Tedla Asfaw
I read Adal Isaw's piece regarding last week three hours meeting of Ato Seye with the Ethiopian community posted on www.aigaforum.com about which I have not seen so far any audio or transcript except few minutes of summary on German Amharic and possibly next week by "Nesanet Le Ethiopia Radio" if they kept their promise and so far I have not heard anything about this meeting from VOA Amharic.
However, I read two papers from Dr. Kiros and Dr. Tekola and both applauded Seye for being straight forward and share his experience. Adal Isaw's piece is mainly focusing on the Badme war and he disagreed with Seye for suggesting not to be "subordinated" to the commander in chief and going all the way and "occupy" Eritrea.
From what I know so far Seye's aim was to remove Isayas from power and not to occupy Eritrea like TPLF/EPRDFis doing now in Somalia and Seye totally opposing it.. Seye surely is against Ethiopian army involvement in Somalia and deeply saddened, of course as a military man, and like most of us Ethiopian soldiers dragged in streets and does not see any national interest served by sacrificing our people there.
Regarding the Badme war Seye led ten years ago things would have been different now had Isayas been thrown. At least Somali insurgent leaders would not find any hideout or their "Torabora". The power struggle which led to the purge of Seye and other TPLF members would have been concluded differently and may be Melese and his cliques would be out of power this time. Seye as a leader of EPRDF would have been different than Melese, hard to say.
The Badme and Somalia situations should not be singled out to judge Seye as the writer did. We should see the whole experience of Seye as TPLF fighter, on power position ,in jail and after he is out of jail and what he has learned so far.
I believe like so many others who were there in D.C last week Seye did what he believed was right then and accept resopnisbilty and move on. Badme war is part of Seye and to be honest we are now where we were before Badme war and the war drum is beating on both sides and many Ethiopians asked why did we pay thousands of lives to be where we stared before the war and as the writer you should blame equally the commander in chief and asked him to resign if we had democracy in Ethiopia.
Eritrea is ruled by "one man for life" /Atse Isayas and Ethiopia is ruled by unelected and unpopular party and that is what we have to talk and avoiding these will not help us to resolve our problems. Until Ethiopians and Eritreans exercise their right to live in accountable and elected government all kinds of wars in our name whether for occupation or regime change will neither bring peace nor stability in our region and it seems to me that Seye has learned this and now embarking on a new "non military" mission to help our country and we should welcome him.
