The reason for the sudden and radical change in policy is said to be concern for educational quality. Ministry spokesman Abera Abate painted all private distance learning institutions in the country with a broad brush by categorically condemning them as scams and diploma mills. “When the purpose is collecting money, it is not a good purpose. The only issue some universities have is collecting money.” Of course, the directive does not apply just to “some” universities whose “purpose is collecting money”; it applies to all distance education providers in the country.

The response from the various private educational service providers was swift. Wondwosen Tamrat, president of St Mary’s College and former chairman of the General Assembly of the Ethiopian Private Higher Education Institutions Association (EPHEIA) described the directive as “ridiculous. The [regime's] inability to enforce the quality standards already set should not lead to these kind of measures… We have participated in the legal education reform programs, and our college issues a biannual law journal…In fact, in this area, it is public institutions that are suffering from a shortage of human resources, rather than the private sector.” According to Tamrat, “two-thirds of the students [in his university] are in the distance education division…If you are not offering this program, it would mean we would be losing what we have been working for the last 11 years. We have 140 distance education centers all around the country. We have people in all of these centers. We would be losing these.” Tamrat expects to layoff of more than 800 of his 1,200 employees.

Molla Tsegaye, president of Admas University College, expressed surprise and dismay for the complete lack of consultations in drafting the directive: “We did not expect this. As stakeholders in the sector, we should have been consulted before all this.” Mihreteab Workineh, vice chairman of the 50-member EPHEIA was outraged: “Our association sternly objects to this. It is not about public or private institutions, the concern for quality is our concern too. That is why we have already devised an audit mechanism to ensure quality education by private institutions.”

It may be recalled that in August 2009, the regime issued a directive which prohibited university “students graduating in the year 2008-2009 from all governmental higher learning institutions from collecting their academic credentials including the student copy until they find jobs which enable them to refund the cost sharing expenses utilized at the universities.” The Ministry of Education described that effort as a “new scheme the government might be able to raise back those expenses and handle human resources going abroad.”[1]

Higher Education Proclamation No. 650/2009

Wholesale elimination of private distance learning programs by “directive”, or more accurately bureaucratic fiat, is a flagrant violation of Higher Education Proclamation No. 650/2009. Under this Proclamation, the Ministry of Education and its sub-agencies have the authority to regulate and “revoke accreditation” of a private institution which fails to meet statutory criteria on a case-by-case basis following a fact-finding and appeals process. They have no legal authority to impose a summary wholesale ban of distance learning or other educational programs provided by private institutions. The Proclamation requires the Ministry to give such institutions a notice of deficiency and adequate time to correct the deficiency before taking de-accreditation action. The Ministry bears the burden of proof in showing that a particular private institution is in violation of the Proclamation in a fact-finding process that comports with standards of due process. A private institution has the right to appeal an adverse decision by the Ministry before it becomes final.

Higher Education Proclamation No. 650/2009, section 71 et seq., provides the statutory basis for the regulation and governance of higher education in Ethiopia. The Proclamation aims to ensure “accountability” and requires private institutions to “ensure the minimum curricula quality standards,… maintain a readily accessible list of accredited study programmes… and submit detailed plans on education, research and training on a five-yearly basis,…”

Section 77 of the Proclamation provides that accreditation issued to a private institution “shall be valid for three years from the date of its issuance,” subject to renewal unless there is good cause for denying or withdrawing accreditation. A private institution may lose its accreditation and be legally prevented from providing educational services under section 81 of the Proclamation for three reasons:
The Agency may revoke the accreditation of a private institution on any one of the following grounds: a) where it is found that the accreditation has been given on the basis of false information; b) where the institution fails to rectify defects within the time fixed in the warning given by the Agency for failure to satisfy the required standards or for contravening the provisions of this Proclamation, any other relevant law or regulations or directives issued for the implementation of this Proclamation. c) where the institution is dissolved or ceases its operations.

Section 82 of the Proclamation further provides appellate procedures to review “revocation of accreditation”:

1) Any institution may appeal to the Ministry for a review of the Agency’s decision on rejection of an application for accreditation or renewal of accreditation or on the revocation of accreditation, within 30 days of the receipt of the decision. 2) The Ministry shall establish an appeal committee to review the decision of the Agency and to make recommendations. 3) The Ministry shall grant the applicant the right to be heard before the final decision is given on the appeal.
The HERQA “directive” which de-accredits and bans all distance education programs provided by private institutions is demonstrably violative of the process specified in the Proclamation. First, section 81 authorizes HERQA to act against private institutions on a case-by-case basis. Second, HERQA can act against a particular institution only after it has made specific factual findings of violations of the Proclamation or other law and “given a warning” to the institution. Third, if HERQA does find specific deficiencies, it can only act to de-accredit only if the institution “fails to rectify defects within the time fixed in the warning given by the Agency…” Fourth, any HERQA’s de-accreditation decision is stayed or suspended until the particular institution is given the “the right to be heard before the final decision is given on the appeal (Section 82).” All of these mandatory requirements of the Proclamation were ignored or disregarded by HERQA when the directive was issued.

By summarily mandating a ban on all private distance education, HERQA has acted ultra vires (beyond their legal powers and authority) in flagrant violation of Proclamation 650. Article 40 of the Ethiopian Constitution guarantees the “right of every Ethiopian citizen to own private property,” which it defines it as “any property, both corporeal and incorporeal, produced by the labour, creativity or capital of an Ethiopian citizen, associations of Ethiopian nationals endowed with legal personality by law…” To enforce the arbitrary and capricious “directive” unconstitutionally deprives the property rights of the owners and operators of private distance education programs without due process of law.

The Politicization of Higher Education in Ethiopia

Many of my regular readers are aware of my interest in Ethiopian higher education. In February 2008, I wrote a commentary entitled “Tyranny in the Academy”[2] on the state of academic freedom at the Mekelle Law School following the dismissal of Professor Abigail Salisbury. She had published a commentary which painted a chilling portrait of fear and loathing at that law school. I observed: “The recent history of academic freedom and free intellectual inquiry in Ethiopian higher education is deeply scarred by political interference, political correctness, arbitrary purges of professors, harassment and persecution of faculty and students, and general intellectual repression.”

The Salisbury episode, the regime’s “new scheme” introduced last August to hold the diplomas of university graduates hostage,[3] and the current directive and other facts reinforce my belief that higher education is overly politicized and manipulated in Ethiopia to ensure the domination and control of the dictatorship. The regime’s approach to higher education reminds me of a passage in Dr. Carter G. Woodson book, The Mis-Education of the Negro (1933). Dr. Woodson argued that the greatest danger and challenge for the African-Americans of his day was the risk of indoctrination in the form of education:

When you control a man’s thinking you do not have to worry about his actions. You do not have to tell him not to stand here or go yonder. He will find his proper place and will stay in it. You do not need to send him to the back door. He will go without being told. In fact, if there is no back door, he will cut one for his special benefit. His education makes it necessary.
The ruling regime in Ethiopia today is hell-bent to use higher education as a tool of indoctrination for a new breed of ideologues and party hacks that will support it blindly and unquestioningly.

Throwing Out the Baby With the Bath Water

For the past three decades, distance learning has been a valuable educational delivery form even in the most industrialized countries. Today many of the most prestigious universities in the world, including Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, UC Berkeley and Oxford, offer diverse distance learning courses and programs in a variety of settings. They maintain educational quality, program integrity and legitimacy through regional and national accreditation agencies that maintain and enforce rigorous pedagogical standards. High quality standards make the issue of “on site” versus distance learning unimportant. The question is no longer how students learn but what they actually do learn from their courses and programs. In quality distance programs, the course work and requirements are the same as the campus-based programs; the only difference is the method of content delivery.

If the aim of the regime in Ethiopia is to ensure high quality of educational content, the proper remedy is to enforce rigorous quality standards as mandated by Proclamation 650, and not to shut down each and every distance learning program in the country. By express declaration, the fundamental purpose of the Proclamation is to ensure “accountability” and “quality” and weed out the diploma mills and flight-by-night operations from the educational marketplace so that they will not victimize students with phony “degrees”. But the problem of quality control is entirely the regime’s. In a piece entitled, “Internal Quality Care Policy in Ethiopian Universities: Opportunities and Challenges,” Zenawi Zerihun W. Yohannes of Mekelle University in Ethiopia observed: “What is commonly employed in the higher learning institutions in Ethiopia as a way of checking quality is setting minimum standards on the educational process, such as the qualification of the academic staff, the organization of the curriculum, and other resources although differences in implementation and utilization are reported.”

It defies reason to argue that all private distance education providers in Ethiopia are diploma mills only “interested in money” and therefore deserve to be shut down collectively by disallowing them from enrolling new students. If these institutions are providing education and training to 75,000 students, they must be doing something right. Otherwise, they would have gone bankrupt for lack of students long before a directive is issued to wipe them out. The real question is why the regime has now decided to throw the baby out with the bath water.

What is Good for the Goose is Good for the Gander

It is ironic that the very people who now have decided to throw out the baby with the bath water are themselves graduates of distance learning programs. Dictator-in-chief Meles Zenawi reportedly obtained a graduate degree from The Open University (OU) in England, a reputable distance learning institution founded and funded by the British Government, while presumably carrying on the affairs of state. OU has an “open entry policy” where traditional admissions requirements are suspended for students to take undergraduate and graduate courses. It is also said that many of the top leaders of the dictatorship obtained degrees and certification from various distance learning programs in academic and non-academic areas such as “transformational leadership”.

It has been argued by some that the ban on distance learning in the country is motivated by petty concerns of the regime leaders that wide access to such programs could somehow cheapen their own distance learning diplomas and degrees. I have seen no evidence to support this view. But the real question for me is a much simpler one: If distance education is good enough for Zenawi and Company, should it not be good enough for the average Ethiopian seeking to improve his/her lot in life? It seems only fair that what is good for the goose should be good for the gander. It is also wise to remember that those who live in glass houses should be careful not to throw stones. Blanket condemnation of the country’s private distance education could invite unwanted attention and scrutiny on the distance education programs the regime leaders claim to have attended to obtain their diplomas and certifications.

The World Bank Says More Distance Learning Institutions for Ethiopia

The World Bank has emphasized the great need for a network of “tertiary educational” institutions (e.g. private colleges, technical and vocational training institutes, distance learning centers, etc.,) to help support the “production of the higher-order capacity” necessary for Ethiopia’s development. In a 2003 sector study entitled “Higher Education Development for Ethiopia”, the World Bank recommended

expansion of private tertiary institutions be more actively encouraged in order to make the burden of higher education expansion borne by government more bearable. A near term goal might be to double the share of private enrollments from the current 21% to 40% by 2010. To help achieve this goal, the Bank team recommends that Government provide stronger incentives for the expansion of private tertiary education (e.g., access to land, more generous customs exemptions for the importation of educational materials) and also extend quality-enhancing support to private institutions identified as needing improvement (e.g., participation in the National Pedagogical Resources Center, leadership and management training, creation of a fund for remedial actions). Consistent with the recent Higher Education Proclamation, the Bank team recommends that structured quality assurance and accreditation activities be put in place to protect the public from fraudulent and questionable quality providers that may emerge in the midst of rapid private expansion. (Italics added.)
Seven years ago the World Bank recommended, “A near term goal might be to double the share of private enrollments from the current 21% to 40% by 2010.” In 2010, Zenawi has decided to reduce private enrollments to zero!

The solution for any educational quality problems that may exist in the distance educational sector in Ethiopia is not to drop a blanket ban on all private institutions, but to create a rigorous quality control process that will ensure the weeding out of diploma mills and fly-by-night operations. As Yohannes of Mekele University noted, the problem is that the regime’s notions of educational quality do not go beyond “setting minimum standards on the educational process, such as the qualification of the academic staff, the organization of the curriculum, and other resources.” It is unfair and a violation of Proclamation 650 to impose collective punishment on all private institutions providing distance learning services for the regulatory failures of the regime or to presumably weed out a few bad operators.

Indoctri-Nation, Not Education

One of the largest operators of private distance learning programs has argued that “the growth of private universities in Ethiopia has contributed to a five-fold increase in the country’s gross higher education enrollment ratio” and has increased the college enrollment rate from “one percent of Ethiopians a decade ago to 5.1 percent today”. If these data are accurate, the private institutions deserve praise not condemnation and excommunication from the field of higher education.

I believe the regime has a long term strategy to use the universities as breeding grounds for its ideologues and hatcheries for the thousands of loyal and dependent bureaucrats they need to sustain their domination and rule. The monopoly created for the state in the disciplines of law and teaching (which I will predict will gradually include other disciplines in the future) is a clear indication of the trend to gradually create a cadre of “educated” elites to serve the next generation of dictators to come. It is a well-established fact that the regime has used teachers, particularly in the rural areas, extensively as party recruiters, enforcers and representatives by providing them financial and other incentives. By ensuring access to these disciplines only to ruling party members and supporters, the regime hopes to extend its tentacles to every part of the country. State-certified teachers who are ruling party members could be used to play a decisive role in legitimizing the regime and in indoctrinating the youth in the regime’s ideology. The fact that teachers are viewed respectfully in rural areas as “educated” persons gives them special advantages in influencing and manipulating not only the young at an early age but also in playing a far larger political role in the community. The politicized role of teachers in the May 2010 election amply testifies to that fact.

Similarly, by monopolizing the law discipline, the regime could regulate the training of lawyers and judges who will administer “justice” in the country. Instead of training lawyers committed to the Constitution, the rule of law, principles of universal justice and ethical standards, graduates of state-monopoly law schools will largely be party hacks, hirelings and lackeys with ultimate loyalty to the dictator-in-chief. Simply stated, the regime will be able to control two of the most important professions that have the greatest impact on the lives of the people. I will predict that the current trend in tightening control over higher education will continue because it is a central element of the regime’s strategy to use higher education as a way of transforming the decades-old bureaucracy and re-creating government in its own image. The regime believes that the only way it can continue to rule indefinitely is by creating its own robotic jackbooted-army of “educated” elites marching in lockstep throughout the bureaucracy to the orders of the dictator-in-chief. It is an exquisitely diabolical strategy, but unlikely to work.

The regime’s thinking on higher education is simple: Indoctrinate, indoctrinate and indoctrinate some more until you forge an Indoctri-Nation. It is wise to remember Dr. Woodson’s words:

When you control a man’s thinking you do not have to worry about his actions. You do not have to tell him not to stand here or go yonder. He will find his proper place and will stay in it. You do not need to send him to the back door. He will go without being told. In fact, if there is no back door, he will cut one for his special benefit. His education makes it necessary…
That’s why I would recommend to anyone concerned about educational injustice in Ethiopia to read Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy (teaching) of the Oppressed.

FREE BIRTUKAN MIDEKSSA AND ALL POLTICAL PRISONERS IN ETHIOPIA..

Our organization Solidarity Movement for a New Ethiopia and our task force, Global Campaign and Advocacy Task Force support the Ethiopian Human Rights Committee’s run on September 19, 2010 in Tuebingen, Germany to free Birtukan and other prisoners of conscience in Ethiopia. Let’s make this day to be gratitude of the daily fight that Birtukan faces in a secluded cell.
Who is Birtukan Mideksa?

Ms Birtukan Mideksa is unarguably the most prominent female political leader in Africa and currently the head of the biggest opposition party in Ethiopia, a single mother, a prisoner of conscience, and the hope of eighty (80) million Ethiopians. All of this at the very old age of 35.

Birtukan first came to the unwanted attention of the Ethiopian government in her late twenties when she was serving as a judge in Addis Ababa. She famously ruled to release a former Defense Minister of Ethiopia who was in prison for political reasons. In a country where the government routinely intimidates, imprisons, and even murders dissenters, Ms Mideksa brushed aside intimidation and pressure to follow her conscience. When the government ignored her ruling and subsequently and illegally imprisoned the defendant, Ms Mideksa left (systematically fired) her post and joined an opposition political party in order to correct the abuses in the legal system. She led this opposition party to win the now infamous and subsequently stolen elections of 2005.

Why is Birtukan in Prison now?

Birtukan was arrested for the second time on December 29, 2008 and sentenced to life in prison because of a speech she gave in Sweden about the condition of her first illegal incarceration. Yes, Birtukan is now in prison because of a speech. Birtukan was illegally imprisoned for the first time following the disputed 2005 elections. Along with more “than 200 opposition party leaders”, she spent close to two years in prison under the threat of torture and was only released because of international pressure that led to a politically negotiated settlement with the government. The trumped-up charges at that time were treason and genocide.

Now, she is back in prison under the threat of torture because she spoke about the conditions of her incarceration and the circumstances surrounding her release. This unjust, cruel, and inhuman action is meant to intimidate and silence the public as much as to cripple the opposition. Ethiopian prisons have killed thousands of prisoners of conscience through torture, disease, abuse, and the systemic denial of medical care. Let’s stand united behind Birtukan and thousands of other prisoners of conscience like her.

What can you do to help?

Regardless of what you believe in, I know that you know any human being should have the right to exercise and stand up for whatever political view he/she has. Even if you differ with her positions, I plead with you to acknowledge that she is an image of our unified freedoms and human rights. Open your mind and heart to help Birtukan to obtain her freedom and allow her to be with her elderly mom and Hale and leads us to this new and free Ethiopia where we all are equal and live freely. I am asking everyone to support and remember Birtukan on September 19, 2010 by taking a part in the Run for Birtukan.

Sincerely,

Aida Hailu,
Leader, Global Campaign and Advocacy Task Force
E-mail: Aida@solidaritymovement.org

The Royal Canadian Mint (RCM), the company that won the official tender floated by the bank to make the coins, has delivered to the NBE more than 400 million one-birr coins, which are dealt out to the private and state-owned commercial banks in the course of the past ten days.

Sources told The Reporter that the 400 million one-birr coins cost the bank some 300 million birr, with the cost ratio of 75 cent apiece. However, the coins are not to be in circulations before the coming Ethiopian New Year.

The silver-color coin features a lion’s head on one side while the other depicts a scale. The lion’s head and the scale are imprinted in a golden color with silver sidelines completing the appearance.

This article tries to discuss whether ethnic federalism as it is in the context in Ethiopia could viably match with pluralism and democracy. To discuss the above issue the feature of ethnic federalism would be touched. Federalism as a political system organizes state in to a center and a region. In ethnic federalism the litmus test to organize in this line is ethnicity. In Ethiopia ethnicity has been defined in terms of language collectively. Federalism as a political system has a centrifugal tendency. From which angel it is possible to see the nature of the alliance between ethnic federalism and pluralism in Ethiopian context.

Federalism is a system in which state and government are organized. Democracy is a system of rule where public rule is institutionalized and diversity of opinion is surfaced and respected. Federalism as a means of organization; and democracy as a system of rule are intimately related.

Twenty years has been elapsed since ethnic federalism is a form of government organization and state in Ethiopia. Federalism is different in type. Ethnic federal system also differs. The “X” Soviet Union and “X“ Yugoslavia are ethnic federal state as well India and Nigeria are a big federal state. Switzerland is also ethnic federal state. Ethiopia Federal state shares many features of “X” soviet and “X” Yugoslavia ethnic federal state. The salient feature which it shares being this, the sole criteria to define ethnicity in these “X” federal state was language. One large language group sharing territory will have a state; the state related with the language group inhabited could be large or small. In Ethiopia for instance there is large state Oromiya and small state Harari. The regional state in Ethiopia are only nine where as in the “X” Yugoslavia there were six in X Soviet Union there were 13.

The case in India and Nigeria is different. The criteria to define ethnicity are fluid and based on multiple criteria like regionalism, localism, religion as well as language. So that ethnicity is fragmented and defused. This nature does not result in the formation of big mini state within a state. The regional state are many and diversified, in such case there is no single sided political mobilization and orchestration of interest.

The “X” Soviet Union and the “X” Yugoslavia Federal state had not been tested with multiparty system. The federal states were led by communist party. After long years of centralized rule starting attempts to institutionalize political pluralism and democracy coincides with the start of strife and divisive political conflict which led to disintegration. In these “X” states different ethnic language group has a communist party coinciding with their language and territory where they inhabit. These parties were considered the representatives of their respective ethnic group; in turn these parties are organized in one patterned system of rule through central democratic principle. This principle erects a distinct type of rule where one or a few individuals left to be a decision maker. This is exactly true so far in Ethiopia real politics.

The start of breakdown of the two “X” federal states squarely coincides in their attempt to a transition to pluralism and multiparty democracy. If one learns from history what will be the lesson Ethiopian to take from the breakdown and the consequent atrocities in Soviet Union and Yugoslavia.

Democracy as a system of rule is a tool of political mobilization and regulation. It is an instrument to rule internally by mobilizing different interest with different issue which needs to be diffused. This is the practical requirement and the case in developed democracies.

In ethnic Federalism like Ethiopia, the transition to political pluralism would be complicated. The federal organization is exclusively based on language distinction. Ethnicity is defined only in terms of language like that of the “X” states. This nature of Ethiopian ethnic federalism would give space to sole ethnic political mobilization and orchestration of political interests. The political mobilization would be merely based on ethnicity being propelled by ethnic parties. During the transition to democracy where democracy needs diffusion of interests and grounds of political mobilization; the grounds would be taken by ethnic factor as a mobilization with the ready-made mini state institutions. These mini state institutions would substitute the fading centralized party system. This is a mechanical control of the political dynamics in ethnic federal system. It is mechanical because, the federal institutions are structured without taking into consideration how could political factors run smoothly with changing political dynamics. The federal systems are designed in a way taking the centralized party system as a lasting factor determining the ethnic federal system continuation and stability. This is a feature of unbargained federal system.

In case of Nigeria and India attempts has been done to diffuse the base of political mobilization and regulation by diversifying the bases of ethnic definition. It has resulted in organic political control because it has taken different political dynamics such as the nature and type of party system; the defining factor for ethnicity; the base of political mobilization and regulation in multiparty context, and pluralism and how they configure in the way the political dynamics dictates playing role to the stability and continuity of the federal system.

The disintegrative tendency of ethnic federalism in Ethiopia as the case in the X Yugoslavia and Soviet Union has been tamed by imposition of centralized party system which mechanically regulates the separatist force as per their goals and aims. In case where the party system fails and when federal institutions, among others independent ethnic parties, political elites, become a prime political force in plural political setting language based ethnicity with ready-made mini state institution become base of political mobilization. Pluralism would create political arena for the expression of different political views. With pluralism and democracy the intensity of political dynamics and political mobilization would increase. Ethnic based mobilization would be a grand form of mobilization. It is all encompassing and surpassing other bases of mobilization. It has less tendency to diffuse with other interests, which could be a basis of mobilization. Ethnicity as basis of political mobilization requires deliberate manipulations and proper political institutions and structures. Less it becomes antithesis to pluralism and democracy. There are different types of political mobilizations such as economic interest, gender, current political view, the first being the grand form of mobilization, the subsequent are lesser and diffusing bases of political mobilization.

For the disintegration of Yugoslavia and Soviet Union the then existing type of ethnic federalism which defines ethnicity in terms of language only and the mechanical control imposed by the centralized party has been considered to be a major factor. In addition to this, within this political context attempts of institutionalizing pluralism has resulted intense ethnic based political mobilization by independent ethnic parties with their elites using the mini institution of state for their purpose has accounted for the disintegration of these states. In fact this would be a political dynamics that would exactly occur in Ethiopia, when attempt is made to move to pluralism, multipart system and democracy in the context of the existing only language based ethnic federal system as well as the centralized and dominant party system.

In political terms for the past twenty years Ethiopia is living with ethnic federalism. There are around nine ethnic based states where the basis of the definition of ethnicity is only language. These regional states have been led by their respective ethnic parties. These parties have a one way decision making channel through the principle of central democratic principle which is typical nature of a socialist party system. The federal system has not been tested with multiparty system. Opposition political parties have not seized political power. Strong election observers have testified repeatedly election has been conducted in the ground which is not leveled. The ethnic federal system so far is held stably through mechanical control using the centralized dominant party as an instrument.

With a genuine attempts to institutionalize pluralism or with the fading of the centralized party system, as any political party system could fail, ethnicity which is solely defined by language terms and institutionalized vis-à-vis a readymade ethnic state would be a basis for political mobilization which is not diffused and fragmented. In such political scenarios the then existing political institutions would not be able to accommodate the smooth running of federalism and multiparty system.

Many scholars and citizens are sensing the disintegration of Ethiopia polity internally thinking on this line, among other factors. Astute EPRDF political architect which are in fact the designer of the ethnic federal state tells us in their ideological writing the end of EPRDF party system is the end of Ethiopia polity. The medicine they subscribe is a hegemonic rule of EPRDF. Is that possible? For how long? Is subscribing this a political remedy is a sanity? Why not they let the Ethiopian people to come up with a bargained political system which could accommodate multiparty system and democracy? EPRDF must let the people have a nation which is not dependent on one party system.

But this is not to say excitement was totally absent. In a deed worthy of the Guinness world book of records, for example, one of Meles’ “admirers” bought 40,000 thousand copies, according to media reports. At 60 birr apiece, that comes out to a cool 240,000 birr; a fortune, needless to say, not only to most of the nation’s citizens, but also to many Westerners teetering on the verge of a double-dip recession.

And thus the question: Is Meles really worth it?

Eyasu Mengesha, the author, an ex-Colonel turned business-man, who tells us in the opening pages of the book, “(the TPLF) is everything I am,” indubitably thinks so: “Meles is a great and respected leader of our country,” he informs us with evident conviction. But he is mute as to exactly how great he is in relation to the more than 300 hundred leaders of Ethiopia’s past; perhaps, saving it for one of his two upcoming books under the same title. ( He has written more than a thousand pages, but will wisely release it in three parts. This is the first book.)

For now, he tells us what has for long troubled him. “ I am alarmed by the belief of some of the youth which diminishes (the historical significance of) Meles to “a post-victory pseudo-hero,” confides Eyasu. Thus the need to redeem a misjudged leader; a crusade really, to absolve a messiah in his own time.

Meles’ story lies within the history of the TPLF, begins Eyasu reasonably. So be prepared for an elaborate account of TPLF’s history. But his undeclared intention, part of a complex scheme to create Meles’ personality cult, is also clear from the first pages: a classic revisionist re-interpretation of history.

This venture to re-write TPLF’s history, while droll for its cerebral and literary pretensions (but respectable for an Ethiopian Colonel), is a serious reminder of EPRDF’s slide towards the politics of personality cult; which had its initiation in the post 2005 elections repressions, and is now gaining momentum in the aftermath of the 2010 elections.

And somehow, for reasons that are utterly incomprehensible, the re-invention of Meles starts with his ethnicity. The story starts in Adwa, northern Ethiopia, 20 kilometers from Ethiopia’s spiritual epicenter, Axum, where Meles was born, “some say in 1954, others in 1955, but according to the authoritative account of his father, 1953,’ writes Eyasu. And then he goes on to tell us of his grandfather, Mr Asres Tesema, a feudal lord, Dejazmatch, and a loyal functionary in Haile-Selassie’s government; and of his father, Mr Zenawi, “a noted progressive both in attire and outlook(in a small town.)” So far so good. His mother, Mrs Alemash Gebre-Leul, appears next. But not a word of her personal particulars, which is a page long for her husband. Nothing about where she was born, of her parents, her upbringing, her education, all things we learn about her husband in the preceding two pages. Her Eritrean ethnicity and origin is obviously taboo in the mythologized version of Meles. A “pure” Meles has apparently been reckoned necessary. Why not then create a new him by the power of collective amnesia? Eyasu, for one, has already dutifully expunged all thoughts about her ethnicity. Others need only follow his example.

Then follows the fairy-tale of Meles’ early years; the superb marriage of his dotting parents, and Meles as the ideal child growing up: incapable of doing wrong; lovable; innocently playful; intelligent, and (get ready for this) religiously devout. But no mention of the irrepressible rages his mother publicly spoke about. In short, as Eyasu describes him, Meles was the faultless child that every parent dreams about. Not even North Korea’s “Dear Leader” Kim Jond-il , a certified child prodigy in his early years, according the nation’s Communist party, had a more perfect childhood and adolescence. But deprived of the eccentricities and shortcomings that are essential human attributes, the portrait of Meles that emerges is jarringly mechanical and unhuman. It is impossible to emotionally connect to this romanticized Meles. He has been stripped of his humanity.

TPLF’s genesis lies in the Tigrayan Natioanl Organiztion (Mahbere Gesgesti Behere Tigray ,Magbet), established by Addis Ababa University students in 1974. Eyasu grudgingly acknowledges that Meles was not one of the broadly admired founders. Nor was he one of the renowned eleven, almost all of them members of the Tigrayan Natioanl Organiztion, who formally launched the TPLF and its armed struggle on 18 February 1975 (Yekatit 11 1967 by the Ethiopian calendar) in Dedebit, 900 kilometers north of Addis, the seat of government. Accorded official recognition as the birth-date of the organization, Yekatit 11 (February 18) has been colorfully celebrated every year since 1976; and since 1991, for the past twenty years, is a regional holiday in Tigray.

“A SERIOUS MISTAKE!” shrieks Eyasu.

This is no cry of an irrational man. He has a perfectly plausible reason. The idealized Meles must somehow be brought to center stage in the saga of TPLF’s genesis. His legacy—his myth—could not be complete otherwise. History must be re-written.

Eyasu concedes that the armed struggle had indeed began on Yekatit 11 (February 18), “but the mere launching of an armed struggle does not make an organization,” he argues. TPLF was really established four months later, he contends, when Meles and Abay finally make it to Dedebit, and are entrusted with the task of formulating a program and rules and regulations, which were subsequently all adopted by the organization. “An organization without a program is an absurdity,” he insists. TPLF came in to being the day it espoused a clearly defined program. History needs be revisited and revised, he advises thoughtfully. Not only was Meles a founding member, but, unbeknownst to the public, he was the one who had charted the original course. Of course, Meles and a select few others know how the true course of events had actually transpired, Eyasu implies, but are too modest to go against the convention. Someone needs to tell the truth! (“Students (in school) must read this book,” earnest commentators had said at the launching ceremony.)

How then do members reward the genius of Meles when the organization’s first leaders were elected? Inexplicably (for Eyasu), they ignore him and opt for the leadership of Gesese Ayele, who was one of the eleven; Seyoum Mesfin, who was also one of the eleven; and Mehari Tekle, who was not one of the eleven but had just left the EPLF(in Eritrea) to be one of the founders of the TPLF(He assumed the Chairmanship.) A year later, when the founding congress of the party elected the first batch of CC members, Meles was still absent. And Aregawi Berhe, Giday ZeraTsion, Seyoum Mesfin, Sebhat Nega and Abay Teshaye become his superiors.

Evidently, even thirty five years ago people had problem recognizing the genius that is so palpable for Eyasu.

(To be continued next week)
THE END.

Brief news from Addis Ababa:

Printing press turns back popular magazine

Berana printing press, a holding of the Ministry of Defense, this week turned back a popular monthly magazine, Enku, for the “irredeemable crime” of carrying the New Year messages of two opposition politicians, Negaso Gidada and Seye Abraha. Both spoke of the imprisoned leader of UDJ, Birtukan Mideksa. Ironically, Ethiopia was hosting an international freedom of press conference as this was happening.

The EPRDF led government still refuses to grant press licenses to independent journalists, despite the absence of a vibrant political press after the closure of the nation’s major newspapers after the 2005 elections.

Three Asian markets are among the top five economies in the world with the cheapest fixed line broadband access in 2009, according to a new report from the International Telecommunications Union (ITU).

Topping the global list was Macau, where broadband service was cheapest at 0.3 percent of a citizen’s average monthly income, the BBC reported Thursday. The special administrative region (SAR) of China had a broadband penetration rate of 23.42 percent last year.

Hong Kong, another SAR territory, ranked third, with broadband access costing 0.49 percent of a person’s monthly wage. In terms of reach, Hong Kong was ranked No. 1 with a penetration rate of 29.34 percent.

At 0.58 percent of monthly wages, Singapore earned the fifth spot for affordable access. It also registered a reach of 23.71 percent.

Rounding the top five economies with the cheapest broadband access were Israel and the United States, which occupied the second and fourth spot, respectively. Broadband access accounts for 0.33 percent of an Israeli’s monthly salary while those in the U.S. fork out 0.5 percent of the average monthly income for their connectivity fix.

On the other end of the scale, fixed broadband access was costliest in the Central African Republic, at nearly 40 times the monthly income, the ITU report showed.

Ethiopia was the second most expensive with access costing almost 21 times the average monthly wage. But only less than 1 percent of the Ethiopian population uses the Internet, making the country’s subscriber ratio one of the lowest globally.

Niger was the most expensive country when it comes to using communication technologies, which include landlines and mobiles, the BBC added in its report.

Affordable broadband a challenge

The heavy price to pay for a broadband connection in some countries has resulted in poor subscriber uptake. This has led the ITU to estimate that fixed broadband penetration is below 1 percent in several of the world’s poorest countries where access costs can be more than 100 percent of average monthly incomes.

India, for instance, has a penetration rate of less than 1 percent, although broadband access costs a less exorbitant 5.84 percent of the monthly income.

Calling broadband a “transformational technology”, ITU Secretary-General Hamadoun Toure told the BBC that the biggest challenge was making universal broadband accessible and affordable.

While he said the world would have global connectivity by 2012 given the rise of mobile communications, broadband remained key. According to the BBC report, Toure is encouraging all countries to make broadband access a universal human right.

Over 30 countries have to date agreed to implementing a framework that would make broadband a public service available to all citizens.

“It is true that Dejene Berhanu died on Sunday from suicide and was buried on Monday,” said the Ethiopian source. ”The cause of death is suicide. These are the facts I know at the moment.”

Berhanu first became known in 2000 when he took the silver medal at 10,000m at the African Championships in Algiers. He would eventually improve to make the 2004 Ethiopian Olympic team and finish fifth at the 5000m. He also won the Great North Run Half-Marathon later that year. He had lifetime bests of 12:54.15 for 5000m, 27:12.22 for 10,000m, 59:37 for the half-marathon and 2:08:46 for the marathon.

A versatile athlete, Berhanu also ran on the U.S. road circuit, competing in the TD Bank Beach to Beacon 10-K in Cape Elizabeth, Me., three times, including a 14th place finish at this year’s race on August 7. According to a report in the Portland Press Herald, it was in Cape Elizabeth where Berhanu met an ophthalmologist, Dr. Jeff Berman. Berman diagnosed Berhanu with a droopy eyelid, and arranged for doctors in Maine to correct it through surgery after the 2009 edition of the Beach to Beacon.

“We’re crushed,” Dr. Berman told the Press Herald earlier this week after hearing the news. ”It’s like a member of our family died. What a tragedy.”

Berhanu left behind a wife and a three year-old daughter.

Source: LetsRun.com

The exchange rate was quoted at 16.351 per dollar today compared with 13.628 yesterday, according to the website of the Addis Ababa-based central bank. It was trading at 11.381 on July 10 last year.

The devaluation will crimp imports and make it easier to boost foreign currency reserves. Ethiopia needs to raise its reserves to 3 months of import cover from 2.3 months to cushion its economy from external shocks, a June report from the International Monetary Fund said.

There is a “need for a 10 percentage point real exchange rate depreciation” in order to achieve that goal, the IMF said in the report.

Ethiopia’s trade deficit was expected to grow to $7 billion in the fiscal year to July 7 from $6.3 billion the year before, according to IMF figures.

==========================================
Ethiopian birr devalued: central bank data
ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) - The Ethiopian birr was devalued by 16.7 percent on Wednesday, according to exchange rates published on the central bank’s website.
The birr was quoted by the National Bank of Ethiopia at a weighted average of 16.3514 against the dollar compared with 13.6284 on Tuesday. A central bank official confirmed the new rate but was not authorised to make further comment.
Last month, the government unveiled an ambitious five-year economic plan which targets average annual economic growth of 14.9 percent over the period and aims to end the Horn of Africa nation’s dependence on food aid.
Ethiopia is Africa’s biggest coffee exporter and the world’s fourth largest exporter of sesame. It is also one of Africa’s biggest potentional markets — with a population of 80 million — and most of its people have no telephones or bank accounts.
Devaluations can spur economic growth and reduce current account deficits to the extent they boost exports and discourage imports, although they carry the risk of importing inflation.
Ethiopia’s inflation rate slowed to 5.7 percent in July.
The country — still one of the world’s poorest with nearly 10 percent of the population relying on emergency food aid last year — is keen to attract foreign investment in agriculture and mineral exploration.
Ethiopia has operated a managed floating exchange rate regime since 1992.

A directive issued by Ethiopia’s Education Ministry describes distance learning at off-campus sites as “unnecessary at this stage” and orders all such operations to stop enrolling new students immediately. The proclamation also prohibits private universities from accepting new applicants in teaching or law degree programs.

The ruling will affect 64 private institutions, most of which have sprung up in the past 15 years as the government opened higher education to the private sector. The distance education ban also includes Ethiopia’s 23 public universities.

Educators estimate there are roughly 75,000 students currently enrolled in distance education programs, about one-third in undergraduate programs and the rest in technical and vocational training. The rules allow them to complete their course work.

Education Ministry spokesman Abera Abate Abebe says the directive was issued in the interest of maintaining education standards. He says several private institutions were more interested in profit making than in providing quality education.

“When the purpose is collecting money, it is not a good purpose,” said Abera. “The only issue some universities have is collecting money.”

The directive has drawn outrage from private educators.

Wondwosen Tamrat founded St. Mary’s College in Addis Ababa 11 years ago with 37 students. Today St. Mary’s has 7,000 undergraduate students on its main campus and more than 10,000 others enrolled in a nationwide distance learning program. He says the directive is a crushing blow to institutions like St. Mary’s.

“To begin with, two-thirds of the students are in the distance education division,” said Wondwosen. “If you are not offering this program, it would mean we would be losing what we have been working for the last 11 years. We have 140 distance education centers all around the country. We have people in all of these centers. We would be losing these.”

Wondwosen says closing distance education, plus the loss of the teaching and law faculties, will force the layoff of more than 800 of the university’s 1,200 employees.

He acknowledges there are disreputable private Ethiopian universities that grant degrees to anyone who pays the tuition. But he says St. Mary’s students, who pay the equivalent of about $1,000 for a three-year course of study, have been driving national standards in some areas.

He says the new directive will undo all the good the government did 15 years ago when it overturned a ban on private education that had been in effect during the rule of the Marxist dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam.

“They are spoiling what they have already done,” added Wondwosen. “All this access the public is having through an expanded public system or a newly created private system has been the making of the government. I do not see any reason why government decides to go back on its own practice and tell us it is no longer possible to do these things.”

Education Ministry spokesman Abera says the directive will be strictly enforced. But he suggests the rules could be eased once institutions issuing worthless degrees are forced to close.

“It may be a short period of time,” explained Abera. “It is not for a long, it is not the end. Maybe [when] education is going straight on a track that is quality.”

Wondwosen says the growth of private universities in Ethiopia has contributed to a five-fold increase in the country’s gross higher education enrollment ratio. A decade ago, one percent of Ethiopians went to college, as compared to an Africa-wide average of six percent. The latest survey indicates the figure for Ethiopia has risen to 5.1 percent.

