Part Four: The Lost Diatribe

Yes, Weichegud has a team of crack researchers (or is it researchers on crack?) who were able to siphon a copy of Part Four of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi’s response to the EU-EOM’s Preliminary Report on the Ethiopian election Appeals’ Process etc. (For those of you who missed it, the EU thought… it did not meet international standards. Yes, yes. Who isn’t shocked?)

You might wonder why this fourth installment in a series of painfully verbose yet intriguingly anti-intellectual schoolboy tirades was never published. Well, y’know… the Prime Minister’s unspeakably ill-spoken spokesperson, Bereket Simon, had to earn his pay. (By the way, is it true that Ato Bereket lost his parliamentary seat to an opponent who was, um, unemployed at the time? Oh lawdy.)

Anyway, Ato Bereket must have decided that the PM sounded ridiculous enough in parts 1 through 3 that he stepped in to halt the cerebral hemorrhaging of the beleaguered prime minister, who must be cursing the day he thought he could write a few lucid sentences all by his lonesome self. (In case you’ve wondered, yes, the prime minister likes the “delicate” cycle when he meShaff maTebs. He be quite sophisticated like that.)

Ahhh… but we got a hold of Part Four… It ain’t purddy.

Part IV: If the Golden Goose Lays an Egg, Should We Not Make an Omelet?

Ladies and Gentlemens,

As I have thoroughly examined in Part 1 of my response to the Good Lady who is a fanciful colonial viceroy, the EU report is full of contradictions. I have tried to point out those contradictions in agonizing detail in parts 2 and 3 as well.

I have given you an example of how limiting media access to the opposition, imprisoning the opposition and creating legislation impeding the opposition has nothing, nothing to do with democracy. The Good Lady Colonial Viceroy obviously needs to brush-up on her democracy, because, as the blind but good singer Stevie Wonder sings, “Love’s in Need of Love Today.”

In today’s installment, I’d like to explore on how the EPRDF (which, as I pointed out earlier, is not the government) is not the government of Ethiopia. In fact, if you ask me, “Who is the government of Ethiopia?” I could not tell you. Who are they? I don’t know. Does anybody know? Nobody knows. The EPRDF is one thing. The government is a totally different entity. The Good Lady Viceroy of Colonialism tries very shrewdly to mix them up and confuse us. Well, I say to you, “Don’t try confusing the confuser”!! As the singer You Two says, “It’s a beautiful day!”

Now, in paragraph 1 of the EU statement, the Good Lady of Colonizing Viceroys says,

Re-runs of elections went peacefully and orderly, albeit without opposition representation and with militia and security forces present around and inside polling stations of some sensitive constituencies.

Why, why, why? WHY? Can you answer me this, Lady Goodness of Colonizing Viceroys: Why is it necessary for the opposition to be present in an election? Mature democracies have traditionally not had that, so, hence, thereby and therefore, it is not, allow me, should not be a necessary litmus test for the Ethiopian elections. As if that were not enough of an affront to all thinking men (and some women, indeed, I am sure), now the Good Lady of the Colonized Viceroy is telling us that we need the presence of an OPPOSITION to hold elections! Obviously, the Ladyiness of the Good Colonial Viceroy-ities does not know her EPRDF history. May I point out to her that the 1995 and 2000 Ethiopian elections ran very smoothly WITHOUT the presence of any so-called opposition? (Nor without the presence of busy-body "observers", I hasten to add!) We do not accept pre-conditions such as an "opposition" to ensure democracy. Despite what the Good Lady-in-Waiting for Viceroyality thinks, we are not savages!

And so what if there were security forces inside polling stations? Who in America has not been accompanied by an armed guard when he/she enters the booth to pull the lever? So, why can’t we have that in Ethiopia?? Because we are poor? Because we don’t deserve it? Well, I say to that, as the also-blind-but-dead singer Ray Charles sang, "You Can Stay But That Jive's Gotta Go!" Go away, Jive!

The EU statement also says:

The opposition may appeal NEBE decisions on the CIPs [Complaint Investigation Process] conclusions to the Courts. Nevertheless, the chairman of the National Election Board, Ato Kemal Bedri, is the same person who chairs the Supreme Court.

I don’t presume to read what is in the dark recesses of the Lady of Good Colonial Viceroyness’ mind, but I have a suspicion that she feels that this is inappropriate. It is mind-boggling presumption unbefitting of a proper Colonial Viceroy. Surely, she jests! Would it be wrong if the chairman of the election board in the United States (do they have one?) also be the head of the Supreme Court? As we always say at the end of EPRDF committee meetings, "If it is good for the goose, then the gander has to wonder."

On the whole, the CIPs made recommendations against the opposition parties in 80% of the complaints in which they were involved. On the other hand, CIPs made recommendations for EPRDF in 87% of the cases.

There you are! 80% to 87%! That means that the CIPs voted against the EPRDF at least 20% of the time! If that is not democracy then I don’t know what is. (It should be noted that we instructed them to make it 75% of the time, but just to show impartiality they kicked in another 5%! That’s called “mirreqa” in the Ethiopian culture, but la femme Viceroy Colonial de Good Lady would not know that now, would she? Again, as the singer Ray Charles put it more aptly, "Bippety Be Bob Pony"!

