Bekele Gerba and Monkey Business in T-TPLF Monkey Kourts in the Banana Republic of Ethiopia

IMG_0582Written By ALEMAYEHU G/M

Note: We are watching another cruel political theater produced and directed by the T-TPLF playing out in Ethiopia.

On October 30, 2017, the T-TPLF’s Federal Supreme Court ordered the release of Professor Bekele Gerba, Deputy Chairman of the Oromo Federalist Congress (OFC) on bail set at 30,000 birr (less than USD$1,000). At the time of his arrest in December 2015, his bail application was denied because of the alleged gravity of the “terrorism” charges levelled against him. The recent order to release him on bail set in motion a controlled make-believe appellate frenzy by T-TPLF prosecutors who sought to overturn the bail order because Bekele could tamper “tamper with evidence or could be a flight risk if released.”

What kind of evidence could Bekele possibly tamper with two years after his arrest?

If anyone is going to tamper with evidence, it would be the T-TPLF with a long record of evidence falsification and subornation of perjury. Is it not true that the only (in)justice system in the world where suspects are arrested of committing crimes after being investigated for years and then the prosecution asks for endless continuances to gather additional evidence?

When Bekele visited the U.S. in the summer of 2015, he met with State Department officials and urged the Obama administration “to pay more attention to the heavy-handed way” the T-TPLF regime treats political opponents. Bekele told American National Public Radio, Obama “shouldn’t have shown any solidarity with that kind of government, which is repressive, very much authoritarian and very much disliked by its own people.” When Bekele was asked what he thought would happen to him when he returned to Ethiopia a week before he returned, he prophesied, “Nobody is actually sure in Ethiopia what will happen to him. Anytime, people can be arrested, harassed or killed or disappeared.”

The man who knew exactly what is likely to happen to him and still returned to his country is now said to be a flight risk by the T-TPLF.

If Bekele wanted to flee his country and seek political asylum in the U.S, he would not have returned in the first place. But he chose to return and face the real risk of arrest, harassment, death and disappearance at the hands of the T-TPLF.

Of course, the T-TPLF pulled the same crap against Bekele in 2011 after he met with Amnesty International researchers and slapped him with the same old tired trumped-up terrorism charges. In 2012, he was sentenced to eight years by a T-TPLF monkey kourt and released a few months before Obama’s arrival in Ethiopia in July 2015.

Over the past two years, Bekele has been subjected to abuse, torture and mistreatment in prison. The T-TPLF bosses are so vindictive and so evil, they would make a public spectacle and humiliate Bekele and other prisoners by marching them to monkey kourt hearings bare feet and wearing shorts and t-shirts. That was intended to send a message to others who dare to challenge the T-TPLF: Walk in Bekele Gerba’s footsteps and you will walk bare feet.

I empathized with Bekele’s daughter Bontu talking to Voice of America- Amharic about her father’s imminent release and answering questions about his attitude towards his on-again, off-again release on bail. The emotional roller coaster the T-TPLF has put Bontu through shows how depraved and truly evil they are.

Why is the T-TPLF putting on the “Bekele Gerba Show” now?

When I heard of Bekele’s release on bail”, my reaction was, “Here we go again! The T-TPLF back at its old con game again.”

I have seen the T-TPLF pull the same bail, pardon and re-arrest crap time and again over the past 12 years. What I find always amazing is the fact that every time the T-TPLF thugs pull these tricks, everyone, almost everyone, falls for it. No wonder they are convinced everybody is a sucker, a doggone fool.

The late thugmaster Meles Zenawi was a master at this game. He did it to Birtukan Midekssa, Reeyot Alemu, the Kinijit leaders and so many others. Meles’ cruel jail-and-release game involved arrest of dissidents and opponents off the street, holding them in prolonged pretrial detention, seeking endless continuances to gather more evidence, using evidence that would be laughed out of court in any other justice system in the world, convicting and sentencing them to long prison terms and then begin “pardon” negotiations. They would tell the political prisoners they can walk out of jail if they 1) gave false testimony against others in court, 2) implicate other dissidents and opponents in crimes they have not committed or 3) make public confession of guilt after conviction and receive a pardon. This is their mode of operation.

In a meeting with high level U.S. officials in advance of the May 2010 election, Meles went apoplectic telling the diplomats that “If opposition groups resort to violence in an attempt to discredit the election, we will crush them with our full force; they will all vegetate like Birtukan (Midekssa) in jail forever.” That’s how the T-TPLF rolls (over its victims).

For the T-TPLF, arbitrary imprisonment of political opponents is just a game of dungeons — a spectator sport, street political theatre — for them to enjoy from their penthouses.

They create drama around high profile political prisoners. They spread rumors and propaganda about “pardoning” prisoners and “negotiations” on terms of pardon. They send out their elders to do the negotiations. All of it is a clever ploy to force innocent prisoners sentenced to long prison terms to buy their freedom by groveling before the T-TPLF thugs, kissing their feet and publicly humiliating themselves by admitting guilt when they are innocent.

