The Ethiopian Ministry of Foreign Affairs dismissed the accusation made by Eritrea last Tuesday that ‘the [Ethiopian] regime, with the complicity of external forces, is engaged in jamming and interfering’ with the Satellite transmission of Eritrea’s sole Television, ERINA.

The Ministry said:

the Eritrean government is now accusing Ethiopia of jamming its ‘truth-serving TV’ in an attempt to hide the truth. The point being made here appears to be that Ethiopia is so scared of the Eritrean leader’s wonderful, lengthy and repetitive ‘analyses’ of world affairs that it is prepared to waste millions of dollars to jam Eritrea’s television transmissions. Oddly, these television transmissions allegedly jammed by Ethiopia can still be seen easily and clearly in Ethiopia, and in fact Eri-TV’s apocryphal stories about Ethiopia and the rest of the world are popular comic shows for most Ethiopians. Logic, of course, and accuracy have never been Eritrea’s leaders’ forte.

The Ministry made the comment in its weekly press release A Week in the Horn, in a piece under the heading ‘No New Year change – Asmara continues to accuse the world’.

Read the full text below (from the Jan. 13, 2012 issue of A Week in the Horn of Africa).

No New Year change – Asmara continues to accuse the world

The Eritrean regime is continuing to recycle its accusations against the world at large, producing what is by now almost pro forma invective against what it calls Eritrea’s ‘sworn enemies’. The latest effort is asking the UN Security Council to disband the UN Monitoring Group on Somalia and Eritrea. This is accused of being ‘biased’ and with “no concern for evidence whatsoever.” For the regime in Asmara a smoking gun cannot be considered close to acceptable evidence even when it is discovered in its backyard. At the same time it continues to assert that its own all-too-frequent protestations of innocence should be considered as conclusive evidence. Eritrea’s leaders apparently believe that even their most preposterous claims must be seen as true. Given this mindset, it is very difficult to see how they would be able to accept the report of any new Monitoring Group as credible. The regime fell short of recommending any names for its preferred monitoring group, but on past experience it would hardly be any surprise if it was to put forward the names of the very Eritrean army and civilian officials involved in the regime’s cross-border adventures as potential candidates!

Eritrea, whose leaders insist they have ‘very close relations with Somalis and Libyans’ because of common colonial background, are still adamant in their opposition to the TFI’s or anything that appears to legitimize the current transitional arrangement in Somalia. Despite this, it said last year that it supported Kenya’s intervention in Somalia. Now, however, it is once again accusing Kenya for its ‘uninvited’ intervention against resolution 1725(2006). Consistence is hardly something that the regime in Eritrea pays much attention to with the single exception of falsehood. It no longer appears to have any sense of shame.   

In the face of the world’s denunciation of its destabilizing activities throughout the region, the regime is now making the counter-claim that countries in the region are campaigning to unseat it ‘because of its independent political line.’ Nobody knows what this independent line is, but it appears that the regime fancies itself too strong to be overthrown by any other single entity. That, of course, is why the ‘dear leader’ and patriarch of the regime keeps blaming the west and particularly the US for being behind plots to overthrow the regime. According to him, the CIA does nothing but concoct plot after plot to destroy his regime. Surprisingly, the regime’s latest statement for the first time mentions the Eritrean opposition’s Hawassa conference last month as part of this western campaign to remove it. The idea that the regime might have earned this opposition by its own activities is a concept that appears lost on the authorities in Asmara.

On a similar note, the Eritrean government is now accusing Ethiopia of jamming its ‘truth-serving TV’ in an attempt to hide the truth. The point being made here appears to be that Ethiopia is so scared of the Eritrean leader’s wonderful, lengthy and repetitive ‘analyses’ of world affairs that it is prepared to waste millions of dollars to jam Eritrea’s  television transmissions. Oddly, these television transmissions allegedly jammed by Ethiopia can still be seen easily and clearly in Ethiopia, and in fact Eri-TV’s apocryphal stories about Ethiopia and the rest of the world are popular comic shows for most Ethiopians. Logic, of course, and accuracy have never been Eritrea’s leaders’ forte. 

What, unfortunately, remains obvious is that the regime in Asmara has no intention of mending its ways. Nor is it prepared to try and engage the region or the world in a civilized and responsible manner. Its preferred approach continues to be one of antagonizing everyone that dares to criticize its unnecessary, and frankly repulsive, behavior. The regime’s lengthy declarations since the onset of the new European year make it abundantly clear that as far as the regime in Asmara goes, old habits die really hard.

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