What hurt me personally was the contention that the

Opposition [was] hindered by intimidation and arrests of their witnesses.

I found this to be personally hurtful. In fact I was inconsolable until someone played me the song I'm Afraid The Masquerade Is Over by the dead, Black-American singer, Mrs. Billie Holliday. I don’t know about you, but me, personally, I don’t want to live in a world where arresting people is considered intimidation. It might have been in the colonial times in which Frau Good Lady might be living in. But this is the 21^st century!! May I kindly remind the self-appointed Lady Viceroy of that, please?

I will simply dismiss the next allegation:

The context of the complaints process was marked by on-going high tension in the country and stalemate between the government party and the opposition. This was aggravated by the handling of the June disturbances by governmental forces, in violation of human rights and the citizen’s rights enshrined in the Ethiopian Constitution.

Simply, I will say to Señora Our Lady of Viceroy and Sorrowful Colonialism, hogwash! The June incidents were in keeping with the enshrined Ethiopian constitution: No Citizen Shall Interfere With Bullets Flying into His/Her Head From a Government Gun. Is it not within the rights of the bullets to end up where they were intended? I dismiss you, Good Lady Viceroy! I… dismiss… YOU!

Their findings about the polling process were generally positive. Their overall assessment of the process has been rated as good in 64% of the cases and very good in
24 %.

I ask you, ladies and gentelmens of the world, 64% of the election was “good”. 24% was very good! The Lady of Colonialist Viceroydom wants to parse sentences and say that the “polling process” is different from the “election results.” Well, as one of my favorite singers, the popular Metallica -- I don’t know if that is his first name or his last—but as Mr. Metallica says, “Nothing Else Matters.” Indeed, I say to you today, nothing else matters. That polling places opened up on time is as good as “free and fair” elections! Therefore, thereby and hence, the elections in Ethiopia… get me a calculator, were 64 + 24 =… hold on… 88% good. And that is without the traditional Ethiopian mirreqa, which is usually 5%. So, in all honesty, the Ethiopian elections were 93% good! Nothing Else Matters, indeed, Our Lady of Good Colonial Viceroy. Nothing Else Matters.

Of course, I could go on and on. But as the not-dead, not-blind singer Robert Palmer would say, that would be “Sneakin’ Sally Through The Alley”. In short, I have more than showed that the EU has no experience in observing elections! It tried to tell us that there was intimidation, yet, moreover, thus, thence and therby, the only evidence it has to substantiate this scurrilous accusation is that people were imprisoned or killed! This is not just a case of grapes that are not-yet-sour, but more-than-a-little-ripe! Hmmm?

To excavate the garbage from the EU report takes the mind of a three-year-old, and I have proven that I am indeed qualified. The lumps of truth in the report were so lumpy that it took me less than a few hours to excavate them. But we are not fooled by Signora Our Good Lady of Perpetual Visceral Colonialism. She has been listening to too much Nine Inch Nails, who have been known to croon, Happiness in Slavery. We are not slaves.

Democracy is alive and well in Ethiopia, and anyone who says otherwise shall be dealt with to the full extent of the law. I am not kidding.

Often, when I am surrounded by unquietness and existential disturbances, I look outside the palace windows and I think, “What would the ordinary, run of the mill, commonplace, average Ethiopian peasant do in this situation?” Well, first off, I think that the ordinary, run of the mill, commonplace, average Ethiopian peasant would stop to listen to the chanteuses Bananarama intone,

It's a cruel, cruel summer
Leaving me here on my own
It's a cruel, cruel summer
Now you're gone

The city is crowded
My friends are away
And I'm on my own
It's too hot to handle
So I got to get up and go

And then, as he has done for millennia before, and as his grandfathers have done before that, the ordinary, run of the mill, commonplace, average Ethiopian peasant would raise his fist and chant, “Revolutionary democracy is in my bones, and I will protect it with my life!”

That ordinary, run of the mill, commonplace, average Ethiopian peasant would then hunker down and take the calcium necessary to protect his Revolutionarily Democracy bones. He would then rise up and say to all Ladies of Annunciated Colonialist Viceroy-ity at the EU, “You shan’t take away my Revolutionary Democracy. Oh, no, you can’t take it away from me.”

The ordinary, run of the mill, commonplace, average Ethiopian peasant would then defend Revolutionary democracy by destroying anyone who does not believe in Revolutionary Democracy. Do no underestimate the ordinary, run of the mill, commonplace, average Ethiopian peasant, for he is wise and does not suffer Ladies in Vicerory Colonialism easily.

The 2005 Ethiopian elections shall be seen as a triumph for the whole world. As the legendary but so-in-the-grave great singer Frank Sinatra said, “I did it My Way”!

Viva the revolution! Viva!

Yours truly,

Meles Zenawi
Prime Minister of Ethiopia
1991-Forever

p.s. Has anyone seen Bereket? Hey, Berri, call me. Need to work on Part 5.

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Hmmm... wonder why that was never published? The Opposition finally came around to responding to Ato Meles. Thank God, in one part... titled, um, "Actually, Love has a Lot to do With Free and Fair Elections." Oh, jeezuz.

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