As we make quick historical contrast ethno-centric TPLF with the past Ethiopia rulers, I may cite one of the TPLF treachery action – is giving away Ethiopia only port out let, Assab. – TPLF leadership deliberately used outdated colonial treaties as part of main justification to surrender Assab. This action defies common sense. They brought a reign of terror and hell with blood. They are continuing using extreme cruelties and tactics against dissent and – engaged in destructive actions against Ethiopia state. As we all know, State formation is highly complex process and take long time in assimilation of various cultures to held together and form social stability and continuity. Given these basic facts why the ethno-centric TPLF escalating ethnic cleansing by defining the population in tribal and linguistic terms is beyond imagination. TPLF are deep rooted on failure of past Stalin’s ideological solution to solve 21st century situation. Their erratic behaviors followed by deception, manipulation, large scale of corruption, to name a few are concrete evidence to weaken Ethiopian solidarity. Ethiopians have demonstrated in a unified patriotic resistance against foreign aggression is living example. What we see under ethno-centric TPLF, in short, is vicious and as poisonous as a snake against Ethiopia sovereignty is an evident of tyrant action. All this guided by sheer self-interest, greed, arrogance to secure power. I would simply say the Leaders of TPLF in general and Prime Minster Meles in particular must have a personality disorder by putting the people of Ethiopia in living hell.

In the past 21 years we have witnessed ethno-centric TPLF dictatorial rule atrocities and horror on our motherland. These atrocities and arrogant behavior are happening on real time in front of our eyes. The regime continues in ethnic cleansing, widespread torture of political prisoners, crime against humanity, ripping the country wealth and large scale corruption etc. as norm. Ethno-centric TPLF is determined to sow the seeds of hatred and prejudice among people by engaging them in all kind of contradictions killing, jailing to extent people to be expelled from birth place as seen recently in southern Ethiopia. Their moral dementia is so bad the only treatment is a complete removal of its decaying regime. Without doubt, the repression ultimately will bring imminent uprising.

We are disgusted by ethnic politics that promote in dismantling our social fabric. The question becomes who benefits from this mess, not the ordinary people only the few TPLF leaders to cling on power. This blind alliance to ethnic cause and hate campaigns eventual will bring unpleasant outcomes to the country. A black day for this type of regime is approaching. The 21 years of autocrat misrule and Meles grip on power eventually will slip. More than a year ago similar dictators like him such as Gadhafi, Mubarak are removed from power and is an event deeply affected Meles’s regime. One of The Essential Rules Of Tyranny is “Make Them Accept The Unacceptable, If they can mold our very morality, they can exist unopposed indefinitely”, as they say. Meles’s is one party rule where he forced the civil servant, students, teachers, business people and even corpse is required to be party member of his evil empire. His armed forces which are 99% came from one ethnic group. He allowed enriching themselves through corruption, and uses its military machine to intimidate, kill, oppositions to consolidate its power. Most of Army Generals and cadres involved in illicit business. They are getting juicy deals. The Powerful Western Government wittingly assisting this regime to protect only their own national interest. In the past or present, they have allied even in supporting South Africa apartheid system or others several world worst dictators. Supporting TPLF dictatorship is fundamentally the same policy. In general we observed that when bad things happen in Africa, the Western considered as self-inflict wound and expected to be healed by itself. Supporting a pliant regime appears to be standard position, although it is not consistent with democrat values.

It appears to be temporarily the pendulum had swung in favor of tyrant as Ethiopian tyrant meet the G8 leaders this month. We know that both have only superficial understanding of what they are saying and doing. It is sobering or worse to watch the enduring tyranny of this century making political drama. Of immediate concern to us as well as to freedom fighters is to steadily increase struggle collectively on all available avenues until it eventually led to democratic regime. Justice would prevail as seen like many other countries, the powerful would be vanquished. The will of the people is bulwark of freedom, as is clearly demonstrated by the long Ethiopia history.

Empress Taytu Bitul set her eyes on the beautiful yellow floors spread like a carpet on the plain behind her as she was climbing the Entoto Mountain to the Imperial Palace on the top after bathing in the famous hot spring down below. She decided to call the vast plain and its surrounding Addis Ababa and her husband the Monarch gave His consent to make it the Capital City and moved His Palace to where it is now.

The new Headquarters of the AU built as a ‘gift’ by China to the African continent at the cost of US$ 200 million is now shamefully standing in Addis Ababa as an eye-soar to most Ethiopians. It symbolizes the shame of the leaders of 54 African states that have failed to contribute US$ 200 million opting to be remembered as corrupt and greedy beggars devoid of revolutionary zeal of Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana.

The brilliant Ghanian Dr. George Ayittey is quite right in his call to move the AU from Addis Ababa elsewhere because of the gruesome atrocities perpetrated by tyrant Zenawi for the last 21 years. Fellow Ethiopians should oblige to the call for we cannot afford to put up with the new form of slavery, vote robbery, rampant land sales unleashed by the vindictive tyrant Zenawi misruling Ethiopia from the city of our beloved Emperor Menilik II – the celebrated fighter for unity, freedom, liberty, and dignity of Ethiopian citizens. What for is the tyrant invited to the G8 Summit at Camp David?

The famous Battle of Adwa

The celebrated victor of the famous Battle of Adwa affectionately known to His people as Immye (Mother) Menilik lit the flame of eternally priceless values of freedom, liberty and dignity in March 1996. The Ethiopian Flag and the Arch of the Orthodox Tewahido Christian Church witnessed the glorious victory at the Battle field. The victory: stood as a beacon of hope to all black people in the Diaspora struggling for the same basic values mentioned above; ushered in an aura of respect for Ethiopia from European colonizers; and humiliated the Italian invaders – forcing them to swallow the bitter pill of the devastating defeat. The invaders unleashed another invasion in 1935 after 40 years of meticulous preparation.

The European colonizers accorded respect to the black Emperor Menilik II for defending the land of His ancestors while they were in cut throat competition to grab larger portions during the scramble for Africa. Similar scramble for the vast wealth of Africa persists with growing appetite facilitated by puppets like the genocidal tyrant Zenawi in the present exploitative scenario which we now call neo-colonialism.

Amhara-Oromo collaboration

1. Yilma Deressa, ex-Minister of Finance during the Imperial regime, in his book titled “የኢትዮጵያ ታሪክ በአስራ ስድስተኛ ክፍለ ዘመን” on page 136 writes that the invasion of Ethiopia by the ጋሎች (Gallas) starting from the south and moving north was a family feud arguing that the two ethnic groups combined their forces at a later time collaborated to eradicate Muslim and Turkish invasion and ensured the independence of Ethiopia; also, the collaboration of the two by fighting side by side enabled in vanquishing the armed forces of the government of Harrar Sultanate and the Arabs. Note: – Empress Mennen and Minister Yilma were the most powerful Oromos from aristocratic family ii their own right in the Imperial regime.

2. During the invasion of Ethiopia in 1977 by Somali armed forces the sheer majority of members of these two ethnic groups in the Ethiopian army were no doubt decisive factor roles in expunging the invaders in humiliation eventually leading to the fall of Ziad Barre leaving a dysfunctional state up to now.

3. The 1998 – 2000 Eritrea – Ethiopia war instigated by the former claimed the lives of 100, 100 on both sides proportionately most of them logically Amharas and Oromos.

4. The Italian Fascist Invasion: It is to be recalled that the peasant militia army of Ethiopia had to travel to the warfront for six to seven months most of them on bare foot, others on horseback or mule carrying their provisions by donkeys or on their backs – climbing and descending rugged steep mountains. Those from the south including the 15,000 peasant militia army from Kembatta are reported to have closely coordinated with Abichu and his heroic compatriots in their armed encounter with the enemy. They all affectionately vowed in the name of Immye Menilik II to fight the enemy to the last drop of their blood. These precious children of Ethiopia, unknown to each other and hailing from distant regions and all of them young, could form their own command which by his own admission became excruciating thorn in the flesh of Marshal Badoglio – supreme commander of the invading Italian Fascist Army. Source: Habešská Odyssea (YeHabesha Jebdu) የሃበሻ ጀብዱ by Adolf Parlesak brilliantly translated into Amharic by Techane Jobre Mekonnen – page 274.

Ethnic origin was hardly a factor in deterring collaboration to rebuff aggression. So it is critical at this moment for the parochial opportunists to apologize for their past political blunders and respond to the call for unity in order to dislodge Zenawi’s tight grip on power with the help of immoral neo-colonialists.

Zenawi’s invitation to Camp David

The butcher of Addis Ababa is probably set to attend the G20 Summit to be held at Camp David. He will do so leaving domestic burning issues unresolved, to wit: the plight of Waldeba Monastery & Orthodox Tewahido Churches; constitutional right of Ethiopian Muslims to elect their leaders and exercise their freedom of worship; acts of genocide and eviction. It should be embarrassing to the host to see the midget killer mingling among the President’s invited dignitaries.

President Obama should disinvite genocidal tyrant Zenawi from the G8 Summit at Camp David and show to the world community: that moral imperatives take precedence over political expediency; that he is worthy of the Nobel Peace Prize awarded to him shortly after he took the oath Office of the President of the United States.

Conclusion

The wise Emperor Menilik II is known to warn his entourage or members of His expedition saying “ዓመልክን በጉያ፣ ስንቅህን በአህያ” “– which roughly translates to “keep your habit under your armpit and carry your provisions on the back of your donkey”. No wonder the Monarch earned the accolade Immye Menilik for His extraordinary ability in keeping His subjects of different ethnicity in harmony under the same tent. This is one of the most important legacies of the endeared Monarch.

We are on the threshold of a massive protest. Therefore, I extend the same passionate appeal to the TPLF security and defense forces that I made to the men and women in uniform of the coward Derg regime NOT to interfere with popular protests. The urgent demand made in writing in 1974 and handed to Mengistu Hailemariam proved costly to me and my colleagues and eventually led to the humiliating downfall of the Derg regime. Is history going to repeat itself?

The Amharas and Oromos were Mussolini’s main targets for carnage; they are now Zenawi’s targets all the same. History repeated itself! The ongoing onslaught on the two ethnic groups and the Anuak and Afar people must be stopped.

The unity of Ethiopia is not negotiable; universal values of freedom, liberty and human dignity must be defended as a matter of right. United strength of democratic opposition forces should grow within the framework of these basic parameters in order to throw out the pathological liar Zenawi from office.

Let us move forward with the heroic spirit of our brave ancestors and uphold the eternal legacy bequeathed to us by Emperor Menilik II. Let us sing the revolutionary rallying song of the 1974 for bloodless change that was broadcast nationwide sparking patriotic response for its inclusivity and passionate call to develop our country by harnessing its rivers; Let us vow to bring the killer boss of TPLF and his cronies down to their knees and build true democracy on their ashes. Let us exercise our human rights in self-defense and humiliate tyrant Zenawi who has publicly called us his enemies rebuffing our quest for peaceful change. Let us resolutely say no more prisoners of conscience in Ethiopia. Let us remove the eye-soar emblem put on our flag that stands as a symbol of superiority of the exclusive minority regime. Let us do all these in the spirit of self-reliance!

Let us stop ruminating on the evils of Zenawi and move with our legitimate struggle forward by implementing the call “Expel the AU from Ethiopia” made by Dr. George Ayittey. Indeed, as Dr. Ayittey put it, “The expulsion of the AU from Ethiopia would be the GREATEST SERVICE Ethiopians can do for Africa – comparable to the great achievements of Nkrumah and Mandela.” It “… will shake the very foundations of kleptocracy and dictatorship across Africa and spark the SECOND LIBERATION of Africa.” I would add that Ethiopians will then rejoice the legacy bequeathed to us and black people in the Diaspora by the great Emperor Menilik II; and the souls of our martyrs will rest in peace.

LONG LIVE ETHIOPA!!!
Release all political prisoners in Ethiopia including Andualem Aragie, Iskinder Nega, Nathnael et al
robele_ababya@yahoo.com

The Hunger Word Games in Ethiopia

Ethiopian governments over the past four decades have blamed food shortages and famines on everything except their own indifference, incompetence and negligence. Emperor Haile Selassie in 1974 pretended there was no famine until “The Hidden Famine” by Jonathan Dimbleby was aired to a shocked and angry Ethiopian public. Former socialist junta leader Mengistu was arrogantly dismissive of the 1984-85 famine in which an estimated one million people perished. Mengistu would contemptuously respond to reporters by challenging them, “What famine?”

Zenawi is more clever than his predecessors. He plays public relations and semantic games with famine in the country. He will use any word, except the “F” word, to describe the chronic and massive food shortages in the country. For Zenawi there is “no famine in Ethiopia”, only “spot shortages,” “severe malnutrition”, “food insecurity”, “food crisis”, “serious drought” and so on. “Food shortages” are not the result of poor agricultural planning and practices, official incompetence, massive corruption, criminal negligence, etc., but are caused by “drought conditions,” “erratic rains” “damaged or delayed crops”, “deforestation”, “soil erosion,” “overgrazing” and other ecological factors. In January 2012, Zenawi once again denied famine in Ethiopia in a CNN interview: “Ethiopia is facing a major famine. How can you justify spending on a military operation in another country when your own people are starving?” Zenawi responded, “There is no famine in Ethiopia as all humanitarian organizations will tell you. There is a serious drought, but we are able to keep our people fed….”

The international poverty mongers/pimps (PMPs) have invented a “scientific” classification system for “food shortages” behind which Zenawi has been able to hide the true magnitude and severity of the problem in the country. The euphemisms of the PMPs avoid the “F” word altogether regardless of the extremity of the food shortage. For the PMPs the conditions fall into one of the following categories: “Acute Food Insecurity, Stressed, Crisis, Emergency and Catastrophe.” It is “scientifically” impossible to have famine in Africa! So the conspiracy of silence goes on to keep famine in Ethiopia hidden by clever use of masking euphemisms.

Zenawi and his top lieutenants have been promising to end “food shortages caused by drought” in a very short time. In 2009, Simon Mechale, head of the country’s “Disaster Prevention and Preparedness Agency”, proudly declared: “Ethiopia will soon fully ensure its food security.” For several years now, Zenawi has been advertising his “Productive Safety Net Programme” as the mechanism to end the “cycle of dependence on food aid” by bridging “production deficits and protecting household and community assets”. In October 2011 Zenawi told his party faithful: “We have devised a plan which will enable us to produce surplus and be able to feed ourselves by 2015 without the need for food aid.” Zenawi’s “plan to produce surplus” is by “leasing” out millions of hectares of the country’s prime agricultural land to so-called international investors (land grabbers) whose only aim is to raise crops for export. Ethiopia will produce food to feed other nations while Ethiopians starve. Zenawi has adamantly opposed private ownership of land, which by all expert accounts is the single most important factor in ensuring food security in any nation. Yet last year, food inflation in Ethiopia remained at 47.4 percent.

Food has been used as a political weapon in Ethiopia. Hunger has been the new weapon of choice to generate support for Zenawi’s regime and to decimate his political rivals. Zenawi has been pretty successful in crushing the hearts, minds and spirits of the people by keeping their stomachs empty. Those who oppose Zenawi’s regime are not only denied humanitarian food and relief aid, they are also victimized through a system of evictions, denial of land or reduction in plot size as well as denial of access to loans, fertilizers, seeds, etc. In the case of the people of Gambella in western Ethiopia, entire communities have been forced off the land to make way for Indian “investors” in violation of international conventions that protect the rights of indigenous peoples. Human Rights Watch, among other organizations, has raised serious concerns over the misuse of humanitarian food aid: “The Ethiopian government is routinely using access to aid as a weapon to control people and crush dissent. If you don’t play the ruling party’s game, you get shut out. Without effective, independent monitoring, international aid will continue to be abused to consolidate a repressive single-party state.” In 2009, U.S. State Department promised to investigate 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.” No report has been issued.

In 2011, U.S. Census Bureau made the frightening prediction that Ethiopia’s population by 2050 will more than triple to 278 million. Ethiopia’s chronic “food insecurity” is expected to get increasingly worse culminating in a “Malthusian catastrophe” (where disease, starvation, war, etc. will reduce the population to the level of food production) in the foreseeable future. Zenawi’s regime has failed to implement a national family planning program which will avert such a catastrophe.

Famine in Ethiopia is Ninety Percent Man-Made

In 2011, Wolfgang Fengler, a lead economist for the World Bank, in a refreshingly honest moment for an international banker said, “The famine in the Horn of Africa is a result of artificially high prices for food and civil conflict than natural and environmental causes. This crisis is manmade. Droughts have occurred over and again, but you need bad policymaking for that to lead to a famine.” In other words, it is bad and poor governance that is at the core of the famine problem in Ethiopia, not drought or other environmental causes. Penny Lawrence, Oxfam’s international director, after visiting Ethiopia observed: “Drought does not need to mean hunger and destitution. If communities have irrigation for crops, grain stores, and wells to harvest rains then they can survive despite what the elements throw at them.” Martin Plaut, BBC World Service News Africa editor explains that the “current [Ethiopian food] crisis is in part the result of policies designed to keep farmers on the land, which belongs to the state and cannot be sold.” So the obvious questions are: Why does a regime that has rejected socialism and is presumably committed to a free market economy insist on complete state ownership of land? Why is there not an adequate system of irrigation for crops, grain storages and wells to harvest rains throughout the country? Does Zenawi really have a food security policy for the country?

The Hunger Games at Camp David

After four decades at the humanitarian food aid trough, it is unlikely that Ethiopia will achieve food security even in the distant future. President Obama is rightly concerned over the “food shortages” in the Horn and the Sahel in the coming year. Last month, the United States pledged to provide nearly $200 million in additional humanitarian aid to the Horn in anticipation of “poor rains and drought”. In 2011, the U.S. provided over $1.1 billion in humanitarian aid to Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia.

On May 19, President Obama and the G8 leaders will have to face some tough questions: What is the moral hazard of endlessly supplying food relief to the Horn countries? Why should the world continue to help a country that leases millions of hectares of the most fertile land in the country and become the breadbasket for India and the Middle East while its people are starving? Why should the world provide food aid to a country when the ruling regime weaponizes the aid to decimate opposition, crush the democratic aspirations of the people and flagrantly violate human rights? Does aiding dictators who use food aid for political purposes end famine and food shortages in Africa?

The G8 leaders can talk about “food shortages” until the cows come home, but the answer to famine in Ethiopia and in the Horn is not never ending handouts to starving populations and free lunches to panhandling dictators. Handouts create a moral hazard of negative dependency by recipients which incapacitates them from fending for themselves. Zenawi and the other African dictators have no incentive to address the “food shortage” issue because they are absolutely and positively sure that the U.S. and other G8 countries will ALWAYS deliver humanitarian food aid to their starving populations year after year. As a world leader, the U.S. has a moral obligation to provide humanitarian food aid to famine victims; but it also has the moral responsibility of leveraging the billions in handouts (development aid, loans from the multilateral institutions and budget support payments) to dictators to promote democracy, human rights and rule of law in Africa.

In May 2010, Zenawi’s party won 99.6 percent of the seats in parliament. Despite two decades of one-party domination, Zenawi has not been able to do much to address the structural problem of food insecurity in the country. But he has been blowing his horn about bogus stratospheric economic growth. Ethiopians suffer from chronic food shortages and famine because they lack a political framework that can deal effectively with the problem. The Indian economics Nobel laureate Amartya Sen argued that the best way to avert famines is by institutionalizing democracy and strengthening human rights: “No famine has ever taken place in the history of the world in a functioning democracy” because democratic governments “have to win elections and face public criticism, and have strong incentive to undertake measures to avert famines and other catastrophes.” Famines are kept hidden from public view by jailing opposition leaders, journalists and civic society advocates who could sound the alarm over an impending famine.

What Should the U.S. Do for Ethiopia?

All the U.S. needs to do for Ethiopia is practice what it preaches. In 2009 in Accra, Ghana President Obama preached:

Development depends on good governance. History offers a clear verdict: Governments that respect the will of their own people, that govern by consent and not coercion, are more prosperous, they are more stable, and more successful than governments that do not. No country is going to create wealth if its leaders exploit the economy to enrich themselves. 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 that style of governance to end…. In the 21st century, capable, reliable, and transparent institutions are the key to success — strong parliaments; honest police forces; independent judges; an independent press; a vibrant private sector; a civil society. Those are the things that give life to democracy, because that is what matters in people’s everyday lives…. History is on the side of these brave Africans, not with those who use coups or change constitutions to stay in power. Africa doesn’t need strongmen, it needs strong institutions. With better governance, I have no doubt that Africa holds the promise of a broader base of prosperity….

Listening to Zenawi plead for more aid before the G8 to deal with the looming “food crises” (but “no famine”) is like listening to the man who killed his parents and asked for leniency from the court because he is an orphan. Now that’s chutzpah!

In fact, history teaches us that while George Washington led the USA’s Independent War which was called ‘The Revolution War’ of mainly the year 1775 – 1783 and as the first elected President in 1789 put all the bases of USA’s democracy in which Abraham Lincoln had also consolidated it more with his profound speech of the 1858 stated as “A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free . . .” To uphold these legacies and historical democratic values you had also launched your presidential candidacy on the weekend of Lincoln’s birthday with a speech on the steps of the old state capital in Illinois.

Sadly, when the Ethiopian people, for the first time in its modern history, have had elected their leaders in a Ballot Box with a relative peace on May 15, 2005 general election and a secular democratic political party named ‘Coalition for Unity and Democracy (CUD)’ had won the election with a grand slide victory in all cities of the country including ruler areas – - – as a case in point in Addis Ababa where by diversified Ethiopian Communities are living all the Federal level and Local seats were all taken by CUD except just only one seat in which TPLF was ashamed and left naked in public and in front of different diplomatic representatives.

As a result, the TPLF’s leaders had refused to accept the verdict and choice of the Ethiopian People and consequently Meles declared as his group was re-elected and farther went so-far and imposed a state of Emergency countrywide to change the course of the election from peaceful to day time vote rigging , violence and gun down 200 innocent Ethiopians just in Addis Ababa city only and finally instead of respecting, as what Mr Sarkozy said to the French people to respect Francois, the then newly elected legitimate CUD leaders were humiliated, mistreated and sent to prison for TPLF had refused to concede defeat with grace. According to TPLF’s leader, Meles, all that ups and downs with the name of democratic election was nothing but a symbolic gesture to deceive Western Aid Donner. Otherwise, as usual, Meles had publically and blatantly declared that “- – - those who oppose the new power order have only to do what TPLF did, that is, go to the bush, start the war, and become a victorious army.”

During the May 15, 2005 election the leader of the European election observer team Hon. Ana Gomes, MEP on her November 03, 2005 Urgent Appeal letter to her colleagues in the European Parliament under the title of ‘Another bloodbath is taking place in Ethiopia’ had clearly stated it “Meles was invited to rub shoulders with G-8 and African Commission leaders in Scotland. That amounts to rubbing salt in the wounds of Ethiopians who thought that democracy was at reach when they massively turned out to vote on May 15, 2005.”

Although Hon. Ana Gomes and her European election observer team were unable get the support of the European Parliament to change the vote rigging and the killings of TPLF against innocent Ethiopian she had genuinely discharge her responsibilities at her capacities. For that we Ethiopian had a great respect to her and her team. Astonishingly, however, the Carter Center which was led by Mr Jimmy Carter himself and the then American Embassy to Ethiopia had never said a single word than a cover up mission.

Now, here again and again, the western power in particular USA has failed to help to address the fundamental problem of Ethiopia, and Ethiopian hoping and believing that democracy is possible in Ethiopia and voted peacefully to the then opposition CUD are each day picked up in each cities, towns and villages of the country and became victims of the ethnocentric regime of TPLF. As a result, although Meles and his close associate are directly accountable for their personal decisions to massacre our people at different times, we believe that ‘God and history will also remember’ USA’s double standard foreign policy towards to Ethiopia.

Mr President,

We Ethiopian remember Mr Jimmy Carter on many very bad scenarios; one of these are: when Somalia had waged war against Ethiopian sovereignty in the 1977 with the support of the then Soviet Union, Mr Jimmy Carter had refused to help Ethiopia and even deliberately had frozen Ethiopian foreign currency which was deposited in the USA’s bank so that Ethiopia could not able to buy any arm and instead simply surrender to Somalia’s aggressions without any resistances. However, when Soviet Union had realised that USA was not supporting Ethiopian’s cause, it had immediately left all its’ bases in Somalia and peaceful moved in to Ethiopia and supported the Ethiopian patriotic with arms and logistics to fight back the USA supported Somalia in which this had technically reduced our sovereignty to the level of Soviet Union form of colonization for nearly fifteen years. In the meantime all TPLF leaders were taking the military training in Somalia and elsewhere in all Arab Countries to wage their gorilla war to secede Tigre region from Ethiopia. For that matter when Meles Zenawi landed to Addis Ababa Airport in May 1991 from the London conference by special Sudanese Airways he came with Somalia Passport; on the same token, while two month before this happened Meles Zenawi, as usual, had visited and convinced Gaddafi of Libya to help his war (TPLF’s war) with: cash, supply of all necessary fuels for military tanks and high military advisors to be available right in the front with TPLF fighters to launch the last military assault against the Ethiopian arm so that all East African Countries including Ethiopia be under Arab league with Gaddafi’s leadership in which Gaddafi had met all Meles’s demands without any reservation.

However, when 9/11 inhuman act committed against the American people and modern societies by in large and Meles Zenawi officially switched in his alliance with USA/West with the name of anti-terrorism paradigm Gaddafi was astonished with Meles deceiving tactics and was showing his Video record to public how Meles was expert to exploit situation and immediately changed his position from the slogan of Arabism to Americanism/anti-terrorism to stay in power, for only his personal ambitions.

Unfortunately, after 21 years of TPLF’s massacre and genocide committed against innocent Ethiopian across the country USA is still supporting the TPLF sectarian and ethnocentric group against the will of our people with the name of an alliance against terrorism in the region. Most noticeably when top USA diplomats such as: Ambassador David Shinn, Ambassador Herman Cohen and many others officially had said to public media outlets “we prioritized American security interest in the region than Ethiopian Democratization agenda” is rubbing salt to our existing wounds. Sadly, your invitation of Meles Zenawi to the G-8 meeting of next week is not only considered playing a dirty game against Ethiopia and its’ people but also undermining American long-time democratic principles, legacies, values and traditions. In fact this is not short of saying that Ethiopia and its people are so primitive and don’t need any democratic change in their government.
In 1989, I remember in BBC, when the then vice president of USA George Herbert Walker Bush campaigned against Mr Michael Dukakis for the presidency, he said “What Dukakis knew about American politics? He came from kitchen . . . ,” this was interpreted as strategy to play the race card, in directly to tell that Dukakis is originally from Greece family/families; while forgetting that Greece was the birth place of modern democracy. Whatever the case, Senior Bush’s strategy had succeeded for that time. However, after 20 years of time George Herbert Walker Bush’s bad speech he had seen how American democracy devolves faster than expected and elected a black family background immigrant in its history. In fact this was not only victory to you but to all Americans who had been questing for democratic equality of race and gender, and most importantly it is also victory for American democracy and Abraham Lincoln’s legacies!!
Similarly, the very known historian, poet, playwright, an author, a university Professor Firkre Tolosa had asserted history that during the reign of king of kings Minas (r. 1559 – 1563) Ethiopia had created a founding principles of modern parliamentary democratic system of almost similar to Great Britain. However, due to the continued war waged against Ethiopia by the then Ottoman Empire and later by the new European colonialists have had jeopardized our civilized breakthrough even in the medieval period. Meaning, although our history is a war history resisting against different kinds of invading forces since the medieval period and including in the modern era due to The Nile River and Red Sea geo-politics and Ethiopia left far behind from modern civilization our people still deserves an equal democratic opportunities and fair relationship like any other sovereign states. Otherwise, if USA continues to undermine and ignore our grievance and plights inflicted by TPLF armies history will always remember its token democracy and be judged morally and politically by the generation to come too.

Mr President,

What must be clear to USA leaders and diplomats are, when Ethiopian used to fight with the military junta of Mengistu H/Mariam and the Soviet Union’s technical colonization within the big cities of Ethiopia, almost a generation had perished within that fighting. The power gap created due to the infighting within inside have had helped TPLF to exploit the power vacuum and first with the support of Mr Jimmy Carter and later with direct command of Ambassador Herman Cohen of the May 1991 London Conference single handed arrangements TPLF had got the green light to control the whole of Ethiopia without including any genuine representative who cares for Ethiopia and its’ people. This had given an ample opportunity for TPLF to massacre and commit genocide against Ethiopian loving societies: in particular the Amharic language speaking societies, the Gambella region and the Afar people, etc. in all parts of Ethiopia. Nevertheless, although the hardship to overcome this TPLF’s deconstruction agenda against Ethiopia is so tough and challenging this does not mean that we Ethiopian could not be able to stand together and bring down the Meles regime by our own efforts and means; we assure you this. Because Ethiopia had survived from ashes of many enemy destructions including the religious war waged by Ahmad Gran’ in 15th- 16th century which was supported by Somalia, Yemen, Egypt, Turkey, and by all the Middle East countries; so, what we need form USA and its Western alliance is to stop helping and financing the killing army of TPLF.

Mr President,

When I said genocide is still going on in Ethiopia, perhaps, you may not be aware of this at all or categorically may be not worried about it either, – - – who cares for the dead fish except the fisher man principle. However, within the newly subjugated, annexed by Tigray in 1991, towns and villages of Gondar and Wollo alone (please refer the Fig. 3 below with the coloured one Northwest and Southeast colours, totally 8 towns and more villages within it), almost 2 million Amaras had been reduced to ashes since TPLF controlled these towns and villages while the rest are digging the big mountains to rehabilitate proper Tigray region, the heart land of TPLF, as prisoner and servant until they die in agony and hunger.

To quantify the genocide committed by TPLF in the above 8 coloured towns, for instance, if we take what had happened in ‘Kafta Humera’ of the above Fig. 3, in early 1980th there was a normal size high school facilities for the local inhabitants Amharic speaking communities. However, as this community believes historically as part of the region of Gondar and their language is Amharic, TPLF had eliminated them all within a short span of time and all forcefully vacated their villages to the new settlers from the neighbouring region of Tigray. For that matter, currently, one cannot find a number of ten Amharic speaking family holds within that big towns and villages. Sadly, similar policies had been implemented by TPLF leaders and army generals to the rest of the other seven towns and villages as part of TPLF’s ethnic cleansing policy.

I personally believe that any Tigrean or whoever it is has the right to move any part of Ethiopia and work and live peaceful and harmonically with the localities. However, with policy of ethnic cleansing and annexing these towns and villages without any historical clue to Tigray region is an absolute violation of human right that amounts to double genocide.

In fact, historically these subjugated towns and villages of Gondar and Wollo that neighbours with Tigray region were the main rival forces of the then Axum Kingdom that causes it collapse in 1137 and moved power form Tigray of Axum to Lasta that centred Walqait Simen of Gondar and the Agaw areas of Wollo, Zagwe dynasty (r. 1137 – 1270). This is a historical fact in which TPLF is trying to overwrite with its policy of ethnic cleansing and genocide against these vast areas communities since its/TPLF inception. Why these vast areas of communities became TPLF’s victim for the simple reason that Zagwe had defeated the Axum Kingdom and moved the central power to these areas during the medieval period? Why such genocide?? These genocides are not only done by the current TPLF’s leaders and army generals, but this includes those who are now claiming are in the opposition camps too!! You cannot hide from justice!! Justice will be made when time permits!

Mr President,

TPLF, its leaders and army generals as well as their special force called Agazi are deliberately committing genocide against our brothers in: Gambella, Afar, the South and as well as in West part of Ethiopia targeting strong Ethiopians who have no any interest to be an instruments to TPLF ethnic politics. Most noticeably the Amharic speaking societies are unable to live in their country. This is a very serious issue which you cannot ignore it either. As a matter of facts while the Ethiopian Population growth increase from 70 million to 85 million within the last 21 years of TPLF ethnic ruling the Amara population had rather dropped down by 10 million, from 27 Million to 17 million based on the previous census data conducted by the previous government. There is no any other ample evidence more than this.

Soon after I had started writing this letter, as a matter of chance, I had read a wonderful letter addressed to you by a prominent and known Ethiopian activist Mr Yilma Bekele. Mr Yilma had eloquently explained each and every issue of the country, such as: the media press, the ethnic politics, the administration, the economy, and the corruption. And I had decided not to repeat these topics, rather, what my letter seriously focus is about the genocide committed by TPLF and its leaders. We cannot share this problem with Chinese leaders as their principle is just one and only one, i.e., whoever runs the country run your business by ignoring the plight of any respective people. So, my fellow Ethiopian fundamental question is which way USA is going on? In one of your books, The Audacity of Hope . . . P. 319 you had wrote as: “We should not expect to help Africa if Africa ultimately proves unwilling to help itself.” So, why you had contradicted with your principle and goes to the extent of inviting Meles to eat dinner on the same table as if he is democratically elected leader of Ethiopia? Is that still to arm TPLF as a hired arm to kill our people and compromise our democratic right as most of your diplomats declared USA’s security issues are more important than Ethiopian democratic process?
I thank you,

I am sure you do not have time to read my letter nonetheless it gives me a certain amount of release from the pain I am feeling and the little chance of this letter getting to you fills my soul with great amount of joy and hope. I am an Ethiopian immigrant currently living in California. I came to your country to go to college. I am always grateful to the American people in general and the citizens of the State of Oregon in particular that supported me in fulfilling my dream. Their graciousness in welcoming me and their generosity in helping me with financial aid to finish my education will stay in my heart forever.

Upon finishing my education I have become a productive member of society and hopefully contributed my share in making your nation a beacon of light for all of mankind. I have been blessed enough to get married to a beautiful person and raise a family. I am glad to claim I am the personification of the American dream come true. I am not writing you to ask a favor for myself but I want to tell you about the dire situation regarding the homeland I left behind a long time ago. I want to give you an idea about my country Ethiopia and the horror faced by my people in the year two thousand twelve as the rest of humanity thrives.

The source of this unbearable pain forced on my country is none other than the individual that shows up in every meeting the heads of the advanced industrialized countries attend to solve problems and plan the future. I am sure you have noticed him during picture sessions and dinner parties. He is the one who claims to represent Africa and is usually given the corner seat in the back to keep quiet and observe.

His name is Meles Zenawi and his title is chairman of TPLF party and Prime Minster of Ethiopia. He has been in power for the last twenty years. It is not that he was elected to that position since free democratic elections are not allowed but he has managed to organize sham election and rigged voting not once but five times in a row. I will tell you a few things to give you an idea of how he manages to do that.

1) Press: There is no free press in Ethiopia. There is only one local TV controlled by his party. The only radio-broadcasting unit is under his communications department. There are no independent newspapers in the country. The few that are allowed to exist are routinely harassed and their publishers and editors spend most of their time in his rubberstamp court. Today a few are in his dungeon accused of fabricated charges and plenty are forced out of the country. There is only one Internet provider and his outfit controls that. He uses Chinese technology to block any foreign TV or Radio broadcast and Internet sites. Your Voice of America broadcast is routinely jammed. Today there are more journalists and Independent Web sites outside the country than in our homeland. The Ethiopian people are kept in the dark by design.

2) Political Party and Civic organizations: The dictator does not allow real independent political parties. On paper there are over eighty political parties in the country, but they are all the creations of the dictator. The few that dare to organize independently are subjected to harassment, imprisonment and even murder. His claim that there are no worthy opposition parties is a cruel joke. In Ethiopia being an opposition party leader is a death wish. We have lost many worthy leaders in the last twenty years. Independent labor unions, civic organizations and non-government affiliated associations are not allowed. If they dare to organize they are brought under government control within a short time.

3) Administration: He has divided the country into what is known as Kilil. Kilil is a black version of Apartheid; the system the White South African set up to control black citizens. The individual appoints all Kilil administrators usually local lackeys for show purpose. His party and ethnic group controls the Army and Security service with all commanders’ hand picked from his ethnic group. Ninety nine percent of high-ranking military officials belong to the dictators ethnic group. The individual and his party inherited the dreaded Kebele system set up by the departing military dictatorship to control neighborhoods and enhanced its capability using modern means. Today the Kebele system is the eyes and ears of the TPLF party and is present in every household to terrorize and control.

4) Economy: All land belongs to the state. The Ethiopian people are sharecroppers. When he took power twenty years ago facilitated by your State Department he created a congramolate called EFFORT controlled by his ethnic group. All major confiscated business and property were given to EFFORT and today it is the premier corporation in the country involved in banking, transportation, manufacturing, import export and the hospitality business. EFFORT is bigger than Ethiopia. Unable to grow the economy, ill prepared to unleash the creative potential of his people the dictator is currently selling our fertile and virgin land to foreign investors. This is despite the billions of aid dollars given by your country and Western Europe and the billions more written off the book from the IMF and World Bank. His sole purpose is to stay in power by bullying and enrich his ethnic group, family and friends.

Dear Mr. President, you might think what a coward people we are to allow such and individual to do us so much harm and accept it with silence. That is not so. We were not always that docile. The simple explanation I can offer you is that he came on the scene at a very unfortunate time for us. The twenty years of military dictatorship has sapped our strength to fight back. We were caught at a time when in the name of socialism our people and country had gone thru a very traumatic process. Our moral compass was left in disarray. No one was willing to continue the self-inflicted agony we experienced. The current dictator also showed up carrying an olive branch that promised to form an all-inclusive government. Your State Department was the premier facilitator of such transfer of power from the Military to the new liberators.

Unfortunate for Ethiopia your country still is coddling and enabling the dictator. He is considered the front line in the fight against terrorism The Pentagon is pouring money and resources to train his army. He is given the green light to interfere in Somalia in the so-called war against terror. We pay the price. The US is not made safer with all the support given to the regime but the Ethiopian people are made insecure and hopeless. Today the Ethiopian people are migrating out of their homeland at an alarming rate. The young and able and the educated are leaving their country in search of a better tomorrow. Washington DC your capital is living proof of the flight of our people outwards.

We ask you to intervene and stop this human catastrophe. We believe it is the right thing to do. It is the moral thing to do. Ethiopian Americans were in the forefront of your campaign for the presidency. We were filled with hope that you will intercede and help our motherland enter the twenty first century with dignity. It has not happened. Your State Department never fails to record and publish the crimes of the Ethiopian regime. The annual report is a very alarming detailed testimony of the nature of the illegal regime and the crimes it commits against its own people. Thanks to Wikileaks we are made conscious of the terrorist acts of the security department’s involvement in setting up explosives on its own citizens and blaming the opposition. Your Ambassador was part of the cover up of this crime. It is wrong.

We would like to call your attention to the policy the US followed in the aftermath of the Second World War when it came to Europe. The US was instrumental in encouraging democratic forms of government. US aid was based on the rule of law. Sixty years later Europe enjoys the fruits of such progressive and forward-looking policy. We ask your administration follow the same principle when it comes to Africa. We deserve nothing less. We ask your administration stop coddling and enabling dictators, misfits and loathsome individuals from terrorizing their own people.

The Ethiopian people are faced with a sad dilemma. How could they fight back against a terrorist regime armed and supported by a big power like your country? It is not a fair fight by any stretch of imagination. They find it confusing that on one hand you preach democracy and human rights while on the other hand you furnish the weapons and facilitate loans from World Bank and the IMF to the their tormentor. Wouldn’t you say the US would have a lasting and worthy relationship with a strong and democratic Ethiopia rather than a country always on the verge of civil war and a pitiful hand stretched begging for food and medicine?

The Prime Minster is showing up at your dinner table next week. We all know he has nothing to contribute to such discussion. The country he has been leading for the last twenty years is beset with famine, double digit unemployment, runaway inflation and human misery in a large scale. He has no record to be proud of. He has no opposition to shame him. His presence at this gathering is unexplainable and undeserved. His single TV station and his sole Radio broadcast will present a different picture. They will use the occasion to bully the Ethiopian people. There is no other voice to set the record straight.

We wish you would UN invitee or dis invite him. We know that will not happen. On the other hand we ask you use the occasion to make it clear to him that your constituents are not happy with his actions. We wish that you explain to him US aid goes hand in hand with the existence of the rule of law and respect for human rights. The American people are blessed to have such a caring and honorable person as a leader. You lead a very honorable and generous nation that has stood with Ethiopia in its time of need. We ask you to step forward and do the right thing at this critical moment in our history. We ask you to think of the eighty million Ethiopians that are made to suffer because on man and his ethnic based party is enabled by your country and others to run amok and brutalize. History will not look kindly at such abdication of responsibility.

Dear Mr. President, we are aware of what happened to dictator Gadaffi. We are witnessing the unfolding human misery in Syria. That is what is waiting Ethiopia if the regime continues its mal treatment of its won citizens. That is what we are trying to avoid from happening in Ethiopia. You can help us.

Finally we are not asking you to fight our war. We are perfectly capable of doing the job ourselves. We are simply petitioning you not to stand with the dictator. Not to give him lethal aid and training to turn his fire on us. We know it is in your power to make a stop to this enabling activity. The children of Ezana, Tewodros, Yohanes, Minilik, Aba Jifar, Tona and many others are up to the task given the opportunity. We have taken care of our business for over three thousand years and there is no reason to think we will not rise up to the occasion now. Just give us a level playing field and Green Yellow and Red will fly high on our ancient mountains and fields.

P.S. We have a petition on line to be presented to your office along this letter. The Web address is as follows: http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/obama-stop-monster-zenawi-invitation.html

I. Eternity Within

It is impossible for me to imagine any creative person without a framework of some philosophical guiding principle. No philosopher, or writer, or politician, or painter worth his or her mantel, could get much of respect from me without having read Boethius, The Consolation of Philosophy. I have read and reread this little book countless times with increasing admiration of the courage and insights of Boethius. No less is the impact of that book’s bone crushing factual content on me taking into account the fact that the book was written under extremely difficult situation. And soon after the completion of the book, Boethius was brutally tortured and bludgeoned to death. The very existence of this little book represents to me the triumph of Philosophy/Art over barbarism. Neither art historians nor art critics would ever be able to reach into the depth of the level of inquiry about art and aesthetics as would philosophers, thus my emphasis on philosophical interlude than on any other source of discourse on the arts. It is also true that art historians are not necessarily the best art critics.

Fig. 1: Self Portrait – Wodaje Libé (detail), by Tecola W. Hagos, oil on Canvas, 36in x 24in, as a young University student, 1969. Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

Having declared the triumph of Art over barbarism, I will attempt further to draw some “definitional” reach of the meaning of “the sublime,” with the understanding that such attempt is only meant to give some guidance rather than exhaustive and all inclusive definition, meaning and/or explanation.
“Our words sublime and sublimation are based on the Latin word sublimis, a compound of sub- ‘under; up to’ and limin ‘threshold,’ so etymologically having the sense of ‘as high as the top of a door.’ It could literally mean ‘lofty; raised up’ but also had a figurative sense in Latin of ‘exalted; eminent, aspiring.’”
…..
“At the beginning of this century sublimation was borrowed by the students of Freud to mean the diversion of some primitive impulse, such as sex, into a culturally higher or socially more acceptable activity. This generated a new verb, to sublimate, which is only used of this transition, not of the change of state in chemistry (though the noun has for long been used in this sense, as corrosive sublimate of mercuric chloride). Slightly earlier, the same Latin elements were borrowed again with a different slant to create subliminal, something that is below the threshold of consciousness.”
The main attraction and fascination for me in visiting the National Bonsai and Penjing Museum on the grounds of the Arboretum was the fact that sublime beauty could be created in living things and could come even in small physical stature too. Ever since I saw some forty years ago pictures of strange and unusual gardens made of sand, pebbles, and stones, with no greenery at all that was tended by Zen Buddhist monks, I was fascinated with the gardens of China and Japan in general. I am still amazed how with very little greenery and with controlled chaotic arrangements, on such little patches of land, those highly skilled “gardeners” could open a whole panoramic vista to the imagination. Nevertheless, despite my fascination and great appreciation of the awesome beauty of the Bonsai trees, I could not help juxtaposing such exquisite beauty with cruelty, pain, and suffering. Nevertheless, while I was admiring those miniature exquisite trees, I was also experiencing something disconcerting anxiety about the Bonsai trees, especially looking at those in training. For example, the White Pine Bonsai no taller than a foot and a half on the dais in front of me, in real life is a touring giant, and its great majesty could only be matched by the Great Sequoia tree. What type of process must have been utilized in order to render such a majestic tree to a size I could hold with little stress in one hand? What indeed happened to the immensity and majesty of all Bonsai trees that I admired that day at the National Bonsai and Penjing Museum?

Fig. 2: Black and White, by Mezgebu Tessema, oil on canvas, 2000. (pending permission)
Later at home, I realized why I was feeling anxious and apprehensive at the same time I was overwhelmed with the exquisite beauty and individuality of the Bonsai trees I reckoned with at the Bonsai Garden, for each Bonsai tree was a grotesque deformity no different than the hideously deformed feet of courtly Chinese ladies who had to undergo that torturous tying of feet from their early childhood in order to create tiny feet prized in Chinese culture of the time. It may be compared also to the molding of the skulls of infants with tightly tied ribbons of clothing into elongated shapes in some Inca and Aztec cultures I have read about. Although such things happen after death, the shrunken heads of enemies killed in battles adorning the heroes of such conflicts in some Amazonian head hunters is also such grotesque activity. The sever disciplinary treatments of children in societies, such as that of Ethiopia, clipping their wings, deforming their personhood, destroying their youth et cetera is no different than all those horrors of history and botany.
There was this Elm tree in training from 1955, with sturdy wire wrapped tightly around its trunk and its fragile branches. Although I did not bring up the subject with Abraham, I felt that the little tree was crying out to me with excruciating pain and needed liberation from the confining wires around its trunk and fragile branches. All the Bonsai trees were on starvation diet. The troughs that are holding those trees are very shallow barely three or four inches deep. The soil is minimal and mostly dry with pebbles and jagged rocks where those Bonsai trees hang on for deer life with roots that must be in some form of frenzied twisted mass. It was both a horrible and disconcerting sight to behold how tenaciously those tiny trees hang on to their lives. I kept wondering how I thought of such grotesque sight as something beautiful even sublime at all. The awesome and terrible beauty of these Bonsai trees is not describable in words in full; one must visit and stand in awe in front of such marvels of nature and the hands of man in order to have a first-hand experience of the “sublime.”
II. Experiencing Art
The question of beauty has preoccupied philosophers from the pre-Socratics to date in every generation of philosophers. I suppose that early in mankind’s communal life, the creative impulse was solely decorative and the enhancement of the physical presence of the individual, and maybe part of the mating ritual. In our own time there had been a real revolutionary process that may be compared to a philosophical convulsion. Among those who shaped the way the art of the West is looked at were art critics from the Victorians such as John Ruskin, from the Romantics such as Kenneth Clark, and from the modernists such as Guillaume Apollinaire, and later Clement Greenberg. Greenberg is a serendipitous find, for his pitch to discredit and discount the effort of “socialist realism” in art as the corner stone of the Soviet Union’s World of Art, while in the pay of the CIA, had unexpected outcome—in a very talented and successful art critic.
There is no denying that experiencing Art is an emotional event, and in few instances with depth that touches the very core of the individual. The question of the creative process may indeed be the one question that might be the most important question that is unresolved from generation to generation of artists. The closest one may come to answering that question might be the exhilaration one gets in creating art works of what ever nature. This same sentiment of personal experience of exhilaration in the creation of works of art is expressed in so many ways in many of his books and numerous articles by the Philosopher Teodros Kiros where he discussed his love of writing and his search for meaning in the beautiful. In my Self Portrait my aspiration at that young age was not the rendition of physical likeness but experiencing my youthful and naïve personhood in just few lines and shades and tones. [Fig.1: Self Portrait – Wodaje Libé] The outcome of such process is far more than the mere assembly of paint, oil, brush and canvas. Color may not even be that important, the monochrome effect in that painting is a clear indication of the fact that harmony and illumination are as important. However, simple arrangement in black and white with a touch of some tint (staining) could be as effective and as abstract as any non-representational work. [Fig. 2: Black and White, by Mezgebu Tessema, oil on canvas, 2000.]
The history of art does not tell us much about aesthetic beauty or artistic beauty or about the sublime as an intrinsic subject matter, but as standards presumed by observers not from the point of view of the artists themselves—thus, its great deficiency. Whether it is political history or art history there are certain expectations in the discipline itself. History should minimize the personal normative judgment of the historian/writer subsumed in the narration. If there is a need for judgment or opinion it must then be spelled out as such and distinct from the narration. Such safeguards are necessary in order to give a chance to the reader unbiased or an account of events that is not slanted or diddles with deceptive analogies. Of course, it is impossible to be a mirror to events objectively reflecting back events. Even then we know that there is a reverse position and about five to ten percent unaccounted for atmospheric reductions in mirror images from the reality. Nevertheless, philosophers seem to have the more authentic and profound discussions of such subjects than art critics or historians.

It is alleged that of all the philosophers Hegel had written the most on the philosophy of art. It is true that Hegel was a great critic as well as theoretician on art and the philosophy of art, and his opus is immense. That does not come as a surprise to me, for Hegel was fortunate to have as references and role models giants who came before him, such as Kant, Mendelssohn, and his own teachers Schelling and Fichte. Sadly his immense capacity did not protect him from premature assumptions of racist theories of developmental history of civilization. The more recent approach is declaring the end of art, as the philosopher Arthur C. Danto did in an article in 1984, but later somehow tamed that earlier bold statement, away from its crudeness or provocative assertion, in a book he wrote a decade later.

Fig. 3: Bale Gariw, by Behailu Bezabeh, oil on canvas, 1997.
(pending permission)

I believe that the history of art shows at varying paces a movement from the thematic to the anecdotal [See Fig. 2: Black and White, and Fig. 3: Bale Gariw.] As an aside, let me state here that Artist Behailu Bezabeh’s Bale Gariw is exquisite in its abstraction, if one had experienced the rickety ride on an Ethiopian gari, where there is no such thing as a straight-line; one can understand why this piece is a masterpiece. One can say also similar level of abstraction is achieved by Artist Mezgebu Tessema in his Black and White even though the painting is rendered in realistic form. I may throw in, as an item for comparison and contrast, the early classical ideas on beauty, the different movements since the time of the impressionists, and the art-for-art sake concepts. Then I would have covered most anything in the history of Western Art. One may even be cynical by saying that what I have stated is no different than Hegel’s idea of the evolution of the spirit through time ennobling mankind, and in no way entertains the most important earlier distinctions made by Hegel of aesthetic beauty (pertaining to the senses) and artistic beauty (pertaining to the intellect). Hegel’s distinction may be unfortunate, for it implied the reality of two forms of beauty, which to me is impossible. I suggest that artistic beauty be understood to mean strictly the craftsmanship or virtuosity of the artist. Beauty in general is a state of mind and the Platonic system of disembodied Form of the beautiful will not do for me. Here it seems I am back to square one to the same position I started out with in my discourse with Abraham that beauty or the sublime is all in the mind.

III. Longinus, Kant, and Mendelssohn
I presume that we all have read that Longinus (AD 213 – 273) is allegedly the pioneering theoretician about the idea of the “sublime” in his discussion of the subject of beauty in literature. [The manuscript was attributed also to two other individuals from the same era as Longinus.] The distinction between the concepts of beauty and the sublime is absolutely made clear by Moses Mendelssohn (1729-1786) [Grandfather of the composer Felix Mendelssohn] in his philosophical writing. “We have seen that what is genuinely beautiful has definite boundaries which it may not overstep.” However, wrongly Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) is often credited for the distinction between the “sublime” and the “beautiful,” in which the main feature of the “sublime” he seems to contend to be the fact that it is not bounded, whereas the “beautiful” he identified as limited by the very individuality of the object or the thing. Although Kant in his book Critique of Judgment did make references to Burke, Batteaux, Lessing. Lessing who is mentioned by Kant was Mendelssohn’s great friend and co-editor of their literary series called Briefe, die neuesteLiteratur betreffend (referred to as Literaturbriefe).

This neglect or oversight by Kant of Mendelssohn is strange indeed since Kant knew Mendelssohn quite well, for they competed on some essay writing contest in 1763 where Mendelssohn won over Kant. Mendelssohn wrote his piece on the subject of “beauty” and the “sublime” starting sometime in 1754 and reworking it in 1760 for inclusion in his book Philosophical Writings; whereas, Kant produced his Critique of Judgment in 1790, some twenty five years later. In order to be fair to Kant, I sought to find explanation why Kant did not find it necessary to make references to Mendelssohn. So far I did not find any. At any rate what comes through is that the quality of being “beautiful” seems to involve both the act of judgment and the sensation of the thing or object of perception, which seems to support Abraham’s views. At any rate, I prefer Nietzsche and Schopenhauer’s approach than either approaches of Kant or Hegel. Nietzsche has the most expansive interpretation of art for he equates art with life (historic) as a process, except for his nihilistic ultimate fate of all values and beliefs (humanity). In Schopenhauer I find measured elements of the Platonic Ideas/Forms—a universality mediated by individual minds. Even more important is the fact that Schopenhauer holds that to be involved in the creative process of art is a process of liberation from the ever present and terrifying “Will.” In other words, art is liberating. This is in contradistinction to Hegel’s absolute idealism where art plays a supporting role to the “Spirit” progressively knowing itself that is distinct from that of Plato’s conception of the Forms that do not require any such process, as well. In summation, I must state that my brief philosophical diversion here should not be taken as an underhanded and sever criticism or delegitimization of Kant on the subject of the beautiful, the sublime, or the tastes. Most artists, historians, even philosophers I talked to seem to find Kant dense and very difficult to understand on those subjects. I believe, one fails to understand or fails to appreciate the depth of Kant because one reads him wrongly, with misplaced context. One can understand Kant much better if one reads him in his Critique of Judgment simply by looking at his views as an extension of his extensive work on the categorical imperatives and his moral writings.

For all my huffs and puffs on almost all social and political issues and questions dealing with Nietzsche’s work because of my serious aversion to his worship of power and his disdain for the common man, however, I am totally mesmerized and awed by his treatment of art and its role in the lives of human beings. In his books and essays, Nietzsche is unparalleled in the depth of his understanding and in the intensity of his passion dealing with art and aesthetics. Even in translation one cannot escape the beauty and clarity of his thought in these two books compared to his other works where he tends to be dense, often repetitious. It seems Nietzsche killed God [or declared God as dead] and replaced him with Art—not even Schopenhauer would approach such adulation of art as Nietzsche did. Here is also my weakness for Nietzsche.

