Mereja Forum

[Sadacha Macca]

An ex-major of the Ethiopian army gives his account of the Badme war and its background:
''Do not forget that Isayas and Meles are part and parcel of the same coin. Meles, paradoxically, entered the conflict when the neighboring province (Tigray) of his tribal origin halted the entrance of all goods, military equipment, and exchange of materials with the creation of the new currency. He kept calm when residents of Tigray region were fighting against Shabia for more than two months. Later, he realized that he got two options: 1. Either to support his tribal region and declare war against Shabia or 2. Step DOWN. He opted for the first option but calculated a new plan as to how to eradicate opponents and ex-military members (of the Derg).
I came to know their secret when I asked General Asgedom why military brigades were organized by tribal origin. He did not like my question and evaded the facts by commanding to lead one brigade of soldiers and carry out an ambush of enemy territory. Before we could engage in the war at Badme, the general realigned the military by its tribal origin. The first combat troops were: Amhara, followed by the Oromos, Gurages, Wolayta, and so on and so forth. The last combat troops assigned were the Tigrayans, and they were far, far, far behind us.
Sunday, before the sun rose, fighting broke out. We pushed forward, but we took a lot of casualties. The hidden project of Isayas and Meles suddenly became vivid. Shabias troops started retreating by planting mines. Asgedom commanded the troops to proceed though thousands were dying due to the mines. No one could go back without being shot by the watchdogs of the regime. Can you imagine that more than half of the Ethiopian soldiers from various tribal origins died in a sort of sabotage over 11 weeks? Despite their organized secret deal, we won the battle and readied to take Asmara-the capital city!
When Meles learned of our early success, he was annoyed and called all military members to retreat and leave the border immediately. Should a leader provide such a command after initiating and declaring war against enemies? After soldiers stopped fighting and retreated as ordered, enemy battalions took back the occupied territories and killed more than 30% of our military. You guys knew that he went to Algiers and signed a deal furnishing Badme over to Isayas, leaving the corpses of more than 95,000 soldiers behind in the dust.
Astawu asks, ''How did you survive and escape?''
The ex-major replies, ''I speak Tigirnya fluently, and they did not suspect that I was from another ethnic group in Ethiopia. That is how I managed.
I am stunned. It is hard to believe how one human being leads crime against humanity. Certainly, Meles is the commissioner of genocide,'' Astawu says with anger in his eyes.''

[School of Death by: Worku Gizaw, Pages 42-44]

[sesame]

The only thing interesting is how the defeated come up with none-sense to explain their defeat. The narrative that Meles was responsible for the defeat has been overworked. It started with the Siye-Gebru Asrat clique. People who find Authors like this illiterate soldier only expose their IQ level. You are, after all, what you find credible!

[Sadacha Macca]

sesame,

I agree man. As an nationalist of Eritrea, you wouldn't be biased at all, you're perfectly impartial and telling the truth always.

[sesame]

It is not I that you should listen to but your own common sense, if you had any, that is. The TPLF was split into two in 2001 after the devastating defeat they suffered. The main accusation of the Siye group was exactly what this soldier is saying. The TPLF political cadres and military leaders overwhelmingly supported Meles which enabled him to humiliate Siye and his comrades. Is it credible that the majority of the TPLF would support Meles if he had committed the kind of crimes Siye group accused him of? No, my friend. They would have hanged him from the longest tree. Meles had no control over the TPLF. The TPLF cadres and generals knew what they suffered and accepted reality. They knew that the allegations were false. You are only exposing your mental disabilities if you believe that anyone has some new facts to share, 24 years after the events.

sesame,

I agree man. As an nationalist of Eritrea, you wouldn't be biased at all, you're perfectly impartial and telling the truth always.

[Sadacha Macca]

I'm not talking about 2001, I'm talking about the excerpt and the details in it, such as, how the army was organized tribally, and etc.
Meles was seen as ''soft'' on eritrea by the hardliners within the tplf, this is true, because allegedly, of many things, such as, the ''secret'' agreement he had with PIA, and how he assisted him, allegedly, in his war with yemen and elsewhere, while the other tplf members-allegedly even the late hayelom araya, said it's none of our business to get involved there.
The war was pointless, evil, and full of ulterior motives, especially from the tplf side, but of course, PIA is no angel and we know that in exchange for putting tplf in power and helping keep them there, they/He wanted extra economic benefits from the Ethiopian side. He wanted to build eritrea up at the expense of ethiopia, while the tplf wanted to do the same to tigray and their own personal bank accounts, while also needing shabia's support to keep and maintain power in Ethiopia.
They were both exploiting the rest of Ethiopia, like it or not, and the tplf only dumped shabia once it felt that its power was somewhat established in Ethiopia.