The notorious propaganda machine of the brutal ruling regime in Addis Ababa came up with its newest brand of blatant lie meant to deceive the world community that there is a functioning democracy in Ethiopia. The subject this time is the categorical rejection by Meles Zenawi that Ethiopia is not a one-party state – vide article by Peter Heinlein posted on Abugida website on 18 August 2010, entitled “Ethiopia faces era of one-party rule ”). He lied in his desperate effort to justify stolen votes culminating in 99.6% ‘win’ of parliamentary seats by his TPLF/EPRDF party in the heavily rigged election of 23 May 2010.

Given the rapid change in information technology and the dramatic development of science and applied sciences in the last twenty years, the TPLF regime could and should have come close to Botswana in good-governance and prosperity. But Ethiopia under the ruling regime is at the tail end of the poor of the poorest African countries according to modern parameters chosen for measuring performance in good-governance. This is not surprising to Ethiopians for they have been victims of, inter alia: heinous crimes including genocide; vote robbery twice; denial of access to independent sources of information; and, in short, absence of pillars of democracy including independent judiciary, neutral security and defense forces, private property ownership including land, and free civic organizations.

In the face of known shortcomings of his government, Meles told the world that Ethiopia is not a one-party state. Alas! Interminable lies and deceptions are the hallmarks of the TPLF regime!

Ethiopia is a beautiful country of thirteen months of sunshine where lies and deceptions are as a matter of policy manufactured and broadcast daily in as many months since the TPLF regime came to power almost two decades ago. Add to this the time starting from the creation of the Marxist Leninist League of Tigray (MLLT) with resources withheld from donations for the victim of famine in 1984/85. The patriarch of MLLT grabbed power through a deluge of blood to destroy Ethiopia. It would be foolhardy not to do our utmost to restore our dignity and the beauty of Ethiopia; it would be irresponsible and dereliction of one’s duty as a citizen not to strongly object to the torrent of embarrassing public statements replete with lies, deception and misleading information.

Meles wants to shut our eyes to deceive us. He is determined to brain-wash our young Ethiopians by denying academic freedom in tertiary institutions. His regime comes out with all kinds of flimsy excuses to foreclose freedom of association including public demonstration – which are taken for granted in Botswana or Japan.

A brief description of fair, free and credible democratic elections in Botswana and Japan would be in order to show how radically different they are from that of Ethiopia under the TPLF regime, which boasts that there are 92 political parties in the country most of which are sham parties fabricated by the ruling party as part of its effort to rig elections:

Botswana

There are eight political entities or parties in Botswana, namely: Botswana Democratic Party (BDP); Botswana National Front (BNF); Botswana Congress Party (BCP); Botswana Alliance Movement (BAM); Botswana People’s Party (BPP); New Democratic Front; International Socialist Organization; Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin Movement; Botswana Movement for Democracy (BMD) – created in 2010 and rapidly gaining strength.

However, only the following four have won seats in the National Assembly in the elections held after the independence of Botswana:

1. The Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) has been the dominant conservative ruling party in the history of Botswana – which, under the distinguished leadership of Sir Seretse Khama, became independent from its status as British protectorate. The BDP was created in 1965 by Sir Seretse Khama who is celebrated as father and founder of the nation and exalted for nurturing the economic and political success of Botswana. The BDP won 53.26% of popular votes and 45 out of 57 seats in the last election of 2009. The combined popular vote for the opposition was 46.74 % with a total of 12 seats in the National Assembly (Parliament) of Botswana.

The current President Ian Khama, son of Sir Seretse Khama, was BDP candidate in the last election in October 2009. The BDP has since suffered a serious split culminating in the exodus of disgruntled members leaving in droves to join a splinter group known as Botswana Movement for Democracy which is becoming increasingly popular. It seems that the dominant role of the ruling party is going to be a thing of the past sooner than later.

It stands to the credit of President Ian Khama, the fourth President of Botswana, that he did not use force to stem dissent within his ruling party, BDP, nor hinder the formation of a new party. This is a sign of a political maturity and firm democratic culture; the civilized acceptance of dissent is in sharp contrast to the heavy-handed crackdown on members and supporters of the victorious opposition party (Kinijit) and subsequent incarceration of its leaders in the aftermath of election of 2005; and rigging election 2010 heavily in favor of Zenawi’s ruling party as confirmed by independent foreign observers.

2. The Botswana National Front (BNF) is the main opposition party. At the 2004 general election it won 26.1% of the popular vote and 12 out of 57 seats. However its representation plummeted to only six seats in the National Assembly of Botswana.

3. The Botswana Congress Party is a social-democratic political party considered the third largest party in Botswana. It won 4 seats in the 2009 election.

4. The Botswana Alliance Movement (BAM) is a progressive political party. In the 2009 elections the party won one seat.

Elections in Botswana are smooth and orderly. Defeats are conceded readily and celebrations are brief and enviably efficient and civilized. The pillars of democracy: electoral commission, defense and security forces, judiciary, media and civic organizations are all free and independent. Members of the National Assembly including the President of Botswana regularly meet with their constituencies to account for their actions as well as for consultation on local and national issues. Freedom of association is taken for granted in Botswana. Ethnic-based politics is discouraged. No political party is allowed to use state-resources to influence level-playing field and enhance its position of getting elected.

Rigging of votes does not exist; no political party calls its competitor an enemy. The current President of Botswana, Ian Khama, openly condemns any attempt to amending constitutions for the sake of extending term limits for presidents in power. Surely his noble stand has sent a powerful message to leaders like tyrant Meles.

Private property ownership is sacred in Botswana. It (Botswana) is one of the least corrupt countries in the world. It has graduated to middle- income category. There is no requirement for entry visa to the USA and EU for citizens of Botswana.

Most admirable of all: There have been no political prisoners in the history of independent Botswana; no harassment of political parties by the government or party in power.

All of the above stand in sharp contrast to the pathetic conditions prevailing in Ethiopia- an ancient country suffering under deafening malaise of state-sponsored interminable lies. Contrary to naked lies of Zenawi, Ethiopia is at the tail-end of poor and ill-governed countries according to a paper in Amharic by Sisay Agena based on world wide data entitled “በዉሸት ደዌ ለምትሰቃዩ – እነሆ እውነቱን! የአፍሪካም ጭራ ነን” – to those sick with lies, here is the truth; we are the last in the world.

Japan

The opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) won in the general election held on August 30, 2009 for all 480 seats of the House of Representatives of Japan, the lower house (LH), defeating the ruling coalition Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and New Komeito Party. The LDP had ruled Japan since its formation in 1955, except for an 11-month period from 1993 to 1994. The election marked the worst defeat for a governing party in modern Japanese history. It was only the second time the LDP has lost a general election, and was the first time since its formation that the LDP would not be a majority party in terms of number of seats held in the lower house.

Name of political Parties No. of Seats held as at 30/08/10
LH UH
Democratic Party of Japan 307 109
Liberal Democratic Party of Japan 116 82
New Komieto 19 21
Japanese Communist Party 9 7
Social Democratic Party 7 5
Youth Party 10 1
People’s New Party : New Party Nippon 3 4
The Sunrise Party of Japan 3 2
Vacant 2 ?

Japan is one of the foremost mature democracies on earth; it is a formidable industrial might enviable for its swift ascendency to the epic of economic power in a short time of its democratic culture after WWII, admirably more so given its poor national resources.

The LDP deservedly took credit for the incredible economic growth of Japan which was the reason for staying in power as the ruling party in the period 1995- 2009, except for an 11-month period from 1993 to 1994. It is therefore shameful on the part of Zenawi to compare his repressive party with the LDP of Japan that has brought prosperity and vibrant democracy. In Japan, no leader of a ruling party can call legally constituted opposition parties as its enemies and survive in office.

Closing summary

Botswana and Japan are in the domain of paragon of free democratic societies in our global community; both have achieved truly enviable results in socio-economical and political spheres in a short time. The phenomenal positive overall development in these countries is living proof that only a free democratic society can achieve such stupendous achievements.

In Ethiopia, how long the TPLF/EPRDF has stayed in power is not one of the burning issues; the contentious issues are rather, inter alia: the rampant breach by the ruling party of its own constitution imposed on the Ethiopian people; gross mismanagement of the national economy; grave abuse of basic human rights; the unanswered question of land to the tiller; the paradox between double-digit economic growth and abject poverty; secretly ceding land to the Sudan; leasing of large chunks of land to unscrupulous foreign ‘investors’; regional instability in the Horn of Africa; ideology – revolutionary democracy versus liberal democracy; and the divisive ethnic- based politics leading to more dismemberment of Ethiopia.

Genuine democratic elections are never held while political leaders are held in prison as in the case of Ethiopia where Birtukan Mideksa, a symbol of peaceful struggle, and thousands of prisoners of conscience are languishing in filthy jails throughout Ethiopia. Therefore the claim of 99.6% ‘win” in the election of 23 May 2010 is indeed the latest in the brand of nauseating chronic lies and deceptions by the Zenawi regime – more so that the regime allocated to the ruling party substantial state resources to cover expenses incurred in the heavily rigged election in its favor. What a naked robbery of resources and votes! What a shameful comparison of humiliating fake elections in Ethiopia with those of Botswana or Japan where flawless elections are the norm!

Meles is a Stalinist in sheep’s clothing. He has for the second time stolen votes and assumed illegitimate power to destroy the flickering trace of democracy in Ethiopia in the next five years of his tenure while shedding crocodile tears for good-governance to appease donors which give him direct financial support in pursuit of their national interests. He has openly declared that even opposition parties committed to peaceful change are his enemies. He cannot be trusted to foster democracy.

One would challenge Meles to prove his oft repeated assertion that democracy is not an option but a necessity for Ethiopia. If he is serious about his assertion, he can start by ordering the release of Birtukan Mideksa and all political prisoners in Ethiopia with a stroke of a pen. But he won’t do it!

Therefore, pro-Ethiopia opposition forces should work incessantly in unison to stop Meles’s destructive stance much sooner than 2015. Let us embrace respect for fundamental human rights as the centerpiece in our struggle for a free and compassionate democratic society relying foremost on our own effort to that end.

LONG LIVE ETHIOPIA!!!

Justice for our martyrs who must never be forgotten!

Free Birtukan and all political prisoners in Ethiopia!

robele_ababya@yahoo.com

Rodney King’s videotaped brutal beating by members of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) eventually triggered the L.A. riots of 1992. Rodney made a public appearance on the third day of the anarchy and pleaded in his inimitable style:

People, I just want to say, can we all get along? Can we stop making it, making it horrible for the older people and the kids? It’s just not right…. Let’s try to work it out.

I never thought I would appeal to Rodney King for political wisdom and insight in seeking an end to the internecine warfare in the Ethiopian opposition and plead for reconciliation, understanding and common sense. True, Rodney King is no Martin King, but in this instance I am going to invoke Rodney while pleading Martin to get Ethiopia’s opposition leaders to re-think and re-examine their strategy of mutual assured destruction (MAD).

It was amusing to read this past week a story about criminal charges filed against one faction of the Unity and Democracy Party [UDJ] (Andenet) by another faction of the same party in Ethiopia. Charged with disturbing the peace this past April are some of the prominent leaders and members of the UDJ. It is alleged that the defendants threw rocks at the party office and created disturbances while party members worked inside. Several witnesses testified for the prosecution at a hearing and the matter was continued to a later date.

There had been prior confrontations between UDJ members. In late 2009 when UDJ held its Extraordinary Congress at the Imperial Hotel, it was alleged that certain “expelled” members had attempted to disrupt the meetings. The police were reportedly called to intervene, but failed to show up. The meeting was cancelled and there were no prosecutions. But state-controlled television was on hand to record the bizarre spectacle for broadcast.

I am sure the whole zany rock-throwing affair gave dictator-in-chief Meles Zenawi and his crew much needed comic relief in the weeks before the May 2010 “election”. Today, Zenawi watches a command performance opera buffa of some of the champions of the Ethiopian opposition duking it out in kangaroo court. It is humiliating and embarrassing for many of us to see some of the giants of the opposition who have sacrificed so much of themselves pointing accusatory fingers at each other in the Zenawi’s Halls of Injustice. Of course, one would have expected all opposition leaders to get the message after the “election” and get their acts together. After all, Zenawi won by 99.6 percent, and they “lost” by 100 percent. But that is another matter. I only wish the accusers and the accused could see themselves from the outside as they spar in the three-ring circus of Zenawi’s kangaroo court.

Master Stroke of Public Relations (Act II)

The timing of the UDJ “prosecution” is curious, to say the least. The final report of the European Union Election Observation Mission Team [EU EOM] is expected to be released sometime in September. Staging a three-ring kangaroo circus over a rock-throwing incident to coincide with the release of the EU EOM report is a master stroke of public relations. It provides a nice distraction to the findings and conclusions of the forthcoming report. The criminal case will be dragged out to coincide with the release of the report and cushion the hard landing Zenawi is going to have in the report. We already know from the from the preliminary statements of EU EOM that the May 2010 “election” “failed to provide a level playing field”. Major donor governments have declared the election “does not meet international standards”. That is just diplomatic-speak for a stolen election. Regardless of what the final report will document, the incontrovertible fact is that an “election” that gave Zenawi a victory of 99.6 percent is not an election; it is a travesty of election.

But the sting of the EU EOM report could be lessened and world attention distracted by depicting opposition leaders as a bunch of bumbling and bungling lightweights (or worse) who are not only incapable of leading the country but are spending their time like children throwing rocks at each other. It is a brilliant public relations move by Zenawi to make a complete laughing stock out of some of the most respected leaders of the opposition. Let us just watch Zenawi showcasing the “rock throwers” freak show in his kangaroo court circus as the release date for the EU EOM report draws near: “Come one, come all to the greatest show in Ethiopia! Marvel and thrill at the rock-throwing Ethiopian opposition leaders! Stare in awe… Do you want these guys to run the country!?” Barnum and Bailey never had so much fun!

Justice in Kangaroo Court? (Act III)

Time was that opposition leaders were dragged in chains into kangaroo court to become victims of injustice. Some of the UDJ members in this criminal case were sentenced together to long prison terms in kangaroo court not long ago and served nearly two years before being “pardoned”. It is an eerie feeling to see them now standing on their hind legs pointing accusatory fingers at each other. UDJ members going to kangaroo court to seek justice is like Rodney King going before LAPD’s Internal Affairs to press charges against the cops who beat him to a pulp. It just makes no sense. I am dismayed and embarrassed by the sight of UDJ members brawling in a kangaroo cage match as Zenawi calls the count. What a low-down dirty shame for all who are toiling for democracy, human rights and justice in Ethiopia to view this spectacle. What comic relief for Zenawi and his crew. Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!

I want to laugh too, but it hurts to laugh. In fact, I would like to cry at the sight of these distinguished members of the opposition wagging fingers and exchanging verbal missiles in kangaroo court. What were they thinking?

But to add humiliation to a crying shame, I agonize over the possible outcomes of the criminal case. If the UDJ defendants are convicted and sentenced to jail, who wins? Zenawi does. He will step up to the podium and announce to the world that his justice system worked “fairly” and the criminal wrongdoers were held to account. He can walk up to his Western donors (a/k/a partners-in-crime) and smugly say, “Behold my opposition (chuckle)! See real justice at work!”

Who loses if they are convicted? The opposition does. The people will shake their collective heads in dismay and disbelief and ask: “What were they thinking? Why can’t they get along? If they can’t get along out of power, how could they get along if they get into power?”

Who wins if the UDJ defendants are acquitted? Zenawi does. He can show the world that justice was served in his court with impartiality and the innocent set free. Who loses if they are acquitted? The opposition does. The people will scratch their collective heads and ask: “Why did they do it? Was it worth their humiliation in kangaroo court?” In short, the kangaroo court criminal case is a win-win for Zenawi, and a lose-lose for the opposition!

But there is a less obvious conclusion to be drawn to the credit of the UDJ members. In the heat of the moment, certain party members may or may not have thrown rocks or exchanged harsh words. But to their collective credit, there was no shooting or extreme violence, as it often happens among opposition elements in so many parts of Africa. The UDJ members did not take to street justice to resolve their disagreements; they went to court (admittedly the kangaroo variety). I applaud them for that. They had the right idea, but went to the wrong place. Courts of law (in contrast to kangaroo courts) are the proper and civilized place to bring disputes for resolution. Independent judges (in contrast to hacks wearing judicial robes) can properly administer justice impartially and neutrally.

But the proper place for resolution of political disputes among Ethiopia’s opposition is never in kangaroo court, but in intra- and inter-organizational mediation and reconciliation processes or other civil society institutions. Throwing rocks or vilifying each other with abusive words is never justified. They do not need to beat each other up; they need to stand together and cover each other’s back. They need to shield each other from the ceaseless barrages of the slings and arrows of an outrageous dictatorship.

So I am going to “sermonize” a little bit here. If the bickering, name calling, rock throwing and all the other silly stuff continues, the opposition will end up in mutual assured destruction as the dictators look on with glee. It is mad to follow the path of MAD. The opposition has far too many important tasks to accomplish. They have already lost precious time in internal strife and fragmentation; they need to be doing more by way of uniting, mobilizing, motivating and inspiring the people with their ideas and plans. The people want to hear messages of hope and redemption from opposition leaders, not accusations and recriminations. The people want to be assured that it is possible, with dedication and effort, to overcome the seemingly insurmountable mountain of dictatorship; that change, peaceful democratic change, is possible and the people themselves hold their destiny in their collective hands. The people want to be shown these possibilities through leadership examples of optimism, dedication, tolerance, tenacity and patriotic zeal. That is the way to do it!

The kind of legal warfare we see in kangaroo court with opposition leaders and members is demoralizing; it is not uplifting for the people. It robs the people of their faith in the future and saps their energy, enthusiasm and hopes for democracy. Opposition leaders should be less concerned about their partisan interests and more engaged in addressing the needs of the masses of unemployed youth, the urban poor that have little to eat; the poor farmers scratching the earth for seedlings; the masses of women who face domestic violence daily; the educated professionals who can barely eke out an existence on salaries that are gobbled up by stratospheric inflation and the state workers who are forced to supplement their incomes by payments under the table. These people are looking for visionary leadership. They want to see clear-thinking and dignified opposition leaders charting the course to a better future. They do not want to see opposition leaders brawling in freak shows in a kangaroo circus court. Stated simply, opposition leaders and parties need consolidation, not fragmentation; they need reconciliation not accusation and recrimination.

Can’t We Just Get Along? (Act IV)

I see no need for opposition leaders to act in a vaudevillian comedy show directed by Zenawi. That is why I am asking them to develop and adopt a voluntary “code of conduct” to govern their relationships as they face a formidable common adversary. Such a code should address matters of civility, tolerance of dissent, non-use of inflammatory language, avoidance of personality clashes, constructive criticism of programs and policies, avoidance of personal attacks, establishment of formal and informal dispute resolution mechanisms, grievance complaint procedures and so on. Under no circumstances should they air their “dirty political laundry” in kangaroo court.

Political leaders and followers who are truly committed to democracy and human rights and work for the betterment of the Ethiopian people need to get along with each other and cooperate for a common purpose. They do not need to agree with each other on all issues or even the majority of issues. It is not even necessary for them to socialize and hang out together; but it is mandatory that they find effective ways of collaboration to advance their common causes of democracy, human rights, accountability, transparency and the rule of law.

Working together requires creating a harmonious working relationship founded on mutual respect, tolerance and understanding. If there are differences on issues, as there should be, all effort must be exerted to discuss and resolve them without degenerating into personal attacks. If issues cannot be resolved, it is best to agree to disagree and move on with other issues.

Teamwork and collegiality among opposition leaders are essential if dictatorship is to be defeated and real democracy established in Ethiopia. When opposition leaders attack and disrespect each other, they not only make themselves laughing stocks for the dictator and his crew but also look silly in the eyes of the public and set a bad example. The kind of dysfunctionality that is visible in the opposition today is not only pathetic but also harmful to the prospects of democracy in the future. Opposition leaders need to answer a simple question: How can they expect to work collaboratively in the interests of the country and fight dictatorship when they have hardened partisan politics among themselves so much? The road of hardened partisan politics leads to MAD. They may have been in separate boats before the May “election”, but now they are all in the same boat cruising up that famous creek without a paddle.

It is time now to transition to the politics of multi-partisanship, cooperation and collaboration. Practically, this means advancing the interests of the people over partisan politics or advancement of one’s agenda, status, career or ambitions. It means showing the people that the opposition is NOT the flip side of the ruling dictatorship. Stated simply, the people need to be reassured that in the opposition they are not swapping Tweedledee for Tweedledum. Democracy and dictatorship are not interchangeable. The most effective way of getting the trust and support fo the people is by proving to them what it means to work together harmoniously while opposition leaders and parties are on the outside, and before they have tasted the sweet intoxicating nectar of power.

That’s why I pose some simple questions to Ethiopia’s opposition leaders: “Why can’t you all just get along? Can you stop making it horrible for the older people and the kids? It’s just not right…. Why can’t you try to work it out?”

As the old saying goes, “Yesterday is gone and tomorrow is not ours, what we have is today.” Can we all begin to mend fences today and come together not only to oppose and defeat an ephemeral dictatorship, but most importantly, to put our collective shoulders to the grind wheel and work for democracy, justice and human rights in Ethiopia? Can we all get along!

FREE BIRTUKAN MIDEKSSA AND ALL POLITICAL PRISONERS IN ETHIOPIA.

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* Alemayehu G. Mariam, is a professor of political science at California State University, San Bernardino, and an attorney based in Los Angeles. He writes a regular blog on The Huffington Post, and his commentaries appear regularly on pambazuka.org, allafrica.com, newamericamedia.org and other sites.

Tamagne who was invited for the occasion as a guest of honor, moved by the cultural show and the spirit of Ethiopiness manifested by the youth, spontaneously rose to his feet only to find himself over the stage addressing the gathering in between the show.

The exceptionally talented artist congratulates the kids for an outstanding cultural show that could be exemplary to others and called on parents to teach their children love and affection so that they would in turn love and cherish a person for being nothing else but a human being. Tamagne, admittedly emotional at times, said the only factor that can bond us together is nothing but the sense and spirit of Ethiopianess. And he noted that we inherited this sense of Ethiopianess from our forefathers who might have done some errors here and there and it is the responsibility and obligation of the present generation to fill the gap and complete the task that our forefathers have left undone.

Members of Mekdime-Atlanta, a youth group, staged a remarkable cultural show featuring Oromugna, Tigrigna, Guragigna, Wollaytigna and Amhara dances. The youth have also performed a short drama where a prosecutor and a defendant presented their case before a traditionally fashioned court in which the final verdict depicted the rampant practice of injustices in Ethiopia.

The youth in their cultural song and dances demonstrated confidence, dedication and love for the various cultures in Ethiopia. And everyone in the audience was completely taken by surprise when the youth were dancing to the tune of Wollaytigna, which one parent remarked, “these kids act no less than professionals.”

Friday night in Atlanta, was all about the youth, all about Tamagne and all about Ethiopianess in which at the end of the magnificent show every spectator expressed “satisfaction.”

“I never thought that the war (the Ethio-Eritrean war) would lead me to permanent fallout with my lifelong friends,” ponders Seye Abraha of his lost camaraderie with Meles Zenawi and his allies in a book that was released in Addis on Tuesday. “But so apprehensive was I to become of the ideas they promoted, I lost hope in them in due course.”

“Liberty and the dispensation of justice in Ethiopia” is a 440-page book that Seye wrote after his release from seven years of imprisonment, accused of corruption during his four years stint as Defense Minister in the ’90s. This is his shot at absolution, the silver bullet that is meant to clear his name once and for all. He has magnanimously donated the proceeds from the book to his party, UDJ. Mercifully, the book has been skillfully edited for syntax, punctuation and clarity, a norm in most parts of the world, but which is mysteriously (and annoyingly) absent from most Amharic books. At least the copies that I and friends bought are US prints, the quality of the cover and inside pages, much to our delight, far superior to the local norm. We gladly paid the asking price: 70 birr.

As Seye tells it, the crack in the fêted harmony that long prevailed between TPLF leaders first occurred immediately after the outbreak of the Ethio-Eritrean war. “But it was strictly between Meles and the rest of us,” recounts Seye. Two months after the Eritreans occupied Badme, the unlikely epicenter of the dispute, leaders of the TPLF sulkily acknowledged the inevitability of war the nation was ill-prepared for. The Eritreans were clearly the dominant military power in the horn. “They were vying for political, economic and diplomatic concessions from their neighbors,” observes Seye. The imperative to regain Ethiopia’s military preeminence, a dominant heritage of the region, was quickly agreed upon by all the leaders of the TPLF—save one. “Only Meles took exception to defining our (the nation’s) purpose as that of totally crushing Shabiya’s (the ruling party in Eritrea) military prowess,” writes Seye. The plan, in other words, was for regime change. (Some had even grandeur ambitions in private.) But Meles worried about Eritrea’s independence, then only five years old, and the diplomatic fallout from occupying a sovereign nation partially or fully. “We went to great length to convince him, and he finally relented,’ narrates Seye. The hard part being over, the next step was merely routine: rubber-stamping the decision by the broader EPRDF leadership.

A Central Command was set up—-ostensibly entrusted with the responsibility of co-ordinating the war effort but in reality to monitor Meles. Seye Abraha, Tewelde Welde-Mariam (both form the party), Tefera Walewa (Defense Minister), Tsadkan Welde-Tensay (Chief of Staff), Abadula Gemeda (Chief of the Army), Abebe Tekle-Haymanot(Chief of the Air force) and Meles Zenawi became members of the Command. In time, the Command was to become more prestigious and powerful than Meles; who, as PM,was the Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces.
But Meles was not really convinced. As Seye sees it, he had only chosen to play the part of saboteur from inside. And he details how the purchase of Suk-27 planes, which were to play a crucial part in the war, was almost derailed by a stonewalling Meles. “ First, he said there was no money (to buy the planes.) When it was ascertained otherwise, it was untouchable because the IMF said so,” writes Seye with apparent exasperation. The relationship that was once strained, but which improved markedly when Meles gave in, was now visibly poisoned. “It undermined our trust in each other,” maintains Seye. But a showdown was not in the cards. “We slowly swayed Meles in favor of the purchase. Tewelde did most of the convincing,’ says Seye. ( Tewelde was Meles’ deputy in the TPLF.)

The war went splendidly. What the Americans said was impossible, the dislodging of the well dug-in Eritreans by military means form Badme, was accomplished with lightening speed and limited casualty to the Ethiopian side. The army was on a roll, highly motivated for more success on the Central and Eastern fronts.

And this is where, for Seye, the straw that was to break the camel’s back surfaced: the Algiers Technical Arrangement.

“The Technical Arrangement did not only fail to meet our demand for a return to status-quo-ante, but accorded partial recognition to the Ertirean’s claim over Badme, the very area we had just liberated by force of arms,” relates Seye. But Meles, much to the fury of Seye, was in favor of accepting it. He warned of devastating sanctions contemplated by the international community. When that failed to make an impression, “he brought up Lenin, Tewedros and Menelik.”
The socialist revolution was possible in Russia because Lenin had the foresight to accept the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, argued Meles. (Russia had to surrender land to the Germans.) Eritrea is no Germany, nor is Ethiopia Russia, retorted his opponents. But citing Ethiopia’s past, he persisted. “Tewedros blundered when he fought the super power of his time, the British, and he paid with his life. Menelik, on the other hand, had the wisdom to concede part of his country ( Eritrea) to save the far larger part(what is Ethiopia minus Eritrea),” argued Meles. We should learn from history, he insisted.

But none in his party, the TPLF, and only one from the coalition, Kassu Ilala, an MD turned politician, was to be swayed by the power of his argument. It was a devastating blow for him, the clear low point of his political career. He was ready to leave, but his opponents opted(fatefully) to wait for the end of the war. On a personal level, Seye and Meles could barely tolerate each other anymore. “This is when we stopped greeting each other,” discloses Seye. It was open war in all but name. “The climax of our differences had to await the finality of the war. In context of a nation mobilized for war, publicizing our disagreements would have been disastrous,” writes Seye. “But while we were fully engaged in the war effort, he (Meles)was plotting our downfall,” concludes Seye bitterly.

And there is no better way to neutralize your opponents than to accuse them of corruption, asserts Seye. “ This is the genesis of the corruption charges against me,” says Seye.

Rumors of corruption exasperate the division within the TPLF leadership. Absurdly, and perhaps as a sign of its politicization, it abruptly dominates the internal debate only within the TPLF. The other EPRDF organizations remain totally immune to the allegations and counter-allegations of corruption that wreaks the TPLF. Upping the challenge, Meles’ opponents propose the establishment of a committee to investigate. “ We proposed that our personal assets and that of our immediate relatives be registered and their origins investigated,” says Seye. The response of Meles is bizarre: “We reject your proposal because we believe in fighting corruption not by trivializing it to police work and investigations but at the level of the perception that enables it.”

The preposterousness and obvious implication of this response will haunt not only Meles’ legacy but also all those who had sided with him.

Taking into consideration the damages already caused and that will be caused by the ethno -centered dictatorial regime on the national security and interest of the nation; and taking into consideration that, the longer this regime is allowed to stay in power, the longer the agony and humiliation the people of Ethiopia are subjected to endure ; and

Profoundly cognizant of the demand and desire of the Ethiopian people to see political organizations that struggle against tyranny to coordinate their effort and resources, and raise up as a united front against the ethno-centric dictatorial regime that has no regard for the multifaceted challenges facing Ethiopia; and

Taking into account the results of the 2010 election drama and the steps taken since the 2005 election, clearly demonstrate the totalitarian designs of the TPLF/EPRDF regime to dominate all spheres of life in Ethiopia; and after taking stock of the regime’s unwillingness to submit itself to and function in a genuine multi-party democratic arrangement; and

After deliberating over many alternatives and multiple scenarios of the struggle, forging an all inclusive popular democratic front has been singled out as the only viable way to get rid-off the ethno-centered dictatorial regime and ensure peace, equality, freedom, justice, democracy, and economic prosperity for people of Ethiopia. Therefore,

Here by, the following three organizations, as the first step of a series of steps, are pleased to announce the formation of Alliance for Liberty, Equality, and Justice in Ethiopia (ALEJE).
1. Afar People’s Party

2. Ginbot 7 Movement for Justice , Freedom, and Democracy

3. Ethiopian Movement for Unity and Justice

Alliance for Liberty, Equality, and Justice in Ethiopia makes unequivocal proclamation that unity is the inexorable call of the time, and uses this opportunity to call upon all forces of freedom and democracy in Ethiopia to unite. As it takes its first step to wage a struggle to liberate Ethiopia from the ethnocentric dictatorship, ALEJE vows to work in unison with other democratic forces.
Down with the ethnocentric dictatorship of the TPLF/EPRDF

Victory to the people of Ethiopia!

Contact address: pr@timret.org

There are some striking independent evaluations that shade light into the amount of data manipulation and exaggeration by the government. Some are expatriate independent scholars who cannot be accused of having any Ethiopian political axe to grind. If you want an illustration of how the Ethiopian authorities play games with statistics to create an illusion of stratospheric economic growth, read this study by experts Stefan Dercon and Ruth Vegas Hill from Oxford University who collaborated with DFID of the UK to evaluate the performance of Ethiopia’s agriculture and checked the official numbers. The experts who made the study concluded that:

“The scale of output expansion in Ethiopia in the last 10 years is unprecedented. According to the data, it involved dramatic increases in areas cultivated with cereals, up 44 percent in the last 10 years, without any clear record or reporting on the process by which more land was obtained. Yields increased by 40 percent in the same period, with most of this growth in the last 5 years, but without any sign of intensification via fertilizer, improved seeds or irrigation and limited increases in land under the extension program. As yield growth has fast outpaced the experience elsewhere in Africa or during the Green Revolution in Asia but without input intensification, the sources of yield growth should be understood to restore trust in the current data. In general, more effort should be expanded to ensure the auditing of these key data sources on the Ethiopian economy”.

One of the major recommendations of the authors of this study states, “New, targeted data collection, and independent verification and auditing procedures are required to allow the necessary confidence in the current data”. In fact, they sound even more puzzled as to how these exaggerations were made since the crop- cutting method using a statistical sampling design that often generate superior data to other methods was used. The ferenjis seem to have been so polite not to use the word lie.

Using the official data and comparing it to international experience, the authors have found out that the Ethiopian government claimed to achieve in 10 years far more than what countries in East Asia achieved in longer years of the Green Revolution. At the end of the Green Revolution in the case of the Asians, we know that they overcame their food insecurity and started to fund their industrialization. On the contrary in Ethiopia’s case, the number of people on food handouts has grown to one in ten, the number of the absolute poor has increased and the structure of the economy remains basically unchanged. No official or expert of the Ethiopian government has so far attempted to explain these discrepancies. As the authoritarians that they are, they have the luxury of unaccountability and never feel responsible to explain it. In tragic Ethiopia, often it is the critic that gets in trouble than those who do the blunder. When you catch them with their hands in the cookie jar, they get angry and accuse you of some malicious intent. Some years ago Meles promised that he will shortly create an economy where all Ethiopians will have three meals a day. He never told us why that prediction failed miserably. With this propensity for exaggeration and unaccountability, I am surprised why they promised us only a 15% GDP growth during the next five-year plan that they just announced.

An Ethiopian economist who lives in Ethiopia whose comments I often value told me recently that anyone who would come up with a finding of 9.9% growth would be in trouble in Ethiopia today. It has to be double digit to sound mouthful and of propaganda value for the donors to like it. Most objective experts I talked to say the growth is anywhere near five or six percent which, of course, doesn’t mean it is not remarkable. I am sure any World Bank and IMF expert will not give you more than a 6% rate, if they talk to you in private and promise them you will not disclose their name. (By the way the IMF and the World Bank do not collect their own data or replicate the official survey, but Meles keeps claiming they agree with him). It is simply a pity.

The truth of the matter is that Ethiopia is still a predominantly subsistence farming agricultural country that depends heavily on rainfall. Good old coffee and other agricultural products are still the products that fetch hard currency as they did during the Emperor’s time. Thanks to our dispersal around the world we in the Diaspora send a lot of money home every year. Yes, a lot construction of roads and buildings has taken place and a few people have stricken it filthy rich in the service and construction sectors. Most of them, we are told, are the well connected and the powerful. Yet, we have more poor people than at any time in our history. Little of this growth is trickling down to the tragically destitute.
Meaningful economic development and ending or reducing poverty requires looking at and affecting a web of interacting variables and factors. It is not as easy as making some linear extrapolation. True, there has been growth in the economy over the past several years. But we also know that this growth has made little dent on the lives of the mass of the suffering people. We also know that none of this increase is due to any innovative work or advance in technology or structural changes in the economy as the government wants us to blindly believe. We know exactly which sectors of the economy have shown growth and why. It is also important to note that Ethiopia is not the only country in Africa that has achieved considerable increase in GDP. Many African countries, most of our neighbors to the south and west, recorded considerable growth numbers during the same period. It is a result of part good weather, part foreign aid, part local effort. You can apply enough chemical fertilizer and grow the yield per unit area if the rains are good. Or you can play nice with donors and be their darling and get billions of dollars in aid, as the Ethiopian authorities successfully did, and can register considerable quantitative increase in GDP. But then again this is not a sustainable way of fighting endemic poverty or basing your future forecasts on.
The only way out of Ethiopia’s poverty is the prevalence of the rule of law and democracy. It is the making of a confident people in the institutions of the country and the accountability of the government. There is no country that has prospered without resolving outstanding political and other conflicts within themselves through a democratic and lawful way. The models Meles often loves to cite have done that. They have reduced their conflicts to manageable levels through tolerance and the rule of law and not by trying to crush them through the use of force. Even China couldn’t have done it without allowing a level of diversity of views and dissent inside the communist party. All emerging economies are those that have liberalized themselves and achieved at least a patriotic unity of their people.
Some supporter of the government recently told me boastfully that the number of universities in the country has grown more than ten times. I asked him if he knows that the research output from these universities is less than when we had only two, and if he knows more than 50% of the instructors are first degree holders and in some cases undergraduate senior students and asked him to define a university for me. My friend, who was happy to play the numbers game could not say a word about any of the substance.
Let me leave you with an example of how people play games with numbers and statistics that my Indian professor once told me. He told me about a 100 people who were trying to cross a river. They all couldn’t swim and were afraid of drowning as they did not know the depth of the river. Finally there was some mathematically endowed person among them who set out to measure the depth of the river and the height of all hundred of them. He made the necessary calculations and found that the average height of the people was above the river’s depth. He then told all of them that everybody can cross on the average. Unfortunately the 25 of them who were very tall have influenced the average. Seventy five of them drowned. There wasn’t even a mistake on the mathematical computation. It was a failure of thinking.
Ethiopia has a herculean challenge of getting out of poverty. Its rapidly growing population, the environmental degradation, and the challenges of plugging in to a globalized world, to mention just a few, are not easy. Yes, poverty is the number one problem of the country that all of us seem to agree on. But you cannot solve a number one problem by making it secondary to absolute political control. Those who tried that it in the past have failed miserably. I pray for my country and for wisdom.
FekadeS@gmail.com

What then are the basis to claims about a “double digit growth” in Ethiopia and all the pop and fanfare surrounding the so-called “economic transformation” and “Development” of Ethiopia under Meles Zenawi’s regime?

Such persistent and glaring contradictions between the regime’s claims of economic growth and development on one hand and study of other international organizations on the other have prompted a Council of Ethiopian economists and experts to look into the matter even deeper. It is expected that they will make their finding public with regard to Meles Zenawi’ claims to an unparalleled “Double digit economic growth”.

The Voice of America (VOA) has a two part interview with Dr. Getachew Begashaw, professor of economics and head of the economics department at William Ray Harper College in Chicago, IL and Dr. Aklog Birara, a person who has served at the World Bank as a senior advisor for over thirty years.

VOA

German Radio has a similar discussion with Professors Seid Hassan and Minga Negash. Click below to listen:

DW

In February 2008, following the ethnically-driven post-election violence in Kenya, I wrote an editorial commentary entitled “The Ethiopianization of Kenya”:

After a half century of national existence, democratic experimentation and stability, Kenya has degenerated into a tribal/ethnic basket case beset by violence, fear and loathing… Kenya could have easily avoided this calamity. It had all of the tools at its disposal — a functioning and well-oiled electoral process, a civically engaged population, a democratic political culture enriched by prior voting experiences, an active and independent press, and a reasonably professional and independent judiciary, among others. It could have peacefully and amicably resolved the persisting questions of land ownership and redistribution, democratic power sharing, and grievances over issues of ethnic domination… Kibaki understood the implications of the theft of the presidential election for Kenyan national politics. He was fully aware of the potential for ethnic upheavals and widespread violence. He thought he could handle it by replicating the lessons of Kenya’s neighbor to the north, and perpetuate himself in power by introducing the discredited politics of “ethnic federalism.”[1]

The post-election bloodbath in Kenya ended after 1,500 innocent people were killed and 300,000 internally displaced, and Mwai Kibaki and Raila Odinga agreed to share power and hold a referendum on a new Constitution, which earlier this month was approved by 67 percent of the voters.