There is much gobbledygook written both in the arts and the sciences. To wit consider the following: “Though often taking architectural and geographic concerns as her foundational images, Mehretu’s oeuvre offers answers that cartography and geography cannot. By fashioning a notation out of meditations on phenomenology, her epic oeuvre has shown us the internalization of burgeoning worlds.” I have read countless books on the arts, and what I learned from all that exposure and numerous discourses over a span of forty years or more is that writing or speaking about art authoritatively is dangerous and limiting. It seems to me that the creative process in art might have Platonic ideations, but the execution and delivery is firmly an inductive process because life ultimately is the experienced-reality that is the sine qua non of all artistic input/output. I cringe when critics or philosophers speak in terms of what is “right” or “wrong” about art. My approach to art is deceptive, in the sense that it is the subjective “apprehension” and the pleasure of such creativity of that which is apprehended in the World as “representation.” In this I find Schopenhauer far more enlightening on the subject of “beauty” and the “sublime” than the views of any of the other philosophers including Hegel. And Nietzsche simply went overboard.

It seems to me that Schopenhauer saw in the “self realization” or “absorption” of the artist in his creation of art/beauty a great liberation from the terrifying ever presence of the “Will.” This means beauty is in the creator or beholder, which seems to support my views. Of course, the philosopher that one may think of as the personification of that view is David Hume. Hume devoted his second volume of his Treaties to the “passions” that dealt with the issue of the way man “form” his or her emotion or aspirations. A more pointed presentation about art by Hume are his works titled “Of the Delicacy of Taste and Passion,” and “Of the Standard of Taste.”

Both Hume and Kant believe that the value of artistic creation cannot be deduced from rational processes. Even though Kant seems in discussing his categorical imperatives far more closer to the Platonic “absolutes” compared to Hume (who had completely rejected such ideas), he still seems to be not free of the pull of the weight of the physical reality all around us in his philosophy. At any rate, Hume focused only on “beauty” and never mentioned the idea of the sublime. What Julie Mehretu was attempting in her statements on art was what Schopenhauer articulated centuries earlier, there is really nothing original about that. Describing the technique of painting or the steps of the execution aspect in the creation of the art object is not a good substitute for the discussion of the nature of the beautiful or the sublime where one has to take into consideration the reality of our individual personal agony. Despite the fact that Hume too often unfairly is accused of sterilizing (in essence, but not so much in such exact words) human reality due to his claim that reality is either relation of ideas or matter of fact and any other claim is not just unreal but nonsensical. But mind you all, who do you think is the only philosopher who stated bluntly that “reason is or ought to be the slave of the passions.”

Tecola W. Hagos
Washington DC
May 11, 2012

Text Copyright©2012 by Phineaus St. Claire

Seeye’s admission, “That TPLF no more exists today in the fashion that we used to know it years ago” is a clear evidence that the criminal mercenary clique, that he was once a part of, has dissipated as organization and replaced, as the headline suggested, by a single family party of Meles and Azieb, his wife.

The original mission of the organization was not clear to the Ethiopian people outside Tigray because the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) was an ethnic based organization that sought for autonomous rights or, as the TPLF Manifesto exposed, an independent Greater Tigray. However, the power vacuum of 1991 invited the minority clique to power and, once in power it appears as though, the underlined mission became murky or, as Seeye claims, nonexistent.

The TPLF regime has done all it can to legitimize its hold in power. In 2000, the minority regime stealthily conducted an election at the height of a war with Eritrea and escaped scrutiny. In 2005, when Ethiopians outright rejected the minority clique, the international community was exposed to the brutality of the regime for the first time. Since, the clique’s main objective has been to weaken the opposition and its leaders however possible and, succeed, for a period, because the mercenary role the regime played was critical for the Bush Administration and US led Western interests. Menelik Palace accorded the TPLF advantages to acquire massive wealth and political power and, used it to quash decent through manipulations and coercion.

Using military financed by the West, TPLF undertook aggressive military adventures against the people Eritrea thus breaking ties with an ally that helped propel it to power. This denied the people of Tigray and Eritrea a cross border relation and a natural trading partnership creating unnecessary scarcity goods leading to inflated prices.

In Somalia, waving the bible, TPLF invaded an Islamic nation and created major humanitarian crisis. This generated unnecessary animosity with the people of Somalia. TPLF used Somalia as a source of income to milk the Bush Administration’s War of Terror Campaign against the people of the region. However, the people of Ethiopia did not support the minority regime and, sympathized with their Somali brethren, contrary to the hostile history that existed amongst the nations. Conversely, the people of Somalia understood the people of Ethiopia are not responsible for the genocidal acts committed by Meles Zenawi.

Ethiopia is rich with diverse ethnic groups. To exploit that diversity, to divide and rule the country, TPLF dangled article 39 of the constitution which claims, “Every nation, nationality or people in Ethiopia shall have the unrestricted right to self-determination up to secession.”

Giving option, if they so choose to become independent, is an appeasement strategy to keep the international community satisfied and, at bay from Ethiopia’s internal affairs. In reality however, these ethnic groups are under the tight grip of TPLF. The people of Ogaden, Oromo, Gambella, Afar and others are mired in endless struggles due to systemic repressions, denials of constitutional rights, violent human rights violations, genocides and ethnic cleansing. These tussles gradually alienated the TPLF junta because a) these groups realized TPLF does not represent their best interest and, b) that the TPLF was deliberately sabotaging their efforts for greater freedoms, c) they realized that it is in their best interest to organize and resist TPLF.

Gradually since, any support the TPLF has had dissipated regularly. Ethiopia’s business community was a victim of taxation and coercion when not in line with TPLF’s agenda. Farmers stripped from their fertile lands and evicted from their villages forcefully. Ethiopians, including the people of Tigray, have gradually come to the realization that the TPLF does not represent the best interest of the nation after witnessing serious threats to the very existence of the nation by the sheer size of land that is being sold to multinationals.

The TPLF enjoys no support from any segment of Ethiopia’s populations. In the last year alone, it alienated core constituencies in a dramatic fashion. Ethiopia is rich with religious history, traditions and customs. The TPLF took some missteps that offended the religious communities of both faiths. There have been tensions particularly after a controversial priest was placed at synod. However, the current developments are beyond what the TPLF could handle.

There has always been armed resistance against the minority clique in Ethiopia by various ethnic groups that want some form of autonomy. That has been a source of contention amongst the various Ethiopian opposition groups. The Oromo Liberation Front (OLF), representative of Ethiopia’s majority population was fighting for independent Oromia. At the end of 2011, when the OLF declared it will fight for a united Ethiopia in cooperation with organizations like Ginbot 7, the TPLF reacted vehemently because for the first time the regime felt threatened. The TPLF can only exist in a chaotic and unstable environment and this announcement sent shockwaves.

Moreover, once hidden, instabilities throughout Ethiopia are popping like wild fires everywhere. In its April 28 press release, Ethiomedia reported that, rebels opposed to the government burned down Metema, a town bordering Sudan. This is significant because a great deal of the commodities that enter Ethiopia’s northern region from Sudan enter through this gateway. The businesses that burned down belong to members of TPLF. This will exacerbate the economic hardships and add to the scarcity of goods in the country. It is also a sign that Ethiopian people are not intimidated and, are fighting-back TPLF where it hurts, its pocketbooks.

TPLF IS…
The core of an organization is always based on its underlined mission. People make sacrifices based on a principled stand when they feel they have ownership of a cause(s). The Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) led by the criminal Meles Zenawi has lost its mission and purpose it was founded upon. The TPLF is unable to maintain the core constituency because it has no message or cause that it could sell the people of Tigray. The people of Tigray have not received clear guidance from the core leadership of TPLF. The TPLF does not have any core issue that people can rally behind. TPLF cannot sell Tigray only as a cause while running the entire nation. Without national agenda and with its fragmented approach to the nation, TPLF alienated the people of Tigray putting them in an awkward position vis-à-vis the rest of Ethiopia. Hence, and absent of a clear message, it is natural for the supporters to lose faith on the organization and over the years, TPLF’s support eroded gradually to the point that it is now, nonexistent.

There is no redeeming quality about TPLF. The legacy of the TPLF will be mass killing, election rigging, tortures, rape, extortion, prostitution and baby selling. TPLF is an organization that sold a nation for nothing rendering millions to perpetual hunger and starvation. TPLF is an organization that lied repeatedly about phantom achievements while begging for everything under the sun. Organization that committed genocides in the Ogaden, Gambella and other parts the region. Organization that is not shy to uproot people from their homes for greed. Organization that disregards its own people and lie to them outright, mislead them repeatedly, organization that puts- down its own people.

TPLF is a failed organization that chose to steal and lie rather than lead, it is an organization-using Ethiopia to pile on its coffers rather than serve the people. It is a power hungry greedy organization determined to remain in power at the expense of the nation. It is an organization believing on guns and its Western support rather than faith on its people and the people of the region. The TPLF is a failed organization that failed to deliver on any front!

TPLF is an organization that has no legitimacy, an organization that enjoys no support except with a handful rich. TPLF has no support of the Oromos, in Gambella, Ogaden, in Afar, and with Amhara populations of Ethiopia. Even if it is hard to quantify, TPLF’s opposition in Tigray is mushrooming. The TPLF enjoys no support of students, teachers, workers and the business community. The TPLF enjoys no support from farmers for; it is taking and selling their fertile land. The TPLF gets no support from the Diaspora in fact; the Diaspora is its nemesis.

In Ethiopia, religion is the most important institution. Ethiopians are people of deep faith whether Christians or Moslems. Religious leaders, religious landmarks and traditions have always been, respected, handled with a great deal of care for they are sensitive and volatile. Emperor Haile Sellassie and Mengistu Hailemariam never instigated hostility with Ethiopia’s religious institutions. To the contrary, they gave it international recognition. On the other hand, the TPLF believes it can thrive in chaos including religious chaos. For the first time in Ethiopia, Moslems are out by the millions demonstrating against the regimes meddling in their affairs. This is uncharted territory for a country on the brink. TPLF’s disrespect for the Christian faith is also arousing similar sentiment because the regime wants to destroy a religious site to sell the land.

Conclusion
Ethiopia is at the brink of eminent change. The challenge for all involved is to envision what the change will look like and how to fill the power vacuum, if possible. When Mengistu fell, the US and Eritrea helped fill the vacuum. Eritrea’s primary goal was independence. However, as Ambassador Herman Cohen asserted on his interview with ESAT, the US is always seeking for its strategic interests. US’ strategic interests in the region have not changed since. To the contrary, US seek deep entrenchment in the region. The Meles Zenawi led TPLF, is a perfect mercenary organization that the US uses brilliantly to further its agenda. Ethiopia houses the AU and that is an added bonus. The question is if and when the situation arises, who will lead the process.

If Ethiopians fail to control their destiny, they could look at many models. There are the examples of Somalia and Congo as the worst-case scenarios, and at best, Afghanistan like situation where the US could place Kharzai like personality to continue the status quo in order to pursue US agendas. This means, large uncontrolled areas, continuous unrest, and hardship for the people of Ethiopia. It also means continuous instability in the region for decades to come. These are some reasons that make Ethiopia the business of all the people in the region, because it can be source of instability for the entire region. All the ingredients that can help the situation in Ethiopia explode are in place. The economy is in doldrums exacerbating the hardships. Absent of divine intervention it is just a matter of time until the apocalypse happens.

There are some serious obstacles the people of Ethiopia face: a) the biggest is the US led West, as well as other parties that see the strategic importance of Ethiopia that want to see no change. And b) organizations such as IGAD and AU that make their primary goal to serve the interest of the West not the people of Ethiopia or the region for sheer greed and power.

Hence, it is crucial that all the concerned parties play constructive roles to aid the people of Ethiopia towards a united and prosperous goal that the people of Ethiopia and by extension the people of the region desperately need. It is also incumbent upon the US to allow Ethiopia to chart a new independent course. If not, the US will be left holding a bloody bag. In addition, it is imperative for all the people to make unwavering commitment for peace and to stand in support of one another.

Awetnayu@hotmail.com

A Climate Trend Analysis of Ethiopia builds on examination of the March–June, June–September and March–September rainfall and temperature recent trends in the country, covering the period from mid-1970s to 2000s. The findings of the experts indicate significant reductions in rainfall and increases in temperature over time in many areas of the country.

By way of example, the study highlights, “A decline in rainfall of approximately 0.5 standard deviation, and an increase in the frequency of droughts of approximately 40 percent, is sufficient to markedly increase the number of poor harvests that can be expected.”

This long-term trend analysis has arrived at five major conclusions. These are:

Spring and summer rains in parts of Ethiopia have declined by 15–20 percent since the mid-1970s.
Substantial warming across the entire country has exac¬erbated the dryness.
An important pattern of observed existing rainfall declines coincides with heavily populated areas of the Rift Valley in south-central Ethiopia, and is likely already adversely affecting crop yields and pasture conditions.
Rapid population growth and the expansion of farming and pastoralism under a drier, warmer climate regime could dramatically increase the number of at-risk people in Ethiopia during the next 20 years.
Many areas of Ethiopia will maintain moist climate conditions, and agricultural development in these areas could help offset rainfall declines and reduced produc¬tion in other areas.
In terms of the measures required to diminish the problems, i.e., the lack or shortage of rains and increases in temperature, the study points to the need for improved water and agricultural management practices. In that regard, amongst the recommended suggestions is the importance of raising agricultural yields in the more viable areas, instead of farm expansion into unopened lands or ever more marginal areas.

The spatial pattern of the drying and warming trends, the experts state, tends to indicate disproportionate stresses on south-central Ethiopia, where the Belg agricultural yields have already been affected.

At risk population centers include cities and towns such as Nazret, Meki, Arsi Negelle, etc. Nevertheless, large parts of the country would continue to receive adequate amounts of rainfall, especially in the western highlands. The experts emphasize that these areas need better agricultural methods and water manage¬ment practice. With these measures would contribute to the country enhancing its food security at the national level.

A major source of concern is also Ethiopia’s population growth, since it has outstripped food production. This year, Ethiopia’s population has hit the 90.0 million mark. This represents an increase of 33 million between 1990 and 2010, data drawn from the Gridded Population of the World statistics on which the experts based their analysis for this study.

It is reported that most of the population growth took place in Oromia (11 million) and SNNPR (6 million), the two areas with densely populated and where also rainfall has been declining faster. Populations in the chronically food insecure areas of Somali, Tigray, and Afar regions are reported to have increased by approximately 1.5, 1.9, and 1.1 million people, respectively.

These population trends are putting added severe stress on limited natural resources of the country. Unless, these problems are addressed seriously and in a multifaceted manner, they could become causes for tension and conflicts.

In highlighting the problems, the study links the population factor to existing data on production of crops. It points out that cereal production of 150 kgs per person is one of the lowest in the world. If the present trends continue, by 2025, Ethiopia’s cereal production would decrease by 28 percent, turning the country into a nation of millions of undernourished people.

Along the same line, a Special Report By FAO/WFP Crop And Food Security Assessment Mission To Ethiopia of April 2012 contains similar concerns about the 2011 Belg rains being generally very poor and having serious impact on agricultural production. It also noted that a huge gap exists between agricultural production and specific farmer requirements in improved seeds (i.e. rust tolerant wheat varieties), although in recent years their use has significantly increased.

Similarly, the mission observed that use of fertilizer is dependent on access to cash. Fertilizers are available to farmers through cooperative unions that require full cash payment, which many of the farmers cannot afford.

Over the years, these adverse situations have affected the life conditions of the people and their health. Already for the last several years, over half of Ethiopia’s population has been reported to be undernourished.

At present, according to FAO, this figure has come down to 41 percent. In 2011, UNICEF & WHO reported 51 percent of Ethiopian children are moderately or severely stunted.

All these are indications that serious and immediate and multifaceted actions are needed to reverse these situations. Unfortunately, the country’s political environment and the governance structures in place do not allow these measures to be effected. Even by the admission of the United States, as USAID Assistant Administrator for Africa Earl Gast’s informed the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee in his testimony of April 18:

Ethiopia is one of the starkest examples of the risks that emerge when a country lacks sufficient democratic checks and balances. By significantly constraining political speech, human rights, and the ability of civil society and the media to hold government officials accountable, the Ethiopian Government is creating an environment that is ripe for instability and that sends mixed messages about its place in the international community.
Instead of addressing, the above problems regarding the social and economic problems, what the country’s leaders are most preoccupied is their own permanence in power. As Mr. Gast rightly pointed out: “in the long term, Ethiopia is now in danger of reliving its history of turbulent political transition. Unless restrictions on civil society and the media are lifted and dissenting political views are allowed, the country’s substantial gains in economic development and poverty alleviation will be threatened.”

The present fury in the country that has destructed attention from national development are the outcome of ethnic nepotism, dispossession of people from their lands and denial to the people of voice and accountability. As the lastet report of the Auditor-General indicated, Ethiopia has become a country where mismanagement and corruption have reigned supreme.

Our country stands a better chance of safeguarding its future, when, unlike today, the conviction that Ethiopia belongs to all its children becomes the country’s governing ideology and shown in deeds. The current prevailing practices scurrying to impose on the nation supremacy of one minority ethnic group is certainly not the way to a better future for all Ethiopians.

To read full reports:

A Climate Trend Analysis of Ethiopia
Special report – FAO/WFP crop and food security assessment mission to Ethiopia
The State of the World’s Children 2011
USAID Assistant Administrator for Africa Earl Gast’s testimony
News report on Auditor-general’s findings

http://transformingethiopia.wordpress.com/

I walked to my office believing that I was part of history. However, my short lived ecstasy was over when I logged into my computer and started navigating the different Ethiopian websites. I read depressing articles such as the deportation of ethnic Amharas from the south, the appeal of Addis Ababa University, the passing a legend [Maître Artist Afewerk Tekle] and the victory of ESFNA over ESFNAONE [the only comforting news].

I closed the browser, rolled my chair towards the table and asked myself another question – is good losing its battle against evil in Ethiopia? I never wanted to say no, and I wasn’t sure to say yes, but just the thought of losing to evil broke me apart and I left my office to find courage elsewhere. I tried many things, but at the end, I went to my home when I felt I had no more energy to gather myself. Is this the end of three thousand years of history? Hell no! However, unless we do something as a society; this could mean the beginning of the end of our dream. Not just a dream, but our capacity to dream.

In the last few years, especially after the 2010 election, the tyrant regime in Ethiopia has been working at full gear to export its divide & rule policy to Ethiopians outside Ethiopia. Today, Addis Ababa’s most thought after Diaspora Policy . . . aka “Basic Information for Ethiopians in the Diaspora” is already circulating in North America, Asia, Europe, and Australia. The Ethiopian Diaspora has already seen the precursor of this policy that has divided churches, ruined our social fabrics, destroyed marriages, and created animosity between Ethiopians. Zenawi and his surrogates here in the Diaspora have targeted many organizations that bring us together, and in recent years no organization has been battered and bribed like ESFNA.

Ever since the News of judge Birtukan’s invitation to the 2011 ESFNA event became public, ESFNA’s survival as a uniting institution was challenged by the forces of evil; and as it is usually the case, the boisterous evil seemed to have won the battle. Not really! I’m very proud and of course reasonably optimistic to see ESFNA at the hands of such a determined group of disciplined professionals who put principle and country above everything. Their hard work, perseverance, patience, creativity, advocacy, fair-mindedness and passion have all paid off, and most importantly, they have made us victorious over the ‘carpetbaggers’.

If the struggle of ESFNA to save the 29 years old federation from the TPLF bullies needs a series of victories; definitely, the first and the most important victory has already been won in the US District Court for the District of Maryland [Southern Division] here in Greenbelt, MD. For those of us who were innocently confused between ESFNA [in Dallas] and ESFNAONE [in Washington, DC], . . . behold! I have good news for you. There is no ESFNAONE or AESAONE. There is one ESFNA, and ESFNA 2012 is not in Washington, DC. It is in Dallas, Texas.

For Meles Zenawi and his Diaspora intermediaries [who always believe that money can do everything], the April 13 court decision in Greenbelt, MD was of course a very strange and unexpected decision. They thought the pile of money flowing from Addis Ababa can give them a win here in the US courts. Nope! Money straight from the billionaire’s pocket may have bought some amoral foodies like you, but not justice like it always does in Addis Ababa.

Today, the ‘carpetbaggers’ here in the Diaspora know that they can’t use the name ESFNA, ESFNAONE, or any variant of the word ESFNA. Therefore, they have resorted to a brand new name- which is AESAONE (All Ethiopian Sports Association ONE), or simply known as Abinet Employees Sport Association. Those of you who are planning to come to Washington, DC for the July event . . . Watch out! You are not coming to ESFNA event; you are coming to a private event financed by poor Ethiopian tax payers and a billionaire.

This week I watched the AESAONE general board meeting hosted by Abinet G/Meskel here in the Renaissance Arlington Capital View Hotel. If there is anything substantive and true in this meeting, it was Teddy Afro’s song used as a prelude to the meeting ( click to watch the video). I don’t want to bore you with the full narratives of the meeting, but I just want to mention one thing that struck me the most. First of all, had Mr. Abinet and the so called board members listened to Teddy’s song that they used as a prologue for their video, they wouldn’t have proceeded with their meeting. In fact, they would have rushed to the genuine and elected leadership of ESFNA and asked for an apology. Here is a line from the prelude: ለሚከዳ ወዳጅ ለማይበጅ የምን መለማመጥ መተው አንጂ
In his speech addressed to the AESAONE board members, Mr. Abinet shamelessly blamed the
ESFNA leaders for the following two things: 1) Political Involvement 2) Dividing churches. Dear Mr. Abinet, did you know that ESFNA did not have any internal problem until you and Al Amoudi the billionaire joined the inner circle of ESFNA in the name of financial support? Besides, the Ethiopian Orthodox Churches in the Diaspora were parts of the Holy Synod in Ethiopia until Meles Zenawi ordained a patriarch on top of existing patriarch. Look Mr. Abinet, If you don’t have political interest and if you weren’t a messenger of Meles Zenawi [the paladin of divide and rule policy], why are you sticking your hands in the affairs of the Diaspora? Whose money are you using to rent stadium & hotels for three years in a row and to pay for a Grammy award singer? Mr. Abinet, you must know the difference between St. George Soccer Club and ESFNA. Instead of bothering us here, please go back to Ethiopia and restore the glory days of St. George Soccer Club. Until you do so, I consider you as one of those confused people who go fishing every day without knowing that it is not fish they are after.

It’s evident that Meles Zenawi knows the tremendous development potential of the Ethiopian Diaspora. In fact, his regime has designed various strategies aimed at engaging the Diaspora for development. However, unlike countries like India, Israel, and Poland; our country Ethiopia couldn’t benefit from its enthusiastic and resourceful Diaspora. The reason is obvious. Meles sees the Diaspora as a serious threat to his power that seems to have no ending. Yet, he still wants to use the Diaspora as a cash cow to build his one party ethnic & economic empire. This double-faced attitude has put Meles Zeawi at odds with the Diaspora to whom development has multiple dimensions that include freedom, democracy, and human rights. Therefore, Meles has vowed to use his emissaries and some weak individuals as a steppingstone to divide the Diaspora.

Today, Meles Zenawi’s divide & rule policy has already claimed its first victim, and no wonder that Zenawi’s first victim is ESFNA, a civic organization that brings Ethiopians together. Meles Zenawi and his Diaspora agents have taken the 29 years old sports federation form ‘ESFNA’ to ‘ESFNAONE’ and now to ‘AESAONE’ (Ps click to see the respective sites, ESFNA, AESAONE). Dear fellow Ethiopians, this summer we have a choice between ESFNA and AESAONE. What is your choice? To me, choosing AESAONE [Abinet Employees Sports Association] is effectively killing ESFNA, the nostalgic organization that treated us with dignity for the last 29 years. I believe it is also allowing Meles Zenawi to extend his abusive rule where ever Ethiopians are.

In the last 20 years, despite the tyrant regime’s repeated attempt to contain the flow of information in Ethiopia, the Ethiopian Diaspora has been a consistent and reliable source of information for the oppressed people of Ethiopia. The Ethiopian Diaspora is full of men and women who are filled with undaunted courage and patriotism. However, today, this courage and patriotism is put to the test. The dictator in Addis has sent some sold-out gluttons and a huge stack of money to buy the courage and the patriotism out of us. Do we continue advocating freedom, or sell our identity for money?
I strongly argue that we cannot defeat Meles and company in Ethiopia if we can’t beat them decisively here in our own turf where we have absolute advantage. Besides, we would be more hypocrites than the Pharisees if we keep on calling Ethiopians at home to rise up and fight the tyrant regime, while we allow the same enemy to conquer us here in the land of freedom. Fellow Ethiopians, the decision we make this summer is not as trivial as choosing between ESFNA and AESAONE. In fact, this is not even about playing and watching soccer. This is about telling an arrogant dictator that he cannot do to us what he is doing to our brothers and sisters at home. This is about sending the right signal to fellow Ethiopians at home that, we will never let them down by allowing Meles Zenawi play his divide and rule game here in the Diaspora.

This summer, the Ethiopian Diaspora in the United States and Canada has a history to make, a history that will be told and re-told to posterity. Zenawi and his TPLF party have time and again showed us that they have nothing, but bad ideas; and their puppies here in the Diaspora have no ideas at all. Well, I’m not saying that the Diaspora is perfect, but I’m dead sure that we have much better ideas than them because our idea is the peoples’ idea, and the peoples’ idea is always freedom, justice and equality. This summer we have to choose ESFNA over AESAONE and send a very clean message to Zenawi that, we’d rather be poor and die with a clean conscience than selling our dignity for money and live in a state of mental slavery.

In his speech to the AESAONE board members, Mr. Abinet strongly argued that sport should not be mixed with politics. Well, I’m from the old school and I can’t agree more, but what exactly does this mean? Does it mean that the sport world and its institutions embrace dictatorship and become bystanders when citizens are abused, tortured and killed? Mr. Abinet, is this the message you’re paid for to bring to the Diaspora? I understand that you are the president of St. George Soccer team, and most importantly, you are a student of the legendary Yednekachew Tesema. What did you learn from him? Wasn’t Yedenekachew a hero who mixed sport and politics to score victory in both? Look Mr. Abinet, the history of the world since the time of Gladiators tells us that sport has affected politics and shaped public opinion.

In 1976, twenty eight African nations [including Ethiopia] boycotted the Montreal Olympics to protest against South Africa. Evidently, the boycott in itself did not close the apartheid chapter in South Africa. But, make no mistake! It has played a very important role. Mr. Abinet, whether you like it or not, we in the Diaspora are determined to boycott TPLF sponsored events including business and politics. Of course, we know the boycott by itself won’t bring an end to Zenawi’s ethnic dictatorship. But, we want to tell Zenawi and the rest of the world loud and clear that, it won’t be business as usual for Meles Zeawi here in the Diaspora. He should either change his nasty attitude or get out of the way. Other than this, I think there is no need to drag ESFNA to the world of politics. We want ESFNA to continue doing what it does best … bring us together, entertain us, and bring memories of the good old days.

This summer we must tell the TPLF bullies that the freedom of our brothers and sisters is not negotiable, and we do this by committing ourselves to a week long freedom march in Dallas, Texas. I’m sure radio and television stations, newspapers, websites, blogs and social media networks will play a vital role in disseminating the news that, the host city for the 29th ESFNA annual sports festival is Dallas, Texas; not Washington, DC. We have one and only one ESFNA that brings Ethiopians together. Yes, ESFNA . . . just ESFNA.

As a proud people of a proud nation, we must not negotiate our freedom and dignity with those who abuse us. We must fight hard for our liberty because liberty is the expression of our existence as a human being. Remember, no human is enslaved until he/she accepts the enslavement. We should never and ever allow the TPLF net to cross the oceans and ensnare us here on the land of freedom. We must join our efforts to ignite the fire of freedom, a fire that incites those who feel its power; and a fire that consumes those who contain the progress of freedom. This is the only way our people in Ethiopia can experience the freedom that we relish here on a foreign land every day. See you all in Dallas. .. Dallas…Dallas…Dallas

Sometimes you see headlines that amuse you and make you wonder if some people are real delusional or blinded with their arrogance and can’t see themselves in a way that the rest of the world see them. When I saw the headline that said “World Press Freedom Day was Celebrated in Ethiopia” followed by the speech from Shimles Kemal, I could not stop being amused and wonder what goes to the mind of this man when he is lying on the world stage. His deceitful statement, reminded me the homosexual priest who vehemently opposed the same sex marriage hiding his true color. The priest whose anti gay campaign angered his lover was finally exposed by his gay lover to what he really is- an arrogant hypocrite. Though the hypocrisy of the regime in Ethiopia is visible for the whole world, to hide its true color, the regime that is number one in the world in exiling journalists, attempted to put a colorful facade as a champion of “Press freedom”, by “celebrating press freedom day”. This is as sad as the gay priest who tried to hide his homosexuality.

May be the supporters of the EPRDF may take pride because the EPRDF is NUMBER 1 in the world in exiling journalists. This may be a badge of honor to the EPRDF and its surrogates who celebrated World Press freedom Day while they have filled their prisons with journalists and human rights activists.

As the French author and Nobel Prize winner Andre Gide put it, the regime in Ethiopia may believe that the rest of the world will accept its deception if it continue to lie “with sincerity”. For those of us who got used to the deceitful character of the regime in Ethiopia, there is no surprise to hear people like Shimles Kemal talk about Freedom of the Press while assaulting, detaining and torturing journalists. Although in a report that CPJ released to Mark the World Press Freedom Day, the regime in Ethiopia has escaped from the top 10 list of offenders of regimes that censor the press heavily, the CPJ and other Press Freedom advocates have made it clear that Meles uses the “anti-terrorism legislation” that its rubber stamp parliament enacted in 2009 to criminalize any reporting that the regime deems favorable to opposition movements. As the recent report indicates, even reporting about the trail of Eskinder Nega has become “a crime”. This is a regime that celebrates “Press Freedom.”

Since freedom of the press and expression is not protected in Ethiopia, journalists have a challenging job of exposing corruption, power abuse, and the undemocratic political discourse in the country. Therefore, those in power have a freedom to violate the human rights of the ordinary citizens, and rule with iron fist without being accountable to their action. It has been said repeatedly that tyrants fear the power of the pen more than they fear the power of the sword. The main objective of free press is to make the government accountable to its action. In the absence of Free Press, those in power have no one to challenge them when they conduct themselves beyond and above the law. The writing of journalist like Eskinder Nega has proven this time and again. Eskinder challenged the regime, when it imprisoned human rights activists, political opponents, and journalists with trump up charges. Eskinder and his colleagues committed no crime other than telling the truth about the human rights violations and the muzzling of the press in Ethiopia. Is because Eskinder was able to send a shock wave in the regimes spine by simply writing the truth about the true nature of the EPRDF and its surrogates, he became their target. Because Eskinder’s and other journalists reporting have a profound effect in exposing the undemocratic nature of the regime, they are languishing in jail with made up charges and, they are categorized as enemies number one by the ruling elites. History teaches us that tyrants have such an enormous contempt to the free press because they know that the press always shades light in the darkness that they bring into their nation and expose their true evil deeds to the rest of the world.

Today, we have an enormous crisis in our hand. These crises didn’t happen over night. It has been boiling under neat of the regime. By putting information blackout in the country, Meles and his stooges believed that they could control the information outflow; they failed to realize imprisoning journalists and human right activists will not deter others from reporting the truth using whatever tools that they have available at their disposal. Although the government tried everything possible to create a climate of fear in the country, it did not take long for the images of the Amhara farmers to show up in our living rooms when they were uprooted unjustly from their homes. We are witnessing the anger and the frustration of our Muslim brothers and sisters in the streets of Addis Ababa and other cities as it happens. The reports clearly show that our Muslim brothers and sisters are beginning to see the true evil of the regime that promises one thing and does something else. Meles and his stooges undermined the determination of our people and they have been pushing their thumbs into our eyes for the last 21 years. They thought by silencing our journalists and human right activists, they could stop the unstoppable.

The regime has failed to learn from its own history. Our rulers were called useless bandits at one stage of their struggle; now they are calling those of us who are advocating for human and civil rights of our people useless anarchists (Newtenga). They haven’t learned that injustice will never prevail; they haven’t learned that when people have enough of the deception, lies, arrogance, and brute force, they will revolt. By muzzling the press, the regime may have prolonged its hold on power; but history teaches us that the oppressed will always find a way to break the shackles of tyranny and free themselves. If the regime doesn’t change its political discourse soon, I am certain that the fire that the regime started to burn our people will turn against it.

As Serkalem Fasil put it “To create the country that we want, someone has to sacrifice.” So far, an enormous price has been paid to liberate our people from the shackles of this brute regime. Let us unite, let us not allow Meles and his stooges use religion, ethnicity, or other differences that we have to divide us. Let us stand with our Amhara citizens who are unjustly removed from their home; let us stand with our Muslim brothers and sisters who are fighting for freedom of their religion; let us support those whose homes and businesses are demolished by the regime who have shown an enormous disregard to the suffering of our people; let us stand with our journalists and human rights activists who are languishing in deplorable prison; let us not allow this regime to continue to mock us and to continue to push its thumb into our eyes. Support the boycott, lobby for sanction; encourage a revolution, and do what you can for a regime change in Ethiopia. Say enough for 21 years continuous assault on the lives, integrity, honor, history, and dignity of our people and nation. Enough is Enough!

After 420 days of trial (over nearly four years), 115 witness, over 50,000 pages of testimony, and 1,520 exhibits, Charles Taylor, warlord-turned-president of Liberia, was found guilty on 11 counts by the U.N. Special Court for Sierra Leone. Taylor was found guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity (including murder, rape, mutilating civilians, including cutting off their limbs, conscripting child soldiers, sexual slavery and other acts of terrorism) committed in Sierra Leone from November 30, 1996, to January 18, 2002. Over 50,000 people died in that conflict. Taylor “aided and abetted” the notorious warlords Foday Sankoh, Sam “the Mosquito” Bockarie and Issa Sesay of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) in Sierra Leone. Taylor participated in the planning, instigation and commission of these crimes and provided weapons and military support in exchange for “blood diamonds” mined by slave laborers in Sierra Leone. Taylor will be sentenced next month.

There were some problems in the prosecution’s evidence. There were few documents to show the depth and scope of Taylor’s involvement with the rebels. There was no evidence that Taylor was at the scene of the rebel crimes. There was little evidence showing the Liberian troops Taylor sent to Sierra Leone were directly involved in the war crimes and crimes against humanity. However, prosecutors were able to use radio and telephone intercepts and the testimonies of Taylor’s close associates and security detail and show that Taylor had shipped weapons to the rebels in exchange for (blood) diamonds.
Taylor avoided conviction for “command responsibility” under article 6(3) of the Statute of the Special Court which imputes criminal responsibility “if the superior knew or had reason to know that his or her subordinate was about to commit crimes prohibited by the Statute or had done so, and the superior failed to take the necessary and reasonable measures to prevent or punish the perpetrators”. Despite evidence that Taylor had knowledge RUF rebels were committing war crimes and crimes against humanity and that he had significant influence over them, there was insufficient evidence to prove that he had effective “command and control” over them to prevent the crimes or punish the perpetrators.

Taylor denied all of the charges and any responsibility for the crimes committed in Sierra Leone. He testified on his own behalf for seven months seeking to portray himself as a peace maker. The trial reportedly cost $USD250 million! Was it worth the expense? Does justice have a price tag?

Rogues Gallery of African Criminals Against Humanity

The International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued arrest warrants for other current and former African heads of state, including Cote d’Ivoire’s former president Laurent Gbagbo and Sudan’s president Omar al-Bashir (and the late Moamar Gadhafi). In November 2011, Gbagbo was quietly whisked away to the Hague from house arrest in Cote d’Ivoire to face justice before the ICC on charges of crimes against humanity (murder, rape and other forms of sexual violence, persecution and other inhuman acts) that were allegedly committed during the post-election period. Gbagbo will soon be warming Taylor’s chair.

Al-Bashir sneered at the ICC indictment in 2009: “Tell them all, the ICC prosecutor, the members of the court and everyone who supports this court that they are under my shoe.” (In time, he may come under the ICC’s shoes.) The U.N. estimated well over 300,000 people have perished under Bashir’s regime. Along with Al-Bashir, the ICC has also issued warrants against other Sudanese nationals including Ahmed Haroun, a lawyer and minister of humanitarian affairs, Ali Kushayb, a former senior Janjaweed (local militiamen allied with the Sudanese regime against Darfur rebels), Bahr Idriss Abu Garda, a rebel leader and two others.

The ICC has also indicted criminals against humanity in Kenya. Uhuru Kenyatta, finance minister and son of Kenya’s famed independence leader Jomo Kenyatta, resigned following an ICC ruling that he will face trial for crimes against humanity in connection with the communal post-election violence between supporters of presidential candidates Raila Odinga and Mwai Kibaki in 2008. The U.N. estimates some 1,200 people died in weeks of unrest between December 2007 and February 2008, and 600,000 people were forcibly displaced. Cabinet secretary Francis Muthaura, a close ally of president Mwai Kibaki, former Education Minister William Ruto and radio announcer Joshua arap Sang face similar charges.

In Uganda, the ICC has indicted senior leaders of the “Lord’s Resistance Army” including the notorious Joseph Kony, his deputy Vincent Otti and three other top commanders. In the DR Congo various rebel and militia leaders and Congolese military officers and politicians including Thomas Lubanga Dyilo, Jean-Pierre Bemba Gombo, Bosco Ntaganda, Mathieu Ngudjolo Chui and two others have been indicted. The ICC has issued arrest warrants for Moammar Gaddafi’s son Saif al-Islam and Libyan intelligence chief Abdullah al-Senussi who was arrested in Mauritania in March of this year. Libya is contesting ICC jurisdiction so that it may be able to try the two suspects in Libyan courts.

No ICC Indictments in Ethiopia?

While seeking out war criminals and criminals against humanity in the Sudan, Kenya, Uganda, the DR of Congo, Libya and other places, the ICC and U.N. Security Council have avoided “Crimes Against Humanity Central– Ethiopia”. The evidence of crimes against humanity and war crimes in Ethiopia is fully documented, substantial and overwhelming.

An official Inquiry Commission appointed by Meles Zenawi in its 2006 report documented the extrajudicial killing of at least 193 unarmed protesters, wounding of 763 others and arbitrary imprisonment of nearly 30,000 persons in the post-2005 election period in Ethiopia. The Commission was limited to investigating the “violence that occurred on June 8, 2005 in Addis Ababa and violence that occurred from November 1 to 10, 2005 and from November 14 to 16, 2005″ in other parts of the country. (The Inquiry Commission has evidence on extrajudicial killings by security forces for dates other than those indicated, and had those casualties been included in the official Commission report the numbers would have increased several fold.) The killings investigated by the Commission occurred after Zenawi publicly declared that all of the country’s security and military forces were under his direct, exclusive and personal control.

The Commission’s evidence further showed that nearly all of the 193 unarmed protesters died from gunshot wounds to their heads or upper torso. The Commission found substantial evidence that professional sharpshooters were used in the indiscriminate and wanton attack on the unarmed protesters. The Commission further documented that on November 3, 2005, during an alleged disturbance at the infamous Kality prison near Addis Ababa, guards sprayed more than 1,500 bullets into inmate cells in 15 minutes, killing 17 and severely wounding 53. These and many other shocking facts were meticulously documented by the Inquiry Commission which examined 16,990 documents, received testimony from 1,300 witnesses and undertook months of investigation in the field. There is also documentary evidence to show that there are at least 237 named police and security officials directly implicated in these crimes and subsequently dismissed from their positions. No person has even been criminally investigated, arrested, charged, prosecuted or in any way held accountable for any of these crimes.

In December 2003, in the Gambella region of Ethiopia, 424 individuals died in extrajudicial killings by security forces. A report by the International Human Rights Clinic of Harvard Law School’s Human Rights Program corroborates the extrajudicial killings. In 2008, in the Ogaden region of Ethiopia, reprisal “executions of 150 individuals” and 37 others were documented by Human Rights Watch:

Ethiopian military personnel who ordered or participated in attacks on civilians should be held responsible for war crimes. Senior military and civilian officials who knew or should have known of such crimes but took no action may be criminally liable as a matter of command responsibility. The widespread and apparently systematic nature of the attacks on villages throughout Somali Region is strong evidence that the killings, torture, rape, and forced displacement are also crimes against humanity for which the Ethiopian government bears ultimate responsibility.

No person has even been criminally investigated, arrested, charged, prosecuted or in any way held accountable for any of these crimes.

In 2010, Human Rights Watch made a submission to the U.N. Committee Against Torture “regarding serious patterns of torture and other cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment in Ethiopia.”

Torture and ill-treatment have been used by Ethiopia’s police, military, and other members of the security forces to punish a spectrum of perceived dissenters, including university students, members of the political opposition, and alleged supporters of insurgent groups, as well as alleged terrorist suspects. Human Rights Watch has documented incidents of torture and ill-treatment by Ethiopian security forces in a range of settings. The frequency, ubiquity, and patterns of abuse by agents of the central and state governments demonstrate systematic mistreatment involving commanding officers, not random activity by rogue soldiers and police officers. In several cases documented by Human Rights Watch, military commanders participated personally in torture.

No person has even been criminally investigated, arrested, charged, prosecuted or in any way held accountable for any of these crimes.

International Criminal Court of Justice or International Criminal Court of Selective Justice?

It is historic and commendable that the ICC UN Special Tribunal for Sierra Leone has convicted Charles Taylor for war crimes and crimes against humanity. The verdict is undoubtedly a giant step forward in ending the culture of official impunity and criminality in Africa. African dictators and tyrants may no longer assume automatic impunity for their criminal actions. David Crane, the former prosecutor who indicted Taylor in 2003 correctly pointed out, “This is a bell that has been rung and clearly rings throughout the world. If you are a head of state and you are killing your own people, you could be next.” U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon described the Taylor verdict as “a significant milestone for international criminal justice” that “sends a strong signal to all leaders that they are and will be held accountable for their actions.”

But the ICC and the U.N. Security Council must not succumb to the shameful practice of selective justice. It is hypocritical to indict criminals against humanity in the Sudan, Kenya, Uganda and the DR Congo and pretend to “hear no evil, see no evil and speak no evil” on the war criminals and criminals against humanity in Ethiopia. There cannot be a double, triple or quadruple standard of justice tailored for different grade of war criminals and criminals against humanity. There is no such thing as a good war criminal or criminal against humanity. There can be no beauty contest among warthogs. What is good enough for the Sudan, Kenya, Uganda and the DR Congo MUST be good enough for Ethiopia because what is good for the goose is good for the gander. Based on the compelling and substantial readily available evidence, the ICC has a legal duty and a moral obligation to at least open an investigation into war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Ethiopia since 2002 when the court was created.

FREE ALL ETHIOPIAN JOURNALISTS AND POLITICAL PRISONERS!!!

It is abundantly clear that we live in a dangerous and rotten multi-polar power world without a distinct global leader. This much is recognized but none has a solution to the immorality pervading our planet and the fathomless depth of multiple socio-economic problems into which this generation has sunk as a result of insatiable greed and unbridled corruption on which iniquitously inept leaders like Zenawi feed to satisfy their lust for power.

As long as the pain caused by the tyrant persists and increasingly becomes acute, genuine democrats must use the power of their pens to call on the silent majority to join in the struggle to fight back.

Paranoid Zenawi haunted by hatred & betrayals reacted with great alacrity and gruesome atrocity to what was a marvelously peaceful election that culminated in humiliating landslide defeat to his TPLF party in the 15 May 2005 election forcing the tyrant to declare the illegal state of emergency in panic. As Bertrand Russell (1872-1970), English logician and philosopher said: “Neither a man nor a crowd nor a nation can be trusted to act humanely or to think sanely under the influence of a great fear.” Zenawi was no doubt in great fear and had to run to his immoral supporters; he got away with his atrocities including genocide, crime against humanity and war crimes in full view of his masters.

When asked, what legal authority he had to by-pass the Parliament and declare a state of emergency, Meles responded by saying that, after all, the donors did not object to the action he took. His response is solid proof that the monstrous killer is subservient to the interests of the donors at the expense of the vital interests of poor Ethiopia. Donors are cunning actors who alienate African Leaders from their peoples by corrupting, blackmailing, and turning them into greedy dictatorial puppets so that they will have no choice but obey the orders of neocolonialists.

Zenawi was given red carpet treatment at the G8 Summit in the immediate aftermath of his ordering the execution of 40 innocent civilians in cold blood, throwing thousands into jail under harsh conditions, and making many to suffer mental and physical tortures. It is not known whether the former Prime Minister Tony Blair had even privately regretted for inviting the tyrant Zenawi to the G8 Summit where the killer basked in the lavish functions of powerful world leaders exchanging smiles and champagne toasts while atrocities in Ethiopia were taking their tolls. Successive British Prime Ministers have been doling out direct budgetary support to the brutal TPLF regime despite the ongoing tyranny in Ethiopia.

What a shame the genocidal tyrant Zenawi has just reportedly received an invitation to Camp David for similar red carpet treatment in spite of: ongoing act of genocide on the Amhara and Anuak people; confirmed massacre of innocent Oromo people in Asasa committed by Zenawi’s Federal police while they were attending Friday prayer on April 27; desecration of the Waldeba Holy Monastery; our Muslim brothers suffering under Zenawi’s divide and impose dictatorial rule policy; dislocation of the Afar and Anuak people from their ancestral land; ad infinitum. The question is why he is such a darling to the USA bent on using food-dependency as a potent weapon in order to stay on top of the world.

“Examining the U.S. Policy Response to Entrenched African Leadership”
The quotes below refer to the testimony by Assistant Administrator of USAID Africa, Earl Gast, to the Subcommittee on African Affairs of Senate Foreign Relations Committee on April 18, 2012 under the title in caption on Ethiopia; each quote is followed by my brief comment:-

“Ethiopia is one of the starkest examples of the risks that emerge when a country lacks sufficient democratic checks and balances. By significantly constraining political speech, human rights, and the ability of civil society and the media to hold government officials accountable, the Ethiopian Government is creating an environment that is ripe for instability and that sends mixed messages about its place in the international community”.

Comment: Mr. Gast is right. But lack of resolute action on the part of the Executive branch of the US government has done irreparable damage to Ethiopia.

“On the one hand, the U.S. Government must maintain a close working relationship with Ethiopia as one of our key African partners in fighting terrorism, countering the effects of global climate change, promoting food security, and providing peacekeepers in some of the most difficult locations in Africa such as Darfur. In fact, with the exception of democracy-building, USAID’s programs in Ethiopia are among the most successful anywhere in Africa. Ethiopia commands a growing presence in global economics, and Prime Minister Meles Zenawi and his colleagues in the Ethiopian Peoples’ Democratic Revolutionary Front (EPRDF) can take credit for lifting millions out of poverty and improving living standards in Africa’s second-most populous country. As seen in the Horn of Africa’s recent food crisis, millions of Ethiopians were able to withstand the worst effects of drought due in part to the Ethiopian Government’s work with the international community to build resilience to climatic shocks”.

Comment: An average 5.5% (?) economic growth on a thin base amid abject poverty is more likely. Moreover, it would be disastrous if close working relationship with the USA is to continue at the expense of Ethiopians living in terror in total absence of democracy.

“On the other hand, the experiences of Ethiopia’s neighbors in Africa and the Arab World demonstrate the long-term risks of instability that come from suppressing basic freedoms. In 2005, Ethiopia held the most free and fair elections in its modern history, in which opposition parties appeared to have won a substantial minority of parliamentary seats. This outcome could have resulted in a balance of power sharing between the ruling party and opposition, and a real opportunity for political development to match the economic modernization underway in the country. Instead, the ruling EPRDF attempted to destroy the opposition or drive it underground. Since then, a systematic campaign has clamped down on basic freedoms. These actions, including domination of the 2010 elections and the passage of restrictive laws like the Charities and Societies Proclamation, have gained the EPRDF unprecedented control over the political life of Ethiopia and a brittle form of stability in the near term. However, in the long term, Ethiopia is now in danger of reliving its history of turbulent political transition. Unless restrictions on civil Society and the media are lifted and dissenting political views are allowed, the country’s substantial gains in economic development and poverty alleviation will be threatened”.

Comment: the USA is best placed to preclude this dire scenario from happening.

“Integrating democracy and governance work into the significant investments the United States is making in other sectors, such as food security and health, will give us important opportunities to support social and economic resilience in Ethiopian society outside of the ruling party structures and, to the extent feasible, participatory decision-making. To this end, USAID has developed a strategy that promotes a cross-cutting approach that builds democracy, human rights, governance and conflict interests into its varied portfolio. The strategy will minimize investments in democracy and governance—such as human rights defenders and civil society support—until diplomatic or other efforts open the political space for more robust engagement. USAID has also developed a cross-sectoral objective in its strategy to promote citizen participation and social accountability around service delivery.”

Comment: This initiative would be too little too late in coming if it ever does come. For the USA cannot be trusted based on its reneged promises to disengage with tyrants as and when its national interests dictate.

Tiny return for Ethiopia’s hefty sacrifice

Let me narrate to Mr. Gast from my records of what Ethiopia had sacrificed and got in return from the western powers. The US government:

• was at one time requested to provide more military equipment and warheads to deter a growing military threat from Ethiopia’s neighbors. The request was turned down on grounds that the Ethiopian Army possessed enough military hardware and warheads in its arsenal to fight or deter insurgents within the country;

• threatened to order air bombardment from its Air Force Base in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, unless the Ethiopian Air Force complied with the order to bomb the Headquarters of the Imperial Bodyguard in Addis Ababa during the attempt by Brigadier General Mengistu Neway to overthrow the Emperor in December 1960. The Carter Administration in 1974 refused to deliver critically needed military equipment for which Ethiopia had paid, thus forcing the Military regime of Mengistu Hailemariam to procure arms from the former USSR to repulse aggression by Somalia;

• rendered effective assistance to put the TPLF Stalinist regime in power and, together with the British government, gave it generous diplomatic and financial support for its survival while turning a blind eye to rampant heinous crimes of the regime including genocide.

• was quick and the first to give recognition to the Eritrean independence, which has left Ethiopia and her 82 million people landlocked; this action by the USA resulted in the gravest damage to the economic lifeline of Ethiopia and her other strategic interests;

• presently pursues the policy of making Ethiopia one of its power bases in the fight against Al Qaeda; it would be a wrong policy for the US government to pursue an alliance with a repressive regime of Zenawi who has lost the TRUST of the Ethiopian people as demonstrated in the election of 15 May 2005.

It is agonizing that help is still coming from Western donors to alter the tainted image of Zenawi despite overwhelming international condemnation of the atrocities committed by Zenawi and his thugs.

Twin impediments to massive uprising

Fear and ignorance acting in concert have debilitating effect on a society. As the English Logician and Philosopher, Benjamin Franklin, put it, “The only thing more expensive than education is ignorance.” And in regard to fear the Philosopher said: “Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.” Certainly Ethiopians are victims of fear and ignorance for two reasons: (1) failure to tear down the walls of fear in which they are enclosed; and (2) lack of action in unison due to ignorance of their ancient history.

Ethiopians as young as Abichu, Amdetsion, Gashu, Haptom, Worku and the leader of the 15,000 strong militias from Kembatta chose to fight Fascist Italy fiercely with determination to die than live in slavery. Common values bound these heroic compatriots together and trust took Haptom of Hamassein to Sellale in retreat with Abichu of Oromo. Young Ethiopians should follow their example to tear down the wall of fear in order to build an environment of trust and bravery in order to evict Zenawi from power.

Therefore, a stern warning for our survival, fellow Ethiopians, is couched in this quotation by Benjamin Franklin: “Make yourself sheep and the wolves will eat you.” Let us admit the TPLF thugs have been feeding on us for the last 21 years; their insatiable appetite is still growing. We cannot count on outside help to save us. Forget the purported new Africa Policy under consideration by the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Do not expect the Obama Administration to disengage from friendship with the genocidal tyrant Zenawi. Let us put our faith on self-reliance!

Finally, I wish to conclude this piece on a positive note that Ethiopians everywhere are on course to conquer fear and ignorance in order to avert grave danger to their survival; the onset of massive uprising to save Ethiopia is inspiring; our resolve must be irreversible for our struggle for just cause is viable and victory is inevitable.

Amen to EYNM & NEC progress!

LONG LIVE ETHIOPIA!!!
Release all political prisoners in Ethiopia including Andualem Aragie, Iskinder Nega, Nathnael et al

robele_ababya@yahoo.com

SSA’s agro-ecological diversity, its enormous possibilities and untapped resources have become irresistible attractions to the non-African world in measures unseen before since the end of the colonial era.

Especially since the 2008 food prices crisis the interests and imaginations of many nations, including that of high dreamer individuals, have found expressions in one form or another in Africa’s agriculture — food production or biofuels or agri-businesses, or activities related to livestock.

Putting this persevering attraction intelligibly and from carefully examined personal perspective, Karuturi Global’s Chairman Ramakrishna Karuturi recently told The Telegraph, “Roses have been the bread and butter for the company but agriculture is the future.”

If we take this investor as one example, Karuturi’s potentials have become enormous. He found his footing in Ethiopia, coming with small funds in his kitty and high hopes as his compass. Today, he is the largest land-renting Indian nearly for free anywhere in the world. Karuturi leases farmlands in name but literally owns now 100,000 ha, or 4 percent of the troubled Gambela in western Ethiopia, which ahs been cleared of its humble occupants. By the terms of his agreement, he is liable to pay $1.15 per yr/ha for 50 years, when his tax holidays are over.

The interesting thing is that, Article 8.1 of this agreement he has signed with the Meles Zenawi regime states, “This land lease Agreement shall be renewed on the same terms and conditions”, i.e., $1.15 per yr/per hectare—after 50 years. Bear also in mind that Mr. Karuturi now controls 10 percent of the global production and trade from Ethiopia, this one by the political and economic capital city.

This is not the whole story of how the government has been mismanaging Ethiopia’s natural resources. Karuturi is also the holder of another deal on 200,000 hectares, 8 percent of Gambela. He has signed lease agreement for 99 years under the same terms — renewable for $1.15 per yr/ha. He is free to start work on it anytime, if his means allow him.

Consequently, now perched on assets he calls “green gold”, donning the title Ethiopia recently proffered on him as its Honorary Consul in India, Karuturi asserted, “I want to be among the top four or five integrated agri-product companies in the world. And I will implement this vision out of Africa.” Unfortunately, for a man that now controls that many virgin farmlands, it rather appears as indicator of the depth of the insightless politics that has exposed the country to unmitigated risks and loses.

Such negligence on the part of governments of the region has made Africa ‘the jewel in the crown’ of every aspiring mogul from outside Africa— worst of all speculator investors.

