Why Should All Ethiopians See the Border Issue as a Collective Threat to Our Existence as a Nation and People?
July 2, 2008
Hello! I am thrilled and honored to be here to speak to my fellow Ethiopians. First of all I would like to applaud the Ethiopia-Sudan Border Affairs Committee for their hard work, commitment and vision in convening us here today to address this matter of most urgent importance—the next chapter in the destruction of Ethiopia—now happening on our western border with Sudan.
I thank this committee for inviting me to speak. It is a real privilege and I am looking forward to working further with all Ethiopians of diverse political, religious, ethnic, regional and cultural backgrounds in order to find new and workable solutions to the crises we are now facing as Ethiopians. This is everybody’s issue. It is not just about one group.
As most of you know, I do not belong to any political group and that when I speak, I am free to speak honestly about human rights as well as what I see is going wrong in Ethiopia without having to claim or favor one group over another. When I speak of human rights, I am speaking about the human rights of every person—of all Ethiopians.
When I speak of justice, it is not limited to the Anuak people just because I am an Anuak. Instead, I speak about all the people of Ethiopia because I firmly believe that unless justice comes to all, no one will have long-lasting justice. I am not even speaking only for the rights of Ethiopians, but I am speaking for the rights of others in the Horn, others in Africa and others in our world.
The human rights of every human being is fundamental to their survival. The same applies to the people of Ethiopia and how this applies to the crisis at our border is the focus of my talk today because failure to resolve this issue will only lead to other issues until our country is destroyed.
If any of you have children, perhaps you have seen the toy where the child is supposed to quickly hammer the head of whichever animal head pops up, but as soon as one head is hit, another one pops up somewhere. Unfortunately, this reminds me too closely of Ethiopia.
Problems are popping up all over. As soon as one is discovered, another one rears its ugly head. We must pay attention well or we will lose the game Meles loves to play—the game of “surprise, deceive, divide and conquer.”
The purpose of my talk today will be to call Ethiopians together to refuse to play by Meles’ imposed rules anymore. One of the reasons he is playing this game is because we leave ourselves open to be manipulated because of our greed for short-lived pleasures and self-interest instead of protecting the country and its people.
As I address this topic, I will attempt to answer four questions:
1) Why should all Ethiopians take this border issue seriously as a threat to their future?
2) What is the background of this border issue?
3) Which account of what is happening should we believe—that of the Ethiopian people on the ground or the version given by Meles—and why?
4) What are the solutions? ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,Press the above link for full story
No comments:
Post a Comment