The aristocrat of totalitarianism - Could Ethiopia survive the Jasmine Revolution

The Indian Noble-Prize winning economist, Amartya Sen, postulates:
“Shortfalls in food supply do not cause widespread deaths in a democracy because vote-seeking politicians will undertake relief efforts; but even modest food shortfalls can create deadly famines in authoritarian societies.”
Ethiopia is the only country in Africa, or I may say, in the world that needs pre-emptive foreign intervention to save it from total destruction as Meles Zenawi’s regime sits on a thin ice that needs a flicker of fire to pull down his domino house of power. The ongoing winds of change that engulfed the countries to the north of Ethiopia (Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan, Yemen, Sudan and etc) which are relatively much better, in terms of civil liberty and economic life, are bound to sweep through Ethiopia with vengeance in the very near future.  

Ethiopia under the current dictatorial regime has all the ingredients that cause to trigger uncontainable mass uprising that has the potential to melt down Mele Zenawi’s regime.  The forth coming uprising, unlike Egypt or Tunisia, will result rivers of blood on the streets of Addis followed by ethnic cleansing of the Tigrean people because the regime and the army that committed untold human rights violations are entirely   based on one ethnic (Tigrean) group. Besides the economic and political sectors which are colonised by ethnic Tigreans, the security sector and the Army for the first time in the history of Ethiopia became the monopoly of one ethnic group - Who is who of Ethiopia’s Top Army Brass.

Egypt and Tunisia have a national army that can save the state but unfortunately there are no such safeguards in Ethiopia because the regime and the army are one and the same.  The masses deem the Tigrean people to have colluded with the regime in its suppression of other Ethiopian nationalities. The regime kills and maims people in the name of the Tigrean people.  The uprising in the pipeline won’t be limited to regime change but might go further to address the century old colonial question once and for all – the split of Ethiopia into six or seven ethnic based independent states.  Read More