Kenya’s new 206-page constitution[2] replaces the original one engineered by the colonial masters in 1963. It includes a comprehensive Bill of Rights (which encompasses economic, social, and cultural rights). It transfers certain powers to local governments consisting of 47 newly-minted counties, each of which will have a governor and are specially represented in a newly-established Senate. Limits on presidential powers are imposed by requiring parliamentary confirmation of appointees and ending the practice of presidential appointment of judges, among others. The powers of the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government are more clearly delineated, and citizen participation in the political process is promoted. The Constitution authorizes the establishment of a new Land Commission with the power to re-possess illegally-occupied public lands. It guarantees women the right to inherit land. Muslim family (kadhis’) courts are given jurisdiction over matters “relating to personal status, marriage, divorce or inheritance” for Kenya’s Muslim minority.

Supporters of the new Constitution argued that these and other changes will usher in a new era of rights for Kenyans (guaranteeing clean water, decent housing, sanitation, and an adequate supply and quality of food and economic rights of inheritance for women), and ensure official transparency, accountability and clean government. According to one recent poll, 91 percent of Kenyans support the new Constitution. President Mwai Kibaki euphorically declared that the new Constitution will be “our shield and defender as we strive to conquer poverty, disease and ignorance.” President Obama praised it as “a significant step forward for Kenya’s democracy”. Opponents campaigned against the new Constitution because it “allows abortion on demand,” and recognizes a non-secular (khadis’) court system. The stronghold of opposition is said to be in western Kenya. Some have suggested that opposition to the new Constitution is stoked by politicians who are likely to lose their political and economic grip in the western region under the new Constitution.

Kenya’s voluminous new constitution and its ambitious scope of coverage of rights is long on promises not unlike most African constitutions which offer a cornucopia of rights and accountability provisions. The real question is whether Kenya’s new Constitution will continue the long unbroken tradition of dictatorship of Big Men in Africa or become a real instrument for the creation of a government of laws for the Kenyan people.

Government of Laws, Not of Men

Constitutional government is fundamentally about the rule of law. Organic rules are established to protect the rights of citizens from arbitrary and abusive exercise of government power, and ensure leaders and institutions are held accountable under the “supreme law of the land”. Stated simply, in a government of laws, “no man or woman is above the law.” But much of Africa has suffered under the government of men – autocrats, civilian dictators, military juntas, hybrid civilian-military dictators – who have pillaged the continent to line their pockets and oppress the people for nearly one-half century. For instance, Ethiopia for centuries remained under the rule of monarchs who believed they were “elect of God” and operated under the principle that they “can do no wrong” or be held accountable under the law. The maxim which conceptualized the monarch as the supreme law of the land holds, “it is impossible to sue the king or plough the sky.” (Negus aykeses, semay aytares.) The “divine rule of kings” in Ethiopia gave way to an inhuman military dictatorship, followed by a brutal full-fledged kleptocracy.

The modern idea of legal accountability to check the abuse of political power dates back to the English Magna Carta (1215). The Great Charter was imposed on a reluctant king to safeguard against his arbitrary personal rule and to hold him accountable under the “laws of the land”. By the same token, modern constitutions are intended to be a bulwark against dictatorship and tyranny by requiring of leaders and institutions observance of the principle of the rule of law. But that has not happened in Africa. African dictators have sought to create the illusion of constitutional democracy while practicing constitutional dictatorship. They sneer at the very thought of being held accountable when they exceed, abuse or misuse their powers. Far from imposing limitations on power, constitutions in Africa have served to expand and maximize the powers of dictators who have used them as “trump cards” to suit their needs. Many African dictators have used their constitutions as “meal tickets”. Western donors often refuse to extortion money unless they see the dictators wrapped around a nice liberal-sounding constitution. Domestically, these dictators have used their constitutions to legitimize their dictatorships, provide a “legal” cover for their klepto-oligarchic state, and to protect and preserve their privileges. As offensive weapons, they have use them to sledgehammer the opposition. For instance, in 2005 after Zenawi was defeated in the polls, he wiped out the opposition by charging them with five counts of violations of the Constitution. After he declared victory in the May 2010 election which he “won” by 99.6 percent, he made two public offers to opposition parties and leaders that he would sit and negotiate with them (lol) provided they “respect the will of the people and accept the country’s Constitution and constitutional process.”[3]

Kibaki told a teeming crowd of thousands in Nairobi that the new Constitution will be “our shield and defender as we strive to conquer poverty, disease and ignorance.” We wish the Kenyans the best of luck; but the fact is that in very few places in Africa have constitutions ever been used as shields. They have been used as spears and swords against individuals and as barrages of arrows against dissident groups in society. Kenya’s choices are clear: She can take Ghana’s path and launch a constitutional democracy, or imitate its northern neighbor and be swallowed up in the quicksand of constitutional dictatorship. The Ghanaian path is the more difficult one to take because it requires translating constitutional rules into daily practice. It requires nurturing a democratic culture complete with all the expressive freedoms. This means going beyond babbling rapturous constitutional rhetoric about a “reborn” Kenya, “shields” and “defensive” armor against poverty and so on. To ensure constitutional success, ordinary Kenyans must take full ownership of their Constitution or it will be swiftly hijacked by the wily and corrupt politicians. Kenyans civil society institutions and intellectuals must take the lead in educating the masses about their new Constitution and help develop structures for popular participation. If Kenyans fail to maintain “eternal vigilance” over the corrupt crooks skulking in the halls of power, they will soon find that the constitution they were told was their shield will have been transformed into spears and arrows of dictatorship, garrotes to choke their civil society institutions and cudgels to trash their human rights. If they need proof of that ugly future, let them calmly gaze northward.

From the Misrule of Law to the Rule of Law

Is it not a tragic fact that for most of Africa dictatorship is the only game of politics? The real question to contemplate as Kenya begins political life under its new Constitution is whether it will ultimately become a constitutional democracy or constitutional dictatorship. Kibaki has been in the saddles of power since his days as minister of finance in 1969, and is Kenya’s third president since 1963. The stench of corruption in high government places in Kenya reeks to the high heavens. In August 2006, Senator Barack Obama said, “Here in Kenya, there is a crisis [of corruption] — a crisis that’s robbing an honest people of the opportunities they fought for.”

Having lofty-sounding and well-crafted constitutions will not guarantee the crooked politicians will conform their conduct to the supreme law of the land. If mere words in a constitution were proof of the existence and functioning of constitutional government, Ethiopia’s would be second to none. Kenya now is at the fork in the constitutional road. Whichever road it takes will be fraught with danger. I am hopeful that Kenya will take the road less travelled — Ghana’s Way — in the rest of Africa. But I have deep concerns over the challenges that lie ahead. Do the Kenyan masses understand their new Constitution? Better yet, do their leaders? I am doubtful that the vast majority of Kenyans have actually read and understand the 206-page Constitution (let alone engaged in vigorous debate over its provisions), despite that country’s 80 percent literacy rate. Even a studious and learned constitutional lawyer will have difficulty penetrating the dense recesses of the new Constitution. The corrupt politicians thrive in a whirlpool of mass ignorance; and I have a gnawing suspicion that they will find a way to hijack the Constitution and continue to do business as usual. The silver lining in the cloud is the manifest popular excitement and enthusiasm for the new Constitution by ordinary citizens. Only they can save their country from the serrated teeth of the corrupt and voracious politicians.

Long-term political stability in Africa will be impossible without citizens and leaders believing that legitimate governance rests first and foremost on observance of an agreed upon set of ground rules that limit the power of leaders and institutions and guarantee the rights of citizens. The words of most African constitutions are dead letters. They mean nothing, except what the dictators want them to mean. They neither shield citizens from the slings and arrows of ruthless dictators nor guide the people out of the wilderness of failed “statedoms” and thiefdoms (kleptocracies). These so-called constitutions are “legal” documents but they are rarely legitimate instruments of governance. They disempower the ordinary people from becoming active participatory citizens and rarely serve as tools for greater official accountability, transparency, or protection of human rights. Africa’s dilemma today is whether it will be democratized or continue to be “dictatorized”.

If the recent polls are any indication, there seems to be a significant attitudinal shift among average Kenyan citizens and the elites that the new Constitution represents a change of power from a group of ethnically-entrenched demagogues to a set of supreme rules. That is a hopeful sign. But the proof of the pudding is in the eating, as they say. Ultimately, the proof of Kenya’s new Constitution will be in its application and dutiful observance by its leaders and citizens. If ordinary Kenyans resolve to defend their new Constitution against the hordes of thieving politicians and kleptocrats, the words written on that paper will be worth more than all the precious jewels in the world. In the meantime, Kenya’s neighbors to the north will be scratching their heads wondering if their Constitution is worth the paper it is written on! North of the Kenyan border the motto is: “For our friends, everything; for strangers, nothing; and for our enemies, the law (constitution)!”

Ethiopian Flag

I know I am about to wade into potentially explosive debate, one that is strife with tensions on multiple side and could well drag out the worse side of Ethiopian political divides. With that said, as an Ethiopian who has an affinity for anything that is related to Ethiopia, it goes without saying that I am especially drawn to the Ethiopian flag. However, whenever I see the current Ethiopian flag, I feel like I am looking at something alien. Of course, I am drawn to the green, yellow, and red, but then there is a symbol in the middle that always manages to make my eyes avert from my homeland’s flag.

I will admit readily that the flag that I prefer the most, the one that binds me the most to the Ethiopia that I know in my mind is the one that has the lion of Judah on it. This flag carries with it a history that binds us to multiple cultures throughout the world, a flag that symbolizes the magnificent history of Ethiopia from the first emperor right down to our last and a flag that is adored by countless millions throughout the world. However, I realize that there are others who see in that symbol something different than I do, a feeling which cannot be smoothed over with a lecture about its history and its symbolism. As much passion and love that I have for this version of the flag, I am sure others are equally passionate about it in the opposite extreme.

Since the time I was born in 1974, I have seen the flag that I most equate with Ethiopia changed on two different occasions. When the Derg took over, they replaced the Lion of Judah with the hammer and sickle that would symbolize the embedding of communism in Ethiopia. After the TPLF defeated the Derg in 1993, they eradicated the hammer and sickle and replaced it with a yellow star placed over a blue background. In each case, the power structure used the Ethiopian flag as an imprimatur of their dominion, to erase the past and to move forward with the way that they saw fit. In each case, the symbol in the middle of the flag became a divisive issue, one that had supporters and detractors engaged in heated rhetoric about which flag truly represented Ethiopia.

Flags are powerful symbols, they can either divide a country or they can be divisive icons that separate people based on heritage and ethnic affiliation. You will not find too many Americans that would disparage the flag of the United States. However, there are certain states that embed within their state flags the some symbols which are divisive to the core. The flag of Mississippi has the confederate flag interwoven within the colors of the United States flag. This issue has divided the South for generations, serving as an affront to millions of people who rightly see the confederate flag as a symbol of hatred and exclusion.

Symbols are powerful because they invoke passions and ultimately exclude people as much as they include people. Within each community, within each region of Ethiopia, I am sure you will find different people who would rather replace the yellow flag with another symbol. I am sure some—like myself—would rather go back to the lion of Judah, while others who want to replace it with a different symbol all together, while there are others still who would rather maintain the flag as it is. Just as Southern states can do a lot to take down a divisive symbolism from their state flags, so too should powers that be in Ethiopia in order to have an inclusive flag instead of one that is excludes people who are not part of the power structure.

While each group can argue passionately about the symbol, one thing that most will not argue is that the basic premise of the flag, the green, yellow, and red, is the one uniting force. So why argue about the various symbols, why not instead take the symbol off the flag and leave the green, yellow, and red speak for itself, the true colors of Ethiopia. It is time for successive regimes to stop using the flag as their personal tool of propaganda and return the flag to the colors that are familiar to all without a symbol embedded in the middle. Governments should have their legacies determined by the good work that they accomplish not based on the propaganda they propagate through symbols they keep erasing and adding to our flag.

The Ethiopian government rejected a report that the country is at “extreme risk” of food shortages this year. The Horn of Africa nation is sixth in a ranking of countries facing food shortages, according to report published yesterday on the website of Bath, U.K.-based risk consultant Maplecroft.

Ethiopian Communications Minister Bereket Simon said in a telephone interview from Addis Ababa today that Maplecroft’s Food Security Risk Index 2010 was “devoid of any understanding of the Ethiopian reality” and there “was no reason why we should worry.”

Ethiopia, Africa’s largest coffee producer, has suffered food shortages in the past and about a sixth of its population required food aid last year. The United Nations World Food Program in Ethiopia said today the outlook for the rest of the year was “rather good compared to the last two years.”

Bereket said rains this year have been good and Ethiopia is expecting a “bumper harvest” and will be seeking to export a surplus of cereals.

“We have not come out of the woods with regards to food insecurity, but it’s improving by the day,” the minister said,describing Maplecroft’s analysis s “hypothetical and wrong-footed.” Bereket said he expects the number of Ethiopians needing food aid this year to go down from last year’s figure of 13.7 million given by the U.S. Agency for International Development.

‘Strong Indicators’

“Because of the good harvest here, we have to import less,” Judith Schuler, the WFP’s public information officer in Ethiopia, said in a phone interview from Addis Ababa. That meant there were “strong indicators” the number of people depending on food assistance would go down “a lot,” she said.

Maplecroft analyst Fiona Place said in a telephone interview today that Ethiopia faced a high chance of rising prices due to production shortages in heat-affected major cereal producers like Russia and Ukraine.

Transport infrastructure was still insufficient, though improving, she said, while “recurrent drought and inadequate environmental management” had led to a “continual cycle of degradation of natural resources.”

For Related News and Information:On Ethiopian Politics: TNI ETHIOPIA POL Most-Read Africa News: MNI AFRICA Top Regional Stories: AFTO

–Editors: Eddie Buckle, Heather Langan.

A preposterously pompous Colonel presided over the proceedings. He was visibly relishing his moment in the spotlight. “The Patriarch has acceded to Italian rule,” began the Colonel darting his eyes dramatically between the hushed audience and the towering Abun. “Why then do you alone,”—a deliberate stop here for effect— “choose to disagree? Why did you rebel?”

Though tall, slim and markedly handsome, the Abun dominated the trial with the overpowering— and reassuring—calmness of his bearing. Nothing disturbed his peace. He responded in the deliberately restrained tone of a Church elder: “As a Church leader, I have responsibilities. I owe an allegiance to my Church and country. This is all I have to say to this court. I will tell the rest to my creator. Do as you please.”

Speechless, the judges froze in their seats. A higher authority was affirmed with such confidence, their skepticism was momentarily shaken. So pervasive was the silence that the drop of a pin would have been heard.

But few moments later, a death sentence, to be carried out that very same day, was briskly read out by the Colonel; who was suddenly noticeably dispirited. The other two judges could not even bear to look up. But as soon as the Colonel finished, Abune Petros compassionately held his cross high, blessed the judges, and proceeded to pray for them in Geez; once Ethiopia’s dominant language, now spoken by no community, but dutifully conserved from extinction by the Church. They did not dare stop him.

Eight Italian army privates awaited him to pull the trigger simultaneously. He stood facing a wall, to be struck by a hail of bullets from the rear. As is customary, an Italian Officer approached him to read the death sentence (absurdly, in Italian) one last time. His legs and hands trembled as he did so. When he finished, the Abun, calm as ever, kissed the Bible he was carrying; blessed the crowd that had assembled to witness the execution; and then, with an expression serene more than ever, took out a watch from his pocket, noted the time, and placed it back in his pocket. He was ready to meet his creator.

The soldiers stood twenty feet behind him, and were kneeling when the order to fire came. Not a single bullet missed him. No one doubted that his end had come to pass. But the medical doctor who had to ascertain death looked up with stunned expression. Eight bullets had not killed the Abun. He was still alive. The crowd stirred. A solider stepped in hastily, and fired three more bullets. Each one struck the skull.

Five years later, Ethiopia was free from the pagan Fascists. A grateful Church and nation revered no one more the martyred Abun. But however much he was held in high esteem, there were no calls to erect his statue by the Church or its followers. When his statue was finally built, it was at the site of his execution and was commissioned by the government. In deference to Orthodox tradition and the sensibilities of adherents, no statue of his has ever been built near a Church.

Three and a half decades later, a ferocious social revolution raged in Ethiopia. It was time for the theocracy that had endured for 1600 years to unravel. No mission, after land to the tiller, was held with more fervor by revolutionaries than the total subservience of the Church to the new order. But, to few surprises, the prospect of subservience to a hostile state was roundly unpopular in the Church. The consensus was for political neutrality and Church independence. And the Patriarch, Abune Teweflos, was fully prepared to be martyred for the cause. As such, in a deliberate move to assert the Church’s independence, he appointed five Abuns; one of whom was the present Patriarch, Abune Paulos, without consulting the government.

For the Derg, this amounted to nothing less than open rebellion. The dismissal and imprisonment followed in quick succession. Both were unprecedented in a nation where the person of the Patriarch had always been inviolable. The Patriarch’s arrival in prison is here recounted in an autobiography by a prisoner, Abera Jembere, a high official in Haile Selliase’s government held under preventive detention for over seven years:

“It was past midday when he came. Bare footed and handcuffed, the Patriarch was being pushed and shoved by soldiers as they steered him to a solitary confinement cell. Inside the tiny room, they ordered him to lie down, chained both his hands and legs to a bed, and locked the door from outside. “Keep a close eye on this devilish priest,” barked an Officer as he headed back to his office. Shocked by the spectacle, prisoners had frozen in their tracks.

He would neither eat nor drink. He persisted for seven days despite numerous pleas by prison officials. Finally relenting to his determination, his door was flung open on the eighth day, was unchained from the bed, and prisoners were urged to prevail upon him. His solitary confinement came to an abrupt end. But weeks were to pass before he was to eat again. He sustained his fast. Spirit had clearly prevailed over body. (THE END)”

The next twenty eight months passed with his continued incarceration in a maximum security prison on the grounds of the Great Palace, few hundred feet away from the very seat of power. And then, out of the blue, at the peak of Mengistu’s prestige and power in late 1982, and when the revolution had finally stabilized, he was moved to a secret prison in north Addis Ababa for his final rendezvous with death. He was never tried in a court of law.

His end was tragically malicious. He did not see his murderers. As had happened to Abune Petros, they chose to strike from behind. They used barbed wires to choke him to death. It was a slow, brutal and painful death. He was buried in a mass grave. And thus came to pass the most horrifying murder of a Patriarch in the annals of Christianity. His story is one of the Church’s most cherished, and the power of its message resonates with all religions. But in line with Orthodox tradition no statue of his has been erected, nor has their ever been a proposal to do so.

Then, just what exactly did Abune Paulos, the current Patriarch, do more than the two martyred Abuns to deserve a statue, with the obvious consent of the Church bureaucracy he leads, and contrary to Orthodox tradition, at the largest church in the country?

Statuary was rejected by Orthodox Christianity because the dimensional representations were considered to glorify the human flesh rather than the divine spirit. Orthodox iconography, which has a rich history in Ethiopia, was alternatively developed to emphasize the spiritual holiness of figures rather than their humanity. And thus, no statues have ever been built for Abune Selema, who brought Christianity to Ethiopia; Yared, who developed the Church’s sacred gospel music; Lalibela, who built the Church’s greatest relic, the rock-hewn Churches in Lasta; and Abune Tekle-Haymanot, Ethiopia’s greatest native-born Saint. But they have all been amply represented by Ethiopian iconography.

Why is Orthodox tradition being uprooted?

THE END.

A reminder:

Ideally, politics should be debated civilly. It rarely happens though, both in Ethiopia and the rest of the world. But when the same coarseness trespasses into the realm of religion it becomes blasphemous. Please let’s keep it civil at least when religion is involved.

The rogue regime’s Prime Minster recently threw the usual economy growth figure and his willingness to negotiation with the oppositions. It was good try for ethically vacant and morally bankrupt apartheid regime. No one is impressed except those who he spins at a figure tip for a variety of their corrupt petty interests. What Ethiopians are demanding is the end of Apartheid Economy and the people’s government to come not to negotiate with a defunct regime. It should not require much intelligence to figure that out by now.

The inflated economic growth he planed to achieve in the next five years that will produce enough food to end the country’s dependency on foreign food aid and to export surplus is not new deception used for the last 20 years. This time he must have too much fate on his Arab and Indians investors who came-up with a magic formula. In a year or so when they start sending the grain they produce to their respective countries on a dollar per acre land he handed them he is going to comeback and tells us he exported the surplus after he feed the people. Who is going to fact check in one-man regime?

The rogue regime and supporters do not seem to understand a black Apartheid system is no different than a white Apartheid. They also do not seem to appreciate economic growth of an Apartheid system does not amount to any thing to the people.

He sounds intelligence enough to understand the complex issues when he spews his bogus argument against liberal democracy and free market for his Revolutionary Democracy and Apartheid economy. But all of a sudden he looks clueless when he is told-no mater how much your growth or no growth figure may be the Apartheid system does not result in any thing but misery. Those who benefit must also understand their temporary insanity to accumulate blood money is not legitimate wealth they earned but stolen. He knows it, they know it so everybody else.

The regime new call to negotiate with any opposition including Ginbot 7 (G7) and Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) also sounds as if he is still bargaining on a sack of grain on the lives of the people. What seems to elude his delusional mind is he has a rap-sheet as long as The Nile River and hardly has any creditability to be taken seriously. As the Chairman of Ginbot 7-Dr. Berhanu Nega puts it ‘there will be no negotiation with a pathological liar’. Rightly so, it is universally accepted the regime and its disciples can not be rehabilitated as proven for the last 20 years.

What is left to negotiate anyways? To legitimize the election result, to continue the Apartheid system, to endorse the regime’s corruption, to overlook the tramp-on and the elimination of independent Media and civic society, to leave the shadow corrupt investors intact, to praise the land grab as a legitimate investment…, where would one start even if there is an honest negotiator of the Apartheid regime?

The whole sham has absolutely noting to do with the economy or the governance, but to throw us off from the real question to sustain the corrupt Apartheid regime. His first ploy is to reroute us from his regime’s illegitimacy into something else because of damage freedom fighters are inflecting and the international community pounding him for his brazen 99.6% win that made them look fools. The second strategy is to marginalize the feared oppositions from the people by sounding he is an innocent regime who love to negotiate in front of the media while he sent his assassins when no one is watching. The third strategy and probably most important, to give comfort for his corrupt partners that he is in full control to continue doing their usual corrupt business and to reassure his ‘foreign’ investors the deal he made with them in the back room is still on. Apparently, the word is out many of his corrupt supporters who made a fortune in the last 20 years are worried enough to bell out sending their families and loots overseas, according to insiders.

Suppose the economy grow by double, triple, quadruple… digit or more as he wished; what does that has to do with the Apartheid system in place? Is that supposed to mean what is good for Woyane is good enough for the people?

A lesson from the historical summary account of the Apartheid system of South Africa might help Melse and his deceptive/duped followers may help refresh their memory:

In the 1960s South Africa had economic growth second only to that of Japan. Trade with Western countries grew, and investors from the United States, France and Britain rushed in to get a piece of the action. Resistance among blacks had been crushed. Since 1964, Mandela, leader of the African Nation Congress, had been in prison on Robben Island just off the coast from Cape Town, and it appeared that South Africa’s security forces could handle any resistance to apartheid. But in the seventies this rosy picture for South Africa’s whites began to fade. It went on to say…

To win the hearts and minds of blacks and also to ward off movements in the United States and Europe against apartheid, a new constitution was created. Black homelands were declared nation-states and pass laws were abolished…

The anti-apartheid movements in the United States and Europe were gaining support for boycotts against South Africa, for the withdrawal of U.S. firms from South Africa and for the release of Mandela. South Africa was becoming an outlaw in the world community of nations. Investing in South Africa by Americans and others was coming to an end.

In January 1985, Botha addressed the government’s House of Assembly and stated that the government was willing to release Mandela on condition that Mandela pledge opposition to acts of violence to further political objectives.

Mandela’s reply was read in public by one of his allies — his first words distributed publicly since his sentence to prison twenty-one years before. Mandela described violence as the responsibility of the apartheid regime and said that with democracy there would be no need for violence. The crowd listening to the reading of his speech erupted in cheers and chants, and Mandela was elevated as the leader of South Africa’s blacks.

Botha’s effort to win hearts and minds failed. If anything, those other than the white minority were encouraged to seek more than what was offered by Botha’s reforms. Doing otherwise, many believed, would make them dupes. The campaign to overthrow apartheid escalated, with African National Congress leaders in exile calling for consumer boycotts, rent strikes and people’s war to make townships ungovernable. Violence increased, and rage was vented on black policemen and township officials regarded as government stooges…

http://www.fsmitha.com/h2/ch34-sa2.htm

The similarity is telling, and then what is the Revolutionary Democracy Apartheid regime’s Prime Minster telling us, or not telling us? I guess, like the last SA Apartheid leader Botha’s efforts, Melse is saying to win the heart and mind of the people by trickle-down economics to feed the people three times a day in their own killi should give him legitimacy. Is that the best the rogue regime can do-growing the economy double digit by substituting western investors with Middle East and Asian investor? What is next? Dispatch the elders so that he can negotiate a better prison condition for Bertukan-Mandela in order to continue his Apartheid regime?

Absurd as it may sound; I am not one of those who blame a perverted leader like Melse but his followers. If he has no followers who feed on the Apartheid system he will probably end-up in a mental institution or penitentiary, but unfortunately there are sick followers who live off the blood of Ethiopians.

They claim the economy is growing rapidly, that is in direct proportion to their bank account. They claim there are plenty of investment opportunities, that is also in direct proportion with what they cash out of it. They argue “seeing is believing”,as if they can see or hear. They even claim inflation is the result of farmers making too much money and buying up all the foods, I am not kidding. The last time they came out to demonstrate In Washington they made it look like the Nile was flowing from Egypt to Ethiopia. They got too sensitized in telling lies they are willing to alter nature and live-off lies and deceits alone.

Do a test on your own, add-up all the numbers invested on one thing or another for a period on their propaganda media and you will find out there is more investment in Ethiopia than China. Caution: they would not tell you what Woyane’s shadow businesses are investing, that is a private matter that does not concern Ethiopians.

There is a one-man online media called Ben-Page operated by Binyam Kebede believed to operate out of Canada. He is a master of piling-up the numbers and making it look like Canada’s Economy than Ethiopia. He also makes it look like the country’s economy is owned by the famous Saudi investor Alamudi. There is another barefaced Woyane’s media called Aiga Forum that strive to slowdown the freedom movement. Their mission is as simple as diverting the issues to sustain Apartheid.

It is understandable the supports of Woyane are in a no-way-out situation trapped by their own corruption and crimes of many kind that sustained the regime in the last 20 years. They are hoping the struggle for freedom will disappear by their half hearted treat and diversion and are willing to commit more crimes than they already did. That is what corruption does to the soul of humans to blind them in believing their very survival depends on committing more crimes. The regime supplies them with all the ammunition they need to make sure they continue their crime.

Something is going haywire with the Woyane Apartheid system that was built on sand. The greed is so much so it is like scavengers running loss after a natural catastrophe. Those who sensed the rotten system is going to collapse are cashing out and running. Dubai is the preferred destination for big time crooks. Asia and South Africa is another destination for the official crooks. The grand crooks are stashing every where from London, Rome, Brussels, New York, Denver, Columbus, San Diego, and Seattle and all the way to Toronto.

The rogue regime is desperate, it even set-up a budget to bribe its way-out to sustain the Apartheid system. The news is out it is targeting the Diaspora with a combination of bribe and treat. Those who were swindled to build houses on regime’s owned land are told to submit their fingerprints as it was planned to blackmail and isolate them from the struggle. The new targets are the sitting-ducks Diasporas who are told to come and invest in the ‘booming’ economy to be used to cover up for regime, until they are tossed.

We should expect from the rouge regime cadres overseas who are pressured to act for the privilege they get from Apartheid system. The airheads will make many wrong moves by breaking the laws of the countries that afforded them to live in peace and freedom. They should know committing more crimes to preserve the Apartheid system has far more consequences for those who think it is safe to coddle with the rogue regime for petty theft and corruption. It is not only crime against the citizens of the countries they live but conspiracy to commit crime on behalf of foreign government that will cost them their ill gained wealth as well as their freedom. Many of the rogue regime supporters already broke the law many times over.

Let no one say I was not warned; it is time to be on the ‘Right Side of History’. Beyond that, it is time to tell the truth and forgo the ill gotten blood money on the back of Ethiopians and join the March 4 Freedom.

Apartheid must end now and democracy must prevail, any one in the way is public enemy!

The figures on recent agricultural performance are impressive: doubling of cereal output in the last 10 years, 44pc more land cultivated with cereals, and 40pc higher yield in the same period. The same data sources show no evidence of intensification of agriculture: no increase in fertiliser use per farmer or per hectare, no significantly more irrigation, and expanding but still relatively small areas under extension programmes. [This signifies that] the accuracy of the existing data is questionable.

The government once again disclosed the draft of its macroeconomic plans and growth projections, dubbed Growth and Transformation Plan, for the coming five years, to start implementation in 2010/11.
In line with its image of the country as a “developmental state,” the government’s plan seems to have been developed with a heavy state hand where the targets are as ambitious as they could ever get. The grandiosity of the plan is perplexing, necessitating critical appraisal on the realism of the planned targets.

The plan envisages, among other things, a minimum gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate of 11pc, doubling agricultural output, fulfillment of all the millennium development goals (MDGs) by 2015, massive infrastructural development, and significant growth in textile exports.

The question is, are these targets achievable?

The track record of this administration in realising its target of the previous five years, set under the Plan for Accelerated and Sustained Development to End Poverty (PASDEP), which came to a close this year, applies.

The conclusion is that the administration failed in achieving its targets significantly as the actual gains were way below their targets. The cereal yield target for 2009/10 was 34.8 quintals per hectare while the actual yield was only 16.8, an achievement rate of 48pc, less than half of the target. The same is true for revenues from taxes, public expenditure, export revenues, gross domestic savings, and inflation targets.

It is important to note that forecast errors (missed targets) are not anomalies in the forecasting world. However, the systematic nature of forecast errors, where the targets are always above the actual, indicate some fundamental flaws in the forecasting framework and the related assumptions.

The systematic forecast errors may be due to three factors: The targets are not realistic; the government does not have the capacity to execute its plans; and the combination of the two. Given the government’s dismal track record in achieving its planned targets, and unless the fundamental sources of the errors are addressed, the targets in the new plan will remain farfetched promises.

Realistic forecasts are mostly the result of empirical macroeconomic models that are estimated based on reasonably accurate data to fairly characterise the structure, interaction, and institutional details of an economy. Forecasts from such models are augmented by expert opinions to account for factors that are not captured in the macroeconomic model.

Realistic forecasts require the necessary tools - macroeconomic model, reasonably accurate data, and qualified experts capable of operating them. Unfortunately, the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development (MoFED), responsible for drafting the plan, does not seem to have qualified experts nor the necessary tools to produce realistic forecasts. It is thus highly probable, if not certain, that the forecasted targets are quite unrealistic.

Performance of some of the goals of the government’s five-year plan. In all cases, the actual performance came in shorter than the targeted amount.

The accuracy of the existing data on different economic variables, such as agricultural productivity, is questionable. The long quotation below from Dercon, Hill and Zeitin’s study, “In Search of a Strategy: Rethinking Agriculture-led Growth in Ethiopia,” published in 2009, illustrates the data problem very well:

“The figures on recent agricultural performance are impressive: doubling of cereal output in the last 10 years, 44pc more land cultivated with cereals, and 40pc higher yield in the same period,” write the analysts. “The last five years [saw] 12pc more cereal production per year, yield growth of six per cent per year, and area growth of five per cent per year. The same data sources show no evidence of intensification of agriculture: no increase in fertiliser use per farmer or per hectare, no significantly more irrigation, and expanding but still relatively small areas under extension programmes.”

“Ethiopian yields have grown faster than recorded elsewhere, even compared to the green revolution in India, China, or Vietnam,” they said. “If the data are correct, this is the fastest green revolution in history, and its mechanisms should be analysed. If any of the data, such as the area expansion data, are not correct, this has huge implications for policy, as it would suggest that food production is considerably lower than reported.”

Poor data quality is a common feature in most of the developing world. A recent study by Morten Jerven showed that, in the case of Africa, “estimates of an annual growth rate of three per cent may be consistent with a reality between zero and six per cent growth” due to the poor quality of data.

This has serious adverse implications for the reliability of any economic plan as it is based on an inaccurate assessment of the initial conditions and facts.

Assuming that the forecasts are based on the appropriate estimated model using accurate data and are therefore as realistic as possible, the appropriate question would be whether the government has the capacity to execute its plans.

The plan is in line with the government’s “developmental state” ideology. It is widely documented in the literature that skilled manpower and efficient government bureaucracy are the main components for the success of a developmental state agenda. The case of Japan is a very illustrative example.

The success of the Japanese developmental model is mainly due to their attraction of the best and the brightest minds to the civil service; being a civil servant is prestigious and also pays higher than most of the alternatives. The highly skilled and well compensated civil servants led to the creation and maintenance of efficient government bureaucracy that facilitates the effective implementation of the developmental state agenda.

In contrast, Ethiopia’s civil service is neither a place of excellence and prestige, nor does it pay a competitive salary. Rather than attracting the best and the brightest, it attracts largely the mediocre.

The current civil service incentive structure is a perfect recipe to build inefficient government bureaucracy and breed corrupt civil servants. The developmental state agenda would exacerbate this situation further as more public money is to be exposed to corruption following the financing of huge public investment projects. The overall evidence indicates the lack of efficient bureaucracy in Ethiopia, which in turn implies the government’s lack of capacity to implement its plan.

The targets are unrealistic and the government has limited implementation capacity, a scenario that most reasonably characterises the Ethiopian case. Under such conditions, a plan is no more than a well crafted wish list. “Dreaming while wide awake” describes this plan quite well.

Implementing such a plan would have dire consequences as it may result in many macroeconomic imbalances that could cause runaway inflation, rising public debt, and high future taxes. This is a déjà vu scenario as it is similar to what happened during the PASDEP period in which the country faced runaway inflation that led to the restriction of credit to the private sector and its undesirable impact on investment and employment.

Going along with the implementation of this unrealistic plan under conditions where the government’s bureaucratic capacity is limited, would simply be repeating the mistakes that led to the economic malaise in the PASDEP period while wishing everything to work out as desired. As the saying goes, “We are locked into a cycle of repeating the same thing over and over again, expecting different results.” This is commonly known as the definition of insanity.

It is not too late to address these hurdles and come up with a sound plan. However, it requires the government to retool its planning machinery, reassess the accuracy of data at hand, and strengthen its implementation capacity in terms of the efficiency of its bureaucracy.

An optimist would hope that these issues are addressed during the consultative meetings with the public and donors. It is also hoped that the government would deal with the fundamental flaws of the plan in good faith, for failing to do so would result in dire consequences that Ethiopian society cannot afford to bear.

–
Tesfaye Kidane is an independent consultant and can be reached at tesfayekidan@gmail.com.

“Ethiopia is not moving towards a single-party system,” said Zenawi. “It can, with some credence, be said that it is a dominant party system, but there is a fundamental distinction between a dominant party system and a single-party system. The democratic system in Japan has been a dominant party system for half a century, but it has not been a single-party system.”

Opposition parties do operate in Ethiopia. There were more than 160 opposition members from half a dozen parties in the last parliament. For last May’s elections, many opposition groups banded together to form Medrek, or the Forum, in hopes of mounting a strong challenge to Mr. Meles’s Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front.

Other Parties Effectively Marginalized

But in an election criticized by observers for lack of transparency and failure to live up to international commitments, Medrek was swept out of parliament. Even though Medrek candidates received about 30 percent of the vote nationwide, they won only one seat in the 547 seat chamber, finishing second in almost every one of the “first past the post” contests. The EPRDF and its allies won 545.

Medrek’s leader, Gizachew Shiferaw, calls the election a sham that reveals the ruling party’s intention to stay in power at all costs. He rejects Mr. Meles’s comparison with Japan, and says Medrek is adopting a strategy of peaceful struggle similar to the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa.

“We are going to challenge the EPRDF,” said Gizachew. “The Forum exists to change the oppressive political environment, and that will be our political agenda. This is a peaceful struggle. One has to learn the struggle instituted in South Africa. It may take time, but we think we are on the right road.”

Jailed Leader Becomes Symbol

Gizachew likens Ethiopia’s jailed opposition leader, Birtukan Mideksa, to South Africa’s Nelson Mandela as a symbol of peaceful struggle.

Birtukan, a charismatic former judge, was sentenced to life in prison after being convicted of provoking demonstrations protesting the EPRDF’s victory in the last national elections in 2005. The United States and human rights groups list her as a political prisoner. Gizachew says greater international pressure is needed to win her freedom.

“Birtukan has become a national as well as international political figure, and I don’t think you can simply lock (her) up in a prison and allow her to stay there. Because now there is an international movement,” said Gizachew.

Prime Minister Meles, however, has been adamant in refusing to consider freeing Birtukan. He says her imprisonment is a judicial matter. At last week’s meeting with reporters, he recalled a recent speech in which he announced a package of measures aimed at reconciling differences with political opponents.

“I’m sure you remember me telling you releasing Birtukan was not part of the package,” said Meles. “It was not part of the package then, it is not part of the package now, and it will not be part of the package tomorrow. This is a purely legal issue, and it is between her and the law. No one can come between the two. No one. Not opposition parties, not our friends abroad.”

Defending the Opposition’s Defeat

Prime Minister Meles made no secret of his contempt for Medrek, suggesting its members oppose Ethiopia’s constitution. Without mentioning Medrek by name, he called the defeat of such groups “a step toward stability.”

“The 2010 elections have prepared the ground for a stable democracy in Ethiopia,” said Meles. “Only those countries that have succeeded in marginalizing anti-constitutional forces by democratic means, only by marginalizing them by democratic means, have countries been able to establish stable democracies.”

A moment later, the prime minister seemed to suggest he was referring to Medrek, saying there was no place for the group in a planned dialogue with opposition parties on the country’s future.

“We have tried to engage the opposition,” said Meles. “I have talked to the leaders of the opposition, other than that of Medrek and the All Ethiopia something movement. Those that are prepared to engage with us, I have already talked to them.”

Election Review Report is Delayed

With the 2010 election in the history books, the only detail remaining is the verdict of a European observer mission on the conduct of the vote. A preliminary report issued immediately after the election questioned the fairness of the process, but a final draft expected in July has been delayed without explanation.

Prime Minister Meles, however, dismissed the EU report in advance. “I don’t know even if the European report is late or not. I’ve not really been interested in the report. We have seen a glimmer of what it might look like, and what we have seen is bad enough, and so we are not interested any more in the full package as it were.”

The next national election is still five years away, but both winners and losers in the 2010 vote are looking ahead to a generational shift. An EPRDF congress next month is expected to endorse a host of fresh faces in what Mr. Meles describes as a “comprehensive reorganization of government.”

The Ethiopian leader previously said he would retire in 2015, when his next term in office expires. By then he will have been in power nearly a quarter of a century.

Scandinavians Out!

