Tuesday, 7 October 2014

Ethiopia: The Gunman 'Diplomat'

By Mihiret Feleke

The news of a shot fired by an Ethiopian embassy staff Solomon Tadesse on peaceful protestors at the embassy of Ethiopia in Washington DC and his ultimate deportation has been the talk of local and international medias. What makes it a very strange and illegal act is not he got a gun or he is a TPLF core member who has been working for a decade at the embassy. What is strange to many people is he is a staff member of an embassy that is normally expected to protect Ethiopian interests no matter what the circumstances. Solomon Tadesse who has been a body guard to Seyum Mesfin before he was sent to the embassy as a diplomat has no educational as well as career experience that qualify him to be a records clerk let alone a diplomat. It might be a surprise to many that the TPLF government has made it crystal clear that those veteran members who had been in the struggle can be anything; including a 'Diplomat' and many Solomon likes are all over the Ethiopian embassies across the world. Their job is nothing but spying and harassing those Ethiopians who happen to escape the oppression at home and live as free people in a foreign land.

To use the word 'Diplomat' to these people is undermining and belittling the profession many have obtained reputation from being one using their knowledge and experiences. Simply TPLF has given a diplomatic passport to its agents does not make one a Diplomat at all. To call such people a diplomat, the name so many great Ethiopians have used from Aklilu Habtewold to Zewde Reta, From Goshu Wolde to Ketema Yifru and so many other career professionals is a so sad. A person who would not understand the consequence of using a deadly weapon in the capital of the leader of the free world speaks the level of limited conscious the gunman possess and for that it is TPLF who should be held accountable. specially, when his act is committed in the presence of the Ambassador Girma Birru tells a general truth that he has committed the act under permission that a simple one person decision. Although it is true Girma Birru is a Trojan horse to the TPLF his failure to create restraint would make him an accomplice to this outrageous act committed against unarmed protestors.

If people make an investigation in to who Ethiopian diplomats are these days it would be stunning to realize how so many who would not be qualified to lead a desk at the Woreda level are the one working in the embassies as diplomats. This is a direct result of TPLF's preference of party loyalty than merit and knowledge. Most Ethiopian Diplomats today are recruited not from higher institutions, local or international, they are a result of cadre producing institutions like the Civil Service College and fake correspondence foreign schools. Besides, those who are given the reward to be a diplomat for sustaining autocracy and TPLF's dictatorship are selected from all over the region and have been given a title of diplomat so they would divide the hard currency they are paid amongst themselves.
Being an Ethiopian under such reality makes me and many others ashamed. The country that has a good number of people who have the vision to see with their two eyes to be led with those blind is very unfortunate. Keeping aside the embassies, the reality in general in Ethiopia is not different from this reality. Able and capable Ethiopians have either been jailed or exiled because of the oppression and those who left to run the machinery of the government are those led by egocentrism as well as limitations of thought and rationalization. With regard to this issue I felt it is necessary to address the media opportunism this incident exhibited. Most importantly the attempt of certain so-called journalists who attempted to shift blame to the protestors is shameful. One of them is Mr. Bezu, the brother of the great Tilahun Gesesse wife, who spoke in the press briefing of the US spokes woman and attempted to depict the protestors as criminals to save the face of the TPLF regime and its agent. His determination to stand with TPLF defending the criminal act of 'attempted murder' using a deadly weapon is not only wrong but it is also despicable. His silence to raise his concern to the perpetrator is a testimony to his determination to serve TPLF for the subsidy the embassy channel to its 'TV' show.

I think, it is relevant to raise this issue a little more in detail since many people have no familiarity with it. It is a well know fact that TPLF would buy anything as long as they are willing to defend and serve its ethnic based and minority led administration through various ways. And one of them is providing financial support to medias that are supposed to be its opposition. In my investigation I have evidence that the EPRDF embassy in Washington provides financial support to those radio stations, in Washington and Atlanta, to promote its agenda and infiltrate the Diaspora. Radio Hager Feker under Negussie Woldemariam and Dr. Belay has a direct financial relation with the embassy and they have a budget paid regularly for their media coverage of the TPLF regime in a favorable light. This is a fact, and the recent interview by Gima Birru on the radio station, with regards to the gunman 'Diplomat', and the approach of Mr. Negussie is a testimony to this fact. So, it is up to all of us to detrmine the nature and character of those so-called free medias so as to stay immune to their money led than mind led information meant to satisfy their source of fund, TPLF.

So, it is imperative to the world to know, the gunman 'Diplomat' is not and was never a Diplomat with the real sense of the term. He was just called so simply because he is a member of Tigray People Liberation Front since the days of the guerrilla years. And his belligerent attitude that went to the level of firing a deadly weapon as he and his likes are accustomed to in ethiopian with no regard to law and order is a testimony to that fact.

Let us come together on Tuesday in DC and say 'that is not right' to those who planned to demostraste saying the gunman is right!

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