We would like to let you know that we have read your interview in IRIN with great shock and outrage.  We have all along thought that the UK would be the one who would know a Stalinist psychopath when it saw one.  But if your interview is a reflection of the British government, we can see that your Prime Minister has decided to go to bed with a murderous thug fit not for the ideals of 10 Downing Street but for the brothels of Baghdad! Your choice is your right but make no mistake about it. With your candid admission of your choice for one of the most, grotesque, corrupt and genocidal king pin, Meles Zenawi, you have earned yourself and the government you represent, the worst possible condemnation from Ethiopians everywhere! 

In your interview Mr. Ambassador, you have told the world that Britain would fund the budget deficit of the Stalinist dictator currently unleashing crimes of the magnitude, which make the Menguistu era reign of terror benign, that your country would provide military training and equipment to the Ethiopian army for missions in double standard, that the horrible massacre committed by Meles in Tipe and Awassa have been addressed, and finally, you have told Ethiopians to abandon their Eritrean territories!

Mr. Ambassador, we are indeed traumatized, shocked and outraged by your commentary on the Tipe and Awassa massacres. You have told the world that "...we believe the government has listened carefully to the concerns of the international community about those particular incidents and responded rather positively. Arrests have been made..."  You are in fact not only absolving Meles Zenawi of the horrible crime committed against defenseless civilians but also praising him for his actions. Your characterization of Meles and his regime as responsive and responsible, and that it acts swiftly to address concerns of genocidal inquiry is truly a crime against the Ethiopian people! But we hear you loud and clear!

We are not fools though. We are no doubt economically poor but we are blessed with abundance in foresight. We are materially poor but we are wealthy in history, culture, and architecture. As such, we are a people of mind immune to innuendo and your innuendo can never be an exception. You may intentionally choose to do us harm with your innuendos but we know it would not be your first. We hope you know that as a people of history we not only make history but also remember it well.

Some sixty years or so ago, our head of state, His Excellency, the late Emperor Haileselassie, was generous with his Ethiopian foresight; he was generous with the future you could not see and alerted you of the future with impeding cataclysm. He was explicit too. He warned you of the price of indifference and acquiescence. The terrible cost of indifference in the face of injustice! As is the case today, the great powers of that world looked the other way as Ethiopians perished in Mussolini’s weapons of mass destruction. The Great Powers of the League of Nations thought the mass destruction would be confined only to us and never to them. Accordingly they failed to heed the generous foresight of "it is us today, and it will be you tomorrow!" Of course, we now know what the cost of that indifference was; the injustice was not confined to Ethiopia and the lessen of the century was that when we do not stand up for the truth, we all loose!

Crimes against humanity are being committed in Ethiopia on a daily basis. And just as the yester years, Ethiopians are reminding the Powers of our time of the assault on justice taking place in Ethiopia. And judging from your interview, you have in fact, as did the Ambassadors of Mussolini, mocked the Ethiopian people! The fact is Mr. Ambassador, Meles Zenawi has ordered the massacre of innocent people in Tipe and Awassa. He has annihilated innocent citizens peacefully expressing their grievances. You may, once again, choose to be indifferent to the injustice but there can be no question as to who was responsible for the horrendous crimes. The criminals who committed these horrible crimes are not the police and some low ranking officials. We know in no uncertain terms that no operation of that magnitude could be carried out without the direct order of Meles Zenawi!  We know too that the EU has demanded for an independent investigation of the massacres. In response to the EU demand Meles has arrested those who carried his orders, and it is this act of blaming the victim you are unashamedly calling as a "positive response!"  You are in deed repeating history; you are looking the other way in the face of injustice!

You know Mr. Ambassador, the truth will triumph!  Democracy may be inefficient but it has the power to catch and win over evil.  Make no mistake about it, like Menguistu; Meles will never hang around much longer.  We are convinced that when that day of victory of truth over evil shines, and democracy as that one practiced in your country becomes a way of life in Ethiopia, the terrible testimony you have given in your interview will haunt you! When the truth comes out (although we suspect you know the truth already) that Meles was the person who ordered the massacre of those innocent citizens, you will come to realize that you committed a horrible witness!

You have said more things in your interview too. You have told the suffering Ethiopian people that your country would provide military training and equipment to the Ethiopian army for missions in double standard. Moreover, you have told the Ethiopian population the world over that we abandon our land all the way to the costal frontiers of the Red Sea!

