Open letter of Appreciation and Acknowledgment:
Date: Saturday, April 30, 2022
To: Dr. Deborah MacLatchy
President,
Wilfrid Laurier University (WLU)
Email: President@wlu.ca
Dr. Patrick Deane
Principal,
Queens University
Email: Principal@queensu.ca
From: Semaneh Tamrat Jemere
Ottawa, ON K1H 6H8
Email: stjtamrat@hotmail.com
Re: Ann Fitzgerald and Senator Huge Segal authors of Front-Line Voices:
Dear Ann/Huge,
I am extremely flabbergasted by your recent research paper (Front Line Voices) which is well documented and enriched with a mountain of facts and not fairy tales. We know that anyone can write papers, opinion pieces, and research documents. No matter who writes, there is nothing that can stand tall like that of Professor Ann Fitzgerald and Hugh Segal of the most prestigious academies of learning, the Wilfrid Laurier and Queens Universities of Canada.
These universities got their reputation and fame through professionals and seasoned researchers like Ann and Huge who only speak truth to power. For Ann, Huge, and Wilfred and Queens Universities facts, realism, and professional etiquette are the hallmarks of their true identity never compromised by corruption and lobbying for self-aggrandizement.
This is not the first time that these researchers have shown their professional integrity. At the beginning of the 21st century, I had the privilege of reading a Canadian-Senate report led by Senator Huge Segal entitled ‘“A new Road map of Canadian Aid for Sub-Saharan Africa”. The Senate report revealed CIDA’s 40 years of the cacophony of failure of aid programs to Africa including Ethiopia.
Today Ann Fitzgerald and Senator Hugh Segal have again shared their ground-breaking research document ‘The Front-line voices’ which reveals TPLF’s atrocities in Northern Ethiopia-Tigray Province. The facts revealed in their paper are not like the fabricated disinformation reports cooked at the desk level by Amnesty International or Human Rights Watch. Rather they are facts spoken and told by TPLF victims.
Certainly, those who have been feeding false information to the international media and the global community will be sleepless. And there will be no surprise if they are in a defamation campaign against Ann and Huge. We say to those types of people that the train of truth will travel at a lightning speed and the false passengers will be left behind at their station.
On behalf of the victims of TPLF, I would like to thank you from the bottom of my heart for telling the international community the truth and the only truth that existed on the ground to date. There is nothing more onerous than being a voice for the voiceless.
Sincerely,
Semaneh T. Jemere
Cc: Dr. Abiy Ahmed
Prime Minister of Ethiopia
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Ethiopian News Agency,
Addis Ababa Ethiopia
Well, the letter is truly appreciable as far as what TPLF’s inner circle has done to so many innocent Ethiopians is concerned .
The problem of our intellectuals is the political thinking of mainly and squarely putting the blame and the whole blame on one faction of EPRDF (TPLF) but giving kind of legitimacy and even appreciation to the other faction of the same criminal political system which controls the palace politics (OPDO/EPRDF/Prosperity that has been committing and continued committing politically motivated heinous crimes against humanity or unprecedented atrocities either directly or indirectly . The above letter of appreciation and acknowledgement self evidently reflects this type of selective way of political behavior or mentality of the majority of our intellectuals . The writer did not want to at least let those people he extended his appreciation know that the politically motivated heinous crimes committed and being committed directly or indirectly by the incumbent faction of EPRDF In the palace deserves due attention and investigation too. As far as the true meaning and purpose of intellectualism is concerned, it is terribly wrong to believe that a totally crime infested political system of EPRDF can be cured simply by blaming and condemning TPLF only ! It is this kind of very clumsy and cowardice political thinking and belief of our intellectuals that has contributed to the very unprecedented level of horror and brought the country to the very verge of collapse or disintegration .
Let me sum up by posing a question : Do we really believe that the faction of EPRDF in the palace is genuinely willing and able to become a true agent of a real democratic change ? Is the politics of keep blaming and condemning the other faction of Mekele (TPLF ) quite enough ? If yes, it must an absolute political stupidity ! If it is no, it is the very responsibility of our intellectuals to come up with how it can be dealt with !