Tedla Asfaw
I read ethiomedia.com editorial Eritrea is not Somalia, Dec. 10, 2007 and I agree fully on the analysis that backed Melese's assertion that he will not go to war with Eritrea "without full scale of invasion" by Isayas of Eritrea.
This is true because both tyrants are strategical friends and the current tactical misunderstandings which led to Badme war ten years ago and cost more than seventy thousands of civilian lives do not bother them at all because no one question these warlords and had we lived in a free country we would have damped these guys long ago.
Strategically both are moving to their goal of fracturing Ethiopia beyond repair. The last Christmas war of going to Somalia is not because Somalia had launched full scale invasion against Ethiopian the litmus test presented by Melese for Eritrea but because that was a contractual obligation of war against terrorism by the dictatorial regime of Ethiopia for the Bush Administration.
By going to war he invigorated the historical enmity of Somalis toward Ethiopians and that together with the Ethiopian Somalis fight for equality might lead in the long run for the break away of Ogaden which is the strategic goal of Melese and Isayas.
The division within Kinijit which is encouraged in Addis Ababa as a government policy and Asmara not officially but by eliminating all patriots like the late Kassahun Hunde and many others is the coordination of the strategic goal of Melese and Isayas.
Sibhat Nega and Melese Zenawi had said several times in public for Eritrean audience that no one better than EPRDF/TPLF will come to power in Ethiopia to secure their independence and warned that the coming of Kinijit and others is the end of Eritrean Independence.
To support this strategic goal Ato Abrahm Yaye recently alleged on hagerfikerradio.com that the "Amharas bombed Ayder to split the Tigrean and the Eritrean people" in the Badme war.
From all these what any layperson can conclude is that Melese and Isayas by destabilizing the rest of Ethiopia by detonating all the ethnic bombs on their way out they believe they will build their ultimate home "The Greater Tigray".
The Oromos who are the majority, dispersed in large areas of Ethiopia and the rest of nationalities should take this threat from both Melese and Isayas seriously and avoid like they do now any animosity towards each other.
The Somalis currently occupied by Melese's forces should realize this strategic alliance between Melese and Isayas and protect their leaders both in Asmara and Addis Ababa and they should not buy what they hear in Asmara and as they witnessed to their amusement there was no Eritrean fighting force who stood with them in the last Christmas invasion of Somalia.
Moreover the Somali leaders in Asmara should ask one question, why Isayas is not opening another front in the north to help them out eject Melese's soldiers from Mogadishu ? What is one year of empty talk in Asmara acheives for them?.
The answer to all of those questions is clear that the regimes in Asmara and Addis Ababa survive only on war footage and if that is gone they will go too and they will not do anything that will jeoparidize their strategic goal of leaving the rest of us in turmoil while defending and building "Greater Tigray".
