ETHIOPIA:
THE FARCE OF A NOBEL PEACE PRIZE
by
HAMA
TUMA
(Ethio Semay)
An Ethiopian proverb states that
first witness for the rat is the small bird. The Ethiopian charlatan of a Prime
Minister, who got awarded the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize, was given praise by the
antiquated body called the Nobel Institute. I will come to the reasons they
gave to justify their condemnable decision later but first what is the
relevance of the prize in real terms? Why is it considered a farce played on
Ethiopians and the world by professional pettifoggers in Oslo.
It is not the first man time Norwegian veteran
politicians have used the prize to sell dictators and war mongers. In the past
Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin were all nominated while the Nobel board writhed
and screamed not to allow a German political prisoners as a candidate.
Understandably, Theodore Roosevelt of the USA, a man not that much in love with
peace ,was one of the earliest prize winner. It had to do with Norwegian
politics and signaled the ever continuing subservience of the small
Scandinavian country to the USA. It began the politicization of the Oslo prizes
. Kissinger, a war criminal and the butcher of Indochina and the master of the
Pinochet fascist coup, was given the Nobel Peace prize. So was Menahem Begin
who led the Irgun/Haganah gang and made war on the Palestinians. It also
awarded Gorbachev who betrayed his country for the benefit of the West along
with Anwar Sadat and Lech Walesa. The latter had worked secretly with the CIA
and the Vatican to overthrow the regime in Poland. The Burmese prize winner has
now proved herself how much of a woman of peace she is. Obama was just elected
when he got the Noble peace prize without ending a war ongoing by America. He
used Africa into a drone and military base center and continued to bomb and
kill until he left the White House. The Nobel Institute is but a political
machine perpetuating a farce and awarding killers and war mongers. It would
rather honor unknown white writers than the likes of Ngugi wa Thiongo or
Nurredin Farah.
And so is the case with the unelected prime
minster in Addis Abeba. He won while the drab men in Oslo because of political
reasons shunned the environmentalist young girl Greta Thunberg. They awarded
the lt. colonel who served the totalitarian and repressive regime of the late
Meles Zenawi for 27 years being part of his spying and repressive apparatus.
Groomed by the NSA, for which he worked for years, he was propelled unto power
with Washington to stop a popular revolt that threatened to sweep away the pro
America regime of the ruling TPLF/EPRDF. Within this apparatus, the colonel was
part of a narrow nationalist satellite group called the Oromo People's
Democratic Organization, now in power and engaged in a brutal ethnic cleansing,
and just today engaged in a sweeping round up and jailing of activist
youngsters about to make a demonstration tomorrow to declare their opposition
to the ethnic definition and name changing that the colonel and his acolytes
have planned for Addis Abeba.
The Nobel committee said we award the PM the
peace prize because he ended the war with Eritrea, bla bla. The war in Eritrea
had ended a decade or more ago though the war situation had endured. Is the
so-called peace agreement, made by the colonel of his own free will or is it a
result of pressure made by America and Saudi Arabia to bring in tyrant Isayas
Afewerki away from the sanctions cold? And what is the benefit of the
agreement, anyway? The isolated regime of Isaias Afewerki war reaching the end
of its line and its shameful support of the Saudi war on Yemen, the lease of
its Assab port to become a UAE military/air force base had made it kosher for
those concerned, State Department official was becoming a frequent visitor of
Addis Abeba, Asmara and Dubai to work out a US sponsored agreement between the
regime in Addis Abeba and the tyrant in Asmara. Up to today no Ethiopia or
Eritrean knows the details of the deal and the PM's solitary decision to cede
Ethiopian territory (for which close to 100,000 had died in the border war) has
not met with approval in Ethiopia. The so-called deal had a flaring honeymoon
for a while with Eritrea buying cement, coffee and staple Teff but the border
points are now closed and though the two regimes dance together for PR
purposes, the conflict has not ended in a satisfying and enduring manner.