[Dark Energy]

Dada ha,

Meles is the evil man eh ? Actually, the little twerp had been the best leader in Ethiopia ever. He gave you the blu Nile dam, among many factors to higher profile in the international arena. The border war was a war between Meles and Isayas. It was not a necessary war. Ten years from now, the truth will surface surely but slowly. Now, that little gala boy in Addis is reversing what the Agame government achieved. Don’t get me wrong. The weyanes had a lot of weaknesses as well. Being a minority, they were too nervous to examine the long term ramifications of Ethnic Based federalism. BTW, Oromos are majority, hence ethnic federalism is not advantageous to them as well. Regardless what system you place in, Amhara hegemony will never return back. That belongs to the history books. Otherwise, the nation will dissolve.

[Sadacha Macca]

Agame Energy,

Yes, Meles was another dictator, but I am not saying that he wasn't shrewd and intelligent. I am sure you love your Tigrayan brother Meles, right?
Best leader ever ay? That's not saying much though, excluding Menelik though, since he spent more time conquering and building the country/empire.
So from Haile Selassie to Abiy, he's the best? Okay, but the bar is low, so it wouldn't take much to be the best.
It's like saying Michael Jordan is better at basketball than some random dude off the street. Not a big statement or discovery dude.
If you're truly an Eritrean, our system of governance, be it federalism, a constitutional republic, etc, shouldn't even concern you. You're like Tarik and his 4-5 other usernames: an Agame claiming to be Eritrean, perhaps you're ''deki arba'' or whatever it's called.
You can freely be Tigrayan bro, a fair man will judge you based on your conduct and deeds, not your ethnicity. NONE of us here chose our parents and what our ethnicity would be; but we DO CHOOSE our actions and deeds.

[Dark Energy]

Dummy Galla Sadacha,

Meles has one and half times the IQ level Abbiy has. Meles to Abbiy IQ level is 150 for Meles , about 100 for Abbiy. That is being generous. Meles stupidity was to hold on to Badme. Isayas knew that. Jebha and Weyane fought for Badme in the eighties. Isayas did not even oppose the weyanes back then. If there was no Isayas, the weyanes would still be ruling your aszzz.

[ethiopian]

Dummy Galla Sadacha,

Meles has one and half times the IQ level Abbiy has. Meles to Abbiy IQ level is 150 for Meles , about 100 for Abbiy. That is being generous. Meles stupidity was to hold on to Badme. Isayas knew that. Jebha and Weyane fought for Badme in the eighties. Isayas did not even oppose the weyanes back then. If there was no Isayas, the weyanes would still be ruling your aszzz.

Dark agame TPLF is destroyed, crippled and is now licking gala’s boots

[Dark Energy]

Galla man,

Why do you call yourself Ethiopian? We all know the Agames + Amharas (Your masters) are the real Ethiopians. Fu..Coker, your former master, the Agame is not to be counted out.

[Fiyameta]

I think what's interesting is a monkey that's able to write a book for other monkeys to read.



Human waves fall as war aims unfold

Ethiopia's Tigrayan-dominated regime wants a path to the sea - through neighbouring Eritrea

By David Hirst in Tsorona, on the Eritrean-Ethiopian border
Mon 17 May 1999 20.24 EDT

Six weeks after the battle of Tsorona, the bloodiest yet of this desert 'border' war, Ethiopian soldiers still lie unburied on the baking plain, just yards from Eritrean trenches; an occasional breeze, otherwise welcome, brings only the stench of decomposition.

A fifth of Eritrean combatants are women. 'I was born in Addis Ababa [the Ethiopian capital],' said Agib Haile, 21. 'Ethiopians are my friends. I love them so much. It was horrible.'

The horror, it seems, was less in what Eritreans themselves suffered - though she lost her closest friend - than in what they inflicted on the enemy.

The Ethiopian commanders' strategy was simple. Deploying tens of thousands of barely trained recruits along a 3-mile front, they drove them forward, wave upon wave, with the sole mission of blowing themselves up on minefields until they had cleared a path to the Eritrean front line for better trained infantry, mechanised forces and armour.

In the third or fourth wave, about 5,000 peasants came with them, their mules and donkeys bearing food and ammunition for an Ethiopian breakthrough.

It didn't work. The doomed men hardly raised their weapons, but linked hands in a despairing communal solace in the face of certain death from four sources: mines, perfectly aimed artillery, the trenches and their own officers in the rear, who shot them if they turned and ran.

This was the horror of which Ms Haile and her companions spoke, of mowing down the oncoming horde till their Kalashnikovs became too hot to hold, their fingers raw from unclipping grenades.

Hidden agenda emerges

It is not really a 'border' war at all. Eritreans have long suspected a broader 'hidden agenda'. The evidence for at least a steadily unfolding incremental agenda grows increasingly plausible. The chief impulse behind it is Tigrayan ethno-regional nationalism: the attempt of a small component of the multi-ethnic Ethiopian state to assert itself, at the expense not only of neighbouring Eritrea but all other nationalities inside it.

Eritreans and Tigrayans together brought down the Ethiopian Marxist-Leninist dictatorship of Mengistu Haile Mariam in 1991. The Eritreans opted for their long-cherished goal of secession. The Tigrayan People's Liberation Front (TPLF) seized power in Addis Ababa.

