It looks like that Elleni Gebremedhin, PhD, the CEO of the Ethiopian Commodity Exchange (ECX), is really targeting the Ethiopian Diaspora intellectuals in her recent article posted on Aigaforum, where she told her Ethiopian story.
Elleni’s story is really a magnificent story, and a story every Ethiopian shares and very proud of. For that matter, no one in Ethiopia is “pure bred” ethnically, as Ethiopians have been intermarried for generations, as Elleni’s story clearly demonstrates.
In fact, Elleni shouldn’t have come that long to explain in such detail about her ethnic background. Who Elleni is ethnically shouldn’t have been a matter at all, and it did not and does not matter for the majority of Ethiopian Diaspora intellectuals.
In reality, it is the TPLF, whom the dear CEO is loyally serving, that is trying to see everything with ethnic lenses, and that wants to confine every Ethiopian in their ethnic enclaves. It is the TPLF, who is deliberately forcing every Ethiopian to be identified by their ethnic identity than by their Ethiopianness. That is why the TPLF tagged every Ethiopian with an ID Card, displaying their ethnic identity, in order to enable it to discriminate and target Ethiopians that did not belong to a Tigre ethnic group.
Elleni should have thus addressed her article, her anger and frustrations over narrow ethnic politics, to the TPLF thugs, whom she is loyally serving than to the Ethiopian Diaspora or the Ethiopian public in general. The Ethiopian Diaspora is against the TPLF ethnic politics. Dear Elleni, you would be better off, if you advise and admonish the TPLF thugs to abandon their narrow ethnic politics and to advance unity in diversity.
Elleni also mentioned her love for Ethiopia and why she decided to return after more than thirty years of life overseas, to contribute to the rebuilding of Ethiopia in the best way she can.
I believe, many highly educated and experienced Ethiopians in the Diaspora fled Ethiopia fearing persecution from the successive dictatorial regimes in Ethiopia. The number of Ethiopians fleeing the country, particularly over the last decade, fearing persecution from the TPLF is on the increase. Many others, who were studying and working in the West, also chose not to return to Ethiopia, as they witnessed the increasing dictatorship prevailing under the TPLF. Still many others, who have obtained citizenship and permanent residence status, chose to freely advocate for their fellow Ethiopians in their countries of residence. These Diaspora Ethiopians are the heroes and the voices of the millions of Ethiopians who are denied every right in their country.
The TPLF had always tried to entice these people to return to Ethiopia and invest, work in the civil service and the TPLF power machinery, on conditions that they remain silent in the face of the gross human rights violations that the TPLF is conducting. If they had returned to Ethiopia to loyally serve the TPLF thugs, they would have enjoyed money, fame, luxury and power. But many of them stood their ground, followed their conscience, and refused the lavish offer of the TPLF and, in stead committed themselves to fight for the freedom of their fellow Ethiopians. By so doing, they refused to legitimize the TPLF as a democratic, popular or developmental government in the face of the Ethiopian people and the international community. These Diaspora Ethiopians are now working hard, in unity to force TPLF surrender power to the people of Ethiopia.
Having grown up, studying, and working in the world’s famous democracy, the USA, I say, Elleni should have known better. So, I have some sincere questions for my dear CEO:
Whether or not you believe the Albanian socialist model policies of the TPLF would really pull out Ethiopia from the ditch of poverty the country is in now? Whether or not you believe the divisive ethnic politics of the TPLF would bring development and harmony in Ethiopia? Whether or not you believe that preferential treatment of TPLF owned businesses would not affect the healthy development of businesses and the economy in Ethiopia. Whether or not you believe it is just for the TPLF, that constitutes only six percent of the Ethiopian population, should control every economic, political and social sector of life in Ethiopia today? Whether or not, you believe that every kind of expression of dissent should be brutally punished? Whether or not you believe that any independent civil society group in Ethiopia should be crushed in the name of being labeled “foreign financed”? Whether or not you believe that the “terrorism law” TPLF just enacted is not terrorizing the Ethiopian people?
If you do not believe in anyone of these questions, why are you loyally serving the TPLF regime, and not raising question? If you really believe they are democrats, why don’t you criticize them on their wrong policies and actions, instead of keeping quiet?
Dr. Elleni, you have now opened up the debate. And I want you to sincerely respond to the above and many questions and issues I did not enumerate, but are burning inside me, in what I believe the apartheid-TPLF is subjecting Ethiopians to.
I really want to hear from you and want to know, if the reason you retuned to Ethiopia was to satisfy your ego for power, fame, money, luxury or are you running away from something that we don’t really know?
I am sure the TPLF for now will give you all the stage, media and the resources, as long as you continue to loyally serve them and legitimize them and help them embolden in the face of the international community. The TPLF thugs will use you very well, you are now in the limelight, as long as, you keep silent and give a blind eye and deaf ear to the sufferings of the Ethiopian people caused by the TPLF.
Dr. Elleni, the TPLF is a rotten and dying regime. I am not sure how intimate you are to the top TPLF thugs and what secrets you know of their next plan in destroying Ethiopia. You better come out now and speed up their demise, rather than be found on the wrong side of history on D-day!!