Therefore, in the light of the above, without far reaching mental, attitudinal and systemic transformations and a higher degree of accountability, SSA should not expect to see progress nor presume it could manage to grasp that hopeful future resident in its agriculture. Certainly, this path of commercial agriculture is not in Africa’s interests! Down this route there is nothing optimistic about SSA’s agricultural development!

Science and technology as the new inlet into African agriculture

Another new vista into Africa’s agriculture has opened. African governments are being coaxed, to move agriculture into science and technology, as are enticed African citizens at the popular levels. This is presented to SSA as the Holy Grail that can ensure Africa’s future through its agriculture. They say this now is the path to a development that can eradicate hunger, poverty and diseases.

There are a number of groups working in this area, not all of them crooks nor entirely selfless.

The efforts by Bill Gates fall into this latter category. As I made it clear in the last series of articles under this title, the way I see it, I am hesitant to think that he is working for monetary gains. He certainly is working to ensure that capitalism gets firm footing in developing countries, a vision predicated on the thinking and belief that the world could be made a better and safer place, to a reasonable degree, by reducing poverty and hunger and, if possible, no diseases.

I salute him for the courage of his conviction. Nevertheless, the Gates Foundation has not been beyond criticisms for its lack of transparency. Also Mr. Gates stands accused of pushiness, in trying to get everyone lining up for his science and technology. The extent of his impatience toward those that resist his push or scrutinize him has been discussed almost everywhere and all the time.

In response, on January 24, 2012 he explained he protested the resistance to new technology in his hometown paper The Seattle Times, where he said this is “again hurting the people who had nothing to do with climate change happening”.

Too bad for him, his views in general have not swayed his critics, even if he likened the efforts underway to the agricultural revolution of the 1970s. On February 27,2012, The Seattle Times ventilated a widely-held view that dismissed Gates’ solution for world hunger as source “of concern to those of us involved in promoting sustainable, equitable and effective agricultural policies in Africa.” This response came to the paper with a South Africa dateline, representing the views of a number of grassroots organizations.

It is unfortunate that today ordinary citizens could not even take cover behind these. While acknowledging the selfless desire of grassroots movements to help and all the rallying behind a cause offer no means to prevent the ugly reality of hunger, poverty and deaths in Africa.

We also hear today fiery ‘sermons’ from people such as Dr. Webster Tarpley. They are only good at giving everyday folks goose pimples with their conspiracy theories. Of all of them, he is the most articulate and persistent of them, with a bent on the intellectual side and generous gifts for details. He has forcefully arrayed his forces against Bill Gates and the philanthropy machine.

A couple of times, he has managed to compel most of us to repeatedly ask, whether the billionaire is sworn to conspiratorially work against the southern hemisphere. Fortunately, it is easy to see that for Dr. Tarpley there is nothing sacrosanct. Day and night, he preaches for people to be watchful of the coming damnation and destruction if not by this or by that, including GMOs. He also speaks on behalf the southern ‘hemispherites’, urging them to be alert about the measures underway by Bill Gates and the crew of scientists he has assembled against fertility.

More transparency from Gates Foundation and seed companies needed

I touched the various aspects of the issues, above, just to show the extent of the pulls in every direction. Surely, some are serious and others attention seeking, a few of them not unreasonable. It is ignoring these that have encouraged and strengthened misgivings about Bill Gates and his efforts.

The adverse effect of this is that society is now embroiled partly with its spillover onto the philanthropic mission the Gates have embarked upon to turn things around in countries such as Ethiopia, whose people are in constant sufferings from both want and fear.

Unfortunately, getting a good feel or sense of whether this Bill Gates intervention is the real thing—like penicillin—or a scheme for the few to get richer is rendered difficult by the lack of sufficient transparency.

Bill Gates insists, “Most of the seed research paid for by his foundation involves conventional plant breeding. In those cases, DNA research allows scientists to pinpoint which genes are responsible for desirable traits. He compares the work to changes in modern libraries.”

Nonetheless, Raffaella Delle Donne claim remains unaddressed. In Seeking diversity, resilience and farmer control: putting the rights seeds in small farmers’ hands is vital, which appeared on AGRA (the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa) webpage on June 19, 2009, she says, “AGRA falls under the Gates Foundation’s Global Development Program, whose senior programme officer is Dr. Robert Horsch – an employee of biotech giant Monsanto for 25 years and part of a team that developed Roundup Ready GM crops.”

In explaining that the NPR quotes farmers in the United States saying, “Roundup Ready is a line of gene-modified seeds that inoculate plants against a herbicide, Roundup, also made by Monsanto, that kills just about everything else.”

Good as it sounds, the catches of using its seeds are: (a) farmers are contractually prohibited from saving seeds and planting them the following year. If they violate that, they face lawsuits since they are not owners of the seeds technology; (b) the cost of seeds shoots up, event up to 50 percent from the previous year in the US, and (c) seed company could stay in business only offering seeds with Roundup Ready in it, “doing what Monsanto tells them to do.” Those that refused went bankrupt and closed shop.

When Addis Fortune’s Tamrat G. Giorgis took Sylvia Mathews for a ride on a grueling interview in Addis Abeba In July 2011, she said, “The intellectual property for all the works that MONSANTO does on drought-resistant gene is free. The company is losing money on this effort. We keep our investments and the work of the Foundation separate. It is what we choose to do, as we believe, the Foundation should focus on the issues we are discussing here.”

Ms. Mathews is President of the Global Development Program, and the turbocharger behind the Gates Foundation. The other important thing she underlined is the existence of choice for countries. To the question by Addis Fortune, “I am sure you are aware of these criticisms”, her response was unambiguous:

Yes, we are aware, but we always want to hear more. I think some of the criticisms stemmed from issues with the initial green revolution. Whereas the initial green revolution saved millions of lives, it had some problems related to sustainability defined by environmental concerns. There is also a valid criticism on how the water table has been exhausted in India. We are working on all of those issues. We are probably the largest single and private donor for organic farming.

We believe there are a range of solutions for the smallholder farmer that need to be examined and we are investing in a variety of them.

A second area that we, as an institution, receive criticism for is on the agricultural front; namely, on our engagement with Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs). We believe that there are suitable solutions that farmers need; and when we engage in breeding, we do everything from conventional breeding to what is called marker-assisted breeding, which gives us the ability to understand what things a plant has to offer.

And then, we do transgenic, which is the part that I think many people have a problem with, but we believe it is a part of the solution. We believe it needs to be safe; that countries need to make their own decisions; and that these countries need the regulatory capability to make those decisions. We have funded Michigan State University, along with NePAD (New Partnership for Africa’s Development), to provide grants and technical assistance here in the continent of Africa for those countries, which seek regulatory assistance, so that their scientists have the capability and equipment to conduct testing.

There is a third, which has to do with the question of how hybrid seeds relate to corporations and companies that sell it. But, again, we believe that choice is up to the farmer.

On the other hand, on 25 May 2011 addressing AGRA gathering Bill Gates told the audience:

What’s going on right now in Africa and South Asia is not a collection of anecdotes about improvements to a few people’s lives. This is the early stage of sweeping change for farming families in the poorest parts of the world. It’s an historic chance to help people and countries move from dependency to self-sufficiency – and fulfill the highest promise of foreign aid. In the past we’ve invested aid in Brazil and India and South Korea, and they are all now dynamic actors in the global economy – some even joining us in giving aid to others. This is our hope for the countries of Africa and South Asia as well.

If that is the case, it would be wiser to look into the experiences of the three countries he touched upon—Brazil, India and South Korea. Perhaps there would be something to learn from their experiences.

Brazil

Brazil has been open to GMO for a long time, with prohibition officially ending in 2005. However, after years of experiences, for various reasons the number of Brazilians wanting to return to GMO-free food production is reported to have increased overtime.

In an article entitled Biggest Brazil soy state loses taste for GMO seed, Reuters in March 2009 reported that farmers in Mato Grosso, the country’s top soy state, are shunning once-heralded, genetically modified soy varieties in favor of conventional seeds after the hi-tech type showed poor yields.

A soy and corn grower Jeferson Bif says, “We’re seeing less and less planting of GMO soy around here. It doesn’t give consistent performance.”

Reuters also observes that another reason for Mato Grosso’s ongoing shift away from GMO-soy is that trading houses and meat processors, conscious that some consumers strive to avoid GMO foods, prefer conventional soy and will pay a premium for it.

Moreover, Alexsander Gheno, agronomist at APAgri consultancy tells Reuters, “Companies have been focusing their research on GMO soy more than on conventional ones. So in 10 years we could have 100 percent of the area planted with GMO soy not because this was farmers’ choice exactly but because development of new conventional varieties is getting scarce.”

Nonetheless, this is not to suggest that there are not those that speak favorably about GMOs and Brazil becoming a GMO country, as the technology improves.

From the preceding, the lesson to be drawn from Brazil for Ethiopia’s benefit is that things are not moving along a single lane. In a country that is technologically advanced, the region of Mato Grosso is disappointed with GMO, because the production expected was not worth the problems it entailed to producers and other businesses.

Korea

South Korea bought its first GMO corn food for the first time in February 2008. It imported, according to Reuters, 50,000 tons of U.S. genetically-altered corn in May for manufacturing starch and sweeteners.

In July 2008, Seoul imported from South Africa again 1.2 million tones of corn for food, partly as a response to the rising prices of food.

This importation has created differences between the government and the public. South Koreans oppose it because they believe that the import is a result of pressures and trade deals with Washington. A Korean Federation for Environmental Movement (KFEM) accused the government as having “spontaneously destroyed the system aimed at protecting Koreans”.

In April 2012, the South Korean government purchased 25,000 tonnes of non-genetically modified soybeans from Archer Daniels Midland company for arrival in 2013, according to Reuters.

India

India’s is the best example of GMO laws, practices and expectations about the future in two respects. Firstly, they have the appropriate laws the objective of which is protection and improvement of the environment. The Indian law has four aspects:

Category I comprises routine recombinant DNA experiments conducted inside a laboratory;

Category II consists of both laboratory and greenhouse experiments involving transgenes that combat biotic stresses through resistance to herbicides and pesticides;

Categories III and IV comprise experiments and field trials where the escape of transgenic traits into the open environment could cause significant alterations in the ecosystem.
The second important aspect of the law is that through the biosafety regulations, they established a three-tier regulatory structure at the central level in New Delhi comprising focusing on: (a) The Review Committee on Genetic Manipulation (RCGM) under the Ministry of Science and Technology (MoST); (b) The Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) under the Ministry of Environment and Forestry (MoEF); and (c) The Monitoring and Evaluation Committee (MEC) under DBT/MoST.

In effect, the law in India has hardly opened the door wide-open nor did it totally close it on the future of science. The only complaint civil society organizations have against it is about weak liability regime

There are options how Ethiopia should approach this thing. I am also encouraged by the choice that Bill Gates and Sylvia Mathews spoke of, although we live at a time when citizens do not have faith in their governments either to tell them the truth or protect them or their environment. In the circumstances, the only option is to hold Bill Gates to be true to his promises that counties have choices, as citizens continue to scrutinize everything.

The most serious mistake would be to close the door on all sciences and innovations. Especially smallholder farmers in the case of Ethiopia have no other alternatives than benefitting from improved seeds and the appropriate types of fertilizers, suitable to the country’s soil types.

In the meantime, I see wisdom in the editorial in the 28 April 2011 issue of SciDev.net. To my mind, it has rightly framed the issue of GMOs and how countries and citizens tailor their choices. It stated:

Yet by focusing on biosafety, the political debate on GM crops may overlook the broader — and more significant — issue of how such crops will be used in practice. This includes the extent to which they will meet the needs of poor farmers, who are responsible for a large proportion of Africa’s agricultural output.

The big challenge ahead for those engaged in the GM debate in Kenya and elsewhere in Africa is not how to promote (or block) the technology, or even demonstrate its safety, although this is clearly important.

Rather, it is to find ways to ensure that GM crops benefit the rural poor, not just the shareholders of multinational corporations who are increasingly looking at African agriculture as a profitable investment.

The options before our country would be discussed in the next installment.

(To be continued)

http://transformingethiopia.wordpress.com/

I am writing this letter of grievance to the sensible citizens of the world who can understand and at least empathize with me and my suppressed countrymen and women at home who complain to have been forsaken by the Lord of Light and instead have been ruled by the Lord of Darkness for the last good number of decades. Moreover, I am writing this letter of SOS to the Almighty God who might be by now preparing the scale to requite the people who have been the causes of the sufferings of Ethiopia and her children especially for the last twenty one years. I am writing this letter of complaint to both so called western and eastern (a.k.a oriental and occidental) blocs in case they may reconsider their unreasonable support based on their infatuation to the ruthless ethnocentric dragon we have in power; a dragon whose feed is pure human blood of unfathomable size resulting from and stoked up by vengeance, ignorance, arrogance, and similar breeds of psychopathic disorders.

Save Our Souls! We Ethiopians at home are silently perishing. We are dying of starvation caused by purposeful skyrocketing of living cost by the regime and gullible cronies in the business sector. We are suffering due to our love for our country Ethiopia, for the regime we have is against true Ethiopians and Ethiopianism. We are made suffer the consequence of our ambition expressed during the rigged national election of 2005 during which we manifested our real interest through the ballot box. From that ill-fated day, May 15, 2005, on we have mercilessly been exposed to an incessant revenge by the ruling junta for our failure to love tyranny in that election.

Save Our Souls! We are made starve and die of manmade starvation. People are by now killing themselves not to hear their children pleadingly say, “Baba, I am so hungry, please buy me a piece of bread,” or “ Mama, am starved, please give me a morsel of any kind of food,‹እማዬ አንድ ጉርሻም ብትሆን ትንሽዬ እሚቀመስ ነገር ስጭኝና ልሙት›”. People are committing suicide through immolation to show their objection against the brutal regime or due to starvation or both: recent examples include the cases of Yihenew Gebre, a dynamic young teacher from Dawro, and last week an ex-policeman, Dawit Lendamo, who has reportedly died of the fire burning he set on himself. Yihenew says, “Instead of living under such undemocratic roguish regime, I shall die by burning myself! And the rest of you, the young generation, keep my torch alight and express your objection to this racist junta in whatever way possible so that our country would be free of the brutal rule at last.” Dawit says, “Instead of dying from hunger, instead of hurting my citizens in a bid to get my livelihood, such as through burglary or theft or robbery, I shall hence burn myself and die. I have nothing to eat. I have nothing to cover any of the bills my daily life requires. I myself have become nothing in my own country. Therefore, I see no difference between my death and life; I would rather say that only death can rescue me from the suffering inflicted upon me by this merciless regime. So I shall die! Though suicide is not fair and may expose me for another retribution in any of the dimensions, planetary or otherwise, to perfect my karmatic records, for the time being I have convinced myself that it is in death I can be liberated from this mendacious life.” These and other citizens are the tokens of the consequences resulted from the suffering we all are through. Apparently, we all, except ‘the chosen’ few, will follow suit and gradually but surely will kill ourselves in any method we get it suitable unless there is any intervention from below or above, from this physical world or the heavens.

Save Our Souls! We are intentionally made diminish into nothingness, even below the status of other animals; we are not allowed even to think, leave alone speak our minds and demand our human and citizenship rights. We are considered as stones by the TPLF Woyannes, our masters who believe in the religion called Ethnocentrism and worship it under the imamship or archbishop of His Excellency Prime Impoverisher Meles Zenawi, the distraction of Myferes, Adwa for the destruction of the entire nation, Ethiopia. For example, if any cadre or member of the security organ gives any false witness, saying that someone is ‘thinking’ to think of opposing this crooked asystemic system, the victim would be accused of ‘overthrowing the elected people’s party and forcibly bring down the constitution’ and will instantaneously be labeled as a ‘terrorist’ so that the putrid legal system of the putrid junta is able to pass on a kangaroo court’s verdict which originally would belong to a person charged with treason and coup d’é•tat at normal conditions and in a real scenario. We have a funny system of rule, jungle rule as some say. It is in such a foolishly designed dramatic move that we have Eskinder Nega and Reeyot Alemu and Andualem Chanie along with other prisoners of conscience languishing indefinitely at Kaliti, the Guantanamo Bay of EPRDF, in which the Gestapo of this despotic regime express their barbarism upon these poor fellows whose question was not beyond bread and some democratic rights such as freedom of expression and rule of law in the country.

On top of the overall undemocratic rule prevailing in Ethiopia which is manifested in various lucidly observed ways such as the injustices everywhere and mal-administration and mal-treatment along with all other malicious mals, the current problem we have is the soaring up of basic commodities and food items. The price of everything, especially foodstuffs is becoming horribly damn expensive. Some basic stable foods such as teff injera with at least shiro wot which no Ethiopian could miss on his/her dining table in the good old days are by now becoming almost non-existent in many homes and a thing of luxury, they have even stopped coming in the dreams. In many families, any available food is eaten in turns among family members. For example, if half of the family eats something as dinner today, the other half has to stay without any food until the morrow’s lunch time waiting the turn. Mind you, the food is not the food you think of may be if you are in the US, I mean it is below standard and used to ‘cheat’ the stomach to appease it just something has gone down the esophagus as food. It may be a sort of dried bread with or without tea. I think many things such as poverty and food and humans and countries as well should be redefined. I do not know for example what a European understands when I, an Ethiopian, say, “I am hungry!” You know my reservation and fear in terms of understanding terms especially with reference to place, time, and condition; we need a clear cut definition and meaning based on their contexts and the countries they are used in. Please, recall what the French Princess is said to have suggested to those people who were shouting in need of something to eat. ‘Cake?’
In Ethiopia, on the other hand, the few ‘chosen’ are piling millions and billions of dollars and Birr in banks, in or for the safety, out of the country. This amorphous socioeconomic relationship of citizens, especially between the haves and the have-nots is killing the majority in hunger and unreasonably enriching the few to the extent of creating billionaires in the poorest nation, Ethiopia, at the expense of the poor. The few chosen have controlled almost everything, including our souls and minds; it is when they will that we even breathe the naturally endowed free air. They have forcibly seized anything we need for our survival. They do not seem to have some sense of humanity; they have literally become wild animals without any rational brain to perceive what is happening in the country; they simply run to profit over ‹ስንጥቅ ትርፍ› forgetting the consequence of what they are doing. They laugh when they see us dying of food shortage; these swine get pleased when they watch us swirling due to famine and starvation; they become happiest when they observe us kneeling down under their knees begging for some leftovers. In Ethiopia, currently the reality on the ground is terribly alarming.

“Save Our Souls!” sooner rather than later, for we do not have any time left. Things have gone out of the control of anyone. We need an immediate interference without any further ado. I do not think Ato Meles Zenawi knows this, albeit, on the other hand, I suspect that it is he/him who is voluntarily staging this evil event for the purpose of accomplishing his hidden agenda of defacing Ethiopia from the map of the world; I do not think the people of Ethiopia by and large know this either. Everything seems moving by inertia. A ship navigating without compass. A plane flying out of its grid. A bus stumbling without its chauffer. A universe without its shining constellations of stars. The reign of Darkness. This is Ethiopia now! Hurry up people of the world who claim to have any stake, any slightest stake with regard to the concern of humanity, to save this country before its total doom is ‘celebrated’ by the axes of evils. SOS!

Currently, an ordinary policeperson earns a net salary of Eth. Birr 716!(It is after deductions, and in dollars, it is approximately 40. Mind you 40 dollars! They are forcibly contributing to the damned dam from this minute sum again!) For your information this salary scale is among the modest ones, there are far less salaries than this which do not hit even $15 a month! It is enough as a reference to what I am going to say next in the new paragraphs.

A quintal of teff which used to be bought up to a maximum price of Birr 100 during the end days of the“ሰው በላው” Dergue regime now it is available for ‘only’ Birr 1550 on average, plus or minus 100 Birr for quality and color, white expensive, black cheaper; as it has been the case since time immemorial, eh? Detour! White expensive, black cheap. In fact, black is believed by the majority to be more nutritious; nevertheless, to me, at least in principle, black is not less nutritious than the white and vice versa. Every color has its own beauty; it is why nature is like what it is, otherwise it would have been like what it is not. It is we people who give value judgments, sometimes rightly sometimes wrongly. Hence, all colors are equal, although our perception may influence our standpoint. I suppose they are equal, or they must be equal at least; it is their absence or presence that matters much and may be the representation we assign to each. Let us assume all are present or absent, but not both…. Anyhow, let us expect the time of the ‘pink’, the mixture of both white and black and yellow, too, which is foretold by some earthly gurus centuries back. Then no white, no black, no yellow, in any sense you may take it. Alright? Yea, every anomaly we see now will be adjusted to the betterment of all irrespective of so called majority and/or minority, and things will be all right after the ‘dust settles’ most probably in the near future. An Ethiopian grain mixed up with some trait of belief in the paranormal field of philosophy detoured my SOS call for a while. End of detour.

Come on now to Ethiopian concrete mournful situation. How can a person with a total monthly income of Birr 716 survive in such crazy living cost which is again crazily kept on skyrocketing on daily basis to feed the insatiable nature of greedy individuals???… [How many question marks should I use?] What should such people eat? Drink? Dress? Shelter? Marry? Bear children? Educate their kids and themselves? Get medical treatment? Get basic services such as electricity and water? … Oh! Better not to think of such head splitting stuff introduced to Ethiopians by alien bogeymen like His Excellency Prime Impoverisher Meles Zenawi who has only one resemblance with us: physical appearance.

To think of how people survive in Ethiopia nowadays gives you a real headache; a bit more than this, it rather gives you a migraine of a severest stage that never has any cure or pain killer. This time around is a time that Ethiopia has faced the ugliest temptation ever since she emerged as a nation. God bless Ethiopia, what else can we say? A single match can turn a house, even a widest forest we can ever imagine, into ablaze, the same as Meles and his group have turned Ethiopia into a hell. It is not a miracle, though the effect is unimaginably beyond a miracle. Many other heinous occurrences have been registered in the hitherto history of the world.

The price of every item is beyond the purchasing capacity of the majority. Of course, you observe life going smoothly as always in Ethiopia; the few roads we have are full of cars, cars like Hummer and Prado, Mercedes Benz and Saab, Vitara Suzuki and Rav(s). Tall buildings are here and there and are under construction as well, they are lifeless though; businesses are run. Hotels are full of the fool up to their brim. Those scoundrel and villain children of mother Ethiopia are engaged in debauchery and hedonism, day and night, eating, drinking, and copulating indiscriminately with whomever they get willing, thanks to our money. People move here and here or there and there. Cities and towns seem actively moving from Monday to Sunday. Shops are full of items, though not that much customers. Life goes on as usual. But the question remains to be who is/are encapsulated in the luxuries resulted from an accumulation of dirty money voraciously robbed through corruption, unjust business transaction, and embezzlement while on the contrary millions of Ethiopians are dying of hunger and immersed in untold poverty any word of any language fails to explain? Hey, Let us take care of the time of Noah and Lot. Let us not forget the possibility of the repetition of history, be it religious or otherwise. Believe it or not, though the manifestation could take another form due to the fact that our time is entirely different from that of the biblical times we read in the books, nonetheless, we are on the verge of witnessing such calamity. Never say, “ ካልታዘልኩ አላምንም” like the bride.

We perfectly know each other. I personally know who should live how based on his/her presumed real income. I am not stupid to the extent of not noticing the salary and the living standard thereof of my neighbor, my Kebele chairperson, my Woreda political appointee, my boss, my policeman/woman, my sheriff, my MP, my honorable minister, my parish priest, my sheikh, my PM, along with the economic life s/he leads. Needless to go into the detail, just to stop beating the bush in vain, I mean that we know many people who lead a luxurious life their real income does by no means allow but due to various legal and/or illegal means; let us keep these people out of the matrix now and let us see some practical examples on how people suffer.

When we see the majority, the situation is unimaginably horrible! Prices have gone up at least twenty-fold, i.e. 2000%, and in the case of some imports, even above thirty-fold, i.e. 3000%, when compared to their price some 10 or 15 years back. But surprisingly, the income of especially civil servants is crawling as usual. This situation on the other hand opens ajar the doors for bribery or corruption and as a matter of fact, nowadays, it has become undeclared rule in Ethiopia that you have to fiddle your wallet if you want to process any affair in any of the offices you happen to appear. Do you, for example, get angry with a policeperson if they use their weapon to rob you and run in day or at night? Do not you do it for survival, if you are forced to live with such an insignificant income? But thanks to Him, we are different people who are able to die with our hunger scratching the wall of our abdomen. Logically, no body would go in peace in the streets of Addis if the starved people would react accordingly, i.e. in accordance with the rule of the game formulated by the elite of the regime which has reinstated the Darwinian theory of “Survival of the fittest”. Despite the fact that most of us are cognizant of the broader path to the peak of wealth, nonetheless, we are dying of hunger for our lack of cunning and murderous nature. …

Who is messing up our life then? The infidels or us, the ones who are waiting His inevitable judgment? How could we get ourselves in such a nastiest predicament? Who is responsible? Who is kicking our daily bread into the wilderness and making us fall into the abyss of starvation? Who is exporting everything, teff, coffee, potato, meat, cattle, skin and hide, cereals, everything even men and women except the sunlight and the air … to foreign markets in the name of earning hard currency while we are dying of every problem here at home? …No hospitals along with facilities and skilled man power, no medicines, no infrastructures, no qualitative schools, no qualitative higher education institutions, no truthful judges and prosecutors, no trustworthy government bodies, no intelligentsia, no fair play, ‘no nothing’! If we see the prices of fuel, food oil, all kinds of vegetables, meat (now 120 Birr on average per a kilo!- which was some 5 Birr 21 years ago.), tomato(now 16 Birr), cereals, … all these are damn expensive. Building materials are in the skies; no one can think of building a house unless s/he is corrupt or living with huge remittance or selfish merchant who decides their own income. A person could build his own house with a monthly income of mere Birr 50 some thirty five years back; now 50 Birr means a substandard meal in a very ordinary hotel in Addis. You need 6000 Birr, for example, to spend a night, only for a bed, in one of the starred hotels in Addis now. An income of Birr 5000 nowadays is not equivalent to an income of 20 or 30 Birr during Emperor Haile Silasie’s time. With a net income of Birr 5000 now, one may survive with his/her five member of the family; mind you, animal products excluded, only for survival in a certain small rental house! In Ethiopia now, you have 100 Birr until the time you buy, may be, a chewing gum; then after, it all has gone mysteriously. Then the question is, how do those people with little salaries or without jobs at all do survive? It is a big question the answer of which is difficult to both God and Mr. Satan. There must be some mystery I do not know yet to understand how this big jobless population survives. We who claim to have an average of four digit monthly income are reduced to only feed our family two or three times a day. We are forced to pay lots of contributions from this nominally big sum of money; for the damned dam of Abbay, public school’s, community development, Edir, students’ contribution to the damned dam, oh, am getting sick, please. This survival kit does not include good clothing and better education to our children; moreover, no deposit, no entertainment, no proper diet, no picnic with family, if you do not mind my language, shall I say ‘no nothing’ again?, yes, no nothing! What we get could never pass the line of feeding the family; even this is becoming difficult currently due to the gluttonous nature of our markets headed by the bottomless pits. Everything seems that we the majorities are living in hell consoling ourselves with the talk of old fairy-tales. It seems we are living in a fake world, we the mass accompanying the rich to make them reach the place of their whims. Fantastic world, eh?…

Any how Save Our Souls! In the name of the Almighty, the Bearer of Light, the kernel of Truth, Himself the Truth, we beseech every able body of this planet to help us soon.

yiheyisaemro@gmail.com

Eskinder Nega was awarded the Pen America’s “Freedom to Write” annual prize for publishing articles critical of Ethiopia’s human rights record.

His wife Serkalem Fasil, who is a journalist and also spent time in jail, received the award on his behalf.

In the past decade, more journalists have fled Ethiopia than any other country, press freedom groups say.

‘Withering conditions’
“I accept this award on behalf of Eskinder Nega at a time when freedom of expression and press freedom are at the lowest in Ethiopia,” Ms Serkalem said on Tuesday night in a ceremony in New York.

“If Eskinder were standing here, he’d accept this award, not just as a personal honour, but on behalf of all Ethiopian journalists who toil under withering conditions today: Those who went into exile over the years… those in prison with whom he now resides,” she said.

Mr Eskinder has been in Maekelawi prison in the capital, Addis Ababa, since his arrest in September last year.

He was found guilty in January under Ethiopia’s anti-terrorism laws – which criminalise commentary that is critical of the government – and could face the death penalty when he is sentenced.

He had published a column questioning the government’s claim that a number of journalists it had detained were suspected terrorists, and for criticising the arrest of well-known Ethiopian actor and government critic Debebe Eshetu.

Mr Eskinder is “that bravest and most admirable of writers, one who picked up his pen to write things that he knew would surely put him at grave risk”, said Peter Godwin, president of the Pen American Center.

“Yet he did so nonetheless. And indeed he fell victim to exactly the measures he was highlighting,” Zimbabwean-born writer Mr Godwin added.

The Pen award is given to writers who have been persecuted or imprisoned for exercising the right to freedom of expression.

Mr Eskinder opened his first newspaper in 1993, and has been detained at least seven times by the government of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi.

He was stripped of his licence to work as a journalist in 2005, but continued to write for the US-based news forum EthioMedia, which is banned in Ethiopia.

He and his wife Ms Serkalem were both jailed in 2005 for criticising the government’s violent crackdown of protests following disputed elections.

During their 17 months in prison, Ms Fasil gave birth to their son.

Eskinder Nega: The Heroes’ Hero

Eskinder Nega has been jailed as a “terrorist” by state terrorists since last September. But he is a hero to so many heroes of press freedom throughout the world. Recently, world renowned journalists who have themselves suffered at the hands of dictatorships and others stepped up to demand Eskinder’s release. Among the petitioners include:

Kenneth Best, founder of the Daily Observer (Liberia’s first independent daily); Lydia Cacho, Mexico, one of Mexico’s most famous journalists and noted author; Juan Pablo Cardenas, Chile, chief editor of Análisis during General Pinochet’s regime and professor of journalism at the University of Chile’s School of Journalism; May Chidiac founder and president of the May Chidiac Foundation in Lebanon who nearly lost her life in a car bomb attack in 2005; Sir Harold Evans, one of Britain’s most respected journalists and editor of The Sunday Times; Akbar Ganji, Iran’s foremost dissident; Amira Hass one of the foremost independent journalists in Israel; Daoud Kuttab, Founder of AmmanNet in Jordan, the Arab world’s first Internet radio station; Gwen Lister, founder and former editor of The Namibian in Namibia; Raymond Louw veteran champion of press freedom and journalists’ rights in South Africa and Chairman of the South African Press Council. Veran Matic, co-founder of Radio B92 in Serbia, who provided accurate and impartial account of events in Serbia in the 1990s; Adam Michnik, editor in chief of the first independent (and bestselling) Polish daily foremost dissident and Polish human rights advocate; Fred M’membe, editor-in-chief for The Post in Zambia; Nizar Nayouf, chief editor of Syria Truth and Sawt Al Democratiyya; Pap Saine, Gambian publisher and editor Pap Saine and a Reuters correspondent for West and Central Africa; Faraj Sarkohi, a long time Iranian writer and journalist persecuted by both the Shah of Iran and the Islamic Republic of Iran; Nedim Sener investigative journalist with Turkish daily newspaper Posta; Arun Shourie, one of India’s most renowned and controversial journalists and editor of the English-language daily Indian Express; Ricardo Uceda, one of Peru’s most renowned investigative journalists and editor of newsweekly Sí, Ricardo Uceda; Jose Ruben Zamora, founder and former editor-in-chief of the independent daily Siglo Veintiuno….

These journalists in their letter to Zenawi

express[ed] [their] extremely strong condemnation of the Ethiopian government’s decision to jail journalist Eskinder Nega on terrorism charges on September 14, 2011. We believe the government’s decision to arrest him violates the rights of freedom of speech and freedom of the press guaranteed by the Ethiopian Constitution, the United Nations’ International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The imprisonment of Eskinder Nega and other journalists represents the criminalisation of investigation and criticism, which should be part and parcel of any democratic society.

In September 2011, William Easterly, Professor of Economics, New York University; Mark Hamrick, President, National Press Club, Washington, D.C., Aryeh Neier, President, Open Society Foundations; Kenneth Roth, Executive Director, Human Rights Watch and Joel Simon, Executive Director, Committee to Protect Journalists called for U.S. involvement in securing Eskinder’s release and to “publicly repudiate Ethiopia’s efforts to use terrorism laws to silence political dissent” and “ensure that our more than $600 million in aid to Ethiopia is not used to foster repression.”

What Makes Eskinder a Hero?

There are all sorts of heroes in myth and folklore. Some become heroes for showing moral excellence and martial courage in the face of danger and adversity. Others become heroes by fighting for honor and principles. Still others become heroes by slaying their enemies in the battlefield. There are romantic heroes and tragic heroes. There are traditional and modern heroes; and there are unsung heroes. But all heroes share some common virtues in one form another: sacrifice, integrity, courage, determination, conviction, perseverance, and so on.

Eskinder is a hero of a special kind. He is a hero who fights with nothing more than ideas and the truth. He slays falsehoods with the sword of truth. He chases bad ideas with good ones. Armed only with a pen, Eskinder fights despair with hope; fear with courage; anger with reason; arrogance with humility; ignorance with knowledge; intolerance with forbearance; oppression with perseverance; doubt with trust and cruelty with compassion. Above all, Eskinder speaks truth to power and to those who abuse, misuse, overuse and are corrupted by power. Eskinder is the one man who looked straight into the vengeful eyes of the Beast and said: “You can arrest and jail me for the eight time; you can beat, torture and throw me into solitary confinement; you can persecute and prosecute me; you can starve and deny me medical care in your stinking jail; you can scandalize my name and defame my character; you can even persecute and humiliate my wife and laugh at my child as he cries his eyes out when your goons manhandle me; and you can harass, intimidate and make life hell on earth for me and my family. But I will never, never, never bow down to your tyrannical rule, your corruption, your brutality, your sadistic cruelty and abysmal barbarity! For I am Eskinder Nega. I am the master of my fate and captain of my soul!”

Eskinder Nega: A Hero for All Seasons

Eskinder is a man of courage. Seven months before he was arrested, Eskinder was summoned by Zenawi’s “police commissioner” and told to shut up or else:

Your writings on the Internet and the interviews with various media outlets were inflammatory. You write about General Tsadkan to undermine the army. But be assured that EPRDF is capable of defending the constitution. If anything happens, we will first come to you.” Eskinder asked, “Are you asking me to stop writing and giving interviews?” “No,” the police commissioner said. “But be warned that you have already crossed the boundary. We have enough to convict you already. I want you to understand that this is a serious warning.” Eskinder kept on writing until the day he was arrested vehicle picking up his son from school. (His official captors videotaped the arrest and laughed as the traumatized child cried out for his daddy.) Today Eskinder is facing “trial” in Zenawi’s kangaroo court even though he was convicted long before he committed the alleged crime.

Eskinder is a man of integrity. When Zenawi came to Columbia University in September 2010 to speak, Eskinder, and his equally extraordinary journalist wife, Serkalem Fasil, wrote a letter to Columbia President Lee C. Bollinger to expose Zenawi’s bottomless capacity for cruelty and inhumanity:

We are banned Ethiopian journalists who were charged with treason by the government of PM Meles Zenawi subsequent to disputed election results in 2005, incarcerated under deplorable circumstances, only to be acquitted sixteen months later; after Serkalem Fasil prematurely gave birth in prison.

Severely underweight at birth because Serkalem’s physical and psychological privation in one of Africa’s worst prisons, an incubator was deemed life-saving to the new-born child by prison doctors; which was, in an act of incomprehensible vindictiveness, denied by the authorities. (The child nevertheless survived miraculously. Thanks to God.)… While we acknowledge his right to express his views, it is an affront to his government’s numerous victims of repression to grant him the privilege to do so on the notable premises of Columbia… Such is the government that PM Meles Zenawi leads.

Eskinder is a man of compassion and empathy. When Birtukan Midekssa, the first woman political party leader in Ethiopian history, was released from prison having served nearly two years (without trial) on the ridiculous charge of “denying a pardon”, Eskinder spoke with her:

‘We are proud of you,’ I told her. ‘You are our hero.’ There was pained expression on her face. Something is visibly bottled up in her, pushing to explode. But there were too many people in her living room for an intimate conversation. She nodded when I finished, her head slightly inclined downwards to avoid eye contact.” Thank you,” she finally said faintly. I could barely hear her. And suddenly I felt guilty. Though I meant what I said, I worried whether I was making things worse by sounding patronizing. This is not what Birtukan needs right now. Sitting next to me is a woman at what is one of her worst moments in her life. A woman suffering profoundly on the inside — exactly what coldhearted aging men, addicted to unaccountable power after two decades at the helm of a nation they have persistently pushed towards dysfunction (so far unsuccessfully), intended in their pitiless drive to destroy their ‘enemies.’” (Ironically, today Eskinder has taken Birtukan’s place in Zenawi’s prison.)

Eskinder is a man of honor and dignity. When “abune” Paulos, the “patriarch” of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church commissioned a grandiose bronze statute of himself to commemorate his 18th year of papacy, Eskinder questioned:

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?

Eskinder is a witness for the suffering people of Ethiopia.

The repression is as unrelenting as ever. Food inflation has reached the atrocious 50% mark. Unemployment shows no sign of declining. Small businesses, the backbone of the expanding service sector, are suffering perceptibly. The specter of famine dominates the headlines. Corruption is getting worse. There is growing tension within the ruling party.

Eskinder is a voice of hope.

…Hope not oppression that had made revolutions possible. Neither Egyptians nor Libyans had more reason to rebel in 2011 than they did for decades. Too few were any more capable of imagining life free from the oppressive status-quo. Too many had been co-opted; many more had simply learned how to muddle through. But events in Tunisia changed everything. Change was proved possible… Hope will come to sub-Sahara’s remaining dictatorships, too. The Arab Spring has already brought it to their doorsteps. It will not wait forever to get in. No one knows which sub-Saharan dictatorship will relent first. But that is almost irrelevant. What matters is that its spread will be unavoidable once it begins. The triumph of hope in only one sub-Saharan dictatorship will beget a continent wide African Spring, hopefully all peaceful. And as Egypt, the Arab world’s biggest dictatorship during Mubarak’s reign, was the Arab Spring’s golden prize, so will Ethiopia, sub-Sahara’s biggest dictatorship, be the golden prize for an African Spring. There couldn’t have been an Arab Spring without Egypt. There will be no African Spring without Ethiopia.

Eskinder is a man with a message.

Ethiopia’s Meles Zenawi, who now leads Africa’s largest dictatorship, and who many suspect is calculating as Gaddafi did at first, should take serious note. Killings enraged Libyans as it did Tunisians and Egyptians before them. Inexplicably and suddenly massacre failed to terrorize the young any more. Despite Gadhafi’s assertion that only a drugged youth could have refused to succumb to live bullets, hope is really what had fueled the protests….

Hope is the greatest weapon against tyrants. Keep hope alive in Ethiopia!!!

I wish I had the eloquence of diction to express my deep sense of pride and respect for Eskinder Nega for he represents the quintessentially irrepressible impulse for freedom that inhabits the soul of every human being. On the occasion of the 2012 PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award, I rise to salute Eskinder Nega with William Ernest Henley (1875) poem “Invictus” (“unconquered”), a poem which sustained Nelson Mandela’s spirit through the years in Apartheid South Africa’s prisons.

Eskinder Invictus! Eskinder Aybegere!

“Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.” Mahatma Gandhi

FREE ESKINDER NEGA!

Several attempts was made to create ethnic animosities and distrust, but have not resonated to ordinary people. The associated political parties seem to offer no political treat to TPLF regime, they simply serving the interest of TPLF ethno-centric dictatorial rule. They are de facto agents in facilitating information gathering, and implementing at TPLF’s will the exploitation to continue. They do everything to maintain their flow of crumbs and gurash to remain uninterrupted. The large scale corruption also opened up a new military class. It is an open secret the TPLF’s military Generals are running wild and succumbed to corruption and getting easy money, and purchasing expensive villas in foreign capitals through relative’s names. The political cronies do the same and corruption become norm nowadays and cannot be deterred. Manipulation judicial institutions also the most brazen form of getting rich. The clerk and judges accept bribes in broad day light from plaintiffs or defendants. Any extortion appeals from ordinary citizen ignored or caused them to be thrown in jails.

The absence of democratic rights, and economic inequalities, massive corruption etc. creates discontent eventually will lead to all out uprising. Our forefathers fought and won freedom in the past, and took great personal risks to keep us free from foreign aggression. We are now fighting to free ourselves from different type of enemy (ethno-centric rulers) that has no respect for past history and attempt to kill a sense of nation hood of the people. This new enemy primary is driven in creating non-viable ethnic states and provoking ethnic conflicts. They pursued divide and rule policy to perpetuate undemocratic rule and disguise their large scale corruption to continue. The corruption is flourishing mainly through endowments enterprises such as EFFORT and GUNA. It is evident that most of the corruptions are concentrated in critical sectors, such as infrastructure projects, farm land lease, and government procurement, to name a few. In the absence of competitive political process and free press, theft, kickbacks, and briberies will have no end. There is almost no law to enforce since laws are written to support the regime party and corrupt cronies. Since misappropriation and embezzlement done as virtual mafia states how much the country wealth stolen will never be known.

It is clear that the stolen money can be used to lift people out of poverty, to create jobs, to stop plight of young generation to Middle East countries, enrich social program and many more. Ethiopia indeed could be easily listed of the top of Kleptocrats in the world. As we all remember in 2010, in an attempt to legitimize its dictatorial rule, the regime organized a parliamentary election that made it next to impossible for opposition parties to mobilize their supports. At the end, Meles boasted and declared he won parliamentary seats with 99.6%. But it is a well known fact it is done with his iron-fisted rule, not with democratic process. On other hand, I would say a major uprising appeared to be imminent as long as one party with an iron grip continues to rule.

Meles’s dark legacy resembles with many world dictators. As example I simply equate Meles to late Chilean dictator Pinochet. Pinochet was supported by western governments for advancing “free market policies”, “privatizing state owned industries”, “economic growth”, etc.by ignoring all his human rights violations. But by the time his rule end , Pinochet was humiliated, charges relating to widespread human rights violations, killings and disappearances, personal corruption and many more other crimes. Meles is also the head of TPLF ethno-centric dictatorial rule, known as a notorious symbol of human rights abuse, the architect of ethnic cleansing, and corruption. He quashed 2005 free election, which were marred by indiscriminate killing and thousands of the opposition group and sympathizers were jailed and brutally interrogated. Mele’s also claims economic growth similar to Pinochet rule. It is no secret Ethiopia is the largest aid recipient in Sub-Saharan Africa and one of the four largest recipients (3 billion per year), millions of dollars are pouring to the country through remittances by Diaspora. The majority citizen living style and income no better off today than previous Ethiopian rulers. Given this well-known fact and adding the Illicit outflow money at a massive scale, nobody trusts Meles’s double digits growth statistics, which are manipulated. We are certain he will have the same fate as Chilean dictator, history repeats itself, as say but prolonging Ethiopia’s agony in every aspect is our present concern.

It is sad to see TPLF ethno-centric dictatorial rule taking the country backward at alarming speed. We know that life is neither easy nor equal. But we cannot afford to remain as onlookers where ethnic cleansing encouraged by regime, where competitive political process non-existence, society freedom curtailed, and where regime makes corruption a way of life. We also knew that when too much power vests in one person or a few the results are tragedies. The opposition parties and the activists must redouble the effort to help the grassroots movement and to spark a social uprising for regime change. One thing is certain, the oppressed people’s force that never anticipated would join as activists advances people causes as seen recently in Tunisia, Egypt or other places.

The reason for the blocking is unclear and Reporters Without Borders urges the authorities to provide an explanation. “Everything indicates that the blocking is being carried by the state-owned company Ethio-Telecom, since it is Ethiopia’s only Internet Service Provider,” the press freedom organization said.

Media Communication Centre (MCC), the company that publishes The Reporter, has asked Ethio-Telecom for an explanation but has not yet received a response.

“Website blocking is not new in Ethiopia but a leading independent newspaper’s site has never previously been affected,” Reporters Without Borders said. “Tests carried out by the OpenNet Initiative in 2008 and 2009 showed that certain outspoken or opposition sites based abroad were the target of filtering, but this is the first time a newspaper such as The Reporter has been targeted.”

The Reporter’s site normally has upward of 30,000 visitors a day, more than five times the number of readers of the print version. “Has The Reporter’s site been blocked to prevent the dissemination of sensitive articles,” Reporters Without Borders asked.

Reporters Without Borders urges the authorities to restore access to the site for Ethiopian Internet users and reiterates its opposition to the filtering and blocking of online content.

Its view is shared by of the United Nations special rapporteur for freedom of opinion and expression, Frank La Rue, who recommended in a June 2011 report that the flow of information online should be restricted to “few, exceptional, and limited circumstances prescribed by international human rights law.” He also said “the right to freedom of expression must be the norm, and any limitation considered as an exception.”

VIENNA – Twenty international journalists who have been recognised as World Press Freedom Heroes by the Vienna-based International Press Institute (IPI) have condemned the Ethiopian government’s decision to jail Eskinder Nega and other journalists on terrorism charges, and called for their immediate release.

Eskinder Nega, an online writer and critic of the current Ethiopian government, was arrested in September 2011 and is accused of supporting terrorism, for which he could face the death penalty if convicted. He was jailed shortly after having criticized the government’s use of anti-terrorism laws to jail other journalists and opposition figures. This is hardly Eskinder’s first brush with the authorites – he and his wife, also a journalist, were jailed for 17 months on treason charges in the aftermath of the disputed 2005 elections. Their son was born in prison. Since then, Eskinder has been banned from journalism but has continued to speak out and write.

Ethiopia, which is set to host the World Economic Forum on Africa in May 2012, jailed Eskinder and four other journalists on anti-terrorism charges over the past year. Woubshet Taye, deputy editor of the now-defunct Awramba Times, and Reyot Alemu of Feteh newspaper were convicted and sentenced to 14 years in prison this January. In December, Swedish journalists Martin Schibbye and Johann Persson were sentenced to 11 years in prison for aiding terrorists. They had been arrested last year in the company of rebels in the Ogaden region.

Last month, IPI Executive Director Alison Bethel McKenzie called on United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki Moon to speak out against Ethiopia’s use of anti-terror laws to jail journalists, which IPI said “makes a mockery of the universal right to ‘hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.’”

IPI noted that this practice also undermines “the fight against real terrorists, who use violence – and not words – to achieve their ends”.

Each of the men and women who signed this petition has been honoured for their contributions to freedom of the press in their home countries and around the world. Many have themselves been jailed for their work – indeed Turkish author and investigative reporter Nedim Sener’s battle against terrorism charges, believed by observers to be designed to silence him as a journalist, is not over yet. Read their call for Ethiopia’s journalists to be freed, below:

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H.E. Meles Zenawi

P.O.Box 1031

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Via Fax: 2511-55-20-20

Dear Prime Minister,

We are writing to express our extremely strong condemnation of the Ethiopian government’s decision to jail journalist Eskinder Nega on terrorism charges on Sep. 14, 2011. We believe the government’s decision to arrest him violates the rights of freedom of speech and freedom of the press guaranteed by the Ethiopian constitution, the United Nations’ International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The imprisonment of Eskinder Nega and other journalists represents the criminalisation of investigation and criticism, which should be part and parcel of any democratic society.

We are particularly concerned by reports from Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International that Eskinder may be subject to torture during his imprisonment.

We call on the Ethiopian government to unconditionally release Eskinder and other journalists unjustly detained; to ensure that he and others are treated humanely; to halt the use of anti-terrorism laws to prosecute journalists; and to fully defend the rights of the press outlined by Ethiopia’s constitution and international agreements.

Please note that we are sending this statement to the authorities of the African Union – including the Chairperson of the African Union Commission, Dr. Jean Ping, and the Chairperson of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, Catherine Dupe Atoki. We wish to draw their attention to the fact that the conduct of the Ethiopian Government is in conflict with the protocols of the African Union, the African Union Charter, and the guarantees of freedom of expression protected under various international human rights instruments including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Moreover, we find that the conduct of the Ethiopian government also brings the African Union into disrepute because its headquarters are in Addis Ababa.

Signed by:

Kenneth Best, Liberia – Kenneth Best founded The Daily Observer, Liberia’s first independent daily, in 1981. As a result of its critical reporting of Samuel Doe’s dictatorship, Kenneth Best was arrested on multiple occasions and the paper shut down four times, once for a period of two years. In 1990, when The Daily Observer facilities were burnt down, Kenneth Best and his family were exiled to The Gambia, where another newspaper of the same name was established.

Lydia Cacho, Mexico – One of Mexico’s most famous journalists, reporting on organised crime, political corruption, domestic violence, and child prostitution, Lydia Cacho has raised awareness of serious issues facing women and children in Mexico. Lydia has written for Novedades de Cancún and Por Esto, as well as books including Los Demonios del Eden: El Poder Que Protege a la Pornografía Infantil (“The Demons of Eden: The Power That Protects Child Pornography”). Lydia Cacho remains committed to her work despite having been imprisoned and tortured.

Juan Pablo Cardenas, Chile – As chief editor of Análisis during General Pinochet’s regime, Juan Pablo faced constant harassment and legal prosecution. Despite the murder of one of his journalists, Cardenas remained committed to reporting on government corruption and human rights abuses. He once endured a 541-night prison sentence for offending the armed forces in his editorials. Now, Juan Pablo continues to write for national and international publications and is currently a professor at the University of Chile’s School of Journalism.

May Chidiac, Lebanon – Dr. May Chidiac is the founder and president of the May Chidiac Foundation. Known for her criticism of Syria’s sway over Lebanon, an issue that was seldom critically discussed in the country, May Chidiac worked as the main anchor on political talk show Bi Kol Jor’a. May Chidiac nearly lost her life in a car bomb attack in 2005, which left her severely injured.

Sir Harold Evans, United Kingdom – One of Britain’s most respected journalists and the crusading editor of The Sunday Times for 14 years, Sir Harold Evans brought a new style of investigative reporting to his country. He has authored and edited best-sellers and served as a contributor to various media houses including The Guardian and the BBC. In 2011, Sir Evans joined the Reuters news agency as editor-at-large.

Akbar Ganji, Iran – Often called ‘Iran’s most prominent political dissident’, Akbar Ganji spent six years in Evin prison for a 1999 series of articles he wrote for Sobh Emrouz newspaper about Iran’s notorious ‘chain murders’. Akbar Ganji also wrote a number of articles accusing high level political figures and clerics of being involved in assassinations of dissidents and intellectuals. In 2000, Ganji was arrested for spreading propaganda and endangering national security. He spent six years in prison, much of it in solitary confinement. However he used this time to write his “Republican Manifesto”. After his release in 2006, Akbar Ganji left Iran and has been campaigning for democracy. He published his first book in English in 2008, entitled The Road to Democracy in Iran.

Amira Hass, Israel – As a journalist for Ha’aretz, Amira Hass has covered the Gaza strip and Palestinian affairs for years, becoming the first Israeli journalist to live in the Palestinian territories. Amira Hass was convinced that the Israelis needed to know the truth about the plight of the Palestinian people. Despite arrests and confrontations with the Israeli authorities and the Palestinian National Authority, she continues to report with independence.

Daoud Kuttab, Jordan – Daoud Kuttab is General Manager at the Community Media Network, Amman and Founder of AmmanNet, Amman, Jordan, the Arab world’s first Internet radio station. One of the best known Palestinian journalists, Kuttab fought for a free media in the Palestinian Territories under both the Israelis and the Palestinian Authorit. He has worked for a number of publications including Al Fajr and Al Quds, but went on to help establish both the Arabic Media Internet Network in 1995 and the Institute of Modern Media at Al Quds University in 1996.

Gwen Lister, Namibia – As founder and former editor of The Namibian, Gwen Lister remained committed to reporting injustice and corruption both before and after Namibia’s independence from apartheid South Africa, despite prosecutions, raids and violent attacks. She previously co-founded the Windhoek Observer and worked as a political editor. She is a founder of the Media Institute of Southern Africa.

Raymond Louw, South Africa – Raymond Louw is a veteran champion of press freedom and journalists’ rights. Chairman of the South African Press Council and one of the founding members of the South African National Editors’ Forum, until 2011 Louw also worked as the editor and publisher of Southern Africa Report, a private current affairs weekly. Raymond Louw previously worked for the Sunday Times and the Rand Daily Mail, which was renowned for its investigative journalism with regards to apartheid and other issues.

Veran Matic, Serbia – As co-founder of Radio B92, Veran Matic provided an accurate and impartial account of events in Serbia, whilst standing up to pressure from the authorities and withstanding multiple threats, physical attacks and arrests. B92 was banned in 1991 and again in 1996. The radio station was repeatedly jammed and then closed down, but it continued to operate via the Internet. Mass rallies and protests forced the authorities to open the station again. Matic established the Association of Independent Electronic Media (ANEM), a network of independent radio stations in Serbia and Montenegro, in an attempt to provide listeners with objective news. ANEM is still going strong today with more than 50 independent radio and television stations.

Adam Michnik, Poland – As a former dissident, writer, historian, lecturer and journalist, Adam Michnik is known for his defence of human rights. He spent a total of six years in prison between 1965 and 1986 for his opposition to communist rule in Poland. As editor in chief of the first independent Polish daily, Gazeta Wyborcza, Adam Michnik has remained committed to the paper’s independence. Today, the newspaper remains the top-selling daily in Poland, and one of the most respected in Europe.

Fred M’membe, Zambia – Known for his outspoken defence of press freedom and his paper’s exposés on government corruption and abuses of power, Frank M’membe is founder and editor-in-chief for The Post, Zambia’s leading independent daily. Despite harassment, raids, multiple lawsuits including accusations of defamation and treason confiscation and censorship, Frank M’membe continues to uphold the principle of press freedom. Frank M’membe is also a founder of the Media Institute of Southern Africa, which fosters a free and independent media.

Nizar Nayouf, Syria – Nizar Nayouf repeatedly paid the price for his work. While working as editor in chief for Sawt Al Democratiyya, and because of his affiliation with the Committee for the Defence of Democratic Freedom, Nayouf was sentenced in 1992 to ten years in prison. He spent most of this time in solitary confinement and was tortured, but still managed to write four books. Since his release from prison, Nizar Nayouf has left Syria and is chief editor of Syria Truth.

Pap Saine, The Gambia – Gambian publisher and editor Pap Saine is the publisher and editor of The Point and a Reuters correspondent for West and Central Africa. Pap Saine has faced imprisonment and harassment for his work, particularly for his commitment to press freedom and revealing the truth about Deyda Hydara, his co-founder who was murdered by unknown men in 2004.

