ኢትዮጵያ 50 ቢሊዮን ዶላር አካባቢ የኤርትራ እዳ አለባት። When the Derg regime realized that Eritrea's independence was inevitable, it emptied all the banks in Eritrea and moved billions and billions of the Eritrean people's hard-earned money to Ethiopia. Grand theft of grandiose proportions!
International laws address the illegal movements of money or capital from one country to another, and imposes obligations on the country that confiscated the money illegally, to return it to their rightful owners.
This has not happened yet, but I guarantee you that it will s⩇⩇n. Trust me on this!
--- --- Wait, that's not all! There's more ---- ---
That is a minor issue compared to what happened next when Eritrea announced to issue its own currency and requested that the TPLF regime, as a government, meet its legal obligations to facilitate a monetary separation process that requires Ethiopia to take back the Birr circulating in Eritrea, and to give Eritrea a foreign currency equivalent to the Birr's exchange rate at the time.
Copies of the formal request was given to Meles Zenawi during his visit to Eritrea and he agreed to take a look at it and respond in the coming days.
Meles' response was, however, a typical agame's response. He said he needed more time to consult with some people in Washington (wink wink), who in turn referred him to the IMF for advise instead.
The IMF invited representatives of both countries for consultation and provided expert and legal recommendation based on their own experience helping a smooth monetary separation process that took place after Czechoslovakia split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia in 1992.
IMF's experts said, while the Birr circulating in Eritrea was considered an asset, it is a liability (እዳ) for Ethiopia that won't go away, and they recommended that Ethiopia take back its Birr immediately and provide Eritrea with a foreign currency calculated based on the Birr's foreign exchange rate to avoid carrying a balance and rising interest rates.
The TPLF however outright rejected IMF's recommendations and requested for World Bank's mediation instead. The World Bank's also made the same recommendations and simply told the TPLF that they have no other choice but to follow international rules and regulations governing monetary separations.
This came as a shock to the TPLF who ignorantly convinced themselves that Eritrea didn't have a viable economy to continue as a stand-alone nation, because all along they were praying for Eritrea to fail as nation so their Abay Tigray Republic dream may rise out of the Eritrean ashes. Ignorance is a bliss.
After all the negotiations had failed to bear fruit, Eritrea went ahead with the plan issuing its new currency, the mighty Nakfa, and placed the billions of Ethiopian Birr notes in a storage space awaiting further legal action.
Realizing that they had no other option, the TPLF launched a full-scale invasion of Eritrea under the pretext of a "border dispute," and with the invasion they wrote their own obituary.
These being the facts, it won't be long before Eritrea brings the case to the international court of justice demanding Billions of Dollars in compensation. And just as we relied on the truth to win the border arbitration decision, the legal case to recover our asset will also give us one more reason to celebrate the power of truth -- the Eritrean truth.
The only way for Ethiopia to discharge its debt payment obligation is if it disintegrates into several mini states. I'm praying that it doesn't.
"You didn't think I'd make it that easy, did you?"