Ethiopia has a long, strong and productive diplomatic relationship with Scandinavian countries, and particularly Sweden, which has been among the earliest development partners of the country. In recent years this relationship has been cooling off. Yet Meles’ justification in closing Ethiopian embassy in Stockholm that “..there is no development cooperation program of any substance between us and Sweden…” is neither true nor the real reason why the embassy is being closed. First, during the over half a century long bilateral relationship between Ethiopia and Sweden, the Swedish people and government have been known for providing efficient and targeted developmental assistance. It was the Swedish people who financed the establishment of the Chilalo Agricultural Development Union (CADU) in 1967, which was the first project aimed to modernize Ethiopia’s agricultural sector. As a self-declared champion of agricultural development, the Prime Minister should have acknowledged the Swedes contribution to Ethiopia’s agricultural “modernization.” Even during his reign, the Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA) has been the leading development partner for the country. SIDA’s support for research through the Science and Technology Commission and Universities has been crucial. Therefore, while the trade relationship might not be great, the claim that there is no significant development cooperation is baseless.

The Prime Minister also implied that the closure is a result of a shift in diplomatic focus on economic partnerships stating that “… we don’t have an embassy in Brazil. Brazil is a huge emerging country, and so we are now reassessing our diplomatic presence globally…” The notion of having diversified global diplomatic relations is obviously vital, but we do not have to shun one to please the other. Of course the point is not that we cannot run our diplomatic relations in both countries - we certainly can. The case of Brazil is presented here merely as a justification, and gives an apparently rational face to an otherwise unacceptable decision to the country’s national interest. The notion that to open an embassy in Brazil, the embassy in Sweden must be closed is not only unconvincing, but also misleading given that the embassy in Stockholm serves all Scandinavian countries (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway). Therefore, the target of this closure is not only Sweden but also the rest of Scandinavia. Since the collective economic contribution of these countries cannot be denied, only political dispute can explain the decision to close the embassy.

It’s no secret that some Scandinavian countries have been tough on the deteriorating human rights situation in Ethiopia, and have apparently tightened their stance over the past five years. They were particularly disappointed after Meles’ rubber-stamp parliament passed the Civil Society Law, which essentially disabled many non-governmental organizations in the country. After effectively killing off independent NGOs, Meles let the Scandinavians know that the only option they have was to channel their aid through the government affiliated agencies, which they obviously refused to do. Furthermore, during its presidency of the European Union, it is believed that Sweden has attempted to push the Union to pressure Meles into making democratic reforms putting them on the list of Meles’ top enemies. After the May 2010 election proved that Meles is not budging, the relationship hit rock bottom, and he is now just making the divorce official.

Ejecting the Scandinavians also serves Meles as a cheaper way of sending the signal to the West that he will not budge to any outside pressure. He knows that the Scandinavians, known for their non-interventionist stand and with little vital national interest over the region, are unlikely to tamper with his power. Taking such harsh measures against a potentially harmless target could be a cost effective way of telling other more powerful Western forces to back off.

Strengthening this warning is the declaration that the economy will grow astronomically and therefore, “Our hope and expectation is that over the next five years we’ll produce enough not only to feed ourselves but to be able to export”. In other words, the West should not dream of using aid as a leverage to challenge his increasingly totalitarian rule. I do not think Meles is foolish enough to delude himself into believing his own cooked up numbers. The real source of his overconfidence is the assumption that, with Al-shabab emerging as a serious threat, and China’s growing interest towards Africa, the West needs him more that he needs them..

Playing the East against the West

By emphasizing the shift towards strengthening ties with emerging economies such as Brazil, Meles is indicating that whatever he loses from the West, he will gain from the East, particularly China. Meles is right in a sense that, as far as economic growth is concerned, partnering with the emerging economies might be a better alternative. The West still remains paternalistic towards Africa, and no Western country truly wants to enter a mutually beneficial economic relationship with Ethiopia. In fact, America’s primary, if not only, attraction to Ethiopia is the strategic location of the country for its regional and global security. Instead of playing a positive role in helping the country pull itself from poverty and chronic conflict, the U.S. always wants to advance its security interests through aid-dependent, undemocratic surrogate regimes. That is why they did not push for real political change when the opportunities came, in 1991 or 2005 for example. Therefore, the Ethiopian people cannot count on the West to pull them out of poverty, and the emergence of China, a rising hegemony that aims to turn Africa into a market that consumes its output, could be the best bet.

However, does Ethiopia have to break away from the West in order to befriend the East? I do not believe so. Meles is thinking that he can play China against the United States in order to insulate his power from international pressure. But he is overestimating the impact of such a strategy, and as a result could be endangering the country’s interest, and perhaps even his power.

First, although investment is key to economic growth, it is not sufficient for an economy that is just starting to climb the ladder. For the foreseeable future, both budgetary and humanitarian aid will be necessary to keep the economy growing. Keeping foreign aid flowing helps to channel investment revenues back into the country’s economy rather than to divert it to humanitarian needs. In addition, without aid, a possible unexpected external shock to the economy could lead to greater crisis. Therefore, it is better to have a pragmatic approach that welcomes help from any available direction. I do not believe the pressure from the West could ever be strong enough to force Ethiopia to choose one side.

Second, some of Meles’ supporters assume that China could be the regime’s dependable guardian against any American incursion. To substantiate this assumption, they use the Burmese regime that has survived for decades despite completely antagonizing the West. But this is a gross misunderstanding. Chinese foreign policy is highly pragmatic, not ideological. Economic gain is their driving force; as such their policy decisions are based on cost benefit analysis. The Chinese economy is more interlocked with that of the U.S. than any other country. Expecting China to rescue poor Ethiopia in a case where the West’s interests are at stake would be the height of wishful thinking. Burmese survival is not the result of Chinese protection, rather a product of lack of serious U.S. rhetoric about that regime, as their economic and security interests in the country are insignificant. On the other hand, the U.S. sees Ethiopia as one of its vital national security partners. So far, Washington does not take Meles’ populist rhetoric seriously. Yet Meles should not discount the potential for someone to make a case for intervention, perhaps at least to prevent possible imitation by leaders of other countries. They would not have to match his noise in order to undertake such action. Yet more importantly, neither the U.S. nor China cares much about who leads Ethiopia. Their concern is that anyone who occupies the palace becomes their ally, and everyone who gets that chance during these times will have little logical recourse to do otherwise.

My fear is that Meles may be reaching a level where dictators – surrounded by “yes men” – start to believe their own propaganda. If that is the case, his recent moves could bring him down, and God forbid the country as well.

—
* Jawar Siraj Mohammed writes a regular political commentary on Ethiopian Politics. He can be reached at jawarmd@gmail.com. His writings can be accessed at www.dhummuugaa.wordpress.com

Tamagn was that fearless speaker in full command of his ego and a lover of the Ethiopia, the world historical civilization founded by a great people aware of their historicality and proud of their africanity.

Tamagn Beyene, in a recent event fund raising event in Boston (August 14, 2010) gave a masterful presentation of ESAT to a gathering of Ethiopians. At this event, through a blend of biting humor, arresting humility and elegance, he
exposed the interiors of hate and ethnicity by the ruling Ethiopian Regime.

In a shocking presentation of the distribution of power in Ethiopia, the artist gave a compelling picture of the dominance of Tigreans in all the major posts of the “ woyanne machine”. The names of the political personalities and their positions were carefully presented to a very vigilant public.

What emerges in the end is a frightening picture of the Ethiopian nation profoundly fractured by ethnic prism through which modern Ethiopia is being divided and ruled to the detriment of a future that will leave a legacy of hate, mistrust and revenge.

Contrary to the regimes outside appearance, this regime does not believe in the Ehtiopianity of Ethiopia, but rather in a dangerous attempt at Tigrenaizing Ethiopia under the tutelage of ethnic lords, who believe in Great Tigre, at the expense of the Great Ethiopia, and its classical Ethiopian emperors of Tigrean origin. These Emperors were always Ethiopians first and tigreans second. The Ethnic machine of Woyanne is actively rewriting this history and promoting it through force as power.

The artist heroically advised the audience to fight this vision through a counter vision of a genuine Ethiopianity, which ought to be promoted through the new media of Esat, the harbinger of change, unity and brotherhood of Ethiopians of the new generation.

His vision of a new Ethiopia can be presented through the powerful medium o ESAT that he is generously presenting the Ethiopian people, through a contagious passion and commitment, and we Ethiopians are grateful to him, and so willing to herald his name and bless his project.

–
Teodros Kiros
Professor of Philosophy and English (Liberal Arts)
Berklee College of Music

“Beware of Greeks bearing gifts,” goes the old saying. I say beware of those bearing fake olive branches. In many societies, “extending an olive branch” symbolizes an act of reconciliation, goodwill and peace. In ancient Greece and Rome, people gave each other olive branches as tokens of their intention to bury the hatchet and make up. The ancient Greeks are also remembered for the hollow wooden horse they used to outwit their Trojan enemies and destroy their city.

Following his 99.6 per cent “election victory” this past May, Ethiopia’s dictator-in-chief Meles Zenawi gave a speech offering the opposition a bouquet of olive branches. He solemnly “pledge[d] to all the parties who did not succeed in getting the support of the people… as long as you respect the will of the people and the country’s Constitution and other laws of the land, we will work by consulting and involving you in all major national issues. We are making this pledge not only because we believe that we should be partners… [but also] you have the right to participate and to be heard.” Basically, he promised to set up a special “kitchen cabinet” for the opposition to come in and chit-chat (”consult and get involved”) with him after hours.

Last week, Zenawi singled out two opposition organizations and signaled his intention to move from confrontations to “consultations” and “negotiations”: Concerning negotiations with the OLF (Oromo Liberation Front), Ginbot 7, the main thing has to do with principles. The first principle is peacefully resolving differences which is a civilized and appropriate strategy. Second, the way we can bring peace to our country is to accept the Constitution and the constitutional process and to be ready to pursue one’s aims peacefully. We are ready to negotiate with any organization, group or even disgruntled individual that accepts these principles and is prepared to return to the constitutional fold.

Is Zenawi’s offer of olive branches a Trojan Horse to finally put an end to all those who oppose his dictatorial rule?

A Trojan Horse Through the Looking Glass

In a recent commentary entitled, “Speaking Truth to the Powerless”[1], I observed:

Zenawi knows the opposition like the opposition does not know itself. He has studied them and understands how they (do not) work. Careful analysis of his public statements on the opposition over the years suggests a rather unflattering view. He considers opposition leaders to be his intellectual inferiors; he can outwit, outthink, outsmart, outplay, outfox and outmaneuver them any day of the week. He believes they are dysfunctional, shiftless and inconsequential, and will never be able to pose a real challenge to his power. In his speeches and public comments, he shows nothing but contempt and hatred for them. At best, he sees them as wayward children who need constant supervision, discipline and punishment to keep them in line. Like children, he will offer some of them candy — jobs, cars, houses and whatever else it takes to buy their silence. Those he cannot buy, he will intimidate, place under continuous surveillance and persecute. Mostly, he tries to fool and trick the opposition. He will send “elders” to talk to them and lullaby them to sleep while he drags out “negotiations” to buy just enough time to pull the rug from underneath them. He casts a magical spell on them so that they forget he is the master of the zero-sum game (which means he always wins and his opposition always loses)… For the first time in nearly twenty years, he is now changing his tune a little because the opposition seems to be wising up and Western donors are grimacing with slight embarrassment for supporting him. The kinder and gentler face of Zenawi is slowly being rolled out.
Why “Negotiations” Now?

It is not clear why Zenawi is calling for “negotiations” now. For nearly twenty years, he has recoiled with disdain at the very suggestion of negotiations with the opposition. He apparently sees the need for it now. Why? Could it be because he understands the status quo is unlikely to hold much longer? Is it his way of recapturing some international legitimacy for his rule and regime? Surely, he must know that his Western patron saints who pour billions of dollars to prop up his regime regard him as just another tin pot African dictator who must be tolerated and humored to facilitate their interests in Africa. Long gone are the days of adulation of Zenawi as one of the “new breed of African leaders”. It is possible that there is quiet donor pressure? The intelligence services of the various donor countries have mapped out alternative scenarios for Ethiopia’s future as Zenawi begins his third decade of dictatorship; and none of them looks pretty.

It may be that Zenawi feels the heat of the long smoldering ambers of collective anger and outrage percolating to the surface? Maybe he realizes that he cannot crush all of his opposition forever, and the tables could turn any day. Maybe he wants to use negotiations tactically to divide and destroy his opposition by co-opting some of them and letting the others self-destruct in dogfights over the bones he will throw at them. Maybe he sees the despair of 80 million people and is gripped by a gnawing sense of anxiety and feels he must do something before it is too late for him and his regime. It is possible that he may be sending up a trial balloon to see if the opposition will take the bait? Maybe he is just grandstanding. He wants to impress his sugar daddy Western donors that he is a reasonable man of peace, and the opposition leaders are just a bunch of “extremists” and “terrorists” uninterested in peaceful dispute resolution. Maybe he is playing one of his silly “gotcha” games as he did during the so-called “election code of conduct” negotiations. When leaders of the major opposition parties showed up in good faith to negotiate, he laughed in their faces and told them to take a hike. Subsequently, he threatened to throw them in jail for not abiding by a “code” they did not sign. Maybe he is convinced that he can outwit and outfox the opposition at the conference table. Maybe, just maybe, he is really genuine and wants a negotiated settlement in the “best interest of the nation.” There are recent precedents for such things in Africa. The mule-headed octogenarian Robert Mugabe snagged a deal with Morgan Tsvangirai in Zimbabwe. Emilio Mwai Kibaki cut a deal with Raila Odinga in Kenya. Maybe it is all or none of the above. I don’t have the foggiest idea why Zenawi is now calling for negotiations, but the whole exercise seems absurd to me.

Can One Reasonably Negotiate With “Terrorists, Amateur Part-time Terrorists and Lifers”?

Zenawi’s offer to negotiate face to face (not in his usual backdoor elder-style negotiations) with the OLF and Ginbot 7 Movement seems disingenuous. For years, he has characterized the OLF as a “terrorist” organization whose “main objective is to create a rift between the government and the people of Oromiya.” He has demonized OLF leaders and jailed anyone vaguely suspected of involvement or association with that organization. He has contemptuously characterized Ginbot 7 as an organization of “amateur part-time terrorists.” In kangaroo court, he recently sentenced to death various alleged “members” of Ginbot 7; and in absentia, movement leaders Dr. Berhanu Nega and Andargachew Tsigie, among others. His deputy is on record publicly comparing “opposition” parties with the genocidal Rwandan interhamwe militias. That comment invited sharp censure by the 2005 European Union Election Observation Mission which called it “unacceptable and extremist rhetoric”. Zenawi has jailed Birtukan Midekssa, the first woman political party leader in Ethiopian history, and unquestionably the most important political prisoner on the African continent today, for life. Last December when he was asked if there is a chance Birtukan could ever be released, he categorically and absolutely ruled out any possibility of freedom for her: “There will never be an agreement with anybody to release Birtukan. Ever. Full stop. That’s a dead issue.” It seems totally illogical and downright dishonest for Zenawi to propose good faith negotiations with opposition leaders and organizations allegedly sworn to remove him from power by force while being so deadest against any negotiation or agreement for the release of one harmless innocent young woman!

What Could Be Conceivable Outcomes of Negotiations?

Assuming there are negotiations, Zenawi has given no indications on the negotiable issues. Regardless, what are some conceivable outcomes of any negotiations? Release of Birtukan? Release of all political prisoners? Legalization of the OLF? Commutation of the death sentences of Ginbot 7 members and movement leaders? Fresh free and fair elections? Free functioning of the private press? Establishment of a fully independent elections board? An Independent judiciary? Aha! How about power-sharing a la Zimbabwe and Kenya? (Just kidding!)

A Faustian Negotiation?

The old saying goes, “Give the devil his due.” Zenawi deserves credit for being a masterful zero-sum game player. Political scientists and economists use special analytical models to understand the behavior of negotiators in different settings. In a “zero-sum” negotiation, both “players” (negotiators) desire one particular outcome, but only one of them can have it. One player wins everything and the other loses everything. Stated differently, a zero-sum game is “like arguing over a pie (or injera, the traditional bread of Ethiopia): if one person gets a piece of injera, then the other person gets nothing.” For the past 19 years, Zenawi has been keeping all of the injera to himself, and denying others even a small piece. Now he wants negotiations to share the injera with the rest of the peons who have been watching him eat gluttonously at the dining table of power?

I have tried to logically decipher the type of negotiation Zenawi has in mind, without success. Generally, when someone calls for negotiations, it means that person has formulated his negotiating points and positions and is prepared to give some indication of the negotiable issues to the other side. Zenawi’s offer of negotiation is so vague and cryptic that it seems to be almost an afterthought in his press conference. But there is nothing vague about his zero-sum style of negotiation over the past two decades. Everyone who has “negotiated” with him knows that he has two principles of negotiation (and not the two he mentioned as preconditions for negotiations with the OLF and Ginbot 7): 1) “You are gonna do it my way, or you’re gonna hit the highway! Period.” 2) “What’s mine is mine and what’s yours is negotiable. Period.” These are the two bedrock principles of negotiations Zenawi has followed for the last twenty years in dealing with his opposition both within his own party and those on the outside. Why would he change now?

Surely, Zenawi must realize that no one will negotiate with him on a zero-sum basis. It is irrational for anyone to negotiate one’s own vanquishment? It is illogical to negotiate in a “winner takes all” setting when the winner is already known before the negotiations begin. It is not unlike someone running in an election where the winner has been predetermined and the winning margin of victory (say 99.6 percent) already preordained. Why bother?

A real negotiation is a process of give and take, compromise, good will and even empathy for the other side. It does not seem that Zenawi is capable of such negotiating style. He has always looked at his opposition with contempt. He has never regarded them as his legitimate political opponents with whom he disagrees; rather he has always viewed them as mortal enemies that must be totally and completely vanquished. Political negotiations in Ethiopia can succeed only when there is mutual recognition by all parties of their shared humanity, nationality, commonality of interests, sensitivities, and above all that magical feeling called “Ethiopianity”. There is little room for negotiation and compromise with an “enemy” that one considers a “terrorist”, a “genocidal” maniac or a “criminal”.

Negotiations in the Best Interests of the Nation

I believe in negotiations not because someone could misuse it as tactical weapon in a public relations campaign, but because negotiation to me is the art of the possible. Only principles are non-negotiable. I believe it is possible to have negotiations in the “best interests” of Ethiopia and its people. These “best interests” are, among others, avoiding the long term consequences of ethnic conflict, reduction in political tensions, guaranteeing a better future for Ethiopia’s youth who represent over three-quarters of the population, ensuring respect for human rights, institutionalization of the rule of law, accountability and transparency in government, economic development for society and free personal development for citizens and the like. Negotiations in the “best interests of the nation” require “principled negotiations”, which means the parties must be committed to “win-win” (instead of win-lose zero-sum) outcomes. The parties focus on issues and not personalities; they strive to work around common interests and avoid imposing their hardline positions on each other. Principled negotiators generate and consider a variety of possibilities and solutions before deciding what to do. Above all, they work toward a solution cooperatively and come to an agreement that takes into account not only their individual needs but also optimizes their collective outcomes. Principled negotiators understand that they can attain their goals if, and only if, the others also attain theirs. In sum, principled negotiators cooperate more and compete less, build more trust and work actively to lessen suspicion about each other. It is very possible to negotiate an agreement among those with polarized interests if they can manage to keep their eyes on “best interests of the nation” instead of their partisan and individual interests.

“Respecting the Country’s Constitution?”

As a teacher, practitioner and student of constitutional law, I was mildly amused when Zenawi said he is ready to negotiate with anyone who “respects the country’s Constitution”. When one wags an accusatory index finger at others, it is easy not to notice the three fingers that are pointing to oneself. Before one can pontificate about the constitutional high ground, one must command it. Zenawi must not just demand the opposition to respect the Constitution, he must also respect it. In fact, he should teach the opposition respect for the Constitution by example. But he has not been a good teacher: Article 9 (4) of the Ethiopian Constitution provides, “International agreements ratified by Ethiopia are an integral part of the law of the land.” Zenawi has trashed all human rights conventions as documented for years in the annual reports of the world’s most respected human rights organizations. Article 12 (1) requires that the “activities of government shall be undertaken in a manner which is open and transparent to the public.” Zenawi has concluded dozens of secret international agreements to give up the country’s land and resources without any transparency or accountability. Article 17 (2) guarantees that “No one shall be arrested or detained without being charged or convicted of a crime except in accordance with such procedures as are laid down by law.” Birtukan Midekssa and thousands of political prisoners remain in detention without due process of law. Article 20 (3) requires “Everyone charged with an offence shall be presumed innocent until proved guilty by a court of law…” In practice, every suspect is presumed guilty, and hundreds of thousands of citizens presently languish in prison without charges. Article 29 (2) guarantees that “Everyone shall have the right to freedom of expression without interference…. regardless of frontiers…” Independent journalists in Ethiopia are threatened and jailed by the dozens, and newspapers shuttered. The public media has been reduced into becoming a propaganda machine for the ruling party; international radio and television broadcasts are jammed and internet service kept at the most primitive level to keep citizens from exercising their freedom of expression. Article 38 (1) (b) guarantees, “every citizen the right to vote and to be elected at genuine periodic elections… ” Zenawi won the May 2010 election by 99.6 percent. There is no greater respect that can be shown for the Constitution than respecting the people’s vote!

Confidence Building Measures Before Negotiations

Negotiations require the art of dialogue. Zenawi can only monologue. I really would like to believe he is sincere about negotiations, and his offer of olive branches is genuine. But he has no credibility. His own words and actions betray him. How can anyone in their right minds negotiate with a man who said: “There will never be an agreement with anybody to release Birtukan. Ever. Full stop. That’s a dead issue.” A man who can take such a frighteningly inflexible, uncompromising, unyielding, unbending, rigid and unswayable position on an innocent young woman who has done ABSOLUTELY nothing wrong is incapable of negotiating with “terrorists”, “genocidal” maniacs and “extremists” purportedly sworn to remove him from power. Zenawi is willing to sit down “with anyone” and “negotiate” an agreement to deal with the super-complex problems of Ethiopia but he will never, ever, agree to even consider discussing the simple case of an innocent young woman?

Birtukan’s case is full of ironies. In 2007 she signed a pardon agreement negotiated over several months by a group of “elders” at Zenawi’s direction. A year and half later, Zenawi used the very agreement she negotiated with him for her release from prison as the basis for her summary re-commitment to life in prison. Is it not equally ironic that Zenawi is now extending olive branches to those he believes are sworn to remove him from power by force while keeping imprisoned for life the one person who can negotiate with him in good faith on the very same principles of constitutionalism and peaceful dispute resolution that he talks about? But as the great Mandela said, “Only free men (and women) can negotiate; prisoners cannot enter into contracts.” If Zenawi wants to negotiate with the opposition, he must let Birtukan go free because she is the lioness share of the opposition.

I do not want to be misunderstood. I plead Birtukan’s case not for any particular political outcome, but because she is innocent and has done nothing, absolutely nothing, wrong. She has committed no crime. She has caused harm to no one. She is a threat to nobody. She played meticulously by the very constitutional rules Zenawi extols as his “principles” of negotiation. It is time to let her join her little daughter and aging mother for the Ethiopian new year in September. Why not also let the others who have languished in prison for years on suspicion of “involvement” with the OLF, and Ginbot 7 “members” who were recently jailed, to go free and rejoin their families for the new year? Why not unjam the Voice of America and stop jamming ESAT (Ethiopian Satellite Television)? Let the people hear and see and make up their own minds. I know some will laugh at my naivete for suggesting these obvious ideas for it has been said that “fire, water and dictators know nothing of mercy.” But if one cannot take simple steps to build confidence, mere talk of “principles of negotiations” sound hollow and unconvincing. Perhaps Otto Von Bismarck was right: “When a man says that he approves something in principle, it means he hasn’t the slightest intention of putting it in practice.” As an afterthought, is it possible to shake hands with a man who has fake olive branches in one hand and a gun in the other?

FREE BIRTUKAN AND ALL POLITICAL PRISONERS IN ETHIOPIA!!!

[1] http://allafrica.com/stories/201006101107.html

I would like to say ‘CONGRATULATIONS!’, for our landslide victory over an African country, Niger, in a recently released global competition among countries of the world in Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI). This must be something especially our shameless leaders should crow about and be proud of. Not only our leaders but also those bloggers and writers of the EPRDF Regime, needless to mention their names, who have been advocating that Ethiopia and Ethiopians have been prospering in the last twenty years of EPRDF’s tenure, should be also exulted in this ‘victory’. If quoting from self material had not been considered traditionally taboo, I would have cited the following quotation from my own piece of writing which was posted on Ecadforum and Quatero before that astounding study of the UN/Oxford was released. I wondered by the coincidence. ”Thanks to the leadership of our failed personalities, our country has remained to be among ‘top two’ in every negative aspect of the international matrix, like the index of countries which are NOT safe to invest, or NOT comfortable to live in, or in the frighteningly growing number of beggars, etc.”

As adding an insult to injury, our pathologically liar PM has astounded us in an interview given to selected journalists this week. As usual, he released one of his best, may be his masterpiece in the coming decade, lies without even being ashamed of the international community, leave alone us whom he considers none more important than speaking animals. He said that Ethiopia under his leadership would eradicate poverty and would surpass the level of subsistence agricultural production to the extent of sending the surplus to foreign markets within the coming five years.[ please add some ironic laugh here]

Well, we Ethiopians are not surprised in this madness of our crazy PM. In the coming five years, without any divine intervention, leave alone Ethiopia the poorest nation on Earth, any other country which is led by democratically elected nationalistic leader cannot get rid of the poverty that has been deep-rooted for centuries. In fact, I don’t think anyone would take this bitter joke of our PM serious. It is a simple pastime to many Ethiopians, for we know the chronically acute illness of His Excellency Prime Minister Meles Zenawi. He is literally an ailing Premier especially in regard to lies and hyperbolic expressions. We know he cannot believe that he is alive unless he lies most frequently. I guess his psychiatric doctor might have given him a strict order to lie at least once in a day so that he stays healthy and updated according to the minimum standard of world politics. I know many liars including among my friends. When I try to see them with my little third eye, I tend to sympathize with them because they lie for the sake of their psychological satisfaction, not to hurt others at times. But when we see the lies of PM Meles, they are poisonous and are laid for effect, though in vain and attract no attention from the population except those who would like to be duped for a special purpose. I hope you understand why I am reasonably cruel in explaining the nature of these venomous lies of this pathologically handicapped PM.

Some twenty years back, he promised to enable citizens to feed themselves three times a day in ten years; but we couldn’t even eat once a day now. He promised us that Eritrea would never fire even one bullet, let me repeat this, even one bullet, but more than eighty thousand citizens were killed then after; he said Badime and the surrounding areas had been included to Ethiopia mentioning the decision of the Border Commission, but that was found out to be a white-lie; he said the grain production would be abundant and cheap, he added, but the government was bothering about how the farmers would challenge the low price they would be offered by the grain marketers, nevertheless, that remained a mere wish, there was rather a great famine following his mal-foreseen prediction; recently, in addition to his Great Prophecy of Superfluous Production within five years’ time, he said, in Addis Ababa, EPRDF has no other opposition except the embassy of the United States of America. The lies will go on being mouthed by His Excellency Meles Zenawi ; we will go on being lied; the EPRDF’s media will go on spreading the lies of His Holiness and His Most Reverend PM; on the contrary, Ethiopia and her children will go on suffering to the extent of praising the hellish life in the imaginary Netherworld.

The aforesaid lies of our PM are simply off hand presentations. If you go to papers or good memory of people, you can have thousands of them starting from his jungle life up until the present time of his ‘luxurious’ life in the fiery Palace of Menelik. He is an inborn liar. You don’t have to bet, you will lose all your realty or money if you do. I don’t think he can tell a truth at all. He is a man of satire and irony as well. I wonder if for example he can tell you a correct and direct answer for the question, “What time is it now Mister PM?” Until he enjoys the fruit of his circumlocution, you may become short of your patience or you may forget your question. You cannot get a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ before he shows you his verbosity and the power he has to convince people with meanderingly snaky expressions. This is our beloved leader who survives in power partially with the help of his merciless lies and the international image they result in among the international community, though among the so called international community there are many which are intentionally willing to be deceived for their own political and economic interests. Let the Almighty God give these accomplice the reward they deserve before Ethiopia is gone for good due to their immoral and unethical support. God bless Ethiopia. Ethiopia will prevail by the zealous struggle of her gallant children.

“There are times when I have to flutter an eyelid several times to make sure that all this is not a dream,” says Meles Zenawi, marveling at the miracle of EPRDF’s successful insurgency that propelled him to the helm of the nation. “In milieu of the Derg’s superiority in arms and numbers, and the distressing poverty of the people we mobilized to fight it, I am amazed that we prevailed,” ponders Meles in a new book.

The first of two books about Meles Zenawi slated for release before the New Year came out in Addis on Tuesday. “ Meles Zenawi: Childhood to Maturity” is a clever 150 pages long anthology of Meles’ select interviews — some widely publicized, others much less so — over the past two decades. “In the fifteen years I spent as a (government) journalist, I was unable to come across a single writing that dwells exclusively on who Meles is as a person,” laments Teku Baheta, the author, in the prologue to the book. This is his attempt “to fill a small part of the void.” The second book, at over a thousand pages, is much more extravagantly ambitious than Teku’s modest taking and is authored by a Colonel in the army, who will also attempt to tell us, as he sees it, who the real Meles is. It is scheduled to come out just before the New Year. Both books are part of a semi-official drive to repackage the public profile of Meles Zenawi, long tattered by his public tantrums. This promises to be the ultimate Mission Impossible task; particularly in light of EPRDF’s ludicrous 99.6% “win” in this year’s elections. (The Harari regional government and Ethiopian Telecommunications covered part of the printing costs of Teku’s book. No doubt many more have clamored to ease the Colonel’s “financial burden.” Will he reveal their identities in his book?)

The book starts with Meles’ rather feeble attempt to undo damage unleashed by his mother’s innocent slip of tongue.(“ He threw whatever lay in front of him when provoked,” she had told Aser, an EPRDF controlled magazine, of Meles’ younger years. How this passed the sharp eyes of party censors is one of the great mysteries of the EPRDF. Many suspect party infighting.) An unnamed journalist asks him to comment about his mother’s remark: “Very rarely do I lose my temper,” says a clearly flabbergasted Meles. Alas! All this is on page three. Not the best of starts for a revamping effort.

She reappears on page thirty-nine, again courtesy of the same interview with Aser. What she uttered in motherly innocence is already dodging his legacy: “God save him from repeating the mistakes of past leaders.” She passed away four years before the 2005 elections. Asked to comment, Meles stands powerless before the penetrating insight of her common sense: “One person alone could not live up to those words,” he replies rather meekly. And desperate, he runs to hide behind his party: “Only the party could ensure that,” he winds up.

“In a skirmish with Derg soldiers in the vicinity of Adi Daro, a bullet scratched my head,” says Meles of his extraordinary brush with death during the insurgency. In the same breath though, he underplays the significance of the event, “the wound was not deep. My life was never in danger.” Is this false modesty? Or is it the words of a brave man? Take your pick.

Four pages later, a sensational admission suddenly surfaces. “We (the EPRDF) passed multitude of wrong decisions,” he says. But a surprise is in store. “I have no regrets (about the wrong decisions.) None of them were intentional. We thought we were doing the right thing.” Obviously, the conceit of a privileged person who has never been held accountable for his decisions. A privilege, needless to say, that is absent in democracies.

In subsequent pages, Meles speaks of the downside of life at the top(as they all say, its lonely up there), of his advent in to politics, and how he really is not indispensable to the EPRDF. “There is no scientific explanation for the indispensable person,” says Meles. (Aigaforum’s old guards: How do you respond?)

Then a jerk twenty years back in time, to 1990, when Meles was visiting Washington for the first time. “Most of the time I listen to the Amharic service of the VOA,” Meles tells Paul Henze, who interviewed him at the newly purchased EPRDF office in NW Washington D.C. Fast forward to the present, and Meles tells us somewhere in the book that he has time only for satellite television. Radio is no more part of his world; no doubt simplifying his decision to jam his once favorite station. Unfortunately, the same could not be said of the rest of the nation.

The bombshell comes roughly half way in to the book, on page sixty-two to be exact. Positioned to the left at the top, five bold words dominate the page: What is democracy to Meles? He responds in three crunchy sentences, neatly summed up in five lines. “To me democracy is the people’s partaking in shaping the policies that affect their welfare,” says Meles in the first sentence, eerily echoing the sentiment of left-leaning authoritarianism. “Whether this is facilitated by 50, or 5, or even 1 party is secondary to me,” he asserts in the second sentence, denying (a change of heart after the 2005 elections) the irrevocable linkage between pluralism and democracy. “So democracy to me is essentially enabling the people to have meaningful participation in the fundamental issues that matter to them.” This apparently is a very different person to the one Paul Henze spoke with twenty years ago. His sentiments and loyalties are visibly changed. He thinks democracy is possible without pluralism. (It would be too cynical to assume that his pose was a ruse from the very beginning.)

But he himself dreads the possibility of living under a dictatorship. (That is, one he is not leading.) Here is a journalist raising the possibility with him: If you have to choose between democracy and bread (in other words, rapid economic growth), what would be your pick, he asks him. “Death is preferable to total submission. That is why we fought (the Derg.) Whatever the (intellectual) rationalization, there are some things I can not tolerate,” says a self assured Meles. Admirable!! Would it be too bold to assume that a 99.6% electoral victory by any party other than the EPRDF is one of them, sir?

And his thoughts on Mengistu, the man he replaced? “From my perspective, he is effectively in prison. He hasn’t really escaped.” Would he ever forgive Mengistu? No. But he is not blunt about it. This time he hides behind lofty words. The impassioned Meles is no where in sight.

And finally, the people he likes and loathes: “Good or bad, I have high opinion of a person who has principles. I am not comfortable with an unprincipled person, one who vacillates; even if that person is our (EPRDF) supporter. A person who knows what he likes and dislikes, and doggedly stands up for things he believes in carries weight with me. That is the kind of person I call a good person.”

Hope that the many sycophants in Addis (and the cyberworld) will buy and read the book.

The Development Assistance Group, an Addis Ababa-based body comprising 26 agencies that give assistance to Ethiopia, examined four programs that receive about $1.5 billion a year from donors. Its report found that two of the four programs “face important challenges” and concluded that while all four have accountability systems that provide checks on “distortion for political gain,” they should be strengthened further.

Merera Gudina, chairman of the OPC, said he was “not enthusiastic” about the report.

“I am fed up of complaining to donors when they are consciously refusing to know and/or knowing the truth but they are refusing to face the reality,” Merera said in an e-mailed response to questions. The OPC is part of the so-called Medrek alliance of Ethiopia’s main opposition parties.

Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi’s ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front and its allies won all but two of the 547 seats in the Horn of Africa country’s parliament in the elections. A European Union election observer mission said in a May 25 report the vote did “not meet certain international commitments.”

Opposition parties and foreign non-governmental organizations alleged before the vote that individuals were denied aid because of political affiliation; the distribution of aid was handed to party members; and some areas received a disproportionate share of aid for political reasons.

‘Overstepping Responsibilities’

The U.K. Department for International Development-led study didn’t investigate “specific allegations” because donors felt that risked “overstepping our responsibilities and remit.”

Former U.S. Ambassador to Ethiopia David Shinn called the report a “careful, thorough and rather bureaucratic response” to “highly charged allegations.”

The Ethiopian government’s commitment to the study and to implementing its findings was “encouraging,” Shinn said in an e-mailed response to questions on Aug. 11.

Ethiopia’s Finance and Communications Ministries didn’t respond to requests for comment.

To contact the reporter on this story: William Davison in Addis Ababa via Johannesburg at pmrichardson@bloomberg.net.

Reporting from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia — Like many in the West, former U.S. Ambassador to Ethiopia David Shinn watched the country’s recent elections for signs that democracy was finally taking root.

When the results of the May vote were announced, all but two of 547 parliamentary seats went to the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front, the coalition that has been in power here for nearly 20 years, or its allied parties.

“How do you win 99% of the vote?” Shinn said. “That’s un-American.” And yet, he said, “Ethiopia remains a darling of the donor community.”

The U.S. gives about $1 billion annually to Ethiopia, more than to any other country in sub-Saharan Africa except Sudan. But even as U.S. and other international aid to Ethiopia has surged in the last decade, activists charge that the government has become more authoritarian.

“There’s been an inverse ratio of rising donor aid and a worsening human rights record,” said Leslie Lefkow, a researcher with Human Rights Watch.

Prime Minister Meles Zenawi’s government has won a degree of favor from the West for sending troops to fight radical Islamists in neighboring Somalia, but reports of rights abuses and a string of draconian laws that have constricted political space have put donor countries in an awkward position.

“It’s a dilemma for the international donor community, which doesn’t want to walk away from Ethiopia because the needs are so great,” said Jennifer Cooke, the director of the Africa program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Recent allegations of aid corruption have caused further unease among donor countries.

A March report by Human Rights Watch alleged a countrywide pattern of local government leaders denying aid to opposition supporters. Eligibility for many major aid programs is determined by local government officials — almost all of whom belong to the ruling coalition or its affiliates.

One former Ethiopian aid worker, who didn’t want to be named out of fear of government retribution, told The Times that aid is leveraged by local leaders to consolidate power.

“Aid is a tool for development,” the aid worker said. “It is also a tool for politics.”

Ethiopian officials deny such claims. Communications Minister Bereket Simon said Human Rights Watch was “engaged in the continuous fabrication of allegations” and said Ethiopia “has put in place a transparent mechanism for the distribution of food aid.”

But Western donors appear to be taking the allegations seriously.

Claims that aid programs had fallen victim to political distortion prompted an investigation into U.S.-funded food programs in seven local districts in December 2009, said an official with the U.S. Agency for International Development.

The probe “found no indication of political discrimination,” the official said.

A report released last week by a consortium of donors that includes the U.S., several European countries and the World Bank conceded that Western aid programs would benefit from more transparency and independent monitoring.

The Donor Assistance Group report said donor countries would work with the Ethiopian government “for continued strengthening of safeguards” against fraud.

Africa experts agree that walking away from Ethiopia is out of the question.

Almost a sixth of Ethiopia’s 85 million people depend on food aid. In an added geopolitical dimension, twin bombings in Uganda last month by the Al Qaeda-linked Somali militant group Shabab underscored the importance of having U.S. allies in the troubled Horn of Africa.

Ethiopia’s rise to “donor darling” is due in large part to its savvy leader, Cooke said.

Meles, the former Marxist guerrilla leader who has ruled Ethiopia since 1991, “is good at talking the donor speak and the rhetoric of development,” she said.

Hailed by former President Clinton as part of a new generation of African leaders who would bring stability to the continent, Meles was invited to sit on then-British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s Commission for Africa in 2004.

The commission argued that economic growth and democracy would come to Africa only after hunger, poverty and the spread of disease were stamped out — an expensive proposition that required a “big push” of new aid.

The year after he was named to the commission, security forces loyal to Meles killed nearly 200 people who were protesting that year’s election and arrested tens of thousands of opposition supporters, including Birtukan Mideksa, an opposition leader who is now serving life in prison for violating the conditions of a 2007 pardon.

The U.S. has been cautious in its criticism, although some say the Obama administration has been taking a tougher tone. In May, a top U.S. diplomat said the recent elections “were not up to international standards.”