Faraj Sarkohi, Iran – A writer and journalist, Faraj Sarkohi was persecuted by both the Shah of Iran and the Islamic Republic of Iran. As a result of his work for Adineh, a literary monthly he founded and edited, Faraj Sarkohi faced imprisonment and torture before he was forced into exile. He continues to campaign for greater press freedom in Iran.

Nedim Sener, Turkey – After spending a year behind bars, Nedim Sener was recently released from prison pending trial. He faces allegations that his criticism of government investigations into alleged coup plots demonstrated support for those plots. Sener is an author and investigative journalist with Turkish daily newspaper Posta. His work includes publication of a book on the 2007 murder of his friend, Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, which accused Turkish security agencies of failing to prevent Dink’s murder.

Arun Shourie, India – One of India’s most renowned and controversial journalists, Arun Shourie was the uncompromising editor of the English-language daily Indian Express, and introduced a new style of independent investigative journalism to India. At one stage, there were 300 cases filed against the Indian Express by the government but Shourie remained committed to press freedom, ensuring him a vast following, and many enemies, across India. Arun Shourie is now working in politics and previously was a Minister for the Bharatiya Janata Party.

Ricardo Uceda, Peru – Famous for his fearless reporting on government corruption and the military’s abuse of human rights, Ricardo Uceda is one of Peru’s most renowned investigative journalists. As editor of newsweekly Sí, Ricardo Uceda revealed military abuses and faced physical threats and censorship. Ricardo Uceda also founded the Investigative Unit of El Comercio, Peru’s oldest daily, and previously he also worked for El Mundo, Expreso, El Diario, El Nacional, Canal 2 and La Razón, and is a founding member of Instituto Prensa y Sociedad (Press and Society Institute).

Jose Ruben Zamora, Guatemala – Founder and former editor-in-chief of the independent daily Siglo Veintiuno (21st Century), Jose Ruben Zamora has built up a reputation for reporting on taboo subjects and exposés covering corruption, drug trafficking and human rights violations. Zamora resigned as editor in chief of Siglo Veintiuno in 1996 and launched a new daily, El Periódico, which continues its critical coverage. Zamora has faced censorship, harassment, death threats, kidnapping and attacks for his work.

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International Press Institute contact: Naomi Hunt +43 1 512 90 11 or nhunt@freemedia.at
Committee to Free Eskinder Nega contact: Jason McLure +1 202 370 6905

National Transitional Council spokesman Mohammed al-Harizy said the council passed the law governing the formation of political parties on Tuesday evening. “Parties are not allowed to be based on religion or ethnicity or tribe,” he told Reuters.

He did not make clear how this would affect a political party formed in March by Libya’s Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamists. The new party was expected to make a strong showing in the election, the first since last year’s overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi in a NATO-backed popular uprising.

The head of the Brotherhood’s Freedom and Development Party said the NTC needed to make it clearer what it meant by banning religious parties. He said this would cause controversy in conservative Libya, whose population of six million is made up almost entirely of Sunni Muslims.

“This kind of clause is only useful in countries where there exists many religions, not in Libya where most people are religious Muslims,” Sawan told Reuters.

“This law needs to be reviewed by the NTC and if it’s not changed, we would have to protest it.”

Libya’s NTC has already indicated that the country will be run in accordance with sharia, though the exact place of Islamic law in the legal system will be settled only once a new constitution is written after elections.

Political analysts have said the Muslim Brotherhood is likely to emerge as Libya’s most organized political force and an influential player in the oil-exporting state where Islamists, like all dissidents, were harshly suppressed during the 42 years of Qaddafi’s dictatorial rule.

Islamists have performed strongly in post-uprising elections in Tunisia, Egypt and Morocco since October and they are also likely to do well in Libya, a socially conservative country where alcohol was already banned before the 2011 revolution.

(Reporting By Hadeel Al-Shalchi and Ali Shuaib; Writing by Hadeel Al-Shalchi; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

In general, representative comments of the majority of views can be filtered into three streams. The first one is brief, precise and categorical and, as one of them summed it up, “The root cause of famine or poverty in Ethiopia is poor governance.”

Feeling for the indignities suffered by a proud nation because of the interminable cycle of hunger and famine, the second stream cautions against this unfortunate situation being exploited to turn the country into the largest experiment in the developing world in genetically modified organisms (GMO) via improved seeds developed in laboratories.

In this context, citing the example of Mexican farmers, I presume in the 1970s, one of them compressed everyone’s concerns stating that once GMO contaminates “the natural crops or seeds, the local farmers will never be able to use or grow their [] GMO free seeds, without buying GMO seeds.”

If this question is about the so-called ‘terminator gene’ and if I have understood him correctly, I heard on December 18, 2011 on the BBC our illustrious native son Prof. Gebisa Ejeta strongly disagreeing with that assumption in AC Graylings’ Conversation with Gebisa Ejeta .

The third stream has rather reduced the whole exercise to a swordfight between Meles Zenawi and Bill Gates, portraying both men as well practiced in getting their ways. Even then, it wanted to see reforms to go through to enable the country take advantage of new technologies, to help it, combined with its innate endowments, to ensure its food security.

It means that, therefore, we essentially would have to stick together for a while longer until we bring this conversation to its logical conclusion. The above issues need to be discussed, if we are lucky the concerned officials and experts, among others — Mr. Bill Gates, Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, Prof. Gebisa Ejeta and etc.— chipping in their perspectives.

I invite them through this article to seize the opportunity to respond in some form to the above three concerns, comments or questions. I do believe that these are not only Ethiopian concerns, but also issues on the minds of people the world over. One only needs to take the pressure already building on the United Nations, as it is preparing for the RIO+20 Conference next June. Civil Society Organizations are demanding banning of GMOs altogether, which goes a long was as an example of a world divided on the issue.

I included the illustrious native son Prof. Gebisa here possibly to help with making the sciences that are going into agricultural reform in Ethiopia understandable by ordinary people.

Still the question is what could Bill Gates’ motive be in doing what he is doing? Money? Arm-twist developing country leaders and have them pursue his strategy of transforming agriculture so that seed companies could make more money and his share in their companies grow? Power? His motivation goes beyond that! Already in his Annual Letter 2012, this is the hint he gives:

The world faces a clear choice. If we invest relatively modest amounts, many more poor farmers will be able to feed their families. If we don’t, one in seven people will continue living needlessly on the edge of starvation. My annual letter this year is an argument for making the choice to keep on helping extremely poor people build self-sufficiency.

For now, we should be content with what we know about he science of “philantrocapitalism”, as Addis Fortune referred to it in August 2011. Instead, we need to turn our attention to what is happening on the ground in Ethiopia, in response to the measures recommended by Bill Gates, i.e., the creation of the Agricultural Transformation Agency (ATA). As we discussed in the previous two articles under this title, its stated objective is to help transform Ethiopian agriculture.

A year in the life of ATA

For the last one year, ATA has been busy trying both to find its feet on the ground and also carry out its tasks. Its mandate of ATA is consistent with government’s five-year plan (FYGTP), at least, according to what the ATA has put on its webpage.

At the ATA, they say they take a systemic approach to the Agency’s mandate and address constraints to the productivity of Ethiopian smallholder farmers as its high priority program area, for which its approach would be simply problem solving . This means:

• Firstly, it develops a vision and roadmap for each sub-sector, and identifies and prioritizes the solutions with the aim of unlocking the bottlenecks.

• The second task has been to put in place implementation support. This means that partners play a major role in the realization of ATA’s mandate. Its supports and coordinates the activities to be implemented through the partner bodies.

In this context, the ATA team has been working for a little over a year now on interventions in:

• Teff testing and demonstrating productivity enhancing technologies. They have not specified what technologies these are;

• Seed interventions: Building efficient and well-regulated seed sector that provides farmers with affordable, high quality seeds of improved varieties for all key crops through multiple production and distribution channels. This involves testing and demonstrating the use of complex fertilizers to ensure that they respond to the different agro-ecological conditions and soil types; and,

• Creation of network of primary cooperatives: Up to now ATA has selected “50 representative leaders from government promotion agencies, federations, unions and primary cooperatives from four regions that shared their experiences in cooperative development.”

I should point out here that, according to recent media reports, ATA, in coordination with the ministry of agriculture, has drafted regulations governing seed distribution and the draft is before the council of ministers.

Also, I should point out that I couldn’t say with certainty what criteria were used for the selection of these 50 ‘representative leaders’, referred to above. It would be a disaster all over again, if those they chose are the very agents of the ruling party, who would only act as spies and affect with fear and suspicion the independence of other farmers to freely express their concerns and ask for help or raise systemic problems.

If that is the case regarding the election of these ’50 representatives’, one needs to restrain expectations about meaningful rural/agricultural reforms being realized. This is simply because, it would be regurgitation all over again of failed policies and dysfunctions of the present and the past.

Is everything about ATA as novel as they make it sound?

These activities in which the ATA has now been engaged are hardly new innovations for those Ethiopian scientists and agricultural experts still in the country. In this connection, recall what Sweden had experimented for more than a decade in integrated agricultural development known as ARDU & WADU. There was also the extension program largely supported by the United Nations and the United States.

ARDU for Arussi Rural Development Unit and WADU for Wolaytta Agricultural Development Unit experimented with the technologies of the time in respect of seeds and soil conservation. The two were developed as demonstration stations for the wider neighborhoods now in parts of Oromia and SNNPR to catalyze agricultural development in central and southern Ethiopia. Both projects were terminated almost around the onset of the revolution in 1974.

Impressive about ATA now is the resources muscle it is flexing, including the latest technologies, especially the seeds technology and the expertise it could mobilize at any time.

Before they were compelled to leave the country, many Ethiopian scientists—most of them products of the Alemaya University hugely benefitting in further education with US scholarships in cooperation with Oklahoma University—had similar objectives and approaches for the country’s development. In post-1974 and post 1991 Ethiopia, they felt their skills were unwanted, when the excessively ideological and politically overdosed state could find no time for their skills or resources to support their work.

At the height of their frustration, in September 2, 2011 some agricultural scientists organized a seminar presumably for Ethiopian journalists. It was entitled Media People Sensitization Workshop on the Generic Seed Issues, Ecological Agriculture and Farmers’ Rights. I dare say it was an attempt to get government’s attention, in vain though.

If not that, it was an attempt to send message to ATA of sharing similar views, while at the same time giving a reminder about the importance of preserving traditional knowledge, especially about seeds and biodiversity, the farming population has maintained for generations.

Amongst the many such scientists, a few of them with such concerns were:

• Dr. Melaku Worede, an internationally acclaimed Ethiopian scientist who has been recognized for the work he has done in plant genetic resources. He is also winner of Right Livelihood Award, commonly referred to as Alternative Nobel Prize, the Herman Warsh Memorial Award, USC Canada’s Seeds of Survival award, etc.,

• Agricultural research scientist Regassa Feyissa and Director of EOSA;

• Dr. Bayush Tsegaye, a crop genetic researcher in the Ethiopian Organic Seed Action (EOSA),

• Dr. Gemedo Dalle of the Ethiopian Institute of Biological Conservation; and,

• Ato Ayele Kebede HBF program manager.

At the seminar, Dr. Bayush Tsegaye stressed:

Poor farmers face challenges to meet the demands of high input varieties. In addition, loss of time-tested traditional knowledge and practices of farmers is getting more and more serious over time.

She said that farmers are told to get better harvests and ensure the country’s food security using improved seeds. Unfortunately, she remarked about the emptiness of this message because of the wide gap that exists between the amount of improved seeds that government could supply and the huge demand out there.

This is because of the lack of capacity of state enterprises, which are in charge of developing and disseminating improved seeds. They could not even meet the demands of 15 percent of Ethiopian farmers, as this webpage this matter in an earlier article.

On his part, Dr. Melaku Worede said that the issue of protecting and properly using farmers’ variety seeds is currently becoming a crucial issue in the field of agriculture, in which the media could contribute their part in the process of bringing about a resilient and sustainable agricultural system in the country.

The lesson of that seminar is sharing information with the public, much as it is about the rights of farmers, to point out the need for a roll back by the system that imposes control measures on farmers, instead of empowering them by allowing them to participate freely along with experts working on their side. This is also a lesson that needs some advocacy, if the Bill Gates and his team of experts are to make a difference.

Of course, there is optimism now, because in the past it was not only poverty being an obstacle. The problem was also in the nature of government in Ethiopia, past and present, who have little persuasion to give incentives, such as free seeds and other inputs, costly as it could be. In fact, for some odd reasons, farmers or other individuals, who had won awards usually, end up in prison the following year.

Anyways, with the huge support behind it, one can assume that, including substantial resources, ATA and its partners, could be capable of doing better and achieving more.

(To be continued)

http://transformingethiopia.wordpress.com/

In 1995, I had the honor and immense pleasure of interviewing Professor Mesfin Woldemariam when I was working with “the Hibret Radio”. During that interview, he told me that Mr. Meles Zenawi is someone who is incapable of telling the truth. This statement was made by the well known Human Rights activist four years after the Zenawi regime took power in Ethiopia. About 17 years after the remark made by Professor Mesfin, things remain the same. At least in telling lies, Mr. Zenawi’s behavior is consistent. It is not surprising that those who serve the ruling party with loyalty display similar behavior like Mr. Zenawi.

Recently, several ethnic Amharas were unjustly uprooted from their home by the Southern Ethiopian Nation Nationalities Regional Administration president direct order. These Ethiopians were even turned away from the church when they sought refugee. Because they did not have any choice, they went to the office of All Ethiopian Unity Organization (AEUO). Some of the people who were uprooted with their families, including infant children, were interviewed by the VOA and other media outlets form AEUO office. To hear the outcry of the children is heart breaking; to hear grown men sound helpless because their basic human right and dignity was violated by a government that is supposed to protect them is equally heart breaking. As the news of such brutality was spreading all over the world, the EPRDF and its surrogates were at work to discredit the victims and to debunk the opposition. Mr. Shegute, the president of the region, issued a press release about a week ago stating that no one was uprooted from the region. His despicable lies were repeated again and again in the airwaves that the EPRDF and its surrogates control. What a shame! Adding insult to injury, the EPRDF completely denied the illegal eviction of Amharas from South Ethiopia and blamed the opposition for “spreading false propaganda. I don’t know how the regime could be such arrogant and oblivious in this information age.

Such behavior is not unique to Mr. Meles and his cronies; such behavior is a typical character of dictators. When you examine the typical characteristics of world authoritarian regimes, you begin to see consistencies in the way that authoritarian leaders and the people who serve them rationalize their brutal action. They tell the world that their subjects are better off because “their regime has established a stable government, there is economic progress, and the opposition is controlled and influenced by foreign enemies….. and so on.” Such dictators claim to believe in the basic principle of human rights protection, democracy, justice and liberty. They claim that to achieve such objectives, the culture and the behavior of their subjects must change through the divine intervention of their iron fist rule. Because they believe that they are above everything, they consistently defy public opinion, distort history, defy human decency and orchestrate lies to excuse their brutal behavior and action. Some of their mode of operands is to doublespeak, deny, and blame. These are the exact behaviors that we witness in today’s Ethiopia.

The Zenawi regime unashamedly try to tell us that “democratic” progress is made in Ethiopia despite the fact that there are more prisoners of consciousness in Ethiopia today than at any time in the history of our country; there are more people abducted, killed, uprooted, and exiled during the rule of the EPRDF regime than at any time in the history of Ethiopia. Although the Zenawi regime is one of the most brutal regimes in the world, Zenawi himself tells the world the undemocratic nature of the Eritrean regime; and he preaches about “regime change” in Eritrea. In one of the most dramatic event in Ethiopia, last year, Eritreans in Ethiopia were give permission to hold a protest against the Issaias regime. The Eritreans held a slogan that says “YEAKEL” (ENOUGH) and burned Issaias’ picture in the middle of Addis Ababa, while Ethiopians were denied any permit for protest in their own country. Although the Constitution gives Ethiopians the right to hold a protest and to petition their government, the Zenawi regime denied these basic and fundamental rights to its own citizens while allowing foreigners (Eritteans) to exercise these basic rights. No one denies that Zenawi’s intention, when orchestrating the “Eritreans protest”, was not holly, but it is a clear example of hypocrisy. If the Eritreans in Ethiopia are allowed to hold a protest, why are Ethiopians in Ethiopia denied permission to hold a protest in their own country? Talk about doublespeak.

The history of EPRDF clearly indicates that it was established based on lies. At least during its armed struggle era, the EPRDF could lie and could get away with it. In this time and age where information is at our finger tip, I don’t know how the EPRDF assumes that it can simply lie and get away with the lies that it is telling the world. The entire world is watching with great sadness and disappointment the rampant corruption in Ethiopia; however, if you had the opportunity to visit Ethiopian embassy websites, this is what you read as one of the 10 reasons to invest in Ethiopia: “• Absence of corruption – Ethiopia is described by the U.N. and ICC as “exceptional…in its almost complete absence of routine corruption ”today than at any time in its history”. Such daring and bold statement is coming from a government immersed in corruption. Global Financial Integrity in its report stated that Ethiopia has lost $11.7-billion to outflows of illicit funds in the last decade. If this is not an indicative of a corrupt government, I don’t know what is. It is not only GFI that is sounding the Alarm about corruption in Ethiopia; Janice Winter, a South African journalist, wrote an opinion piece on Daily Maverick titled ‘Climate of Corruption in Ethiopia. In her article, Janice highlighted the state of corruption in Ethiopia and called for strict examination of Melese Zenawi’s regime before the release of the Green Climate Fund. The fact is according to the Transparency International’s annual Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), Ethiopia ranks 120 out of 182 countries and territories in the world. Does this sound an absence of corruption in Ethiopia?

Of course, EPRDF apologists and Mr. Zenawi’s cult builders would like the world to believe that Ethiopia has established a stable, corruption free government, and a pluralistic democracy. One of the supporters of Mr. Zenawi wrote “Ethiopia today is a pluralistic democracy and as such would not sit on its hands while others try to circumvent democracy for there cannot be such thing as lawless freedom.” This is a comment made by an EPRDF apologist called Mulugeta in one online forum. It would be interesting to see how this apologist defines what he termed “lawless freedom.” Dictators and their mouthpiece ardent supporters interpret the basic principle of democracy as it fits them. May be they do not understand that there cannot be democracy in a country where freedom of speech is termed as terrorism. The notion that Ethiopia has it is own version of “democracy” contrary to the universally accepted basic democratic principles is as foolish as daring attempt to make us believe Black is White. Dictators and their cronies always have double standard and doublespeak to justify their fatal action. Their interest is to prolong their grip on power by any means necessary. It is up to concerned citizens and democratic forces to expose the lies and to strive for a regime change to establish democratic governance in the country. We are duty bound to vehemently oppose the human rights violation in Ethiopia and struggle for democratic change. We are also duty bound and the current condition in Ethiopia demands that we clean our act, stop bickering on irrelevant issues, focus, refine our strategy, and take the struggle against the brutal regime in Ethiopia to the next phase. It is time for action!

The ethnic cleansing that is being waged has become an international knowledge. This is not the first time the TPLF regime has practiced such crime against humanity. This is the first time it has been exposed for all to see. It is no consolation to the victims’ but for what it is worth their fellow citizens and the international community has recognized and felt their pain. We owe a debt of gratitude to our brave Ethiopians at home that face danger but are relentless in their pursuit of justice for their people. We thank our Independent Web sites for their wonderful job of informing us and giving us a forum where we can discuss our hopes, concerns, worry and try to find solution for our motherland.

The criminal activity being seen and documented in broad daylight did not please Ato Meles. He reacted in a violent way. We saw his fingers curl with anger and his veins stand with too much blood. We saw agony on his face and fear in his soul. I heard him refer to our country by name for the first time. Menor tru new. It was normally ‘Agritua’ and we are referred to as ‘Hezbua’. He was forced to utter ‘Ethiopia” and ‘Ethiopiawinet.’ How could he point his hate finger at us without calling us by our name? Interesting, don’t you think?

Here is what he said. ‘Those that want to be famous for their stand on the unity of Ethiopia, and claim Ethiopiawinet’ as their brand’ are attempting to paint a picture as if the Southern Kilil, Benchi Maji Zone, and Gura Fereda Wereda as declaring a campaign on Amharas in general and the people of Eastern Gojjam people in particular.’ It was a strange statement. I searched to see if anyone has made such claim. I could not find any one talking about a campaign by the citizens of those localities against Amharas or any one else. The truth of the matter is the issue is not whether it is against Amharas, Gambellans or Somlais. We were against the practice of ‘ethnic cleansing’ against anyone. The current crime just happens to be directed at the Amharas and that is a fact.

Why did he say that? I saw two reasons for his convoluted logic. He has done this before and it comes natural to him. First and foremost he wanted to foment hate between the people of Benchi Maji and the Amhara community. Second he wanted to cover his role in this criminal activity. He blamed it on the Administrations of the Southern Kilil from the President to the Wereda boss. It is never his responsibility for any thing bad happening in the country while good things are due his brilliant mind and astute leadership.

Both are not worthy of a statesman. The truth is there is no animosity between the people of Benchi Maji and their Amhara fellow citizens. They are simple farmers trying hard to make a living relying on sweat, determination and hard work. They do not compete rather they cooperate due to their common quest to survive in a very primitive environment. They have no time for hate and conflict. Life is hard enough as is. It is not all right for a leader to peddle hate and mistrust.

Second The Southern President Shiferaw Shigute, the local Zonal and Wereda officials are employees of Ato Meles. The buck stops at his desk. They would not even fart without his permission. He got them elected in a rigged manner and they owe allegance to him and to him alone. In case they try to get out of line he has his Army and security ready to pounce on them and they are perfectly aware of that fact. Their position is littered with the ghosts of jailed, exiled or killed former employees.

What I saw was a person finally coming to terms with his actions. It is a defining moment for our attempt to make him accept responsibility. To make him understand there is consequences to ideas, polices and style of governance. The ‘ethnic cleansing’ being practiced is the result of the philosophy of Kilil in its pure sense. Kilil is the corner stone of Ato Melese’s style of leadership and his never ending attempt to stay in power no mater the price. Kilil is different from Federalism. Kilil is Apartheid in black. The language of Kilil is not conducive to building a Multi National democratic country or institution. The current incident from Benchi Maji will not be the last one. As long as the concept of Kilil is imposed on our people incidents such as Bedeno, Gambella, South Omo and Benchi Maji will be part of our future. We do not need fortuneteller to know that.

The Ethiopian Parliament is the perfect example of a dysfunctional body. It is here Ato Meles shows up to inform them of his current dream. All Parliamentarians except one are hand picked by Ato Meles and his associates. There is no one sitting there except one that does not owe his position to anybody else except Ato Meles and his TPLF Party. The vast majority will not be elected as a dogcatcher let alone Parliamentarian in any normal setting. It is not because our country lacks such worthy individuals to run and get elected but due to lack of freedom and the yoke of dictatorship. Only the waste (zegach) rises to the top in TPLF controlled Ethiopia. They represent no one except themselves. They are happy to accept anything the master throws their way as long as they go along with his misguided and dangerous vision. Control of over ninety-seven percent of Parliament seats does not happen in a healthy society. It is a sign of something that has gone wrong.

This is what he told his choir regarding the ‘ethnic cleansing’ activity being carried by his surrogates at his behest.
“ The Southern Administration has given adequate explanation and I do not want to go into details …..due to historical circumstances in the last ten years about thirty thousand people from East Gojjam have settled in Bench Maji area thus for all practical purposes it has become East Gojjam and the local authority is in the hands of the settlers. There is land to be farmed and we have no problem with developing the place. I see one problem here the settlement activity is done on individual basis and this is destructive. Although there is savanna land available including jungle areas and it is here the settlers decided to farm because they were not concerned regarding deforestation to use the trees for charcoal and building purpose. Thus the Kilil and the Wereda decided to protect the forest and said what is done is in the past but from now there will be no settlement with out being organized. The Southern Kilil and the Amhara Kilil consulted on this and decided to deny individual type of settlement imitative and agreed on organized approach. This is not a criminal act against people of Benchi Maji or against Eastern Gojjames. Those who want to interpret such act as such are being irresponsible. Searching for the truth and like their slogan of viewing all Ethiopians as equal instead without basis and without looking at the existing situation and without basis based on selfish personal gains declaring Amharas hare being swept away, Eastern Gojjam people are being attacked is wrong it is not helpful the truth is what I just like what said.” Please go to: http://www.ethiopianreview.com/content/37758 to watch the video version of this drama.

You see what I mean. His version is an excuse not based on the real situation we are witnessing in front of us. The victims have names; faces and we have seen the pictures of the displaced with their family. They are not a figment of our imagination. Ato Meles sitting in his bunker at Arat Kilo does not have the time or the desire to face reality. Him or any of his officials have not met the internally displaced victims and shown any kind of empathy for their fellow citizens. The same person that is leasing virgin land to Indians, Saudis and other foreigners at dirt-cheap prices, the same leader that is destroying our cherished heritage such as Waldeba Monastery is going environmentalist when it comes to a few peasant subsistence farmers. He is blaming us for being concerned for our people and calling him out for his wrongdoing. Isn’t that putting things upside down or standing things head first. In this speech he even managed to include the Amhara Kilil in this ugly act. It is not that we had any expectation of the different Bantustan governors to stand up for their respective people but he speaks as if they are independent bodies that can address the concerns of their constituents. How could that not be when they in fact are his creation and do not posses any power nor independent will of their own? As my friend Ephrem said ‘how could the tail wag the dog?”

His response, excuse or shifting the blame is not based on valid ground. There are plenty of instances where such ploy has not worked at all. Hitler was responsible for the crime committed against the Jewish people. Those who obeyed his order and did the evil deed were judged as harshly as the architect of the criminal act. The Yugoslav leader Millosevic was put on trial with his main cleanser Karadzic and his General Ratko Mladic. I was just obeying orders is not a valid defense. Shiferaw Shigute’s and other Kilil administrator’s crime is not less than Meles Zenawi’s. The master and his servant are judged equally. We are putting anyone that hurts our people on notice that justice might be slow but it always happens. We all know the Ferenji sponsors of these misfits are not reliable allies. Their motto is ‘don’t do the crime if you cant do the time.’ Recent events have proven that principle. Gadaffi used to be a good friend of Tony Blair, Mubarak was a trusted ally of the US, the Shah of Iran was the number one policeman in the Gulf and Saddam was tolerated while Charles Taylor was a useful tool. Where are they now? You hear that Meles Zenawi, how about Shiferaw Shigute? Are we clear on this concept or are we self deluding?

As I said our relentless struggle on behalf our people is showing signs of momentum. It is not based on hate or directed at ethnic group or persons but love for people and country. It is invigorating to see our work being translated to action. The current discussion on waging peaceful resistance on a higher level is both promising and shows the maturity of our movement. Boycott is a tried and successful method of showing our disgust with the system. We are flexing our muscle on behalf of our people. It is not an overnight success. It takes time and requires patient explanation so our people know and understand the important role personal responsibility plays in the search for freedom and equality. Putting the needs of the many in front of self-gratification is not an easy concept to master. But we are up to the task. I have no doubt with that. When properly understood by many it will become natural as our love for our ancient land.

Fighting dictatorship takes many forms. Some use the power of the gun, others organize, many utilize boycott, citizens resort to sabotage among many other forms of making life difficult for the abusers. All are respect forms of gaining self worth and dignity. It is the combination of all these that bring the day of reckoning closer and the process of building a free and harmonies society begins in earnest. Our love and respect for each other, our commitment to equality and democracy will win over the hate and divisive politics peddled by the dying regime. Each one of us is responsible for our own actions as we hold the TPLF regime responsible for its actions. We each answer for our own sins not our friends or neighbors. Shifting responsibility onto others has not done us any good. It only makes us weak and the laughing stock of the world around us. Today the sleeping giant known as the Diaspora is stirring. It is showing signs of connecting the dots and at long last understanding without our effort there will be no Ethiopia to go to. There will be no Timket, no Fasika, no Ethiopian Eid Al-Fitir, no Adis Amet and no proud history. Our children will be dispersed and no one will be there to tell our gallant history and the sacrifice of our ancestors. It is a shame if we let that happen on our watch. Eskinder said no. Andualem said no. Reeyot said no. What say you my friend?

http://www.ethiopianreview.com/content/37769

http://www.ecadforum.com/Amharic/archives/2638

http://www.ethiopianreview.com/content/37681

Ato Alemu Gobebo Anjajo is the father of Reeyot Alemu whose daughter Reeyot is languishing in TPLF’s jail on trumped up terrorism charges. In its volume 2, #36, March 2012 edition, UDJ’s weekly paper, Finote Netsanet, carried an interview with Ato Alemu.
Ato Alemu himself is a retired judge and former lawyer, currently a member of MEDREK, the largest opposition coalition inside Ethiopia. The question put to him included whether or not his daughter Reeyot has applied for clemency by admitting guilt. Reeyot Alemu was recently sentenced to 14 years of jail plus the payment of birr 33,000. The charges against her include planning to engage in terroristic acts of sabotage, treason, working for Ethiopian Review and receiving money from a terrorist organization.

Reeyot was a teacher and a journalist before she was thrown in jail. According to her father, she has not applied for a pardon, and would not apologize based on what she told him. Of the five defendants under the same charges, one is missing, and one has told Ato Alemu that she has applied for clemency.

But Reeyot has resolutely said no to a pardon.

The interviewer, Bizuayehu Wondimu, pushed hard and asked Ato Alemu a very difficult question to any father in a similar predicament: “As a father, would you rather not advise your daughter to apologize?”

This is perhaps one of the most difficult questions a parent can face. As any one of us who are parents would readily admit, there is an innate biological chord that attaches us to our kids. We wish nothing but the best for them. We try as much as humanly possible to keep them from harm. As Reeyot’s father, Ato Alemu has obviously gone through thick and thin to raise and educate his kids, including the oldest, Reeyot. In doing so, he wanted his daughter to be a decent woman and a responsible citizen.

This was not to be. Not under Meles’s Ethiopia.

The young, the best and the brightest, the ones who dared to dream a better Ethiopia, and acted on their dreams through peaceful and legal means, are being persecuted.
How would most fathers answer that difficult question the reporter put to Ato Alemu?”As a father, would you rather not advise your daughter to apologize?” Ato Alemu could have easily answered, “As a father, yes, I ‘d advise her to beg for leniency. But you know today’s kids. They have their own minds”. Not him.

He said, matter-of-factly, “whether or not to beg for clemency is her right and decision. I would honor and respect whatever decision she makes”. Ato Alemu did not stop there. He continued, “to answer your specific question regarding my position on the issue by the fact of being her father, I would rather have her not plead for clemency, for she has not committed any crime”. Then Ato Alemu goes onto explain his fatherly human feelings, and the pain of seeing his innocent daughter suffer in jail on false charges.

Now we learn that (Finote Netsanet, #38), Reeyot is seriously ill and is sporadically allowed to see a doctor. The prison officials are alleged not to afford her constant care on flimsy grounds. One can easily surmise the pain of Ato Alemu at hearing the latest bad news about his daughter’s health.

Meles has said in the past that although he disagrees with opinions different from his, he respects those who steadfastly argue for what they believe in. Here is a test case for Meles: a father and daughter duo standing firm on principle. This should have stung his conscience even if we factored out the fact that he is also a father of 3 kids. Or, are we appealing to leaders who might fit the description of a writer who described the Nazi senior officer Adolf Eichmann as “a brain without conscience”? The description might be apt given the fact that even 21 years in power later, the TPLF has not reversed course at all and still engages in the same destructive policies of subjecting people to eviction and internal displacement, and continuing to defile Ethiopian nationalism by its recent act of decertifying the Ethiopian Literature and Folklore Department at Addis Ababa University.

In the meantime, UDJ continues to hold its monthly candle vigils to keep the memory of the unjustly jailed. At the same time, the bond sellers, the bond buyers, the owners of ill-gotten wealth, the money changers and fellow travelers are turning a blind eye to the gross injustice.

In literature the Bible (written 1600 years ago) and Koran (632 AD) both demonstrated the intellectual genius of the ancient people of the Mediterranean. These literatures continue to influence our social, economic and spiritual lives as well as shape our spiritual and moral behaviour to eternity. Both have influenced society for millennia.

However, as we go back in the twilight zone of time as good deeds originated from the followers of Islam, Christianity and Judaism, horrific stories and evil deeds also originated out of them. Adam and Eve cursed mankind because they betrayed the words of God. Jewish conspiracy and betrayal led to crucifying Jesus Christ. Mohammed diminished women’s status and their treatment under Islamic jurisprudence. In Saudi Arabia unimaginable types of evil and barbarism are fabricated in the name of Islam. Mistreatment of women, the proliferation of int’l terrorism, the outsourcing of evil doers i.e. Osama Bin Laden, Al Shebabe and Wehabi fanatics originate from Saudi Arabia. It is a country bent to spread Islam at the expense of the lives of innocent people that it calls ‘Infidels” or non believers.

Mohammed borne in Mecca was believed to have had a humble, tolerant, compassionate and GOD fearing personality. His marriage was multi ethnic including Khadija of Ethiopia. He never discriminated. He created a tolerant and honest religion. Unfortunately, what is coming out of the Saudi Empire is evil and barbarism of gargantuan proportions. This Empire which reaps billions of dollars from the oil fields has despised modern education. Anything under the universe including technology, labour, land, sex and education are commodities that Saudi money has to buy. Hence these commodities have to be treated in Saudi’s terms. Being damn proud of their riches they even don’t dare to wash their own plates. To do their household chores they import maids from Asia, Africa, Eastern Europe and Latin America. One source of this cheap labour is Ethiopia where importations of Ethiopian maids and concubines have increased exponentially. About 45,000 Ethiopians are imported by Saudi Arabia on monthly bases to work as maids often at cheap wage rates ($1000/month). This wage is equivalent to the amount that a Saudi billionaire pays to a brothel for an hour’s pleasure in Europe.

Are Ethiopian women wrong to seeking employment in Saudi Arabia -for God’s sake “NO”. In a country like Ethiopia where unemployment is a staggering 50%+, it is natural for these women to seek employment in Saudi Arabia. If Ethiopia’s economy had functioned well they would not have set their feet on unknown land. Desperate as they are the women go extra mile to changing their given names to Islamic names and camouflage their dressing code to resemble their employer’s culture. Prior to their departure these women were full of dreams and hopes of getting money to build houses to their parents, support their sibling’s education and send money to their parents. Instead what they earn from the promised land of Arabia is not money but rape, torture, beating, starvation and death. Their parents and families back home receive body bags instead of the promised cash.

A few weeks ago a young Ethiopian women called Alem Dechassa was forcefully taken and beaten in broad day light at the door steps of the Ethiopian Consulate in Beirut. Then she was taken to an unknown prison where she was reported to have committed suicide. Only the prophets of the great religions would know how Alem died and what type of torture, rape and beating she endured before her death. The horrific images of Alem Dechassa’s abduction shocked Ethiopians and the international community. That is why the United Nations has requested the government of Lebanon to make a through investigation of her case.

Before this incident evaporated from our mind another gross human right violation of innocent Ethiopian women took place in Saudi Arabia. These women whose hands and legs are tied to beds and walls are found tortured at the nerve centre of the holy land of Mecca Median. No one knows why the Saudi’s commit such barbaric acts against these defenceless and powerless Ethiopian women. It neither correspondence to the teachings of Mohammed nor to the tenets of human decency. Even animals in the wilderness do not have this level of cruelty. Animals attack other animals if they are hungry or feel threatened, usually as an act of self defence. When animals know that they have won the enemy they refrain from aggression. If Animals have this level of intelligence and wisdom then why the Homo Sapiens of Saudi Arabia are deficient of this common sense. The act of the Saudis, Lebanese and other Middle Eastern countries against Ethiopian maids is beyond one’s comprehension. No religion gives divine right to bully and torture others. It is indeed not Islamic. If Mohammed rises from grave HE would certainly curse the evil empire of HIS holy land.

During the Hijera (Migration of Islam) Mohammed advised his followers to migrate to Ethiopia (then Abyssinia). Mohammed acknowledged that the humble and decent Ethiopian Orthodox Christians would give his followers sanctuary and protection. True to his words Ethiopians not only received His followers but also treated them with at most humanity and curtsy. Bound by Abyssinian kindness HE openly declared that Islam under no circumstances should attack Ethiopia and Ethiopians. This fact is found registered in the Koran a thousand years ago. Then one begs to question the current motive of Islamic barbarism unleashed on Ethiopian Women in the heart land of Mecca against. Emirates women pour hot water on Ethiopian maids; throw acids on the innocent and beautiful faces of their women employees. The world has witnessed what the wife of the late Mohammed Ghaddafi did to her Ethiopian maid. We know for fact that these Muslim women in the Middle East are themselves victims of forced marriages, torture, sodomy and bullying. Evidently a bullied person is more likely to end up a bully himself or herself. What is interesting is that Muslim Clerics who are fond of passing Fatwa for every little un-Islamic issue gave a deaf ear to the torture and abuse of Ethiopian maids by their followers. The choice is one either Islam condones this type of barbarism or the mullah’s/clerics are ignorant of the teachings of Mohammed.

Moreover rich Saudi Sheiks travel to Ethiopia to prostitute and fornicate with beautiful and young Ethiopians daily. They sleep with multiple women (< age girls) at the Sheraton Ethiopia Hotel built by their agent Mohammed Ala Moudihn. Ethiopians tolerate this because they are poor and helpless.

It is incomprehensible how the Saudi Empire allows such gross violation of innocent women. Ethiopians keep wondering whether the Saudi men intoxicated with their oil money have mothers, sisters and daughters. Many assume that these men are borne of inanimate objects. If indeed they are humans then they have to come out of their Stone Age mentality and prove to us that they are members of the true Homo Sapiens of the 21st century. They need to start and think as human beings and not as the Scorpions of the Desert of Arabia.

Someone with power, intelligence have to tell Saudis other Middle Eastern Countries that it is time to stop this madness and behave as real human creatures. That power rest with the United Nations which has a moral and institutional responsibility to stop this barbarism, slavery and gross human rights abuses against poor Ethiopian women in Saudi Arabia and the Middle East. UNICEF, the watchdog of women and children right must break its silence against this gross abuse of Ethiopian Women. As the late Emperor Haile Selassie I said “throughout history, it has been the inaction of those who could have acted; the indifference of those who should have known better; the silence of the voice of justice when it mattered most; that has made it possible for evil to triumph”.

Ethiopia was betrayed by the League of Nations (LoN) and the Fascist Italian Forces unleashed a naked aggression replete with grave violation of human rights, war crimes, crimes against humanity including genocide. Some Western powers in the LoN even encouraged the Fascist Mussolini to enter Addis Ababa and consummate his occupation and carry on with his ‘civilizing’ mission with the blessing of the Pope at the Vatican. But his brutal action of a savage was in sharp contrast to the humane handling of the prisoners of war of Fascist Italy at the hands of God fearing pious Ethiopians.

I am elated, humbled and mesmerized by the heroic deeds of the young patriots who had never met before converging from distant places on the soil of Tigray to fight the Fascist invaders and showing mercy to captured soldiers of the ruthless enemy. The grand question is what kind of a formidable force brought Abichu, Amdetsion, Gashu, Haptom and Worku together to accomplish such unimaginable feats? What motivated the bare-footed, ill-trained, poorly equipped Ethiopian militias, including those from as far as Kembatta, to travel for six to seven months mostly on foot to Tigray and give hell to Marshall Marshal Badoglio – supreme commander of the invading Italian Fascist Army? They all vowed in the name of Immiye Menelik II to crush the Fascist invaders hell-bent on enslaving the Ethiopian people. For more information, readers are referred to my article titled “Top patriot Abichu & his wartime heroic compatriots” dated 24 February 2012 and posted on most democratic websites.
The people of Ethiopia spontaneously and enthusiastically responded to the call of Immye Menilik to mobilize for the Battle of Adwa; and similarly to the call of leaders during the war with Somalia and Eritrea, subsequently. This phenomenon has been enigmatic to political scientists accustomed to hearing Ethiopians mention the name of their region of birth as their country when asked where they are from.
In view of the paragraphs above, Ethiopia is one country and we are one people with unbreakably intertwined cultural diversity. Culture is dynamic and will change in favor of strengthening our bond – for our common humanity transcend our ethnicity. Ways we do things change with progress in science and technology; new words infiltrate our languages and enrich our vocabularies; some languages die and new ones are created – the case in point being for example: the relatively recently created Swahili is lingua franca in East Africa; Latin and Geez are limited to liturgical prayers church services; few in our generation know that Aramaic, the language of Jesus Christ, is almost dead although He has over a billion followers and counting. It is predicted that far fewer languages will be spoken in our world by the turn of this century. But Zenawi wants credit by fooling nationalities as their defender to remain with harmful cultural practices that may not stand the test of time.
One man one vote is our best choice to live together in harmony, dignity and prosperity. The one and only one challenge for all of us is how we can pull ourselves out of abject poverty with inclusive democratic participation of all ethnic groups. The point is that we have to be prepared for and be willing to accept change for it is inevitable. Let graduates of Dedebit stay fossilized in their worn out theory of Nations and Nationalities, which its author Stalin himself refused to honor but instead sent secession seekers into internal exile or prison in Siberia.
Unrewarded contribution to world peace & national liberation
Ethiopia fulfilled her mandates in Korea and the Congo as part of her obligations under collective security of the United Nations.

Ethiopia actively opposed secession in Africa advocating status quo to colonial boundaries for the sake of forming the OAU

It is a matter of record that Ethiopia played vanguard roles in rendering genuine assistance to liberation movements in almost all black African countries except Liberia, which was independent. Students from liberation groups from Angola, Kenya, Nigeria, Somalia, South Africa, Tanzania, Zimbabwe et al received training in Ethiopia. The irreplaceable Prime Minister of Ethiopia, the late Aklilu Hapte Wold, strongly argued in favor of independence for Somalia. The Dergue regime strongly supported the independence of Djibouti; it gave substantial support and training to freedom fighters of Zimbabwe and Angola. What did Ethiopia get out of all the positive contributions aforementioned except morale satisfaction? Isn’t Ethiopia still a victim of global injustice? Didn’t Siad Barre incessantly accuse Ethiopia as a colonizer – eventually invading our motherland at a time he considered propitious immediately after the fall of the Imperial regime taking advantage of internal division within our country and the execution of top officials by the Dergue regime?

As usual, however, Ethiopians set aside their domestic differences and dealt a heavy blow to the invading army of Barre that eventually led to his downfall.

Zenawi went to the extreme in ethnic cleansing
The tyrant has reached a point of no return in his heinous crimes. The recent ethnic cleansing of the Amharas from Gura Ferda in Southern Ethiopia is yet another shocking addition to his already repugnant similar heinous crimes well known to and condemned by the international community. This bestial act in the long list of terrorism perpetrated by the TPLF regime requires urgent retaliation to stop it by pulverizing the inner kleptocratic clique of Zenawi. Thereafter, a lean and cost-effective government must be constituted to replace the bloated administration of the of TPLF regime feeding 5.7 million parasitic cadres.

Conclusion
The international community has so far failed to reciprocate for what Ethiopia has contributed to world peace and the liberation of black African states. Our country is on the verge of destruction. Ethnic cleansing is a sure thing rearing its ugly head. We are alone in our fight for freedom, dignity, and sovereignty in this troubled world where moral laws have been shoved to the backburner.

At this critical time of fast approaching the dead end for a peaceful democratic change, there is a lesson for us in this quotation by Sir Winston Churchill: “If you will not fight for right when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory is sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves”.

So, my fellow Ethiopians, let us admit that we had, due to lack of unity, forfeited many a time our golden chance when victory could have been sure and not too costly. Nevertheless we must without further delay meticulously plan, organize and mobilize in order to launch a highly coordinated thunderous civil disobedience nationwide at home and to hold protest demonstrations in the Diaspora including making diplomatic representations for our just cause. And do so not forgetting that Ethiopians as young as Abichu, Amdetsion, Gashu, Haptom, Worku and the leader of the 15,000 strong militia from Kembatta chose to fight Fascist Italy fiercely with determination to die than live in slavery. The young patriots created their command structure, formed a team, and chose their commander Abichu. This concept of centralized command was one of the decisive factors for their success.

What do you say folks? Is it not our turn to emulate the example of our heroic militia?

Mobilization requires resources in manpower and logistics. Remember our heroic militia had to provide resources of their own to travel for up to 6-7 months to meet the Fascist enemy in Tigray. Ask whether we are not better off to unite similarly and hit back at tyrant Zenawi who had publicly called us his enemies by snapping our call for peaceful change through civilized dialogue? Don’t you think it is time that the opposition chose a transitional leader?

Scholars live in trepidation; their exodus is rampant; wide spread corruption is crippling economic growth and degrading moral; the youth are forced to live under the umbrella of a single party; most unemployed youth have become drug addicts; health services are so poor and unable to check the spread of disease; the making of a personality cult is soaring. We must therefore act as a united people to get out of the quagmire to which our inaction has put us into.

Let us make a solemn pledge that in all cases where any ethnic group is a Zenawi-sponsored victim of terrorism, eviction or intimidation each of us is a member of that group. The Amharas were victims of genocide in Arbagugu once and they are victims of cleansing now in Gura Farda; so I am an Amhara of Oromo origin. The Anuak were once victims of genocide and now they are victims of eviction from their ancestral home; so I am an Anuak. The Ogadenese are victims of carpet bombing and artillery barrage; so I am an Ogadeni. The Afars are victims of eviction from their ancestral home; so I am an Afari. Ancient Christian Monasteries such as Waldba, Zequala and Asebot are under threat of extinction; so I condemn the unholy act in the strongest term in much the same I would have done for holy sites of Judaic and Muslim religious faiths.

LONG LIVE THE EXEMPLARY PATRIOTIC SPIRIT OF ABICHU AND HIS COMPATRIOTS!

LONG LIVE ETHIOPA!!!
Release all political prisoners in Ethiopia including Andualem Aragie, Iskinder Nega, Nathnael et al
robele_ababya@yahoo.com

For a billionaire who has chosen a life of full time philanthropy, there could be no better indication of Bill Gates’ interests and honorable intensions than voluntarily staking his reputation in Ethiopia — the planet’s poorest country with the vast majority of its population teetering between half existence and death.

From our vantage point, what this means is that, comparatively real change in the lives of the people, i.e., improvements in human conditions, are easier to notice, to measure, whether the measures Mr. Gates, in collaboration with the Meles regime and others, has put in place are effective and successful.

It is with this awareness that Mr. Gates is now devoting his time and money to catalyze interests in and resources to science-based projects to prevail over diseases and hunger in Ethiopia, which he seems to value as investments in transferable experiences to other developing countries, as discussed in the first part of this article.

In other words, the return Gates the billionaire philanthropist seeks, it seems to me, is personal satisfaction, not money, to which, thanks to Microsoft and its businesses, he has an endless stream. For him, it is the laurels of success coming from being a trailblazer in a science-based and result-oriented philanthropy and finally the glory before history that comes with enabling millions of hungry and sick people around the world to feed themselves and lead healthy life.

In 2011 and 2012, the Gates Foundation has committed, according to the information available on its webpage, $110,799,557 to help the quest for better vaccines and simple treatments and better seeds and inputs to ensure that the results would prevent death by hunger and diseases in developing countries, the figure of which has for a long time been morbidly shocking.

As a matter of principle, none of Gates’ monies go directly to governments. At least, that is one relief for Ethiopians. Even then, he has not managed to close all the loopholes, since for a while now it should be pointed out that there have been persistent allegations especially in the health sector. We repeatedly hear of aid money stealthily being deployed for political campaigns to strengthen the ruling party’s political and propaganda machineries, such as Walta Information Centre (WIC) and Fana Broadcasting (FBC), which have even supplanted the state owned national media.

Otherwise,Ethiopia is amongst beneficiaries of Gates contributions through the research works now underway with the above-mentioned financial envelope during 2011-2014/15 outcomes. These monies would focus on activities in six different areas:

• Agricultural development $88,431,116

• Global health $6,499,991

• Mother & child health $512,571

• Emergency response $4,797,425

• Water & sanitation $9,523,142

• Financial services $1,035,312

Of this global allocation, $26,105,415 is strictly directed to Ethiopia related activities, as commitment to the operations of ATA ($25,070,103). The additional $1,035,312 is disbursed through the UNDP as seed money to promote financial inclusion of Ethiopia’s rural population, as beneficiaries of electronic distribution of financial services.

The ATA allocation covers the period to 2015 and is made available through; (a) IFPRI $4,700,698; (b) Synergos Institute $8,599,506 and (c) UNDP $11,769,899.

It is my understanding that the costs of the ATA staff in Addis Abeba, those deployed from the Gates Foundation, are included in these provisions. Additional staffs that ATA would require are included in the above envelope. Government “is expected” to be responsible for “recurring operating expenses”, according to information on ATA’s webpage.

Moreover, it should be borne in mind that the ATA is not any more a purely Gates Foundation operation. He has managed to involve traditional donors. While officially ATA is working for the Ethiopian government, it would be operating in partnership with the following entities, behind which are several powerful governments, which are footing the bills. These entities are:

The purpose behind these allocations would make sense in terms of magnitude, when seen as only one aspect of the work and is also different in the sense they focus on critical activities. If, for instance, take a look at the foundation’s allocations to emergency response, above.

It is not just throwing some food aid and medical assistance and staying away until the next cycle revisits. The contributions are made toward building capacities in the affected communities. In fact, of $4,797,425 under this category breaks down into:

• Allocation of $1,007,235 to WHO for ten months since October 2011 for its work on reduction of morbidity and mortality among the 13 million people affected by the severe drought in the Horn of Africa;

• $1,600,000 for International Medical Corps for use during 2011 to provide emergency health and nutrition services for host populations in Somalia and Ethiopia;

• Allocation of $1,390, 190 to Oxfam during 2011 to provide immediate relief to vulnerable communities affected by drought in Ethiopia while also building their resilience so that they can cope more effectively with the effects of future crisis; and,

• $800,000 is allocated to Save the Children during 2011 to provide emergency response to the influx of Somali refugees in Ethiopia.

Of the overall global allocation for 2011-2015, $26,105,415 is strictly directed to Ethiopia-related activities, as commitment to operations of ATA ($25,070,103). The additional $1,035,312 is disbursed through the UNDP, as seed money to promote financial inclusion of Ethiopia’s rural population to render them beneficiaries of electronic distribution of financial services.

The ATA allocation covers the period to 2015 and is made available through; (a) IFPRI ($4,700,698); (b) Synergos Institute ($8,599,506) and (c) UNDP ($11,769,899).

It is my understanding that the costs of ATA staff in Addis Abeba, those deployed from the Gates Foundation, are included in these provisions. Additional staffs that ATA would require are also included in the above envelope. Government “is expected” to be responsible for “recurring operating expenses”, according to information on ATA’s webpage.

Moreover, it should be borne in mind that the ATA is not any more a purely Gates Foundation undertaking. He has managed to involve traditional donors, not only with political support to the program, but also making financial contributions. While officially ATA is working for the Ethiopian government, it would be operating in partnership with the following entities, behind which are several powerful governments that also would want accountability for the resources they chip in and objectives of the program.

ATA’s partners, domestic and international, are shown below:

• Ministry of Agriculture,
• Agricultural Growth Program (AGP) as government arm for FYGTP,

• Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research,

• Feed the Future (FtF),

• IFPRI,

• Nike Foundation,

• Rockefeller Foundation,

• Synergos Institute — a global nonprofit supporting sustainable and systems-changing collaboration to address poverty, equity and social justice activities,

• USAID,

• The United Nations through the UNDP, and

• World Bank.

It is important to recall in this connection that, after USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah came out from his meeting with the prime minister on 5 April, he announced his discussion “focused on Feed the Future program and other development partnerships.”

In that regard, he pointed out that the FtF program was initiated two years ago and is aimed at enhancing the productivity of the agriculture sector in developing countries. . FtF’s activities focus,according to a USAID report, on three core components: agricultural growth-enabled food security, linking the vulnerable to markets, and fostering a regulatory environment and private sector conducive to economic growth. This says a great deal on what is taking place at the moment with ATA, as both engine and the front guy.

To realize those objectives, the US government has a budget of $878,083 for 2011 to 2015. Their calculation is that this would compliment the Gates’ contributions, supplemented by other governments and donors.

We already know that, with regard to the health sector, Dr. Shah has also announced $60 million in aid to help build and renovate 65 health centres in the coming five years.

ATA’s governance

The Agricultural Transformation Council (ATC), chaired by the Prime Minister, is ATA’s governing body and its members are: (a) ministers of agriculture, finance and economic development, water and energy; (b) heads of the regional bureaus of Amhara, Oromia, SNNP and Tigray; and, (c) director of the Ethiopian Institute of Agriculture. In his capacity as CEO of ATA, Ato Khalid Bomba would act as secretary to the council. Its functions are to:

• Provide leadership in identifying and designing solutions to the basic barriers of agricultural ;

• Give policy directions and leadership to ensure effective coordination among various agricultural development actors; and

• Approve plans and evaluating performance of the Agency, as deemed necessary.

By necessity, these functions of the Council, for which ATA is now facilitator and translator, would dwarf the federal ministry of agriculture established by Emperor Menilik in 1907. I would say not much would be lost, since in these past years it has not concentrated on carrying out its mandated activities.

Since 2008, the ministry has been disgrace to the nation, having been reduced to dealer in agricultural lands. It has been fully engaged in perpetrating land grab, as an activity carried out under the guidance of the prime minister and the minister of agriculture, assisted by a state minister designated for the purpose.

Therefore, while the ministry is supposed to have a number of important activities in the different sub-sectors of agricultural development, its choice in recent years to become executioner of the will of foreign investors in commercial agriculture, especially in displacing and dislocating Ethiopian citizens is horrendously tragic.

(To be continued)

http://transformingethiopia.wordpress.com/

My views on Ethiopia’s transition to democracy originate in and are shaped by my own deepening concerns over the massive, sustained and gross human rights violations in that country. My active involvement in Ethiopian “affairs” and human rights advocacy dates back to 2005 when troops under the direct personal command and control of Meles Zenawi massacred 193 unarmed protesters and wounded 763 others. Prior to 2005, my interest in Ethiopian “affairs” was academic and involved editorial work in the publication of a scholarly journal and a popular magazine on Ethiopia.