Isayas Afewerki still represses his people with no mercy and has not released
even one political prisoner.
The coming to power of the PM was a
plot by foreign forces intending to end the popular struggle for system change.
Soon as he came to power the prepared propaganda PR campaign, the selling of a
PM was launched and we could not hear voices against the person. Even today
even the likes of the New York Times write of a young boy whose mother had whispered
to him he will be in the palace. This preposterous claim was fanned by the
knave himself and has made the one who loaded the dice a laughingstock in
Ethiopia. The deceptive campaign to sell the PM confused many people in and
outside Ethiopia. They hailed him for freeing thousands of political prisoners
but three fourth of the 45,000 political prisoners are still behind bars and
since he came to power some five thousand have been imprisoned.. The labor
camps at Zwai, Dedesa, Bir Sheleko, etc and the open and secret prisons in the
towns and the city are still open and crammed. The many disappeared have not
been found or accounted for. Even favorable human right organizations have
testified that the system continues, the illegal Constitution of the Tigrean
regime persists and the anti-people draconian laws decreed by the Tigrean
dominated regime are still in place. What change? It is all an orchestrated
propaganda charade. The legalization of outlawed groups concerns only those
groups allied with the PM and genuine patriotic forces are still considered
illegal.
The PM embraced from the start criminal hate
mongers calling either for the breakup of Ethiopia or the slaughter of Amharas
and Orthodox Christians. The ethnic cleansing and burning of churches has gone
on for the past year without a pip from the Western governments or China. Crime
pays and the PM is laughing in the palace considering that his one year plus
rule has produced over 3 million internally displaced (the most in the world),
that he is trying to open parks as millions of children starve, that his regime
had committed a massacre in Burayu,Ataye,Legetafo, and in many other places
like Dembidollo, Beni Shangul, Shashemene, in Afar land etc. Awarded for not
only bad governance and ethnic chauvinism but for failure. Who wouldn't be
“humbled and thrilled” by this? It is not surprising that the UN secretary
general, the insensate man who praised the TPLF as a force for peace and
stability , congratulates the deceitful PM. Not surprising either if the AU,
Kagame, Buhari and others of their cut join the chorus. Kagame was a first for
appointing powerless female ministers (the PM has done the same and made an
opportunist woman president of the country). It would be foolish to imagine the
Western media which ignores mammoth protest demonstrations even in Addis Abeba,
is unaware of the truth. The point is sure he is an SOB, but he is our SOB. And
the age old imperial contempt for Africans.
Besieged by a growing internal
protest and wobbling together with his Oromo extremists, the man needs help.
SOS. And Oslo has responded. His international image is expected to be
beautified, improved dramatically but alas this is not to be. His Oromo
extremist stance and inability to even address the basic problems of Ethiopia
makes him a lame duck which no prize can make stand stable. He is not
confronting problems as he tries to reform for there is no serious reform but
the continuation of ethnic tyranny under a new guise.. He himself is the
obstacle of change, an ethnic chauvinist, a servant of neocolonial and
imperialist powers. Himself and his close extreme allies are the ones spreading
hate and terror on ethnic grounds as they try to fulfill their land expansion
and ethnic dominance plans. Over 85 % of the army and the bureaucracy is
presently composed of the followers of the ruling ethnic party selected on
ethnic and religious grounds. TPLF domination replaced by OPDO domination. The
people's demand for basic change and a democratic transition is denied and fake
rigged election process that has haunted the people for the last 28 years is
sure to be repeated next year with the winners known already. A sad charade, a
continuing tragedy. The Nobel committee should have done better if it gave the
prize to Greta, or to the people who deserved it but then again they must have
wanted someone to accompany the list of hailed war criminals like Kissinger.
So far, so very bad.
All this is if one takes the Nobel
thing seriously and gives it more importance than it deserves. The truth is
that the fetid reality of a brutal dictatorship cannot be covered by any prize
in the world.