But that decision to stay within the Ethiopian polity was at odds with the goal of Eritrean-style independence that the TPLF had long proclaimed. It never formally repudiated its 1976 'independence' manifesto, under which Tigray was to have access to the sea. Although it was not spelled out, that access could only be via Eritrean territory.

The collapse of the Mengistu regime was so complete that, with Eritrean help, the Tigrayans could take over and dominate the Ethiopian state. They ended the 'chauvinist' supremacy of ethnic Amharans through whom the Emperor Haile Selassie and then Mengistu had ruled.

In theory they replaced it with 'unity based on equality'. In practice their multi-party system, constructed on rigidly ethnic lines, was but a thin democratic facade for a Tigrayan supremacy that was even more extreme than that of the Amharans.

'The essence of democracy is majority rule,' said a former ambassador to Addis Ababa. 'But here we have 4 million Tigrayans lording it over 18 million Amharans, and 20 million Oromos - always the most oppressed.'

Tigrayans dominated the administration, security services, police and army. Bitter memories of Amharan 'chauvinism' seemed to pervade and envenom their new sense of mastery.

The Ethiopian state in their hands, they persisted, if surreptitiously, with a Tigrayan agenda. The right of secession was enshrined in the constitution while they diverted state resources to their own people and region, and enlarged Tigray province at the expense of others.

In 1997, when the border troubles with Eritrea began, this marked a new threshold in the unfolding agenda. The TPLF published a new 'political map' of Tigray that incorporated some of the territories - Eritrean according to sacrosanct colonial boundaries - over which the two states are now at war.

Though they were allies during their common 'liberation' struggle, the Tigrayans harbour a traditional animosity towards the Eritreans which came out with crude vehemence in semi-official rhetoric. They accused the Eritreans of looking down on them - which many do.

All-out war looming, Tigrayans mobilised the Ethiopian state on their behalf. The army, overwhelmingly Tigrayan, was vastly enlarged, to some 250,000 men, with the recruitment of other nationalities.

Mengistu's Amharan generals were released from prison, and Amharan officers re-enlisted. But Tigrayans still furnish 80% of officers; other than as 'advisers', there are few Amharans above the rank of captain.

Politically, they adopted the full pan-Ethiopianist discourse, in a so far largely successful attempt to win over the Amharans - many of whom were never reconciled to the loss of Eritrea - as their new allies of convenience.

By the time the war resumed in February, on a larger scale, Tigrayans had begun to speak openly of bringing down the regime of President Isaias Afewerki and replacing it with a 'transitional government' drawn from a small dissident group defeated by the president's followers early in the liberation struggle.

Here, at Tsorona, it was no longer a question of border claims. Tsorona was the natural pathway to the Eritrean capital, Asmara. Prisoners of war say they were given instructions on how to get there. Obviously, with a puppet regime installed in Asmara, the TPLF could have imposed what is probably its maximalist territorial agenda - access to the sea at the port of Assab - while gratifying the pan-Ethiopian irredentism of the Amharans. It would have been a great triumph.

Threat of losing face

But Eritrea, with its superior military skills, has so far foiled such ambitions. Ethiopia's prime minister, Meles Zenawi, and his TPLF face a dilemma: to retreat with grievous loss of face - within Tigray and the rest of Ethiopia - or pursue the war with the risk of greater setbacks. They still seem bent on the second course.

Nothing illustrates its unsustainability like the horrors of Tsorona. If the conduct of war is a measure of a government's fitness and ability to rule, then Tsorona is a terrible indictment of the TPLF. It was Oromo peasants it selected as human minesweepers, and Tigrayan officers who shot them from the rear. Yet it showed hardly less contempt for its own people. Local Tigrayan villagers were pressed into that suicidal baggage train, and mainly Tigrayan soldiers died in the tanks that were entrusted to no other nationality.

Not surprisingly, resentments are reported to be deep and growing. It is far easier for Eritrea to exploit the simmering hatreds of oppressed Ethiopian nationalities than for Ethiopia to exploit a discredited, unrepresentative Eritrean opposition. With the supply of arms to Oromos and others, it has apparently begun doing so.

If, under international pressure, the TPLF compromises, it could, Eritreans believe, save itself and Tigrayan ascendancy over the Ethiopian state; if it does not, sooner or later Eritrea is likely once more to act as a catalyst of great upheavals within its giant neighbour.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/1999/may/18/ethiopia

[sesame]

... their own officers in the rear, who shot them if they turned and ran.

Nothing changes with Agame generals. Back then, they were shooting other Ethiopian ethnics. But in their latest debacle, they turned their guns on anyone who does not die for TPLF real estate in Addis!

[Fiyameta]

An agame will kill his own parents for $1, and then cry at Mereja Forum because he's an orphan.

... their own officers in the rear, who shot them if they turned and ran.

Nothing changes with Agame generals. Back then, they were shooting other Ethiopian ethnics. But in their latest debacle, they turned their guns on anyone who does not die for TPLF real estate in Addis!

[union]

Retard Ascari eritrean sadacha and his low iq brothers talking