Colonel Abiye Ahmed the Aspiring Dictator of Ethiopia and the Absolute Ruler of Eritrea did not learn from the Historical Lessons Regarding Colonial Wars and Liberation Movements
Introduction/ Background information
Ethiopia is historically an imperial/ colonial state that colonized adjoining states and nationalities through military conquest or in a deal with the colonial powers colonizing those people. An unknown called Abiye Ahmed came from nowhere in 2017 and selected as a care taker prime minister of Ethiopia. He immediately deceived everyone by making cosmetic reforms, release of political prisoners, signing a peaceful agreement with Eritrea and has been hailed in many circles as a revolutionary reformer who appears a different leader than Ethiopia’s historical for life rulers who one after the other keep Ethiopia to be a centralized imperial state dominated by one ethnic group who in most of Ethiopia’s history were the Amharas. What nobody understood was the man is the a typical Ethiopian traditional ruler who believes on a strong, oppressive centralized state that did not respect civil rights, the rule of law, democracy, ethnic/regional rights, freedom of expression and free trade. He immediately cracked down on all voices of dissent and put so many activists and politicians who disagreed with him in jail. He started a process of dismantling the ethnic federalism by creating one party system and demanded everyone to join his party, and anyone who did not join his party was ostracized, deemed a criminal and purged from political government positions. When the TPLF refused to join his party he put many of them in jail and criminalized all the other TPLF members whoever held a position in Ethiopia. This is nothing but the famous African one party system. He postponed the election agreed upon by all the regional governments, but the Tigray region held their own election, and that made him more angry and eventually made him wage an all out war against this one regional state, and its people, because they disagreed with him. Now his power struggle war with Tigray is raging and caused huge losses in life and property. The war in Tigray has degenerated into an all out insurgency where now he is not only facing TPLF but the 7 to 8 million Tigrayans also. Many Horn of Africa observers believe the war on Tigray is an Amhara driven project and they are using Abiye Ahmed in their furious quest to climb back to rule Ethiopia again. Any Amhara rule in Ethiopia again is a real disaster in the making because all Ethiopian nationalities are against Amhara rule of Ethiopia. Amhara considers the war on Tigrai as their ladder of their return to Ethiopian’s rule, and fictional lost glory. The Amhara think they own the whole of Ethiopia and its people. They believe they have a divine right to rule Ethiopia. As history shows the Amhara did not respect rule of law, democracy, ethnic/regional rights, freedom of expression/assembly and an Ethiopia where the right of all nationalities are respected. The intention of the Amhara has been vividly manifested when they hoisted Menelik’s flag on places captured from the TPLF in Tigray. Clearly this impostor Abiy Ahmed is becoming a real Amhara stooge who is leading Ethiopia down a cliff.
Despite all those American efforts and the scare tactics used against communist forces takeover of Vietnam, and the so-called domino effect that South East Asia will be taken by the communist forces if Vietnam falls to communist rule. In both the French and America wars on Vietnam the Vietnamese people fighting for their independence have prevailed and became independent. The Vietnamese freedom fighters were led by general Giap the same legendary general who defeated the Japanese, the French and the Americans. General Giap was the man who defeated two modern colonial and imperial forces. Finally the massive American forces were withdrawn from Vietnam in 1975 marking the end of the American war on Vietnam that started in 1955. In the same token Hitler’s superior forces have been defeated following 9 months siege of Stalingrad in 1945. All these 2 historical battles in the 20th century has one thing in common which is all of the four have overestimated their power while seriously underestimating their foes. The great irony is western military experts and their war colleges did not learn from these two major battles in which hugely modern superior forces were decisively defeated. History tells that no army or government no matter how powerful they are can defeat a determined and dogged people who are fighting for a just cause. Many people on both sides of this Ethiopian war on Tigray and especially the invaded people in this case the Tigrayan may die in the ensuing war with Ethiopian occupation/colonial forces but eventually victory will be with the freedom fighters and the faith of the aggressors and occupiers will be defeat and humiliation as has just happened to the Ethiopian occupation forces in both Eritrea and Tigray in the just recent past. The Tigray freedom fighters did not need a lot of weapons, and ammunition. Their main source of ammunition, weapons and food will be from the occupation forces and in this case Abiye/Afwarki’s forces. The Tigrayan freedom fighters will win by just outlasting the colonial forces who will soon get tired because they are not fighting for a real cause and this mostly happens to the colonial/occupation forces. Freedom fighters with a just cause can’t be defeated by a colonial army fighting in a foreign and unfamiliar territory where they did not enjoy people’s support.