Meles bristles at such statements and has suggested that Ethiopia could forgo its dependence on Western aid for a closer relationship with China, which has lent money for a dizzying number of development projects in recent years.

“If [the U.S.] feels the outcome of the elections are such that we cannot continue our relationship,” he warned in May, “that’s fine and we can move on.”

kate.linthicum@latimes.com

According to a new index developed by Oxford University and the UN, Ethiopia under Prime Minister Meles Zenawi is ranked the second poorest country on earth.

The new measurement known as the Multidimensional Poverty Index, or MPI, will replace the Human Poverty Index in the United Nations’ annual Human Development Report. The new report says Ethiopia has the second highest percentage of people who are MPI poor in the world, with only the west African nation of Niger fairing worse. This comes as more international analysts have also begun to question the accuracy of the Meles government’s double-digit economic growth claims and similar disputed government statistics referred by institutions like the IMF.

In 2009, the percentage of Ethiopians who are in chronic need of food aid tripled to nearly 20 percent of the population compared to 1990 when the country was ruled by the pro-Soviet communist government of Mengistu Haile Mariam. Despite the reportedly worsening economic and political situation in a country where the top opposition leader Judge Birtukan Mideksa remains in prison, the Zenawi government continues to receive billions in aid from the US and other western nations.

10 POOREST COUNTRIES IN THE WORLD

1.Niger
2.Ethiopia
3.Mali
4.Burkina Faso
5.Burundi
6.Somalia
7.Central African Republic
8.Liberia
9.Guinea
10.Sierra Leone

Multidimensional Poverty Index

OPHI and the UNDP Human Development Report launch the Multidimensional Poverty Index or MPI – an innovative new measure that gives a vivid “multidimensional” picture of people living in poverty. The MPI will be featured in the 20th Anniversary edition of the UNDP Human Development Report and complements income by reflecting a range of deprivations that afflict a person’s life at the same time. The measure assesses the nature and intensity of poverty at the individual level in education, health outcomes, and standard of living. OPHI has just concluded a first ever estimate and analysis of global multidimensional poverty across 104 developing countries, and is releasing these results in advance of the Report’s October publication.

What is the MPI?
The lives of people living in poverty are affected by more than just their income. The Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) complements a traditional focus on income to reflect the deprivations that a poor person faces all at once with respect to education, health and living standard. It assesses poverty at the individual level, with poor persons being those who are multiply deprived, and the extent of their poverty being measured by the range of their deprivations.

The MPI can be used to create a vivid picture of people living in poverty, both across countries, regions and the world and within countries by ethnic group, urban/rural location, or other key household characteristics. It is the first international measure of its kind, and offers an essential complement to income poverty measures because it measures deprivations directly. The MPI can be used as an analytical tool to identify the most vulnerable people, show aspects in which they are deprived and help to reveal the interconnections among deprivations. This enables policy makers to target resources and design policies more effectively. Other dimensions of interest, such as work, safety, and empowerment, could be incorporated into the MPI in the future as data become available.

The MPI reports acute poverty for 104 developing countries, which are home to 78% of the world’s people.

What does the MPI measure?
The MPI uses 10 indicators to measure three critical dimensions of poverty at the household level: education, health and living standard in 104 developing countries. These directly measured deprivations in health and educational outcomes as well as key services such as water, sanitation, and electricity reveal not only how many people are poor but also the composition of their poverty. The MPI also reflects the intensity of poverty – the sum of weighted deprivations that each household faces at the same time. A person who is deprived in 70% of the indicators is clearly worse off than someone who is deprived in 40% of the indicators.

Why is the MPI useful?
The MPI is a high resolution lens on poverty – it shows the nature of poverty better than income alone. Knowing not just who is poor but how they are poor is essential for effective human development programs and policies. This straightforward yet rigorous index allows governments and other policymakers to understand the various sources of poverty for a region, population group, or nation and target their human development plans accordingly. The index can also be used to show shifts in the composition of poverty over time so that progress, or the lack of it, can be monitored.

The MPI goes beyond previous international measures of poverty to:

•Show all the deprivations that impact someone’s life at the same time – so it can inform a holistic response.
•Identify the poorest people. Such information is vital to target people living in poverty so they benefit from key interventions.
•Show which deprivations are most common in different regions and among different groups, so that resources can be allocated and policies designed to address their particular needs.
•Reflect the results of effective policy interventions quickly. Because the MPI measures outcomes directly, it will immediately reflect changes such as school enrolment, whereas it can take time for this to affect income.
•Integrate many different aspects of poverty related to the MDGs into a single measure, reflecting interconnections among deprivations and helping to identify poverty traps.
MPI Interactive map
—
Source: Jimma Times

“I think that this is a very ambitious plan but at the very least the base-case scenario is doable,” Meles said. “The high-case scenario is not unimaginable.”

The Ethiopian government predicts growth of about 10 percent for 2010/2011. The International Monetary Fund says the economy will grow by 7 percent.

Ethiopia’s economic climate is watched by foreign investors interested in commodity exports and its potential oil and gas reserves.

The country is one of Africa’s largest potential markets — with a population of about 80 million — and most of its people have no telephones or bank accounts.

Meles, who was returned to power for five more years in a disputed May election victory, has ruled out privatising the banking and telecommunications sectors despite pressure from Western donors to do so.

The former rebel told Reuters in an interview on election day that improving Ethiopia’s energy supply and expanding its industries would be his priorities for the next five years, after which he would retire.

The plan, called “Growth and Transformation,” also predicts a huge expansion of infrastructure, with the country’s power production set to increase from 2,000MW to 10,000MW and the construction of 2,395 km of railway lines.

Ethiopia plans to spend $12 billion over 25 years on realising its ambition of become a power exporter on a continent where shortages are common and cost industry dear.

The bones appear to have been cut and smashed some 3.4 million years ago, the first evidence of stone tool use by Australopithecus afarensis, the species best known for the fossil dubbed “Lucy,” says researcher Zeresenay Alemseged.

“We are putting stone tools in their hands,” said Alemseged (”Uh-lems-uh-ged”) of the California Academy of Sciences, who reports the finding with colleagues in Thursday’s issue of the journal Nature.

Some experts urged caution about the study’s conclusions.

The study authors said the bones indicate the human ancestor used sharp stones to carve meat from the carcasses of large animals and other stones to smash bones to get at the marrow. One bone is a rib from a creature the size of a cow, and the other a leg bone from something the size of a goat. No stone tools were found at the site.

The researchers also called the finding the earliest evidence for meat-eating among hominins, an evolutionary group that includes people and their ancestors.

The study authors attributed the tool use to afarensis because no other hominin is known from that time in the area where the bones were found. The skeleton of a young afarensis female, dubbed “Selam,” had previously been found about 200 yards away from the bone site. The Lucy fossil, which dates to 3.2 million years ago, was discovered in the same general area in 1974.

Alemseged said afarensis probably scavenged carcasses rather than hunting live animals, and ate the meat raw. The researchers said it’s not clear whether the stone tools were made or were simply stones that were used as tools. But they plan to look for evidence of tool-making.

Alemseged also said that as some afarensis stripped meat from a carcass, others probably stood guard to ward off other animals in return for some of the meat, which would indicate a degree of cooperative behavior.

Until now, the earliest sign of tool use dated to about 2.6 million years ago, also in Ethiopia. It’s not clear who used those tools.

Some experts were unconvinced by the Nature paper’s arguments.

“I’m very cautious about the conclusions,” said Nicholas Toth of Indiana University, a paleoanthropologist who studies early stone tools.

The bones were found on the surface rather than being excavated, he said. That means nobody knows exactly what layers of earth they came from, which is key to knowing their age and associating them with other bones and materials to give them context, he said.

What’s more, judging from photos in the Nature paper, the bone markings differ from the marks typically left by stone tools, he said. That raises questions about whether they were actually caused by trampling or animal bites, Toth said.

In fact, those markings look like the work of crocodiles, said Tim White of the University of California, Berkeley. And they don’t appear in the places on the bones that one would expect from a butchering, he said.

He also said that 30 years of searching has failed to find any stone tools as old as the bones. “It’s not like people haven’t been looking. People have been looking intensively,” he said.

“An extraordinary claim requires extraordinary evidence,” White said. “The evidence is very thin here, and very ambiguous.”

But Bernard Wood of George Washington University declared, “I’d be willing to bet a month’s salary that those are cut marks (from stone tools) and not tooth marks.”

Wood compared the find to the famous 1978 discovery of tracks in Tanzania that showed upright walking 3.6 million years ago, most likely by afarensis.

The bone markings “are as significant a statement about early hominin behavior as the Laetoli footprints are about hominin locomotion,” Wood said. While it’s reasonable to assume that afarensis wielded the tools, he said, Alemseged’s ideas about the butchers being guarded by other afarensis in exchange for meat is “pushing the envelope a bit far.”

Wood also said the finding suggests afarensis ate meat but doesn’t prove it, because maybe they cut off animal flesh just to get to the marrow.

The Gibe 3 Dam is currently under construction on Ethiopia’s Omo River. As we have documented in eyewitness reports, articles and commentaries, the dam could lead to the collapse of the fragile ecosystems of the Lower Omo Valley and Lake Turkana. No less than 500,000 poor indigenous people depend on these ecosystems for their survival. The dam endangers two World Heritage Sites.

The concerns of affected people and NGOs have meanwhile been confirmed by official studies. A review of the project’s impacts on Lake Turkana commissioned by the African Development Bank states: “Lake Turkana is dependant on the Omo River for almost 90% of its inflow. The river is the lake’s umbilical cord. If the Omo River inflow is cut, the lake level will fall. (…) The filling of the dam has the potential to dry up Ferguson’s Gulf, the most productive fishing area of the lake.” The Ethiopian government has expressed an interest in using the Gibe 3 Project for irrigation. If this happens, the study finds, the world’s largest desert lake “could drop 40 metres, and could ultimately be reduced to two small puddles.”

Ethiopia will not be able to build the $1.7 billion dam project without international support. Yet in spite of strenuous efforts over the last four years, the government has not managed to secure any foreign funding. The institutions which have evaluated Gibe 3 include the World Bank, the African Development Bank, the European Investment Bank, Italy’s export credit agency SACE, and US bank JP Morgan Chase. For one reason or the other, none of them have become involved. Funders don’t usually inform the public if they decide not to finance a project, but it is clear that the Gibe 3 Dam would violate environmental standards which many of them have endorsed.

In May, Ethiopia’s government announced that the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) would fund a Chinese equipment contract for Gibe 3 with a loan of approximately $450 million. ICBC is China’s and the world’s biggest commercial bank. Kenya’s Friends of Lake Turkana, BankTrack and International Rivers immediately called on ICBC to stay out of the project. “Funding the Gibe 3 Project would seriously damage ICBC’s reputation as a diligent, environmentally responsible bank,” the three organizations warned in a letter to the bank’s CEO.

ICBC has meanwhile clarified that it has not yet taken a decision on the Gibe 3 loan. Wei Guoxiong, the bank’s Chief Risk Officer, assured a Chinese business newspaper that ICBC was evaluating the project “very carefully, very carefully”. “Although ICBC is a commercial bank, we are not a mercenary,” Wei Guoxiong said. “We will not support [projects with serious environmental impacts], whether domestically or abroad.” ICBC has expressed a strong commitment to China’s Green Credit Policy and has won numerous banking awards, including a prize for the country’s Best Corporate Citizen. Gibe 3 will put those commitments to the test.

ICBC has a 20 percent stake in South Africa’s Standard Bank. Standard Bank is advising ICBC on African projects such as Gibe 3. The South African bank has signed the Equator Principles, an environmental standard for the international banking sector. The Gibe 3 Dam would violate the banking standards on social and environmental assessment, indigenous peoples, and biodiversity conservation. While ICBC has not signed the Equator Principles, its Chief Risk Officer argues that its policies are “in some cases more stringent” than these standards.

Chinese investment in African infrastructure is much needed. We have often pointed out problems with specific projects and the environmental standards of Chinese funders. We have also acknowledged the environmental progress that has happened in recent years. With this background, the Gibe 3 Dam is a test case for China’s future role in Africa. Hardly any other project has been so extensively documented, discussed by international financiers and civil society, and covered in the media.

If ICBC declines to fund Gibe 3, China’s biggest bank will demonstrate that it respects international environmental standards in its funding decisions, and that it can become a leading actor in the global banking sector. If ICBC does provide funding for the project, it will put hundreds of thousands of poor people at risk, undermine international environmental standards, and taint its own reputation.

Peter Bosshard is the policy director of International Rivers. He blogs at www.internationalrivers.org/en/blog/peter-bosshard

The Africa Kleptocracy Project

In June 2008, when presidential candidate Barack Obama was a few months away from electoral victory, I warned those dictators who survive by pickpocketing the American tax payer of the arrival of a “new sheriff” in town and advised them to clean up their acts and “shape up”[1]: “A new sheriff is coming to town. He does not carry a six-shooter but carries a law book. And he’s laying down the law for all the tin-pot dictators of the world.” In April 2009, I “read the tea leaves”[2] again and urged Africa’s panhandling dictators to “ride out before the big roundup” because the “new sheriff and posse are in town.” I am glad to say I read the tea leaves just right.

Barack’s Posse was a little late but finally showed up in Kampala, Uganda last week to lay down the law to Africa’s top kleptocrats (thieves masquerading as “heads of state”) gathered at their annual summit. President Obama’s “undersheriffs”, Attorney General (A.G) Eric Holder and Johnnie Carson, U.S. Assistant Secretary for African Affairs, told the huddled kleptocrats that a special Kleptocracy Asset Recovery Initiative (KARI) has been established in the U.S. Justice Department to recover the money they and their criminal cohorts have stolen from their citizens and restore it to its intended use:

I am pleased to announce that the U.S. Department of Justice is launching a new Kleptocracy Asset Recovery Initiative aimed at combating large-scale foreign official corruption and recovering public funds for their intended – and proper – use: for the people of our nations. We’re assembling a team of prosecutors who will focus exclusively on this work and build upon efforts already underway to deter corruption… I know that prosecution is not the only effective way to curb global corruption. We will continue to work with your governments to strengthen the entire judicial sector… We must also work with business leaders to encourage, ensure and enforce sound corporate governance. We should not, and must not settle for anything less… As many here have learned — often in painful and devastating ways — corruption imperils development, stability, competition and economic investment. It also undermines the promise of democracy… Like President Obama, I believe that the 21st century will be shaped by what happens here in Africa. Your security and prosperity, the health of your people and the strength of your civil society, will have a direct and profound impact on the world’s communities and on the advancement of human rights and human progress everywhere.

A couple of months ago, A.G. Holder addressing the 35-nation Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in Paris said:

Put simply, corruption undermines the promise of democracy. It imperils development, stability and faith in our markets. And it weakens the rule of law. Corruption erodes, even destroys, the faith of citizens in their governments. As I speak, a corrupt official somewhere is enjoying undeserved and illegal proceeds. He may be driving a brand-new luxury car. She may be filling her off-shore bank account with tainted cash. They may be traveling first-class on all-expenses-paid holidays. Bribery in international business, for example, may center on shell companies and wire transfers, but no matter where — or how — it happens, the corrosive result is the same: stymied development, lost confidence and distorted competition. The result is unfairness, not justice; the consequence is economic decay, not development.

African Kleptocrats as Organized Criminals (Mafia)

In my commentary “Africorruption, Inc.”, I argued that the business of African governments is corruption.[3] In other words, the majority of African “leaders” seize political power to operate sophisticated criminal enterprises to loot their national treasuries and resources. President Obama’s approach to dealing with corrupt African governments is consistent with the informed view that corruption is not only the lifeblood of African dictatorships but also the most important single factor that accounts for gross violations of human rights and violent suppression of democratic institutions on the continent. Just like any organized criminal enterprise, be they street-level or Mafia-style gangsters, African kleptocrats have used threats, fear, intimidation and violence to maintain and perpetuate their corrupt financial empires. In that context, A.G. Holder’s announcement was nothing short of breathtaking. It was as though he was addressing the national convention of the “Commissione” of all the Mafia families from New York City, Chicago, Detroit, Miami, Atlantic City, Las Vegas, St. Louis, Los Angeles and Philadelphia. In Kampala, he was talking directly to the African equivalents of the Godfathers of the Bonnano, Columbo, Gambino, Genovese, and Lucchese crime families in one place. It was almost surreal.

Though A.G. Holder told the African kleptocrats that he has a posse of special corruption prosecutors saddled up, he omitted telling them what tools he would be using to bring them to justice. They can rest assured that he will be coming after them armed with the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (commonly referred to as the RICO Act or RICO; 18 U.S.C. § 1961–1968). RICO was originally enacted to prosecute the Mafia and others actively engaged in organized criminal activity. Over the years its use has been expanded to cover corporate and other crimes; and now its application is likely to be expanded even further to go after the corrupt and thieving African dictators who launder hundreds of millions of dollars every year in the U.S. buying businesses and homes and making “investments” in legitimate commercial enterprises. Section 1962 of RICO provides in part:

(a) It shall be unlawful for any person who has received any income derived, directly or indirectly, from a pattern of racketeering activity… to use or invest, directly or indirectly, any part of such income, or the proceeds of such income, in acquisition of any interest in, or the establishment or operation of, any enterprise which is engaged in, or the activities of which affect, interstate or foreign commerce. (b)… through a pattern of racketeering activity… to acquire or maintain, directly or indirectly, any interest in or control of any enterprise which is engaged in, or the activities of which affect, interstate or foreign commerce… (c) It shall be unlawful for any person employed by or associated with any enterprise engaged in, or the activities of which affect, interstate or foreign commerce, to conduct or participate, directly or indirectly, in the conduct of such enterprise’s affairs through a pattern of racketeering activity… (d) It shall be unlawful for any person to conspire to violate any of the provisions of subsection (a), (b), or (c) of this section.

Simply stated, African kleptocrats who rob their nations blind and bring their stolen loot to the U.S. to launder it will be tracked down and forced to disgorge and face jail time as well. What is potentially devastating to African kleptocrats is the fact that a RICO charge could be brought not only against them, but also their his associates, business partners, investors, and any others in the U.S. or elsewhere who “directly or indirectly” facilitate their criminal enterprises. The penalties are severe: up to $25,000 and 20 years in prison per racketeering count. The racketeer must give up all of the gains from their criminal activity including the hundreds of millions tucked away in U.S. banks. RICO also allows private individuals damaged by the racketeer to file a civil suit and collect treble (three times) damages if they are successful. Proving a RICO charge in court is considered to be relatively easy as it focuses on patterns of behavior as opposed to criminal acts. Since conspiracy is one of the charges that could be brought in a RICO case, the kleptocrats underlings, accountants, business associates and partners and collaborators could be prosecuted.

Fixing Human Rights Violations by Prosecuting Kleptocrats

A.G. Holder says the Obama Administration is committed to battling corruption as “one of the great struggles of our time.” Holder’s words, if translated into concrete action could have a huge impact not only on governance in Africa but also in improving human rights protections. Corruption is fundamentally a human rights issue. As Peter Eigen, founder and chairman of Transparency International has argued, “[C]orruption leads to a violation of human rights in at least three respects: corruption perpetuates discrimination, corruption prevents the full realisation of economic, social, and cultural rights, and corruption leads to the infringement of numerous civil and political rights. Beyond that, corruption undermines the very essence of the rule of law and destroys citizens’ trust in political leaders, public officials and political institutions.”

The fascinating thing about the Obama Administration’s approach is its creative use of U.S. criminal statutes to deal with African dictators as organized criminal enterprises. Simply stated, the Administration has decided to deal with African dictators as Mafia bosses! If the U.S. could effectively investigate, vigorously prosecute and aggressively seize the assets of Africa’s kleptocrats, the continent may finally begin to see significant improvements in human rights and governance, a dramatic reduction in corruption and generate significant resources from recovered assets for investment in infrastructure and other social programs for the African population.

As I have previously documented[3], Transparency International [TI] (the global coalition against corruption) in its 2009 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) again bestowed upon Africa the dubious honor of being Kleptocracy Central, the continental home of the world’s most corrupt governments in the world. Leading the parade of kleptocracies are the regimes in Ethiopia, the Sudan, Zimbabwe, Equatorial Guinea, Kenya and the warlords of Somalia. These countries scored an atrocious 3.0 or less on the index. In certain countries, the corruption trend appears to be irreversible. For instance, in 2002, Ethiopia received a dismal score of 3.5 on the corruption index. In 2009, eight years after the ruling regime had established the “Federal Ethics and Anti-corruption Commission” (FEAC) with great fanfare and after periodic reports of “major accomplishments” in combating corruption, Ethiopia’s score dropped to an abysmal 2.7.

Publicly-owned assets are acquired in Ethiopia by regime-supporters or officials through illegal transactions and fraud. Banks loan millions of dollars to front enterprises owned by regime officials or their supporters without sufficient or proper collateral. Businessmen must pay huge bribes or kickbacks to participate in public contracting and procurement. Those involved in the import/export business complain of shakedowns by corrupt customs officials. The judiciary is thoroughly corrupted through political interference and manipulation as evidenced in the various high profile political prosecutions. Ethiopians on holiday visits driving about town complain of shakedowns by police thugs on the streets. Even the U.S. State Department spokesman Ian Kelley stated last year that the U.S. is investigating allegations that “$850 million in food and anti-poverty aid from the U.S. is being distributed on the basis of political favoritism by the current prime minister’s party.”

Over the past three years, high profile corruption cases in Ethiopia have been reported in the media. In one case, it was established that “USD$16 million dollars” worth of gold bars simply walked out of the bank in broad daylight. The official “anti-corruption” agency described the heist as a “huge scandal that took place in the Country’s National Bank and took many Ethiopians by surprise [in which] corruptors dared to steal lots of pure gold bars that belonged to the Ethiopian people replacing them with gilded irons… Some employees of the Bank, business people, managers and other government employees were allegedly involved in this disastrous and disgracing scandal.” In another case involving a telecommunications deal with the Chinese, a high level regime official was secretly tape recorded trying to extort kickbacks for himself and other regime officials. The same “anti-corruption” agency reported that “there was another big corruption case at the Ethiopian Telecommunications Corporation that took many Ethiopians by surprise” which involved the “competitive tendering for the supply of telecommunication equipment.” After an investigation, FEAC “found out that nearly 200 million USD has been lost to corruption through the entire fraudulent and corrupt process.” No high level official in good standing with the regime has ever been investigated or prosecuted for corruption.

The poor and powerless bear the brunt of corruption in Africa. The devastating impact of corruption on the continent’s poor becomes self-evident as political leaders and public officials siphon off resources from critical school, hospital, road and other public works and community projects to line their pockets. As for President Obama, it seems that he has finally found the silver bullet to deal with Africa’s corrupt thugs. In a pun, no more cash and KARI for Africa’s kleptocrats.

To be continued….

FREE BIRTUKAN MIDEKSSA AND ALL POLITICAL PRISONERS IN ETHIOPIA.

[1] http://www.ethiomedia.com/all/6070.html
[2] http://www.abugidainfo.com/?p=8693
[3] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alemayehu-g-mariam/africorruption-inc_b_367268.html

The second stated reason for the demonstration was, “Continuous Economic growth and its right to use the Nile River.” Here again, more questions than answers. Why would a country that claims to have successfully organized Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda and Kenya and signed an agreement need, the US regarding the right of the Nile river use? Why did Meles need to demonstrate when he has signed an accord with Egypt in July 1993 in Cairo? Article 6 of the accord states:

“The two parties agree on the necessity of the conservation and protection of the Nile Waters. In this regard, they undertake to consult and cooperate in projects that are mutually advantageous, such as projects that would enhance the volume of flow and reduce the loss of Nile Waters through comprehensive and integrated development schemes.”

In addition, Meles Zenawi signed another agreement with Cairo acknowledging Egypt’s quota over Nile River in December of 2009. Therefore, why is he demonstrating after the fact? How is US involvement going to change the agreement? Furthermore, why would the US put itself in a position to have to choose between Egypt and Ethiopia? Why would the US antagonize Egypt who has been a staunch ally and key supporter of Israel and US policies in the Middle East for decades? Is Meles Zenawi giving the US an ultimatum you are either with Ethiopia or with Egypt?
   
The third reason for the demonstration was “Opposition to the recent terrorist acts against our people in Uganda.” Again, questions, questions and questions yet, no explanation. First, why tie poverty alleviation to anti terror campaign? Secondly, Ethiopia is the number one beneficiary of the billions spent on the war on terror. Then, why did Meles see a need to demonstrate? Is he looking for additional funding? Did the US stop providing him with the funds? Why demonstrate in opposition to a terror act in the US in front of the State Department? Is the US not supportive of Ethiopia’s efforts everywhere? Curiously, is the terrorist Al Shabab, sanctioned by the US? Is the US harboring and providing sanctuaries to Al Shabab?

Furthermore, the demonstration was, “In opposition to the recent terrorist acts against OUR people in Uganda.” How about those Eritreans that died in the blast in the Ethiopian restaurant? It is ironic; of all the people that died in that Ethiopian restaurant that evening, nearly all were Eritreans and yet, there is no mention of them. What is curious is Aigaforum is claiming their Eritrean friends will come and join the demonstrations while they failed to acknowledge Eritreans that died in the blast. The reality however, Meles-ovich or his criminal gangs of Aigaforum do not have Eritrean friends.

The Scoop

Meles Zenawi and his friend Yoweri Museveni believe that they can continue on receiving the financial gains they used to get during the Bush Administration. There are some in Meles’ circles saying, “Why farm when all you need is boots.” Sending troops for peacekeeping missions yields good cash for these despots. In 2007, the average cost per troop for the UN was as follows: $1,028 for pay and allowances, $303 supplementary pay for specialists, $68 for personal clothing gear and equipment and $5 for personal weaponry. These does not include logistical and troop transportation expenses, the further the distance and the rougher the road the more the money. Therefore, there is no incentive for the troop providing countries like Ethiopia to use shorter routs. For example, the distances from Addis Ababa to Port Mombassa is 1804, Addis Ababa to Port Sudan 1696, Addis Ababa Mogadishu 1520, Addis Ababa to Berbera 943 and Addis Ababa Djibouti 910 kilometers.

It is ironic that the bombings in Uganda happened just days before the African Union was to meet in Uganda. Ethiopia and Uganda are the countries that desperately wanted to change the Somalia Mission mandate and escalate the troop numbers to about 20, 000. They heavily relied on the bombings to convince the US and AU into changing the mandate from peace- keeping into active peace-enforcement. Their aim was to try to make the bombings into a 911 type of mandate that propelled the ouster of the Taliban from Afghanistan. That would have given them opportunities to unlimited funds and for extended period to hunt Al Shabab door to door. That failed and failed miserably because the US and AU rejected it outright.

Over the last five years, IGAD essentially replaced the African Union. Meles and Musevini used IGAD to pass their agendas using all kinds of trickery and went crazy thinking that they can keep hijacking African matters but run into a wall during the last AU session in Kampala. The dynamics have changed completely. The AU members have decided to take back the AU. The Community of Sahel-Saharan States CEN-SAD came with one voice and decisions to put a stop to it all and there was nothing any power could do to change that collective advantage..

Most importantly, in pursuing to change the mandate, Ethiopia and Uganda made the miscalculation by thinking that they can take ownership of the so-called “War on terror” from the US and the US rejected it. In other words, these despots let their greed and ill-perceived senses of confidence guide them into their failures. They failed in Somalia miserably. The TFG they tried to screw on to power failed to make a dent let along establish itself. Some analysts have said,” The idea that 8,000 or 10,000 ill equipped African troops are going to be able to defeat the insurgency is utterly delusional.” That is the reality. Meles and Museveni are mercenaries that could only take orders not the other way around. Their aim was to try to make money-using peacekeepers in Somalia not to bring peace or stability there.

As for the Nile, Meles-ovich is using the Nile as a wedge issue in order to change the subject from his domestic issues in the same manner that he used the Eritrean port of Assab for a while! That will not work because Ethiopians have outsmarted him and rejected his devious ploys. In fact, time has come that Ethiopians, Eritreans have started to work together, and it is certain that it will bear fruit.

Conclusion

What the demonstration exposed was that Meles-ovich and his cronies are in the outside looking in. They are about to get layoff notices. It is a sign of a shift in US policies. It was unthinkable for a while for Meles-ovich who enjoyed unfettered access to the State Department to send his cronies in a blues T-shirts (which looked like prisoners shirts) to shout outside the doors of the State Department. It is a true sign of desperation. After he “Won” the landslide victory, 99.6% to be exact, he was trying to show the US he has that type of support in the Diaspora. However, he was not able to bring enough people to fill a small restaurant. Meles-ovich and his Aigaforum cronies conveniently forgot that the US has expressed its disapproval of the election and stated that it did not meet international standards. That is also a reflection of the international community’s views. Meles went as far as the US and their Western allies could take him. However, at this point, Meles has become more of a liability than he is worth. In other words, he is increasingly isolated, loosing grip and sliding downward fast.

Meles-ovich thought that he cleaned house in Ethiopia and it was time to focus in the US by changing the subjects from domestic to terrorism, The Nile and poverty. He figured Ethiopian communities in the Diaspora would play dead and allow him to own their agendas. He was wrong, because they came roaring. They did not give him a chance. They held their own demonstration and took away from the attention he desperately thought to get. In reverse, he actually reinvigorated the Ethiopian communities and all his opposition. In other words, as always he miscalculated.

This was a great opportunity not only for Ethiopians but also for all peace loving people that want to rid this despot. By holding the failed demonstration, he hinted to all that he is not receiving the attention he needs from the US. That means, it is a great opportunity for the people of the region to press the US more into completely dropping him. Because, without US support he cannot survive a month even with China’s support. China will not go to war for him and certainly, China would not want the US to stop supporting Meles because they do not know what the alternative would look like. Therefore, it is time for all the people of the region to join hands and show the world what they feel and urge them to change their failed policies in the Horn of Africa.

Awetnayu@hotmail.com

Few of the opposition’s even most ardent supporters clamored to celebrate, though. The painful delay notwithstanding, the public was still aching to hear about plans for resistance against this year’s vile “election results.” Anything else was unavoidably an anti-climax.

But the announcement was deliberate for the leaders of Medrek. Having decided against resistance, news of an impending restructured alliance, which the public has long supported, seemed a fitting surrogate to placate public mood. “The election was stolen. But we will not engage in a scuffle with (the) muggers,” said Dr Beyene Petros, Medrek’s new spokesperson. The opposition’s response is to acquiesce to the new reality, not lead a peaceful heroic resistance as many of its supporters— and some in the international community, too— had anticipated and hoped. The opposition is in fact already looking ahead. As one of the leaders of Medrek informed local media this week: “We would like to negotiate with the EPRDF about the upcoming election.” (Local elections are due in about two years time. The last time they were held, the EPRDF “won” 100 % of the seats.) And thus, the spirit of resistance, which attained its apex in 2005 when the CUD, Press and Diaspora trio challenged the election results, has been bluntly rejected by all political parties in 2010. Not a single party has opted—and dared— to carry the mantle of resistance.

What happened? Is this really a strategic retreat warranted by lack of preparedness? Or does it denote a state of psychological vulnerability that is incapacitating Ethiopia’s opposition?

Ethiopia’s opposition is no match to the EPRDF. Even absent the opposition’s conspicuous military muscle deficit, EPRDF’s discipline, grassroots presence, and quality of middle rankers gives it a decided advantage. In sharp contrast, the opposition is undermined by a variety of inadequacies: lax discipline, weak grassroots, lack of finance, and more seriously, the stigma of recurring failures. But it is exactly the need to beat these shortfalls and save the legal opposition that the inspiring weight of its leaders is now much in demand. Only one election season has elapsed since the inspirational power of few opposition leaders was able to score a seemingly impossible electoral victory. They were constrained by the very same limitations that hamper the opposition now. Resisting a fraudulent election by the same means is no more difficult nor any less achievable.

No mass mobilization relies exclusively—or even mostly—on party machine in modern times. As has become of modern politics itself, mass mobilizations are focally media driven in this age of satellite radio and television and the internet. It is the preserve of the best politicians to know how to use them. The tide of Nazi victory at the beginning of the Second World War, for example, was reversed by the ardor of Churchill’s rhetoric and the allure of Roosevelt’s fire–side chats, both conveyed to the people over the radio, not by the military prowess of the UK, the US or any of the other democracies. None of them were prepared for the brutal efficiency of the Nazi war machine. Resistance seemed futile, and the cries to give up were strident and seemed more attune to the rapidly unraveling reality. But Roosevelt and Churchill eloquently differed, and went on to famously win the century for democracy. The lesson they left behind for future generations reverberates till the end of time: An inspired people will always beat the odds. Lack of preparedness is an obvious disadvantage but it does not necessarily have to be an incapacitating one.

We know from the 2005 election that a sizable segment of the opposition—even within the CUD, including some who were imprisoned— had already been rendered motionless by a state of psychological defeat. To this group, any altercation with the EPRDF is perceived as an overwhelming encumbrance. In its mythologized world the EPRDF is invincible, positioned always to win. All attempts to successfully face up to it is deemed as impractical and emotional. The imprisonment and subsequent implosion of CUD’s leaders is the irrefutable evidence for the veracity its conviction. Such helplessness dominates its every calculation. And in its state of psychological melancholy, it is temperamentally unable to comprehend the merits of resistance. Its despondency is hostile to every precept of resistance. There is, in other words, a discernable class within the Ethiopian opposition that has internalized helplessness. That much is certain. The question is: has it been allowed to hold Medrek—whose working ethos is the impractical consensus rather than the practical majority vote—hostage?

One could not help but suspect so. There is no other plausible explanation for the paralysis that has afflicted the opposition. It is high time to address the problem of defeatism within the opposition.

Such defeatism has cloaked the EPRDF with a myth of invincibility. Such myth is already being energetically expressed by many of EPRDF’s supporters amidst the public. The series of events in which “the EPRDF triumphed over the Derg, defeated the Eritreans in the border war, and cleverly maneuvered the collapse of the CUD” are promoted as confirmation of EPRDF’s irrefutable superiority. And when the opposition demanded re-run of the election, EPRDF supporters could not help but mock it for daring to flirt with resistance when all evidences, as they see it, caution against it. But what is troubling is not that gullible grassroots believe the myth, but that its leaders have also come to believe in it. Their intransigence is now intertwined with this self-perception.

At the end of the day, myth will not get the EPRDF very far. Its potency is limited to the extent that it is believed by the opposition and the public. This is where the role of opposition leaders becomes critical. The admixture of the opposition’s perceived helplessness and the EPRDF’s aura of invincibility has suddenly crowded public discourse after this year’s election. And it is threatening to grow in to a mortal threat to the legal opposition. This is no problem for a party machine. It could only be overcome by a lucid inspirational display of will to resist—peacefully and legally— by the opposition. It is necessary and possible.

The tyranny lovers tell the world an amazing story, just like a fairy tale. They say that Ethiopia is on the path of democracy, peace and development. According to a press release issued by “Ethiopian American Ad Hoc for Democracy”, which claims to have organised the rallies at the White House and U.S. State Department, the pro-tyranny marchers “urged the U.S. Secretary of State to take supportive steps to have a fair and equitable resolution in the horn of Africa Nile basin Countries agreement and to continue the long-standing global security relationship with Ethiopia in fighting terrorism.” In other words, they are calling the U.S. to continue propping up tyranny at the expense of the rights and freedom of the majority. Obviously, they never worry about the Nile while they deny the existence of oppression, inequality, repressions and injustice against fellow Ethiopians.

On the opposite side, a group of vocal advocates of democracy, freedom, justice and equality chose to organise a protest rally at the Chinese embassy in Washington DC. Angered by the repressions going on in Ethiopia with the support of the Chinese government, they demanded China to stop aiding the tyrannical regime of Meles Zenawi, who is muffling and censoring the whole nation. After closing down the most popular newspapers in the aftermath of the 2005 elections, he has resorted to blocking websites, jamming radio and TV transmissions that are critical of his myopic policies. Allegedly, the Chinese have been providing the technology and technical support that has enabled Zenawi to commit criminal repressions including the jamming of the Ethiopian Satellite Television (ESAT).

A government is supposed to unify a nation at least on the basic national issues. Today, more than ever before, the nation is speeding towards another cycle of violence. The difference between the oppressors and the oppressed has proven to be irreconcilable. Those who are for freedom and those who are against it have never tolerated each other anywhere in the world.

The tension between freedom lovers and those who make every effort in their power to sustain the oppression of the masses has been a cause for wars and violence throughout history. Divide and rule has done a favour to tyranny and benefitted Meles Zenawi and his cronies more than anyone else. An oppressive minority regime, as is the Meles ethno-fascist junta, founded on deception, injustice, inequality and repressions, can only lead a nation into another cycle of tragic conflict. The reason why TPLF is trying to contain the resistance of so many political and ethnic groups, armed and unarmed, is due to the fact that it cannot survive without oppression. It sees freedom as a danger to its very survival.

It must be emphasised that an oppressive regime cannot be defeated by fragmented and inimical groups with conflicting visions. Finding a common vision and mobilizing the Ethiopian people to confront tyranny for the final showdown should be a priority for those who are leading the struggles against the brutal regime in and outside of Ethiopia. Common visions, realistic strategies and mass mobilization are extremely important in the struggle. Most importantly, unity serves as a glue to hold divided freedom fighters to march under one banner. Some groups are preoccupied with secondary agendas that can only be addressed after the freedom of the Ethiopian people is fully guaranteed. Differences aside, Ethiopians should fight for their freedom first.

The tyrannical regime has been standing on one leg since it came to power. It is last hope for survival is none other than the division of those fighting against it. It must be the priority of those who are fighting injustice to deny the regime the source of its strength. Division needs to be defeated before unity starts doing miracles. And in fact, “Unity to be real must stand the severest strain without breaking,” as Gandhi righty said.

First, many commentators and particularly Somalis of Region five in the global Diaspora pay no attention to the fact that the name ‘Ogaden’ is, rightly or wrongly, associated with majority rule by the Ogaadeen clans, respectively with their claim for power within the Somali Regional State. Since the introduction of ethnic-based administration by the Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) in 1991, Somalis and other ethnic groups in Ethiopia came to perceive ethnic identity and territorial claims as one and the same. The region’s non-Ogaadeen clans, including non-Ogaadeen Darood, Isaaq, Dir and other genealogical groups, strongly refute the ‘Ogaden’ label for their region, fearing that it rhetorically justifies Ogaadeen domination. EPRDF is hatching a hatred among Somalis Ethiopian laong the line of clans by working only with the secession ONLF and the terrorist organization UWSLF. Both of these organizationa are the enemy of Ethiopian Somali people in Ethiopia.

EPRDF conceived and pretended ethnic federalism as the institutional strategy to achieve development yet it failed to deliver the widely expected benefits for a majority of region 5’s inhabitants. In terms of public infrastructure and service delivery (education, health, roads, security etc.) the region fares worse than both Ethiopia’s regions and neighboring Somaliland and Somalia. The potential advantages of ethnic-based decentralization did not trickle down sufficiently to the rural masses in the Somali periphery. Popular frustration with and ill-will towards the government are a result of this failure. On top of this harship, EPRDF is changing the socalled leaders every year and pit one Somali clan against the other one.

