“...As long as you succeed people are yours entirely; they will offer you their blood, property, life and children...” Nicolo Machiavelli.
By Keransso Biyyaa*


May 29, 2006 — It is of more interest to me to focus on the external aspects of it as exercised against the civil society and especially students. To give a background, right from the outset in 1991 Meles Zenawi’s Machiavellian principles of meanness started to manifest themselves when a snap shot election was run in Oromia and Oromo Liberation Front won a sweeping vote. ‘The prince’ then knew that if he continues to see people exercise their free will, his rapacious appetite for power was going to be shattered. So he had to ban Oromo Liberation Front and other democratic forces from peaceful forum of struggle.

Following that “The Prince” started to strengthen his Peoples Democratic Organisation (PDOS) because through them he wanted to succeed in tapping the blood of the people, their property life and children”.
For all Oromo people and all Ethiopian people alike that was ‘the making of a ‘medieval prince’ within what the western donors were duped to think was the making of “a new breed of African leaders”, democrat on the making.

Meles Zenawi, the new breed of African dictators, as most prefer to call him, has been putting on his mask of choosing ‘to be loved’ by the west whenever elections are about to be conducted and during and after voting begins he puts on his other mask of ‘being feared; by the people internally. That’s he kills opposition candidates, deploys security into school compounds and university campuses and as a need arises he organises a secrete group who blast bombs in different parts of a city or in different rural markets to be internally feared. For instance market bomb blasts in Gedo of Oromia State and current Finfinne (Addis Ababa) bomb blasts are evidences of his malicious acts. Yes this is hidden from the west because the west is busy fighting terrorism and their media’s attention is directed in that regard.

Particularly, Meles Zenawi’s policy of open killing and expulsion of Oromo School Children is taking place in Oromia presently. He is taking the blood of the children now because they speak against injustices. This is happening in Mekele University of the Tigrian State- the homeland of ‘a new breed of African democrat’.

Finfinnee University Oromo students faced a series of segregated killings, imprisonments, and expulsion from university, for instance in year 2004 because they opposed the moving of Oromia’s capital city from Finfinne (Addis Ababa) to Adama. And thousands of Oromo school children are facing the same atrocities in the hands of TPLF/EPRDF security forces because they support the cause of their people- the yearn for freedom and democracy.

The new breed of African dictator, Zenawi, is clever to name civil society protests against tyranny in the country as “anti-constitutional forces”, “anti-peace forces” and “anti-development forces. After these differentiating labels will follow the butchering of school children. Specifically, students bath in blood at their school gates from security gunfire. Some sustain serious injuries; in case of girls permanent damage to uterus rendering them unable to give birth forever. ‘The prince’s’ forces are also cruel enough to damage the eyes and brains of young thinkers. Others will be taken to concentration camps and prison where they will be broken into at night and killed like what is happening at Kaliti prison.
For the Oromo school children these are bodily and emotional sufferings, for the ‘Machiavellian democrat’ it is a physical and emotional pleasure.
Whereas all these physical and emotional damages are done to the children of Ethiopian civil society of Non-Tigrean descent, including Oromo school children, the Tigrean School Children attend their schools without any physical or emotional tormentations because the country is ‘theirs’ through the their prince, Meles Zenawi. Nevertheless, his entrenched maliciousness does not make him stop and think about the enduring consequences. Why should the cunning prince worry about making Ethiopia a country of freedom and democracy for all? Power for him is permanent as long as he adheres to Machiavellian principles of cruelty and meanness and to the principles Fascism and Nazism. He, the medieval prince, in 21st century democratic disguise can rule as long as he wishes. This is a blind prince; he can’t see the consequences of his actions. The prince also tries to instil phobia into Tigrean people about other Ethiopian people. He tells them that if he lets his power go, their existence will be endangered.

I think ‘the prince’ has never had peace of mind because the bloods of many innocent civilians are shouting into his ears. Even when he goes to bed with ‘the first lady’, Nicolo Machiavelli will immediately come after the light has gone out to whisper into his ears the whole night, “...as long as you succeed people are yours entirely; they will offer you their blood, property, life and children...”

Dear 21-century ‘new breed of African democrat’, now the whole world has learned about your meanness, and above all people in Ethiopia have long learned your Machiavellian or your similar principles of Fascism and Nazism. We know you are killing true democratic protesters in broad day light in the streets of the capital city, we know you are killing school children in Oromia, we know you are killing protesters in Somali Region, we know you are killing protesters in Awassa (SNNP), just to name but a few. Therefore, we must all stand up and stop you before you kill us all!