Abiye Ahmed and Isais Afwarki underestimated the spirit, strength and enduring power of the TPLF and the people of Tigray. Afwarki was a shrewd military strategist who designed the successful Eritrean liberation war where he defeated the very powerful and superior Ethiopian forces. He scattered these forces, make them overstretched and eventually completely obliterated one of their largest military bases called the Newdaw command of the Mengistu regime in a town called Afebat in 1988. That battle has marked the beginning of the end of Ethiopian colonial rule of Eritrea and led to the eventual Eritrean independence. The Vet Mint a Vietnamese liberation movement led by a legendary general called General Giap and Ho Chi Minh have defeated a superior French military forces in the battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954, and the disastrous defeat of the French has marked the end of the French colonial rule in Vietnam. The American forces and government did not learn much from the decisive defeat of the French colonial forces in Vietnam. Immediately after that the Americans has replaced the French by giving massive military aid and 500,000 troops to an artificial state called South Vietnam that do not enjoy people’s support. In the final analysis both the United States with its massive military and the well-armed artificial state of South Vietnam have been defeated by the Viet Cong and NVA (North Vietnamese Army). The later has inferior weaponry compared to the Americans and the artificial state of South Vietnam, but the problems with the former was the fact that they did not enjoy any public support.
Modern Ethiopia is led by a man the world hastily bestowed with a noble price as a peace maker who quickly turned a warlord and warmonger in a very short period of time. This man plunged Ethiopia a fragile empire hanging by a cliff hanger into another destructive colonial war where he launched an all out war on a complete ethnic group in Ethiopia called Tigray. The man has made a peaceful agreement with Eritrea and today experts and others believe that so called peace agreement with Eritrea was not a real peace agreement per se, but hogwash and cunning deception of world opinion. The purpose of that unholy agreement with the Eritrea’s maximum dictator Isaias Afarki was to help Abiye Ahmed in his power struggle with Tigray. So Abiye Ahmed and Eritrean dictator have connived and conspired together to trigger the war with Tigray as early as 2017 when Abiye Ahmed accidently came to become the prime minister of Ethiopia. The whole idea with that so-called peaceful agreement between Ethiopia and Eritrea was a conspiracy against the people of Tigray and their liberation movement the TPLF. The idea was when Abiye Ahmed provoked the TPLF with war Eritrea needs to attack them from the North in order to open another front on them from the North along with the southern front from the Amhara and Eastern front form the Afar region. Again both the aspiring dictator of Ethiopia and Eritrea’s absolute ruler Isis Afawarki seriously underestimated the spirit, the history of Tigray which is replete with martyrdom, warrior spirit, and the rough train of Tigray which is suited for a guerilla movement. In just the recent past the TPLF in particular and Tigrayans in general has fought with a more superior Mengistu army with less means than they have today. Today Tigray is well-armed, and they have a robust Diaspora and they are much wealthier than they were in 1974 when the TPLF liberation movement came into being. This unholy war originally formulated by Asias Afwarki and sold to the new aspiring and accidental prime minister of Ethiopia will be a catastrophic war that will accelerate the collapse and the eventual disintegration of Ethiopian empire. It is highly likely the TPLF will defeat the twin duo dictators and toppling of both those two dictators. No wonder Abiye Ahmed the naïve pretender to the crown of Ethiopia refused to head all the international peaceful overtures because he thought by massing over 500,000 troops plus Eritrean forces, others and the UAE drones will help him defeat the Tigrayan people but that will never happen.
Prof. Suleiman Egeh is a freelance writer, political analyst and a senior science instructor