On the other hand, the Somalis versus Ethiopians stereotype projects an image of internally homogenous groups. This is not the case, neither on the Somali nor on the Ethiopian side. The notorious political infighting between Somali clans, particularly between Ogaadeen and non-Ogaadeen clan coalitions, is a case in point. Similarly, Ethiopia’s ethnic diversity and the at times contradictory federal policies towards region 5 challenge the idea of two uniform blocs. A closer look reveals that multiple conflict lines fueled by political, economic and genealogical logics co-exist within region 5.7 Both sides, EPRDF cadres and Somali-Ethiopian politicians, have skillfully exploited these conflict lines to extract political spoils for their own constituencies.

TPLF is working hard to hide its atrocity and massacre in Somali Region is playing the card of fighting terrorism. The irony of the history that last week EPRDF has singed an agreement with UWSLF which was a wing of Al Tihad , member of al Shabaab. Therefore, how on earth, EPRDF is claiming to fight terrorism, but is working with UWSLF, a terrorist organization.
It is imperative to recall that the ESAC had struggled against the feudal imperial regime and the Marxist Military regime of Ethiopia. It also is important to remember that after the downfall of the military regime, Soon after the ESAC was forced by the TPLF to withdraw from the Transitional Government, the TPLF Leaders wishfully declared to the whole world that it has annihilated the ESAC. The TPLF regime could not and cannot annihilate the ESAC because the ESAC is an embodiment of the Somali people’s political expression and, therefore, enjoys their overwhelming support. This had been publicly expressed during the Transitional Period.

Having terribly failed to deprive the true and genuine organization, ESAC of the unflinching support of the Somali people, the TPLF maliciously and opportunistically labeled it as a “terrorist organization” and embarked on the defamation of the UWSLF, an organization that is created by Woyane. The target was to undermine the objectives of the Somali people’s struggle for self-determination, which has the goal of justice, freedom, democracy and progress. The TPLF regime’s objective of labeling the genuine Ethiopian Somali organization is to tarnish the international image and standing of ESAC and to isolate the legitimate cause of the Somali people’s struggle. For the project of defaming and isolating the, the TPLF has allocated a huge budget and has assigned a full time staff of several hundreds of agents, including highly paid lobbyists. To date, the TPLF regime’s wicked effort to defame the ESAC did not succeed.

The TPLF regimes’ accusation of the ESAC makes sense only to its leaders and lackeys. The TPLF never had internal legitimacy. The overwhelming majority of the people in Ethiopia lend no credence to what the TPLF Regime says. Therefore, international community, in general, and donor Governments in particular, are the targets of the manipulation malicious and trumped-up charges against the ESAC.

There is a pattern of timing in TPLF regime’s malicious accusation of the ESAC. In general the TPLF regime accuses the ESAC to either deflect the people’s attention or to gain the donors’ attention. It accuses the ESAC when it believes it is internationally conducive to make such labeling stick or when the regime’s internal/domestic political challenges soar or crisis worsens. These days, the TPLF regime is engulfed in crises. The country’s economy is ailing of a sky rocketing inflation and the largest majority of the people are hardly making ends meet. The imperialistic and adventurous aggression and occupation of Somalia has become a quagmire to the TPLF army and it appears that there is no strategy for victory or exit. The Prime Minister, Meles Zenawi, continuous making contradictory and confused statements in this regard. The secret boundary demarcation agreement or deal that the TPLF regime made with the Government of Sudan is facing a strong opposition from the Ethiopian People. The undemocratic June 2010 national election have transformed the TPLF regime from the de facto one-party to a de jure one-party- TPLF/EPRDF tyrannical rule. Now, Emperor Meles Zenawi is more naked.

It is also worthy of note that it is a practice and custom of all Ethiopian regimes to label, mischaracterize and defame all political forces opposed to their tyrannical rule. It is a known fact that the predecessor of the incumbent regime had labeled TPLF and its leaders, among others, Meles Zenawi, “terrorist and mercenaries of the Arab Countries.” One, therefore, should not give credence to or be surprised by the TPLF regime following in the footsteps of its predecessors and labeling, mischaracterizing and diabolizing the ESAC. Finally, we would like to reiterate, emphasize and put to rest this issue that the ESAC is neither a terrorist organization, as labeled by the tyrannical regime of Ethiopia, nor does it endorse terrorism as a means of political struggle. The ESAC expresses and struggles for the legitimate political aspiration of the more than thirty million people of the Somali nation. The fabricated and repeated accusations of the tyrannical TPLF regime against ESAC is hollow and, hence, cannot depreciate the good name/record of the ESAC or the legitimate struggle of the Somali people for self-determination, liberation, justice, democracy, peace, economic, social and cultural development.

Last, but not least, Ethiopian Somali are fighting for the unity of Ethiopia, the individual right of all Ethiopian, the equal right of all Ethiopia regardless of its ethnic group and we are urging all peace loving international community to expose the TPLF regime and its cadres that are moving its atrocity and human right abuse to Western capital. Shame on us to allow TPLF and its cadres to misuse the freedom in Washington DC.

Victory to the Ethiopian People
Ethio Somali Advocacy Council
August 5, 2010

I don’t want to manifest my skepticism at this very early stage. It is therefore my pleasure to appreciate this move as positive and constructive. It is a good attempt. It is fine to try any possibility that may help galvanize the people of the country towards their freedom from the untold tyranny of Melesism which has been most destructive of all -isms ever seen in the history of mankind.

But as the same time, to me it is futile to waste time in Ethiopia in attempting such non-viable trials, for we have seen them zillions of times here and there and time and again, be it within and/or out of the country. Remember those movements like ‘Edehaq’ [in 1991] and others thereafter. To be honest, we Ethiopians are good at eating and drinking together, consoling the bereaved,organizing traditional events or occasions like weddings, Equb, Edir, Tsiwa Mahber, Senbete, funerals, and helping each other in time of adversity, but we are extremely poor in working together for the same goal of liberating ourselves from autocratic ruling systems, to say the least, for one reason or the other. Let’s be open. Openness doesn’t hurt as long as it is wisely used for development. And hence, I think, one among our major setbacks is our excessive LOVE or infatuation for POWER and ANYTHING thereof. What a pity really! Some of us, sorry for my modest use of the modifier ’some’, some of us die of power without even securing a nation from the ALIENS, just like the fairy tale of “the pie in the sky”.To me the Woyannes are not Ethiopians, neither are they the breeds of human beings. I doubt they are from this planet either, they must be SOMETHING-INCARNATE. It is their actions that have made me say what I am saying here and now. They are absolutely inhumane to the extent of committing genocide for the continuation of their nasty regime. It is not a matter of the origin of these mafias that the are from this or that ethnic group. Absolutely not. Though they themselves don’t take the Ethiopian identity seriously other than using it as a means of survival in cases of national threats like the Badme, I personally don’t want to deny the fact that they are Ethiopians by birth and natural citizenship. But their activities from the onset of the government style they formed some 19 years back, their actions and in-actions have purely been indicating that they are against Ethiopia and Ethiopians, to whatever cause they usurped the power. It is because of this basic rationale that I shy to call them Ethiopians. After all, it is logical to give devil its due. I hope they are also happy when we tell them the truth about their who-ness, that they are genuine opponents of Ethiopianism. Well, you can imagine if any leader of Ethiopia, in the past or in the future, sells the land of the country to foreigners, or writes a letter to the UN to recognize his territory as independent nation and thereby land-locking the rest of the country, or creating feuding ethnic and religious groups, or add what have you. If these people of the government we have are to be called Ethiopians, then we have to redefine this term, because it is in this very name that the martyrs of Ginbot 15/2005 had lost their lives. It is in this name that W/t Birtukan Mideksa and Abera Yemaneab along with thousands of other prisoners of conscience are languishing at Kaliti other dungeons in the country.

The majority among the so called Ethiopian ‘politicians’ have forgotten the very fact that we should bicker upon power division after we become sure of the existence of a country. That is why we have, amazingly, over 90 parties, the establishment of parties is unabatedly kept on. And we are not a bit ashamed of this frustrating behavior of ours, we are rather proud of it. I think no country is divided in such a magnitude to the extent of forming movements or fronts or parties whose names have consumed all the letters of the languages we speak. Is it not surprising? I don’t blame anyone if they become ashamed of our politics. It must be only in Ethiopia, for example, that we see octogenarians, and even at times nonagenarians like HE Girma W/Gioris, along with their old mentality and feudalistic paraphernalia die-hardly fight for a would be power with their grandchildren. It is really heartbreaking when we see people become sleepless for political power to achieve their insincere objectives that benefit neither the nation nor the people they claim to stand for. On the other side, it is quite frighetning when we see a young ‘politician’ while trying to use any means to climb up the ladder of power and wealth through the motto:”The end justifies the means (yetim fichiw duqetun amchiw)”. It is highly disgracing to be a member of this country wherein such shameless people are deciding the fate of over 80 million people just forgetting the basic human values and national interests.

In Ethiopia, now and in the future, I strongly believe that Woyanne will never and ever allow any party to seize power through ballot box. This has been proved to be ineffective or rather nightmarish in the past 20 years. Thanks to our willing to be ruled by tyrants, we will be suffering in a more severe degree than ever, leave alone two or three terms ahead, instead for hundreds of years to come. We have been creating a conducive atmosphere for the Woyannes’ ethnocentric rule. We share the blame for the delay of our freedom.

The solution is not forming discussion forums or toothless nominal parties that worsen our grievances. We have them in abundance already. The Woyannes didn’t get into Menelik’s Palace via discussion or peaceful negotiations. They joined the world of Fascism and Nazism through rebellion with much blood sacrifice, though the sacrificed ones had never been rewarded and their real motive was thwarted to the advantage of the few Machiavellian authority. So it is almost valueless to cackle among the Woyannes in their own hall under their own totalitarian supervision and strict inspection that doesn’t allow even free breathing. We have to devise any other means that can uproot our problems for once and for all. That means should be deliberated by all stakeholders in such a way that the solution will incorporate the interests of all Ethiopians. Of all the things we should immediately get rid of is organizing ourselves on the basis of ethnicity, religion, and sex. We should learn from Ghana. As soon as Ghana secured its independence from colonists, people were banned from these poisonous ways of forming parties. It is ridiculous to try to get a person whose blood’s make up is absolutely of only one ethnic group. And to my understanding, among those elites in Ethiopia who are currently disturbing the mother-ship, the majority are ethnically mixed breeds. I don’t understand the reason behind such people as to why they are usually oversensitive in dealing with matters like ethnic politics, may be psychological(?). Frankly speaking, it is a pity to see these people creating problems while they should have been part of the solution. Have you ever noticed of this phenomenon?

China has also provided technology and technical experts to the ethnocentric dictatorship of Meles Zenawi so that it can engage in blocking websites that are critical of the regime’s policies and filtering e-mail messages of citizens. We understand that Chinese assistance to the tyrannical regime in Ethiopia also poses a threat to U.S. national security by destabilizing Ethiopia and entire Horn of Africa sub-region.

Instead of defending the Ethiopian people in their call for freedom and democracy, due to growing economic interest in Africa, China is colluding with totalitarian regimes that suppress their citizens’ rights and the quest for liberty and democracy in Africa. Instead of empowering Ethiopians in Ethiopia, China is engaged in an exploitative relationship in numerous of its projects throughout Ethiopia in a bid to quench its voracious appetite for strategic resources and cheaper labor in Africa. China is exploiting Ethiopia’s natural resources and hampering the Ethiopian people’s inalienable rights for liberty, justice, and democracy. Chinese firms have been engaged in bribing and corrupting Ethiopian officials.

By supporting the Meles Zenawi regime, China is banking on profiting from the triumph of tyranny over liberty and democracy for the people of Ethiopia, as it is doing in much of Africa.

China has a terrible human rights record at home and supports human rights violations abroad. It is time for China to stop supporting war criminals like Meles Zenawi, who has been suppressing basic liberties of the Ethiopian people. It is time for China to reassess its dealings with rogue regimes like that of Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia and other African dictators.

We, Ethiopians and Ethiopians Americans, demand that the Chinese government immediately

1. Cease its support for Meles Zenawi’s ethnocentric regime;

2. Cease arming and supplying Meles Zenawi’s minority ethnic dominated military;

3. Cease its support for tyranny in Ethiopia/Africa

4. Cease its support to Meles Zenawi’s regime in jamming the Voice of America,
Deutsche Welle, and Ethiopian Satellite Television (ESAT);

5. Respect the human rights of the Ethiopian people, Ethiopian workers employed
in Chinese owned projects in accordance with accordance labor and environmental standards as well as the Universal Declaration of Human rights.

6. Stop bribing and corrupting Ethiopian officials to get no bid
contracts from the government and dumping their low quality and often dangerous products.

A Coalition of Ethiopian American and Ethiopian Political and Civic Organizations and media groups.

Contact e-mail and Website: www.March4Freedom.org
Tel: 703-896-6166 202-386-3037

The Human Rights Ledger of the Obama Administration

President Obama has been sharply criticized for his “inability” to deliver on his human rights “promises.” Some say his support for the cause of human rights and those struggling against oppression has been rhetorical, and lukewarm at that. He has been unable to translate lofty words into concrete actions to improve human rights. They say his basic approach is flawed because he is trying to reform and rehabilitate nasty dictators into wholesome democrats. A few have suggested that in the post-9/11 world, President Obama has made it his mission “to atone for America’s sins” instead of re-asserting a strong leadership role for the U.S., particularly in the area of human rights. He has been charged with “hypocrisy” for not speaking out against China, Hosni Mubark’s three-decade rule of Egypt under a state of emergency, the fizzling of human rights activism in Iran following the elections last year and the military coup in Honduras. His critics say that he has gone out of his way to accommodate the bloodthirsty Burmese military dictators despite the fact that the democratically elected leader of that country, Aung San Su Kii, has remained in detention for two decades. The vast majority of Ethiopians are disappointed in President Obama’s silence over the unjust imprisonment of Birtukan Midekssa, the first woman political party leader in Ethiopian history, and arguably the most important political prisoner on the African continent today.

Although President Obama and his administration could have done a lot more in the field of global human rights, I am not inclined to join the ranks of his critics and blame him for everything that has gone wrong in human rights worldwide during his eighteen months as president for two reasons. First, his administration has been weighted down by a domestic agenda of epic proportions and distracted by a variety of policy crises of unprecedented severity. Moreover, he had to manage two major ground wars and the global war on terror. Second, I do not expect decades of official neglect of human rights to be addressed in a span of eighteen months. Rather, I am inclined to telescope his overall involvement in the human rights field and make some inferences on his potential to make a great “human rights president” in his first term. I find some encouraging evidence that he could play an extraordinary role in global human rights.

Few would argue the fact that over the past eighteen months, President Obama has restored considerable credibility to U.S. global human rights leadership following gross abuses of human rights in Iraq. He banned the use of torture (or “enhanced interrogation techniques”) immediately after taking office. His speeches and public statements in Ghana, Egypt and Turkey and other places promoting human rights and accountability have given hope to millions. His Administration has fully supported the work and activities of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in Darfur, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and even Kenya where the prosecutor acting on his own initiative for the first time is investigating that country’s 2007 post-election violence. (A similar ICC investigation into the massacres of hundreds of people in Ethiopia after the 2005 elections is overdue and fully warranted.) In a symbolic but unprecedented act, President Obama in a special White House ceremony honored women human rights activists from Zimbabwe by awarding them the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award for their struggle against the dictatorship of Robert Mugabe. He has thrust human rights as a central part of the debate on U.S. policy around the world. These facts in my view are significant in light of his predecessor’s ritualistic obsession with elections regardless of whether they were rigged or stolen. As Secretary Clinton’s recent human rights speeches demonstrate, the Obama administration is emphatic on the issues of free expression, free press, clean elections and civil society. Overall, the evidence from diverse opinion surveys worldwide suggest that that in numerous countries opinions about the United States are about as positive today as they were before 9/11, principally because of the emphasis on human rights.

I am also mindful of Senator Obama’s successful sponsorship of the “Democratic Republic of Congo Relief, Security, and Democracy Promotion Act” in 2006. That Act aims to help promote and reinvigorate the political process in the Congo and meet the basic needs of Congolese citizens and targets the elimination of sexual violence against women and children. I recall the fact that Senator Obama would have fully supported H.R. 2003 (Ethiopia Democracy and Accountability Act) had it been brought for a vote on the Senate floor following its passage in the House of Representatives in 2007. On a personal level, I have confidence in Mr. Obama that he will stand up for human rights not because he is president but because he is first and foremost a constitutional lawyer. Challenging those who abuse power, flout the rule of law, sneer at justice and thumb their noses at due process are encoded in the DNA of every genuine American constitutional lawyer. None of the foregoing should be viewed as an “apology” for any failures on the part of President Obama or his administration. I will not hesitate to challenge the Administration’s human rights policy in Ethiopia (or elsewhere) as I have done in these series of commentaries.

The Insanity of Doing Nothing
It was Albert Eisnsten who said, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” It could equally be said of U.S. human rights policy in Ethiopia over the past decade that doing NOTHING over and over again and expecting results is insanity, sheer madness. The fact of the matter is that the U.S. for all of the billions it has given to the dictatorship of Meles Zenawi over the past two decades has been unable to curb his gross human rights violations. Indeed, the U.S. has shied away from strong and sustained criticism of Zenawi’s dismal human rights record. The Obama Administration must realize, if it has not already, that the current status quo – rigged and stolen elections, warehousing of large numbers of political prisoners, intimidation of opposition parties and leaders, decimation of the independent press, the climate of fear and loathing for the citizenry, denial of expressive freedoms, enactment of repressive anti-civil society laws, jamming of Voice of America broadcasts, provocative accusations of the U.S. Government as the soul mates of the genocidal thugs of Rwanda’s interhamwe — cannot and must not go on so long as American tax dollars are being used to bankroll Zenawi’s dictatorship. It should also be crystal clear to the Obama Administration that quiet diplomacy, soft-pedaling on human rights and attaching human rights as an afterthought to negotiations on counterterrorism, security, etc., will not work. The status quo will be damaging both to U.S. strategic interests in Ethiopia and the Horn and undermine the democratic development of Ethiopia.
The dilemma that President Obama is facing today over human rights in Africa is the same one that his predecessors have faced over the decades. The U.S. has never really developed an African policy that tethered human rights, security, trade and governance issues. Historically, U.S. policy in Africa in general and Ethiopia in particular has been haphazard and episodic dominated by a concern with the role of colonial powers, containment of communism, and now defeating global terrorism. “Realpolitik” has always trumped Wilsonianism. It was President Woodrow Wilson who during and after WWI undertook the mission “to make the world safe for democracy”. He believed international peace and America’s pre-eminent role in the world could be secured by promoting democracy and human rights and spreading the virtues of individual freedom, limited government, and popular sovereignty.
The Cold War threw cold water on Wilsonianism after WW II as the struggle to contain totalitarian communism became the core ideology ion U.S. foreign policy. It was the Carter Administration that gave human rights a real boost by emphasizing democracy and human rights as practical objectives of U.S. foreign policy. Not unlike President Obama, President Carter raised the hopes of millions around the world. President Carter followed up with action imposing export and import restrictions on South Africa , Ethiopia, and Uganda and by linking economic and military aid to human rights violations. But “realpolitik” caught up with him quickly and the specter of communist insurrections forced him to negotiate for military bases in Kenya, Somalia, and Sudan despite the poor human rights records of the ruling regimes. The Reagan Administration showed interest in human rights at the cusp of the collapse of the Soviet Union, but it was the administration of the senior George H. Bush that elevated the human rights rhetoric to new heights by unapologetically declaring that the world was not divided along an east-west axis but “between those committed to democracy and liberty and those against.” President Bill Clinton dubbed Africa’s dictators “new breed” of African leaders and built his “strategic initiative in Africa” so that African could serve as U.S. military proxies while using development aid and the international lending institutions to promote democratization.
President Obama is facing the same dilemma his predecessors have faced. His challenge now is to develop an effective strategy to transition his moral advocacy of human rights to practical application of human rights principles in U.S. foreign policy. If he fails to make the transition, he will be criticized for dashing the hopes of millions around the world and judged harshly by history for perpetuating American “hypocrisy” and spreading cynicism and despair.
Walking the Human Rights Talk: Accountability

It is high time for the U.S. to begin walking its human rights talk in Ethiopia. No doubt, striking the right balance between human rights concerns and “pragmatic” strategic interests will be no easy task. For the past decade, the U.S. has thrown human rights in Ethiopia under the bus in its pursuit of the global war on terror. Despite gruesome revelations of gross human rights abuses in Ethiopia by the official U.S. global human rights watchdog, the U.S. has consistently dismissed, ignored, disingenuously deferred, or promised action which never came to pass. It is time for the U.S. to fish or cut bait in Ethiopia.

U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton in her recent speech in Poland said there are four elements to the Obama Administration’s approach to “putting our principles into action” in American global human rights policy. The first pillar is accountability, which means “governments [must] take responsibility by putting human rights into law and embedding them in government institutions; by building strong, independent courts, competent and disciplined police and law enforcement.” Over the past decade, the U.S. has shown an almost pathological and reflexive aversion to the very idea of holding dictator Zenawi accountable. When Zenawi came out and declared that he had won the May 2010 election by 99.6 percent, the White House put out a statement bleating, “We are concerned that international observers found that the elections fell short of international commitments [and ] U.S. Embassy officials were denied accreditation and the opportunity to travel outside of the capital on Election Day to observe the voting.” Over the past five years, the U.S. has soft-pedaled gross violations of human rights. When Zenawi slaughtered hundreds of protesters following the 2005 elections, the U.S. made the mind-numbing statement: “The deaths as a result of the actions surrounding these protests are senseless. The United States calls upon both side to engage in a peaceful dialogue.” When Zenawi jailed tens of thousands of people that same year, the U.S. said, “We urge the government to respect the rule of law, international principles of human rights, and due process with regard to those arrested or detained.” This is not “accountability.” It is pusillanimity.

Accountability means holding someone responsible for their acts or omissions against a clear standard. Someone must be held accountable for the deaths and severe injuries of hundreds of peaceful protesters in 2005, the massacre of hundreds of Anuak people in Gambella in 2004 and the untold deaths and destruction in the in the Ogaden. The Obama administration must take the same moral leadership in Ethiopia as it has in Kenya by supporting the International Criminal Court investigations in Kenya for the deaths that occurred in the post-2007 election period and the genocide in Darfur. What is good for the goose is good for the gander. If ICC action is good enough for Kenya and the Sudan, I say it is good enough for Ethiopia.

By Secretary Clinton’s own words, accountability applies not only to the tin pot dictators of the world but also the U.S. That is why Ethiopians in the U.S. must hold the Obama Administration itself accountable under Section 116.75 (a) of the 1961 Foreign Assistance Act. That provision plainly states:

No assistance may be provided under this part to the government of any country which engages in a consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally recognized human rights, including torture or cruel, inhuman, or de-grading treatment or punishment, prolonged detention without charges, causing the disappearance of persons by the abduction and clandestine detention of those persons,76 or other flagrant denial of the right to life, liberty, and the security of person, unless such assistance will directly benefit the needy people in such country.

Similarly, Section 502B of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1976 mandates:

[E]xcept under extraordinary circumstances no security assistance may be provided to any country the government of which engages in a consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally recognized human rights, including torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, prolonged detention without charges, causing the disappearance of persons by the abduction and clandestine detention of those persons or other flagrant denials of the right to life, liberty, and the security of the person.

Is there a country that cries out more for the rigorous application of these provisions than Ethiopia?

Walk the Human Rights Talk Softly and Carry a Big Stick

President Obama has raised the hopes and democratic aspirations of millions around the world. He will have to give human rights the importance it deserves in U.S. foreign policy. Whether in Ethiopia or elsewhere, the issue of human rights could not be left to some embassy functionary who juggles other duties. Human rights should be given the same attention and importance given to counterterrorism, security, development and trade with African dictatorships. It must not be a side issue or an afterthought to other policies. President Obama in his speeches has awakened the world’s oppressed masses; and they fully expect that he will stand up with them and not those who oppress them. In Africa, he has a clear choice: Africa’s tin pot dictators bound for the dustbin of history or Africa’s youth. In his own words, “it will not be giants like Nkrumah and Kenyatta who will determine Africa’s future. Above all, it will be the young people - brimming with talent and energy and hope.” I am hopeful that the Obama administration will use creative approaches to put American “human rights principles into action” in the foreseeable future.

FREE BIRTUKAN MIDEKSSA AND ALL POLITICAL PRISONERS IN ETHIOPIA.

The change will result in the opposition group having “one general assembly, one center, one leadership and one long-term strategic policy paper that is binding for all parties,” Negasso said in an interview today from the capital, Addis Ababa. Negasso is also deputy chairman of the Unity for Democracy and Justice and a former president of Ethiopia.

Members of the alliance will meet tomorrow to discuss the changes, said Merera Gudina, a deputy chairman of Medrek.

“People want unity, people are opposed to fragmentation,” Merera said. “It gives them hope to challenge the regime and its lies.”

Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi’s ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front and its allies won all but two of the 547 seats in the Horn of Africa country’s parliament in May elections. Medrek obtained one seat.

A European Union election observer mission said in a May 25 report the vote did “not meet certain international commitments.”

A Medrek front would create a “strong challenging organization” for local and city administrations elections that take place in two years time, Negasso said. Medrek is in “informal discussions” with some of Ethiopia’s 79 registered parties about joining the front, he said, without providing details.

According to well-positioned banking sources, since Azeb took over EFFORT from Sebhat Nega last year she is personally pressurizing banks to illegally grant huge amounts of loans in local and hard currency. EFFORT, which allegedly owes close to 10 billion birr in unpaid loans mainly from the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia, the Development Bank of Ethiopia and the Business and Construction Bank, is well-known for defaulting on the multi- billion birr loans it is raking out of the coffers of state-owned banks.

Azeb, widely known as the First Lady of Corruption and Queen of Mega, has been hand twisting banks, managed by inexperienced TPLF’s hirelings, to loan out a string of additional funds to EFFORT, which has practically monopolized the economy. The latest instalment of the loan bonanza to the privileged and discriminatory ethnic business conglomerate arrived in the amount of $120 billion (1.6 billion birr) which was secured a few months of ago from the major state banks including Development Bank of Ethiopia. The bank has already been in the red as it carries a huge burden of unpaid non-performing loans.

The latest loan was approved for EFFORT’s shady business proposal to launch a huge irrigation project in Tigray. Under Hiwot Agriculture Mechanization, one of TPLF’s numerous companies, EFFORT has already short-listed foreign agribusiness giants including, a Saudi Arabian Irrigation firm, Alkhorayet Industry and Valley, the British Irrigation company and Israeli Drip irrigation, Omni. The main idea of the project is to produce cash crop for export while two-thirds of households in Tigray depend on food aid.

“We are witnessing the most unacceptable form of discrimination that is illegal anywhere. Almost all state banks have been serving TPLF first as the rest of the nation is their last priority,” said a businessman, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

“The Prime Minister’s wife has been using her influence and privilege to play with money at the expense of poor taxpayers. This is corruption of the worst kind. Nobody knows why EFFORT is not paying tax and servicing the loans that should have been invested on essential projects that benefits everyone,” he added.

It has been reported that almost all of TPLF’s companies, which barely pay income tax, are undertaking expansion projects financed by state-owned banks that never ask EFFORT and Azeb to pay back the funds. Last year EFFORT took out a whopping $1.41 million, nearly 2 billion birr, for the expansion of Messebo Cement Factory from the ailing Development Bank of Ethiopia, which sustains its operations on loans from internal and external loans.

The second series of interviews between him and Genet Ayele, daughter and ex- wife of soldiers in the army he had once transformed in to one of the best and largest in Africa, but now married to a Frenchman and comfortably settled in Paris, came out to little fanfare in Addis last weekend.

The astounding triumph of the EPRDF in acquiring the publishing rights of the first series of interviews, some eight years ago, had been significant not only as an obvious public relations bonanza, but no less for the damage to the power of the message when it was dismissively published by the chief culprit of its content. Genet’s rather insensitive(and ill-advised) attempt to dismiss the controversy this generated to “old retarded journalists” ( Yedero ajuza gazetenoch, as she rowdily calls them) is at best inane, but most probably signifies her increasing proximity to people in power; one of whom, Endrias Eshete, she unabashedly lauds in flowery words in the first pages of her new book.

Why then would Mengistu receive her at his residence in Harare several more times and oblige her with interviews for a second book? Perhaps he is telling the EPRDF that they had not succeeded in thwarting him, that it was he who had in fact outmaneuvered them by making them think that they would steal his thunder by publishing him, and used them to relay his message to the people. Or maybe not. And he could just be too isolated and confused to keep abreast of current events. We will have to wait for his memoir, and hopefully he will provide us with an unambiguous (and truthful) answer there.

This is a far thinner book than the first, which is several hundred pages more. Of the hundred and ninety pages of the new book, less than ninety carry Mengistu’s words. The rest—in effect more than half the book—are interviews with an array of unnamed officials of his regime. Amazingly, almost twenty years after the collapse of the regime, all but one, Dawit Welde-Giorgis , still insist on speaking anonymously. Priced sensibly at 35 birr, it falls reasonably within the reach of the urban elite. Vendors have displayed it prominently, and cheerfully affirm that sales are robust.

Few are surprised that sales are strong. The Ethiopian public has frequently adored its strong leaders. And when they are visibly absent from the public domain in confusing times (as is the current aftermath of EPRDF’s outlandish 99.6% “win”), nostalgia for them—even those of the wrong genre—becomes overpowering.

Perhaps it is instinctive, implanted in Mengistu’s genes; or it could be his most cherished lesson from his training as an Officer; or it could even be the most enduring mark of his seventeen years in politics; but what ever its origins, doubt not that he lives by the adage that pronounces: “the best defense is the best offensive.” Reading his words, it’s easy to imagine him speaking with his head held up, his eyes intense as ever, his tone habitually defiant, and his charisma still dangerous, infectious and intact.

But it is also confidence that is at times direly overplayed. A case in point is when he is confronted with calls for his act of contrition; the need for him to publicly seek for the nation’s absolution. He stubbornly refuses to budge: “We fought them (his opponents) when they sought to dismember the nation. Is this why I should seek exoneration?” he asks defiantly. But it was not only armed separatists that had lost their lives, nor were they only the ones to be tortured, imprisoned and forced in to exile during his years in power. Many others became victims needlessly. How, for example, could the bombing of Hawazen be explained? Or the wanton destruction of Massswa? Or the Red Terror, which demanded “the death of a thousand anarchists (EPRP members) for every life of a revolutionary?” His ornate rhetoric notwithstanding, he clearly falls short here. He will have ample room to correct himself in his memoir.

“If I had resigned on my own accord, to whom would I have transferred the reigns of power?” he inquires rhetorically at one point, musing over the reluctance of African leaders to give up power. “To Weyane?( Laughs!)” Even nineteen years later, his eloquent criticism of the diminished patriotism of EPRDF leaders remain forcefully (and disturbingly) biting as ever. And his contempt for his successor is more palpable. “We did not even know his (Meles’) name,” says Mengistu. He criticizes him personally for “petitioning the UN to dismember his own country.” No leader in history has ever done that, Mengistu insists; clearly implying that the judgment of history will be far harsher on Meles than it will be on him.

His anti-Americanism remains livid as ever. “We thought that the proletariat would eventually run the world. But it is the Americans who have assumed that position,” he tells Genet remorsefully. “The American people have changed,” he says, and speaks of their opposition to the war in Vietnam. He criticizes them for supporting the invasion of Iraq. “Is there no (international) law? (to protect the weak from the strong)” he asks. Of Africa, he speaks of a crippling culture of corruption. “Ethiopia did not have the same problem. African leaders looked at us with envy.”

Mengistu spoke of a web of conspiracies that had always plagued his regime. “There were nine assassination attempts against me,” he maintains, “but people know of only one.” And he details of an alleged plot hatched by a General, Gezmu(last name not given), in which his deputy, Fikre-Selassie Wegderese, and his security chief, Tesfaye Welde-Selassie, are possibly (but not definitely) implicated “I heard about it after I left Ethiopia,” he reveals, a bit menacingly.

With his benefactor, Robert Mugabe, now over eighty years old and most probably serving his last term in office, isn’t Mengistu worried about extradition? “ Mugabe fought and liberated his country from colonists. But I am here as a guest of the Zimbabwe people. I am not a personal guest of Mugabe. And veterans of the liberation struggle are well aware of this fact.”

Finally,his book. “We (his regime) have been likened to Mussolini and Hitler and sullied,” says Mengistu of those who write of his legacy. “Repeat lies often enough and they will be mistaken for the truth. I have to set the record straight.” The book will have four parts. The first part is slated for a deliberation on history, which Mengistu feels is grossly misconstrued, but will also deal with the war against Somalia, in which he was one of the principal actors. “The second part will address the Eritrean issue and the war in the north in general,” says Mengistu. The third part will be on overview of his regime’s international relations. The last part, the fourth, will offer an insight in to why and how his regime collapsed.

Well, it’s about time, sir. Nineteen years is a long time to prepare a memoir. But now that it has finally come to see the light of day, be advised that you must tell the truth and nothing but the truth. You owe the people at least that much.

Now, the Kansas Black Farmers Association is working with conservationists to expand test plots of teff into market-sized fields that farmers across the state can plant as an alternative crop.

“We get calls monthly from people wanting any teff we have so they can mill it for food,” said Darla Juhl, coordinator for the conservationists group, Solomon Valley Resource Conservation and Development Area. Some of those calls have come from people as far away as the Netherlands and Mexico.

Teff is gluten free and known for its flood and drought resistance.

Project acres of teff have grown gradually from the 50 or so acres planted the first year. This year 150 acres was planted in Kansas, down from the 250 acres projected due to untimely rains.

“It has done nothing but rain since we have started growing teff,” Juhl said. “When we wrote the grant we were in the midst of a drought and this was the reason for the grant - it is suppose to use moisture very well, very efficiently.”

The Solomon Valley development organization got a three-year, $119,000 grant from the Agriculture Department designed to bring teff out of experimental fields to marketable fields of teff for grain or forage, Juhl said.

“Both of them are great opportunities,” Juhl said. “The forage is a little more proven at this point in time. We are still having some problems harvesting teff for grain. If we could solve those issues that would likely come around as well.”

The black farmers and the Solomon Valley development group will host a teff field day on Aug. 5 at the Mike and Teresa Webb farm south of Woodston. Farmers and others will visit the farm’s teff field and sample teff products.

All the teff grown in Kansas is used for forage, she said.

Early experiments growing teff to harvest for grain came up against problems at harvest time because the grain is small and the grain heads tend to lodge, or droop, making it difficult to harvest them without costly equipment modifications. Teff also sells for about 50 cents a pound, a little under the price of wheat, she said.

Some farmers in Oklahoma and Idaho have been growing commercial fields of teff.

Kansas farmers so far have had far more success in experimental plots growing the warm season annual for forage rather than grain. It is in demand by owners of horses, alpacas and llamas in particular because it is more palatable to those livestock, Juhl said.

A small square bale of teff can also fetch $12 a bale, far more than the $4 a bale for comparable quality alfalfa.

1. The Problem of Ethiopian State Structure: The modern Ethiopian state has always been highly centralized state, where a single ethnic group dominates over all others. This has created and is still creating tensions and conflicts among different Ethiopian ethnic groups. The current government is fueling the tension and using it as an instrument to divide and rule. Azar correctly concludes that ‘highly centralized political structures are sources of conflict because they reduce the opportunity for a sense of community among groups, increase alienation and tend to deny to groups the means to accomplish their needs’. As a solution he suggests that ‘for conflicts to be enduringly resolved, appropriate decentralized structures are needed, designed to serve the psychological, economic, and relational needs of groups and individuals within nation-states’ (Azar, 1986).

Ethiopian political elites have different opinions on how to approach this issue. Having different opinion should not be a problem in itself, but understanding the position of others and tolerating one another has become an obstacle to open and constructive dialogue. In order to overcome this hurdle, open public discussion and debate over this issue must start right now. Open discussions and debate will help to build confidence among different ethnic groups and peoples. It will bridge the gap and clear the way to make important compromises. Thus, opposition leaders are expected to work hard to find common ground to tackle this issue openly, genuinely, and in a very honest way. The step-by-step approach should include: organizing brainstorming meetings, seminars, workshops; and at last organizing all-inclusive Peace and Reconciliation Conference.

Hitherto exercised exclusionist approach should stop. Imposing pre-conditions before any discussion starts will not be helpful; rather it will further damage the relations. Ethnic and national political organizations should meet freely and discuss their ideas and their approach to solving the pressing problems. I don’t think that any kind of conflict resolution goal would be achieved if one excludes major ethnic political groups like OLF and ONLF that are representing significant number of population. By the way, ethnic politics has been always part of our history and it will remain so for the long time to come. Our diversity should not be taken as liability or as a bad thing. It is rather a beauty and an asset. We have to build on it, not fear it.

2. The Problem of poverty: Poverty is so deep in our country; about 15 million people in Ethiopia have no food security; six million always live on foreign food aid; families in millions cannot feed their children three times a day, and some are even eating in shifts. We are all ashamed of this dire situation and particularly, those in power must be ashamed of themselves. They have to be ashamed of themselves because they are enriching themselves at the expense of millions of hungry and starving people.

A USAID/Ethiopia Strategic Paper (2004) identifies a lack of Good Governance as a main reason for food insecurity in Ethiopia. The paper states that ‘the dramatic nature of Ethiopia’s cycle of famine is linked to the Country’s long history as feudal State and Socialist dictatorship. Current TPLF/EPRDF government in Ethiopia is a minority ethnic group imposing its wrong policies and programs upon the majority of the Ethiopian people. The country still lacks a broad political competition and has very weak governance. Unfortunately enough, the Ethiopian people accept the authoritarian rule, and are largely passive in their relationship to government officials at all levels. The custom of holding elected officials accountable for social service delivery, economic opportunity, and basic human rights are weak or even non-existent’. The paper correctly concludes that ‘many problems that contribute to Ethiopia’s continuing vulnerability to famine stems from weak governance’. We actually don’t expect good governance from TPLF/EPRDF Government, because it fundamentally lacks not only legitimacy to govern, but most importantly, it also lacks a capacity to govern. The USAID/Ethiopia paper reveals this fact when it writes: ‘Ethiopia currently is a federal State, with nine regions broadly configured along ethnic lines. However, these regions have no internal autonomy to exercise self-administration. There is a strict control of the central government, which creates tension between center and periphery. Regional, Zonal, and Woreda administrators are being appointed by a ruling party without having a capacity to govern’. The very nature of TPLF/EPRDF government makes it difficult to reform itself, and thus, it has to be replaced if we seriously need to alleviate, or at least, reduce poverty in Ethiopia.

3. The Problem of Political Culture: Political culture refers to the overall pattern of beliefs, attitudes and values in a society towards the political system. As Ethiopia has always lived and still living under dictatorship, the citizens of this country see themselves as subjects of the government not as participants in the political process. Many fear to express themselves outwardly against the wrong doings of the authorities. What Levada observed about the people living under dictatorship fits well to our society. He writes: ‘Fear created citizens who outwardly conformed but in reality adopted strategies designed to ensure their survival: two persons in one body. People participated but only as subjects. Survival required certain cunning in the pursuit of self-interest…’ (Levada, 2001). We Ethiopians do not deny that we all are two persons in one. It is not our fault. It is the result of the environment of fear that imposed on us by our rulers. But we have to recognize this fact and work hard to change it. This culture of fear and suspicion of each other should stop somewhere if we really want to enter into a serious problem solving dialogue.