As I noted in my 2009 commentary “Torture Inc.”, the T-TPLF bosses are simply sadistic thugs who derive great pleasure from the pain and suffering they inflict on others. Psychologists explain that sadistic persons suffer from an inferiority complex and resort to sadism as a defense mechanism. They pretend to be and act superior but deep down they feel inferior. By inflicting pain and suffering on others they seek to fill the void of inferiority they feel inside. They pretend and act like they are playing in the big leagues, but deep down they know they are bush league material (literally). That is certainly the situation with the T-TPLF bosses.

Why the Bekele Gerba Prison and Dungeon Game Show now?

Is the T-TPLF putting on the Bekele Gerba Game Show to create a distraction, a diversion from the current situation of popular defiance to T-TPLF rule?

Is the T-TPLF putting on the Bekele Gerba Game Show to show the Oromo people they are still in control and they can jerk around their leader?

Is the T-TPLF putting on the Bekele Gerba Game Show to project an international image that there is a real justice system in Ethiopia?

Is the T-TPLF putting on the Bekele Gerba Game Show because they got a little bit of heat from the U.S. Embassy in Ethiopia which recently openly encouraged the people of Ethiopia to exercise their right to peaceful protest?

Is the T-TPLF putting on the Bekele Gerba Game Show to pander to the Oromo people in anticipation of actually releasing him but they want “to make it look good” and save face?

Could it be all of the above?

I am sick and tired of being sick and tired of T-TPLF’s silly games and watching their stupid political theatre. They think they are so smart they can fool everyone every time. Reading all of the hogwash about the legal battles over bail and how one court overruled another and so on online, I am disgusted. By talking about the whole bail BS game as if it were real, the uncritically minded fall into the trap of becoming players in the T-TPLF propaganda game validating a monkey kourt as a real court.

Justice for the T-TPLF is synonymous with joke, games, amusement and entertainment.

If there is anyone who believes that the “Federal Supreme Court” granted bail to Bekele without the explicit direction of the T-TPLF?

Is there anyone who believes the “Federal Supreme Court” is not the legal lynching machine of the T-TPLF?

If there is anyone who believes the “Federal Supreme Court” is an independent judicial body which makes decisions without political direction and interference by the T-TPLF, they are living on Planet Denial-istan.

The 2016 U.S. State department Human Rights Report on Ethiopia stated, “The law provides for an independent judiciary. Although the civil courts operated with a large degree of independence, criminal courts remained weak, overburdened, and subject to political influence.”

In September 2016, fourteen international human rights organizations including Amnesty International, CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation, Ethiopian Human Rights Project, Freedom House, Human Rights Watch and Reporters Without Borders sent a joint letter to the Permanent Representatives of Members and Observer States of the UN Human Rights Council complaining, “There are no effective avenues to pursue accountability for abuses given the lack of independence of the judiciary” in Ethiopia.

The only thing that happens in the T-TPLF’s monkey kourt is monkey business.


Bekele Gerba’s Nonviolent Struggle for Justice

In May 2016, I wrote a commentary on “Bekele Gerba’s Trial in T-TPLF Monkey Kourt”.

I am presenting a shortened edited version of that commentary for my readers here for three reasons: 1) to focus on the legal lynching of Bekele Gerba and nearly two dozen other Oromo leaders held as co-defendants with him, 2) to affirm Bekele Gerba’s heroic commitment to a nonviolent struggle for freedom and justice in Ethiopia and 3) to remind my readers that a pig in lipstick at the end of the day is still a pig. In other words, a monkey kourt dressed in golden robes at the end of the day is still a monkey kourt.

As I have previously declared, when the sword of justice is beaten into a sledgehammer of injustice, it is the supreme duty of ordinary citizens, and even more compellingly intellectuals, to expose it!

In April 2016, the Thugtatorship of the Tigrean People’s Liberation Front (T-TPLF) jailed Bekele Gerba and 21 other individuals on trumped up charges of terrorism under its “Anti-terrorism Proclamation 652/2001” .

Bekele Gerba was a professor of foreign languages at Addis Ababa University. But he is not charged with enlightening children benighted by the T-TPLF.

His crimes of “terrorism” include 1) enlightening the people of Ethiopia on the heinous crimes against humanity committed by the T-TPLF, 2) exposing the wanton T-TPLF massacres in Oromia region of Ethiopia, and 3) publicly testifying in the court of world public opinion about the T-TPLF’s bottomless the corruption in land, cold-blooded atrocities and never-ending abuse of power by the T-TPLF.



T-TPLF monkey kourts

I coined the phrase “monkey kourt” in contrast to kangaroo court to describe the perversion of established judicial institutions for political purposes in Africa, particularly in Ethiopia. During their years in the bush, T-TPLF leaders administered “bush justice” in their own “bush kourts”.






Who is Bekele Gerba?

Bekele Gerba is a leader of the Oromo Federalist Congress.


































Travesty of justice and the injustice of illiterates


Yes, thumbprint!



How can a prosecutor sign charges that he cannot read?




Only in a monkey kourt would bail be opposed by an illiterate prosecutor.



In May 2015, Bekele Gerba said:




When the sword of justice is beaten into a sledgehammer of injustice, it is the supreme duty of ordinary citizens, and compellingly intellectuals, to expose it!



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