The interviewer had all the time — 5 hours, so far (this is Part IV)— to ask all the questions. And while her cadence suggested that each question was her last one (a fine trick), she had so many questions. Heavens, no, she didn’t have 5 hours worth of questions but Abiy likes to share his feels more then Drake does and he just happens to think everything is a teaching moment so he will ልምሳሌ (“for example”) you until you hope he stumbles on some ምሳሌ that tells him about the hazards of over explaining with metaphors and analogies. There were questions about the Prosperity Party (PP), his party’s achievements, why he pushes for developmental corridors, what’s the next big thing after GERD, what motivates him to work as hard as he does, his vision for Ethiopia and what pisses the hell out of him. That’s where we, Eritreans, Members of the Port Snatchers Club, show up.
But easy, Xmdo Breath, we only ranked number three on The Four Things That Piss Abiy Off. And the four, you will notice, are interrelated.
Before we get to the specifics of his answers, it is important that we know how the question was phrased.
The question was a long tongue-twister. It was such a long array of words, the Prime Minister had to repeat them out loud, word for word, just to make sure he heard it right. Or, he was buying himself some time to answer them. Paraphrased, the question is: are there things that are so, that you wish they weren’t so? Or, to Americanize it, which part of reality sucks?
1. First Thing About Reality That Annoys Abiy: Poverty
Poverty: @PMEthiopia is pained by #Ethiopia’s poverty. Not just the poverty itself but what it does to you: you have to endure humiliation, you have to beg. A nation as grand as Ethiopia should not have to beg. He appeared genuinely stirred. Angry. Contained rage.
Narrator: @AbiyAhmedAli appeared to be more angry at the shame of poverty (how you are perceived by others) than the actual pain of hunger. He travelled a lot, relatively, including taking a road trip in the USA. He presumably heard a lot of things that are not flattering to Ethiopia, the Grand Ethiopia. Ethiopia must be recognized in the world for positive things: glittering capital city (the aforementioned corridor)+ hospitality industry for conventioneers = tourist destination. Tourists, conventioneers bring dollars and they go home with a changed image of Ethiopia, the Grand Ethiopia. Then comes 8 point something GDP Growth.
2. Second Thing About Reality That Annoys Abiy: Polarization
Ethiopia’s polarization is not only ethnic but at the neighborhood level, he said. This attitude of “If It’s Not Me, It Can’t Be You” is the cause, he claimed. We just keep on hurting each other. He genuinely appears to be hurt by it.
Narrator: His opponents were quick to recall that he was one of the greatest contributors to the polarization. There are entire YouTube shows which chronicle that. The mushrooming media in dozens of languages is all thanks to his government’s magnanimity of allowing liars to lie because to ban it is to stifle creativity, he had explained earlier to the question of the Role of the Press.
What motivates him? Somewhere in the interview, he had casually mentioned that Ethiopia’s best selling book of all time is his book, Meddemer (To Be Added.) It sells like Dabo Kolo and all the proceeds, 100 percent, go to charities. So it’s not money which motivates him. It’s results.
3. Third Thing About Reality That Annoys Abiy: Being Landlocked.
This is not something I started believing since I became Prime Minister, he said, it’s a stand I have held and written about for long, he told his interviewer.
Narrator: it’s interesting how an article of faith in #Eritrea’s self-narrative about how Powerful Nations conspired to deny Eritrea what its peers #Somalia and #Libya got, independence, is also an article of faith in Abiy’s self-narration about how an open and shut case for many reasons—presumably Ethiopia’s ownership of the Sea— was snatched away from Ethiopia by Powerful Nations and their lackeys and inflicted massive harm on the country
Is his evangelism on the subject of the Port old or newfound? I have had the view for 15 years, he says, including in writing.
Some will recall a time in 2018 when a humble member of “Team Lemma”, Abiy Ahmed, newly installed as Ethiopia’s Prime Minister, went on a tour of USA where he drew larger crowds than Teddy Afro. In one of those sessions, Ethiopian journalist Teddy @reyotmedia asked the PM his views on the belief that Assab belongs to Ethiopia due to historical, legal, moral, religious, traditional, customary, geographical, environmental, uniformity in diabetes and lactose intolerance rates among the people of Eritrea and Ethiopia. Back then, Abiy was trying to change the subject. Not now.