Besides, an uncompromising political culture of 1970s is still intact in our society. Those political elites in power and the leaders of oppositions are all the product of the 1970s political movement, and they have a problem of listening and understanding the position of their opponents. For them the games are always to win or to lose. No win-win situation in their thinking. The opponents should be in anyways defeated. This kind of political culture is still intact in our society and we should have to openly debate on it and overcome this hurdle, if we really want to address our problems genuinely and solve them definitely.

Ture Hirbe, PhD

The writer can be reached at turehirbe@gmail.com

In addition, the end of the Cold War created a conducive environment for the only great power to meddle freely in the domestic affairs of countries. This was also true to Ethiopia. The plight of the Ethiopian people had been at its peak. The dictatorial socialist regime led by Colonel Mingsitu Haile Mariam and the Ethiopian People Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), a baptized Albanian communist led by the current Prime Minister waged a bloody civil war, the former to extend its brutal dictatorship and the later to implement the deeds of the former in a subtle, deceiving and divisive way over the Ethiopian people.

As BBC’s transmission in March, this year exposed it to the world, the confiscation of relief aid by the Tigrian people Liberation Front (TPLF), the core of the EPRDF, in 1983 supplied by the West to the war ravaged Tigray region while the Tigrian people were helplessly fighting the agony of death, but still by the very name it was waging the bloody war, is an immortal testimony to its inherent undemocratic nature. The West however embraced EPRDF, knowing full well its capacity to commit such absolute inhumane practices.

Mingestu had to go because he had opposing views with the West. Not because he was a socialist or brutal dictator over the Ethiopian people. On the other hand, EPRDF, even though deeply communist, was more than ready to do as told by the West from the outset. Therefore, ensuring EPRDFs rise to the helm of power was facilitated by the West, in particular by the United States of America. This was not the only time the West assisted dictators or overthrew others. A case in point in this regard is the case of Saddam Hussein. His accession to power was facilitated by the US. Ironically, it was the former Defense Secretary Rumsfeld under President Bush, who served America as its envoy to the then Iraq of Saddam Hussein. They did not care what Saddam did to the people of Iraq until he became a bully in the region and he was believed to have weapons of mass destruction. No one forgets, however, the heavy price America has paid and is still paying, how many thousands of American soldiers were killed, how many hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians, lost their lives and how many billions of dollars had to be wasted as a result of America’s misguided and reckless handling of the dictator. Numerous dangerous miscalculations made by the West can be cited with a varying magnitude. In fact, could there be any dictator that had not been supported by the West at all?

Ethiopians have been languishing under EPRDF’s dictatorial regime for two decades deprived of their democratic rights and robbed of their dignity. Everything in Ethiopia seems to be a sole property of this dictatorial party. Its leaders are the pure replica of Louis the 14th of France. The leadership of EPRDF facilitated smooth appropriations and transformed the country to the level of a “vampire state”. Anything done is meant to prolong it’s hegemony over the Ethiopia people. One would be in a real problem to locate the free press, civil society, rule of law and the other pillars of democracy to be found in EPRDF’s Ethiopia.

In the past two decades, lack of entrenched democratic institutions in Ethiopia, holding democratic elections so far remain as an intangible as a day dream. It was during 2005 that democratic elections were close to be realized in Ethiopia. Unfortunately, democracy once again died out while struggling to be born. Our leaders remained as self-chosen as ever. Ethiopia remained under the yoke of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi’s tight dictatorial grip.

The Ethiopian people presented themselves as lamb to be slaughtered before brute force in their struggle for freedom and democracy while the whole world was watching. Despite EPRDF’s savage act of killings of unarmed innocent civilians demanding that their votes be properly counted and respected, the West continued to do business as usual with EPRDF. Helen Epstein in her articulated article, “Cruel- Ethiopia,” stated: “Unfortunately, this aid is also subsidizing a regime that is rapidly becoming one of the most repressive and dictatorial on the continent. During Ethiopia’s most recent parliamentary elections, in May 2005, the government suspended the vote count in some areas when it seemed the opposition was winning more seats than expected. When the results were eventually announced, Meles’s EPRDF, to no one’s surprise, had won.” There is no demarcation between government administration and the ruling party’s structure, nevertheless, the West is still pouring its money and food aid through this structure.

EPRDF has drawn the lesson from the 2005 Ethiopian National Elections: its repressive and obsolete Revolutionary Democracy has no room left in the mind and heart of the Ethiopian people and that it cannot be elected unless it resorted to force. Therefore, it readily moved against the prevalence of democratic institutions and weakened them in their infancy .It used its party controlled and immense legislative power to promulgate new, destructive laws. Then it moved to stifle the right of the Ethiopian poor mercilessly in every hamlet. Therefore in 2010 EPRDF was ready to join the club of exclusive dictators in history. And it did.

In the 2005 rigged elections, the opposition was able to win 32% of the parliamentary seats. In 2010 however, this figure dwindled to only 0.1%, the second lowest record in history of the world, only next to Saddam Hussein’s 100% ‘victory’. Even Colonel Mingestu’s Workers Party of Ethiopia (WPE) was not close to such a “victory”. This time too, the West could not atone and embody virtues that humanity can respect and stand on the right side of history and the truth. It rather preferred silence, and silence at such a time is, I think, betrayal.

Ethiopians know the excruciating pain of injustice. We abhor human indignities. For the last two decades Ethiopians have been struggling for democracy and freedom from so many indignities in the hands our own rulers. However horrifying his actions over the Ethiopian people are, the Prime Minister remains to be the darling of the West so far in practice .Every time elections are held and rigged, it is the West that runs to recognize and promise Meles its continued support. The West has very little regard for the Ethiopian people who are in their desperate fight for democracy and justice.

Coincidentally, the Irish foreign Minister was here in Ethiopia for a working visit and the Irish Ambassador to Ethiopia was kind enough to invite government ministers, leaders from the opposition and people from what is left of Civil Societies to the residence of the Ambassador. The Foreign Minister while addressing the gathering during the occasion mentioned the presence of leaders of EPRDF, but the presence of the Ethiopian opposition was not even noted. Everyone listened to his speech attentively. He discussed briefly the diplomatic ties of the two countries as well as commerce and relief aid. Personally for me, it was an embarrassing moment to say the least. He did not seem to have the slightest concern for the lack of freedom in Ethiopia. The Irish Foreign Minister could not understand the pain of injustice inflicted on the Ethiopian people.

Similarly, the United States’ Ambassador to Ethiopia, Mr. Booth hosted a reception at the Sheraton Addis to celebrate the 234th Independence Day of the United States. He too, did not seem to recognize the presence of the high level opposition leaders. He did not say a word about the lack of freedom in Ethiopia. He rather chose to focus on aid and agriculture. What is the message here? Both, the Foreign Minister of Ireland and the Ambassador of the United States seem to suggest that freedom is not a priority for the Ethiopian people.

Ethiopians residing in the US assiduously campaigned for President Obama not because he is black, but because they believed that he would engage Meles in robust diplomacy for the cause of democracy and human right in Ethiopia. Their hope seems to be dashed now.

The message the West is repeatedly sending to the Ethiopian people is very clear: it respects the bullet not the ballot. In addition to this, they know that the aid they are providing is used by EPRDF to strengthen repression. According to the West, EPRDF is the one holding the gun. It can fight the war on terror on the West’s behalf so that it can feel safe. This however is a self-deceptive approach to the problem; it is the Ethiopian youths that remain buried in Somalia’s desert. They died to safeguard American interest, not even EPRDF’s cadres.

Moreover, by inviting Meles to the G20 summit after his election ‘victory,’ the West is also explicitly giving him the go ahead. Could anyone call this wisdom? Or can anyone believe this as a constructive engagement? Or is it just a clear contempt for the Ethiopian people? It is the saddest thing to even imagine, but there is no angle left to look at it otherwise: it is a clear contempt for the Ethiopian people.

The long view of history shows that failure to cultivate genuine friendship not only with the Middle East People, but also with the people in the Horn of Africa is what is costing the Western counties very heavily. So long as the Western countries walk off the track, there will be no change in the outcome no matter how hard they try.

I am neither trying to put all the blame on the West. I do not believe it can solve every problem, nor am I asking to do the fighting on our behalf. The root causes for most of the problems we have today emanate from lack of sincerity and commitment for the truth. Democracy is the solution for most of the multifaceted problems we are facing in the world. For a democratic system to be realized in countries such as Ethiopia, peace to prevail all over the globe and for the West to achieve its national interest, putting the rule of law at the centre stage of our effort is very essential.

In more clear terms, by supporting dictators against the will of the people and its democratic principles cherished back home, the West is losing thousands of lives and burning its tax payers money to jeopardize its own long term interests. Lack of credibility is a slippery road that has so far led the West to abyss of conspicuous danger and created chaos in many poor countries in the world. The Ethiopian people expect the West to stop pretending and practice the truth. Ethiopians do not have the luxury to involve ourselves in a senseless fanfare. We are determined to achieve the goal of freedom in Ethiopia, even if it means walking it alone. The precarious past that we have come through in our long history is a clear testimony of the strength we have to rise up from these darkest states of tyranny to daybreak of freedom. In absolute obedience to peaceful struggle and knowing full well it is the right path to achieving freedom and democracy in Ethiopia, we will never look back until we are able to secure our democratic rights. This is exactly the reason why our leader Birtukan Midekessa is languishing in one of the worst prisons in the world.

If the Silenced Majority Could Talk…

If the silenced majority inside of what has become Prison Nation Ethiopia (PNE) could talk, what would they tell President Obama and Secretary Clinton about U.S. human rights policy? Would they pat them on the back and say, “Good job! Thank you for helping us live in dignity with our rights protected.”? Or would they angrily wag an accusatory finger and charge, “You speak with forked tongue. You wax eloquent on your lofty principles to us in the morning while you consort with thugs and murderers in the afternoon.” What would the thousands of political prisoners rotting within the closed walls of dictator Meles Zenawi’s prisons say of America’s big human rights talk? “Practice what you preach, Mr. President!” What would Birtukan Midekssa, Ethiopia’s No. 1 political prisoner, first woman political party leader in Ethiopian history and the undisputed heroine of 80 million Ethiopians say to President Obama were she allowed to speak to him? “Mr. President, why do you turn a deaf ear when I have been silenced in solitary confinement?” What would the innocent victims gripped in the jaws of Zenawi’s steel vises say to Secretary Clinton in their faint whimpers from the torture chambers? I do not know. What I know for sure is that the silenced majority of Ethiopians does speak loud in bootless cries while gasping for air under the jackboots of a barbaric dictatorship. President Obama, can you hear their deafening silence?

The Belly v. The Ballot

The defenders of the dictatorship in Ethiopia argue that the masses of ordinary Ethiopians are interested in the politics of the belly and not the politics of the ballot. They do not care about human rights or democracy because they are concerned about finding their daily bread. The masses of poor, illiterate, hungry and sick Ethiopians in their view are too dumb and too damn needy to appreciate “political democracy”. “Economic democracy before political democracy,” they proclaim with certainty. They condemn free speech, free press, free elections, and indeed freedom itself as alien Western ideologies that are meaningless to the masses of poor and hungry Ethiopians. Ethiopia’s dictators are quick to stand on their hind legs and condemn the West for violating their sovereignty because the West insists on human rights observances in Ethiopia. Of course, these rights are not some bizarre imported ideas but core element of the organic law of Ethiopia which incorporates by reference all of the major international human rights conventions. All African dictators have been justifying their dictatorships for well over one-half century by claiming that there is democracy before democracy in Africa.[2]

I raise the belly v. ballot argument to contextualize American human rights policy in Ethiopia. The evidence suggests that the attitudes and perceptions of American (and other Western) policy makers may be latently contaminated by the view that human rights are not of concern or are not important to the tired, poor and huddled Ethiopian masses. I have heard it said artfully in moments of candor by those who have access to U.S. decision-makers, by some decision-makers themselves and even by certain of my learned friends that the majority of ordinary Ethiopians neither know of nor understand their human rights. Even if they are aware of their rights, they do not have a clue as to how to defend them. As a result, I am told, the interests of the ordinary Ethiopian citizens do not figure in the least in U.S. human rights policy calculations. Some have even pointed out to me (much to my disappointment, embarrassment and chagrin) that the lack of informed and vigorous human rights debate and sustained and organized human rights advocacy among Ethiopian elites within and without Ethiopia is clear and convincing evidence that human rights are not important to Ethiopians. I am advised to accept the fact that U.S. human rights rhetoric is primarily intended for international media consumption and to give moral support to the few human rights-minded Ethiopian elites while avoiding the scathing criticisms of the international human rights community for U.S. inaction and hypocrisy. “That is realpolitik for you,” said one of my erudite colleagues jokingly. “The U.S. would rather blather about human rights violations to the African masses in the morning only to sit down for a seven-course meal with Africa’s murderers and butchers in the afternoon.”

Introducing the Unsung Heroes of Ethiopian Human Rights to U.S. Policy Makers

I strongly disagree with those who sideline ordinary Ethiopians as too poor and hungry to be concerned about their human rights or good governance. I could not disagree more with the cynics who claim that ordinary Ethiopians do not know or care about their human rights as long as their bellies are full. In fact the contrary can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. When the 2005 elections were stolen by Zenawi in broad daylight and opposition leaders were hunted down, arrested and jailed, it was not the elites, the privileged and the degreed that came out to defend democracy and human rights. The people who stood up for democracy, freedom and human rights when it really counted were the poor, the urban laborers, the students, the unemployed, the slum dwellers, the retired and plain ordinary folks. The true unsung heroes of Ethiopian human rights are Tensae Zegeye, age 14; Debela Guta, age 15; Habtamu Tola, age 16; Binyam Degefa, age 18; Behailu Tesfaye, age 20; Kasim Ali Rashid, age 21; Teodros Giday Hailu, age 23; Adissu Belachew, age 25; Milion Kebede Robi, age 32; Desta Umma Birru, age 37; Tiruwork G. Tsadik, age 41; Admasu Abebe, age 45. Elfnesh Tekle, age 45; Abebeth Huletu, age 50; Etenesh Yimam, age 50; Regassa Feyessa, age 55. Teshome Addis Kidane, age 65; Victim No. 21762, age 75 and Victim No.21760, male, age unknown and hundreds more. These were the real defenders of human rights in Ethiopia. Their story is memorialized for history in the testimony of Yared Hailemariam,[3] an extraordinary human rights defender and investigator for the Ethiopian Human Rights Council (EHRCO), before the European Parliament Committees on Development and Foreign Affairs, and Subcommittee on Human Rights in May 2006 [Warning: The graphic content in Yared Hailemariam’s testimony cited in the link in footnote 3 may be disturbing to some readers. Reader discretion is strongly advised.] and the report of the official Inquiry Commission that investigated the violence in the post-2005 election period.

If American policy makers are giving lip service to human rights in Ethiopia to please the few elites or immunize themselves from criticism by the international human rights community, their concern is truly misplaced. Human rights in Ethiopia is not about the elites yapping about human rights, nor is it about fine intellectual discussions, philosophical debates, speeches, annual reports or legal analyses of the nature and importance of human rights. It is much, much simpler than that. It is about helping to bring to justice the killers and those who authorized the killings of Tensae Zegeye, age 14; Debela Guta, age 15; Habtamu Tola, age 16 and all the rest. It is not about a metaphorical “closing walls”; it is about getting released the thousands of innocent political prisoners languishing behind the prison walls. It is not about an imaginary clenched fist but the real iron fist of a dictatorship that crushes citizens mercilessly every day. It is not about metaphorical steel vises, but about those who cling to power like blood-sucking leeches on a milk cow.

American policy makers should not be dismissive of ordinary Ethiopians. They should not misinterpret their silence for consent to be brutalized by dictatorship. Ordinary Ethiopians may not know much about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the numerous protocols, resolutions and declarations. They may not even know of Article 13 of their Constitution which incorporates all of the major international human rights conventions as part of their rights. But there should be no doubt that all of them know that as human beings, no person has the moral or legal right to take their lives just because he wants to, jail them and throw away the key because he feels like it or rule them for decades against their will by training a gun to their heads. That is all the human rights knowledge they need to know to deserve the respect and support of the American government.

Stability v. Human Rights

It has been argued and anonymously reported in the media that “Western diplomats” in Addis Ababa believe that forceful U.S. action on human rights could create “instability” in the country. To talk about stability in a dictatorship is like talking about the stability of the nuclear reactor at Chernobyl just before it suddenly exploded. But the whole U.S. “stability” subterfuge to do nothing, absolutely nothing, about gross human rights violations in Ethiopia is eerily reminiscent of a shameful period in American history. The principal argument against the abolition of slavery in the U.S., the ultimate denial of human rights, was “stability”. Defenders of slavery strenuously argued that if slavery ended, the American South would simply disintegrate and collapse because the slave labor-based economy would be unable to sustain itself. They predicted that there would be widespread unemployment and chaos leading to uprisings, bloodshed, and anarchy. To ensure the “stability” of the South, even the United States Supreme Court joined in with its most infamous decision and held that the U.S. Constitution protected slave-holders’ rights to their property. But history proved that keeping the institution of slavery became the very undoing of the American union when the civil war was fought. America came apart at the seams because slavery that denied fundamental human rights to African slaves was retained, not because it was abolished. American policy makers should see the historical parallels. The undoing and unraveling of Ethiopia will be the result of sustained and gross violations of human rights by the dictatorship of Meles Zenawi, not because of respect for and observance of human rights. Perhaps we can crystallize the issue for American policy makers in the language of the American Declaration of Independence: It is necessary for Ethiopia to go through a civil war to ensure that every Ethiopian has the “right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, that to secure these rights governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it…”?

President Obama’s Challenge in Ethiopia and Africa

President Obama now faces a great challenge in Africa, and particularly in Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa. His African human rights rhetoric is being tested by the cunning dictators on the continent who are scheming to counter his every move. They are prepared to test his mettle to find out how far they can push him before he pushes back. So far, Zenawi has succeeded in cowering the U.S. into inaction and paralysis.

President Obama will soon have to make some tough decisions in his choices in the Horn of Africa. He can choose to let progress on human rights and democracy die on the vine by handing over American tax dollars to sustain bloodthirsty regimes to oppress their citizens, or use the same tax dollars to pressure for change. President Obama is said to be “a pragmatist” concerned about “problem-solving.” He has got a hell of a problem in Ethiopia and must make some tough choices. His major choice will not be between “stability” and human rights, nor will it be a choice between the forces of radicalism and terrorism and democracy in the Horn as the dictators want him to believe. The one and only choice he has is how to help Ethiopia become permanently stable by ensuring the protection of the human rights of its citizens. There will be neither peace nor stability in Ethiopia until the human rights of every citizen are protected.

Zenawi complains that the U.S. and the West in general interfere in Ethiopian affairs too much by insisting on human rights observances and demanding democratization. But by Zenawi’s measure, the U.S. has been “interfering” in Ethiopia for nearly two decades, handing out to him tens of billions of dollars in aid. But for U.S. aid and loans by multilateral institutions under U.S. control, his dictatorship could not last even a single day. If the U.S. is serious about progress on human rights, it will have to kink the aid hose line just a bit. It is guaranteed that someone will be shrieking at the receiving end, “Uncle! Please Uncle Sam!”

Giving lip service to human rights in Ethiopia without action is tantamount to demoralization of the brave and dedicated Ethiopians who struggle everyday against dictatorship and tyranny, trivialization and crippling of efforts to build a strong human rights movement and disempowerment and discouragement of ordinary Ethiopians aspiring to a democratic future. It has been said that, “Man can live about forty days without food, about three days without water, about eight minutes without air, but only for one second without hope.” The most critical need in Ethiopia today is neither food nor water (though they are very much needed), but HOPE. The U.S. has a moral obligation to keep hope alive in Ethiopia by conditioning its aid on significant human rights improvements. Stated simply, the U.S. must practice what it preaches!

FREE BIRTUKAN MIDEKSSA AND ALL POLITICAL PRISONERS IN ETHIOPIA.

[1] http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/61799

[2] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alemayehu-g-mariam/the-democracy-before-demo_b_434992.html

[3] http://ethiomedia.com/carepress/yared_testimony.pdf

See also the list of names of massacred victims released by the official Inquiry Commission investigating the
post-2005 election at: http://www.abbaymedia.com/pdf/list_of_people_shot.pdf

Under a democratic system, power emanates from the will of the people and no one is attributed with any power that is exercised without the legal framework or outside of the institutions that lubricate the rule of law. Now Ethiopia’s government has increasingly fallen under the rule of strongmen of the security intelligence apparatus (a.k.a. hizb dehnibet) than the rule of law. This is not more vividly seen than in the security intelligence’s awry and disarrayed scramble for power that is traditionally known to have been exercised by the courts, the police, the army or other executive and judicial bodies. Now the forces that make up the security intelligence can make or break anything in Ethiopia in a form and magnitude that has become even untamable to the creators of this apparatus. One source describes the intelligence’s building muscle and growing influence as the lions in a zoo that had gone astray and uncontrollable to the political leadership that created it.

The civilian and military intelligence force in Ethiopia, by coincidence and/or design, had been blessed with the training and technical support of Israel, the UK, the US, China and many more countries. With the luring extortion of fighting terrorists and the deafening cry of regional stability, these countries had beefed up the intelligence system to be one of the most trained and equipped in the region.

Under normal circumstances, a well trained and well mannered intelligence system that functions within constitutional and legal parameters is a positive force for the healthy functioning of a country. However, in the case of Ethiopia, the deterioration of the political system into a one party dictatorship has come with a price for the political leadership which has to rely on the security machinery as it supplies the dictatorship with a bloodline of information as well as serving as the instrument of silencing and elimination of political opposition and dissent.

In this regard, the political leadership and the intelligence apparatus had fallen into a marriage of convenience. The political leadership needs the intelligence system to keep track of its domestic political opponents – which means the trespassing of the constitutional and legal rules whilst eliminating, weakening, and damaging the political opposition through arbitrary killings, detainment, disappearance, exiling or harassing opponents. In exchange for the crimes it commits in favor of sustaining the political leadership remain in power without rivalry, the security apparatus, gets a free ride in abusing and misusing its sheer force and the resources it has at its disposal, to enrich itself and its clients through corruption, intimidation, harassment, and illegal acts of killings, disappearance or confiscation of property. Here we see the fruition of a classical relation of cyclic and mutual coexistence between the political leadership and the intelligence as both need each other to cover each other’s crimes and misdeeds.

As a direct result of this mutual relationship based on corrupt and illicit interests, the state of affairs has reached a point where the political leadership is unable to control the intelligence apparatus. The desire of Meles and Co. to cling to power by any means necessary through the realization of absolute power has absolutely corrupted the intelligence apparatus reaching a point where the intelligence apparatus is making the calls in terms of having the real and absolute power that Meles and Co. have found to be uncontrollable. That is as the intelligence apparatus is the one that has the power to kill, intimidate or eliminate by using the weapons, the prisons, the resources and information in its disposal, the political machinery in a way has fallen under the mercy of the apparatus that has the real power. Some sources say that the power and influence of the intelligence is growing to such a it is that, directly or indirectly influencing political decisions and that the political machinery is losing its ground in attempting to put its hands around the apparatus.

There were reports that the Meles and Co. are giving a blind eye to the corruption and arbitrary powers exercised by the intelligence apparatus. There were many reports of agents in the intelligence units acting as political or government officials by taking bribes in securing the interests of their friends, relatives, or those that could pay money or other benefits for the service of these agents. One can argue that corruption is everywhere in the world and what is new in this. Yes, corruption is everywhere and it has been the practice in Ethiopia for ages. This is not just mere corruption. This is about a intelligence apparatus that kills people, confiscates property, and do anything illegal with impunity because the political leadership (maybe not for lack of willingness) is incapacitated or afraid of the repercussions of having to collide with this bulging apparatus that could endanger Meles and Co. the other caveat that holds the hands of Meles and Co. handcuffed from doing anything is the magnitude of information that the intelligence apparatus has concerning the corruption and misappropriation of public wealth by Meles and Co. The fact that the intelligence apparatus knows all the crimes committed by the Meles and Co. in abusing public wealth, how can Meles and Co. have the legal and moral high ground to stop or question the corruption and abusive acts being committed by agents of the intelligence apparatus?

In today’s Ethiopia, it better to know or hire an intelligence agent to secure your interest than going through the lame and devastated judicial system. Any one that needs a quick fix to what he/she seeks would not seek the remedy of the institutions of government, which had been weakened by Meles and Co. for its own political reasons. Hence, real power rests in the hands of strongmen and not strong government intuitions of efficient courts, police force, or regulatory agencies that make up the rule of law.

The emergence of these strongmen inside the intelligence apparatus has also become a headache for Meles and Co. The intelligence agents have began coalescing around secret moles that they need to protect each other’s backs. The intelligence units also have their existential needs as much as the political establishment, and hence, they also form groups based on their ethnic, proximity or encounter lines that ensures their own wellbeing. Their services inside the country as well as in Somalia and other fields of work have accelerated the points of contacts and exchange of networks. Hence their natural desire to remain in their comfort zone of wielding such power for their self-interest and the interests of ruling class has come with the consequential desire of keeping that influence intact. Here is the breeding ground for conflict with the ruling class. Thus, Meles and Co. cannot afford to crackdown on the intelligence apparatus, not just for fear of losing trained manpower, but also for fear of the subsequent escalation of confrontation between the two forces that could grow to terminal and disastrous enmity.

At a point, the intelligence apparatus was daunted by a hovering attack intended from the political establishment which led the agents to ignore reports of an impending mutiny inside the military until tipped by foreign intelligence agents. There were also reports of fabricating information by the intelligence that would help massage the ego of the political establishment. This shows the lack of accountability and transparency in terms of the intelligence apparatus, which has helped the agents to function in their own terms.

This relation between Meles and Co. and the security intelligence apparatus has grown beyond control. This is nowhere dangerous to anyone than for the political establishment which has no legitimacy or freewill support of the population. When the political wind is uncertain, it is clear that the intelligence apparatus would be subjected to the influence of foreign forces that could easily buy out the civilian and military intelligence as the kingmakers.

The cyclic nature of dictatorship lies at the behest of the desire for absolute power. Those who cling to power with such sheer power, would definitely find their own alike to help them remain in power. A political establishment that is corrupt and relies on sheer power rather than that emanates from the people would always give way for the emergence of a myriad of moles that exercise absolute power outside of the legitimate institutions of governance. Hence, as in this impending collision course that would cost the political leadership, we are at the threshold of witnessing a power struggle that would have costly consequences for all involved.

Though it was too late to save nearly a million Ethiopians, who perished with unimaginable indignity during the 1984-85 famine, so many people across the globe reacted with tears and compassion as BBC correspondent Michael Buerk and the late cameraman Mohammed Amin brought the gruesome footages to TV screens across the world. Buerk described the scenes as “the closest thing to hell on earth.”

Deeply troubled by what they saw on TV, British musicians Bob Geldof and Midge Ure founded Band Aid in 1984 and organised the historic Live Aid concert on July 13, 1985, which was simultaneously held at Wembley Stadium in London and the John F. Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia. The charity event was broadcast live to 60 countries and was reportedly watched by nearly two billion people. That powerful marriage of music and charity at a global scale was so successful that Live Aid raised a huge amount of money that helped save the lives of millions of starving Ethiopians.

In fact, the famine has passed and the civil war in Northern Ethiopia, which was the root cause of the tragedy by making relief operations almost impossible, ended in 1991 with the fall of the military junta led by Mengistu Hailemariam. Subsequently, the victorious northern rebel groups, the Tigray People Liberation Front and the Eritrean People Liberation Front, set up separate tyrannical regimes in Asmara and Addis Ababa respectively.

Notwithstanding famine of biblical proportion has not occurred in the last 25 years, hunger is still stocking Ethiopia, which has become the biggest recipient of food aid in the world. Ethiopia’s biggest donor, the United States gives over 1 billion USD in aid annually to prop up the government, a key ally in the war on terror. According the U.S. State Department, the United States, the largest food aid contributor in the world, provided $862 million in assistance in the 2009 fiscal year. On top of that, it donated more than $374 million in food aid in the same year.

Twenty-five years after Live Aid, nearly 13 millions Ethiopians, i.e. one-sixth of the total population, estimated at 80 million, are facing hunger. Over 5.2 people receive direct emergency food assistance while 7.8 people are beneficiaries of a food-for-work scheme called productive safety net program. In Tigray alone, which was the epicentre of the last famine, half a million households, over three-quarter of the population, are dependant on the scheme.

There is no doubt that food aid will continue to be part and parcel of the aid package to disaster-prone countries like Ethiopia. But the fundamental problem is that food aid is sustaining hunger in stead of eradicating it. Ethiopia is a classic example of this failure. Food aid has been institutionalized and permanently embedded into the economy. Likewise, control over relief aid has proven to be a powerful political weapon for the ruling party, which claimed to have won 99.6 percent parliamentary seats in the recent national elections. It appears that the Ethiopian government has convinced itself that feeding the starving millions is the responsibility of faraway rich countries.

More tragically, Ethiopia’s chronic hunger can be attributed to corruption and lack of responsible political leadership than erratic rainfall, which is a fact of life in Sub-Saharan Africa. Ethiopia is one of the fewest countries in the world where land cannot be sold or bought. “The right to ownership of rural and urban land is exclusively vested in the state,” declares the constitution. But the trouble is that the state has been amalgamated with the ruling Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) led by Mr. Zenawi. TPLF still runs the Relief Society of Tigray (REST), which was a major recipient of Live Aid money, a substantial part of which was diverted to its war effort during the height of famine, according to a recent BBC investigation.

Set up in 1995, the Endowment Fund for the Rehabilitation of Tigray (EFFORT), another interesting brainchild of the TPLF and run by the Prime Minister’s wife, Azeb Mesfin, owns over thirty-five multimillion dollars companies. EFFORT, which is more akin to a monopolistic business conglomerate than a charitable entity, was launched with a start-up capital of $150 million, according to Canadian journalist and scholar Dr. John Young, who chronicled the history of the TPLF in his penetrating book, Peasant Revolution in Ethiopia. But the fact of the matter is that even veteran members of the TPLF, including former senior officials, Defence Minister, Seye Abreha and Tigray administrator, Gebru Asrat have admitted that a significant amount of money from relief aid was one of the sources of the start-up fund that enabled the TPLF to launch its companies.

Narrow nationalists within the TPLF believe that imposing their superiority is panacea to everyone. A high ranking official told Reporter newspaper that EFFORT will soon launch a $120 million (well over a billion birr) project in Tigray. According to the official, the gangster capitalist front has already shortlisted five foreign companies bidding to take the lucrative contract. But even such disproportionately unfair projects will not ensure Ethiopia’s food security dilemma as they are only depleting funding that should have gone to independent agribusinesses.

The tragic food aid dependency of Ethiopia, where the annual defence budget is seventy times more than funds allocated for irrigation projects yearly, can only reveal a serious structural deficiency that needs a complete overhaul. This hunger-ravaged country, which was once dubbed the water tower of Africa, is not poor in terms of water resources. The country generates nearly 85 per cent of the Nile, the lifeline of Egypt and the Sudan, but has only utilized less than 3 percent of its irrigable land while poor peasant farmers survive on food donated by countries that have managed to utilize their water resources more wisely and efficiently.

In recent years, the government has adopted a new strategy of attracting foreign investors to develop the agricultural sector. That has even turned out to be problematic and controversial as Chinese, Indian and Saudi companies are leading the land grab rush by securing hundreds of thousands of irrigable virgin land for cheap to grow food in a hungry country not for the local market but for export and to feed their own people. According to, The Great Land Grab: Rush for world’s farmland, a report published last year by the U.S.-based policy think tank, the Oakland Institute, the trend will only aggravate food insecurity for the poor in countries like Ethiopia, where food aid is just sustaining chronic hunger and rampant malnutrition. If food aid is failing the very people it was supposed to help, it is confounding why key stake holders are sustaining such a detrimental policy.

Ethiopia’s perennial food aid dependency is not a direct result of lack of water or land, resources which are abundant and being given away to rich foreigners. It is mainly caused by a highly myopic and corrupt regime which is squeezing maximum profit out the hunger, suffering and abject poverty of tens of millions of Ethiopians. The Meles regime has neither the commitment nor the right mindset to take Ethiopia out of the quagmire of chronic hunger.

Both the public and the international community received the news with a prolonged yawn. No one expected a fair hearing. EPRDF, and more specifically its principal extremist, Bereket Simon, whose mere presence, let alone prolonged engagement, is a kiss of death on democratic values(he headed a judges oversight body), has damaged the integrity of the judiciary to such an extent that, according to a study commissioned by the ECA(The African Governance Report 2—2009), the UN offshoot in Addis, experts deem it more corrupt than the Nigerian judiciary. Eighty percent of judges, according to Western diplomats in Addis, hail from the nation’s least prestigious law school, that of the highly politicized Civil Service College. Ultimately, the legal scuffle only served to reinforce a long embedded—both locally and internationally—conviction about a judiciary trusted only by the EPRDF.

There is no question now, two months after the farcical election “results” were announced, that the opposition had faltered in its response to a looming threat against its existence. A public outraged by the election “result” had intuitively looked to it for leadership; but in a moment of irksome hesitation, it failed to respond in the prompt manner the situation had warranted. But hopefully, the final decision by the Court of Cassation would now compel it to a new beginning. The situation is redeemable; the people, though disappointed, could be swayed—of course, all stringently within the constitutional and peaceful enclosure.

But as the beleaguered opposition ventures to a future that is tentative at best, it needs to ponder on two issues deeply: What caused the moment of—still lingering— hesitation when its very existence was under threat? And what could be learned from Lidetu Ayalew’s political oblivion; a fate from which the EPRDF (its Machiavellian benefactor) was unwilling—and unable—to save him from?

The danger of political vacillation is exemplified no better than in a recent event in the EPRDF. It is a narrative of how Meles Zenawi triumphed over his rivals in the TPLF in the early 2000s. He was virtually ousted from power after losing an internal debate over the Technical Arrangement, a blueprint for cease fire drawn by the international community that ignored a fundamental Ethiopian demand: restore status-quo-ante before engaging in formal negotiation with the Eritrean government. At a low point for him, a group of African leaders, who were in Addis for an annual AU head-of-states gathering openly queried “if a coup-detat had taken place in Ethiopia.” But even his ardent rivals, who were by then convinced that he should be removed, inauspiciously hesitated, calculating(wrongly, as we now know) that they could remove him with no less ease after the war had been fought and won. But the right moment to remove him elapsed, never to return again; even though the war he was against had gone Ethiopia’s way. A rare chance had been allowed to slip fortuitously. (But in fairness, he too had share in the victory. But that is another story.) Having learned from his rivals’ mistake, Meles went on to demolish them at the first opportunity.

Meles’ rivals are now valuable part of the opposition. Their experience is instructive: in politics opportunity knocks only rarely. It should be exploited at the first opening. This is why if the new opportunity created by the ruling of the Court of Cassation is wasted, a long dry spell would be inevitable—one that would threaten the existence of the legal opposition.

The opposition has an exciting assortment of leaders. They are educated, have experience, are well intentioned, and crucially, are trusted by the people. The post-election paralysis could not reasonably be attributed to the quality of leadership. The shortcoming is rather in the lack of strategy. No one prepared for 99.6% “win” by the EPRDF. Its announcement triggered a confusion in which no one knew where the opposition was going what objectives were suddenly reprioritized. It was a predictable reaction to a profound surprise. Considered from this perspective, the opposition’s moment of hesitation after the election “results” were announced is fathomable.

But two very long months have since passed. A new situation has cropped up in the meantime, and its time to craft a new strategy that will soberly define what the opposition’s response will be to the outrage of the election “result.” On this strategy hangs the fate of the legal opposition. This is an undertaking that will test the smarts of the very best the opposition has; and all things considered, the odds are in their favor to articulate a sagacious roadmap. But in these difficult times, the deeply entrenched blame culture in Ethiopian politics poses a particularly menacing threat to them. This is a time when the focus should be on opportunities and not on problems. Which way the opposition goes will be a reflection of the strength of leadership. It must establish the potency to fight and defeat the blame culture that has recurrently damaged the cohesion of the opposition.

The Ethiopian public abhors weakness more than injustice. In this respect, it is in tandem with a global trait; one that binds all cultures. This is why so many people express preference for the EPRDF over Lidetu Ayalew. Despite the cynical effort by Lidetu to spin his apparent cowardice in 2005 in to a chronicle of an ideological rift between an extremist and moderate leadership, his cowardly retreat from an epic confrontation ensued in the full glare of the public and has relegated him to political oblivion. Not only will this episode haunt his future political career (to his credit, he still hasn’t given up), but it will also dominate his legacy. The failure of the EPRDF to prop him at a crucial juncture goes to show, in part, how contemptuous it is of weakness and cowardice. ( But it hasn’t abandoned him altogether. They expect him to be handy if the opposition re-emerges strengthened.) EPRDF hates all things that is not part of it, but its Davis and Goliath story when it fought the Derg predisposes it to at least respect those who have the vigor to stand up for their beliefs.

There is a fine line between recklessness and cowardice. It is not beyond the power of opposition leaders to position the optimum balance between the two poles. By finding that point, the ruling by the Court of Cassation gives them an opportunity to lead from the center. They should seize it.

As private television broadcasting in Ethiopia is not allowed, all these projects have to be launched from abroad. Taking advantages of the technology and the network of professionals in the Diaspora, they launched the 24 hours TV programming last May.

ESAT is the latest addition to the more than 300 TV channels that air programs through the Riyadh based Arabsat satellite service provider. The Eritrean government run Eri-TV is arguably the first one to enter the Ethiopian air waves through satellite back in 2004 first in Amharic then in Oromiffa. VOA also - after the jamming of its transmission - recently joined the Arabsat spectrum to broadcast its transmission. Now it is ESAT’s turn. If they prove successful, expect more stations to follow suit.

The bulk of the journalists serving ESAT are from Europe and with some help from their colleagues residing in the U.S. Most of the journalists are experienced professionals, some with prison stunts.

Signs of Success?

Since its first broadcast, ESAT proved to be a force to reckon with. It didn’t take long before the Ethiopian audience called them esat (fire). While the role of the media shouldn’t necessarily be grilling the government, the perception somehow indicates they are playing that part.

Three weeks into the launch their transmission was knocked off the air. That happened a couple of times before they were silenced for almost a month. Speculations still going on, the main suspects being the authorities in Addis. Addis Neger Online said that it has obtained information which indicates that “ESAT has successfully been jammed by Ethiopia’s Information Network Security Agency (INSA).” The source also disclosed Chinese assistance was instrumental in silencing the station with an installation of a 700 MW jammer. Ethio Media Forum refuted that and quoted a professional: “The theory that a Chinese gadget from Sar Bet jammed ESAT doesn’t hold water and it is rubbish.” They also added: “ESAT was not jammed. It has nevertheless been sporadically interrupted by undetermined electronic interference.”