The Ethiopian people are Mr. Ambassador like the British people. They are very patriotic and extremely tenacious! Just as the British people showed exemplary heroism and resolve in Second World War, the Ethiopian people had wars of their own too. Such patriotism and resolve comes Mr. Ambassador, from a hyperbolic sense of patriotism and love of country. Imagine then what it means to us when you tell us to relinquish our land, the land that has been ours for thousands of years? And remember of what you said on the Falklands war? You would not even consider the Falkland Islands, islands thousands of miles away from the UK and one that clearly belongs to Argentina, relinquishing it to its rightful owner! Why are you then so eager and willing to tear up our land but not that of yours? Why the double standard?

You also wanted our armed forces to serve in UN sponsored peace monitoring missions. Tell us why Ethiopia should give a damn about the UN? What has Ethiopia gotten be it from the League of Nations or the UN? Isn’t it the UN that denied Ethiopia its right to exercise the right of self-defense when invaded by Isayas Afeworki? Isn’t it the UN, which condemned Ethiopia the victim of aggression as an aggressor? And isn’t it the UN, at this very hour, despite the enormous rejection by the Ethiopian people of the Eritrean referendum and the current demarcation, which is financing the destruction of Ethiopian territories? Isn’t it the UN, which is currently collaborating with the enemy of the Ethiopian people, Meles Zenawi, to destroy the interests of the Ethiopian people? Why should any Ethiopian soldier die for a world organization, which has proved time and again that it does not stand for true justice but for double standard? Make no mistake about it Mr. Ambassador, the Ethiopian people will never relinquish their sacred soil and would never volunteer for any mission in double standard!

We know you are blessed with material wealth, and that you can afford to finance the survival of what is to us a regime no less evil than Sadam. But we want you to know that you are not helping us bring about democracy but a totalitarian regime with an incredible distaste for democracy, the rule of law and accountability. Think what you may and finance what you wish but we would like you to know that at this very time, Ethiopia is in the grip of tyranny, and as a result, the Ethiopian people are enduring inhumanity no less than the people of Iraq! Ethiopia, like Iraq, is being ruined by thugs clueless as to the sanctity of life and the God given "inalienable right" of people to governance by their consent! Just like Iraq, the people of Ethiopia are subjected to the whims and frills of a psychopath reared in the darkest dark of Stalin’s sadistic art of annihilation! Just like Stalin’s Empire and just as the Iraqis are dying a terrible death from the poisons of mass destruction, the Ethiopian people are breathing and dying from an African version of those same poisons!

We would like to let you know Mr. Ambassador that the God-less disciples of Stalin and Mao are devouring the Ethiopian people known to the whole world as a people devoted to God! With phony labels of "democracy" and "free market," Meles Zenawi and his handful Marxist Leninist death squads are not only destroying the timeless faith and culture of our great religious institutions but also they are destroying the glue which bonded Ethiopians whole and awesome for eons in time!

You must realize Mr. Ambassador that under the disguise of devolution of power to the "masses," Meles Zenawi and his cadre of evil have fragmented Ethiopia into a compartment of Bantustans! Instead of bringing people together and creating a national bouquet, the Marxist thought of "self-determination" is bringing the designed outcome of self-destruction! Instead of the idea "from many one" so proven fruitful in the democratic countries of the West, Meles and his comrades in crime are amplifying differences leading to the only outcome vividly obvious in Somalia, Yugoslavia and Rwanda! Instead of creating an environment where a cacophony of ideas could flourish and nourish the democratic thirst of the Ethiopian people, those disciples of Stalin and Mao are peddling the failed system of dictatorship of the proletariat anchored on a single idea and at that made in Albania!

As is the case in Iraq, Mr. Ambassador, there is no rule of law in Ethiopia but the likes and dislikes of a murderous psychopath reared in the thoughts of the Albanian and Chinese Communists so notoriously distinguished as the architects of the colossal human tragedy of the "cultural revolution." No laws thoughtfully weaved from civilized minds but the word of a Stalinist hominoid has become the law of the land! Communist and Sadam Hussein inspired elections have produced a rogue regime complete with the trappings of phony parliament and corrupt and unjust justice system. As a result, Mr. Ambassador, the Ethiopian people are choking anaerobic! Stalinist thought disguised in democracy and free market reform is causing a horrible suffering upon the Ethiopian people! Extra judicial killings and imprisonment on tramped up charges are reinventing the gulags of Stalin and Mao in Ethiopia!

