Dual Set of Ethics: In fact, the Tigrian racketeers have been informed
directly or indirectly to practice a dual set of ethics:
I. An altruistic set of ethics for themselves and;
II. A predatory one for the rest of Ethiopian people.
- They don’t compete with one another for a single niche of market;
- They don’t interfere with the monopoly controlled by other Tigrian
racketeer;
- They are barred from underbidding fellow Tigrian racketeer.
- They are always cooperate with one another so as "not to lose the
money of Tigray"
c. Team Strategy: Before we go to how they act in team, let’s see the
psychological set up of the Tigrian racketeers and the Non-Tigrian
business men.
The Non-Tigrian have been conditioned to think that everyone must be
judged on his or her merits and that it would be immoral to be biased for
his own race. The Tigrian racketeers, on the other hand, have been
conditioned from early time of TPLF to think in terms of the good of their
race.
Keeping this fact in mind, what they are practicing is through "Infect to
insolvency and then wait to takeover" approach. For example, if they need
to monopolize certain business sector they allocate a calculated sum of
money to under bid the price of item which certainly makes the NonTigrian competitor unable to fight with irrationally low price then put the
competitor company into insolvency and finally buy the company itself
with a giveaway price and will apply "the abuse of dominance" once they
control the sector.
In general, a cohesive and powerful team effort, dual set of ethics along with
insider information consistently amasses collective power to the Tigrian
racketeers over a scattered and individualistic Non-Tigrian.
1.2 By Establishing Extractive Trade Empire: An acronym
EFFORT stands for the TPLF’s multi-billionaire trade empire called
Endowment Fund for the Rehabilitation of Tigray. It was established by
expropriating capital equipments from different parts of the country and
by the infamous defaulted bank debts. Currently there is no business
sector that is free from the involvement of EFFORT. It stretched from
production to distribution, from finance to insurance, from wholesale to
retail, from real-estate to horticulture, from mining to IT. Peculiarly, this
trade empire hasn’t ever been audited by external auditor nor repays the
loan it borrowed periodically.
Similar to the Tigrian private companies, EFFORT is also privileged in
the following manner:
- It is awarded government auctions of big projects;
- Favored to borrow in billions without collateral and it is not subject to
repayment;
- Equipped with insider information;
- Granted fertile land at a giveaway price by displacing tens of
thousands of indigenous people from their ancestral land;
- Granted key mining sites without open bid;
- Market opportunity will be arranged for it by forcing regional and
federal offices to buy products which haven’t a relevant importance or
in an exaggerated quantity.
Surprisingly, almost 99.9% of the employees in these innumerable companies of
EFFORT are Tigrian; which means that majority of the economy is occupied by
either the Tigrian private companies or by the extractive trade empire called
EFFORT; and they primarily privileged job opportunity for Tigrians. As the
complete cycle of economic dominance and privileged labor market portrays,
we are under a severe economic genocide.
1.3 Stifling of Non-Tigrians’ Business Firms: Obviously the playing
ground is not level; and the whole situation is an uphill battle for NonTigrians’ business firms to survive all the barriers that they faced from the
government bureaucracy and from economic sabotage of the highly
privileged EFFORT companies and the cohesive Tigrian racketeers.
Consequently, especially after election-2005 we have seen that many
Non-Tigrian businesses have been either liquidated or down-sized.
2. Political Interest
The foremost plan of TPLF was to secede the Tigray region from the rest of the
country and to establish a sovereign republic, as plainly stated in Manifesto-68
which was formulated by the triumvirate of Abay Tsehaye, Sebhat Nega and
Meles Zenawi. However, through time they inferred that a sovereign republic of
Tigray would be a weak and failed state. Then they changed their program to
live together as a state-within-a state and TPLF’s role as a Quasi-Occupying
Force.
Similar to the case for economic dominance, TPLF and Tigrians maintain their
political dominance using racial solidarity as weapon against the Non-Tigrian
Ethiopians in the following manner:
2.1. Surrogate Colonization /Repopulation/: The TPLF apartheid
system has also been featured with Depopulation and PopulationTransfer. The annexation of arable lands of the Amhara region like
Humera, Welkayt, Tsegede, Alamata, Korem and so on, to Tigray
province and depopulating the indigenous Amharas from those places
and then replacing with Tigrians is a case in point of the surrogate
colonization of the TPLF regime. The expansion of Tigrians is also
continuing in west and north Gondar to annex the North Mountains
after they learned that the North Heights are fields of Gold and other
Precious metals.
