OPEN LETER TO ELENI GABRE MEDHIN: THE COMMODITY EXCHANGE IS A TPLF MAFIA OPERATION

Berhanu Iqube Giorgis

Weizero Eleni,

I read with interest you long article trying to justify yourself and to cast yourself as a Bulge and not as a Tigre as some people may have stated when dealing with your nefarious role as head of the so called Ethiopian Commodity Exchange. As you did try to explain, the ethnic origin of any person is not really that important if only the TPLF you so loyally serve had not made it the main and primordial issue of Ethiopian political and economic life. In Other words, what is important is not the fact that you are Tigrean born but that you are a loyal serve of the TPLF and especially the robber baron Meles Zenawi.

The so called Ethiopian Commodity Exchange is a means to assure the economic stranglehold and domination of the TPLF over the Ethiopian economy much as the EFFORT conglomeration is doing. Your role is to assure this and nothing else. Of some 85 companies who have forked out the thousands of Birr to have a seat in the commodity exchange (ECE), 63 are TPLF owned big companies like Guna or front men of the TPLF. The independent private groups are tiny ones helpless in the face of the Guna giant which deals with hundreds of millions of Birr. You surely know how Guna sold the Ethiopian wheat reserve to Egypt via the Sudan  ( the Tigrean former GTZ truck drivers now employed by Sebhat Nega doing the transport) and earned millions if dollars while  buying replacement wheat from South African on loan. You also know how these Sebhat hired truck drivers were once paid by Sebhat Nega with cocaine confiscated from Nigerian mules/ transporters and how they sold this cocaine in Addis to earn thousands of Birr.

Weizero Eleni, you head one of the most dangerous bodies for the total robbery of Ethiopia’s agricultural produces to benefit the Tigrean bourgeoisie. The aim of your CE is to monopolize the market/ sale of Ethiopia’s agricultural produce ranging from coffee to sesame and more. The damaging effect of your activity on coffee traders is already known. The control of sesame production (Humera and other places) by the TPLF and the exclusive sale of this through the commodity exchange is also known. Through the ECE you head, the TPLF is trying to assume full control of the Ethiopian agricultural production and market and to prolong its anti people rule. That is your role that no amount of demagogy or “I am an Ethiopian” trumpeting cannot hide. You are not an Ethiopian but a rabid Weyane up there with Ethiopia-haters like Meles and Sebhat. The twelve or so independent companies who have a seat in the commodity exchange are covers for you and the TPLF, they get crumbs as the main market is controlled by the 62 or so TPLF companies with millions of stolen Birr.

Weizero Eleni when the day of judgment comes and if you have not managed to flee your place will be in the dock and then we shall be delighted to hear you explain how you were a patriotic Ethiopian while you helped and abetted the TPLF in  destroying the Ethiopian economy and perpetuating the rule of ethnic chauvinists.