The 2005 massacres presented me several stark choices: pretend the massacres did not happen; express fleeting private moral outrage and conveniently forget the whole thing; hope someone will take up the cause of these victims of crimes against humanity, or take an active advocacy role and speak truth to those who abuse and misuse power. I embraced the old saying, “The only thing necessary for the persistence of evil is for enough good people to do nothing.” I chose to become a human rights defender and advocate.
Democracy (at least in its liberal form) is a form of government based on popular sovereignty (supremacy of the people), but it is an empty shell if it is not infused with the values of freedom (of association, expression, press), and respect for human rights and accountability (rule of law, independent judiciary, transparency and free and fair elections including competitive political parties and civil society organizations). Article 21(3) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights forges the link between democracy and human rights: “The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections…” The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights enshrines a host of political rights and civil liberties which provide the foundation for meaningful and functioning democracies. More narrowly, I regard the struggle for human rights in Ethiopia to be a struggle for democracy and vice versa. That is why I am interested in Ethiopia’s smooth transition from dictatorship to democracy; for I believe that if there is a successful democratic transition in Ethiopia, human rights will be protected, promoted and defended.

The Bridge on the Road to Democracy

We can conceive of the transition from dictatorship to democracy as a metaphorical journey on the road to progress, freedom and human enlightenment (democracy) or a regression to tyranny, subjugation and bondage (dictatorship). Societies and nations move along this road in either direction. Dictatorships can be transformed into democracies and vice versa. But the transition takes place on a bridge that connects the road from dictatorship to democracy. It is on this bridge that the the destinies of nations and societies, great and small, are made and unmade. If the transition on the bridge is orderly, purposeful and skillfully managed, then democracy could become a reality. If it is chaotic, contentious and combative, there will be no crossing the bridge, only pedaling back to dictatorship. My concern is what could happen on the bridge linking dictatorship to democracy in Ethiopia when that time comes to pass.

I believe Ethiopia is rapidly advancing towards that bridge on the road to democracy hastened by a wide variety of factors: The regime has no legitimacy despite its ridiculous claim that it won 99.6 percent of the parliamentary seats. The economy is in shambles. “Ethiopia had the second-highest inflation rate in [2011], when it peaked at 40.6 percent, according to Addis Ababa-based research group Access Capital SC”. Last month, the IMF reported, “Ethiopia still faces significant challenges, in particular containing still-high inflation, raising savings, and meeting enormous investment needs.” Last year, the IMF warned, “High inflation is undermining poverty reduction efforts. A highly distorted monetary policy represents a severe drag on growth and is undermining macroeconomic stability. Ethiopia’s approach to industrial development is largely ineffective given the extremely low level of manufacturing and industrial development, low productivity levels, and persistent trade deficit.”

The visceral anti-regime attitude is palpable throughout the country and magnified more conspicuously in the regime’s massive crackdown and repression. The displacement of large numbers of people in what some have called “ethnic cleansing” seems to have crystallized definite patterns of antagonism towards the regime from all sides. The complete closure of political space has spawned fear and loathing in the population. The disparity between the ruling regime and its supporters and the masses continues to fuel massive discontent. The regime is completely bereft of any new or creative ideas to overcome the complex social, political and economic problems proliferating in the society; and the cosmetic PR about building dams and expanding investments to mask basic problems has drawn more opposition and ridicule domestically and from external sources. In sum, the evidence and signs of decay in the regime are manifest and numerous. Whether collapse comes from internal implosion, popular uprising or other factors cannot be predicted.

A Bridge Too Near

If we accept the philosophical principle that human history is essentially a struggle for freedom and against tyranny and dictatorship, then the natural human tendency is to seek freedom and avoid tyranny. Tyrants and dictators believe that they can always stifle the people’s yearning for freedom through the use of force or corruption. But the inexorable march towards freedom imposes its own immutable historical laws on tyrants. The foremost law of dictatorships and tyrants is that they always fall. As Gandhi noted: “All through history, there have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time they seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it, always.” Just over the past year, we have seen dictators fall like dominoes in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt and Yemen. The impulse for freedom and human dignity could no longer be contained by the secret police and the armed forces of the dictators in these countries.

The second law is that fallen dictatorships always leave behind chaos, conflict and strife. That has been amply demonstrated in the wake of the “Arab Spring”. The third law is that the outcome of the fall of dictatorships is unpredictable. To be sure, the fall of dictatorships does not guarantee the rise of democracy. In fact, more likely than not, it often leads to the rise of another dictatorship because, more often than not, those who seek to dethrone the dictators aim to enthrone themselves and continue to do business as usual. Stated differently, new bottle old wine.

The fourth law is that some dictators will fight to the end to avoid a fall and cling to power; others are more calculating, cunning and rational. When the jig is up, some dictators will fight and others will catch the next flight. Ben Ali of Tunisia caught the first plane out to Saudi Arabia. Ali Saleh of Yemen fought even after he was singed and disfigured in a rocket attack on his palace. This past February Zenawi granted him asylum after Saleh was denied entry in every other country where he sought refuge. Gadhafi fought to the bitter end until he was captured in a tunnel and killed like a sewer rat. Laurent Gbagbo of Cote d’Ivoire also fought to cling to power until he was collared like a street thug and turned over to the International Criminal Court to face charges of crimes against humanity. Bashir al-Assad continues to fight and cling to power as his security forces kill, maim and displace thousands of Syrians.

The fifth law is that the transition between the fall of dictatorships and transition to democracy can be managed to minimize the effects of the first four laws. The fifth law applies to the bridge on which the transition from dictatorship to democracy takes place and is the most critical phase in determining the destiny of Ethiopia for generations to come. The first four laws are historically predetermined, but the fifth law is entirely in our hands.

Chaos Creates Ideal Conditions for (Power) Thieves

On the bridge to democracy, there is often a collision between individuals and groups doggedly pursuing power, the common people tired of those who abuse and misuse power and the dictators who want to cling to power. The chaos that occurs on the transitional bridge from dictatorship to democracy creates the ideal conditions for the hijacking of political power, theft of democracy and the reinstitution of dictatorship in the name of democracy. There is an instructive Ethiopian adage that helps explain this situation more clearly: “Helter-skelter creates ideal conditions for thieves (gir gir le leba yimechal)”.

On the bridge to democracy, all sorts of actors and players will crawl out of the wood work to jockey for power. All sorts of intrigues, power games and shenanigans will be played out. A probable scenario based on historical evidence in Ethiopia suggests the following: Major outside forces will attempt to control and manage the transitional bridge, the transitional period and the transition itself. They will present themselves as “mediators”, offer their resources to manage the transition by managing the stakeholders. They will likely activate their prearranged “leaders” and groups and stage a transitional drama for the general public who are only too happy to see the end of dictatorship and wishfully hopeful of a new democratic beginning. In such a situation, the “mediators” will be in the driver seat of the transitional bus. They will transport the passengers over the bridge to wherever they want.

The military (at least the leadership) will seek to grab political power with the excuse that there is a need to maintain law and order during the transitional period and with false promises of elections and accountability for corruption and human rights violations in an attempt to win public and donor support. If the military intervenes in the transitional process, there will be no transition, only consolidation of military power over civilians. Political parties will regroup and prepare for a power play. Repressed internal forces will likely resurface after the fall of dictatorship to assert their interests and take a seat at the bargaining table. They will try to take advantage of the transitional chaos to position themselves for power and flex their muscles to demonstrate their intentions. New groups will be constituted and present themselves as power contenders and stakeholders. Regional powers will seek a role in the transition to determine an outcome that is favorable to them. Supporters of the fallen dictatorship will try to regroup and reclaim power, or more likely realign themselves with any group they believe will protect their interests and shield them from accountability.

As the various groups jockey for power and influence, the people will be mere pawns in a gambling game of power theft. They will be mobilized along ethnic, linguistic, religious, regional and communal lines. Historic grievance will be unearthed, threats of secession and acts of insurgency will be undertaken, mutual recriminations, accusations and denunciations will dominate the public airwaves. In the end, the people will be left holding a bag filled with confusion, despair, misery, hardship and heartbreak.

On the chaotic (gir gir) transitional bridge, one thing will surely occur: A power vacuum. It is in the chaos and power vacuum that a few calculating and well-organized groups and individuals will execute a well-planned strategy to swiftly capture the ultimate prize of political power and thwart the transition from dictatorship to democracy.

Failing to Plan is Planning to Fail

We need to plan for the inevitable, inescapable and unstoppable transition of Ethiopia from dictatorship to democracy. Dictatorship will end in Ethiopia. It is only a matter of when. Democracy will also rise in Ethiopia. It is a matter of how and what type. Let me use another Ethiopian adage to make my point clear: “Sergena meta, berbere kentisu.” (The wedding party has arrived, let us begin to prepare the meal.) The point is that it necessary to begin a purposeful dialogue and plan ahead about the prerequisites for an effective and smooth transition to democratic governance now, not when the dictatorship falls.

I believe dialogue needs to begin now on at least four major issue areas: 1) how to engage and increase the capacity of key stakeholders in identify potential triggers of violence during political transitions and preventing them; 2) identifying and devising strategies and opportunities for reducing ethnic, religious and communal tension and conflict in anticipation of a transition; 3) enhancing the role of civil society institutions in facilitating public engagement and interaction during the transitional period, and 4) anticipating critical constitutional issues that could significantly impair the transitional process.

The failure to plan for an inevitable opportunity for democratic transition is tantamount to planning to thwart democracy and depraved indifference to the reinstitution of another dictatorship. We must learn from recent historical experience. The Libyans failed to plan for a transition and expediently (with the aid of outside “mediators’) united to bring down the Gadhafi dictatorship. Today, Libya appears to be teetering on the precipice of tribal warfare and deeply beset by political, regional and political antagonisms. Tunisia seems to be doing much better both because Ben Ali left quickly which made the transitional period easier and also because the military was noticeably absent in the transitional process.

Egypt seems stuck on the transitional bridge. After the young demonstrators mobilized to end Mubarak’s dictatorship with great sacrifice, they were sidelined by the very military that kept Mubarak in power for decades. Civil society organizations which were the driving forces of the revolution are now facing persecution and repression by the military. Egypt’s presidential election is scheduled for May but last week an Egyptian administrative court suspended the 100-member constitutional assembly which was supposed to draft a new constitution for post-dictatorship Egypt.

The suspension has thrown things into a tizzy and tensions are growing between the various secular and Islamist groups and the ruling military council which currently holds power. Having a new president without a constitution (worse yet with the old constitution) is like putting the cart before the horse. But there are real problems with the constitutional assembly that is dominated by members of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party and the Salafist Nour party (who hold a majority in parliament). Secularist members and even Islamic and Christian representatives withdrew from the assembly reading the handwriting on the wall. Women were grossly under-represented on the assembly as were representatives of civil society institutions. Few of the assembly members had adequate knowledge of constitutional law to participate in meaningful drafting of such an important document. Beyond fair representation of stakeholders, there are some deeply divisive issues of constitutional significance in Egypt. The major one is the role of Islamic law (Sharia) in the new constitution. What safeguards will be in place to protect individual freedoms, women’s rights and the rights of religious minorities and other groups? Ethiopians can learn a great deal from the Egyptian transitional experience.

Who Should Lead the Dialogue on the Transition from Dictatorship to Democracy?

Conventional wisdom says the important task of managing the transition from dictatorship to democracy should be left to the elites—the politicians, party leaders, bureaucrats, academics and other institutional leaders. They are believed to have the best and the brightest ideas for developing the “roadmap” and “action plans’ for a transition to democracy. But for there to be a truly a successful transition followed by a durable democracy, the dialogue base must be expanded to broadly include civil society organizations, human rights advocacy groups, women and the youth. In fact, the likelihood of a successful transition is increased manifold if civil society organization, advocacy groups, women and youth take a leading role. The reasons are self-evident. Civil society organizations are critical to civil engagement and citizen action for participatory democracy. They are important in facilitating broad-based mobilization in a transitional period and in ensuring responsive governance in the post-transition period. They are also most effective in giving voice to the poor, the minorities and the vulnerable.

The youth are important because the future belongs to them. As George Ayittey explains, there are two generations in Africa: the Cheetah Generation and the Hippo Generation. “Cheetahs seek knowledge, innovation and look for solutions to their problems while Hippos blame others, seek handouts and generally drive our continent to the ground… The Cheetah Generation is a new breed of Africans who brook no nonsense about corruption. They understand what accountability and democracy is. They are not gonna wait for government to do things for them… Africa’s salvation rests on the backs of these cheetahs.” Ethiopia’s salvation rests in the palms of these Cheetahs.

Women need to be given a prominent role in the transitional dialogue because they have been historically ignored, discounted, overlooked and forgotten though they represent one-half of the population. There could be no true democracy where there is no gender equality, and that is one of the glaring inequalities in Ethiopia today. The evidence is incontrovertible that Ethiopian women today suffer significant sociocultural and economic discrimination and have far fewer opportunities than men for personal growth, education, and employment. But women’s involvement in the transitional dialogue is vital because they bring their own unique insights and perspectives to the problems. I believe women have special leadership qualities which are vital to democratic transition and governance. On balance, they tend to be more honest, intelligent, understanding and trusting than men. They are more compassionate than men and more likely to negotiate and compromise. But we will never know know the leadership potential of Ethiopian women because few have been given a chance to prove themselves. They must have a major role in the dialogue on Ethiopia’s transition from dictatorship to democracy.

From One Transitional Bridge to Many Permanent Bridges

All of the dialogue on Ethiopia’s transition to democracy must serve to build bridges across the ethnic divides, the religious chasms, linguistic and cultural cleavages and geographic differences. The dialogue ultimately must lead to a national consensus on a vision of democracy — which I hope will lead to the creation of a government that always fears the people and a political system where the people never fear their government – which promotes peace, understanding and reconciliation of the people of Ethiopia.

So, let the dialogue, discussions and debates continue in the town halls, in the streets, parks and public squares, the villages and hamlets, the neighborhoods, the newspapers, the offices, the youth and women’s organizations, trade and farmers’ associations, meeting halls, the stadiums, restaurants, schools and universities, courthouses and parliaments and on the radio, television, the webpages, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Skype, instant messaging, blog pages and by email…

Let’s get to work building bridges that connect people all across the Land of Thirteen Months of Sunshine!!!

© Lemlem Tsegaw, April 14, 2012
Inspired by “Get out! You don’t belong here!” By Ephrem Madebo (http://www.ethiomedia.com/2012_report/3706.html)

The prime minister is better known for his habitual invectives and combativeness — attributes occasionally polished by the intellect of a shrewd politician, whose eyes are on the ball at all times. Fortunately, in the end reality has reigned supreme. For a man with a cat’s life and skills to outsmart others, besides democracy, Ethiopia’s agriculture, whose productivity growth has failed to keep pace with the significant increases in Ethiopia’s population, has proved the fiercest of his challenges.

It took the prime minister two decades to recognize and act, that Ethiopia’s economic woes would worsen the longer the question of food production remained unanswered. Nevertheless, since winning the 2010 election by 99.6 percent, following which he has emerged sole power and his will the law of the empire, the prime minister has finally read right the writing on the wall that he could no longer be able to keep steady the ship of state so long as: (a) agricultural productivity growth refuses to look up, and, (b) the population grows by 3.17 percent annually (CIA, 2012).

This does not mean that the regime has not tried its hand with a few measures. Unfortunately, some of its responses have only been those of statist schools. They only worsened the situation, against the backdrop of poverty, ignorance and uncertainty, bringing upon the rural population vitiations of more sufferings on account of land grabbing and massive dislocations, by now part of national policy and official action.

Since the 2008 global food crisis, those in power in Ethiopia have turned as solution to speculators in commercial agriculture. These are people behind whom are major investment banks, sovereign funds and unregulated finances, grappling toward controlling the global food markets of tomorrow with foods produced on lands in developing countries. This arrangement has reduced our country to booty for aspiring international investors, an action that cannot be justified beneficial economically and strategically i.e., from perspective of Ethiopia’s own long-term interests.

As a matter of fact, the quest for improved productivity and increased agricultural production under these programs only became cause for lost opportunities and waste of resources. The varying polices the prime minister has imposed are mostly recognizable as motley of acronyms, instead of their contributions to the agricultural problems Ethiopia has been confronted with for decades. Some of these policies are:

• ADLI for agricultural development-led industrialization,

• PASDEP for generations of the Plan for Accelerated and Sustained Development to End Poverty,

• DRMFS for Disaster Risk Management and Food Security,

• PIF for Policy and Investment Framework (2010-2020) for agricultural sector, and,

• FYGTP 2010/11 – 2014/15 for the Growth and Transformation Plan, and etc.

Bill Gates accepts the challenge

Clearly, the watershed in Ethiopia and Bill Gates relations is Meles Zenawi’s serious request for help. Repeating words of the prime minister, Mr. Gates said: “Ok what should we be doing different?” What we now have learned is that, Meles Zenawi has been secretly in contact with Bill Gates, possibly since early 2010 to give him a hand, with small concessions on the table.

Bear in mind that, not long ago the prime minister was making good fist in bravado, the latest one in parliament in February 2012, insulting and harassing ‘the usual suspects’, given once again to insinuations that he has done miracle with Ethiopia’s economy, including its agricultural development.

However, the reality is that for over a year now Meles Zenawi has quietly entrusted the diagnosis and treatment of Ethiopian agriculture to the watchful graces of billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates, who has assembled in Addis Abeba his own team funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

On 4 April, in the Q & A session following his informative presentation at Stanford University, Mr. Gates said, “Fortunately, their leader, President Meles, decided that he needed to raise agricultural productivity. ” He added, “And he [Zenawi] was very nice and turned to our Foundation.”

Of his response to this SOS request for his help, Mr.Gates intimated:

We went in and looked at it [agriculture] and recommended the creation of a group called the Agricultural Transformation Agency (ATA). One of our people happened to be originally from Ethiopia, [and he] moved to run that. And now we have a team of people, mostly expats from Ethiopia that are over there on an ongoing basis.
The diagnosis by the experts at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has established, in the words of the philanthropist:

And the way their system worked in terms of getting seeds introduced, how those seeds are priced, how you would buy fertilizers, how you would educate farmers — their agriculture system was not working.

It is understood that the first phase of this exercise would last three to five years, by which time, Bill Gates, who has wholly based his philanthropic work on sciences, has boldly confirmed staking his reputation on agricultural production in Ethiopia doubling, at least by 2015. This is in conformity with the country’s five-year plan, evidently that pronouncement coming as indicator that the Bill Gates’ team must have already been involved in secret already during the formulation stages of the five-year growth and transformation plan (FYGTP).

In hinting on the rationale for accepting the CHALLENGE ETHIOPIA, he spelt out during his presentation stating, “Ethiopia is a very interesting case, because it has more food insecure people who need food aid than any country in the world…If agricultural productivity would go up faster in Ethiopia from a very low-level, then in almost any country over the next three, four years, as they fix these key bottlenecks.”

Through his presentation, one cannot help being convinced that this might eventually be for the good of Ethiopia, its smallholder agriculture, with 15 million holders (CSA, 2011). They would benefit both from latest sciences and reforms following in their track. By all indications, Gates and Zenawi have had a number of encounters for the former to be able to remark about the latter ‘being always open-minded…’

It goes without saying that the billionaire and our time’s leading standard-bearer of international philanthropy must have accepted to work with Ethiopia, firmly convinced about his capacity to make a difference in the sad conditions of a huge portion of humanity across the planet. He has armed himself with the latest data about what is possible on a global level, which he has learned to apply to specific country situations.

His view is informed by the realization that we live in a world, where 135 million people are born every year, of which 60-65 million die within the same year. Obviously, this is because of diseases and hunger. Therefore, his conviction is directed to conquering these problems. He said in so many words, once that is achieved, everything else would fall in place — education, jobs, better future for everyone, etc. All that is needed is governments, inter-governmental and non-governmental organizations and philanthropists like himself working together to get ahead of diseases and hunger.

Scientifically based determination as this is, he has no worries about the implications of these victories, say for instance, in the form of longer life for everyone. He is persuaded that population growth for the next 25 years would level off. This, he said, is because when parents realize that offspring would live longer, there would be no need for them to beat death and deprivation with more children. It means that, everyone would become a winner, with society’s increased abilities to produce more food and other amenities.

But, why has Ethiopian agriculture become failure to date?

The straightforward explanation is that the agricultural problem has been caused by smallholder agriculture lacking investments and improved technologies. It is important that Ethiopia began developing its infrastructure, from which also agriculture would benefit. Nevertheless, much as these are essential to the country, they are being built with endless borrowings, without agriculture developing sufficiently to cover the costs. Because of that there now is the danger of the country falling from the debt burden, being accumulated without comprehensive studies to satisfy one man’s hunt for grandeur political Ethiopia has denied him through the years because of the manner he has been treating the country.

At the same time, all these difficulties cannot be seen in isolation from the way the mix of command politics is running the economy, ranked as 134th in the 2012 Index of Economic Freedom, its sore sides being inadequate respect for property rights and poor score on freedom from corruption.

In addition, there is also the politics of the uninformed, corrupt and arrogant strongmen, who in their own right, in an environment of misguided and stillborn decentralization, have killed institutional development, because of which they now enjoy a free hand in fiefdoms they run. The future would certainly reveal the horrendous level of human neglects, the degree to which there has been utter disregard for human dignity and the dire needs of the population.

In essence, hence the problem is that of unpreparedness on the part of the political class to allow citizens to have voice, inputs, and direct and transparent participation in national development and in their own future.

The resultant situation was rightly described last November by IFPRI, which observed that in many Sub-Saharan African countries that have experienced historically rapid economic growth and notable social changes, by equal measures poverty, hunger and malnutrition have remained widespread problems.

Similarly, especially in the past five years Ethiopia has been placed amongst the world’s leading fastest growing economies, while on account of failed agricultural productivity growth, a disinterested assessment indicated that, since 2008 not as many people have benefitted from the country’growth, and thus millions have continued to eke out existence in conditions of extreme poverty.

Perhaps to dampen the building national frustrations, we saw how, in an environment of longstanding double-digit inflation, the Meles regime recently engaged in manipulation of the Iinterim Report on 2010-2011 Poverty Analysis and slick media performances to disguise that reality.

Whichever way the reality is massaged and truth is diced, the unavoidable fact is Ethiopia is a country, where hunger and poverty has been widespread. This reality has been ably captured by the data in the simple table below.

To the vast majority of the population, this situation has been unacceptable. People driven by deprivation have begun showing their growing impatience, even boldly taunting the usually intemperate Meles Zenawi’s regime, better known for its heavy-handedness. Under different guises popular reactions have begun spilling over into the social and political realms.

The evolving ferment, unorganized responses as they are, involve farmers in many parts of the country, urban dwellers, businesses, teachers & students & parents, Christians & Moslems, unemployed and disenfranchised youth, defendants of human rights and justice, etc.—each raising its own issues. They have become cells of the burgeoning tissues of dissidence against an autocratic state that has failed to deliver more than form and empty promises.

Crossing the brook to cross the Rubicon

In the hearts of my heart I would want to believe that Bill Gates sees the need and realizes the importance of Ethiopia improving its governance. Without that, it makes no sense to leave in place the very obstacles to human quests and abilities that statist polices have stifled to date to satisfy the needs of a few individuals to remain in power till the ‘Second Coming.’

Besides, the lesson that we have learned from hungry societies is that, politics is the number one impediment in beating hunger and diseases. Therefore, in that respect, intelligent as he is, the philanthropist must have also given some thoughts to his own preference to see Ethiopia becoming open and transparent, primarily for its own sakes, as would also contribute to involvement of private businesses—both national and international—to give impetus to change.

For him, therefore, his eyes on a peaceful world that he possibly thinks he should contribute to by building block-by-block first with the basics, this his way of ensuring the long-term peace and stability of countries such as Ethiopia.

If what I read into his thoughts are correct, he seems to be of the state of mind that, if this were not done now at lower cost in poorer countries, the alternative would be to allow the squalor of poverty to feed undercurrents of instability, leading to conflicts amongst poor countries, entailing needless bloodshed, regional unrests and instabilities with global implications. That is not the world a man consistently on the upper apex of the billionaire’s list wishes, and to whom philanthropy has become a vocation 24/7.

In Ethiopia’s case, nevertheless, the intricacies are immense. At this stage of the journey to cross the Rubicon seems to be starting with a struggle to cross the brook before the Rubicon. Certainly, crossing the Rubicon would require untying several knots down the road to get meaningful agricultural reforms to take root in Ethiopia.

The paramount outcome in that direction is empowering smallholders, setting them free from statist controls. It has already sucked too much blood and their meager resources as tributes, as proof of their trustworthiness for those in power.

If not, the consequences have been clear, including denial of their so-called, improved seeds and other inputs, which on many instances have not only failed to deliver increased yields. But also have been found to diminish production, as farmers in Amhara, Oromia and Tigrai have learnt the hard way and now some of them have shunned the use of those products with preference to bio products.

There is a need for serious action to remove these archaic forms of feudal domination. It seems, with a sense of awareness, a smile on his face and wry laughter, in the course of his response to a comment/question relating to the obstacles to Ethiopia’s agricultural productivity, Bill Gates noted “that is kind of their next chapter.”

He amplified that in the following manner:

Now they have some regulatory things that have made people come in and do those things a little harder than they should. And so that is kind of their next chapter—allowing private seed companies in a more open way, and letting me post processing, investors to come in a better way — a few examples where it has worked … It is a very exciting thing …
I have come to understand that the two persons — Gates & Zenawi — had spent ‘a couple of hours’ on 28 March 2012. They must have been haggling over the extent of the roll back Meles Zenawi would be willing to concede to give teeth to the agricultural reform measures. In the two minutes Bill Gates spoke on Ethiopia as his subject, he dropped the phrase “it is exciting” a couple of times.

(To be continued)

http://transformingethiopia.wordpress.com/

Meles Zenawi is a revengeful killer. He left Haile Selassie 1st University and went to dedebit to kill, and 17 years later, he came back to Addis Ababa to kill more. His brutality and his desire to kill don’t aggravate me anymore because unless I stop him, killing is what he does for living. What really aggravates me and makes me sick to my bones is that there are some sadist creatures who throw a house warming party every time Meles tortures their countrymen. To be more precise, there are fellow Ethiopians who enjoy and defend the abuse, torture, forced evacuation, and even the killing of their own brothers and sisters.

To me, this highlights the basic tension between the values of individual rights, personal freedom, social values and shared ownership of a country. I respect the freedom of all human beings including their choice of entertainment. But, I have a serious problem when fellow Ethiopians flamboyantly clap their hands when their own country men are told. . . “Get out, you don’t belong here”. We may have ideological or political differences, but I think we must look beyond our political differences or even beyond our emotional and visceral reaction when we see people being abused, tortured, or killed.

Most of the defenders of the TPLF regime, from the usually tanked-up professor Andreas Eshete to the rank and files here in the Diaspora, all of them are blind supporters of Zenawi’s actions with little or no regard to the consequences of the actions. It really annoys me that however big the fools in Menelik palace are, there are always bigger fools to appreciate them. The other annoying thing is that, almost all of the TPLF supporters don’t even bother to know what the issue at hand is – if the opposition or the Diaspora likes it, they hate it; or if the opposition/Diaspora hates it, they most likely like it. I guess, sometimes we should pretend to love what we actually hate so that these fools start hating it. After all, isn’t this what we call stupidity?
In the last three weeks, the forceful eviction of ethnic Amharas from southern Ethiopia, the displacement of 70K people in Afar, and the bulldozing of the nation’s sacred places have been hot button issues for Ethiopians inside and outside the country. But, by the idiots in the Menlik palace and by their blind supporters around the world, this headline news that troubled millions of Ethiopians is viewed as a simple publicity campaign. In Gambella, there is an army keeping the people of Gambella off their land. In Waldiba, federal security forces are beating monks and demolishing sacred lands. In Afar, there is a standoff between 70 thousand Afar farmers and a federal mechanized force. In Bench Maji, federal police is beating locals who protested the deportation of ethnic Amharas [who lived with them for decades]. Elsewhere in the country there is a constant battle between the criminal army of the TPLF regime and the people. Who is the regime in Ethiopia working for?

I do believe that, in general people are rational, but I must concede that sometimes it is possible for rational people to slip into a state of irrationality and do things they would never do under normal conditions. I would also expect that such abnormal behavior should fade away once the cause that triggered it diminishes. However, in the case of the TPLF supporters, it seems that abnormality is the norm to them. At the very least, the TPLF supporters are shameless bands of Zenawi’s foot soldiers who continually humiliate themselves and their nation. Most of them have a different version of their country’s reality, a reality so distorted and twisted by their masters. The weirdest thing of all is that, how disturbing it is, Zenawi’s supporters tend to believe his lies as the truth [most of the time knowing it is a lie]. Here are two excerpts from an article on aigaforum titled “Propaganda vs. Fact”. I urge the reader to carefully read these excerpts and realize how inconsistent these fools are even when they lie (to read the full article Click Here)

“The regional government of the Southern Nation and Nationalities is trying to regulate and control the rampant expansion on of clearing forest by new comers from all parts of Ethiopia including from its own Kilil. The official told us many people from highland Ethiopia including Amhara, Oromia, Tigrai and even Sidama and Gurage zone has moved in to farm in the affected area. Note: Those few affected are not of any particular ethnic! They come in all colors so to speak”
“People who have been farming there for long are not asked to leave. In fact there is more land to farm in the region and more will be given with proper guidance and fair allocation. There is no shortage of farm area”

Mind you, the article was written to justify the most recent crime of Meles Zenawi on the Amhara people. But, thanks to the retarded writer, the article ended up exposing the despicable crime of the ethnic minority regime. Albert Einstein, father of the theory of relativity and arguably the most famous scientist of the 20th century once said: “Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the universe” As stupid as the TPLF regime and its surrogates are, if Einstein was alive today, I’ve no doubt that he would have concluded the above quote with absolute certainty.

Let’s have a closer look at the first of the above two excerpts which according to the writer is fact # one. There are two ill-assorted sentences in the first paragraph alone [even by the TPLF standard]. In the first sentence of the first paragraph, there is a part that says new comers from all parts of the country are engaged in massive deforestation. While the second sentence in the same paragraph implies that highlanders from Amhara, Oromia, Tigray, Sidama and Gurage zones have moved to the affected area through the years; and those who are evicted out are not just the Amharas, but the Oromos, the Gurages, the Sidamas and the Tigreans.

Let me be as stupid as the writer is [at least for a moment] and believe everything he said, but where are the deportees from Tigray and Oromia ? Are they invisible? Is aigaforum trying to tell us that Shiferaw Shigute is still the governor of SNNP, or still at large after writing eviction letter to Tigrean settlers in South Ethiopia? Is this a joke aiga? If it is, please add at least a drop of Ethiopian humor in it. The sanitized version of this sad story states that the order to deport the Amharas from South Ethiopia was issued by the governor of the SNNP [Shiferaw Shigute], but the whole world knows that this is the work of none other than Meles Zenawi who left Haile Selassie 1st University to take out his long time hate towards the Amhara people. I’ve a copy of Shiferaw Shigute’s eviction letter written to the Bench Maji Administration office. The letter clearly states that people who are implicated by the order are people who came from the northern part of the country with specific reference to the Amhara people. Who is the liar here? Is it Aigaforum, Shiferaw Shigute, or Meles Zenawi? Well, it is each and all. Here as one can clearly see, aigaforum is wagging its tail like a puppy to cover the lies of its master Meles Zenawi and his loyal slave Shiferaw Shigute. But, aiga ends up ridiculing itself by lying a lie that makes even the devil feel a little embarrassed.

The second excerpt stated in the article as a note to the 3rd fact reads as follows: “People who have been farming there for long are not asked to leave. In fact there is more land to farm in the region and more will be given with proper guidance and fair allocation. There is no shortage of farm area” I’m sure no one knows the meaning of this oxymoron sentence except the morons of aigaforum. Sometimes I really wonder what kind of country I have and what kind of leaders my country has. Haile Mariam Desalegn goes to India and tells the Indians that Ethiopia has unlimited supply farm land. Meles Zenawi evicts domestic farmers and sells the land to foreign farmers. Aigaforum tells us SNNP has no shortage of farm land, but yet Sheferaw Shigute forcefully evicts out tens of thousands of Amhara farmers from SNNP. Look Mr. shameless editor of aigaforum, you told us that there is no shortage of farm land, and you also told us that more land will be given with proper guidance and fair allocation. Does your version of proper guidance and fair allocation include the 22 thousand ethnic Amharas who are ordered to live the Bench Maji zone? Does it? If what you said is right, why can’t the Bench Maji zone government resettle the deported Amharas from the areas off-limit to settlement to areas where there is no shortage of farm land [ instead of evicting them and treating them like animals]? Mr. Editor, you seem to be a kind of person who happily lives with shame and guilt. Well, that is your prerogative, but please when you cover the mistake of your masters in Addis Ababa, at least do a good job that gives you a bang for the buck.
One of the most disgusting moments in Zenawi’s month old eviction drama is Shiferaw Shigute’s insensitivity to people’s felling and his quick change of color like a chameleon. Mr. Shiferaw let me ask you – are you a governor as your title suggests, a robot as your action depicts, or are you an idiot as your attitude portrays you?
Your master ordered you to deport ethnic Amaharas from your jurisdiction – you happily took the order and deported 22K Ethiopians. Idiocy #1

As the deportation gets too much national and international attention, your master tells you to blame the AEUP- you happily took the order and blamed AEUP. Idiocy #2
You used two of Zenawi’s mouthpieces [Civility paltalk room and aigaforum] to deny the very action you took. Idiocy #3 I can keep on saying, but once an idiot. . . always idiot.

Mr. Shigute how long do you betray your own people? How many times do you lie to yourself and to the people you supposedly claim to lead? In one of your public speeches on ETV, I heard you saying that you are first a Sidama and then and only then an Ethiopian. Good for you Mr. Shiferaw. I have no problem with that as long as we both are Ethiopians. But, how can you be a Sidama before you are Shiferaw; or don’t you think you should first be the individual “Shiferaw” before you are a Sidama? Look Mr. Shiferaw, your real problem is that you are putting the cart before the horse, or letting the tail wag the dog. If you didn’t get it, you are the ‘dog’ and Meles is the “tail”. I’m not sure how old you are, but I’m pretty sure you did not live as “Sheferaw” the last 21 years. My dear fellow country man, you’re possessed by Meles, and it’s funny that it seems your last name “Shigute” is given to you by Meles. He pulls the trigger you scream.

Mr. Shigute, do you know that farmers form Amhara, Sidama, Wolaita, or Kafficho have similar interests and wishes regardless of their ethnic background? Do you know that north, south, east or west, we are all Ethiopians and we live in the context of each other? Do you know that we are diverse and yet one and many and yet indivisible? Do you really know this? May be you don’t and this alone explains your hollowness.

For the rest of us, this must be the final wake-up call. Meles and his gangs are in a rush to obliterate the spirit of “Ethiopiawinet” that they have been pounding ever since they set their dirty foot in our nation’s capital. Meles Zenawi has time and again displayed his hate towards Ethiopia and Ethiopians, but what he’s done the last couple of weeks is just beyond the pale. Deporting innocent Amharas from their land and telling them to go to their own zone is a national tragedy that has shocked our nation to its very core and left most of us trying to understand why and how this awful act of state sponsored terrorism took place in our country.

I wonder what satisfaction a human soul gets when traditions, beliefs, and artifacts are demolished for commercial purposes. I wonder what drives a patriarch who is responsible for the continuity of the church to bond with an evil force that flattens the very foundation of the church. I wonder how fellow Ethiopian can sleep in peace when his written orders make thousands of mothers and children sleepless drifters. For how long do we allow the physical and psychological suffering of our mothers and fathers? How long do we let a mother cry because her son is tortured? How long do we watch a woman cry because her husband is mutilated? How do we let a child cry because it’s orphaned? How long should an Amahara boy worry because he is born to Amhara parents? How long should a young Oromo choose between servitude and prison? How long should a farmer from Afar choose between giving-up his ancestral land and his life? How long do we see our sisters go to the Middle East and commit suicide? How long does a nation tolerate when the physical and mental abuse of an ethnic psychopath crashes a nine month dream of an expecting mother? Oh Ethiopia for how long? … How long?

ebini23@yahoo.com

In the East our low lands are as fierce as the warriors they give birth to. There is no place lower than Afar depression on mother Earth. Loo and behold today it is considered the birthplace of the Human race. It is here mankind is thought to have become bipedal.

The West is where the mighty Nile flows with our water and soil to nurture that other civilization in the land of the Pharos and the great pyramids. It is also home to the famous tropical forests of Gambella and every animal life one can think of. With its lush landscape and colorful people this is where man feels one with nature.

The South is where God took his sweet time to create paradise. Who would deny that after visiting the Rift Valley? The lakes of Langano, Shala and Hawasa, the caves of Wolayeta, the natural splendor of Arba Minch, the hot springs of Wondo Genet make a grownup cry with joy. Our creator blessed us with beauty and wealth when he made our home.

The South is also where God’s curse has befallen us for all our sins. He sent us Meles Zenawi to teach us the price of vanity. I am really sorry to write in such a way in this week of Easter. But truth has to be told. Meles Zenawi is a curse on the land of the Habeshas. Such venomous hate one might say. I believe I am entitled to that. For twenty years the regime has rained death and destruction on our land and people. I am not imaging it. All what I say is verifiable fact and recorded history. Spare me your tolerance and indignation please. You wouldn’t think that if you stand in the shoes of the discarded and displaced.

You see my friend our TPLF leaders grew up isolated and alone in their little hamlets up north. There was no diversity. To Adwa and vicinity as Gertrude Stein will say ‘there is no there, there.’ That is why when they conquered our country they did not know what to do with the South. The diversity confounded our warriors. They know that they hated the Amhara, they loathed the Oromo, they were not really concerned about the Afar, the Gambellan, or the Somali but the South was a foreign land to our northern warriors. That is why when they created the Bantustans they lumped all the Southerners into one big bowl and named it ‘Southern Nations, Nationalities and People’s Region.’ What a defangled name is what comes to mind when you hear this twisted designation.

The South is where TPLF asserted total control unlike in the other Bantustans. The South is where Meles Zenawi exercises his renowned divide and rule principles as an art. TPLF arrived with ready-made political Parties for every Bantustan they created. Local faces were chosen from the prisoners of war they have acquired during their struggle. The puppets were already versed in accepting their TPLF masters as the final word on any and all issues. Thus all the local boys were assigned a baby sitter or a minder from Adwa. The South has Abate Kisho a Sidama with Bitew Belay as the real power. Corporal Kuma Demeksa of Oromia was taken under the wing of Solomon Tsimo and Hilawi Yesuf lorded it over Addisu Legesse in the Amhara Bantustan.

Abate Kisho was a simple sports teacher from the town of Leku near Yirgalem. He was not at all ready for prime time and it showed. He even has the audacity to side with one faction over the other during the TPLF drama. It was pathetic to see Meles haul his ass to jail with some trumped up charge. The current Foreign Minster replaced him as the new toy. By 2001 the Sidama people were becoming hip to this patronizing practice and demanded a certain amount of autonomy or self-administration as granted by the Constitution. Meles replied with tough love and sent his Agazi forces to teach them a lesson. Even the US State Department noted this wanton murder of unarmed protesters in Hawasa. Melese Marimo the vice president and perpetrator of this crime was rewarded for his ordering of the massacre by being sent to South Africa as an Ambassador, of course with the First Secretary a TPLF cadre in charge. That is the normal operating procedure in all the Embassies.

The issue percolated and during the election of 2005 the Southerners answered by siding with CUD (Kinijit) and were able to trounce the regime’s candidates. In 2006 Meles convened a meeting in Hawasa and was able to mollify the locals with some bizarre actions. The renaming of ‘Southern University’ to ‘Hawasa University’ was seen as a triumph of Sidama assertiveness. The current puppet Shiferaw Shigute was crowned as the new face of Southern independence. Abate Kisho was released from Federal prison and sent back home poor but alive and a good symbol of what could happen when natives fill their head with funny notion of being equal.

Of course the raping and pillage of the south continued unabated. There was no stone left unturned to cultivate animosity between the different tribes and keep them at each others throat. The Sidamas were made to compete with the Wolaitas, the Siltes were divorced from the Gurages, and the Konsos were made to envy the Derasas etc. etc. The cadres encouraged turmoil and civil war. As in the rest of our country Southern Ethiopia was full of drama with the TPLF active in every village fanning the hate flame.

Ethiopianess was discouraged while allegiance to tribe was glorified. Meles and company have done their homework in how to create havoc on our country while in their caves. They did not dream of building hospitals, schools or factories but were busy drawing maps, creating language barriers and perfecting the Kilil concept. The South was their dream come true. Our common language was their first casualty. It was deemed inappropriate. Trained teachers were sent away to their respective Bantustans and the English alphabet became the language of the schools in Sidama. Without adequate preparation, without trained teachers, without books available the Southern children were left to fend for themselves. It was sad to witness a simple application that has to be written in one language to be translated to another when it reaches Hawasa the capital city. The South was made unable to communicate within its own Bantustan. It was a crime. The TPLF party was the orchestrator of such tragedy.

Shiferaw Shigute is the Frankenstein monster Meles created. He is the son of Meles Zenawi. Like his parent he is devoid of empathy and proud of his betrayal of his people. Look at him closely and you will see Meles – indifferent, arrogant and know it all. From his expensive Savile raw suit with matching ties to his air of superiority he is the kind that makes his maker proud. When his own Party found him guilty of abuse of power and voted to oust him, our fearless step child thumbed his nose at the assembly and said “I did not do this alone, we shared the money with the wife of the Prime Minister, Mrs. Azeb Mesfin. If we are going to be accountable, we should both judged by the law. If we have to return the Birr, we both have to return it” and stormed out of the meeting. His stepfather reversed the decision of the assembly. Like father like son! It is Shiferaw Shigute practicing ethnic cleansing today or rather it is Meles Zenawi using his toy boy that is displacing our people. It is the concept of Kilil coming home to roost.

Why am I going thru all this recounting our ugly history is a valid question? It is because the past is important to avoid making the same mistakes again. We learn so we don’t repeat that which has not worked. I am not obsessing about the things that we cannot control but rather I am hoping we learn from it so we can focus on tomorrow where we have the power to build a better Ethiopia. The do’s and don’ts of today are based on the lesson from the success and failures of yesterday.

Thus we learn from human history to see what works and what to avoid. The quest for liberation and a building a better Ethiopia for all will be accomplished if based on that principle. Each and every one of us is the building stone for it to succeed. Some folks were upset because I criticized a few physicians for their enabling activity regarding building a ‘referral hospital’ in our country. People feel upset when asked to boycott Ethiopian Airlines or avoid drinking Woyane beer. We advocate such action not out of hate but precisely because such form of ‘peaceful resistance’ have proven to work. There was a time when the West led by Britain and the US tried to justify their investment in South Africa by claiming they were creating jobs for the poor African masses. It was not true. They were realizing huge profit from slave labor.
What did Black South African say about that? Steven Biko, the charismatic young leader wrote ‘those who professed to worry over Blacks suffering if the economy deteriorated had missed the point. We’re already suffering’ He often reminded us ‘those who live in constant fear of being shot, beaten, or detained without charge, for those whose children already live in abject poverty and near starvation, an economic downturn is not the major area of concern.’ Nobel Laureate Albert Lutuli, president of the African National Congress in one of his speeches said
“The economic boycott of South Africa will entail undoubted hardship for African. We do not doubt that. But if it is a method which shortens the day of bloodshed, the suffering to us will be a price we are willing to pay.”
We are not saying anything different. Your investment in Meles’s land scheme, your patronizing Meles’s Airlines, your partying in Alamudi’s hotels, your support of the so-called hospital is hurting our people. No need to qualify it with good and bad investment, it all goes to the same pot.
As some of us are preparing to celebrate Easter let us not forget what it really means. Easter is Jesus Christ’s victory over death. It is a time of renewal and rebirth. Let us work for the rebirth of our glorious history. Let us resurrect the spirit of our forefathers that stood united and were able to hand us a proud history. Our love for each other our tolerance of the little imperfections in each of us is what our country needs in this time of hopelessness and apathy. Happy Easter.

Resources used:

http://www.ethiomedia.com/courier/awassa_tplf_drama.html

http://www.ethioinfo.org/2012/02/shiferaw-shigute-implicates-pms-wife-in.html

http://www.sidamanational-liberation.org/documents/06meles.pdf

http://www.state.gov/j/drl/rls/hrrpt/2004/41603.htm

Article 39 of the constitution is mask for instituting discriminatory rule, not to respect the right of nationalities as they claimed. It is exclusionary and path for regime greed in reaping the country’s wealth. It is inevitable fully fledged uprising by the Ethiopian people to remove them from power will come. The diaspora efforts to expose TPLF’s atrocities has not brought to substantial stage. I would say due to lack of money to hire lobbyist to work with US politician, probably I might include the absence of strong political or civic organizations. We also know that if we unite and speak in one voice to channel our efforts will be effective rather than voicing separately. There is plenty of rooms for all opposition parties to work together to get resounding support from civic organization and individuals. There are also plenty of actions individuals could take by their own to mitigate TPLF’s attack. For example, as individuals we should not allow continuing to bicker over every petty difference, working as unity is a no brainer to each of us. To cite a further example an individual should “to STOP doing business with Woyanne-affiliated businesses that fuel its machinery of repression.” as suggested on Ethiopia Review website. The Western countries political leaders that provide support to this repressive regime will pay attention as we stepped up our advocacy effort in every corner. The fall of brutal dictator in Egypt that enjoyed support from Western countries for decades is one example. After all who imagined this dictator would outset within few weeks. This is our inspiration and strengthens the movement for change.

The last twenty one year’s systematic ethnic cleansing, in wide spread torture of political prisoners, crime against humanity, etc. are documented by Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. Also, in one of the foreign observer group publication, The International Crisis Group states in 9/4/09 “Without genuine multi-party democracy, the tensions and pressures in Ethiopia’s polities will only grow, greatly increasing the possibility of a violent eruption that would destabilize the country and region.” It does not matter how much Meles’ political manipulation played to cover up his autocratic rule to foreign affairs. His regime’s crimes are abundantly clear and well documented. Any ordinary person living inside or outside the country can describe the TPLF’s crimes one-by-one account of their bad deeds. It is evident that there is no freedom of speech, press or protest. The independent journalists, opposition leaders and supporters are prisoned , harassed or killed, internet sites are blocked, now ethnic cleansing in full swing.

Given these facts, we diaspora should not allow ourselves to be overwhelmed by petty difference; we should focus on our primary people’s enemy number one, TPLF rule. A lot of people who might show little interest in politics at the outset but if the activists build real momentum by informing TPLF crimes they respond with full support. It might take a while debating to agree to some of the issues, eventually the deeper issues such as ethnic cleansing, democratic rules etc. is already resonate in all of us. The regime is surviving by brutal force. Of one thing we can be sure is that the TPLF’s dark story and cruelty will be placed in its own coffin as seen in past Ethiopia or world history.

The TPLF regime did indeed function silently and succeeded the past several years with deception as weapon and self-aggrandizing propaganda. Of course, Meles is a ring leader, he out maneuvered all “rivals” within his own party and emerged as one of the worst dictator in Africa. The rest of the party members are even aware of the existence of their own constitution, let alone of the meaning basic law. They are happy getting the daily crumbs and guresha. Meles is who always has the final word in all matters. He is busy inventing new ways to continue his dictatorial rule. He is in power not based on some type of ideological convection but with systematic bribery to their cronies, silent killing whoever is on his way. But in the end, he or supporters to bear responsibility for the crime they have done against the peace loving people and large scale corruption. Although the opposition group inside the country are exhausted all the democratic avenues, the diaspora can should continue intensifying robust propaganda campaign in exposing their bad deeds.

Our aim is concrete with twofold. The first to work to a coalition of Ethiopiawnet that would gather us all under one banner as seen on 2005 (GC) historical election year. The second is to support the domestic and aboard opposition political groups, and to continue to be mouth piece of democratic rule, exposing on free media on the large scale corruption, land grab, the looting and stashing millions dollars in foreign bank, torture, unlawful killing, a trend of ethnic cleansing etc. with increased involvement and repeated demand democracy for Ethiopia inevitably will bring a change. The apparently Western countries lesser role shall not discourage us. As our robust propaganda reach to the ordinary western people the question of ethical dilemmas and to stand on higher moral will prevail.

Interview with Konjit Berhane part 2 from Abugida Info on Vimeo.

The late Maitre Artiste World Laureate Afewerk Tekle was born on October 22, 1932 in the historic city of Ankober in Shoa Province, Ethiopia, according to the artist’s official web portal.

Sent to England in 1947 to become a mining engineer, Afewerk’s artistic talent was soon perceived. He was accepted at the Central School of Arts and Crafts in London and later went to the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of London, the famous “Slade”. While studying in England he made several artistic pilgrimages to Europe. On the completion of his studies he returned to Addis Ababa where he held a one-man exhibition at the Municipality Hall in 1954. It was the first significant art exhibition of post-war Ethiopia.

Soon after his exhibition he left Ethiopia for a study tour in Italy, France, Spain, Portugal and Greece. In addition to these countries, he carried out various studies in England. He also made a special study of the Ethiopian illustrated manuscripts in the British Library, the Biblioth?que Nationale in Paris and the Vatican Library, thereby gaining a deeper knowledge of his own artistic heritage.

After two years of this extensive study, Afewerk, by now a well–equipped artist, returned with full confidence to his native land, to tackle the task ahead.
On his arrival in Ethiopia, Afewerk opened his studio in the National Library of Ethiopia. Soon afterwards he was given his first challenging commission by the Ethiopian Government: The decoration of St. George’s Cathedral, one of the capital’s two most important religious edifices, where he worked on murals and mosaics for three and a half years.

Afewerk also designed his own house, studio and gallery, known as Villa “Alpha”. He was architecturally inspired by his own cultural heritage, especially by ancient Aksum, the mediaeval castles of Gondar and the old walled city of Harrar.

His paintings included titles such as “Backbones of African Civilization”, “African Movement”, “African Atmosphere” and “African Unity”, and for Expo 67 in Montreal, Canada, “Africa’s Heritage” which are now in the permanent collection of the National Museum of Ethiopia. After many studies he produced over ten designs for an African Unity emblem and flag. Afewerk’s internationally famous stained-glass windows confronting the visitor in the entrance of Africa Hall, the headquarters of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, is one of his greatest achievements.

In 1964 he became the first winner of the Haile Sellassie I Prize for Fine Arts. The citation described him as a “versatile and disciplined artist”. And the prize was awarded “for his outstanding drawings, paintings, landscapes, and portraits which eloquently express his particular world environment, and for his contribution in being among the first to introduce contemporary techniques to Ethiopian subject matter and content.”

He recently participated in an exhibition held at the Sheraton Addis with other renowned artists.

source:http://www.capitalethiopia.com

Mind you this is a regime that got more than 30 billion dollar in the last two decades and stashed more than 11 billion dollar out of country. World Bank is feeding not only Ethiopians but Meles Zenawi’s Mafia to fatten itself. I will not be surprised if some foreigners who are closely working with this regime have also benefited from the looted money. The West is feeding Ethiopia while contracting Meles to fight their war in Somalia. It gives sense for them because it will be expensive otherwise from the cost of war in Afghanistan and Iraq as of now which is more than one trillion dollar and tens of thousands of lives

The Aid Republic of Meles is selling Ethiopian farmland more than 3 million hectare to India, Saudi Arabia and others by placing its killing machine for protection of foreign landlords. The people of Gambella, Afar are revolting and will not allow anyone to exploit their land to enrich themselves and regime cadres. Extrajudicial killing is underway in Gambella to terrorize the people to submit to foreign landlords. Karuturi and Saudi Star major landlords in Ethiopia are now public enemies because the regime is shading our people blood to protect them.

The Aid Republic of Ethiopia is a “Money Republic” for foreign landlords while Ethiopians are stateless in their own country. More than 20,000 Ethiopians right now are ethnically cleansed from Gura Ferda South Ethiopia from their productive farmland and dumped to Addis Ababa to clear the land for foreign/regime connected investors. World Bank has a job to feed these families if they are serious on welfare job they are engaged in Ethiopia.

Ethiopia is a country of abundant land,water and hard working people like the ethnically cleansed farmers from Gura Ferda. Ethiopians will feed themselves and do not need any food aid from West. All foreign landlords and foreign experts like World Bank are prescribing what is good for their own. Foreign landlords and so called experts of World Bank are part of a problem not solutions for a country like Ethiopia to feed itself.

Ethiopia’s inability to feed itself is a product of corrupt unpatriotic regime that is on power for more than two decades now. China and India became self sufficient in food during this period of time. It is not acceptable to keep Ethiopians on food aid forever. No to Aid Republic of Ethiopia financed by the World Bank, No to foreign landlords who are buying our land to feed their own people !!!!

It should not come as surprise that, during a presentation on 4 April 2012 at Stanford University, California, in response to a questioner’s concern about Ethiopian productivity and the various policy bottlenecks and poverty-related problems, Bill Gates explained, “Ethiopia is a very interesting case, because it has more food insecure people who need food aid than any country in the world.”

This is the kind of truism that annoys Prime Minister Meles Zenawi. We now know that the task of ‘overhauling Ethiopian agriculture’, which has been taking place with utmost secrecy is now becoming public knowledge. For instance, following the meeting Meles Zenawi had with USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah on April 5, 2012, the Ethiopian News Agency, quoting a foreign ministry official for the first time reported that the two “discussed as to how overhaul the agriculture system in Ethiopia.”

That article should be honored for cryptically signaling a watershed in Ethiopian agriculture, which I would not dare to call it a new beginning.

In fact, the deal was done with Bill Gates on 28 March, after “a couple of hours” of haggling in his first trip to Ethiopia. It appears that he has won a few concessions and leaving the rest for future contacts, which he described as “another chapter”, during his presentation. This page would discuss it in a forthcoming article.

Ethiopia is still a country of several million people that are in dire need of assistance — possibly for a long time to come — just to be alive. It is unlikely we have learnt as a nation that either denying altogether the existence of widespread hunger in the country or covering it up even in the early phases of harsh droughts, as some human lives and substantial livestock perish, helps. The way forward is greater openness and transparency and facing the problem head on.

We are staring at a very serious problem in Ethiopia. The reason — Bill Gates says, “Their agriculture is not working…they had messed up in terms of fertilizer distribution, farmer education, not using the latest varieties of the crops.”

He is optimistic though that the project he now is helping through the Agricultural Transformation Agency (ATA), the Gates Foundation recommended its creation to Meles Zenawi and is accepted. In hoping against hope, one should expect that Gates the entrepreneur and the philanthropist would make important achievements. However, Ethiopians may not expect much out of it, as Mr. Gates seems to want and believe. Removal of the obstacles in fornt of his project and the scientific community calls for tackling the Ethiopian developmental problem in a holistic manner.

