It was widely reported that Prime Minister Meles Zenawi accused the opposition party, UDJ (Unity for Democracy and Justice, aka Andinet), of trying to incite a violence. That was during a parliamentary session on April 5 when he appeared to present six-months performance report. He said, ‘I would like to pass a message to Medrek, and particularly members of [the] Unity [for Justice and Democracy Party]….the Ethiopian government is not blind and deaf…..whoever takes part in the plot being hatched to incite protests and terror..[ would] pay a price.’
Since Meles gave no details about ‘the plot being hatched, VOA reporter Peter Heinlein speculated it could be related to ‘a campaign on the social networking website Facebook [which] is calling for massive protests’ for May 20/2011.
Speaking of facebook, what Peter Heinlein forgot to mention is that Ginbot 7 recently said, in its weekly Amharic press release, ‘we should launch attack on the internet…the campaign on facebook is going very well…but not enough’.
The scanned image below is an Amharic Press Statement, issued on April 8/2011, by UDJ, titled ‘better to address the legitimate public demands rather than looking for a scapegoat’, as a response to the PM warning.
What is more interesting is the following debate on whether a Tunisian-styled revolution is legal or not. At least two UDJ leaders made remarks to the media that seems to defend the legality of such actions, on the other hand Walta Information Center interviewed leaders of two opposition parties who think to the contrary.
Unfortunately, the issue, overshadowed by the news of the new dam, didn’t get sufficiently discussed. In fact, I have yet to see an article discussing the legality issue.
Thus, pending my reflection on it, I decided to post UDJ’s press statement here.
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የጭዳ ፍየል ፍለጋ ከመወራጨት ለተገቢ የሕዝብ ጥያቄዎች ተገቢ ምላሽ መስጠት
አንድነት ለዲሞክራሲና ለፍትህ ፓርቲ (አንድነት) የተሰጠ መግለጫ
መጋቢት 30/2003
MEDREK is full of anti-Ethiopians — just check who the leaders are, Seye Abreha, a shabia and al-shebab apoligist! Merrara, an OLF and Eritrean government foot soldier — clearly these guys are anti-Ethiopians!!
Does anybody remember, Seye saying if he doesn’t win, there is no democracy in Ethiopia! No one can defeat him in Tigray, evenPM Meles! What a bozo!!
These guys were running around secretly with OLF and the terrorist sponsoring government Eritrea. It’s on record! That’s associating and collaborating with terrorist organizations! The government has every right to warn them and defend the nation from such unsavory, violent prone characters — for instance, it’s illegal in the USA for anyone to associate with any organization designated as a terrorist organization by the US, like Al-Qaaeda – in Ethiopia’s case, the OLF or even the Eritrean government! So, these guys will be considered big time CRIMINALS in the USA!!