A former member of TPLF central committee publishes a book about making laws and going to jail in Ethiopia.
On a U.S. tour with his Amharic book, Freedom and Justice in Ethiopia, former Tigray People’s Liberation Front leader and Ethiopian defense minister Si’ye Abraha talked about going to jail under a system he helped to create.
"I am a politician and not a legal expert," says Si’ye, "and so I wrote my book based on my personal experience passing through the legal process.It is my observations as a politician looking at its political impacts."
Si’ye spoke in Washington, D.C. and signed copies of his book about being author and victim of the Ethiopian legal system. He told his audience and an Amharic reporter about the dramatic events that changed his life when Birtukan Medeksa, a young judge now serving a life sentence in Ethiopia, dropped state charges against Si’ye and set him free. But the Ethiopian parliament passed a new law that retroactively put him back in jail for seven years.
Now a candidate for parliament for United for Democracy and Justice, the party still chaired by Birtukan, Si’ye says that laws are designed to fulfill political intentions and interests.
In summarizing the book for his Washington audience, Si’ye said he believes that the country would fare better if the government he served had taken corrective measures.His book, he says, is really for the politicians to read.