Productive Safety Net Project (PSNP)

In the meantime, the task of saving lives must be left to others. For six years now, the problem of killer hunger in Ethiopia has officially been contained, not by the productive capacity of Ethiopia’s economy but by international food aid, euphemistically called Productive Safety Net Program (PSNP). Even at this very moment, according to reports filtering out of the country, in some remote corners people are dying of hunger, the situation worsening because of the terrible food shortages resulting from the last drought and the longstanding double-digit food inflation that has made food inaccessible.

The magnitude of the problem seems to be in line with recent conclusion by the International Food Policy Institute (IFPRI), which acknowledges, “Ethiopia’s government safety net program, for example, reaches 8 million people [under normal times] but covers only about 25 percent of the country’s poor.”

There is no doubt that the PSNP has helped save several million lives, ranging from 7.5 million people under normal times, to higher ups by several millions. Nevertheless, the project has a number of problems, especially about the graduation criteria of beneficiaries. The World Bank blames the government; government blames donors. Most of all, a few experts in the World Bank have doubts, and rightly so, that the success of the project is dependent on a poorly constructed tool of assessing graduating beneficiaries.

Moreover, its role should not be confused with other development activities/initiatives, since that is not PSNP’s role. The PSNP is only another means of keeping alive the millions of people it has been supporting since 2005. It is a fact that only a small number of beneficiaries get to successfully graduate from that program, some thousands, not to speak of returnees into the program.

Therefore, if there is genuine interest in changing this situation, I mean in the interests of the beneficiaries, the World Bank and its patrons must look beyond the mere handing out food aid and small amounts of cash. These activities must be calibrated, in the interest of the beneficiaries, to facilitate their graduation — judging their situation with appropriate yardsticks. this would help them stand on their two feet and become self-supporting and self-sustaining productive citizens.

The existing measures are not efficient, as even the press release, announcing the approval of a credit of $370 million toward the beneficiaries, seems to belabor. It is announced therein that the beneficiaries number would reach 8.3 million by 2015. In addition to the other problems discussed above, the number of beneficiaries is simply dubious. How did they get to that number, why not even possibly on the upper or lower end.

In such a press release, the Bank speaks to the people around the world. But I regret to say it acts, as if it does not take into account, if at all, the evaluation reports written about its work, especially regarding the very subject we are discussing. If it continues to do this, it would hurt its own credibility, giving the impression that it is behaving like some propaganda addicted governments.

In this regard, I should point out that the evaluation report is generous in rating the Bank’s performance as SATISFACTORY, and the government’s MODERATELY SATISFACTORY.

I am referring here to the evaluation report by the Independent Evaluation Group and the recommendations thereon. For instance, in its June 2011 report entitled, ROJECT PERFORMANCE ASSESSMENT REPORT: PRODUCTIVE SAFETY NET PROJECT (CR. 4004, IDA Grant H136, TF056013), it highlighted the problems around PSNP and recommended further work in respect of the management and how the project should be reformulated to serve the interests of the beneficiaries’ successful graduation from PSNP, instead of keeping them dependent on aid or pushing them out–fore prestige sake–before they are equipped to face life with their own means.

Here is one of the problems the evaluation group has identified:

Despite widespread public, government and donor support for the PSNP (including financial resourcing until 2015) and the many improvements made, there remain significant risks to the program.

First, claims that political affiliations influence access to the PSNP continue, despite the Bank putting numerous safeguards in place, including monitoring systems and independent evaluations.

Second, Ethiopia has the ninth fastest growing population in the world with an annual increase of more than three percent. Given the importance attached to graduation from the PSNP (i.e. raising household income such that it is no longer food insecure) and reversing the trend in chronic food insecurity, population growth is likely to undermine progress towards achieving the very ambitious goals of the PSNP and may undermine government and donor support for the program.

Third, donor willingness to fund the PSNP is partly influenced by government performance on governance and democracy and this remains a significant risk to development outcomes in the PSNP.

Finally, government commitment to the PSNP was (and continues to be) dependent on unrealistic graduation objectives that involve highly ambitious objectives of reducing food insecurity.

Press here to read the full press release issued by the World Bank

*This article is reissued after correcting some errors in the original relating to some financial data and related editorial reasons. Our apologies for that!

http://transformingethiopia.wordpress.com/

Forced removal of populations (under different designations

“resettlement”,”villagisation”, “displacement”, etc.) has a sinister and ugly history in Ethiopia. In the past few years, Zenawi’s regime has undertaken a massive program of “villagization” (permanent removal of local populations from ancestral lands) in the Gambella region in Western Ethiopia to make way for the Indian agrobuiness multinational Karuturi and other “investors”. Zenawi’s top agriculture official said “there is no movement of population” in Gambella. But that is contradicted by a UNICEF field study which concluded:

The deracination [uprooting from ancestral lands] of indigenous people that is evident in rural areas of Gambella is extreme. It is very likely that Anuak (and possibly other indigenous minorities) culture will completely disappear in the not-so-distant future. Cultural survival, autonomy, rights of self-determination and self-governance are all legitimate issues for these indigenous groups, and these are all enshrined by international covenants and United Nations bodies – but all are meaningless in Gambella today.

The military junta (Derg) that ruled Ethiopia from the mid-1970s until 1991 used “resettlement” as a political and tactical counter-insurgency weapon. The Derg “resettled” populations in rebel-controlled areas in the north of the country to create military buffer zones and to deny the insurgents local support. At the onset of the 1984 famine, the Derg initiated a resettlement program for 1.5 million people from insurgent-controlled and drought-affected northern regions to the south and southwest of the country. The Derg claimed the people were relocating voluntarily. Tens of thousands of people died in that resettlement program from illness and starvation. Families were separated as people fled the ill-equipped and ill-managed resettlement centers.

Ironically, the northern insurgents, who have now wielded power in Ethiopia for the past 21 years, condemned the Derg and characterized the “resettlement” centers as “concentration” camps. In 2012, the very leaders who fought against such inhuman practices have become the chief architects and engineers of a new and systematic program of forced resettlement and transfer of population in Ethiopia. It seems history repeats itself over and over again in Ethiopia. But for the record, “deportation or forcible transfer of population”, (defined as “forced displacement by expulsion or other coercive acts from the area in which they are lawfully present, without grounds without grounds permitted under international law”) is one of the specified crimes against humanity under the Article 7(d) of the Rome Statute.

Kililistans and Bantustans

For the past two decades, Zenawi has been repackaging an atavistic style of tribal politics in a fancy wrapper called “ethnic federalism.” He has managed to segregate the Ethiopian people by ethno-tribal classifications and corralled them like cattle into grotesque regional political units called “kilils” (literally means “reservation”; semantically, the word also suggests the notion of an exclusion zone, an enclave). “Kilil” is basically a kinder-and-gentler form of Apartheid-style Bantustans (“black African tribal homelands”). The ideology of “kililism” shares many of the attributes of Apartheid’s “Bantustanism”. Both ideologies aim to concentrate members of designated ethnic groups into “homelands” by creating ethnically homogenous territories which could ultimately morph into “autonomous” nation states. Zenawi made sure to insert Article 39 in the Ethiopian Constitution which provides: “Every nation, nationality or people in Ethiopia shall have the unrestricted right to self-determination up to secession.” In other words, the “kilils” could secede and become sovereign nations, which was precisely the ultimate aim of the Bantustans.

But there are many other similarities. One of the major policy aims of “Bantustanization” was to make South Africa’s blacks nationals of the homelands instead of the nation of South Africa. By politically disempowering them and diminishing their national citizenship and human rights to travel freely and establish residence in any part of the country, Bantustanization effectively atomized black African communities. The forced removal of disapproved ethnic groups from the southern part of Ethiopia accomplishes the same purpose. “Bantustanization” was based on forced relocation of the black African population from different parts of South Africa to the “homelands”. It aimed at eventually accommodating every black person in South Africa into one of the 10 “homelands”. Kililism has effectively achieved that objective by corralling Ethiopians in 9 “regional states” (kililistans) organized exclusively on the basis of ethnicity. “Bantustanization” was used strategically to prevent alliances between the various African ethnic groups. It was an effective tool of the Apartheid government’s policy of divide and rule to cling to power. “Kililism” serves the same purpose in Ethiopia today to the point where a handful of individuals exercise absolute power . According to the International Crises Group, (a research organization that gives advice to the United Nations, European Union and World Bank):

Once close to their rural Tigrayan constituency, the TPLF and the EPRDF top leaderships now largely operate in seclusion from the general public. This has led to a situation in which an increasingly smaller number of politicians – the TPLF executive committee and the prime minister’s immediate advisers – decide the political fate of the country.

Playing the Ethnic Card to Divide and Misrule

My basic belief is that tyranny, despotism and dictatorship thrive and flourish when the people are disunited and fragmented particularly along ethnic lines and the tyrants and their supporters maintain their ironclad unity. Ethnicity in Ethiopia, as in other parts of Africa, is a source of division, weakness, conflict and violence. Unity is a source of strength, harmony, peace and reconciliation. African dictators have used ethnicity as a powerful weapon to divide and rule.

In October 2011, I wrote a weekly commentary about the “ultimate weapon found in the arsenal of tyrants and despots– divide and misrule”:

For the past two decades, the maxim of those who have riveted themselves to the platform of power in Ethiopia has been: “We, the rulers of the people, in order to form a more perfect disunion…” They have put to use the ultimate weapon found in the arsenal of tyranny and despotism. They have divided and misruled, divided and subjugated, and divided and parceled away the land in bits, pieces and chunks. They have managed to systematically divide the people by region, city, town and even neighborhood. They have succeeded in dividing the people by corralling them into homelands (Bantustans) in the name of “ethnic federalism”. They have sought to divide the people by language and religion, and even rupture the bonds of affection between Ethiopians living in the country and those in the Diaspora.

This past January I wrote a commentary encouraging all Ethiopians to unite around a common purpose and destiny and celebrate the very idea of unity among peoples of a nation and warned of the dire consequences of failing to bridge the artificially manufactured ethnic divide: “A nation divided by race, tribe and ethnicity is doomed to poverty, ignorance and strife. I have always marveled at the majestic opening phrases in the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution: “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a perfect Union…”

Overcoming Identity Politics in the Transition to Democracy

In the transition from dictatorship to democracy, one of the greatest challenges Ethiopians will face is the problem of identity politics at the ideological level and “kililism” at the structural and constitutional levels. One could surmise that the current political rationale for “kililism” could create a chaotic, if temporary, situation in the transition to democracy and potentially impair much needed efforts to create national unity, preserve the country’s territorial integrity and guarantee its political sovereignty. The challenge, in my view, is how to transform the politics of identity and ethnicity into a dialogue over strengthening national unity and furthering the common cause of our humanity through cooperation, accommodation and reconciliation (while avoiding the path to conflict and violence).

The threshold issue for me is whether it is productive to play Zenawi’s “ethnic card” game. He has used it as an effective tool to justify his one-man, one-party divide and misrule. He has used the “ethnic card” to anger and distract his opponents and divert public attention from the desperate economic situation in the country (“a recent report by the Addis Ababa-based research group Access Capital SC stated, ‘Ethiopia had the second-highest inflation rate in the world last year, when it peaked at 40.6 percent’”). It is best to leave the ethnic polarization game to Zenawi and focus on ethnic reconciliation, cooperation and collaboration.

There is much social scientific literature to suggest that “identities are constructed and can be deconstructed and reconstructed anew”. In other words, ethnic identity like other forms of identity is malleable. It can be transformed over time by processes of immigration, marriage, education, national integration, nation-building, economic development and other factors. (Zenawi’s antidote to this process is segregation of people in kililistans where there will be little opportunity for “ethnic fusion” or assimilation.) Often, ethnic identity trumps all other issues and leads to conflicts where there is an absence of social and legal justice, poor governance and denial of the equal protection of the laws and opportunities. The real challenge for Ethiopia’s opposition political leaders, scholars, elites and ordinary folks today is to re-conceptualize the politics of identity which for so long has been based on historical and current grievances to a politics based on promoting and implementing human rights values. I believe a paradigm shift in the way we understand and discuss the question of ethnic identity; and that necessitates first and foremost a change in the very language of communication we use to construct, deconstruct and reconstruct ethnicity and its associated social, economic and political problems.

Inventing a New Language for a New Identity

I have previously argued for and proposed a new “language” for dialogue on the question of ethnicity in Ethiopia. (I even “invented” words (neologisms) for the occasion, one of the privileges of an academician.) I find it necessary to re-articulate those ideas once again. I view ethnicity as the flip side of the coin of unity. The coalescence of ethnic groups is the fabric of unity in any nation. When subnational groups are fragmented, divided and are at odds with each other, a nation faces the threat of disintegration. Zenawi sees Ethiopia as a collection of 9 distinct and autonomous kilils. In other words, Ethiopia for Zenawi is a patchwork of “nations and nationalities” that have very little in common (a convenient cover for divide and rule) and with mutually exclusive interests. We believe Ethiopia is a variegated mosaic of multiculturalism where all citizens have the same rights, freedoms, opportunities and protections under the law. They can live, work, play and pray in any part of their country without any limitations or restrictions whatsoever!

In the transition from dictatorship to democracy, it will be necessary to build a new kind of unity based on our common humanity. This special unity is grounded in a fundamental belief that our common bonds of humanity are greater than the sum of our bonds of ethnicity, nationality and communality. Our common yearning for freedom, democracy and human rights is greater than our narrow ethnic interests. Our commitment to each other’s human dignity is nobler than the arrogant ethnic identity.

Unity that is based on our common humanity draws not only on universal ethical and moral values but also on the African ethic of “Ubuntu”, often used by Nelson Mandela to teach us about the essence of human existence: “A person is a person because of other people. You can do nothing if you don’t get the support of other people.” “Ubunity” is unity that requires us to see each other as brothers and sisters and relate to each other on the basis of the principles of sharing, caring, trust, tolerance, honesty and morality. We do not see each other with a colored ethnic lens that filters for Oromo, Amhara, Tigrean, Gurage and so on but with a clear lens that is calibrated to illuminate justice, equality and fairness. The special unity of which I speak is also grounded in an unshakeable belief that our individual liberty must be protected against those who commit crimes against humanity and acts of atrocity, sneer at public accountability and abuse their authority and act beyond the limits of constitutionality.

I ask all Ethiopians to strive for a special kind of unity which I call both “humunity” and “younity”. “Huminity” is unity based not on ethnicity or nationality but on a blend of core universal values of human dignity and the African ethic of “ubunity”. It requires individual moral commitment to respect and uphold human rights, an allegiance to the rule of law, a belief in the consent of the people as the only legitimate basis of power, and strict adherence to principles of constitutional governance, accountability and transparency. If we could develop wide and deep consensus on these values, we would have achieved unity of thought, purpose and consciousness, the prerequities to all other forms of unity. More importantly, if f we put these values into action by defending the rights of victims of human rights abuses, working for improvements in the observance of human rights conventions, organizing, teaching and preparing the youth for a democratic society, exposing corruption and abuse of power, strengthening our interpersonal relations across ethnic, religious and class lines, we will have achieved unity in action and deeds. Is it not true that the things that divide us, sow discord and hatred amongst us are rooted in and fester because of the very absence of these universal values in our lives?

Tyrants divide the people by magnifying the smallest of differences. Often, the people fall prey to the schemes of tyrants and sing their songs of discord and division. But in my conception of “huminity”, it is possible to have diversity of opinion, views and approaches because I believe “Every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle.” If we embrace and practice the universal principles of human rights, we will realize that it is not about our ethnicity, nationality, language, religion, region or anything else, but what we can do collectively and individually to remove the yoke of oppression and tyranny, institute democracy and the rule of law to uphold human dignity.

My conception of “younity” is a simple idea about you and I together standing up to tyranny, corruption and abuse of power. It is based on the notion that each one of us is a link in a long chain of both oppression and freedom. Our yearning for freedom welds the links in the chain of unity; tyranny melts the links. I believe we all have an individual civic and moral duty to strengthen the links and bonds of unity in the Ethiopian people by embracing and practicing the core values of human dignity and rights. Political leaders must adopt a new and more powerful language of “huminity” to bring the people of divergent views together. Religious leaders must speak of “huminity” in the language of divinity. They should preach and pray for unity. Civic leaders must speak up and advocate for “huminity”. Academics must teach the ways of “huminity” to the youth; and the youth must teach the older generation of the necessity of “huminity” for a new and enlightened Ethiopian community. Most importantly, ordinary people in the street must speak in the language of our common humanity (ubunity) to achieve ultimate unity.

Playing the ethnic card game with Zenawi is to fall victim to destructive identity politics that breeds division, hatred, conflict, and cynicism. We can choose to play Zenawi’s zero-sum ethnic card game (a game in which he always wins and we always lose) and express outrage over the spectacle he has created in Gura Ferda, Gambella, Benj Maji and wherever else. But we can also rise above ethnicity and the politics of identity and help build a national Ethiopian identity. But how…?

“Establish New Relationships, Devoid of any Resentment and Hostility”

The most direct way to build a new national identity is to establish new relationships and discard the old and tired ways of hatred and domination. We must look to a vision of Ethiopia that is not only free of dictatorship and tyranny but also united. On the occasion of the establishment of the permanent headquarters of the Organization for African Unity (OAU) in Addis Ababa on May 25, 1963, H.I.M. Haile Selassie made the most compelling case for African unity. One-half century later, that same message rings true for Ethiopia:

We look to the vision of an Africa not merely free but united. In facing this new challenge, we can take comfort and encouragement from the lessons of the past. We know that there are differences among us. Africans enjoy different cultures, distinctive values, special attributes. But we also know that unity can be and has been attained among men of the most disparate origins, that differences of race, of religion, of culture, of tradition, are no insuperable obstacle to the coming together of peoples. History teaches us that unity is strength, and cautions us to submerge and overcome our differences in the quest for common goals, to strive, with all our combined strength, for the path to true African brotherhood and unity…. Our efforts as free men must be to establish new relationships, devoid of any resentment and hostility, restored to our belief and faith in ourselves as individuals, dealing on a basis of equality with other equally free peoples.

Close ranks regardless of ethnicity or regionality; reaffirm our basic humanity in our Ethiopianity; renounce our old enmity; openly declare our steadfast unity and trumpet our Ethiopian nationality at every opportunity. Let us strive to establish a new identify in Ethiopian unity!

How long ago was is it since us Ethiopians said ENOUGH! of TPLF regime’s multiple cruelties amounting to those of the ruthless invader Mussolini? When is the intense hatred for the Amharas, contempt for the Oromos and other ethnic groups going to end? When is trading in the name of the valiant people of Tigray going to end? Why has the Zenawi regime adopted Mussolini’s strategy of total subjugation of the Amharas and the Oromos in particular?

Zenawi has yet again set in motion his grand design for incurably breaking the back of the Amharas and Oromos in tandem and proceed with bringing the rest of the ethnic groups to complete submission to the misrule of the regime.

The vindictive Italian Fascist, after forty years of sophisticated preparation, invaded Ethiopia with far superior modern military weapons and highly trained army that was no match in numbers to the ill-trained, poorly equipped and bare-footed peasant militia but determined to die for their dignity, creed, family values, their land and property, and independence of their motherland. It was during this war that the Italian Fascist invaders dropped leaflets from the air flying over villages in Tigray condemning the Amharas and Oromos and strictly warning the villagers not to cooperate with their militia in any way or face severe punishment.

In the circumstances, time has come for the Amharas and Oromos to set their relatively petty rivalry for power aside and collaborate in order to avert the grave simmering prospect of living in slavery – ironically in the country for which their ancestors had so bravely fought and jealously guarded its independence as vividly demonstrated in the Battle of Adwa that marked the humiliation of Italy, drew respect of the surprised European powers, and became a beacon of hope for all black people living in bondage in the Diaspora. Is it not time more than any other time to wake up to the danger of extinction?

Hypocrisy y of some Western powers:

In my letter of 19-Feb-09 to Secretary Clinton I wrote: “In the recent campaign unprecedented for the long time it took and the money spent, I was torn between the wish to see the first woman or the first African American in the White House. It is now history that Barack Obama won and other contenders bowed out gracefully setting a spectacular example to the international community which I believe hold you with high esteem for your spirited campaign for Candidate Obama to win the Presidency.”

And look at the above photograph for what I got in return to my remark, which on hindsight was a hyperbole. There is no mistaking the intimacy between the duos. But what was the warm handshaking and beaming smile about? My guess is that puppet Zenawi is saying aloud Bingo! Mission accomplished! Readers may make their own guesses.
President George W. Bush reneged on his promise not to collaborate with dictators. Secretary Clinton with her smile and warm handshake extended to genocidal tyrant is vindicating that reneging on promises was right; desperate dictators do things including torture and rendition legally barred in the United States.

Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice stood, side by side with tyrant Zenawi, on the hallowed ground of Meneliks’s City to renounce the Human Rights Bill HR2003 unanimously approved by the exalted House of Representatives of the United States Congress. She contradicted African- Americans and the Black Caucus in the House who supported the Bill from its inception to its approval. The smiling Secretary Rice posed for a photograph with the tyrant standing on her side. Her denouncing of HR2003 in Addis Ababa – lacked statesmanship and decorum and exposed her insensitivity to the agony, grief and wailing of mothers of the martyrs of June and November 2005 in the aftermath of the historic election decisively won by the opposition and ruthlessly stolen by the ruling party of the despotic ruler.

Ambassadors Aurelia Brazil and Vicki Huddleston complained about what they called ‘vitriolic’ attack on Zenawi by opposition bloggers, but disregarded the execution of peaceful protesters by trigger happy security forces under his direct command of Zenawi. Susan Rice showed her support for the tyrant by the intimate photograph with him. Jundiai Frazer kept silent all along – perhaps spellbound by Zenawi’s divide-and- rule atrocities like the other senior diplomats in the State Department.
Regarding British policy, I quote the following two paragraphs from my article written regarding the terrorist incident in London in 2005:

“I sincerely and strongly deplore the abortive bombing of London transport system on the 21st of July 2005, following the first devastating attack (on 07 July 2005) on the system that sadly claimed 56 lives and caused injuries to hundreds of innocent people. It is morally right that both terrorist attacks drew a chorus of condemnation from the international community.”

“The position taken by the British government over the shooting of the Brazilian is in sharp contrast to the red carpet treatment at the G8 Summit accorded to Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, who has ordered the execution of 40 innocent civilians in cold blood, thrown thousands into jail under harsh conditions, and made many to suffer mental and physical tortures. Meles the butcher, has neither apologized to the families of the bereaved and the Ethiopian people nor instituted his promised ‘investigation’ into the heinous crime attributed to state-sponsored violence orchestrated by the very few innermost clique of Stalinists in his TPLF regime. I do not know whether Prime Minister Tony Blair has even privately regretted for inviting the tyrant Meles to the G8 Summit where the killer basked in the lavish functions of powerful world leaders exchanging smiles and champagne toasts even as atrocities in Ethiopia were taking their tolls. I doubt whether the British Prime Minister would help end tyranny in Ethiopia.”
PM Tony Blair’s successors pursue the policy of their predecessor on Ethiopia!

AU’s Impotence versus. Ethiopian Election 2005

On that historic day of 07 May 2005 a truly mammoth crowd estimated at 2.5 – 3 million inundated the streets and squares of Addis Ababa to support the now defunct Kinijit Party (Coalition for Unity and Democracy). That sea of humanity was acclaimed internationally for its magnificent display of decorum and civility; it ended peacefully without a single incident of violence.

The unprecedented massive support for Kinijit was followed by an unprecedented turn out of massive voters for the election of 15 May 2005 in which the ruling party suffered a convincing defeat failing to win a single vote in Addis Ababa where the AU Headquarters is located. Tyrant Meles unconstitutionally declared a state of emergency and swiftly implemented his plan B: killing close to 200 peaceful protesters by trained snipers; throwing the true victors to the infamous Kaliti filthy prison; incarcerating tens of thousands of opposition supports, mostly young where their heads were shaven with unsterilized blades without regard to widespread STDs of that time; votes were stolen and his party declared victory overriding its even its hand-picked electoral commission announced the results.

The African Union shamefully pronounced the election free and fair and recognized the TPLF party as the winner. What is even more shocking is that one of the senior diplomats of the AU hailing from Rwanda overstepped diplomatic norms and blamed the opposition in public for the popular unrest in the aftermath of the election marked by gruesome atrocities. It is a shame that this Rwandan forgot so soon, in the comfort of luxury that dollar-paid diplomats enjoy in Addis Ababa, the close to one million victims of genocide in his country.

It is time, more than any other time, for the Amharas and Oromos in particular, for their own sake in self-defense, to combine their overwhelming numbers to deter the deadly threat posed against them; and to save the priceless heritage bequeathed by their ancestors in exemplary collaboration.

Let us say NO to ethnic cleansing; let us be proud that Ethiopia was the first country to develop systems of law by which to be governed; let us believe in ourselves as equals regardless of the chronological order of settling of our ancestors in Ethiopia; let us believe in our irreversible bond crowned by inter-marriage and multiple common values. It is our duty to preserve the sanctity of our places of worship in churches, mosques & synagogues in Ethiopia! So help us the Almighty God of the Universe!

LONG LIVE ETHIOPIA!!
Release all political prisoners in Ethiopia including
robele_ababya@yahoo.com

Ethiopian ethnic-based political elites, most prominently, the champion of ethnic politics and business, TPLF Inc., were always bent on shredding to pieces our commonalities, shared history and common identity as Ethiopians of all shades, colors, languages and faiths, from their inception. They embraced the Apartheid like formula of separation and legalized ethnic-federalism. They were determined to de-institutionalize and de-capitalize Ethiopian society by dismantling social relations among the population. This is the thesis of this analytical piece. As a result of their secret and coded arrangements intended solely to serve them financially and economically, they sowed the seeds of revenge and fear among the population. Youth are forced to belong to the governing party if they wish to secure a job, a home or further education. As a result, the country that stood as symbol of independence, honor, dignity and pride for people of color around the globe is now the center of the grossest human rights violations on this planet. TPLF Inc. is determined to obliterate the past, present and future of all people who call themselves “Ethiopians.” This is happening in front of our eyes. As far as I know, de-institutionalization and social de-capitalization of Ethiopian society started when TPLF Inc. took power 21 years ago and continues at a faster pace today. The concepts were all planted during its formation. What we witness now is implementation of the sinister strategy using land and other economic resources to dispossess and expel.

Wherever one looks, dispossessions expulsions and human cruelty from government agents are widespread: the Afar, Beni-Shangul Gumuz, Gambella, Gondar, Lower Omo Valley, Oromia and SNNP regions and sub-regions are at the center. In this entire onslaught against the Ethiopian people, there is overwhelming documentary evidence that shows that the Amharic speaking population is singled out as ‘enemy’ number one. Why the differentiation? This group is identified by TPLF Inc. and the country’s traditional adversaries as nationalist, that is, as Ethiopian more than its label as Amhara. I documented this in my book, Waves, two years ago and forewarned that TPLF Inc. will continue its relentless campaign to dislodge this and other nationalist oriented members of society using ethnic-federalism and decentralized decision making as the driver. Using this mode of government arrangements, TPLF Inc. tries to camouflage its misdeeds by using surrogates. We know that surrogates have little or no power. Authority comes from the top. The continued expulsion of Amharic speaking Ethiopians from the lands they use and from the neighbors with whom they coexist peacefully and amicably reflects this sinister arrangement. People naively wonder why the outside world, especially donors and diplomats with stake in Ethiopia do not react.

Although this is not the purpose of this piece, I should like to share my take on the matter again. British and American policy makers, the two largest sources of bilateral aid to Ethiopia, know that the TPLF Corporate group is anathema to their own values of the rule of law, human freedom, free enterprise and a semblance of democracy, for example, checks and balances and political pluralism. Why do they support a repressive regime that portends insecurity and instability in the long-run? Why do they refuse a movement toward globally accepted norms of humane institutions, decency, fair play, openness and the like? In my view and the views of other prominent international experts on the subject, democratic reconstruction and reconfiguration are secondary to their national interests of security and stability in the Horn of Africa. In other words, they are willing and ready to sacrifice their core values to serve their own narrow and short-term national interests of averting terrorism and instability in the Horn of Africa as they have done in the rest of the world. This is why Ethiopian opposition groups cannot afford to operate in their own silos. They need to cooperate and show credibility that they stand for a bigger cause than narrow or parochial interests.

Like us, the world community looks at the faces of innocent children and women forcibly expelled from their farmlands and properties where their forefathers worked and lived for 100 years plus, in Benji Maji, Southern Ethiopia. Like us, those whose profession is to monitor the Horn know that theirs is a fresh and ugly testimony and reminder of how far ethnic politics and business in Ethiopia would go to bring havoc to this ancient land. They know that, with a stroke of an order–no doubt emanating from the highest levels of the governing party–children and women and poor farmers were herded like sheep in their own country by their own government and forcibly expelled from their homes. They know that neighbors were awed but could do nothing in the country of fear. The bewilderments in the faces of the children and women are graphic and speak louder than my capacity to write about them; and the cruelty and brutality of a regime that has literally gone wild and mad. These Ethiopians could be our children, our sisters, our mothers, our fathers and or relatives. It does not matter. They are, first and foremost human beings and Ethiopians who deserve treatment with honor and dignity. Their expulsion is ours too. Donors and diplomats in Addis Ababa know all of this; but cannot say much because it does not affect their interests. It is up to us to make them understand and to draw them to our side.

TPLF Inc.’s ethnic politics and business robbed these Ethiopians displaced from their homes, of their humanity, dignity and honor. Trust me. Regardless of ethnic, religious, ideological or demographic affiliation, it is our own common humanity, dignity and honor that are robbed and are being undone by tribal elite that have no decency or humanity to speak of. I am not entirely clear where this unprecedented assault on the Ethiopian people is heading and where it will lead and to what end? Some in the diplomatic and donor community are weary but are not speaking out. I am wearily reminded of the civil war in Liberia, the dismemberment of Yugoslavia, genocide in Rwanda and the collapse of Somalia. I and others witnessed the horrors in Liberia where people were hacked like wild animals or in Rwanda where nearly a million people lost their lives because of their ethnic affiliation should worry that the same could happen in our country. It is not an exaggeration to put the pieces together by connecting the dots of cruelty and inhumanity and by arriving at a larger and ominous picture that seems to emerge. TPLF Inc. and its ethnic elite collaborators seem to be determined to push the entire country into the abyss. Donors and diplomats in Addis Ababa know this but do not see an alternative that gives them confidence and comfort.

In my view, the plight of the Amhara is not a single ethnic dilemma. It is an Ethiopian dilemma. The plight of the tribes in the Omo Valley being forced out of their ancestral homes is not solely their problem. It is an Ethiopian problem. The eviction of Anuak, Afar and Somali from their lands to make room for a narrow band of emerging ethnic capitalists and foreign governments and firms from 36 countries is not an Anuak or Afar or Somali problem. It is an Ethiopian problem. The rape of Somali girls and women and the destruction of villages and property is not a Somali problem.

It is an Ethiopian problem. The transfer of lands in Waldiba on which monks depend, to TPLF Inc. firms and or the state within a state called MIDROC is not a Gondar problem. It is an Ethiopian one. No matter the location or the population, it is Ethiopia and Ethiopians who are under the gun. Thus, it behooves all Ethiopians to respond not as members of this or that ethnic or religious group but as Ethiopians. This is our only salvation as people. We either rise in unison as Ethiopians; or we will all perish together. We can never allow this to occur. It is not the legacy we would want to leave. Is it?

As I saw the video clips of innocent and frightened children, girls and women, I kept thinking that only an invading army would do this to Ethiopians. I am reminded that even invading armies from the colonial era were civilized and humane enough to differentiate the innocent from those who dissent. Children and women and poor farmers who work hard to earn a living are not a threat to the governing party. Their forcible expulsion is a form of ethnic cleansing and therefore a crime against humanity. Only Apartheid conducted an identical system of political and economic capture that expelled blacks and herded and concentrated them in their own “homelands or Bantustans.” This way, it is easier to monitor, subjugate and control them. TPLF Inc. does not have the moral courage or commitment to differentiate between those who dissent against it and those who live and work peacefully and legally in different parts of the country.

Ironically, Tigreans are free to live and work anywhere in Ethiopia. They are state sponsored and can own property anywhere in the country. A recent informal survey from a reliable group shows that in the city of Gondar, close to 50 percent of the population is now Tigrean as are more than 75 percent of major enterprises. Here is the difference. The Amharic speaking population of the city treats them as Ethiopians. No Tigrean national I am aware of has been expelled from the so-called Amhara region. This is the good news and Tigreans should condemn a ruling clique that abuses their name and expels people on the basis of ethnic and or linguistic affinity. For this reason alone, Ethiopia and the Ethiopian people do not deserve Apartheid like system that dispossesses and expels any or one group of people forcibly from any part of the country on the basis of linguistic and or tribal origin. Ethiopians must stand up and reject this regressive policy and the occurrences it triggers. They must recognize and appreciate the notion that inhumanity of man to man is not an Ethiopian popular tradition or value. It is not our heritage. It is the tradition of tyrants and dictators perfected by TPLF Inc. in other words; it is a governance and system’s issue.

Is our history as cruel as TPLF Inc. manifests it?

I should like to take the reader back to a snippet of history to strengthen my argument. TPLF Inc. rejects the evolution of the country it defines as a “prison of nations, nationalities and peoples,” for which it is the proclaimed liberator. These narrow-minded, clubby and family centered minority ethnic elite try to compel innocent and self-serving people alike to believe that our identity should be defined narrowly in tribal and linguistic terms. It uses emotions to drive its political and economic agenda on the rest of us. The reader knows that people enjoy different identities for different reasons. I will identify some of my own: am a professional in development, have a higher degree and was and or is a banker, professor, writer, belong to the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, am a father, a husband and my linguistic affiliation is to Amharic and regional origin, Gondar. Of these, which one do you think is the identity that I cherish most and share or have in common with millions? It is this. I am an Ethiopian and have a great deal in common with Ethiopians than other people in the world. I presume most of us who hail from Ethiopia have numerous identities but believe in the notion that we are Ethiopians or people of Ethiopian origin. It is this core value that will save us.

The singular identity that binds us together regardless of different affiliations is that we belong to a country called Ethiopia. Hence, our commonality is expressed as Ethiopians and or as people of Ethiopian origin. TPLF Inc. wants us to sink to the bottom and think and organize ourselves as Amharic speakers or an Amhara ethnic group. I caution my compatriots that this is a tempting trap to which we should not sink. We need to be strategic and take the higher road of our historical and legitimate identity as Ethiopians. Let me elaborate within the context of today’s global community in which the TPLF Inc. formula is totally against the tide.

Who in the world would find it credible if I told (in official travels with the World Bank) a Chinese or a Brazilian or a Nigerian or a Norwegian at their respective airports that I am an Amharic speaking Gondarie? Wouldn’t the person find it incredible if I told him or her that I cannot live and or work in any part of Ethiopia because of my linguistic or ethnic affiliation? TPLF Inc. has reduced us to this low level. It is this emotionally driven and politically motivated identity that TPLF Inc. imposes on most of us. Some accept the new norm because of fear. Some accept it because of greed. Others accept it because of ignorance. Still others accept it because they believe in it. No matter the motive, TPLF Inc. wants us to believe that it is implementing Apartheid like formula on behalf of ‘oppressed nations, nationalities and people.’ The intent is to undermine Ethiopian unity and identity. The acid test of being an Ethiopian is the possibility of living and working in any part of Ethiopia. Otherwise, our commonality becomes meaningless regardless of the propaganda propagated by TPLF Inc. that we should all buy Renaissance Bonds and send our hard earned monies in support of a regime that does not allow us to fulfill our potential in our own country. Just think of this. The governing party that champions Ethiopian nationalism when it suits its interests still calls itself by its origin, Tigray People’s Liberation Front? Liberation from who is now a legitimate question. The reader knows the answer and the purpose.

The Greeks looked up to ancient Ethiopia and called it the common cradle of mankind. Among other things, they contended that ancient Egyptians “derived their civilization and religions from Ethiopia and Ethiopians. Ptolemaic (Greek) writers and philosophers felt and wrote that “Ethiopians were the first men that ever lived.” Martin Bernal’s “Black Athena: the Afro-Asiatic roots of classical civilization,” provides rich data and information on the richness of Ethiopian history; and, more important on the movement and on the interconnectedness of most Ethiopians for thousands of years. Interconnectedness of Ethiopians has now been validated through archaeological findings that confirm that Ethiopia is indeed the origin of humankind. In their highly acclaimed book, “Lucy (Dinknesh): The Beginnings of Humankind,” Donald Johansson and Maitland Edey, document the dramatic discovery of Lucy’s (Dinknesh’s) “completeness in the history of hominid fossil collection.” Dinknesh’s (Lucy’s) discovery did not happen by accident. It is a tribute to the farsightedness of Emperor Haile Selassie, who, in the 1950s–during a visit to Kenya–invited Western Anthropologists to explore fossils in Ethiopia and granted the requisite permits. The Omo valley expedition lasted from 1967 to 1977 and resulted in the finding of Dinknesh (Lucy). “There could no longer be any argument about that, or conjecture over whether a certain leg bone and a certain skull did or did not belong the same individual (Dinknesh). Here they were, together in one unbelievable skeleton.”

Dinknesh refers to a country known for thousands of years as Ethiopia, home of our common humanity as Ethiopians. If we are indeed the origin of mankind, possess an incontestable long history and have served as a home to different ethnic and religious groups for thousands of years, who is responsible for reducing us to identify one another as members of a tribe or a linguistic group rather than as Ethiopians? It is the EPLF, TPLF and other ethnic-based liberation fronts who wish us harm. It is also their foreign sponsors that continue to be inimical to a strong, unified and prosperous Ethiopia. As the champion of ethnic politics and business (the two are linked), TPLF Inc. is determined to obliterate this common humanity that the Ethiopian people have shared for thousands of years. This commonality has been strengthened generation after generation through marriages, economic and religious interactions, migration of people from South to North, from North to South, from East to West and from West to East and many in between. This is why I contend that Ethiopia and Ethiopians are the pace-setters of what is now commonly known as globalization. This phenomenon began as a result of human mobility from Ethiopia and the rest of Africa to the rest of the globe. Before Ethiopians moved across the globe, they spread within Ethiopia. Their linkages are thus incontestable.
Ethiopian identity and globalizing influence that TPLF Inc. wishes to undo by rewriting our entire history and reducing it to just 100 years to suit it, and by spreading the venom of ethnic revenge and hate are not confined to the story of Dinknesh, although hers is the foundation of our humanity. Herodotus, the Greek historian documented that Ethiopians reached out to the rest of the world through trade in spices and ivory far beyond Egypt and the Gulf. Ethiopians are said to have moved to and served in Persian armies. “The Eastern Ethiopians—for there were two sorts of Ethiopians in the army—served in the Indian army.” Here is the key though. “These were just like the Southern Ethiopians, except for their language and their hair; their hair is straight.” Threads that bind Ethiopians among one another through marriages, social and economic interactions, religious practices, localities and regions are rooted in our past. With its ups and downs and imperfections and manifestations of gross injustice, our past is the foundation of our present and future. In light of this, our diversity is nothing new. It has always been there. The trick is to harness it for the better.

Yet, our political leaders and institutions failed to use our diversity creatively and constructively in building an enduring, just and all inclusive society. Experts foreign and domestic recognize our history and diversity as sources of uniqueness and strength rather than as liabilities. Under TPLF Inc., both history and diversity are liabilities. These are used as political tools to create and deepen wedges to divide us, frighten us, exploit us and create animosities among us.

TPLF Inc. forces us to forget the assets and treasures that emanate from our roots and the uniqueness that our forefathers left for us. One additional example cements this point. In the 19th century, M. Le Jean, French, said this. “Ethiopia, even during its state of greatest decadence, offers to the unprejudiced traveler, the elements of an advanced social order. Feudality certainly exists there, but scarcely to a greater extent than in England…the administrative machinery is simple…is property well defined; individual rights are guaranteed by appeal to the Emperor; commerce is protected; and political vengeance and horrors of war in a great measure neutralized…” Can you say the same about the Meles Zenawi Government today? I cannot. The evidence is overwhelmingly oppressive and repressive. This is why revenge, fear and expulsion come naturally to the governing clique.

What can and should we do?

There is a great deal we can and should do. The starting point is for each of us and for our communities to believe and commit to preserving this ancient land and to frame an alternative that will accommodate the needs and interests of all its members. Our individual and collective responsibility is, first and foremost, to halt this frightening phenomenon of fear, ethnic divide and repression that–if not halted now–is likely to destroy all of us. We must determine that we do not wish to witness another Liberia, Rwanda or Somalia in Africa. TPLF Inc. and other surrogate ethnic-based parties use language and or other differences as a criterion to implant fear and revenge; to discriminate and expel as if we are not of the same diverse family; and to undo what has been built by all Ethiopians over thousands of years. Our ability and readiness to embrace one another and to stand for one another; and to reject ethnic divide is the starting point. We can do this wherever we are and in numerous ways.

This is the big picture I should like to implant in the reader’s mind. We need to reject the Apartheid like system that drives little children and mothers, old people and poor farmers from their homes and farms and from their neighbors. In part two of this commentary, I will provide a specific example of the horrors of ethnic cleansing and civil wars that entail irreparable damage regardless of the temporary strength of a ruling group.

The second in this series will be posted next week.

While the parents of these victims are originally from the central and northern provinces of Wello and Shoa, a number of them were born in that same location. These individuals were resettled in the area as part of the resettlement program following the devastating drought of the 1980’s.

Citing Tesfaye Tariku – Secretary General of the All Ethiopian Unity Party, the Amharic Newspaper – “The Reporter” reported on March 25, 2012 that 72 of the thousands evicted are now being sheltered in the all Ethiopian Unity Party office in Addis Ababa. The paper states that the 72 people first headed to the Trinity Cathedral Church at Arat Kilo looking for sanctuary but were kicked out by the guards”.

It is also reported that these victims were told to “go back to their native region” by the local government authorities who take direct order from the ruling group EPRDF/TPLF led by PM Meles Zenawi.

This clearly shows that the action is a deliberate political exercise on the part of the regime to change the ethnic composition of the area to make it “governable” through the divide and conquer policies which has been implementing in earnest since 1991.

For those who have been closely following the situation in Ethiopia, it is clear that this is not the first time that the Amara Ethnic group, among others, has been targeted and attacked by the ruling party and its supporters. In 1990s, brutal force was used by security forces and groups loyal to the regime to cleanse the Amara from Harrar, Arsi, Wollega and the like. Hundreds had been brutally murdered.

This sustained and systemic attack against the Amaras is once again on its ugly footing. As was the case in previous attacks, this time too, the federal government thus far has done nothing meaningful to stop this ethnic cleansing or bring legal action against those who perpetrate such horrible crimes.

The facts on the ground indicate that there is now a well-founded and alarming fear that the basic safety and security of those who may resist the current forced expulsion could be highly in danger. As well, the expulsion could be expanded even further.

Therefore SOCEPP- Canada calls upon all Ethiopian groups in Diaspora and the international community to:
• Pressure the Ethiopian authorities to immediately stop the forced expulsion of citizens, return their confiscated property including their land.
• provide immediate and sufficient relief aid
• Guarantee their safety and security, and
• initiate a full and independent investigation into this forceful expulsion and bring the perpetrators to justice
We call upon the government of Canada and members of the international community to give this grave human rights abuse a serious attention and put on notice the ruling group in Ethiopia that such ethnic based forced eviction is a serious threat to all humanity and will not be tolerated.

SOCEPP Canada
CC:
- Genocide watch
- Human Rights Watch
- Amnesty International – Ottawa
www.humanrightsethiopia.com

The voices of the Martyrs and patriots have called us to create unity to fight against TPLF’s oppression. The Martyrs knew that their good effort of being socially responsible was a noble and just cause, and always wishes to endure for decades to come. They believed that their generation is not afraid to stand up for Ethiopians rights just like their forefathers did by fighting the Italian aggression. They were certain that their children’s children also to inherit their aspiration and light a freedom torches to build a better society. They reject the notion that oppression cannot sustain for long time. They were too committed to achieve real political, economic and social justice, benefit all citizens and paid with ultimate sacrifice for the better livelihood of all Ethiopians. No doubt, it is inevitable the future belongs to those vanguards who sacrificed themselves for the interest of majority of people and country.

Our 1974 revolution marked by experience and plenty of failures before seeing any lasting success. The Martyrs efforts were not in vain, the struggle will continue until freedom is achieved. Given Ethiopia is multinational state; I have confined my analysis with several questions concerning current political activities. What is better strategy to end oppression? Should we reexamine the struggle through ethnic ideology or class ideology perspective ?Why most young generation and intellectual in diaspora become less enthusiasm to keep the political dialogue going forward? Is it the absence credible leadership?

In 70s most youth were inspired in reading revolutionary books or local popular political magazines such as “Goh”, “Tseday” etc. They participated in being part of the making of history to free the oppressed people of Ethiopia. The commitment and contribution to the struggle is monumental. Namely, among many, the organized formidable forces were EPRP and Meison. Their organizational skills and the objectives and aspiration were so powerful. They had support of large numbers of youth. In this regard, the 60s or 70s youth seemed had in depth political awareness, deep desire to change the existing system. The youth began organized at home and abroad under an umbrella of Ethiopia Student Union. The students union analyzed the autocratic system in terms of class ideology (in most cases), or ethnic ideology and articulated how to struggle to free a society. They were never able to settle a class or an ethnic ideology differences. They were divided then on these two ideologies, the effect remained with us with unintended consequence.

I believed that current generation has the same pride as previous one for history of Ethiopia and shall carry on the responsibility in making a history of change that benefits the mass of our people. Perhaps it might be helpful for collective action if a class ideology is revisited by this generation. It is evident ethnic ideology is destroying the social and economic fabric of our society. Practically no possibility to have meaningful political solution under ethnic ideology. The result is destructive and exclusives. But a class ideology consciousness by virtue will lead to common interest, override ethnic interest, aware of conflicting interest, and final would lead to end of national oppression. What should be the next step? Many of us undoubtedly ask this question.
In addition to supporting the opposition political parties, civic organizations, activities group etc. We should continue to have regular political discussion forum as seen recently in several States. It is minimum thing for those of us outside the country live in freedom can do. “The function of freedom is to free someone else” as they say. We should take this freedom opportunity at hand.

It is suggested by many compatriots to renew the past dissenting Ethiopian Students Movement model, at most basic level, to form a small study groups or book clubs at the area we live, and to prepare list of reading books including our own history, politics, economics, commentary articles, including materials or books written by TPLF’s regime, and then to give a reading assignments to the group. By having a regularly scheduled meeting to share and discuss our thoughts on the assigned reading materials. This approach proven to be working in 70s, definitely it will enhanced our political outlook, assist in reconcile the difference; create feeling of solidarity, mutual respect, acceptance and tolerance. As the study group grows from local, regional and then to State chapter level, passion and skills will gradually develop. At the end, self-assertion, and more credible political leaders may emerge in the process. It can be consider an “investment” to many of us and would be a good start in addressing the problems so often contribute to all society’s ills. The young generations shall pursue to be part of the making history. The study group concept may be used as foundation for establishing or joining political organization group. Given the TPLF repressive regime participating from a distance shall not be an option.

Everyone knows that the political future of Ethiopia may well hinge upon each of us how we are united in fighting dictatorship rule in order to change for better Ethiopia. Political conscience without indoctration is likely to be short lived. So it goes without saying that study group is a key to move forward. It is time to reassess study group format to build higher political conscience, to form a class alliance and to be more outspoken on burning issues. With the coordinated efforts with the progressive elites and with various political organizations the fighting to the common enemy will progress inefficient manner.

The dream of an independent Oromia long cherished by Tuko and other Oromo Ethiopians might never be realized. Their revolution is being repurposed with a new goal: uniting with other Ethio­pian opposition parties in the Washington region against the regime of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, which they all accuse of being autocratic and corrupt.

“The violence is over, and this is good news!” insists Tuko, the Washington region leader of the now retooled Oromo Liberation Front (OLF), one of the factions that fought for an independent Oromia. “But our mission is no longer for independence. We’ll be one with the Ethiopian community now. Both back home and here in Washington.”

Washington is home to an estimated 100,000 Ethio­pian immigrants — the largest concentration in the United States — including ethnic Oromos such as Tuko, from central and southern Ethi­o­pia, as well as a half-dozen other ethnic groups, such as the Amharas from the eastern and central highlands and the Tigrayans from the northern highlands.

But what happens to diasporas of this kind when a revolution or a political movement dies? Does everyone just go out for coffee, become friends, start working together? Sometimes. Older political factions from Washington’s Salvadoran diaspora, for example, still come together every year to honor the end of the Central American country’s civil war 20 years ago because it was so powerful in uniting the community here.

The Oromo countrymen, a cook, a cab driver and a teacher, pull off chunks of injera, Ethiopia’s crepelike flatbread, and use it to sop up a traditional lunch of goat and vegetables, washing it down with the customary glass of milk. The Georgia Avenue cafe is called A Land of Medicine, after an Oromo city. Grainy Oromo music videos play on a beat-up television — flashing images of Oromia’s lush barley- and coffee-growing regions — as each of Tuko’s guests share harrowing stories about friends and relatives hauled off to jail in the middle of dinner or found dead after being assaulted. Oromos, 50 percent of whom are Muslim, are Ethiopia’s largest ethnic group, and the men and women talk about religious persecution and attempts to limit their political power in the majority Christian Ethio­pian Orthodox country.

The OLF, one of the world’s long-running insurgent groups, was so active in Washington that it had offices in a Takoma Park bungalow, a U Street rowhouse and a commercial building in Petworth that now has a “For Rent” sign out front. The group organized Howard University political rallies, functions at Oromo churches and mosques and high-level meetings with Congress — even a Miss Oromo-North America beauty pageant.

Those events will continue, Tuko promises the crowd, just with a different spin.

All of the weekly commentaries I have written over the years have been structured on a single fundamental principle: the rule of law. What is it? How does it configure in Ethiopia’s transition from dictatorship to democracy?

The phrase “rule of law” is somewhat vague and much overused by scholars and advocates, and casually thrown around in general political conversation. The phrase is so popular that even dictators swear by it. In October 2011, Meles Zenawi told Aftenposten (Norway’s largest paper): “We have reached a very advanced stage of rule of law and respect for human rights. Fundamentally, this is a country where democratic rights of people are respected.” (Ahem!!!)

For lawyers, “rule of law” is a term of art which generally signifies constitutional supremacy and adherence to principles of due process. Political scientists use the phrase to describe institutional mechanisms for policing the state and preventing abuse of power through established accountability procedures and guarantees of basic civil, human and substantive rights. The phrase is gaining popularity among economists who have come to realize that the rule of law is necessary to create a secure environment for business, investments, contracts and market transactions. Where there the rule of law prevails, good governance (accountability, transparency, free and fair elections, etc.) follows and economies grow. Since the 1990s, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, among others, have insisted on implementation of the “rule of law” as a condition of loans and assistance in Africa (largely without much success).
Dictators often jabber about the “rule of law” to shroud their “rule by law” of one man, one party. In a society under the “rule of men”, absolute power is exercised by the privileged few who are above the law. One man, one party, one select group decides for the whole society. That was what Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, and Mao Zedong and others did; and that is what Africa’s dictators do today.

Rule of Law and Rule by Diktat

African dictators rule by diktat (arbitrary decrees issued by command of the dictator) which they try to palm off as “laws” (legislation enacted by a legitimately elected body engaged in deliberative process). They scribble down their diktats, have it approved by their rubberstamp parliaments and pronounce it “law” or “proclamation”. They use the diktat to play policeman, prosecutor, judge, jury and executioner. Under rule by diktat, dictators use the “law” as a bludgeon — a sledgehammer — to vanquish their opposition. On March 28, 2006, Congressman Christopher Smith, Chairman of House Subcommittee on Africa, Global Human Rights and International Operations recounted a revealing conversation he had with Zenawi which demonstrates rule by diktat:

During my visit to Addis last August [2005], I met with Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, and I asked him why he had not investigated the June shootings of demonstrators by agents of his government. His response was that the investigation might require the arrest of opposition leaders, and he didn’t want to do that while by-elections were still scheduled. He went on to tell me that he had dossiers on all the opposition leaders and could arrest them for treason whenever he wanted. Thus, their arrests were all but certain even before the events that ostensibly led to their being incarcerated.

In a more recent example of rule by dictat, Zenawi visiting Norway in October 2011 proclaimed two freelance Swedish journalists Johan Persson and Martin Schibbye awaiting trial were guilty of terrorism. He said the two journalists “are, at the very least, messenger boys of a terrorist organization. They are not journalists. Why would a journalist be involved with a terrorist organization and enter a country with that terrorist organization, escorted by armed terrorists, and participate in a fighting in which this terrorist organization was involved? If that is journalism, I don’t know what terrorism is.” Zenawi seemed to be unfamiliar with Art. 20 (3) of the Ethiopian Constitution which guarantees: “During proceedings accused persons have the right to be presumed innocent.” In late February 2012, Zenawi made the following incredibly mindboggling statement about the same Swedish journalists:

The government gave a small statement that such people have been put [in] prison… The next day the campaign was launched, ‘Free press, innocent people with no issue at all!’ They just give pronouncements before the case has gone to court, before evidence has been heard. The pronouncement was there; the government is the criminal and the people are innocent. (Well, if the shoe fits, wear it!)

After declaring the two journlaists “terrorists” in October 2011, in February 2012, Zenawi has the audacity to criticize others for commenting on the journalsits’ innocence “before the case has gone to court, before evidence has been heard.” Incredible!

A Practical Understanding of the Rule of Law

As the scholars and lawyers debate the finer points of the rule of law, it is possible to fashion a practical understanding of the principle which could be useful in the dialogue and debate over Ethiopia’s transition from dictatorship to democracy. A practical lesson in the application of the rule of law principle could be learned by examining “anti-terrorism” laws in the U.S. and Ethiopia.

In 2001, President Bush signed an executive order authorizing the creation of military tribunals for the detention, treatment and trial of certain non-citizens (“enemy combatants”) in the war against terrorism. In 2006 the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the executive order and commissions as unconstitutional (Hamdan v. Rumsfeld) holding that the President lacks constitutional or statutory authority. Much to the great disappointment of the Bush Administration, the Court held that these terror suspects were entitled to the protection of the ordinary laws of the United States and the laws of war including the Geneva Convention, and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. In language that pays homage to deep-rooted American civil liberties, the Court wrote: “Assuming that Hamdan [terror suspect] is a dangerous individual who would cause great harm or death to innocent civilians given the opportunity, the Executive nevertheless must comply with the prevailing rule of law in undertaking to try him and subject him to criminal punishment.”

