By Prof. Al Mariam

Author’s Note: There are two commentaries in this Memorandum.

The first is a “short” (at least that is what I call it) topical commentary on the recent activities of the leadership of the Tigrean People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) in Tigray region. The second is my usual memorandum to PM Abiy Ahmed commending him for his extraordinary work searching and rescuing Ethiopians from jails and prisons in various countries.

By Prof. Al Mariam

The Good Book says, “Blessed are the peacemakers.” It is a maxim that aims to guide those who seek to deliver the message of peace and reconciliation to humanity. It is a message that teaches true peace is found between individuals or nations by restoring broken relationships in a reconciliation process.

Today, PM Abiy told the people of Egypt, “What I want to tell the people of Egypt is that we Ethiopians know the value of spirit of brotherhood and neighborhood and we are God-fearing people, and we will never harm the people of Egypt.”

By Prof. Al Mariam

Author’s Note: In this commentary, I offer a personal review of the Trump administration’s human rights record in Africa in 2017.

On December 21, 2017, with little fanfare, President Donald Trump issued Executive Order 13818 of December 20, 2017 for targeted sanctions “declaring a national emergency with respect to the unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States posed by serious human rights abuse and corruption around the world.”

By Prof. Al Mariam

As long as people believed in ‘a bright future,’ they fought side by side irrespective of nationality – common questions first and foremost! But when doubt crept into people’s hearts, they began to depart, each to his own national tent – let every man count only upon himself! The ‘national question’ first and foremost! Marxism and the National Question J. V. Stalin

- Seizing a golden opportunity for change in Ethiopia

Aklog Birara (Dr)

Ethiopians are used to “deaf ear and blind eye” with regard to the international community in general and Ethiopian regime “strategic allies,” especially the United States and the European Union with regard to gross human rights violations in Ethiopia. Even under the worst of conditions, including massacres of innocent civilians by Ethiopian federal and security forces, these friends continue to issue innocuous and timid statements. It is time to change.

By Prof. Al Mariam

Vindication of the rule of law

In his closing argument defending a cabinet minister of a fictional African country called “Naranga”, John Mortimer’s equally fictional character Rumpole of the Bailey argued to the learned African judge:

By Prof. Al Mariam

Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable…In the past, those who foolishly sought power by riding the back of the tiger ended up inside.” John F. Kennedy

The quiet riot of civil disobedience in Ethiopia over the past two years is slowly morphing into a creeping and enveloping civil war. Alemayehu G. Mariam

Author’s Note: I have postponed the second installment of my “Deconstructing T-TPLF’s Ethnic Federalism” series in light of the deteriorating situation in Ethiopia today.

Aregawi Berhe, PhD

A Summary:

The failure of the Ethiopian political opposition forces and civil society movements to act in unison on common ideals of national interest has enabled the dictatorship of the TPLF/EPRDF regime to persist in power through nearly three decades, thereby prolonging the multi facade misery of the Ethiopian people. The daily events in the entire nation are gripping stories of conflicts, death, destruction, looming famine, fear of disintegration and statelessness. These dismal eventualities, by their nature, are the common concerns of every citizen, and above all of every organized political group and civil movement which aspires for a popular change, but which have refrained so far from tackling the lingering burden, collectively.