Then as now the justification for such violent action by the government has been that the demonstrations were illegal, that the protesters were either armed or hooligans bent on destruction of life and property. But the facts tell otherwise. Those massacred since last April were unarmed civilians, innocent bystanders, disaffected young people, students and peasants with genuine grievances. They were killed for exercising their right, the right enshrined by your own constitution. Why were they killed? Why is it that your government refuse to punish the perpetrator of such heinous crime against fellow citizens? The Ethiopian people deserve an answer, and you as a PM have the obligation to give sincere (if you can) and unequivocal answer.

Please tell the Ethiopian people why they must pay in death when they want to protest. Why, your authorities should refuse permission for a peaceful protest without good reason, or with no explanation at all? Why, those who disobey to observe your appointees wilful denials of their rights to protest should be killed for conducting peaceful civil disobedience? Is there in your constitution an article that gives you or your appointees the right to kill citizens who are given no choice but to exercise civil disobedience?

Demonstrations may be made unlawful, especially as your unaccountable government can wilfully refuse permission. Have you given orders to your police and armed forces, (be it through government channel or through your secretive and crypto- Marxist EPRDF chain of command) to kill peaceful demonstrators who happen to ignore unreasonable refusals to stage their protest? If you have, please explain the reasons and the legal basis for your orders. If you have not, please tell us why you consistently failed to condemn these unlawful government killings, and why you did not put on trial for multiple murders those who clearly violated their mandate?

PM, why is it that you, the leading theoretician of ethnic-nationalism, and the principal architect of ethnic federalism, have always been presiding over the violent suppression of those who only wanted to protect or advance their ethnic rights? The intention of this writer is not to lend support to ethnic nationalism, or to subscribe to such a bankrupt ideology, but to ask for explanations for the contradictions in your views, polices and exercise of power. These contradictions have terrible bearing on the Ethiopian people, most of all in sending conflicting messages to them, which all too often led to bloody consequences. From the moment you took over power on that fateful day in May 1991, you have been telling them that as subjugated and exploited 'nations and nationalities' they have unlimited rights up to and including secession. But then you let the death squads of the EPRDF to deal with their protests, even when the protests were benign and were of local significance. Such was the case with the Sidama peasants, with the Sheko-Mesunger protesters, and with the Oromo students in Wellegga. These civilians did not ask for a breakaway republic. They did not compromise national security. They only wanted to put in practice the ill-conceived and immature ethnic nationalist politics you have been teaching them for well over a decade. PM, are you not responsible for all the deaths related to ethnicity in these and many other instances?

Considering your actions, your personal conduct (unbecoming even for a guerrilla fighter), and your hatefully dismissive attitudes towards your critics over the last eleven years, it may be that you have very little concern for Ethiopia and Ethiopian lives. For those of us who would like to give you the benefit of doubt despite the venoms of ethnic politics you injected in the bloodstream of Ethiopian political life, and despite our acute awareness of the follies of your ill-informed theories of Ethiopian colonialism, there is hardly anything left to vouchsafe for your basic human decency, let alone for loftier principles of statesmanship. Can you explain why the killing of thousands of unarmed civilians by your officials over the years meant so little to you that you could not even bother to put some of the murderers on trial in your kangaroo courts?

Finally, PM, it will do you good to remember that Ethiopian lives are lives all the same, and that sooner or later you may be held accountable to those your lieutenants destroyed to subdue dissent and peaceful protest. It will also do you good to remind yourself that the inexorable progress of age, if nothing else, will erode your power and influence. What will you do then? It may be too late to go back to your ethnic cocoon. Tigrayans have now woken up, and are no longer under the influence of your ethnic hypnosis. It appears that you have also squandered the good will of at least a sizeable section of the Eritrean people. When your time is up, I wonder which ethnic enclave will serve you as a safe retirement. Remembering the fates of the likes of Pinochet and Milosovic, is there for you a guaranteed immunity from the fair but firm hands of justice?

S. Tesemma