NO ROAD IS TOO LOW FOR THE TPLF

NO ROAD IS TOO LOW FOR THE TPLF It has stepped up its sinister smear campaign against Eritrea

When lives of innocent people are at stake you would expect
governments to take the high road and resist the temptation to try to
take advantage of the tragedy.  But, the minority regime ruling Ethiopia
today never misses the opportunity to take the low road.  In fact, when
it comes to Eritrea and the Eritrean people, no road is too low for the
TPLF-run regime. Anything goes if it ensures the regime another day in
the Menelik Palace.
When the recent “kidnapping” of Europeans and their Ethiopian
drivers and guides hit the news, naturally people’s minds focused on the
lives of the kidnapped.  But, the TPLF, using its low-level and
regional operatives, went into the blame-game in full gear.  In fact,
the first-day story of the incident led off with the TPLF’s charges that
Eritrea was behind the kidnapping and the story came out without
Eritrea’s response to this outright fabrication (More on this later).
What is more, the incident was not an isolated case; it is
part of a sinister campaign of relentless flow of fabrications the Meles
Zenawi regime has been waging against Eritrea. The recent campaign
seems to have at least three distinct features: the frequency of these
charges has increased; the charges are focusing solely on global
terrorism, Meles Zenawi’s most marketable commodity these days; and the
regime seems to be stooping hard to draw—militarily—big international
players into the quagmire of Ethiopia’s internal and external conflicts.
Let us look at this pattern of groundless charges against
Eritrea and the Eritrean people (Meles in 1998 called all Ethiopians of
Eritrean origin and Eritreans then living in Ethiopia spies to pave the
way for their mass expulsion and to steal their wealth!).

• First, there seems be a noticeable increase
  in the frequency of the Big Lies—the TPLF generates lies about Eritrea
  and Eritreans a dozen a minute.  So, here we are talking only about the
  Big ones, the ones that cross the bounds of shamelessness.
  • (Item): Three weeks ago, the
    regime accused Eritrea of waging “terror attacks” in Ethiopia and it
    added: “There is convincing information about Shaebia’s strategy, plan
    and network aimed at wreaking havoc in Ethiopia through the orchestrated
    terror attacks.”
  • (Item): Three weeks before that
    this was the story coming out of Addis Ababa: “Ethiopia says it foiled
    Eritrean attack on African Summit.” The regime said, “It has foiled a
    bomb attack….against an African leaders summit.” A statement from
    security and anti-terrorism department of Ethiopia’s federal police
    said, “The terrorist attacks had been planned to be carried out during
    the 8th African Union Summit.” Adding, the statement
    said, “Police apprehended the alleged masterminds of the alleged attack
    ‘just ahead of the summit.”
  • (Item): Throughout the fall, the
    regime and its Western enablers, put out tons of fabrications charging
    that Eritrea had 2,000 soldiers in Somalia to support the Islamic Courts
    Union. The lies, orchestrated by players from Nairobi, Addis Ababa,
    Washington, and New York, tried to fortify their fraudulent claim with
    all sorts of details about the departure, travel, and the final
    destination of the  troops.  In fact, one had to be embedded with the
    troops to give those kind of details. However, the fact is that to this
    day, they could not find a single Eritrean soldier in Somalia.  The
    lesson is that no amount of fabricated “evidence” or “details” can stand
    in the face of the truth.
  • (Item): And now this—in which
    the TPLF tries to pin kidnapping charges on Eritrea.  Right from the
    start it was clear this was another outrageous fabrication.  Even the
    professional spin masters of the regime and its supporters could not get
    it straight. Every few minutes the facts surrounding the incident
    changed. The media had to know it was groundless; yet, they kept
    repeating the charges.
• Second, these lies seem to be
  centered on “global terrorism.” One thing you can say about Meles Zenawi
  is that he knows what sells, and where and when it sells.  He knows
  that the West is buying wholesale anything with a “terrorism” label on
  it. Meles and his ruling party—the most sinister regime the region has
  ever seen—have been flinging “terrorist” mud on Eritrea hoping some of
  it will stick.  The most despicable dictators across the globe know that
  the best way to get Western attention and assistance these days is to
  shout “terrorism” and call your enemy a “terrorist.”  Clueless Western
  policymakers do not seem to know what this is doing to the real war
  against global terrorism.
• Third, the overuse of the word “terrorism”
  in what the regime puts out or its officials utter has as its ultimate
  goal to draw big Western players, especially the United States, into the
  quagmire of Ethiopia's internal and external conflicts.  History tells
  us that this is not something we should  dismiss outright. Ethiopia’s
  foreign policy specialists are extremely adept at getting foreigners to
  fight their country’s wars. An American advisor to Emperor Haile
  Selasssie wrote that Ethiopian conflicts are "often resolved by foreign
  dei ex machina." The American advisor, John Spencer, who was the late
  emperor’s primary foreign advisor for decades, “traced this pattern of
  Ethiopian behavior from the 16th century when the Portuguese stopped the
  Gragn invasion in the East.” During this generation we saw how they got
  the Soviets and the Cubans to fight for them in the 1970s against
  Somalia and the Eritrean liberation forces. During its 1998-2000
  invasion of Eritrea, the TPLF received a great deal of tactical support
  from its Western patrons. So, there is too much historical evidence to
  dismiss this as Tigrayan delusion.
  An important dimension to this web of lies is the role of
  the international media, especially those members of the press that are
  based in Addis Ababa, in perpetuating the fabrications and encouraging
  the lying liars to give one lie after another, the last more outrageous
  than the one before it. The journalistic cover the Addis Ababa based
  foreign press--some are represented by notorious TPLF operatives
  masquerading as journalists--used when the first-day kidnapping story
  broke was: “Calls to Eritrea's government spokesman rang unanswered
  Saturday.” But, this is irresponsible journalism, especially when the
  story is based on a shameless charge of kidnapping by a government
  against another government, a provocation that should be addressed by
  the United Nations Security Council.  There are two groups of reporters
  here: those—most of whom are Westerners--without real understanding of
  the complexities of the issues they are covering and susceptible to
  manipulation by TPLF operatives, their NGO supporters and foreign
  intelligence enablers; the second group is made of local stringers
  working for the wire services who sing for their dinners under little
  editorial supervision by the international news agencies for veracity,
  fairness, balance, and integrity of the story. We can understand the
  notorious Ethiopian News Agency making such wild accusations against
  Eritrea. But, we expect a higher standard and integrity in the stories
  that come out in the name of Reuters and the Associate Press
  (AP)—written by their local stringers who should be working under the
  supervision of professionals whose allegiance is to the truth and not to
  Meles Zenawi and his criminal ruling party. 
• Finally, the picture that emerges from
  this campaign of despicable lies is that of an immoral minority regime
  that has long gone beyond the bounds of decency, a regime that is almost
  totally consumed by and preoccupied with its own political survival,
  and that is at the service of anyone,  any group or any government that
  will help it stay in power.