In 2004, in a similar case of a terror suspect (Rasul v. Bush), the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the rule of law by requiring the President to honor the writ of habeas corpus (one of the greatest rights Americans have to challenge the government in court unlawful restraint on their liberties). The Court held that a terror suspect detainee may not be denied access to lawyers and civilians courts in violation of the due process guarantees of the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Simply stated, even wicked villains and evil-doers are shielded by the rule of law in the American Constitution.

In contrast, rule by law (rule by diktat) has made Zenawi’s so-called anti-terrorism law (“Anti-Terrorism Proclamation No. 652/2009”) a sledgehammer to crush dissidents, journalists, opposition political leaders and anyone considered an enemy. In early February 2012, a group of independent United Nations human rights experts (U.N. Special Rapporteurs) made public statements condemning the ongoing use of anti-terrorism laws to curb a broad range of freedoms in Ethiopia. Ben Emmerson, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on counter-terrorism and human rights, said that “the anti-terrorism provisions should not be abused and need to be clearly defined in Ethiopian criminal law to ensure that they do not go counter to internationally guaranteed human rights.” Frank La Rue, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on freedom of expression, said that “Journalists play a crucial role in promoting accountability of public officials by investigating and informing the public about human rights violations. They should not face criminal proceedings for carrying out their legitimate work, let alone be severely punished.” Margaret Sekaggya, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on human rights defenders, stated that “journalists, bloggers and others advocating for increased respect for human rights should not be subject to pressure for the mere fact that their views are not in alignment with those of the Government [of Ethiopia].” Maina Kiai, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association, said “The resort to anti-terrorism legislation is one of the many obstacles faced by associations today in Ethiopia. The Government must ensure protection across all areas involving the work of associations, especially in relation to human rights issues.” Gabriela Knaul, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers, said: “Defendants in a criminal process should be considered as innocent until proven guilty as enshrined in the Constitution of Ethiopia… And it is crucial that defendants have access to a lawyer during the pre-trial stage to safeguard their right to prepare their legal defence.”

The Essence of the Rule of Law

The essence of the rule of law can be summarized in the following simple proposition: Because power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, the rule of law is essential to prevent power from corrupting and absolute power from corrupting absolutely. The U.N. Secretary-General in a report to the Security Council in 2004 prescribed implementation of the rule of law as “a principle of governance in which all persons, institutions and entities, public and private, including the State itself, are accountable to laws that are publicly promulgated, equally enforced and independently adjudicated, and which are consistent with international human rights norms and standards.” In practice, it is necessary to have “measures to ensure adherence to the principles of supremacy of law, equality before the law, accountability to the law, fairness in the application of the law, separation of powers, participation in decision-making, legal certainty, avoidance of arbitrariness and procedural and legal transparency.” The World Bank says where the rule of law prevails government exercises self-restraint, treats its citizens justly and equally under the law and protects the dignity of each individual in society. Numerous other organizations and institutions involved in the rule of law movement have come to the same conclusion.

Rule of Law Cannot Be “Copycatted”

There are some who believe that blindly “copycatting” laws and regulations from other countries and incorporating them verbatim into their own laws somehow guarantees the existence and prevalence of the rule of law. In justifying his “anti-terrorism law” in February 2012, Zenawi offered the following mindboggling explanation to his rubberstamp parliament:

In drafting our anti-terrorism law, we copied word-for-word the very best anti-terrorism laws in the world. We took from America, England and the European model anti-terrorism laws. It is from these three sources that we have drafted our anti-terrorism law. From these, we have choses the better ones. For instance, in all of these laws, an organization is deemed to be terrorist by the executive branch. We improved it by saying it is not good for the executive to make that determination. We took the definition of terrorism word-by-word. Not one word was changed. Not even a comma. It is taken word-by-word. There is a reason why we took it word-by-word. First, these people have experience in democratic governance. Because they have experience, there is no shame if we learn or take from them. Learning from a good teacher is useful not harmful. Nothing embarrassing about it. The [antiterrorism] proclamation in every respect is flawless. It is better than the best anti-terrorism laws [in the world] but not less than any one of them in any way…

One cringes in total embarrassment at such a stunningly shallow understanding of jurisprudence, glib talk about the law and inattention to a glaring logical fallacy in one’s argument. In seeking to establish that his anti-terrorism law is based on the rule of law, Zenawi commits a logical fallacy known as “argument from authority” (argumentum ad verecundiam). The logic of his argument is that America and Britain are democratic countries with a high degree of adherence to the rule of law principle; and they have anti-terrorism laws that are the “best” in the world. We have “copied word-for-word” the best elements of their anti-terrorism laws and put them to use. Therefore, our terrorism laws are “flawless” and singularly the very best in the world!

By invoking a fallacious authority and creating a manifestly false analogy, Zenawi aims to clothe his anti-terrorism diktat with moral legitimacy and legal respectability. One cannot create a lion by piecing together the sturdy long neck of the giraffe with the the strong jaws of a hyena, the fast limbs of the cheetah and the massive trunk of the elephant. The king of the jungle is an altogether different beast. In the same vein, one cannot clone pieces of anti-terrorism laws from everywhere onto a diktat and sanctify it as “flawless in every respect”.

Imitation may best the highest form of flattery, but to boldly claim that a mindlessly cloned diktat is “flawless” is just mindless. Beyond logical fallacy, Zenawi seems to be totally clueless about elementary principles of jurisprudence in the Anglo-American tradition. The American antiterrorism law (Zenawi does not specifically identify the American antiterrorism law he copied word-for-word, but one may reasonably assume he is referring to the “USA Patriot Act”), is not merely a collection of words, legal phrases, clauses, terms and paragraphs. The Patriot Act was drafted with intense debate and deliberation in the Congress (not scribbled down and sent for rubberstamping), contentious disputes in the media (in the U.S. it not a crime to criticize a law in the media) and amidst outraged public dialogue and debate (not shoved down the public’s throat). Above all, it was crafted within the known boundaries of the Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Amendments and Article I, section 9 of the U.S. Constitution. The legislative language in the Patriot Act derives its vitality not from glib semantic analysis of words and phrases, but from long and storied legal traditions that date back to the Magna Carta (Great Charter) in 1215, the Declaration of Independence in 1776 and the vast body of Anglo-American common law. Most importantly, the Patriot Act is subject to the supreme law of the land– the U.S. Constitution. Thomas Paine, one of the revolutionary “Founding Fathers of the United States” and the “voice of the common man” explained it best in Common Sense: “In America, the law is king. For as in absolute governments the King is law, so in free countries the law ought to be king; and there ought to be no other.”

If Zenawi wants to copycat American and British anti-terrorism laws, he cannot cherry pick words, phrases, sentences and clauses. He has to take the whole package because those words, phrases and clauses he copied so proudly have complex histories, meanings, nuances and implications. Those blindly borrowed words and phrases have special meaning and application when they are considered, contextualized, synthesized and analyzed within the broader framework of Anglo-American common law, judicial precedents, legal principles and doctrines, rules of statutory construction, legal scholarship, legislative intent and numerous other factors. If Zenawi chooses to imitate and clone American law “word-for-word”, he is practically, logically and hermeneutically obliged to give meaning to those laws within the framework of the American Constitution and the body of constitutional law.

But Zenawi simply has no clue. The U.S. “antiterrorism law” is not as perfect as he the thinks it is and may not be worthy of ultimate imitation. In fact, it is quite flawed. For instance, in 2004, a federal judge in New York ruled that a key component of the USA Patriot Act is unconstitutional because it allows the FBI to demand information from Internet service providers without judicial oversight or public review. Another federal judge in Oregon in 2007 ruled that crucial parts of the USA Patriot Act were unconstitutionalbecause they allowed federal surveillance and searches of Americans without demonstrating probable cause required by the Fourth Amendment. The judge wrote, “For over 200 years, this Nation has adhered to the rule of law — with unparalleled success. A shift to a Nation based on extra-constitutional authority is prohibited, as well as ill-advised.”

Unlike Zenawi’s “anti-terrorism” diktat, the Patriot Act had significant limitations in itself, including sunset provisions (expiration dates) of December 31, 2005 on a number of issues including wiretapping, sharing foreign intelligence information, seizure of voice-mail emergency disclosure of electronic surveillance. When it was reauthorized, a new sunset of December 31, 2009 was established and significant amendments added to provide for greater congressional and judicial oversight of orders for roving wiretaps and enhanced procedural protections for “sneak and peek” search warrants, among many others.

Zenawi also fails to understand the power of judicial review and the resolute ferocity of American lawyers dedicated to civil liberties in challenging the government and stopping it from encroaching on the civil liberties of the people. In other words, in America, there are lawyers and judges who are willing, able and ready to hold the Congress’ or the President’s feet to the fire of the supreme law of the land. In Ethiopia, there are only dictators who hold the peoples’ feet, hands and bodies to the fire.

But Zenawi is absolutely right in saying that “there is no shame if we learn or take from them [America, Britain, European model]”. Learning from a good teacher is useful not harmful.” But it is not enough to have good teachers, one must also be a good student and learn all of the substantive lessons, not just a word here, a phrase there and a clause somewhere else.

Do Ethiopians Want a Government of Laws and Not of Men?

The rule of law operates differently in different societies and there is no single “flawless” conception of the principle. I do believe there are some commonalities and universal elements of the rule of law principle that are applicable in all societies. To extract the most universal elements, it is necessary to learn from alternative conceptions and experiences in the application of the rule of law. But the learning process should not be robotic or involve the mindless aggregation of bits and fragments of information and analysis. It should be syncretic, synthesizing divergent and conflicting ideas and practices in the practical application of the rule of law.

The rule of law in Ethiopia, I believe, is an ancient ideal. Ordinary Ethiopians used to invoke the “divine power of the law” (ye heg amlak) against wrong-doers and abusers of power. That was when they could see the faint and distant image of justice painted on a canvas of autocratic rule. But it must also be pointed out that the Ethiopian civic culture has tolerated an insidious exception to the rule of law which persists to the present day. An old Ethiopia adage says, “One cannot plough (farm) the sky nor hold a king to account in court” (semai aye-tares, negus aye-keses). “Negus” Zenawi is the personification of that adage today. In the transition from dictatorship to democracy, Ethiopians will have an opportunity to choose between alternative conceptions of the rule of law.

My view is that rule of law is a quintessential principle of good democratic governance. It is a vital part of statecraft (the art of leading a country). It is a fundamental element in nation-building, state-building, peace-building, democracy-building, justice-building and truth and reconciliation. I do not equate the rule of law with democracy, but I believe it makes genuine multiparty democracy possible through institutional arrangements for conducting clean, free and fair elections. I do not think the rule of law by itself guarantees justice, but it will serve to facilitate the delivery of justice to citizens through an independent and transparent judicial process. It will not guarantee equality, human rights and the rest of it, but without the rule of law there can be no equality or human dignity. I believe respect for human rights is the single important manifestation of the prevalence of the rule of law in any society and the most persuasive evidence of good governance.

Rule of Unjust Laws?

I am persuaded by the works of the great philosophers, thinkers, theologians, theorists, revolutionaries and human and civil rights rights advocates — Cicero, Augustine, Aquinas, Gandhi, King and even the framers of the U.S. Constitution in their Declaration of Independence — who argued that an unjust law (diktat) is not really a law at all. Dr. Martin Luther King said, “Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws… for an unjust law is no law at all.” So Ethiopia’s transition from dictatorship to democracy will be a transition from rule by unjust laws to the rule of just laws, and an uprising from degradation to collective elevation. I believe the rule of law will take deep root in Ethiopia when government learns always to fear its citizens and citizens acquire the courage never to fear their government!

* Rules out airlines, telecoms and banks
(Reuters) – Ethiopia has accepted bids worth 2.1 billion birr ($121 million) for seven state-owned firms, part of a plan to privatise dozens of corporations in the next three years, it said on Thursday.

The Horn of Africa nation, whose state-dominated economy ranks among the fastest growing in the world, aims to sell around 40 enterprises, including several large farms, a winery and a big hotel.

The Privatisation and Public Enterprise Supervising Agency accepted an 860 million birr bid from MIDROC Ethiopia for one of the country’s biggest farms, Upper Awash Agro-Industry Enterprise, said agency spokesman Wondafrash Asefa.

MIDROC Ethiopia is owned by Saudi-Ethiopian billionaire Mohammed Al Amoudi, who is one of the world’s richest men according to Forbes magazine.

Al Amoudi’s other companies Horizon Plantation PLC, National Mining Corporation and Saudi Star Agricultural Development won bids for four other firms for a combined 463 million birr ($26.7 million), Wondafrash said.

“The enterprises engage in different sectors, including agriculture, beverage, construction, printing, textile and transport. At this time though agriculture enterprises are found to be more attractive than others,” Wondafrash said.

Last year, the government sold its last remaining breweries Bedele, Harar and Meta Abo to Heineken and Diageo for a combined $388.3 million.

BIG FIVE

Ethiopia expects its gross domestic product to grow by more than 11 percent each year until 2014, while the International Monetary Fund forecasts a growth rate of 7.5 percent this year and 5.5 percent next year.

Like other African nations, Ethiopia has embarked on ambitious infrastructure investment projects to improve its economic competitiveness, including a multi-billion dollar plan to scale up energy generation.

Economic experts say the government could fund the development plans by privatising its five biggest firms. They include Ethiopian Airlines, Ethiopian Shipping Lines, Ethio Telecom, the Ethiopian Insurance Corporation, and the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia.

“Only with a large-scale privatisation program can Ethiopia achieve many of the objectives,” Ethiopia-based research group Access Capital SC said in an economic outlook report.

A sale of the five firms could generate $7.7 billion, the group said, while the privatisation of some 81 other state corporations could rake in another $9.6 billion.

Prime Minister Meles Zenawi has repeatedly ruled out privatisation of the banking and telecommunications sectors, despite pressure from Western donors to do so.

“Several strategic enterprises in different sections will remain in government hands, such as Ethiopian Shipping Lines and another 11 enterprises. They could be privatised once their strategic importance diminishes” Wondafrash said.

The concept was popularized in the 1900 with the influx of immigrants from all over. It was challenged in 1970’s with some questioning the idea of total meld and wanted to preserve cultural differences as valuable part of a civil society and proposed an alternative metaphor the ‘mosaic or salad bowl’ concept. This term has come to dominate the Canadian experience. It proposes the mix of ethnic groups, languages and cultures that can harmoniously co-exist. It advocates multiculturalism.

Both approaches have managed to build a robust and prosperous society. Over the weekend I had a medical issue and went to the hospital. I, the patient is an immigrant from Ethiopia. My admitting nurse was another Ethiopian. The nurse that took my vitals was from Nigeria. The person who took my x-ray was from Eritrea. My emergency room doctor was a white American. The individual who took me thru the discharge process was a female Hispanic immigrant. The hospital functioned like a well-oiled machine.

I was impressed. It made me see how the US has managed to become such a big powerhouse. There is plenty that needs to change but it is obvious the system is based on a solid ground of willingness to accommodate change while not losing a common vision of one country one people.

It did not take me long to come back to ground. My homeland came to jar me back to reality. The ‘ethnic cleansing’ in southern part of my country was a reminder that all is not well on the home front. The term ‘ethnic cleansing’ is a loaded term. I am not invoking it lightly. But it to so aptly describes the plight of our citizens that happen to be ‘Amhara’ and their current tribulations. The Benji Maji Zone Administration has seen it fit to expropriate their land and property and drive them out of their homes. Go back to your Kilil they said. Today they are refugees in their own country. The actual term is ‘internally displaced.’

“Internally displaced” is a strange concept to grasp. How could you be a refugee in your own land? In an emerging Democracy like Ethiopia anything is possible. The government led by TPLF (Tigrai Peoples Liberation Movement) is the Party in charge. When they took power they were not into the concept a ‘melting pot’ nor did they appreciate the idea of a ‘salad bowl.’ Our ḥizbāwī weyānē ḥārinet tigrāy ሕዝባዊ ወያኔ ሓርነት ትግራይ leaders were enamored by the concept of ‘Apartheid’. Building enclaves was their brilliant solution. The plight of the Amhara’s is Apartheid in practice. That is what Meles Zenawi is constructing in Ethiopia. Separate disjointed entities at war with each other while his single ethnic based party fans the hate flame.

Do you think I am being an alarmist? Do you think I am falling into the trap of ethnic identification? I do not think so. If people are forced to flee due to their ethnicity be it in Benji Maji, Gambella, Sarajevo or Kigali you have to call it what it is ‘ethnic cleansing.’ The Serbian Military’s attempt to drive Moslems out of Sarajevo was defined as practicing ‘ethnic cleansing.’ Hutus targeted Tutsis and the blood bath was judged as an ugly attempt at ‘ethnic cleansing.’ During the border war between Ethiopia and Eritrea both countries carried out limited form of ‘ethnic cleansing’. May I remind you some of us showed total indifference while a few cheered. Ethnic cleansing is an International crime. It is crime against humanity. What has happened to the Amhara’s of Benji Maji Zone is ‘ethnic cleansing.’ Their only crime is being an Amhara and finding them selves in the wrong Apartheid designated ‘Home Land”.

This abhorrent crime is committed by the TPLF party, which is led by Prime Minister Meles Zenawi. They set such system in place. They designed it. Some are claiming the TPLF party has gone rouge and become the party of one family. I beg to differ. The TPLF was born a monster, grew up to be a monster and will die as a monster. It has never ever done anything that could be seen as a positive contribution to the people of Tigrai in particular and the people of Ethiopia in general.

Kilil is not a new idea. It was copied from the book of the Nationalist Party of South Africa. The White people’s party. Their creation of the ‘Apartheid’ system set up ten Bantustans or homeland for Black people. It kept the Blacks apart. It made them strangers to each other. There was no Black South African but an ethnic based homeland citizen. Leaders like Chief Buthelezi of the great nation of Kwa Zulu were reduced to serving the White masters at the expense of their people. Exile some, corrupt a few and bully the rest was the hallmark of Apartheid. Kilil is the son of Apartheid. In today’s Ethiopia Kilil defines who you are and that of being an Ethiopian is secondary. Benji Maji is the outcome of Kilil at work. You area a citizen of your Kilil not your Country.

TPLF’s system is working like a charm. The folks displaced from Benji Maji are living proof. The cultivation of hate has made us mistrust each other. The insistence on separate Kilil’s has caused us plenty of civil strife. No place is immune from this sickness. Even places of higher learning such as the University and Kilil based Colleges are the hot bed of ‘ethnic’ clashes. I am writing about it. It has become our everyday experience. We are in the process of becoming strangers to each other. The meaning of being an Ethiopian is being deflated, downsized, given negative connotations and made something to hide out of shame.

Why some people in leadership do that should be left to psychologists, social scientists and historians to explain. Our problem is here and now. We are all affected by this devaluation of a beautiful proud country. We are not the first to be under this type of calamity. Look Iraq was once a proud nation. Today Iraqis avoid Iraq. Syria is entering that zone of madness on a national scale. Ethnic strife is the common thread between the two. Kilil is the breeding ground for ‘ethnic strife’. The TPLF party is the fertilizer.

Are you inoculated against this virus? What do you think when you hear of Benji Maji? Upset? Depressed? Confused? Hope less? You see the current leaders of Ethiopia are free to do what they want. The only way to stop them is by showing them there are consequences to their action. There is a price to pay for bad deeds. The people organized around Timret are building an all-inclusive Front as a solid foundation for our future Ethiopia. ESAT has managed to be our voice. Andenet is still operating under dire circumstances. All these groups and organizations are helping the people of Benji Maji by doing their share so there will be no more Benji Maji’s. Change will not happen with out involvement. We can work together as one to create a “melting Pot’ or a ‘Salad Bowl’ or continue on building Apartheid. It is up to you. Show me rather than tell me.

Technically, the high court in Dakar may be right when it decided that the president could run for a third term, although the new constitution limits to two terms. The disaster was not the court but the president ‘s political decision, for he proved selfish and irresponsible as far as the country was concerned, in the face of a huge tide against him.

At the time, I expressed my frustration with the following words:

The 27 January ruling by Senegal’s constitutional court allowing the country’s 85-year old President Abdoulaye Wade to run for a third term in next month’s election has plunged one of Africa’s most stable countries into an uncertain future. Not only that the man is of advanced age, but also has already been in power for the past eleven years and no matter what the technicalities on the basis of which the court ruled, Abdoulaye Wade now finds himself on the wrong side of history.

Fortunately, the people of Senegal have not allowed Mr. Wade to take the country down with him. Opposition candidate

President Elect Mackey Sall

former Prime Minister Mackey Sall has won the presidential run-off election with 65.5, percent against former president’s 34.2 percent.

After he lost the first round, Mr. Wade offered two explanations why it happened. The first is, because the West was campaigning against him. The second: “There is only one hypothesis. I win. The possibility of my defeat is absurd,” he told an interviewer on Africa7, a local television station, according to The New Age of 24 February.

I am heartened by the change of fortune in Senegal’s politics. As an African, it has made me happy and proud. More importantly, I hope, the example Senegal has set and the world has happily witnessed would become Africa’s electoral Sub-Saharan fire—the equivalent of the Arab Spring, which would blow the winds of change in the corridors of power in Africa.

Bravo Senegal, the world has also breathed a sigh of relief, at least, the people of Senegal having made this election, in a region of turbulence and election-related sufferings, one of the rare events, whereby the demonstration of popular verdict has gone in Africa unpunished.

Mr. Wade knew already Sunday that his third-term dream would not come true. Thus, as the polls closed, the former president called his opponent and congratulated him, even before the final results were announced. The former president told reporters, “The results coming in indicated that Mr. Mackey Sall had won. As I had always promised, I called him Sunday night to congratulate him.”

A former prime minister for Wade and a protégé, the president-elect graciously said, “The big winner tonight is the Senegalese people… We have shown to the world our democracy is mature. I will be the president of all the Senegalese.”

He is 50-year engineer / geologist by training, who has chosen politics rather as his calling. Since 2000, he has closely worked with Mr. Wade. Those who know him closely say he is very effective as a manager and with people skills. I wish him and hope that he would use those to reciprocate the trust bestowed on him by the people of Senegal doing the people’s job.

Genuine congratulatory messages pour in

The congratulations are pouring from all over the world to President Mackay Sall and the people of Senegal. Amongst others, are Nigeria’s President Jonathan Goodluck said, “The outcome of the election in Senegal is good for West Africa and the African continent.” Similarly, President Nicholas Sarkozy, on behalf of France the former colonial power, saw Sall’s victory as “good news for Africa in general and for Senegal in particular. Senegal is a major African country and a model of democracy.”

President Obama said,“Senegal has, through this election, reaffirmed its tradition as a leading example of good governance and democracy at work in Africa and remains an example for its neighbors.The government and people of Senegal have once again demonstrated their commitment to political expression through peaceful, democratic elections, making it harder for non-democratic forces near and far to prevail. Today’s results deepen hopes across the continent and around the world that the quest for human dignity cannot be denied and that Africa’s democratic wave must continue.”

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon spoke by telephone with both Messrs. Wade and Sall congratulating them and the people of Senegal for the exemplary manner in which both rounds of the presidential elections were conducted. Recall that both Mr. Ban Ki-moon and High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay had voiced early on concerns about rising anger of Senegalese about Mr. Wade’s decision to seek a third term had taken to the streets of the capital, Dakar, and other cities in the run-up to the elections.

Even the AU has jumped on the bandwagon to congratulate Senegal

I almost forgot to mention that the African Union (AU) Commission Chairman Jean Ping and the current AU chairman Benin’s President Boni Yay have also sent congratulations. I am sure you could sense from my tone I am not happy about this dispatch of routine messages, which the AU does not have inside it.

Frankly speaking, the AU should not have sent any messages at all to Senegal and its new leader to congratulate them for their success. The reason for this protest is that the AU had been trying to scuttle this brilliant display of wisdom and maturity by the Senegalese people seeking to use its tired “negotiated settlement” as means of settling dispute, which it sticks into every situation — without even getting a real feel of the problem and the nation itself.

In February, days before the election was held, the AU sent former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo to persuade the candidates to share the presidential term with Wade allowed to win and serve only the first two years and retire. I am sorry to say, it smacks sort of mafia deal!

To Mr. Obsanjo’s surprise, all opposition parties in Senegal had discussed the mediation effort and they did not need to waste time on it. When Mr.Obasanjo approached them the opposition candidate and the parties behind him turned the table on his proposals. Instead, according to press release by M23, a campaign of opposition to stop Wade, offered their solution: to run fresh elections without President Abdoulaye Wade. With that, therefore, they unanimously rejected Mr. Obsanjo’s mediation efforts and saw him off.

If the AU had succeeded in its mediation efforts, it would have meant rewarding those who defy the popular will, depriving Africa and the world of the lessons that would go down as a brilliant example of what is possible in Africa, when the leaders have the right attitude toward power and the high office, as if it were crowning of a pope.

After all, with its record in election observations that has consistently supported those who stole election results in different African countries, the AU has no credibility to involve itself any more in election related matters.

As an African, I humbly suggest, the AU first clean its acts and begin to review its mandate and learn to speak on behalf the people’s interests, not the dictators. That is when the AU would get the respect of Africans at home and in the diaspora –I might add also of the international community!

If I am allowed to read into it, the new development within the international system is that Africa is fast losing voice. Since the 18th AU Summit, Africa lost the post of Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations, which is now given to Sweden. In Libya and Ivory Coast, the role Africa played through the AU has been embarrassing, to put it mildly. And still Africa is full complaints that the AU is not being consulted on issues that matter to it, etc. Africans and the AU must face the reality through serious thinking and reflection.

Finally, I join the sentiment expressed by the editorial on Le Quotidien newspaper, entitled “Goodbye Wade” in expressing a reprieve for the incumbent, which the paper referred to as “‘honorable’ exit”, which he won just three and a half hours after polls closed and he congratulated his opponent. He has returned to the tradition democratic Senegal has cultivated so well.

This brings to mind to another magnificent story. Former President Abdou Diouf suffered humiliating defeat in the hands of Wade in 2000. When Diouf saw the trend, CBS reports, he collected his belongings and said to his staff before he left, “I think this how democracy works!”

CBS News reports that actually Mr. Diouf lost with a huge margin, more than Wade. Still, he made sure he reached the winner to congratulate him. The first time he called, he was told Mr. Wade was sleeping. Mr. Diouf called the next day and fulfilled his pledge.

There are better examples, few though, but still a sign that better day would come for Africa, thanks for the giant step Senegal has now taken.

Mr. Mackay Sall would be inaugurated as president on April 3.

http://transformingethiopia.wordpress.com/

According to witnesses from Gambella, in the last few weeks, two to three thousand TPLF/EPRDF defense troops have been sent to the area following the ambush of a passenger bus on March 4, 2012 where 19 innocent people—mostly young students returning from school—were killed. Despite an absence of evidence, the Anuak rebels in the bush have been blamed and with them, the Anuak in general, especially men and older boys who all “look” suspicious in the eyes of this regime. It has resulted in a spiraling number of incidents of violence and arrests of Anuak by the military, creating an atmosphere reminiscent of the Anuak massacre of December 13-15, 2003 and the two or more years of human rights abuses that followed.

The TPLF/EPRDF regime is justifying this clampdown as necessary to protect the region—and the investors—from these “anti-peace” insurgents; however, from our investigations, we in the SMNE have found no evidence of their involvement and instead, reason to suspect that the tragic murder of these 19 Ethiopians may be another Meles-conspired false flag operation, where disguised TPLF agents attacked the bus themselves in order to blame the local people, especially those who are opposed to the land grabs.
In the last year, Wikileaks released a report that attributed responsibility for a car bomb that exploded in Addis Ababa following the 2005 national election to Meles’ own agents who had then used the incident to arrest members of the Oromo Liberation Front. On the morning of the genocidal massacre of Anuak of December 13-15, 2003, a UN vehicle was ambushed and all its occupants, including an Anuak driver, were brutally murdered and the bodies were strategically laid out in the center of Gambella town, inciting the residents. Anuak insurgents were blamed; however, the plans to eliminate Anuak resistance to the oil drilling, Operation Sunny Mountain, began in Meles’ offices in September 2003, according to documents retrieved from the office of Mr. Omot Obang Olom, the current Gambella regional governor who was Chief of Security during the massacre.

These are only some examples of the long-standing pattern of widespread human rights violations by this one-ethnic dominated apartheid regime that makes it one of the worst human rights violators in Africa. The crimes in the Gambella region only declined because the TPLF/EPRDF troops were moved to commit the same or even worse crimes in the Ogaden and into Somalia. These violations include genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and other atrocities that they have perpetrated and continue to perpetrate with impunity; much of it documented by multiple human rights organizations.

Eight years after the Anuak genocide, Gambella is again in the spotlight. This region has become the epicenter of land grabs on the African continent and with it, human rights violations in response to dissent; however, with the return of TPLF/EPRDF troops, the numbers and breadth of these incidents have multiplied. From the testimony from people in Gambella, the very heavy presence of troops has terrorized many, triggering post-traumatic memories of the past genocide.

Some of the schools in the Gambella districts of Abobo and Gok, where much of the land development is going on, have now been shut down and the children are no longer going to school. Men and older teens are being intimidated and harassed with reports of many arrests and torture. Troops have been rounding up the men and ordering them to go into the bush, barehanded, to search for unknown insurgents who are now accused of the killings despite a lack of evidence.

Many local people are questioning the regime’s assumption of guilt. Instead, many believe that the government was behind the ambush as a covert means to protect the investors with thousands of troops. There has been no peace or stability in the region since their arrival as they target the local farmers in these rural towns and villages. Now, anyone walking by themselves is labeled as a rebel; particularly any men, young and old.
On March 25th, defense troops went to the teacher’s college to arrest three Anuak students and one Nuer student. These students claimed they had committed no crimes and had nothing to do with the ambush or other rebel activity. They resisted going with them and as they did, faculty members called the police. Many of the police force are local Anuak and should have been the ones to arrest them or otherwise to protect them.

As the incident created a public spectacle, the defense troops backed off and did nothing. When the police came, they arrested the students and jailed them; however, in the middle of the night, the military removed them from their cells and brought them to the army base for interrogation, all in violation of the law. The outcome of these students is still unknown. One of the students Mr. Opiew Obang allegedly was suspected because his father, a police officer, had been arrested in the Abobo area on March 17th for refusing to search for the insurgents saying he had no idea of their whereabouts. This is only further evidence that no justice exists in this country.

The federal government has now taken complete control of the Gambella region although the governor, Omot Obang Olom, remains as a figurehead. Why is the TPLF/EPRDF regime panicking so much? Was this ambush part of a plan to protect the investors? After the car was ambushed, the government-controlled news agency put out a press release regarding the bus ambush and the killing of the 19 students. This is quite unusual for them because they usually do not usually put out a press release. When one puts it all together, we believe it may be all a strategy to protect the regime’s investments in the area as well as the investors with their work crews and professional staff who have been feeling fearful with some threatening to leave according to rumors from the ground.

The motivation to use a high-profile and horrific killing of innocent students to justify bringing in so many troops to assure the investors to stay or even as a means to provide cheap labor (TPLF/EPRDF troops) for the investors if their crews leave is not far-fetched for a government such as the Meles regime who has a long history of pseudo-operations.

On March 21, federal representatives went to South Sudan to meet with the Anuak Commissioner of Pochalla where thousands of Anuak remain who had fled from Gambella during the massacre and its aftermath. They wanted the commissioner to hand over approximately twenty Anuak who they believed might be involved in the insurgency and hiding in the refugee camp in South Sudan. The Anuak there said they did not know the whereabouts of these people. Now, the TPLF/EPRDF regime is exerting pressure on South Sudan to return all of the Anuak refugees to Gambella, against international law.
In the last two weeks, an extensive campaign has been launched, especially in the three Anuak districts where the land development is going on. Mr. Omot Obang and federal officials went to meet with some of the Anuak elders and people in these districts to literally beg them not to join the resistance and instead to work with the government against the “anti-peace” elements in the bush. Great efforts were made to convince the Anuak that this land investment was good for the people and that the TPLF was the best government for them because it was a minority government that respected the rights of the minorities and marginalized, unlike the Derg under Mengistu.

Efforts to discourage the Anuak from joining or supporting the resistance are ongoing. On March 26th Mr. Aleka Tsgaye Bereh an official from the office of the Minister of Defense was in Gambella town and met with the teachers at the college. On March 27th they met with the students; both times with the message to not support the insurgents.

One of the government representatives at the Anuak village meetings with the elders was Mr. Shefarwa W/Mariam the man who replaced Barnabas Gebre-Ab, the former Minister of Federal Affairs for the State of Gambella, who had been an architect of the Anuak massacre. In response to their attempts to gain support of the government, the Anuak elders, at every location, told the officials that one of the problems in the region was Omot Obang and that until he was out of power, the problems would continue. When Mr. Omot was asked about this, he said that these elders had been “…brainwashed by the intellectual Anuak who are against me and those people are not only in Gambella, but also in the Diaspora.” He further said, “These are the people who are against the land deals and who also hold a grudge for December 13th.”
For this reason, in the afternoon of March 26, 2012, Omot Obang, the police commissioner, Mr. Tsgaye Bereh the defense commander and the Supreme Court Justice of the Gambella Region made a decision that the Anuak insurgents who are in the bush must have a link to the those Anuak in the West as well as to the intellectual Anuak in the region who do not want him—Omot Obang—to be in power. So on March 27th, instead of having an open meeting at the governor’s office as usual, a secret meeting was held at the Police Commissioner’s office which lasted for only ten minutes.

The decision was made to declare a war on intellectuals. What this meant was that they would identify guilty suspects by retrieving telephone records from the state-owned telecommunication office so as to reveal who had talked to people in the Diaspora. Once identified, those who had engaged in such calls would be arrested. From tomorrow forward, anyone under suspicion by Omot Obang or anyone he thought did not “like” him, he would target for arrest.
This is all a strong indication that things will get worse. There will be many more arrests, disappearances, torture and killings, the way it was done before in Gambella and in the manner that is still going on in the Ogaden. We call on human rights groups to investigate and for pressure to be put on the Ethiopian government to go after those in the bush, if they can prove their guilt, rather than those in their homes. Even more importantly, they should stop the abuses of the innocent and hold their own troops accountable for human rights crimes already committed. The SMNE is already collecting the names of the people who have disappeared or who have been arrested or tortured. We now have 27 names, with more names forthcoming. We will make this information public when we are ready.

In conclusion, caution should be exercised by every Ethiopian citizen so as not to be entrapped by any TPLF/EPRDF deceit and efforts to divide people along ethnic lines, skin color or as highlanders or lowlanders as a ruse to maintain power, and with it, access to land and resources. We Ethiopians must see the humanity in each of us if we are ever to live in that New Ethiopia.

This past January, I wrote a commentary entitled: “Ethiopia: Middle Passage to the Middle East” on the plight of the tens of thousands of Ethiopian domestic workers in the Middle East and North Africa. Substantial anecdotal evidence showed many of these workers are subjected to inhuman and degrading treatment, and that they are physically and sexually abused and economically exploited in a system of “contract slavery”. Last August, the daughter-in-law of the late Moamar Gadhafi poured scalding hot water on her young Ethiopian domestic worker totally disfiguring her (video here). Many Ethiopian domestic workers in other parts of the Middle East have faced mistreatment and abuse that would amount to torture under international law (video here). Another young Ethiopian domestic worker was so distraught she confronted a representative of dictator Meles Zenawi’s regime at a town hall meeting and demanded an answer: “Why is that our government does not check on us, follow up on our conditions, ask about us?” (video here). Crying her eyes out, she demanded, “Where is Ethiopia’s flag? I can’t take it anymore. I can’t take it anymore…!!!!”

A few of weeks ago, Alem Dechassa, another Ethiopian domestic worker was severely beaten and forced into a vehicle right outside the gates of the Ethiopian Embassy in Lebanon as Ethiopian “diplomats” looked on without lifting a finger or raising a voice (video here). Days later, Lebanese authorities announced that Alem hanged herself while undergoing treatment in, of all places, a psychiatric hospital! In the last few days, it was reported that Ethiopian Refugees in Yemen were beaten by Yemeni security forces as they sought help from the UNHCR office. Some 25 refugees were taken into detention. Another group of Ethiopian refugees protesting at the Yemen Human Rights Office was reportedly attacked by police. In Kenya, the Sudan and even in South Africa, Ethiopian refugees have faced abuse and brutality from law enforcement and vigilante elements. Ethiopians must be the most right-less people in the world!

Ethiopian Political Refugees in Norway

The latest horror story in the tragic saga of Ethiopian refugees comes from Norway. Recently, the Government of Norway put into place a plan to “involuntarily” (forcibly) deport hundreds of Ethiopian political refugees back to Ethiopia. According to human rights sources, some of these refugees have lived and worked in Norway for over two decades. Most of these refugees were given work permits and allowed to live freely and work in Norway when they first entered. Most learned the language and adopted Norwegian culture. Among the refugees include some 450 children born in Norway and living in “asylum seeker reception centers” for several years. Many of these children attend school and some of them speak only Norwegian.

The vast majority of these refugees had fled Zenawi’s ruthless dictatorship by the skin of their teeth. Many of them are ardent opponents of Zenawi’s regime in Norway. As recently as October 2011, many of these refugees flooded the streets of Oslo to protest the arrival of Zenawi for an energy conference (video here). Zenawi’s operatives reportedly videotaped the protesters in the streets, according to sources. Many of these refugees have a long history of activism in Ethiopian opposition political organizations in Norway at the leadership and grassroots levels taking advantage of democratic freedoms in Norway.

The “Memorandum of Understanding”

The basis for the forcible return of the Ethiopian political refugees is a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), between the Norwegian Government and the regime of Zenawi, which purports to comply with the requirements of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other treaties concerning repatriation of refugees to their countries of origin. The objective of the MoU is to facilitate a “dignified process of assisted return”. It provides for the “Government of Ethiopia to carry out the necessary measures for the return of Ethiopian nationals from Norway.” The Norwegian Government is expected to provide “necessary support” for implementation and monitoring. Refugees who agree to voluntarily return are promised a set amount of money upon their arrival. Incredibly, in Annex 3 to the MoU, the Norwegian Government will provide to the “National Intelligence and Security Service of Ethiopia via the Royal Norwegian Embassy in Addis Ababa” detailed personal data on each refugee including, among other things, “personal details”, “passport, national identity, driver license” information, “special circumstances relating to the transferee” and the “observations” of the Norwegian National Police Immigration Service.

Upon signing of the MoU, Norway’s international development minister, Erik Solheim, announced that the regime of Zenawi will receive annual aid in the amount of 350 million kroner. (Perhaps this should not come as a surprise. USD$35 million was paid in the last days of the Derg to let go the Beta Israelis.) Solheim said it is not quid pro quo (refugees for cash). Various Norwegian political leaders, opposition parties and human rights activists have severely criticized and condemned the deportation program.

MoU or RfC?

First, a major clarification. The Norwegian MoU concerning the forcible return of the Ethiopian political refugees is actually not an MoU in any legal sense. Under international law, an MoU is an important legal instrument which falls under the broad category of “treaties” and must be registered in the United Nations’ treaty database. When properly performed, an MoU could serve in the place of a formal treaty. Whether MoUs are binding or not binding under international law depends on the intent of the parties, the position of the signatory officials and the specific terms and conditions.

MoU is a disingenuous misnomer for what the Government of Norway has concluded with Zenawi’s regime. At best the document may qualify as an “exchange of notes” similar to an ordinary private contract. But the MoU is palmed off to the refugees as though it is a binding and enforceable legal document which protects their rights and guarantees their safety and welfare once they are forcibly returned. The MoU provides the illusion of legality and a veneer of moral decency for a despicable act of forcing political refugees to the gates of Zenawi’s infamous prison gulags, which have been widely documented.

The Norwegian MoU is what in the old days used to be called a “gentlemen’s agreement” or “letter of intent”. It is merely a collection of aspirational statements (wishful thoughts, desires) contained in a “memorandum” or a note expressing a general “understanding” (not a binding agreement) about the wholesale deportation of Ethiopian political refugees from Norway. It is a thinly veiled document which expresses the wishes of the Norwegian Government to get rid of the refugees as quickly as possible without creating any legal obligations on the part of Norway or Zenawi’s regime. The MoU contains NO language that is enforceable at law by the refugee third-party beneficiaries (Ethiopian political refugees) and makes no express or implied legal commitment concerning the welfare or safety of these refugees after they are delivered in planeloads to Zenawi. Its enforcement relies entirely on the discretion of Zenawi’s regime. Norway may call its “agreement” an MoU, but to the rest of the world it looks, walks and talks like a RfC (refugees for cash) program.

Delivering Lambs to the Wolf’s Lair

The Norwegian MoU may vaguely remind some students of history the “Munich Agreement” of 1939 selling out Czechoslovakia. Neville Chamberlain victoriously declared, “We regard the agreement as symbolic of the desire of our two people never to go to war with one another again… Here is the paper that bears his name as well as mine…” The world soon found out that the “Munich Agreement” was not worth the paper it was written on. Hitler laughed at Chamberlain.

Concluding an MoU with one who has shredded his own constitution, trampled on his own laws, sneered at international human rights treaties, vilified international human rights organizations, imprisoned tens of thousands of his people, claimed election victory by 99.6 percent, crushed all opposition parties and democratic institutions is an exercise in futility. Concluding an MoU with one who has ignored the plight of 40 thousand Ethiopia domestic workers in the Middle East is an act of willful denial. Concluding an agreement with one who has weaponized famine and uprooted and “villagized” hundreds of thousands of people from their ancestral homes is a colossal act of moral indifference and callousness to the plight and suffering of Ethiopian political refugees.

It is laughable for the Norwegian Government to tout the MoU as some sort of “humane” and “dignified” mechanism for “reintegration” and “repatriation” of Ethiopian refugees denied asylum. The Norwegian Government has gone to great lengths to reassure the refugees, Ethiopians at large and the world of its MoU and eagerly pointed out the signatures on the lines and made lofty proclamations about “humane reintegration”. But at the end of the day, Zenawi will be laughing and the returned refugees will crying their eyes out in one of Zenawi’s secret prison gulags. With its MoU, Norway has delivered these persecuted and long-suffering political refugees to the wolf’s lair on a silver platter.

Do the Ethiopian Refugees Have a Well-founded Fear of Persecution?

How Norway applies its asylum laws are matters best left to Norwegian law and judicial and administrative process. However, Norwegian asylum law must conform to 1951 Refugee Convention (Norway ratified the Convention on March 23, 1953) as amended by the 1967 Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees.

Article 1 of the Convention defines a refugee as “A person who owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country; or who, not having a nationality and being outside the country of his former habitual residence as a result of such events, is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to return to it.” The Ethiopian refugees are making their claims under Art. 1.

Under Article 33 (1) of the Convention, “No Contracting State shall expel or return (‘refouler’) a refugee in any manner whatsoever to the frontiers of territories where his life or freedom would be threatened on account of his race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social or political opinion.” The prohibition on forcible return of refugees is also a widely accepted principle of customary international law, the violation of which requires immediate notification of and intervention by the UNHCR. It does not appear UNHCR assistance was sought in this case.

Whether the Ethiopian refugees in Norway have a “well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion” under the Convention presents interesting legal questions. The Convention requires states to include in their asylum procedures, among other things, an up-to-date knowledge of all the relevant objective circumstances in the country of origin. Such knowledge should play a critical role in the determination of whether to grant asylum. The burden of proof is on the asylum applicant, but the standard of proof in asylum cases is not “well-founded fear of persecution” beyond a reasonable doubt, but rather proof that it is “reasonably possible”.

For the Ethiopian political refugees, obtaining corroborative evidence of “well-founded fear of being persecuted…” is difficult and sometimes impossible given the extremely oppressive nature of Zenawi’s dictatorship. Because of language issues and inability to legally articulate their factual circumstances, inability to remember all dates, times and places and other minor details and statements that may contain minor inconsistencies or are incorrect for lack of understanding of the process, it is easy to mistake an applicant’s claim for asylum as lacking credibility. Under the Convention, the totality of factors is taken into account in the overall assessment of the applicant’s credibility. If the applicant presents a claim which is coherent, credible and plausible, the Convention Convention urges giving the benefit of the doubt to the applicant as regards those statements for which evidentiary proof is lacking.

The “up-to-date knowledge of all the relevant objective circumstances” in Ethiopia has been documented by nearly every major human rights organization in the world and the world’s major media. The facts are incontrovertible and summarized in the Human Rights Watch World Report 2012: Ethiopia:

Ethiopian authorities continued to severely restrict basic rights of freedom of expression, association, and assembly. Hundreds of Ethiopians in 2011 were arbitrarily arrested and detained and remain at risk of torture and ill-treatment…Long-term pre-trial detention without charge, often without access to counsel, is common, notably under the Anti-Terror law, which allows police to request additional investigation periods of 28 days each from a court before filing charges, for up to four months. Human Rights Watch is aware of at least 29 opposition party members, journalists, and an actor who at this writing were currently held in remand detention under the Anti-Terror law… The restrictive Charities and Societies Proclamation, adopted in 2009, which prohibits organizations receiving more than 10 percent of their funding from abroad from carrying out human rights and governance work, continues to severely hamper basic rights monitoring and reporting activities… No independent domestic or international organization has access to all of Ethiopia’s detention facilities; it is impossible to determine the number of political prisoners and others arbitrarily detained or their condition.

What Could Happen to the Political Refugees Forcibly Returned by Norway?

MoU or no MoU, the Ethiopians political refugees forcibly returned will very likely face all forms of overt and subtle persecution. Without a doubt, upon their forcible return, they will be rendered right-less. Though the Ethiopian Constitution grants them a panoply of rights fortified by international human rights conventions (Eth. Const., Art. 13), they will have absolutely no constitutional protection. In the absence of freedom of speech and of the press, they will be unable to communicate their circumstances to anyone. In the absence of an independent judiciary, they will have no means of seeking justice or redress for grievances under law or the MoU. In the absence of civil society institutions, they will have no one to champion their cause and defend their rights. In the absence of the rule of law, one by one they will be picked up, jailed and tortured.

Zenawi is a cunning, calculating and spiteful dictator. He knows that in a few months the issue of these refugees will fade out of public awareness. He knows there will be no one to follow on their welfare or circumstances. He knows there are no groups and organizations in the country who will closely monitor the situation of these refuges. Zenawi will bide his time. When no one is noticing, he will nab each one of these repatriated refugees and there will be no traces of them. That is his M.O. It can be predicted with reasonable certainty that in one year’s time, few of the returned refugees will be available for a head count!

The Norwegian MoU, like the Ethiopian Constitution, will offer nothing but lofty words and empty promises to the refugees. It will have little practical meaning or effect in the face of Zenawi’s brutal dictatorship. History will show that the Norwegian MoU will amount to nothing more than just a scrap of paper.

What Would Dr. Fridtjof Nansen Do with the Ethiopian Refugees?

Norway is known for many great things — the Nobel Prize, international peace and the Oslo Accords. Norway was even rated as the most peaceful nation in the world in 2007. Norway is also known for its extraordinary humanitarian service to refugees worldwide. The internationally renowned Norwegian Refugee Council has provided assistance and protection to millions of refugees and returnees worldwide since the end of WW II.

When it comes to helping refugees, few equal the great Norwegian explorer, scientist, diplomat and humanist, Dr. Fridtjof Nansen. Dr. Nansen was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1922 for his humanitarian efforts on behalf of stateless persons (the “Nansen Passport” that was an international identity card for stateless refugees). Because of Dr. Nansen’s work and efforts, the lives of millions of Russian, Greek, Turkish and Armenian refugees were saved. More recently, former Norwegian soccer star Bjorn Heidenstrom cycled from North to South Africa to put the spotlight on millions of forcibly displaced Africans.

Regarding the Ethiopian political refugees, the prominent Norwegian author Jan Kjerstad perhaps described it best: “It is possible this is the right thing to do (deportation) seen from a bureaucratic point of view… Nevertheless, in the big picture, this is an ethical act for which there is only one word: shame.”

If I could ask one question of Prime Minster Jens Stoltenberg and his ruling party, it would be this: What would Dr. Nansen do with your MoU, or better yet your RfC program? I believe he would offer an MOU of his own to his fellow Norwegians: Moral Outrage Urged!

Shame!

The coward Mengistu Hailemariam took the famous song off the air on the advice of Marxist-Leninists because it was nationalistic! Since 1974, communist ideas have been collapsing giving way to the rebirth of nationalism as the best weapon for defending and preserving vital national interests – a crystal clear development oblivion to TPLF graduates of Dedebit school of ideology.

In some of my previous articles, I had argued that the theory of the vulgar dictator Joseph Stalin on “Nations and Nationalities” is not applicable to Ethiopia because of our unique history confirming common values of dignity, freedom and sovereignty for which all ethnic groups fought dearly paying heavy sacrifices in lives and damage to colossal material resources. Add to this the fact that no one ethnic group can claim racial purity because each individual today is an offspring of mixed marriages. So, why is unity of opposition forces to confront their sworn common enemy nowadays stubbornly elusive?

Some Ethiopians attribute the incessant plight of the masses as a kind of curse imposed on us by the creator of the universe. Others blame bickering among political elites for the suffering of the masses living in abject poverty to the point where life for the ordinary people has become unbearably acute under the dictatorial rule of TPLF.
The first assertion in the above is answered by the common adage that “Heaven helps those who help themselves”; the second one is answered by the quote attributed to Shakespeare in Julius Caesar, which reads:

“Men at some time are masters of their fates:
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings.”

So, in all cases the fault lies with societies that allow dictators on the loose to exploit their silence. We ought to be ashamed for letting Meles Zenawi in power for the last twenty years. As the popular saying goes “Every nation deserves the government it deserves”. I believe that we deserve far better if we Ethiopians unite and act together. We have a glorious history of scored victories over external aggressors by acting in unison knowing that the TPLF regime is an aggressor serving foreign interests.

Sitting under a giant African tree, I wrote the following stanzas in tribute to our martyrs and heroes that had made us proud in wars and political arenas. I hope that fellow Ethiopians will appreciate the message therein expressed:

The tyrant is cruelly infringing on my basic human right
And I am ready to fight the dictator with all my might
He has abused my beloved flag Green Yellow and Red
Which I have a moral duty with all my power to defend
The Green on my flag symbolizes prosperity
The Yellow color portrays faith in perpetuity
The Red for our ancestral blood for freedom shed
A priceless sacrifice paid to keep dignity to the end

The Oromos and Amharas take the brunt of his rant
Often unleashed in wrath by the misruling TPLF tyrant
Oh! People are sick and tired of his incessant threat
So nothing more than deposing the dictator is great

So stand up my fellow Ethiopians in resolute unison
To demand the release of all political leaders in prison
And pledge holding political prisoners will never happen
So that the hope for freedom and dignity shall shine again

Investment in high rise buildings, roads and infrastructures
Without the motto of “people come first” betrays our martyrs
Relegates social justice to the backburner & defeats our aims
To build democracy and prosperity for future generations

We have legacy of martyrs marvelously written in blood
Given to us by our heroic ancestors in trust tightly sealed
Therefore the onus is indeed on all of us young and old
To expunge the evil thugs so our history in glory be told

A bizarre combination of arrogance, ignorance, bigotry, lust for power, greed and other inhuman evil attributes such as these intoxicated the tyrants of Ethiopia and Eritrea and led them into committing gruesome human rights violations and incalculable damage to life and property in both countries as well as destabilization of the region through their proxy war. Their central theme was disempowering of the Amhara and the Oromo combined majority of 61.4% of the Ethiopian people. But they have of recent realized that their strategy is failing rapidly.

And according to the news posted on Abugida website on 16 March 2012, the twin brothers in crime, Isaias and Meles are going to meet to resolve their differences. It is widely believed however that the two had concocted a drama aimed at how best to stay in power in the face of rising opposition to their unbridled brinkmanship. Meles’ arrogance emanates from his insatiable lust for power, hatred for the Amharas, contempt for the Oromos, dominion over Tigres constituting only 6.1% of the Ethiopian population and neglect for the rest of the minority ethnic groups. Isaias is an absolute dictator who has been misruling Eritrea without a constitution and destabilizing the Horn of Africa region for the last 19 years; he has reduced Eritrea to a pariah state condemned by the United Nations for supporting the religious fanatic extremist Al Shabab linked to Al Qaeda.

All-inclusive dialogue is welcome. To avoid bloodshed is noble. However the two tyrants, Meles and Isaias, do not represent durable interests of the people of both countries. Both of them lack the moral character and integrity of visionary leaders that give top priority to human development and the rule of law. They are utterly corrupt dictators sleeping in separate tents but thinking alike.
Meles, immediately after the outbreak of hostilities initiated by Isaias in 1998, complained of being “stabbed in the back”. The reported meeting may be to settle their differences that led to the stabbing. As to the rest of us Ethiopians, we have yet to discover what their secret deal was? We can only guess and my guess is that there could have been a secret agreement allowing Isaias to keep Eritrea for himself alone and share Ethiopia with Meles. Let us stay tuned for the breaking news that someone in the know may one day reveal the secret!

I would like to close this piece with the quote below attributed to Margery Eldredge Howell:

“There is dignity in suffering
Nobility in pain
But failure is a salted wound
That burns and burns again “

Dignity, nobility and decency do not exist in the lexicon of thugs. Tyrant Meles is a sadist adept at swiftly passing on sufferings and pains to the masses; he is quick to pull the trigger to silence his peaceful opponents. In doing so, he goes into trance chewing psycho thermal plants, while trusted scribes read to him litanies of his ‘historic’ achievements as a ‘Statesman leading Africa’. But failure is fast approaching to burn him incessantly till death – and the bloated parasitic bureaucracy of his TPLF regime is fueling the inferno.

Let us jealously guard our priceless legacy written in blood and given to us by the Ethiopian martyrs and heroic patriots; let the present and future generations forever keep their valiant deeds alive in the annals of history.

LONG LIVE ETHIOPIA!!!
Release all political prisoners in Ethiopia including Andualem, Eskinder, Nathnael et al!
robele_ababya@yahoo.com

When absolute rulers go down, they go down absolutely along with their followers as we saw these in the case of colonel Mengistu as well as Hitler, Mussolini and Pol Pot. Therefore the EPRDF will vanish as a political entity with the overthrow of Meles, while EPRDF members who have not committed crimes can be part of the solution by siding with their people.

