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Comforting The
Masses With Baseless Propaganda |
Two days after the widespread publication of
the defection of general Kemal Gelch to
Eritrea, many internet sites have been fed
with a propaganda claiming the death and
capture of dozens of ONLF fighters and high
ranking officials. As if the timing of this
report of ONLF casualties was not suspect
enough, there is little evidence provided of
when and where the fighting took place.
The report strategically portrays Eritrea as
the culprit who is training and arming those
who oppose the dictatorial regime in Addis
Ababa. This is a classic example of a
dictatorial regime wanting to blame all that
ills itself to an outsider in order to sway
public opinion and deflect attention away
from the mass defections of both soldiers
and high-ranking Ethiopian generals.
In the baseless piece purported as news from
the ‘frontlines’, the confessions of
non-existent ONLF captives are trumped up as
the all-conclusive evidence. This reporting
is nothing more than a haphazard attempt to
flood news and Blogging sites with baseless
information of the casualties of a battle
that took place only in the hallucinating
minds of the autocracy in Addis Ababa.
One does not need to be conversant with
Ethiopia and Ogaden to figure out that the
piece purported as news is a baseless
propaganda. In Ethiopia, security is a
federal matter yet it is strange that the
federal ministry of misinformation is not
leading this propaganda effort. In Ogaden, a
place that is a war zone, only the military
speaks about any matter supreme of which is
security and operations against ONLF.
In such a system why is the so-called Deputy
Head of Security and Justice Coordination
Bureau in the Somali regional State speaking
as the authority in this matter? This just
shows that the regime in Addis Ababa
calculated the best way to drown out the
talk of the defection of General Kemal Gelch
to Eritrea and the major military losses it
incurred in Ogaden against ONLF is to flood
the information superhighway known as the
World Wide Web with baseless propaganda.
The ferocity of efforts dispensed in
spreading this propaganda shows the impact
that the mass defections of both soldiers
and high-ranking officials to Eritrea have
had on the psyche of the Ethiopian military
and the head of the regime in Addis Ababa.
It appears the regime is resigned to its
faith of losing more soldiers through mass
defections hence the need to comfort the
masses with this baseless propaganda for the
time being.
editorial@ogaden.com
Ogaden Online Editorial
Aug 11, 2006 |
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