Tedla Asfaw
I read Ethiomedia commentary, "Something is rotten inside Ethiopia" posted on ethiomedia.com on May 5 and appreciate the writer for bringing the illegal secret transaction of the Ethiopian land between the butcher of Darfur, Beshir with his counterpart Melese Zenawi, the butcher of Mogadishu for public debate.
This transaction is done secretly while Melese as usual carried out his diversionary rampage in Mogadishu with many Somalis perished, the sixteenth African Athletic Championship in Addis Ababa and the jailing of Teddy Afro.
As you correctly said VOA Amharic and German Amharic invited people who lived in the area to tell us on what is going on there and the so called "Amhara Kilil" representative was telling us about "development" in agriculture and business between the Sudanese and Ethiopians . What he was telling us indirectly was that for the sake of development maybe Ato Melese has leased Ethiopian land or sold it outright as you suggested.
Either way this deal is not between government of Ethiopia and Sudan rather between Melese and Beshir to benefit themselves and we will oppose it and never be distracted by any court circus or on going war in Somalia.
The other interesting thing is for Isaias, the strongman of Eritrea unusually to be quiet while this is going on. Isaias as we know is getting involved in Sudanese conflict and many times facilitated meetings among Sudanese opposition groups in Asmara like he has been doing for Islamic Court of Somalia. He is also using his media to air strong view against TPLF and we have not heard his regime stand regarding "land for oil deal" between Beshir and Melese.
Isaias might not mind if this transaction goes on secretly and quietly to be rewarded from subsidized oil of Beshir as long as it did not expose the Ethiopian Patriotic Front stationed in Asmara negatively. However, we are going to question the Patriotic Front why they have not organized a military operation to protect Ethiopian land taken by Sudanese army.
If they are waiting permission from Isaias to defend our land then they can not call themselves patriotic front and lose whatever credibility remain of them.For the rest of us we have to give full moral and financial support for Ethiopians who are the recent victims of this secret land deal and let Sudan knows that they will never keep our land secretly sold to them as long as a single Ethiopian remain on this planet.
