New PM interview with Aljazeera and why talks failed

[Talo alle udaa]

In the interview with Aljazeera, Desalegn tried lamely to defend the indefensible. However, he fumbled in his attempt to defend his regime’s callous record against the people in the Horn of Africa and the mountain of evidence against his administration. In the end his forced smile and the frequent interruptions –‘that is not true’; ‘by the way, you’re misinformed’ etc , to the interviewee– could not compensate for his glaring misrepresentation of the realities in Ethiopia and the internationally documented tract record of human rights abuses and the closure of all democratic space which has made Ethiopia a country without legitimate opposition parties and free media.

On the issue of the long standing and bloody Ogaden conflict and the recent peace talks between ONLF and Ethiopia, Haile Mariam Desalegn lacked self-confidence and the sagacious vision expected of a head of state. He seemed as if he was meticulously guarding against angering certain sections of his administration, mainly the Tigray People’s Liberation Front(TPLF) -led military-security-complex who immensely profit from the Ogaden war project and exercise a total monopoly on this issue. This TPLF-led military-security-complex, hijacked the peace process, sidelining the foreign Ministry and other seasoned Ethiopian politicians and blocked any meaningful progress after the first breakthrough in the first round of talks. And although it was obvious that Haile Mariam Desalegn was rehashing the script prepared for him by the army Generals who derailed the talks, what astounded many was his claim that the Ethiopian government did not agree to the principle that ‘there shall be no preconditions’ in the first round of talks (ONLF has this on record and the concerned parties hold copies of this correspondence). The fact of the matter is that the Ethiopian government agreed in principle that there shall be no preconditions and that all substantive issues shall be negotiated.

Thus, the regime’s insistence that ONLF must accept the Ethiopian constitution as precondition was a plan introduced later during the second round of the talks by beneficiaries of the conflict – the army-security-complex – and the intention was to derail the talks, since it was this issue the armed conflict between ONLF and the Ethiopian regime started when the Ethiopian regime tried to impose this constitution on the Ogaden Somalis without their consent in 1994. ONLF’s position is and has been always that a constitution shall reflect the will of the people and based on their believes, values and interests, and that without addressing the issue of self-determination through an internationally monitored free and fair referendum, forcing the Ogaden people to accept the Ethiopian constitution without their consent has no political, legal or ethical validity. Moreover, the greatest transgression of the political, democratic, economic and the human rights of the Ogaden people has been perpetrated by the current regime during its tenure and that constitution never protected their basic rights, despite lauding them in its scrip

Read on here: http://onlf.org/?p=468

[Talo alle udaa]

The area Ethiopia is trying to drill for natural gas

[Colonel]

This PM is an idiot, I doubt he will last long.
I watched part of the interview and the guy kept saying '"the talks stopped because ONLF doesn't recognise the Ethiopian constitution". No shit sherlock, why would we recognise it when we consider ourselves part of Ethiopia?

[Coldoon]

What ethnic group is the Ethiopian army mostly consisted of? I know the ruling ethnic group Tigray are only 6% of the population. They won't have much manpower to be everywhere in Ethiopia, let alone thousands of soldiers in Ogadenia, so, who do they usually send into Ogadenia and Somalia?

[EEGA9]

The talks were sabotaged by Tigray Generals who reap benefits from the war economy the constitution was used as an excuse and even this backfired because it sets a precondition, the PM is useless and holds no power its more valid to negotiate with the Tigray General in Harar.

[Talo alle udaa]

What ethnic group is the Ethiopian army mostly consisted of? I know the ruling ethnic group Tigray are only 6% of the population. They won't have much manpower to be everywhere in Ethiopia, let alone thousands of soldiers in Ogadenia, so, who do they usually send into Ogadenia and Somalia?

See Image above, SNNP region.

The Ethiopians ( Oromo) in general are shacab population. They are not armed like the Somali tribes in the peninsula. But they feel the injustice the Tigray have done to them, so the country has a facade of stability brought about by lack of willingness of the masses to openly confront the status quo. However this has begun to change with the introduction of Axbash ideology into Islamic schools. More and More Oromo muslims and Xabashi are openly going against the government, and with time, things will only get worse. The Ethiopian government have not tried anything of that sort with Kilil5/Somali region.