But then again, back then he was then still part of EPRDF. His party, Prosperity Party (PP), with its ambiguous views on ports, wasn’t declared until November 2019. But now he is saying he agreed with Teddy @reyotmedia all along that Assab belongs to Ethiopia? That’s not in the political program of PP which he told us has the most transparent program in the history of Ethiopia. Section 5 of Prosperity Party’s political program outlines its policy on foreign relations and this is what Ethiopia’s policy is towards Horn of Africa:
የቀንደ አፍሪካ ክልል የጋራ ደህንነትና ኢኮኖሚያዊ ትብብር በወደብ መዳረሻና በመሠረተ ልማት ትስስር ላይ የተመሠረተ መሆን አለበት። ኢትዮጵያ በዚህ ረገድ መሪ ሚና ትጫወታለች።
Translation: The Horn of Africa region’s mutual security and economic cooperation must be based on port access and infrastructure connectivity. Ethiopia will play a leading role in this regard.
It must feel hella bad when those you are destined to lead refuse to follow. Ungrateful lot.
There are three arguments he is making to those with binoculars on the glasshouses in the Horn (“International community”) who are watching the stampeding bull that is Ethiopia:
A. I need sea access for commercial reasons.
B. I need sea access because I don’t feel secure unless I am on patrol duty with my own boats, without asking for permission from my neighbors.
C. I need sea access because it’s only FAIR since you are using my Nile for free. “Fair ኣይደለም” as he explained once.
#Djibouti’s President told us Abiy’s ask was Item B. Give me Sea, Give me Land Corridor To Sea, and sign these documents. Is that what Abiy Ahmed also asked of Isaias Afwerki? If so, Abiy, tell Getachew Redda if you asked Isaias Afwerki the same thing. Then Getachew can tell us: Getchu hides nothing.
4. Fourth Thing About Reality That Annoys Abiy: Self-Negation
Oh, if you thought the first one, poverty, pisses Abiy Ahmed off, you haven’t seen the fourth one: self-negation. Self denigration. He doesn’t like how Ethiopians denigrate themselves and their values. As if others are superior to them, he scoffed. No! They are not.
Narrator: Neighbors interviewed for this post would say they don’t know a single Ethiopian who doesn’t know about the 3,000 year history and Battle of Adwa. The problem is not self-negation but extreme entitlement. Perhaps he is confusing humility for self negation?
~~~~~
What to make of all this?
“Abiy Ahmed is a populist!” used to scoff #TPLF, as if being a populist is always a bad thing. They have monuments erected to populists, from Jefferson to Peron.
The real problem with Abiy is that he is Machiavellian. He said as much when he told us he authored a book, “The Stirrup & The Saddle” under a pen name, where climbing to the top using “misdirection” is elevated as the highest quality in governance. It is like reading OJ Simpson’s book “If I Did It.” Dude, yes you did.
“Let them think you are going to turn right when you will actually go left” is the standard language of the book. So now, whenever he says he wants to achieve his political goals peacefully, one can’t be blamed for thinking, based on “The Stirrup & The Saddle” that what he is really saying is: “let them think you are peaceful when you are planning war.”
Abiy Ahmed wants a Developmental Corridor to his neighbors ports, using his neighbors lands. How do we know this? Because one of his neighbors, #Djibouti, told us so in an interview that its president had with Jeune Afrique (Ismaïl Omar Guelleh: “I love Djibouti too much to involve it in an irresponsible adventure”) And that is from a country that generates 1.8 billion USD in port fees from Ethiopia and hosts the military camp of 6 countries. Yet, even for him, giving Ethiopia land and military base was too much.
Abiy Ahmed’s definition of “sea access” is to have sovereignty over a strip of their land connecting Ethiopia to their ports. Not just for commercial reasons but military reasons. And that’s just a non-starter for his neighbors.
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