Indian Ocean Newsletter N° 1199 21/10/2006
The leadership of the CUPD in exile has finally exploded under the weight of its divergences.
The friction within the leadership of the Coalition for Unity and Democracy Party (CUDP, opposition) in exile has finally led to its collapse (ION 1197). This has led to division within many of its support committees in North America and other countries. Major Yosef Yazew and his partisans (Moges Biruck, Seyoum Solomon, Solomon Bekele etc) accuse their rivals Berhanu Mewa and Andargatchew Tsige of working for the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF, governing coalition). To prove their case they point out that Berhanu Mewa’s plastics factory in Addis Ababa is still in operation and that Andargatchew’s sister is the wife of the Minister Tefera Walwa. In turn, the Berhanu/Andargatchew faction accuses Yosef Yazew and his friends of embezzling funds, hence justifying their decision to exclude them from the leadership of the CUDP in exile.
Yosef Yazew is supported in Addis Ababa by a CUDP leader, Hailu Shawel, while his rivals in the Diaspora tend to be supported in Ethiopia by Mesfin Wolde Mariam and Berhanu Nega.
EPPF kept at arm's length
Indian Ocean Newsletter N° 1199 21/10/2006
The Ethiopian People’s Patriotic Front (EPPF, opposition) may have only a few hundred partisans near Tesenei in Eritrea and no combatants in Ethiopia itself. Acco
rding to the singer Solomon Tekaligne who went to Asmara in July alongside the EPPF, he had not been able to see a single guerrilla from the organisation apart from its leader Mussie Tegegne. According to him, the propaganda about EPPF military victories is the work of Colonel Fitsum of the Eritrean army.
