An Advice to Meles Zenawi: Exit Before it is Too Late

Mr. Zenawi, on your watch, you have seen the fate of the following dictators:
• Saddam Hussein: deposed and hanged
• Mohammed Gaddafi: dragged muddy and bloody and executed
• Hosni Mubarak:under public trial while on his bed
• Ben Ali: in exile is Saudi Arabia, under ICC warrant
• Abdullah Saleh:in the US,seeking treatment,and probably asylum too,butin vain
• Slobodan Millosovic: died, while on trial in the Hague
• Cahrles Taylor: under ICC trial
• Laurent Bagbo: under ICC trial
• Al Bashir: under ICC warrant
• Bashir al Asaad: no exit strategy yet
Like all of the above, your regime is characterized by brutal dictator ship, silencing of dissent through the use of force, marginalization of the public, inciting ethnic and sectarian violence, and promoting corruption. Particularly, after having learned that the public has rejected you in the 2005 election, you allowed by miscalculation, you have intensified cracking down on dissent in any form, and have been retaliating sections of the society that embraced the opposition.
While you have lost support, even in your traditional ethnic base, in Tigray, you purport to have won the 2010 election, by 99.6%. This is absurd, silly and contradictory, even to your own regime’s complaint of being dragged by “supporters of opposition and terrorists”.

The recent transfer of the nation’s land resource to foreigners, complete clamp down on journalists and opposition members is pushing the Ethiopian population to the limit. You may think you can contain the momentum of an Arab Spring like popular uprising in Ethiopia, just because you have highly bribed and loyal military commanders and multitudes of security and spying networks.

But, believe me, you have made the time ripe for a revolution to be born in Ethiopia. Also, don’t rely on your western enablers for your protection, just because you have jumped onto the anti-terrorism bandwagon. Beni Ali, Mubarak, Gaddafi and Saleh were all claiming to be fighting terrorists. The language of the west you rely heavily on will soon change as something on the ground emerges.
The Americans, know you are a dictator, as we can see from the annual State Department reports on Ethiopia, but sill might consider you the bulwark against terrorism, only until the rise of the Ethiopian people. Now, you have given them even more power to monitor your movement closely with the drone base you have provided them.

The moment Ethiopians become determined to depose you, no matter the amount of blood your armed forces will be willing to spill, the rhetoric from Washington will soon shift to demanding reform or to “step down” . You have seen this too, how America’s ties with Mubarak and Saleh, melted away in just a few weeks after the poplar uprisings in those countries. After he was deposed, that “friendly tyrant”, Saleh, was even refused entry into the United States for medical treatment. After intense negotiations they agreed to let him in but under condition that his stay be brief and confined to the hospital. What a disgrace for Saleh!

Poor Assad, who didn’t learn, from the mistakes of Mubarak and Saleh, is now trapped. He could have exited with a dignified face, had he negotiated in time to transfer power a transition government. He could have also saved the destruction of his country. Now with more than five thousand people killed, he has no way out.

Is there a hope, a model for you to emulate for a peaceful exit?

May be…..

The Apartheid South African regime of F. W. de Clerk, was a minority regime, that oppressed the majority black South Africans for many generations. The apartheid system killed, maimed and jailed thousands of black South Africans with impunity for years. Black South Africans were rendered homeless, jobless and worthless in their home country. De Clerk saw this minority dominance as unsustainable. In de Clerk’s eyes it is was expensive to see the continuous isolation of South Africa, it was expensive to continuously silence dissent, the minority had no security and peaceful future in the status quo. So he started negotiations with his staunch rival, Nelosn Mandela, while Mandella was still in prison, to release Mandella, to hold fair and free elections, and to avoid revenge even if the African National Congress (ANC) won the election. That was the BEST EXIT STRATEGY of the Apartheid regime.
Meles Zenawi, avoid this zero-sum game of you that is to eat you alive. Don’t fool yourself you will be a PM for life and your dictatorship will have no end. There is no point in accumulating wealth if you can’t inherit it to your children, or you can’t enjoy it at home or somewhere in exile.

There is no shame in admitting mistake and asking for forgiveness. Come to your senses and start a reconciliation process involving all actors in the Ethiopian society.