Administration malpractice coupled with Marxist policies and corruption is destroying the economic well being of the country! The banking and telecommunication system has been ruined and their assets plundered, and Ethiopian Airlines has not only been reduced to the rim of a substandard carrier but also it has become a sitting duck for Islamic extremists! The Marxist inspired "Land Lease" proclamation has created dismal agricultural returns as it has bottlenecked a much-needed housing construction by entrepreneurs. Because the legal system is not designed to protect civil liberties but to destroy those with better ideas, it has not only stifled good ideas from proliferating but also has extinguished public debate on critical public issues! Because there is no legal system, no investor dares to invest, and the experienced and professionals are leaving the country to breath free in record numbers!

The press has been annihilated except in Addis Ababa, and that very limited press freedom charade is intended to ensure loans from the IMF and World Bank keep coming, and the democracies of the West is hoodwinked in to believing that freedom of the press exists! You must understand Mr. Ambassador that the rest of the country, is in an information blackout!

The academic institutions are being systematically destroyed and academic independence is being annihilated! The Ethiopian people are, Mr. Ambassador, being decimated psychologically and physically. And yet, you can see the horrors of Iraq under Sadam but are unable to see the horrors of the Stalinists protégé, right in front you in Ethiopia! Why then the double standard, and how does this selective justice bring about peace in the world? How does such selective justice advance the cause of democracy and the rule of law so needed in this world of ours today?

Why, may we ask you, the double standard Mr. Ambassador? Do you not realize that Ethiopians are people like the great people of the UK that you represent? Do you not know that the Ethiopian people have the same dreams of joy and happiness as those great of people of the United Kingdom? Do you not realize that the Ethiopian people abhor dictatorship just as the people of the United Kingdom do? Why is it that while you do whatever it takes never to allow dictatorship to reign in your own country, you want the Ethiopian people to live under one of the most grotesque regimes in the modern world? What is it that you gain from the incredible sufferings of my people? It sure cannot be for money, and with the cold war over, it sure cannot be for global geopolitical strategy! Please tell me what is it that you gain from supporting a well-known psychopath and a communist thug who yesterday was waving the Stalinist flag against the West? Finally, why is it that you have chosen to support a murderous communist in Ethiopia but you are rightly moving to do away with Sadam? Why the double standard?

It is impossible for us to believe that you are aware of what you are doing in Ethiopia. It is impossible for us to believe that your policy on Ethiopia is based on the realities of Ethiopia. We cannot believe any person of responsibility of your magnitude, and any person reread in a pluralistic democracy such as the one in the UK can, in any shape or form, do what you are doing in Ethiopia, based on the best interests of democracy and the rule of law!

You see Mr. Ambassador, Ethiopians envy the democratic institutions in you country. They envy of the division of power, and checks and balances. They envy not only the constitutions by which you live but more importantly, they envy the quality controls which ensure the supremacy of the constitution, and the quality controls which guarantee psychopaths of the Meles variety from rising to destroy everything! They envy too that no one is above the law, and that one is presumed innocent until found guilty by the "preponderance of the evidence" that is in fact truly evidence and not the tramped up "evidence" in the kangaroo courts of the Sadams, Stalins and their psychopath disciples!

There are other envies too. Ethiopians envy the academic institutions in your countries. They envy how your independent academic institutions fuel your governments with the best ideas, and how these citadels of knowledge infuse breakthroughs into the governmental and economic life of your country. They envy the partnership between government and industry, and how both focus on maximum return to fuel exponential growth!

Ethiopia seeks no favor but justice. Ethiopia calls upon you and those powerful in the company of yours to stand in defense of the truth. It challenges you to rise above self-interest and political expediency, and champion the interest of peace and justice. Ethiopia has been done wrong by the UK on many occasions! Ethiopia has been done wrong by the UN on many occasions. We are sick ill by the injustices of the UK and UN; we have had it enough! We do not need your budgetary or military help; it only prolongs our suffering and nothing else! We would love to ask you to do the right thing but we know that it would be naïve of us. So, we ask the next thing: meddle in the affairs of our country but mind your pedophiles (Reuters: July 22, 1999) tacked in your "charitable" NGOs and potentially in your Embassy!