2.2. Expropriation of Land /Landed Property/ Belonging to A
Racial Group: As a matter of the truth, the people of Gambella have
been denied its natural right of living on its ancestral land. And clearly
we know that more than quarter of arable land of the region has been
awarded to land grabbers at a giveaway price by TPLF megalomaniacs.
But beside to this, more than 2/3 of the remaining arable land has been
expropriated by Tigrian Mechanized-Farm owners in which it left more
than 70,000 indigenous people for forcible relocation to the place where
the soil is dry with poor quality and with no infrastructure. What
worsened the situation was that the deployment of the TPLF
mechanized army upon the unprotected civilians to enforce forcible
relocation of the indigenous people. As a result, they became victim of
genocide, rape and conflagration of their villages by TPLF militias.
2.3. Deliberate Denigration of Living Conditions of NonTigrian Racial Groups: This includes:
- Demolishing of business areas under cover story of investment which
are mainly occupied by Gurage business men in the capital city of
Addis Ababa. Particularly after election-2005, the Gurages have been
profiled as "Accomplice of Neftegna" and currently as "Ginbot-7
Sympathizers"; and consequently, they are paying the expensive price
ever for the alleged charge.
Internal deportation and expulsion of hundreds of thousands of the
Amhara people from different parts of the country by confiscation of
their tenure and property is also one of the cruelest repressions of the
racist regime of TPLF in order to break the potential resistance from
this group by throwing them into absolute destitution and instability.
2.4. Infliction of Serious Bodily and Mental Harm upon
Certain Racial Members: Tens of thousands of political and
Conscience prisoners are concentrated in three federal and 120 regional
major prisons. They are also found in an unofficial detention centers in
military camps including in Dedessa, Bir Sheleqo, Tolay, Hormat,
Blate, Tatek, Jijiga, Holeta, and Senqele. Majority of the prisoners are
racially Oromo; and their alleged charge is "Sympathizers of OLF".
The number of Amhara, Gambella and Ogadenese political and
conscience prisoners are also significant.
The condition of these political prisoners is extremely harsh, overcrowded
and life threatening. Besides, the TPLF henchmen often use a series of
torture and brutal interrogation to extract confessions including whipping
on the soles of feet, over stretching of limbs, slow dripping of water on
the head, slandering of their race, pulling out of nails, forcible
extraction of teeth, weights suspended on testicles, plunging into
spoiled water, solitary confinement in dark cell for long period of
time, signing a confession, forced self-incrimination, threatening with
injection of HIV infected blood, forcing to denounce others, burning
with cigarette, insertion of bottle and hot candle into prisoners’
rectum, drowning into ice cold water for long period of time and
beating with rifle butt, stick, whip, belt etc.
2.5. Access: No matter how the Non-Tigrians have the qualification for
the high post in the army or the security apparatus or for key
government offices, they have already been denied by the unwritten law
of TPLF. Access to government-sponsored scholarship at the overseas
is also highly secured for Tigrians.
In conclusion, Ethiopia is a country of nations and nationalities. So there must
not be room for the socio-political and economic dominance of single race. All
the people of Ethiopia must be treated as an empowered citizen. The fledgling
Tigrian apartheid system must be nipped in the bud before it sparks the bloody
genocide.
; As a universal truth, no one ever negotiated successfully from weakness, but
from strength. It must be our primary target to be strong. And, I do personally
believe that awakening to the truth will make us strong. We are now in the
middle of life-or-death struggle; if we fail to break the yoke of TPLF’s apartheid
system the future of our people, the continuity of our race and the stability of our
country will be at stake.
We have left nothing with TPLF; we have been cornered, humiliated,
persecuted, harassed, assaulted, exiled, locked-in jail, tortured, expelled,
impoverished by design, confiscated and decimated. We must not have room for
the source of all these evil, TPLF, anymore!!! We must fight it by all possible
means until we regain our freedom!!! We must struggle desperately until we tear
apart the reins of the Quasi-Occupiers!!!
On the other hand, the Tigrians must also do their own homework before they
are being treated as:
- Accomplice of Criminally guilty TPLF officials;
- Politically guilty as TPLF Supporters;
- Morally guilty as Tigrians;
- And perhaps, metaphysically guilty as Ethiopians.
Dawit Fanta /Eng./
April 2, 2013.
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