By Balach Hurresa

Martin Plaut is much concerned to disseminate misleading notions about Ethiopia. All of his reports about the country in particular and the Horn of Africa in general are based on rumors and hearsays. Despite the fabricated and baseless news stories, the BBC - the world giant media - is open to him anytime. All of his analysis about Ethiopia never cut ice although they confused the international community who has no enough information about the all-round forward movement of the country for the time being.  

The relationship between Eritrea and Ethiopia, the human rights situation in Ethiopia and the policies and strategies that Ethiopia has been implementing are some among many of his stories. But all are fabricated and groundless. In all cases, he neither used credible sources nor tried to balance them.

In his wrong analysis, Matin Plaut wrote that “Eritrea handled the Algiers agreement well and the international community has supported the country in that regard. But what happened at the end? His analysis turned out false that it held no water at all. The Eritrean despot has continued its aggressive attacks and peace poising efforts in the whole region.

Being confused with the analyses given by the so called analysts like Martin Plaut and the reality on the ground, the international community has remained so quite for many years. However, everything came to open that the state in Eritrea has no peace and development agendas. Its whole intent is poising the peace and security of the region.

Accordingly, it has been working day in day out to destabilize the Horn of Africa.

In the Ethiopian history, the farmers who are considered as rich were those who had a number of cattle, maybe ten or fifteen and the like. But what is now happening in Ethiopia with the same technology and farm land is astonishing.

The number of farmers who have become millionaires has alarmingly increased. Even some of them have accumulated more than fifteen million birr, which is the result of the land management policy in the country, which Martin Plaut described as one of the causes of the food shortage in Ethiopia.

He made a wrong analysis saying the policies of the government of Ethiopia caused the current food shortage. This is not the only analysis given by him. He also tried to relate the 1984/5 famine with the current food shortage, which are absolutely incomparable.

Martin has still no spare time to sleep. He continued searching a needle in a haystack. If he could do it rightly, no one is to blame him. However, the results of his search have led him to wrong conclusion.

Now, he began to talk about issues he said happened some twenty-five years ago. His source is one of the ex-members of TPLF, Aregawi Berhe. However, documents show that in the presence of Aregawi, no food aid came to TPLF thorough Sudan. It was right after he left the organization that TPLF began to get aid via that line. Both Aregawi and Ghebremedhin could not be the real witnesses as they were fabricating so many unfounded stories to blackmail the organization the left being envious of its success.

Of course, the aid that was coming to Ethiopia through the dictator military incumbency was not rightly directed to the people. If Martin is to write on that no Ethiopian is to disproof his idea not because the military government was overthrown but because the Ethiopian people knew that well that reality. But no one is to blame the TPLF while it was struggling to overthrow the then government. They were known for their respect for the people. They were known for their helpful practices for the people of Tigray, forget saying they were using the aid that came to the people for themselves.

When I say this it is not because I’m their member or anything else but I was in the area and could witness this very fact. The Relief Rehabilitation Society of Tigray (REST) was working day in day out to save thousands of starving people different from what Martin has described. REST, even after victory, has done so many fundamental development assistances to the people of Tigray. It invested in expanding modern beehives, in animal husbandry and irrigation. Martin’s report about aid is, therefore, a failed one.  It is simply defaming not only TPLF and REST but the people of Tigray as a whole. 

The reports about using aid for weapons are also severely attacked by different organizations and personalities.  Ethiopian officials, the Christian Aid and Irish rock star Bob Geldof in particular and Ethiopians at large described the allegations as nonsensical and said the report by the giant BBC is rubbish. It is incredible, inaccurate and unbalanced. It is so amazing why the giant BBC is interested in reporting such destructive and unfounded stories? 

But what is behind the curtain? What is reason for the BBC and its analyst Martin Plaut for such distorted reports? Many political analysts believe that there should be some reason behind the BBC East African Analyst Martin Plaut. Of course, the exact answer for this has to come from Martin Plaut himself. However, the analysts say that it is obvious for anyone to conclude from the reports made by him at different times. Martin is not working being socially responsible and care for the accuracy, objectivity and balance of his stories. It seems that he rather want to defame the developments in Ethiopia for reasons that might be connected with self interests and benefits from those who don’t want to see the development of Ethiopia.