The service provider has been cautious from putting the blame on anyone for the “undetermined electronic interference”. Nevertheless, ESAT spokesperson Mr Abebe Belew, told Awramba Times: “We believe we are jammed,” without actually saying who was behind it. In recent interview with the VOA, he again refrained from pointing fingers. “The service provider is still investigating,” was his response.

Who is watching?

Television is a tricky media for most of the African audience. In Ethiopia, it is even much trickier. With around 30 percent of electric coverage, the other 70 percent is excluded from the benefit of such media by default. Even more, the cost of TV is prohibitively expensive for an overwhelming majority of Ethiopians. At the moment the number of television sets in the country is estimated to be around 400,000. That is a ratio of 1000:5. Most of these owners are concentrated in major towns. What makes matters even more challenging to satellite broadcasters is that all these TV sets cannot receive their signals without additional satellite receivers which normally cost half the price of the TV sets. That shouldn’t be a cause for concern though. Think of the Internet a decade earlier!

The most important advantage of the satellite transmission is that it is not hindered by lack of transmitters. ETV which uses transmitters (and satellite lately) currently covers 43 percent of the country. Fortunately, that is not a problem for satellite broadcasters. That is the advantage of the extra cost of having a satellite dish.

Over the last decade satellite dishes have been sprawling from the roof tops of many Addis Ababa neighborhoods. They are also constantly growing in the regional states. These days the cost of satellite dishes in Ethiopia has shown a drastic increase. In most cases up to 50 percent, hitting the 2000 Birr mark. Many people say ESAT has been one of the “culprits” for the price hike. Others attribute that to the recently concluded World Cup tournaments in South Africa.

As such, ESAT is costly to viewers, which for the foreseeable future makes them the media of the urbanites. Most of the Ethiopian private press have also been targeting this audience. What matters most is the existence of an alternative voice.

Smear Campaign

While it is too early to talk about their success, they seem to have gotten on the nerves of the powers in Addis to be a target of incessant smear campaign.

The TPLF owned Walta Information Center called ESAT “an emerging terrorists’ media.” They also claim “this television is funded by the Eritrean government and international terrorist groups.” Walta, however, didn’t provide any evidence to sell this claim. When ESAT was knocked off air the first time, the cadres quickly ridiculed them by extending their wish to “Rest In Peace”. Then another one came which said ESAT was actually not fire but a moth (Yesat Rat). Then came: ESAT = Esayas Afeworki TV. The latest one comes with some ethnic flavor added to it, in the classic TPLF style. It reads: “If Amharic is not your language why give your money to ESAT?” That is a reaction to the various fundraising activities the station is undertaking. The propaganda is not expected to end anytime soon.

To keep up:

• One of the most important advantage, it is a 24 hours transmission which can be viewed anytime of the day. Sure it is a monumental task to sustain a project like that.

• The reporters strive to balance their information by trying to get the other side of the story. They show that they at least tried. That is one big step to create credibility. They are doing their best in hunting down the contact numbers of the news makers. Some of the responses from Ethiopian officials sound dramatic, to say the least.

• The availability of their broadcast online through their website. They are also a constant presence in the video sharing websites of YouTube, EthioTube, and DireTube. The Internet presence allows audience to watch the programs in their own terms.
To reconsider
On the downside though, there are a couple of issues ESAT should be addressing:

• As a European based media, ESAT could benefit highly from the advances in media in those countries. Unfortunately, starting from the presentations, the title of their programs, even the attires seem to have been borrowed from ETV.

• The need for plan B. ESAT should be ready for any measure from Addis Ababa. Depending on their success, that could range anywhere from tampering with their frequencies to taking legal actions on satellite dish owners in Ethiopia. VOA may have the budget and the diplomatic clout to tackle that but ESAT is vulnerable owing to financial constraints.

• Its advisory board composition is also a bone of contention. The regime in Addis is attacking them claiming that since the owners and the advisory board members are known government critics, ESAT cannot be an independent media. The broadcaster insists it is owned by Taskforce for Ethiopian Democracy and Human rights (TEDH), which is a nonprofit organization.

At this juncture, we should also remember that the supposedly public media which is paid for by the Ethiopian tax payer is exclusively controlled by the ruling party cadres. Instances: the board chairman of the Ethiopian Radio and Television Agency is none other than Mr Bereket Simon. His deputy Mr Shimeles Kemal sits on the board of the dying Ethiopian Press Enterprise and another top TPLF official Mrs. Netsanet Asfaw chairs the board of Ethiopian News Agency. So much for independence of media preached from Arat Kilo.

All said, ESAT should still reconsider the members of its advisory board.

How far ESAT goes depends on a number of variables. Finance being the top most issue. Will they continue to entirely rely on handouts from donors and good Samaritans? Well, that is sure to put the station in a difficult position. They are planning to charge the Internet audience a monthly subscription fee of $ 10, as explained by the spokesperson of the station on VOA. That perfectly makes sense. Major dailies and weeklies like the Wall Street Journal, The Economist, Newsweek and others have long begun charging for access to their content at a much higher rate. If we come to the Horn of Africa, the Indian Ocean Newsletter charges an average of $3 per news item for its online content. In that regard, ESAT is just following a trend which befits their services. That is not to forget that they still should seek other sources of finance to sustain this bold project.

Whatever the fate of ESAT, they surely will take credit for showing that it is still possible to penetrate all the blockades and become alternative source of ideas. All it takes is a bunch of dedicated and resourceful citizens which ESAT’s team has surely been.

With a bold, late-race move and a little luck, Ethiopia’s Genzebe Dibaba took home the 5000m title at the IAAF World Junior Championships in Moncton, Canada today.

Dueling with Mercy Cherono, the World Junior Cross Country and 3000m Champion from Kenya for most of the race, Dibaba was faced with the challenge of beating one of the best junior runners on the planet- not an easy task considering Cherono’s excellent form as of late.

Similar to the tactics used in the 3000m on Monday, Cherono grabbed the lead early and looked to be in cruise control mode. By the 3000m mark it was clear that it would be a classic head-to-head race, yet another duel between Africa’s two dominant distance running nations.

Knowing that she would have to make a move before the sprint speed of Cherono became a threat, Dibaba pulled even with 800m to go, showing she had what it takes to win.

But soon Cherono reacted. Both would trade the lead for the next quarter mile, taking the bell together.

That’s when luck would strike for Dibaba. As Cherono grabbed the lead and seemed to be pulling away, her feet skimmed the inside rail of the Stade Moncton 2010 track, causing her to stumble and lose momentum.

Dibaba reacted instantaneously, taking the lead and not looking back until after finishing in 15:08.06, a new championship record.

“I knew I could pass her with 100m left. I have better speed than her over the last 100m, so I stayed back deliberately,” said Dibaba, who earned her first World Junior title.

“When she stumbled, I had never given up hope and had planned to kick over the last 100m, so I didn’t focus on her stumbling.”

“It’s not how I wanted to finish,” said Cherono, who finished in 15:09.19 to nab the silver medal. “I stumbled and it cost me the race.”

Kenya’s Alice Nawowuna, who ran the race barefoot, took the bronze in a personal best of 15:17.39.

Emily Sisson of the United States completed a successful 3000m/5000m double at the Championships by running 15:48.91 personal best. Her time lowers the previous American High School record of 15:52.88 set by Caitlin Chock back in 2004. Running the 5000-meters as an afterthought following her personal best in the 3-K on Monday, the Missouri prep star was relaxed enough to take sixth place.

“I didn’t even know what the national record was, and I am so excited to break it at this big meet,” said Sisson, who attended Parkway Central High School in Chesterfield, Mo. “The crowd was awesome. I didn’t think it could beat Monday’s crowd, but it was great. I was more excited than nervous, because I came in with my focus on the 3000m, and this was just for fun. It was different being able to hang of their pace and not have to do all the work.”

Medrek, a coalition of eight parties, made an unsuccessful complaint to the National Electoral Board about irregularities surrounding the May 23 poll, and then took the case to the Supreme Court, which upheld the board’s decision. Today, the Supreme Court’s decision was also upheld, Medrek spokesman Negasso Gidada said by phone from the capital, Addis Ababa.

Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi’s ruling party, the Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Democratic Front, with allied parties, won all but two seats in the 547-member parliament. Meles is a former Marxist guerrilla leader who has ruled sub- Saharan Africa’s second-most populous nation since 1991.

“They said there were no legal grounds to oppose the electoral board and supreme court’s decisions,” said Negasso. “That means there’s no more legal ways for us to go.”

The coalition, that won one seat in Addis Ababa, will consult its lawyers before deciding its next move, Negasso said.

The electoral board’s management of the election process was praised by a European Union observer mission, though it criticized the lack of a “level playing field for all parties” and said the election “fell short of certain international commitments.”

The Ethiopian government has rejected all criticism of a process it described as “free and fair.”

To contact the reporter on this story: William Davison in Addis Ababa via Johannesburg at 1999 or pmrichardson@bloomberg.net

First: a bit about Christianity and Islam in Ethiopia. According to the bible, the Acts, chapter 8, verses 26-39, Christianity was accepted in Ethiopia soon after the resurrection of Jesus Christ. In fact, the historic records of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church state that the first Ethiopian (the then Minister of Finance) was baptized in the year 34 AD. In addition, it should be stated that Ethiopia is mentioned in the holy bible over 40 times.

It is also a matter of public knowledge that Ethiopians are a tolerant society. When the first Muslims were being harassed by the then idol worshipping Arabs, Prophet Mohammed directed over 100 of his followers including his daughter Rockeya as well as her husband to migrate to Ethiopia where they were welcomed and lived in peace for 15 years before they returned to Mecca. It should be stated, in this respect, that Arabs have always been familiar with Ethiopia as it had a great deal of influence in their region. As an example of this, mention can be made of the chapter in the Quran, entitled: “The Year of the Elephant” which relates the Ethiopian army’s occupation of Mecca in the seventh century. During this period, parts of Saudi Arabia as well as the whole of Yemen were under Ethiopian occupation. Compare that with present days’ Ethiopia from where refugees flock to Yemen, Saudi Arabia and other countries in the region due to the grinding poverty and oppression prevailing in their own country!

Christianity as well as Islam were accepted in Ethiopia peacefully unlike religious wars including jihad that had forced other countries to convert to one religion or another. Ethiopian Christians and Moslems coexist peacefully despite destructive fundamentalist provocations such as the burning of churches in Kefa and Illubabor a couple of years ago. Such provocations are known to have been initiated with financial help from fundamentalist Muslim countries.

Coming back to Emperor Haile Selassie I’s wisdom, his response to Saudi Arabia’s request was that he would be willing to approve the construction of a mosque in Axum, a city that contains one of Ethiopia’s sacred Christian sites, as long as Saudi Arabia permitted a church to be built in Mecca. Saudi Arabia never responded. New York’s Mayor Bloomberg and US authorities may make a similar, simple request to facilitate the spread of Christianity and Islam in a reciprocal manner.

By far, the most remarkable achievement by Somaliland is the advancement of democratic ideals and institutions in a turbulent region and under very difficult and lonely economic circumstances. Multi-party municipal, presidential and parliamentary elections were held in rapid succession in 2002, 2003 and 2005, respectively; and all were declared free and fair by international observers. If these successive elections were the equivalent of mid-term tests, the June 26 presidential election, in which the ruling party lost by a sizable margin and conceded defeat gracefully, was like the final exam. And Somaliland passed that final exam with flying colors.

Several factors were responsible for Somaliland’s peaceful, free, and fair presidential elections:

• An independent and competent National Election Commission
• An incumbent president willing and ready to accept the will of his people
• An electorate determined to safeguard at all costs the peaceful gains made in the past two decades
• A robust opposition able to hold the government’s feet to the fire but magnanimous in its victory

For the past nineteen years, the people of Somaliland have been on a trajectory of peace, reconciliation, reconstruction, and self-reliance. Unrecognized as a country, they were unable to tap into any of the traditional sources of international funding and investment. They had to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps, rebuilding schools and other infrastructure decimated during the civil war that began in the 1980’s and lasted into the 1990’s when military dictator Siyad Barre was finally ousted.

The Horn of Africa Peace and Development Center, a non-profit, non-partisan organization based in the United States, that is dedicated to peace and economic development for the Horn of Africa sub-region congratulates the people of Somaliland for this singular achievement. As sons and daughters who hail from all the nationalities of the sub-region, brought together by the moral imperative of uniting our people for a better future, we take pride in Somaliland’s shining, history-making moment. The upcoming inauguration of opposition leader Ahmed Mohamed Mohamoud on July 26, 2010 in the presence of outgoing president Dahir Riyale Kahin after a hotly contested election is a teachable moment that is rare in the sub-region and elsewhere in Africa. It is a portrait for the history books that must be preserved for posterity. It is our hope that other countries of the region, and their brothers and sisters in the South, learn lessons from Somaliland and take steps towards a better future characterized by peace, democracy, and respect for human rights.

Horn of Africa Peace and Development Center
Dallas, Texas, USA
www.hafrica.com
contact@hafrica.com

Mandela Day is undoubtedly a befitting tribute to a man who spent 27 years of his life in jails. The defunct Apartheid regime had given many opportunities to Mandela, who is celebrating his 92nd birthday, to renounce the struggle and walk out of jail. He never budged and resolutely chose to die in jail than kneel down to one of the most abhorrent systems history has ever known. The General Assembly underscored the fact that the longstanding dedication of Mandela, South Africa’s first post-Apartheid president and Nobel Prize peace laureate, “ to humanity, particularly in the areas of conflict resolution, race relations, human rights promotion, reconciliation and gender equality.”

The world is just trying to pay homage to a man who has contributed so much to transform South Africa from a land of injustice to a beautiful “rainbow nation.” Despite the fact that a lot remains to be done to fully heal the wounds of political and economic injustice, South Africa has managed to become a pride of Africa. The successful conclusion of this year’s World Cup, which was staged colourfully with blaring Vuvuzela horns, is testimony to the fact that South Africa has changed forever.

As South Africans have been enjoying their post-Apartheid freedom, our country Ethiopia, which boasts to be the cradle of humanity and symbol of liberty for blacks all over the world, is still groping in the darkness of injustice. Suffering under tyranny and abject poverty, all the great sacrifices of our forefathers since time immemorial has not still created a single day where all citizens of Ethiopia, regardless of their race and cultural heritage, can hold hands and sing that beautiful slave song: “Free at last, free at last…thank God Almighty, we are free at last.”

On this historic Mandela Day, where people across the world honor a great man who has lived long enough to reap the fruit of his immeasurable sacrifice, Ethiopians across the world need to remember our compatriots who have laid their lives for freedom. They are martyrs who deserve to be remembered and honored.

We also need to remember and honor our own Mandelas who have followed the footsteps of those whose exemplary lives have shone and inspired millions across the world. The heroine leader Birtukan Mideksa deserves to be honored and recognized by every freedom-loving Ethiopian. At a time when the deficit of credible leadership have made the struggle of the Ethiopian people devoid of meaning and direction, this woman of extraordinary courage and character needs to be as unifying as Mandela, whose defiance and suffering ignited and fuelled the anti-Apartheid struggle.

Some people may fail to understand the deep meaning of selfless sacrifice. Like Mandela, Birtukan is languishing in the harsh jails of the unjust despots just because she refused to kneel down to tyranny and renounce the struggle of the Ethiopian people. She was also given an opportunity to appear on national TV and deny the inconvenient truth to dignify a ruthless tyrant. She chose to die in jail than lower herself to uplift an insolent and sadistic dictator.

There are also others who think that Birtukan showed lack judgement by putting herself and her family in harms way. Yes, Birtukan could have avoided going to jail. Likewise, Mandela could also have avoided spending 27 years of his life in solitary confinement. The reason why Mandela is now considered a hero, even by those who used to chastise and question his leadership, is not for his surrender but for his unyielding defiance against Apartheid.

At a time when so many leaders, who had vowed to lead the struggle of the Ethiopian people have lost credibility, Birtukan remains unique as her vision is clear, her calls unfaltering and her stand still unwavering. During the last 19 years, many of our leaders have spent a great deal of their wisdom, energy, time and resources, fighting, bickering and undermining one another than fighting the inhuman tyranny that has revived Apartheid in our land. Today, more than ever before, the struggle needs not many but one unifying leader.

Whether we like it or not, there is no other leader in Ethiopia who has won the love, admiration and credibility of freedom-loving Ethiopians dispersed across the world. She is the only one who can unify our deeply divided nation. We don’t have to wait 27 years to recognize the fact that Birtukan’s sacrifice is as worthy as Aung San Suu Kyi, Nelson Mandela or Martin Luther King Jr.

In one of her speeches, she said she was ready for sacrifice and turned to the audience to demand their resolve. “What about you?” she asked bravely. Now this question is haunting each one of us. Little has been done to mobilize people in Ethiopia and around the world to demand for her release unequivocally and persistently. As South Africans had made the release of Mandela a rallying cause during their bitter struggle, freedom-loving Ethiopians, regardless of their political, ethnic and other petty differences, should be able to recognize the importance of a sacrificial lamb as good as lady liberty.

During the 64th United Nations General Assembly plenary meeting, which adopted the resolution last November, the tyrant’s shameless representative, Mesfin Mideksa, said: “The Ethiopian Federal Constitution was firmly anchored on the principle of according genuine recognition and safeguarding the individual identities and rights, as well as ensuring the full representation and participation of all nations and nationalities in the country.” We know that this is a self-refuting lie echoing the emptiness of an unjust tyrannical regime. Though not related at all, Birtukan and Mesfin, who is paid to lie unlike the heroine, have exactly similar father’s name. But they represent completely contradictory visions. Mesfin represents a lying criminal tyranny that sucks the blood of poor Ethiopians. Birtukan, ruthlessly punished for telling the truth, represents freedom, justice and dignity.

December 28, 2008 is an important day in Ethiopian history. The tyrant ordered his security agents to re-arrest Birtukan and condemn her to spend the rest of her life in jail. He callously declared that Birtukan has a “zero chance” of being released again.

True to her words, Birtukan is Ethiopia’s Mandela! In recognition of her immeasurable sacrifice for the sake of freedom, dignity and rights, let us declare 28th December Birtukan’s day. Until she walks out of jail freely, let us rally and honor lady liberty around the world. Her defiance against tyranny symbolizes the nation’s collective desire for liberty and represents the heartbeats of the majority of Ethiopians, who have been reduced to tax-paying slaves, refugees and prisoners by a tyrannical regime that neither represents nor respects them and their history.

Happy Mandela Day!

Has the Mighty Eagle Turned Clucking Chicken?

Teddy “The Rough Rider” Roosevelt, the twenty-sixth president of the United States, had many faults, but one of them was not inability to distinguish between talk and action. The old warhorse understood that “Rhetoric is a poor substitute for action, and we have trusted only to rhetoric. If we are really to be a great nation, we must not merely talk; we must act big.” Roosevelt believed the U.S. should “Speak softly and carry a big stick.” Exactly a century later, appeasement seems to be the hallmark of U.S. foreign policy, at least in dealing with the world’s thugs operating gangsterdoms disguised as governments. The new American slogan appears to be: “Talk big about human rights and watch from the sidelines with folded arms as thugs and gangsters clamp their peoples’ heads in steel vises, punch them in the gut with clenched fists and hang, draw and quarter them behind closed prison walls.” Has the mighty eagle turned clucking chicken?

Steel Vises, Clenched Fists and Closing Walls

In his inaugural speech, President Barack Obama extended an open hand to the world’s thugs clad in the robes of state: “To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history, but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.” In July 2009, in Ghana, President Obama told Africa’s “strongmen” artfully that they have been driving on the wrong side of history for so long that they are headed straight for history’s dustbin:

Development depends upon good governance. That is the ingredient which has been missing in far too many places, for far too long. That is the change that can unlock Africa’s potential…. History offers a clear verdict: governments that respect the will of their own people are more prosperous, more stable, and more successful than governments that do not…. No person wants to live in a society where the rule of law gives way to the rule of brutality and bribery. That is not democracy, that is tyranny, and now is the time for it to end… Make no mistake: history is on the side of these brave Africans [citizens and their communities driving change], and not with those who use coups or change Constitutions to stay in power. Africa doesn’t need strongmen, it needs strong institutions.

In July 2010, almost exactly a year to the week of President Obama’s Ghana speech, U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton gave a speech in Poland on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the founding of the Community of Democracies (an intergovernmental organization of democracies and democratizing countries with a stated commitment to strengthening and deepening democratic norms and practices worldwide) and singled out Ethiopia along with Zimbabwe, the Democratic Republic of Congo and others to warn the world that “we must be wary of the steel vise in which governments around the world are slowly crushing civil society and the human spirit.” She cautioned that the “walls are closing in” on civic organizations, human rights advocates and other nongovernmental organizations that press for social change and shine a light on governments’ shortcomings. She pointed out: “Last year, Ethiopia imposed a series of strict new rules on NGOs. Very few groups have been able to re-register under this new framework, particularly organizations working on sensitive issues like human rights.”

In December 2009, Secretary Clinton delivered a speech in which she set out the basic human rights principles undergirding U.S. foreign policy in the age of thugs and gangsters masquerading as political leaders:

Throughout history and in our own time, there have been those who violently deny that truth. Our mission is to embrace it, to work for lasting peace through a principled human rights agenda, and a practical strategy to implement it…. [There are] many who hold power and who construct their position against an “other” – another tribe or religion or race or gender or political party. Standing up against that false sense of identity and expanding the circle of rights and opportunities to all people – advancing their freedoms and possibilities – is why we do what we do…. We stand for democracy not because we want other countries to be like us, but because we want all people to enjoy the consistent protection of the rights that are naturally theirs… But it is crucial that we clarify what we mean when we talk about democracy, because democracy means not only elections to choose leaders, but also active citizens and a free press and an independent judiciary and transparent and responsive institutions that are accountable to all citizens and protect their rights equally and fairly… Human rights, democracy, and development are not three separate goals with three separate agendas…. We have to tackle all three simultaneously with a commitment that is smart, strategic, determined, and long-term. We should measure our success by asking this question: Are more people in more places better able to exercise their universal rights and live up to their potential because of our actions?

Secretary Clinton outlined the four pillars of the Obama Administration’s approach to “putting our principles into action”. She declared that U.S. policy is founded on “a commitment to human rights [which] starts with universal standards and with holding everyone accountable to those standards, including ourselves.” Accountability means “that governments take responsibility by putting human rights into law and embedding them in government institutions; by building strong, independent courts, competent and disciplined police and law enforcement.” Second, “we must be pragmatic and agile in pursuit of our human rights agenda – not compromising on our principles, but doing what is most likely to make them real. And we will use all the tools at our disposal, and when we run up against a wall, we will not retreat with resignation or recriminations, or repeatedly run up against the same well, but respond with strategic resolve…” Third, Clinton pledged to “support change driven by citizens and their communities. The project of making human rights a human reality cannot be just one for governments. It requires cooperation among individuals and organizations within communities and across borders.” Finally, she announced the U.S. “will widen [its] focus. We will not forget that positive change must be reinforced and strengthened where hope is on the rise, and we will not ignore or overlook places of seemingly intractable tragedy and despair.”

“Are more Ethiopians Better Able to Exercise Their Universal Rights and Live Up to Their Potential Because of U.S. Actions?”

Secretary Clinton said the acid test for the success or failure of U.S. foreign policy is whether “more people in more places are better able to exercise their universal rights and live up to their potential because of our actions?” By this measure, U.S. policy in Ethiopia has been a total, unmitigated and dismal failure. The evidence is overwhelming and irrefutable. Meles Zenawi, the poster child of African dictatorships, has not only “closed the walls”, he has also sealed the roof and nailed shut the doors and windows on Ethiopian society. Opposition leaders are threatened, intimidated, jailed and killed. Civic society organizations are criminalized, decertified and cutoff from funding sources. Political prisoners fill the country’s jails. The country’s first and only female political party leader in history, Birtukan Midekssa, remains imprisoned for life on the ridiculous charge that she denied receiving a pardon in 2007 for her kangaroo court conviction on trumped up charges the year before. Ethiopia ranks at the top of the most corrupt countries in the world despite billions in U.S. and Western aid. In the 2010 Failed States Index, Ethiopia is ranked 17 out of 177 countries (Somalia is ranked #1 failed state). There is no freedom of speech or of the press. Journalists and human rights advocates are harassed and arrested. Independent newspapers are shuttered. Even the one-hour daily radio broadcasting service of the Voice of America (VOA) has been jammed by Zenawi’s explicit orders for the past several months in a flagrantly provocative act. Zenawi accused the VOA (the official international radio and television broadcasting service of the United States government broadcasting in 44 languages), and by implication the United States Government, as the voice of hate and genocide in Ethiopia. Zenawi said the VOA has “copied the worst practices of radio stations such as Radio Mille Collines of Rwanda.” According to Zenawi, the VOA has become the VOI (Voice of Interhamwe)

As to the third pillar of American foreign policy (“change driven by citizens, civic society organizations and their communities”), the evidence is flabbergasting. According to a recent report of the “Ministry of Justice” of Ethiopia, there were a “total of 3,522 NGOs (non-governmental organizations) registered before the country introduced the new law, [and] only 1,655 have so far been able to reregister while the rest (nearly 50%) vanished.”[1] The “Ministry” further reported that “out of the total 1,655 NGOs, which so far are able to be reregistered, 218 have changed their names while 17 shifted from their previous objectives to other objectives.”

Did U.S. actions help promote free and fair elections? Zenawi’s allied-party won 99.6 percent of the parliamentary seats in May 2010. Zenawi chafed publicly at the loss of the 0.4 percent and pledged resolutely: “I would like to confirm to those who did not vote for us that we will work hard to look into your reasons for not voting for us with the view to learning from them and correcting any shortcomings on our part. We will work day and night to obtain your support in the next election.” No doubt, in 2015, the vote will be 100 percent for Zenawi and his party! The European Union Elections Observation Mission, The White House and the U.S. State Department were aghast at the results and bleated: “The elections fell short of international commitments.” They could not quite bring themselves to say the “R” word. Rigged!

Are more Ethiopians today better able to exercise their universal rights and live up to their potential because of U.S. actions? (Just a rhetorical question.)

Talk is Cheap When a Toothless (Paper) Tiger Talks?

Some people cynically and pejoratively characterize U.S. human rights declarations in its foreign policy as hypocritical “cheap talk.” They argue that the U.S. would rather cluck about democracy, freedom and human rights in the abstract than do something concrete to help protect it in societies suffering under dictatorships. I disagree. American talk is not cheap because America talks with its taxpayers’ hard earned dollars. Since 1991, American taxpayers have shelled out $3.2 billion in humanitarian assistance to Ethiopia.[2] Zenawi’s regime has received $26 billion in development aid from the West during the same time, the lion’s share coming from the wallets and purses of hard working American taxpayers.[3] Without American tax dollars bankrolling the dictatorship in Ethiopia, it could not last even a single day.

I will concede that American talk is cheap for the dictators in Ethiopia. For them, America is all bark, and no bite. The lofty words of President Obama and Secretary Clinton go in one ear and exit clean through the other. The U.S. can moan and groan, gripe and grouse about human rights violations in Ethiopia, but its bark is no more threatening than the growl of a toothless and clawless (paper) tiger. “They ain’t gonna do diddley-squat. Let the Americans talk until they turn blue in the face,” the dictators cackle. But America’s color is not just blue; it is also red and white. Ethiopia’s dictators see only the blue which signifies American vigilance, patience and perseverance against injustice. They don’t know what the red and white signify. It time to let them know the real meaning of the colors in the stars and stripes, President Obama! And if I may add, Sir, it is more effective to “speak softly and carry a big stick” when dealing with Africa’s tin pot dictators.

FREE BIRTUKAN MIDEKSSA AND ALL POLITICAL PRISONERS IN ETHIOPIA

[1] http://www.africanews.com/site/1867_NGOs_vanish_from_Ethiopia/list_messages/33257
[2] http://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/PDACN200.pdf
[3] http://www.eastafricaforum.net/2010/04/23/cruel-ethiopia/

As a result of the repressive nature of the regime, the youths are forced to live as mere spectators or face certain death if they choose to organize to demand accountability from those in power. Some youths, however, are choosing armed struggle rather than being the complacent fools. They are joining the Ethiopian People’s Patriotic Front (EPPF) in drove to reclaim their future from TPLF/EPRDF.

These youths are flocking to EPPF because of the organization’s determination to liberate Ethiopia from the totalitarian regime in power and to facilitate a conducive political environment to establish a transitional government, one which will be tasked with devising strategies to craft a suitable political system for the country.

As history has shown, complacency does not necessarily solve problems; it will merely help to exacerbate crisis. What we need as a people is to reevaluate ourselves. We need to gather men and women of goodwill to sit down and deliberate, for the interest of posterity, the proper cause of action forward. What we need most of all is a change in our attitude. Business as usual, which more or less characterizes our national outlook, should be relegated from the body politic. If the country needs anything now, it is a sense of direction.

We must recognize that each one of us have a role to play in order to succeed. The Ethiopians in the Diaspora, particularly the younger generation, must assume a larger role to help these brave freedom fighters because they are better educated and technologically savvy to reach governments, international media and think tank groups to garner support for the cause that the EPPF fighters are fighting and dying for.

Yes, for many of us in the Diaspora communities, we are too busy dealing with our own daily challenges to focus on issues as remote as the EPPF fighters. However, it is important to note that each one of us could have been those fighters had there not been for a set of circumstances to remove us from those dire situation. To get a better appreciation, each one of us must place ourselves in their shoes and ask this question, “What would I expect from the Diaspora communities if I were a young fighter who is fighting injustice and repression in Ethiopia?”

Every generation has its own heroes and heroines. Ethiopia would have been a footnote in the history books had it not been for her brave citizens in the past. Thankfully, the youths in EPPF are determined to make history. But they need our help to succeed; let us come together to strengthen them so they can bring a brighter tomorrow for millions in Ethiopia.

Truth to be told though, the policy of appeasement, which insisted on peace at any cost, and was an outgrowth of mass hysteria induced by the horrors of the First World War, was very popular in Europe and North America between 1918 and 1939. In fact, when Chamberlain returned to Britain from Munich in 1938 with the peace agreement between Britain and Fascist Germany that he waved to the world (at the expense of Czechoslovakia’s annihilation, by the way), he was greeted as a hero. He was even invited to Buckingham’s Palace, in an unusual gesture of royal approval, before he reported to Parliament. Only Winston Churchill, who was to replace Chamberlain as British PM in 1940, after the outbreak of war in 1939, was a notable dissenter. And indeed, as Churchill had feared, the policy of appeasement only made things worse by leading the Nazis to believe that their belligerence will always be met by further concessions. In the end, it needed a world war to put an end to this vicious circle in which aggression was always mollified by concession.

The parallel between the two decades liaison between the EPRDF and the legal opposition; and Nazi Germany and Europe’s democracies in the run-up to the Second World War is salient. There is much to be learned from this history.

Of course, this is by no means a call to arms against the EPRDF, as Churchill did against Fascist Germany. I am thinking of what is possible, appropriate and desirable strictly within the confines of the peaceful and constitutional parameters. But this is a protest against the sentiment of appeasement, in the aftermath of EPRDF’s 99.6 % election “victory”, which is threatening to overwhelm the legal opposition because it is on the verge of surrendering all peaceful and legal protests beyond mere electoral engagement—be it in the guise of lack of preparedness or moderation.

EPRDF’s 99.6% electoral “victory” is the upshot of a two decades war of aggression against the peaceful opposition. This campaign stirred circumspectly in the early and mid-90s; achieved some level of confidence and comfort in the late 90’s and early 2000’s; gained trajectory in the aftermath of the 2005 elections; and finally peaked( hopefully!) in the 2010 elections. It was the same with the Nazis. They tasted the water with an illegal rearmament and push into the Rhine; achieved comfort with the Austrian Anschluss; gained trajectory with Czechoslovakia’s demise; and finally peaked with the invasion of Poland when they were finally resisted.

EPRDF first explored how far it could go with a series of clever ploys against its coalition partners in the transitional government of the early 90s, against which opposition parties were disastrously unable to react in unison. When the EPRDF was able to see how much it was able to get away with, it acquired enough audacity to orchestrate a blatantly farce constitutional enactment process. Its dubious outcome was not to be earnestly challenged both locally and internationally and was appeased with cynical resignation. The motion of aggression went on to achieve a level of cruise comfort when the nation’s first “multi-party” election was held absent major opposition groups; only to be hailed for its “historic achievement” by the international community. The opposition, for its part, could muster no more stamina than to look ahead to 2000, when the second round of elections were scheduled to be held, to score some victories. (Not to win the election, mind you. No one dared to hope that much.) In 1998, however, war broke out with Eritrea, and the quest for national unity, not democratic reforms, took precedence; to which the legal opposition patriotically acquiesced. And thus passed the 2000 elections dominated by the EPRDF’s unchallenged sense of entitlement.

By 2005, a few years after the end of the Ethio-Eritrean war, and fourteen years after EPRDF’s rule, both the opposition and the public were ready for change. A crisis ridden EPRDF, undermined by the implosion of its core leadership, in the TPLF, its strongest constituent member, was unsure of its intent and direction and loosened its grip briefly; which led to its swift trashing at the polls. Its reaction was instinctive, overt and merciless.

The legal opposition was divided on how to react. Part of it calculated that the time to resist had come, that this was EPRDF’s Rubicon, which if it is allowed to cross by stealing an election it had lost, will be the point of no return for it. But a sizable element of the opposition, along with the entirety of the international community, felt that the aggression of the EPRDF, though outrageous, had to be placated by appeasement yet one more time. And this was all the opening that the EPRDF needed to maximize what it had began intuitively—it progressively decimated the opposition, the free press and the civil society in 2005 and subsequent years. And sadly for the appeasers, just as each act of appeasement had only increased the appetite of the Nazis for more belligerence; so had the appeasement of 2005 only augmented the craving of the EPRDF for more repression and power. In other words, just as the annihilation of Czechoslovakia was not enough to pacify the Nazis and only led to further aggression against Poland; the concession of 2005’s election to the EPRDF only begot its determination—by what ever means necessary—to trash the opposition in the 2010 elections.(Though the 99.6 % “victory” was attained inadvertently.) Appeasement bred aggression.

The Nazis thought they could get away with Poland, too. They sued for peace after instigating their invasion, but Chamberlain could not oblige them. Both the public and the bulk of his party were against additional concessions. But it is not clear whether he really had change of heart. His Foreign Minister, Lord Halifax, was urging the Poles to accept the Nazis’ demand up to the last minute. The Poles, of course, rejected his advice and plunged the Nazis in to a world war before they had become too strong to be defeated.

The lesson form this tale is clear for Ethiopia’s opposition. Each concession to the EPRDF’s belligerence had made it progressively stronger and more aggressive, as was the case with the Nazis in the 1930s. But war and violence are not an option for the legal opposition, as it was for Europe’s democracies. Out of necessity, and to realize a very necessary break with the nation’s deeply ingrained heritage of political violence, the only suitable option for the legal opposition is within the peaceful and constitutional framework. But participating in elections is not the only means of political engagement in democracies, and even the Ethiopian constitution acknowledges that much. Election participation has become the veil under which lie a debilitating culture of inertia and appeasement in the opposition camp. The legal opposition needs to be saved for the sake of the country, and for that to happen the veil must be lifted and the problems that lies underneath resolved.

The need to look beyond the horizon is, however, mainly left to us Ethiopians. For the past decades of Meles Zenawi’s despotism, we do not seem to get ourselves out of the marshes of mumbling and grumbling about the status quo which we lack the means at hand to change. The political discourse has continued to be focused in crying out foul in election procedures and results as though we expected any fairness in the first place. One may argue that the dictators were expected to ‘win’ in style allowing some seats to the opposition and this 100 per cent ‘landslide’ does not serve their years of pretensions of democracy. But, the question really is what would have changed had the opposition been given (they could not be allowed to win any out of their own efforts in a sham election) the seats they were sleeping in for the years? Or are we sympathizing with the regime’s loss of pretentious multiparty system now that it has openly displayed its true self? These things make no value at current rate of Ethiopian politics in which the Ethiopian people are suffering from policies leading them to unprecedentedly divided and impoverished standing as a nation. The situation necessitates unison of action from true democratic forces to change the regime that never compromises its commitment to reformulate Ethiopia into a weak system of ethnic enclaves around which it has sustained its lifeline.

The issue of unified struggle has always crowded the field of rhetoric but it never grew into the fruition of practice. Political parties showed their divisions more than their integration in all their attempts of Coalitions, Unions and Forums. Divided, they engage in building the Babylonian wall speaking cacophonies of sounds with no common language that enables mutual understanding. Despite their impressive oratory on democracy and human rights, political heavy weights in the opposition camp often got trapped into their short sighted needs of undemocratic influence of various kinds in their parties, a situation that leaves us to doubt their integrity to stand for the causes they claim to further. Some outstanding politicians notwithstanding, a lot of others often try to find strength more in their skills of articulating evils of Zenawi and his corrupt system than in their tangible contributions to the struggle against it. I do not mean that political leaders and their supporters should create miracles overnight. Reading the ever worsening situation of our country however, I believe any serious political struggle, at least from now on, should attach a great significance in gathering momentum to launch a
truly unified offensive against this naturally evil force than decrying its monstrous intensions and deeds as if we knew it just now.

Politics beyond demeaning the enemy

Efforts by political groupings overseas and the Diaspora at large to expose the extent to which the Ethiopian government has become totalitarian and condemning human rights atrocities and injustice in Ethiopia are positively commendable. Our brothers and sisters need to further use the free environment in the West to express their anger and influence Western governments to revisit their policies towards the despot. However, for anyone who has observed the move EPRDF has made over the years particularly following the 2005 elections which almost enabled Ethiopians to enjoy their freedom of choice, it is vividly futile to merely shout at our voice and expect any change whatsoever. The tyranny in Addis is confident enough to continue staging its ethnocentric disintegration of the great nation as always with little loss from its Western backers given its slave like loyalty to them in being at their service even at the cost of Ethiopia’s national interests.

While it is natural to express solidarity to the Ethiopian people through any means possible, it should be noted that the socio-political quagmire Ethiopians have been put in for two decades necessitates unity and action-oriented struggle deep rooted in the ground of mutual trust. We know political groupings such as Ginbot 7 have been loud for some time now on the need for the opposition camp to recognize two fundamental issues and then work together to end Ethiopia’s misery. One of these issues is the recognition of Ethiopians as one political community with their diversity, if handled with respect and wisdom, as a strong source of unity, not as a weak source of division. The second one relates to the need to build a democratic system within the arbitration of which socio political problems are resolved. I strongly reckon there is a dependable size of political parties that could integrate their efforts within these crucial matters as long as they build trust in each other. It is high time now such forces break their shell and join their types undermining past strategic differences and underlining the historical opportunity at hand to rescue Ethiopia and its people ailing severely under Meles Zenawi.
When the opposition is engaged more in demeaning the regime in Ethiopia and less in reforming and unifying itself, it is not only weakening itself but also strengthening the enemy. Individuals or groups whose principal job is none other than telling off the dictatorship in Ethiopia are not seriously serving the struggle because, to anyone capable of observation, the regime has never been more nude than now and there is no need to duplicate efforts. We should rather examine our political journey and find causes of failure to effect reliable unity. In this regard, I was