It is of course a shame for millions of Ethiopians and a manifestation of the worst form of backwardness to be controlled by a single person and almost a miracle for a nation to be controlled and devastated by an anti-Ethiopian Person. Ignorance, the lack of an institutionalized democratic culture, the absence of economic independence due to poverty aggravated by the fact the citizens are deprived of the security of private ownership with the State having a monopoly on almost everything including land; and the fact that the state has become the biggest employer are the favourable conditions which are helping Meles to stay in power. Meles will maintain these favourable conditions for his tyranny as long as he is in power. Therefore there is no means of changing the status quo and ensuring the dignity of Ethiopians without getting rid of the tyrant.

Coming back to the birth day of the TPLF, let us see the things which are propagated and mystified continuously. It has become almost a legend that the TPLF started the armed struggle with 11 fighters on 18 February 1975 (11 Yekatit 1967 E.C.). Yes, there was also an Amhara fighter called Mikael (Abtew) Takele in the group, as mentioned in Fetehe . Mikael (Abtew) did not join the TPLF in order to struggle for the secession of Tigray from Ethiopia and he, as many other members of the TPLF did not know that some elements were abusing the revolutionary fervour of the young people for their hidden agenda.

Mikael was a good hunter and friendly. He used to hunt and gather wild honey for the group. His Amhara origin caused no problem. Most members did not see secession as a solution to the Tigrayan question. Kahsay remembers how Mikael provoked by someone was angrily asking: “are you going to cut off the country – ageritwan litqortu new?” It is true that TPLF leaders and their cadres exclude those who reject separatism and stand for justice in Ethiopia from the list of the founders. Mikael is often excluded by some individuals from the list, but Kahsay is also excluded particularly by Seyoum.

Apart from the 11 , another group of about nine (9) men including Meles ) also went to Eritrea for training by the EPLF (shaebia) in January of the same year. A third group of ten (10) young peasants from the Shire region, mainly relatives and acquaintances of Sehul Ayele who were gathered and recruited at a short notice by Fitewi (Berhane) Ayele, a younger brother of Sehul Ayele were dispatched to the EPLF training centres. The young peasants were sent to Eritrea because the EPLF insisted on the inclusion of as many illiterate farmers as possible as a precautionary measure to avoid the dominance of educated critical elements. Therefore the 2nd and the 3rd groups completed their training at the same time and returned together to Tigray. If all groups are added up together, the number climbs up to around 30 individuals. Those who remained in the towns to accomplish organizational tasks and risked their lives more than those who went to the field should also be recognized as founders. If those who worked in the towns are added up, the number must have been more than 30. Taking the groups mentioned above into consideration, those people, who agreed to start the struggle should be considered as founders of the organisation. Mentioning the founders is for us simply stating the facts as they were, without attaching any special importance.

The annihilation of the TLF

In November 1975, while a few Central committee (CC) members of the TPLF were talking with members of the Tigrayan Liberation Front (TLF) to unite the TPLF and TLF, Meles was passionately agitating and warning other TPLF members of the danger of unity, that the TLF would be dangerous for the lives of the TPLF members. Meles was only a few months away from being appointed to be a deputy member of the CC. Both Fronts “agreed” to unite; they redistributed their weapons after mixing them up and the leadership was to be shared.

The inclusion of the TLF in the leadership meant the postponement of the promotion of Meles to the leadership. However, the whole theatre of unity talks was a deception by the CC of the TPLF to bring the TLF members under control when they fall asleep. Gebru Asrat mentioned in Fetehe No. 175 that some of the remaining TLF members continued their struggle with the TPLF; and we would add that they had no other realistic choices after their leadership was decimated. In a manual for political education to its members, the CC of the TPLF portrays the leadership of the TLF as a narrow nationalist, undemocratic and murderous group, but these descriptions also apply to the leadership of the TPLF as well. Meles and his group wrote the manifesto for the secession of Tigray three months after they destroyed the TLF. It is by taking his partially influential role in 1975, before he became a deputy member of the CC that we consider Meles to have been in power for more than 36 years. He formally became a deputy member of the CC of the TPLF in 1976, but he has been committing crimes since the autumn of 1975.

From secession to manipulation

According to Gebru (ibid.) the aim of the struggle for the independence of Tigray as declared in the manifesto was replaced by the concept of self-determination six months later, after the fighters discussed about it .Ghidey Zeratsion said (on 7 August 2011, in Ras Alula Pal talk Room) that the change of the manifesto took place after ten months and added that there was previously a consensus on the manifesto of secession within those who knew about it. The manifesto was written in February 1976 and changed in November of the same year only within the CC of the TPLF. We don’t know, whether Gebru who was not in the CC at that time participated in the internal discussion. The authors of the manifesto did not have absolute control on the rank-and-file-members of the TPLF and therefore no confidence to tell the latter (including some from the eleven like Asfaha, Kahsay and even Aregawi who was in the leadership etc..) about the aim of secession. As the authors of the manifesto did not want to tell other members of the organisation about their aim of secession, they did not speak about any change of the aim.

This change was probably sent to the EPLF, but we know it was not distributed amongst the members of the TPLF. On the one side, the change in the manifesto was a reaction to the criticism of the EPLF and EPRP. Aregawi Berhe has also written that he opposed secession. On the other side, the CC of the TPLF could have without mentioning the manifesto, indirectly come to the conclusion that there was no support for secession amongst the rank-and-file-members and the people. The aim of the TPLF was declared to be the self-determination of the people of Tigray in the first congress of the TPLF in 1979 without any mention that it was secession before. It was only in the beginning of 1985, at a time when the CC of the TPLF felt strong enough to take over power in the whole of Ethiopia that the existence of the manifesto of secession was disclosed openly. The disclosure was made in the first issue of the TPLF magazine “Yetigil Tiri (a call for struggle) as a half-hearted self-criticism of, as the CC put it: “the narrow nationalist tendency” of the TPLF in the beginning.

The formulation: “the right to self-determination, including and up to secession” is generally, and as we know it particularly in the TPLF ambivalent and very dangerous. This has been the worst phrase in Ethiopia since the mid 70s up to now. Such an aim shows the insincerity of its Authors on two counts. In the first place, the authors insincerely try to look like a neutral body which would see to it that the right of the people to reach a decision is respected. Theoretically, the self-determination of the people in a referendum is a compromise solution when one force struggles for secession while another tries to maintain unity. It is historically a phrase for independence from colonialism and secession is inherent in self-determination. The dominant elements of the CC of the TPLF did not want to take a clear position. This position as we see it practically means that they wanted unity if they get power all over Ethiopia and the secession of Tigray if they don’t monopolize power in Ethiopia. Secondly, the CC of the TPLF has never been democratic when it comes to elections as well as democratic and human rights. The assertion that they would accept the decision of the people while they are oppressing and terrorizing the people is simply a white lie. The right to self-determination including and up to secession as used by the TPLF is a system of manipulation and nothing else, because the aim is intentionally unclear so that it can be interpreted one way or the other depending on the wishes of Meles. Any decision can be imposed on the people with the help of repression and declared to have the support of 99.6% of people by the dishonest tyrant.

Irrespective of whatever the nature of the TLF was, there is pattern of behaviour of the leadership of the TPLF and particularly that of Meles which we find in connection with the annihilation of the TLF 37 years ago. According to this pattern of behaviour the perpetrator deceives, takes cruel measures and accuses the victim of crimes which the perpetrator himself commits. This history has similarities with measures taken by Meles against the CUD in 2005. The manipulation in connection with self-determination is also part of the culture of deceit which is being used to erode unity as well as maintain the repressive regime with the help of the system of divide and rule.

They were the main slave traders in West Africa during the age of colonialism and slavery. They go into the interior, capturing whole villages, killing those who try to escape, pillaging the land and selling all the inhabitants to the White slave merchants anchored in their large ships at the various ports. So they are the traditional enemies of black people. (may be that is why they went to Brazil, a country which has the largest black population outside Africa and the blacks there are still the most oppressed black people in the world). To this very day the Lebanese have settled in West Africa and are the middle men and the richest traders there, continuously exploiting and abusing the inhabitants, being allied as they are with the West African dictators. The Americans had built a College in Lebanon and many Ethiopians, especially medical students have studied there. The students always refer their place of study as Beirut, and not Lebanon (just like Ethiopian students who had studied in Egypt at earlier times referred their place of study as Alexandria, and not Egypt)

The extent of the Lebanese cruelty to Ethiopian female slaves (the modern slavery name is “maid”) has been recounted many times and we have heard the horror stories of the Ethiopian women being gang raped, burned alive, thrown to their death from high-rise apartments, of never being paid for their work, imprisoned in houses and forced to labor for up to 20-hours per day, their salary being denied, etc, etc,. This happens all over the racist Arab world but is most intense in Lebanon. During the last bombardment and destruction of Beirut their employers escaped with their dogs and pets and left their Ethiopian”maids” behind. All countries EXCEPT ETHIOPIA tried to rescue their citizens. An estimated 40, 000 Ethiopians were left in the ruins. Some of their friends from other countries took them to shelter in their Embassies. The rest waited it out in the ruins until their masters returned. The horror that has befallen Ethiopian women is a matter that needs to be addressed by all countries and international agencies who claim that they are committed to battle genocide anywhere, and the Ethiopian Government should face the International Criminal Court. Countries like Philippines, Madagascar and Nepal have stopped exporting maids to Lebanon. The TPLF gang in Ethiopia is profiting by selling Ethiopian female slaves.

A mother in Bekoji said it all some time ago in a YouTube interview. “I sent my eldest daughter to Beirut because we were so poor and we were going to starve to death. Now she has given us some creature comforts (as you can see) but I knew she was sad, so I sent her younger sister so that she can give her company and support.” It was heart wrenching. I wish my children have a means of surviving in their own country. Then there was the Ethiopian Airlines which was probably shot soon after takeoff. The Lebanese said it was pilot error that led to the crash in which everybody died. The most plausible speculation is that it was shot out of the sky. Now comes the tragic melodrama of the young mother who was forcefully and brutally abducted in front of the so-called Ethiopian Consulate, with all able bodied Lebanese men calmly watching the criminal who never even attempted to stop him. This criminal, Ali Mahfuz and his helper forcefully put her in a car after she lost her struggle for life and death. All this times crying in Amharic “I do not want to go” This should tell volumes about the callous nature of the Lebanese Arabs who had not chalantly and clearly exhibited their cruel nature which is devoid of humanity or any human feeling what is so ever. Nowhere else will such a thing happen without someone trying to intervene. The young woman, Alem Dechasa, 33, has gone to Beirut leaving her two children behind hoping to support them. Now we are told that she has hanged herself in the hospital where it is assumed that she was being closely watched. The suspicion is that they have killed her and hanged her corpse. Since the Ethiopian Government will not fight for her we have to try to get justice for and her children- she has tragically passed away at such a young age.

It is generally believed that Beirut is a beautiful city. I have gone there during the intensive bombing of the city by Israel in 1981. I was the Deputy leader of the Ethiopian delegation led by the Foreign Minister Colonel Feleke Gedle Giorgis. The delegation was to establish contact with Syria and we passed though Beirut to meet Yasser Arafat of the PLO and other Palestinian liberation front leaders. Beirut was in an intensive bombardment by Israel. We met with several Liberation front leaders separately throughout our first day. Our delegation was put in a “safe house” in East Beirut to wait until Arafat returned from the war front. They gave us each a Kalashnikov which they placed beside our beds. It made me uncomfortable. My Foreign Minister asked me if I have used fire arms before. I told him that the nearest thing to a weapon I had was a Swiss army knife. The FM, who was a former police Colonel, was not amused. Well, nothing happened during the night, thanks God. The next day we could see from the balcony of our building a continuous flow of military jeeps filled with heavily armed men rushing through the street below and watch Israeli Jets dropping their bombs and heavy smoke rising in the far distance. This was the first and only war I ever saw. We eventually met Yasser Arafat who told us he had just returned from the battle front in order to meet us. Talking to him was a clock-and-dagger operation. He would suddenly leave in the middle of a sentence and a few minutes later we will be escorted to a fruit stand, enter a dark alley, go up a flight of stairs, and into a room and there was Yasser Arafat smiling broadly and continuing the conversation as if nothing strange has happened. Such change of venues was made four different times and Arafat told us that he has to do it to protect his safety from the ubiquitous Israeli agents. When we left to Damascus it was by road and with an army escort.

Beirut was a beautiful city even in the middle of a war then. We could see that expensive buildings being constructed even while the bombing was going on while we were there. This may account for the continuous rebuilding of the city and the resilience of its inhabitants to start all over again and again. For such a strife torn country Beirut seems to be an unlikely place to go for employment. But the Lebanese merchants know how to get rich quick, so they attract employees and the hapless Ethiopian girls are their victims. It is TPLF affiliated agencies who recruit these slaves and sends them to their death. We must be able to stop, by all means necessary, the human export not only to Lebanon but to all the inhuman and barbaric Arab countries.

Such is the case when state power falls in the hands of megalomaniac dictators. Only objective socioeconomic and political conditions can create situations that call for a specific rule. However, depending on the personality of leaders, the direction of change imparted by objective factors can be diverted toward idiosyncratic goals. Especially, to the extent that revolutions and wars shatter established institutions, they have the nasty habit of favoring the rise to power of megalomaniac individuals. Once in power, such personalities hijack the social movement and use it to strengthen their power.

Their absolute control of state power means that political and economic decisions are taken and implemented with the sole view of satisfying their idiosyncratic goals, chiefly their determination to retain the control of absolute power by all means. In this condition, the understanding of the psyche of dictators is crucial for political struggle. My assumption is that this is exactly the case with Meles’s rule of Ethiopia.
Many Ethiopians still wonder why Meles is uncontrollably seized with the desire to commit actions whose sole purpose is to offend Ethiopians or cripple the country. Among such actions are his routine assaults on Ethiopian nationalism together with his promotion of ethnic nationalisms, the ceding of Ethiopian territories to Sudan, the persistent determination to humiliate opposition leaders, an educational policy that values quantity and politicization over skill and professionalism, and the policy of leasing fertile lands to foreign firms at the expense of Ethiopian peasants and the national progress of agriculture. I will cite as yet another recent manifestation of his hatred of Ethiopia his support––assuming that he is not the initiator—to the decision not to erect a statue to Haile Selassie for his decisive contribution to the creation of African unity.

There is no doubt that some of the mentioned measures are designed to protect Meles’s power. For instance, leasing land to foreign firms provides him with the money he needs to keep his repressive apparatus satisfied, just as the ceding of territories to Sudan buys the friendship of a strategically important neighbor. Likewise, the promotion of ethnic division is how he implements the divide-and-rule strategy characteristic of all dictatorial regimes. However, these measures do not look very rational in that they further aggravate an already brewing discontent, and so can contribute to a brutal end of his regime.

In fact, the adoption of a nationalist position would have been a better way to protect Meles’s power. History teaches us that, to say in power, dictators utilize the divide-and-rule strategy in combination with a nationalist zeal, which gives them a popular support, even if it does not last. Given the resentment that it generates, one wonders whether the method of shielding power by ceding territories and leasing land to foreign companies is a smart choice.

On the other hand, there are acts not connected with power calculus that Meles commits just for the sheer purpose of upsetting Ethiopians. Thus, dismantling opposition forces is certainly a way of fighting for his power, but not the determination to humiliate their leaders by the imposition of degrading requests. Similarly, the characterization of the Ethiopian flag as a trash does not help him strengthen his power. Nor are his numerous demeaning statements, as when he said that the failure of his policy would mean that Ethiopia was not meant to be. His obvious complicity in the decision to deny Haile Selassie the honor of a statue is just a recent example of actions whose sole purpose is to offend Ethiopians.

All this brings us to the enigmatic question of knowing why Meles does not rule the country in the accustomed way of dictators, that is, as extremely jealous of his power, but also as an ardent defender of the national interest, even if his definition of national interest favors his own dictatorship. As already suggested, normal dictators want to be loved by the people they rule so as to give their power a popular basis. Given Meles’s obsession with power, how is then one to understand the undermining of his own popularity by such senseless anti-Ethiopian deeds?

One way of resolving the dilemma of a dictator who undermines his own popularity is to suggest that Meles has a deep hatred of Ethiopia and of whatever promotes the interests and well-being of its people. In a previous article posted on various Ethiopian websites and titled “Meles’s Shame and the Dead-End of Hatred,” I have tried to decipher the enigma of a dictator set on unpopularity by suggesting that the shame of his family’s close collaboration with the Italian colonial forces had evolved very early into a hatred of Ethiopia. Despising and damaging Ethiopia, notably through the diabolization of the architect of modern Ethiopia, namely, the Amhara elite, is his manner of removing the shame, the assumption being that there is really no betrayal if what is supposedly betrayed is worthless to begin with.

If Meles has such a deep hatred of Ethiopia, the question that comes to mind is why he is struggling to consolidate his power instead of simply destroying Ethiopia, for instance by encouraging secessionist groups and triggering bloody ethnic conflicts. Though my previous article raised the issue, it did not directly deal with it for the sake of brevity. The time has come to resolve the puzzle of Meles hanging to the state power of a country that he despises and even scoring some accomplishments, which of course either remain superficial or come with heavy social costs.
Undoubtedly, the key to the puzzle is Meles’s craving for power. Not only is he obsessed with power, but also his hatred finds no better way to vent itself than to keep Ethiopia on life support through his divisive and weakening policy. Indeed, what is more gratifying for a soul tormented with hatred than to prolong the agony of the object of his hatred as long as possible? In other words, his love for power occasionally overrides his hatred while also providing an outlet for it.
Here a restriction should be introduced, which emanates from the very contradictions of a tormented soul. As much as Meles wants to demean and hurt Ethiopia, his passion for power has grown into megalomania, mostly as a result of an easy victory against all his opponents. To his craving for power is now added the belief in his own grandeur and unique destiny. Yes, he hates Ethiopia, but he is also possessed with power and burns with the dream of becoming a great ruler, especially in the eyes of Westerners. So that, hatred and megalomania combine to inspire a deconstructive/constructive political project.
Let there be no misunderstanding. Meles is as committed as ever not to do anything that seems to promote Ethiopia because of the painful consequences on him. He has accordingly decided to erase Ethiopia as we know her and recreate another Ethiopia, this time of his own design. The deconstructive and constructive project thus solves, it is true temporarily, the contradiction between his hatred for the country and his love for power and megalomania: deconstruction satisfies his hatred; construction his megalomania. In effect, he is now promoting a project called Ethiopian renaissance, which he couples with the ideology of developmental state considered as the proven instrument to achieve prosperity.

What we need to understand here is that when Meles exhorts Ethiopians to “achieve the vision for Ethiopia’s Renaissance,” he means the Ethiopia a la Meles, that is, Ethiopia made suitable for his absolute rule and for the pillage by his cronies and party followers. The design excludes all those who fight for a democratic Ethiopia in which people endowed with real rights decide about what is best for them and achieve national unity as equal and free both in their individual capacities and ethnic belonging. Instead of Ethiopians realizing integrative unity and exercising sovereignty, Meles’s project sees them as puppets of a deconstructive project inspired by hatred and megalomania.

To clarify further Meles’s project of Ethiopian Renaissance, we can add that it is tantamount to a child playing with a new toy. Unfortunately, the parallel is misleading for even a child cares for his/her toy: he/she may mistreat the toy, but he/she will not allow others to do so. A better comparison would be land clearing by which you bulldoze whatever has grown naturally for the purpose of planting seeds of your own choice. We know the danger of land clearing when it ignores the conditions of the soil and the well-being of the local population, especially when the land is given to foreign interests. What used to be a fertile land can become barren if such cares are missing.
Since Ethiopia is the object of a resentful policy, Meles cannot provide the care necessary to transform Ethiopia into a flourishing and integrating country. Even if we assume that he is determined to eradicate poverty, the assumption remains far-fetched, not to say utterly unlikely, because whatever his dream of greatness leads him to want is immediately defeated by a forceful resurgence of his hatred. Thus, there is a constant oscillation between hatred and the dream of grandeur: no sooner is a project devised than it is spoiled by the hostility of hatred.

What is more, Meles does not have the people necessary to implement any serious policy of development. In order to strengthen his dictatorial power, he has surrounded himself with yes men, who are irremediably incompetent and profusely self-serving. He has no choice but to reward them by closing his eyes to the widespread use of illegal means of enrichment. Also, the failure of his economic policy together with his tendency to conspire against the nation can only intensify anger, thereby making him unable to mobilize people for any significant national project.

This is to say that the clearing of Ethiopia increasingly looks like a land devastated by the effect of toxic chemicals administered by a spiteful agronomist. Repressive means can help Meles stay in power for a while, but his attempt to reduce Ethiopia to something fashionable at will for the gratification of his tortured mind will never see the light of day. He will remain stuck with repressive methods because his hatred and his hunger for unlimited power always end up by defeating his dream of grandeur.

The Lake Koka environmental disaster is only the tip of the iceberg. Ethiopia is facing an ecological catastrophe: deforestation, desertification, soil erosion, overgrazing and population explosion. The Ethiopian Agricultural Research Institute says Ethiopia loses up to 200,000 hectares of forest every year. Between 1990 and 2005, Ethiopia lost 14.0% of its forest cover (2,114,000 hectares) and 3.6% of its forest and woodland habitat. If the trend continues, it is expected that Ethiopia could lose all of its forest resources in 11 years, by the year 2020.

Dam, Dams and Damned Dams

Like the people who are dying around Lake Koka, the people who live in the Omo River Basin in Southwestern Ethiopia are facing an environmental disaster that could push them not only to hunger, starvation, dislocation and conflict, but potentially to extinction through habitat destruction. According to International Rivers, a highly respected environmental and human rights organization committed to “protecting rivers and defending the rights of communities that depend on them”:
The Omo River is a lifeline for hundreds of thousands of indigenous people in southwest Ethiopia and northern Kenya. The Gibe 3 Hydropower Dam, already under construction, will dramatically alter the Omo River’s flood cycle, affecting ecosystems and livelihoods all the way down to the world’s largest desert lake, Kenya’s Lake Turkana. The Lower Omo Valley, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is home to an estimated 200,000 agro-pastoralists from eight distinct indigenous groups who depend on the Omo River’s annual flood to support riverbank cultivation and grazing lands for livestock.

The Omo River and its tributaries are being exploited for their hydro electrical potential, and the surrounding areas are handed out to so-called international investors for export commercial agriculture. “Gilgel Gibe I” was built at a cost of nearly USD$300 million provided by the World Bank and other European investment banks. It became operational in 2004 after 6 years of construction and generates 183 MW. The 63 square-kilometer reservoir created for the dam displaced some 10 thousand people. “Gilgel Gibe II”, according to Salini Costruttori, the Italian company that built it, “is a continuation of Gilgel Gibe I project” and is “not a dam” but “instead will use the water discharged by the Gilgel Gibe I channeled through a 26km tunnel under Fofa mountain to Omo River Valley.” It was built at a cost of 373 million euros provided by Italy and the European Investment Bank. Gilgel Gibe II collapsed in February 2010 just weeks after its official inauguration.

The “Gibe III” Dam is the one that has raised the most concern among environmentalists and multilateral institutions because it poses the most serious hydrological risks to the quarter of a million people and the flora and fauna of the Omo Basin. Experts fear that Gibe III could destroy the fragile ecosystem for an additional 300,000 people downstream in Lake Turkana, a UNESCO World Heritage Site (a site of special cultural or physical significance to the world at large) which gets up to 90% of its water from the Omo River.

“Gibe III”- A Dam Environmental Disaster Under Construction

In 2006, construction began on the Gibe III Dam. In July 2008, Ethiopia’s Environmental Protection Authority issued the Gibe III Environmental Social Impact Assessment approving the project. The report was a shameless whitewash which rubber-stamped the project. The report unabashedly concluded that there will be little adverse environmental impact and that the reservoir area for Gibe III is unfit for human habitation because it is infested by deadly mosquitoes and tsetse flies (which cause “sleeping sickness”):

In 2006, an estimated 253,412 people around the Gibe III… However, as a result of steep slope and Tsetse fly infestation, there is no settlement in the future reservoir area and settlements are concentrated on the highland in areas outside the valley… As the result of the less favorable rainfall, Tsetse fly infestation and the consequent occurrence of cattle disease, trypanosomiasis, there is very little farming activity around the Omo valley bottom lands. The project areas are highly endemic for malaria with continuous transmission and malaria is by far the most common of the diseases… The presence of several rivers (tributaries to Omo River) provides ideal breeding habitats for mosquitoes…The the population living within the proposed dam and the reservoir areas are not in close proximity to this UNESCO designated heritage site. No visible archaeological remains, which have scientific, cultural, public, economic, ethnic and historic significances, have been observed in the area and dam sites. The sites have no archaeological importance… A wide range of livestock diseases affect animal in the Lower Omo.

This “environmental impact statement” has been roundly criticized for “its poor preparation and belated release two years after construction began, a flagrant violation of Ethiopian environmental law, which requires an impact assessment be approved prior to construction.”

Tewolde Geber Egziabher, the General Manager of the Environmental Protection Authority of Ethiopia, is dismissive of human rights groups and other international institutions who have expressed doubt or criticized the lack rigorous environmental analysis in the construction of Gibe III. Geber Egziabher said:

I doubt if they [international rights groups] know where Gibe III is except on the map. Those who have been shouting about Gibe III Hydroelectric Project they know it only from thousands miles away. I really do not take their voices seriously… None of the opponents of the Project are from Ethiopia. I know one from Kenya and several others from Europe. The only person who claimed to have gone to the Gibe III dam site was the BBC reporter; and he can also not judge such measure undertakings from one –day- visit… The interest behind the adverse comment against Gibe III Dam is ignorance. Therefore, I simply dismiss the complaints as they are irrelevant.

An independent study by the African Resources Working Group (ARWG), an expert group of “scholars and consultants from the United States, Europe and eastern Africa, with extensive experience in large hydrodam and river basin development research and policy issues in the Horn and East Africa,” presented a detailed rebuttal pointing out numerous flaws:

The document [Environmental Impact Assessment] rests on a series of faulty premises and that it is further compromised by pervasive omissions, distortions and obfuscation. The downstream EIA is laced with tables and figures with multiple types of ‘quantitative data’, creating the illusion of a scientific work. While this practice is well known to increase the likelihood of approval by development, finance and oversight agencies, it is fully unacceptable…

An accurate assessment of environmental and social processes within the lower Omo Basin indicates that completion of the Gibe III dam would produce a broad range of negative effects, some of which would be catastrophic in the tri-country region where Sudan, Ethiopia and Kenya intersect… The indigenous peoples of the lowermost Omo Basin are dependent on riverside and delta recessional cultivation, as well as grazing resources, food gathering, fishing and other activities wholly dependent on flooding by the Omo River. This population would face massive economic losses, with widespread severe hunger, disease and loss of life occurring on a regional scale, if the Gibe III dam is completed.

In June 2011, UNESCO concluded that “GIBE III dam is likely to significantly alter Lake Turkana’s fragile hydrological regime, and threaten its aquatic species and associated biological systems” and “urged the State Party of Ethiopia to immediately halt all construction on the GIBE III dam [and not] damage directly or indirectly the cultural and natural heritage located on the territory of another State Party.” Terri Hathaway, director of International Rivers’ Africa program, said Gibe III is “the most destructive dam under construction in Africa.” The project would condemn “half a million of the region’s most vulnerable people to hunger and conflict.”

Other regional and international organizations have similarly concluded that Gibe III will have “catastrophic consequences for the tribes of the Omo River who already live close to the margins of life in this dry and challenging area.” They assert that the “dam would dramatically alter the Omo River’s flood cycle, affecting ecosystems and livelihoods and ultimately destroy the local food security and economy. The dwindling of resources caused by the dam is likely to increase local conflicts between ethnic groups.” Even the traditional sources of funding – the European Investment Bank, the African Development Bank, the World bank, the Italian government and others – have withdrawn their support for Gibe III.

Dictator Meles Zenawi responded to the international critics of Gibe III in his usual demeaning and contemptuous style. He claimed those who call for a halt to the construction of the dam “don’t want to see a developed Africa; they want us to remain undeveloped and backward to serve their tourists as a museum.” Zenawi’s representatives followed suit directing their ire at the “vociferous campaigners against the dam: International Rivers and Friends of Lake Turkana”. They charged, “Western activists have no monopoly of concern of environmental issues. Nor do they have any monopoly on accuracy.” They claimed that the international environmentalists make unsubstantiated “assertions” and are “ignorant”.

Verbal pyrotechnics against critics is stock-in-trade for Zenawi and his regime. When the European Union declared in November 2010 that the May 2010 election in which Zenawi claimed victory of 99.6 percent does not meet international standards for fair elections, Zenawi frothed at the mouth calling the report “trash that deserves to be thrown in the garbage. The report is not about our election. It is just the view of some Western neo-liberals who are unhappy about the strength of the ruling party. Anybody who has paper and ink can scribble whatever they want.” Last month, Zenawi shredded Human Rights Watch for criticizing his flagrant abuse of a so-called anti-terrorism law to decimate the independent press and political dissent in Ethiopia:

A campaign has been launched against us… There’s a reason behind it. This institution [Human Rights Watch] is playing a role of [promoting] ideologies. This organization and its friends’ world view are playing a role to speak against some countries, if they look to be on the road to success on an ideology that is different from the current world view. So it’s a campaign to [bring] those of us to our knees that deviate from the current world view. There’s no connection with human rights.”

So the official view is that all of the opposition to Gibe III is an international conspiracy by the usual boogeymen suspects of “neocolonialists” “neoliberals”, and perhaps “neoideologists” and “neonates.”

African Dictators and African White Elephants

African dictators like to build big projects. It is part of the “Big Man” syndrome in Africa where public office is a means to private gain and personal glory. Africa’s “Big Men” undertake big projects as a means to achieving glory, greatness, immortality, and more importantly, as a means of accumulating wealth for themselves and cronies. But these projects in the main are “white elephants” (wasteful, and useless projects). In the Ivory Coast, Félix Houphouët-Boigny built the largest church in the world, The Basilica of Our Lady of Peace of Yamoussoukro, at a cost of USD$300 million. It stands empty today. Mobutu built the The Inga Dams in western Democratic Republic of the Congo (Zaire) on the largest waterfalls in the world (Inga Falls). Inga I and Inga II were advertised to provide vast amounts of power domestically; today operate at low output. When civil war broke out in the late 1990s, these dams went unmanaged and fell into disrepair. Bujagali dam in Uganda had a devastating effect on communities in the area. The backflow submerged a huge area of cultivable and settled land forcing migration and resettlement of large numbers of people. Self-appointed Emperor Jean-Bedel Bokassa of the Central African Republic built a 500-room Hotel Intercontinental for hundreds of millions of dollars in the middle of a residential district while millions of his people suffered from starvation.

African dictators like to build dams, shiny glass buildings and commission all sorts of extravagant projects as their people remain trapped in a relentless cycle of poverty. They do it to accumulate great personal wealth, increase their prestige, feed their fragile and insatiable egos, mask their gross incompetence, cover their bloody hands and justify their clinging to power indefinitely. They seek to clothe their naked dictatorships by displaying veneers of progress and development. These dictators could not care less if the people starve, are displaced from their ancestral homes, remain in poverty or go to hell. They could not care less if the environment is destroyed, cultural and archaeological relics are lost or the ways of life of indigenous people and communities are obliterated. Zenawi wants to be known for having built the “240-meter Gibe III, the tallest dam in Africa.” He wants to be known as an “African Messiah”. In February 2011, announcing the development of a massive 245,000 hectare sugar plantation in the lower Omo Basin, Zenawi declared with rapturous certainty: “In the coming five years there will be a very big irrigation project and related agricultural development in this zone. I promise you that, even though this area is known as backward in terms of civilization, it will become an example of rapid development.”

The price to be paid for “rapid development” by the Mursi, Suri and Bodi agro-pastoralists and others – those damned by the dam — in the Omo Basin is dislocation, displacement, destruction of traditional ways of life, persecution, loss of ancestral lands, starvation, conflict and potential extinction.

More Power for Ethiopians, No Power for Dictators

Ethiopia, like all other African countries, needs to develop its energy resources to meet the needs of its people, support its long range economic development plans and improve the standard of living of the people. Ethiopia’s population is expected to triple to 280 million by 2050, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. There is no question that the country needs diverse sources of energy, including renewable energy sources, for its future.

But Gibe III is not intended to meet domestic power needs. Rather, much of the estimated 1,870MW is planned for “export” to Djibouti, Sudan and Kenya, presumably generating 300 million euros annually in profits. That is not particularly reassuring. A recent report by the Global Financial Integrity showed that between 2000 and 2009, 11.7 billion was stolen out of the country. In light of this evidence, those claiming to develop Gibe III for national economic development are fooling no one. As the old saying goes, “We may have been born yesterday, but not last night.”

The Toxic Ecology of African Dictatorships

In December 2009, I wrote a commentary entitled, “The Toxic Ecology of African Dictatorships”:

The inconvenient truth about Africa today is that dictatorship presents a far more perilous threat to the survival of Africans than climate change. The devastation African dictators have wreaked upon the social fabric and ecosystem of African societies is incalculable…. Africans face extreme privation and mass starvation not because of climate change but because of the rapacity of power-hungry dictators. The continent today suffers from a terminal case of metastasized cancer of dictatorships, not the blight of global warming…. The fact of the matter is that while the rest of the world toasts from global warming, Africa is burning down in the fires of dictatorship. While Europeans are fretting about their carbon footprint, Africans are gasping to breathe free under the boot prints of dictators. While Americans are worried about carbon emission trapped in the atmosphere, Africans find themselves trapped in minefields of dictatorship… Africa faces an ecological collapse not because of climate change but because of lack of regime change.

Geber Egziabher, the General Manager of the Environmental Protection Authority, made a comment which Ethiopians should heed carefully. He said those who criticize Gibe III “know it only from thousands miles away. I really do not take their voices seriously… None of the opponents of the Project are from Ethiopia.” He said critics of the dam were “ignorant”.

The fact of the matter is that Zenawi’s regime provided little public information on Gibe III prior to the start of construction and stonewalled any request for information once the project got underway. There has been little consultation with the people in the Omo River Basin, and the few locals who were “consulted” got the opportunity long after construction was under way. Obviously, in the absence of free speech and a free independent press, it is difficult to discuss, propose alternatives or criticize the dam project. But the evidence is clear that those locals who disagreed with Gibe III and/or the Omo land-grab were treated harshly. A report by the Oakland Institute, a US-based think-tank, has documented how regime soldiers “arrived at Omo Valley villages (and in particular Bodi, Mursi and Suri villages) questioning villagers about their perspectives on the sugar plantations. Villagers are expected to voice immediate support, otherwise beatings (including the use of tasers), abuse and general intimidation occurs”.

Geber Egziabher’s criticism that “none of the opponents of the Project [Gibe III] are from Ethiopia” should be clearly understood. What he is saying is that Ethiopians (including those in the Diaspora) are so environmentally unaware and uninformed that outsiders are making the case for them. Obviously, environmental advocacy is best done by civil society institutions (an Amnesty International report issued last week concluded, “Human rights organizations in Ethiopia have been devastated by the impact of the Charities and Societies Proclamation passed in January 2009”) but such institutions have been decimated, leaving Ethiopians uninformed about the environmental impact and potential risks of public projects, including free land give-aways to foreign “investors”. It is said that the Chinese will complete work on Gibe III. But there are many environmental challenges looming in Ethiopia; and in addition to taking on the enormous political, social and economic challenges, Ethiopians must now take on the environmental challenge.

We should be grateful to the great international human rights organization that have created awareness on Ethiopia’s precarious environmental situation, particularly on the destruction of Omo River Basin. But we cannot have them do all of the heavy lifting for us. We need to join them and help them help us, and engage in vigorous environmental activism of our own. That means we must create our own environmental civil society organizations, particularly in the Diaspora, and ensure that Ethiopia’s rich and diverse ecosystem is preserved and protected today and for future generations. If we fail to do that, we will all find ourselves in the same position as the people of the Omo River Basin who are damned by the dam.

The Government has been at war with Somali Warlords since 2006 or so. They had a full-scale war with Eritrea. Over eighty thousand were sacrificed in this war no one can explain why. Today the Ethiopian Government is beating the war drums to start a war with Eritrea. They are admitting with pride their incursion into a Sovereign territory and carrying out an act of war. They are calling attention to their illegal acts – at least by International standards all nations adhere to.

The TPLF regime sent out Miscommunication Deputy Head Shimeles Kemal to announce in broad daylight that his Government has crossed an International border and murdered in cold blood. It is the height of stupidity or clueless Shimeles has left himself open to being an accomplice to a criminal act. Shimeles has always been an interesting character among the TPLF Cadres. He is one of my favorite Ethiopians in league with his boss Bereket. Ato Shimeles is a certified paranoid and he was the sacrificial lamb sent out by Meles to prosecute Kinijit leaders. You remember what a fiasco that was. Shimles’s witnesses were turning against him to the extent the defendants felt sorry for this clueless character.

That why it is interesting to note it was Shimeles that was sent out to huff and puff regarding TPLF’s misadventure. I am surprised he did not compare their act to other nations doing the same. The illegal regime always tries to find a comparable act others have carried out to justify its feeble attempt at legitimacy.

When there is no outside threat, the Woyane regime cannibalizes itself. They have carried multiple ‘Tehadso’ campaigns that it is highly possible no one will be left around to claim the ultimate prize of being Emperor of Ethiopia. War is the only vocabulary spoken among the comrades in the Politburo. It satisfies two constituents. Those that still lament the ‘loss’ of Eritrea and would jump on any band wagon as long as they are promised a province and the new EFFORT led single ethnic ruling class that dreads Shabia and would like the Meles regime to do the job before it ceases to exist.

The whole idea of crossing an International border and killing is not a normal or acceptable behavior. Normal Nations just do not do that. Some big powers do certain illegal acts to flex their muscle but Ethiopia is a Nation on life support and many of her citizens go to bed hungry and wake up hungry. Too bad there is only bones to flex. It will be interesting to listen to the Ethiopian UN Ambassador explain how neighbors can invade each other at will and the world finds out about it on BBC. This must be the principle of jungle diplomacy. How strange it resembles jungle Democracy as practiced in Ethiopia.

The US is in the current economic mess because of the terrible mistake of waging two wars far away from home base. Even for a Super Power the cost was too much to bear. War is not cheap. The US produces all its weapons and transportation needs. War is big profit for certain sector of the economy. But it was still a waste. When you take Ethiopia the idea of war is mind-boggling. All weapon is purchased with cash. From the boots of the Solder, to his uniform, arms, transportation cost including fuel is paid cash. The only thing Ethiopian is the peasant in uniform ready to be sacrificed. War is hell on Ethiopians and their economy.

By all UN index of Human Achievement our country always ranks in the bottom three in the world. That is because we spend our human resources warring each other. We sacrifice precious human life and also waste our hard earned money on foreign manufactured goods designed to kill. Normal countries are not run like that. Then again normal countries do not cross international borders and fire their weapons.

There will be many theories why the Meles regime will do such a criminal act. Ranging from conjuring up the Eritrean threat to the theory of forceful defense will be explored. A few Ethiopians will use the occasion to open old wounds and wave the flag. The bottom line is an illegal regime that rules using force is on the verge of wasting both human and economic resources for no valid reason. The fact that no one paid attention to this bizarre behavior is heart warming. Such act makes the Donor countries look bad. Meles was shopping for attention and he was deservingly ignored. Even the victim of this aggression was caught by surprise.

In an ideal world no country will sell weapons to this rogue regime. The people of Ethiopia and Eritrea have seen too many wars. The generation that cultivated and nurtured hatred and animosity is on its way out. This is its last gasp to save itself from its internal enemies. The Ethiopian government is using the Eritrean threat to justify its war on all Ethiopian people. The two poorest economies on planet earth are wasting their precious resource to kill each other. There is no one closer to an Ethiopian than an Eritrea. Eritreans have no one closer to heart than Ethiopians. Instead of building a great East African trade and technology Zone we are listening to those that peddle hate and violence. It is a new day. It is a new generation void of hate and violence.

We should ask those countries that donate arms to rogue Nations to be aware that those same weapons are used on peaceful people demanding their god given fundamental rights. We should demand Western countries not send military trainers other than police since our experience with this robot solders has not been pleasant. We remember the use of US donated vehicles against our people in the aftermath of the 2005 elections. It is too much to ask of us to be silent when our tax money is used to prop up a system that kills to survive. We should make our feelings known to our representatives in congress.

The ‘winds of war’ from Arat Kilo was the culmination of a very trying week for being an Ethiopian. We are being tested for sure. It started with the video of our Ethiopian woman being humiliated in broad day light in Beirut, Lebanon. It is a very agonizing scene. It was a video of a woman being forced into a car while resisting. First she was lying face down in a sidewalk bush while some guy is trying to pull her back. The next cut shows this guy shoving her into the back seat headfirst and her futile resistance. In the background you see people walking but no one seems to care. It ends with the car driving away. A day later the name and picture of the alleged criminal was posted all over. They were able to trace it from the license plate of the vehicle. It traumatized me to no end. Life is not fair.

There days later it was reported that she has died. She committed suicide. She hanged her self. She looked so small and alone. She was even crying in Ethiopian while being forced to be taken where she doesn’t want to go. It is called kidnapping. My little sister did not even have the energy to shout and scream. She was too tired and defeated. Later on I read this took place in front of the Ethiopian Consulate. What a fitting location is all I can say. Do you think this crime against Ethiopian woman is an isolated event? Not really it is so normal it does not even deserve a mention unless it is so dramatic and is caught on video. This is what a Saudi official explained his preference for Ethiopian maids.

Noor Adeen Masfa, Vice Consul for Economic Affairs in Jeddah, said his department and committees from the Ethiopian Ministry of Labor met several times to facilitate the travel of housemaids to the Kingdom after they are properly trained in Ethiopia.
“We decided to finish procedures of 1,500 housemaids due to the increasing demand for Ethiopian housemaids by Saudi families. Ethiopian housemaids are trained well on Saudi customs and traditions, besides the percentage of runaways is low,” he said.

Percentage of runaways is the key word here. We are docile people trained to heel. A proud rich people are reduced to exporting its young ones to raise Saudi children and care for Saudi old. Nothing wrong with that you might say. I disagree. It is a waste of human resource not to be able to house, feed and educate your children so they can create a better Ethiopia. Money spent on education is a better investment than money spent on having the best security force and army to protect a few. Alem Dechasa is one of the thousands of Ethiopians girls under slavery in the Middle East and the Gulf. They are all young, energetic and willing to do anything to survive and help their family at home. It is the remittances they sent that sustains millions of their relatives. It is this remittance income that gives Meles the boasting rights to the so-called double-digit growth.

Like Alem most of them are from a small village with a little or no education and the perfect candidate for abuse and humiliation by their uneducated, cruel Arab degenerates whose brain function has been compromised by too much petro dollar. The Ethiopian Government encourages exporting humans since the income is what sustains their corrupt system in place.

I am sure we are all shocked and angry by this sad news. Of course we blame it on the Arabs. It is true some Lebanese individual is responsible for the inhuman act against our daughter/sister. On the other hand it is the Ethiopian Government that is sending out these young innocent children to countries where they know no respect for human life and dignity.

We cannot change the Arab governments. As we are witnessing, the Arab people are slowly dealing with their problem in a very satisfactory manner. We Ethiopians are the only ones that can put a stop to such outrage against our people. It is our government that is actively involved in encouraging, pushing our young children into harms way. Alem is not the first nor will she be the last. Every year hundreds of our people kill themselves all over the Middle East. We choose to do nothing about it. We scream and shout the first few weeks and life goes back to normal until the next tragedy. Meles and company will probably sue and settle for some monetary compensation and the case is closed.

We suffer from famine, disease or ignorance because there is no democracy or the rule of law in our country. No Democratic and free country suffers from the above ills. All governments that deny basic human right to their people rule over a population that could never achieve its potential. That kind of society is riddled by conflict, civil war and chaos around every corner. That is why Ethiopia is at war with its neighbors, sends it’s youngest and brightest away and is consumed by talk of war and conflict. It is due to the absence of Democracy and respect for basic Human Right. Our working together to get rid of tyranny is how we want to remember the youth and hope of our little sister that went far from home so she can make her peoples life better. We salute her determination and her commitment to those that are faced with the same fate as hers. She did not want to die quietly and meekly. She wanted her death to mean something to all her sisters. Her parents should be told how their brave dignified girl carried her self in a foreign land that should fill their heart with pride. Her scream made others pay attention to the inhuman treatment they all suffer in this unequal relationship. Goodbye little girl, may you at last rest in peace.

For entirely different reasons, today’s announcement has taken by surprise both economists and political analysts. Economists concerned by the persistence of double-digit inflation seemed puzzled how this has worked out to this outcome, seemingly vowing to go back to the drawing board to review the details.

At the launching of the interim report on the Survey, Minister of State for Finance and Economic Development Abraham Tekeste also seemed to share that preoccupation, when he said considering the persistence of inflation the decline in poverty level is a “remarkable achievement”, according to VOA.

Nevertheless, World Bank Country Director for Ethiopia Guang Chen is more straightforward in expressing concern that inflation is undermining further progress. The table here shows the extent of inflation, going into third year and its severity. It shows that from 2010 into the first two and a half months of 2012, the country has gone through 17 months of uninterrupted and still rising double-digit overall inflation, averaging about 30.0 percent. At the same time, it has recorded 14 months of double-digit food inflation, which in February reached 47.4 percent making not only the price of food beyond the reach of ordinary citizens but also creating shortages of food items such as cereals,oil and sugar, etc.

VOA’s Peter Heinlein quotes Guang Chen saying, “The trend is very positive [shown by HICES results], but at the same time, as the state minister says, still we’re talking about 30 million people below the poverty line, and this is a very poor country, and when we’re talking about rural poverty line, their poverty line is actually below the world accepted average. So there’s still a lot of work to be done.”
In all this, the ebullient Associate Professor Tassew Woldehanna takes the survey results as confirmation that Ethiopia can achieve the Millennium Development Goals by reducing poverty by half, according to ENA.

For political analysts, more intriguing now seems to be the timing of this announcement. They say, it is coming as it does, when the country is extremely busy with security problems in many corners at the same time, citing as example, in Somalia, while they are also standing in readiness to ward off reprisals from Eritrea on the northern border, which Ethiopia claimed days ago it had made incursions into that country and destroyed training camps.

These analysts are concerned that the longstanding no-peace no-war situation with Eritrea is now changing, as tensions are also exacerbated by low intensity conflicts and insurgent activities in the Ogaden, onto which Gambela has become another addition. If not undermining the country’s stability in a serious way, these would still be nuisances that compete for attention and scarce resources, creating difficult environment for continuing the task of poverty reduction and ensuring to make economic growth broad based, beneficially contributing to every citizen.

VOA reports that Finance Ministry officials saying they had made progress in narrowing the inequality gap. However, the World Bank’s lead economist on poverty reduction in Africa Chorching Goh noted that the history of developed countries teaches temporary inequality is a necessary result of growth. She urged Ethiopian officials to be patient when it comes to inequality, and impatient when it comes to the eradication of poverty, although the Bank’s role in poverty eradication is barely one of the best models to follow.

http://transformingethiopia.wordpress.com/

I am not sure which of the above enduring quotes from one of the foremost leaders of change for an inclusive, just and democratic society best describes Ethiopian political and social culture today. I suggest that it is both. Each of us must be ready and willing to “forgive” but not necessarily forget if we wish to establish a better alternative to TPLF Inc. We forgive in day to day life with family and friends. However, we seem incapable of practicing forgiveness with regard to public discourse. Equally, we seem to be trapped in a culture of permanent fear that incapacitates our capacity to change.

The purpose of this article is to suggest that we have fallen into a formidable trap: the trap of fear that leads to submission to a cruel, divisive and corrupt system; rather than the courage to fight back in unison. We admire Tunisians, Egyptians and now Syrians who sacrifice their lives in search of justice; but are not willing and ready to do the same. We spend considerable time, creativity and resources attacking TPLF Inc. but have done little to examine what behaviors and attitudes reinforce fear and inability to forgive and move on to achieve a common goal. We know more about the system that keeps us captive; but know little why we allow it to do this to us. I suggest that it is only when we conquer fear that we will become confident not only in ourselves but will also have confidence in the capacity of the Ethiopian people to achieve justice. This is where wise leadership and organization make a huge difference.

In light of the above thesis, I contend that we (individually and as groups) must conquer our own fear first if we are going to collaborate with one another; and if we are going to make material difference to the Ethiopian people and contribute toward the formation of a just and all inclusive system. Given the destitute conditions in which the vast majority of Ethiopians live, I have no doubt that they will rise the same way as Tunisians, Egyptians, Yemenis and Syrians have done and are doing. What I learn from their experience is that there is more of us on the side of justice compared to the few who rule by force. This is the power of sheer numbers if we harness it systematically and strategically. I am concerned that we cannot take advantage of our numerical superiority if we are scared. As a first step, we may need to appreciate the notion that, both revenge and fear are entrapments that TPLF Inc. uses as instruments of control and to sow seeds of suspicion and mistrust among us. It will continue this political culture that reinforces permanent submission if we let it.

I was reminded of the duality of revenge and our entrapment in fear that have stalled the democratization process as I listened to Professor Donald Levine’s latest interview on ESAT. He reminds listeners that the culture of forgiveness and defiance against fear is endemic to us as people but has been eroded substantially through two successive regimes: the Socialist Military Dictatorship that murdered an untold number of Ethiopians and caused mutual annihilation among Leftist elites and contributed to its own defeat. More important, fear has become a norm under TPLF Inc. that jails, murders or causes to murder and dispossesses thousands each month. One manifestation of this fear that I have often observed is that most opposition political parties, civil society organizations and individuals watch without protest as groups of people in specific localities: Gambella, Ogaden, Oromia and others are raped, killed, starved, forced to flee as if they are not part of the whole. This gives the impression that if ‘If it does not happen to me or to my group or tribe,’ then I do not have to protest. As Levine put it, “Take them out of their land,” is not perceived as a national threat because land grab and its devastating effects are located in specific places such as Afar, Beni-shangul Gumuz, Gambella, Oromia and SNNP. We ignore the fact that these lands and people are an integral part of Ethiopia and Ethiopians. We ignore this fundamental principle at our own peril. Fear contributes to this tragedy.

I buy Levine’s argument that the ability to forgive and the capacity to resist fear are part of our tradition regardless of ethnic affiliation. Ethiopia would not have survived as an independent country for thousands of years if its mosaic of people did not reject fear and fight external aggression together. I also share Levine’s point that this unique tradition of defiance of fear that defines us as people is eroded deliberately by self-appointed ethnic elites, the most prominent being TPLF Inc. that championed the Stalinist principle of the right of nations to self-determination, including secession (Article 39 of the TPLF Constitution). The assumption then and now is that Ethiopia is “A prison of nations, nationalities and peoples.” This dictum that emanates from leftist tradition that embraced Marxist-Leninist-Stalinist ideology without critical examination of the unintended consequences was put into practice by TPLF Inc. for practical use, namely, to dominate the country, strengthen submission, and leave the society and country in permanent suspense. As it turns out, the EPRDF is a creation of TPLF Inc. and there has not been much progress in creating a level playing field in policy and decision-making that shows that the “prison of nations, nationalities and peoples” is now a paragon of justice and equity. TPLF Inc. uses power to punish and not to liberate; to force submission and not to advance democracy among Ethiopia’s 80 nationality groupings. Just take one recent example.

It seems to me that, TPLF Inc. propagates the idea that it stands for the liberation of oppressed people under previous administrations without granting them the right to debate, participate and engage in the policy and decision-making process. It perceives itself as the only legitimate group that understands development and bars others from the political, social, cultural and economic space for one reason only, dominance and extraction of incomes and wealth for a small cohort of people. This is why it dismisses outright political and economic competition. As a result, unethical and corrupt behaviors are tolerated for its group. The sale and leasing of millions of hectares of virgin lands and water basins are defended without public debate because the end, namely, accumulation of wealth and continuity of power justifies the means. If the means entails jailing, killing, and dispossessing hundreds of thousands, it is fine. After all, the Bolsheviks Revolution sacrificed 10 percent of the population to achieve a perfect society. TPLF Inc. is out to prove that, those it perceives had done wrong in the past and those it sees as threats for the future must be dealt with by any means necessary, including ethnically cleansing them. The end justifies the means.

Dispossession is part of this strategy. The human toll incurred is a feature that the end is better and that the means justifies it. So, most Ethiopians are likely to pay a huge price for this Soviet and North Korean type of political and social architecture unless they rise up and defend themselves in unison.

Indigenous people in the Omo Valley are among the most oppressed and materially backward in the country. In theory at least, they should be among those to be liberated from national oppression but are not. Their situation and the situation in other land grab regions such as Gambella, suggest that the gang of leaders who manage TPLF Inc. does not care about the welfare of ‘oppressed people” anywhere in the country. Yet, it takes away their primary sources of wellbeing and security in the name of advancing their interests. My take is that TPLF Inc. has no empathy. It only cares for and caters to a small group of elites within and outside its tribe. The human toll of this philosophy- that had purportedly stood on the side of ‘oppressed nations, nationalities and peoples–and used this strategy to unseat the Military Socialist Dictatorship (another repressive system) is immense. A few months ago, Survival International, a reputable Non-Governmental Organization that defends social, economic and cultural rights of affected populations around the globe, reported that the people in the Omo Valley faced the prospect of starvation and dispossession owing to the Ethiopian government’s decision to relocate them forcibly and make room for a sugar plantation. This is now taking place.

On March 16, 2012, Praveen Narayan, an Indian Journalist, posted a note on Ethiomedia entitled “Ethiopian tribes face mass eviction” from their ancestral lands and way of life. He says, “A leaked map from Ethiopian Authorities unleashes fears of mass eviction of 200,000 Omo tribes from the Lower Omo Valley to convert available land into sugar plantations.” This same situation has occurred and still occurs throughout the country. Oakland Institute and Human Rights Watch documented the devastating effects of relocation on citizens and the environment in Gambella. By 2015, 1.5 million Ethiopians will be relocated to make room for foreign and domestic ethnic elite investors. On March 13, 2012, AFP reported that “At least 3.6 million hectares (8.8 million acres)-an area larger than the Netherlands-has been leased to foreign investors and state (party owned and endowed and favored firms and individuals) since 2008, with state security using force to drive people from their land.” Imagine the chilling effect or fear this sends to these Ethiopians. Ethiopia’s security system has now formally become an instrument of global capital against the population regardless of ethnic and or religious affiliation.
This should send a chill through our spines and offer us the backbone to reject fear.
Part of the explanation of what seems like generational fear is as a result of such uncaring, inhuman, cruel and repressive governance that is willing and ready to sacrifice millions in advancing small group interest. What makes this even more ominous is the fact that there is now a direct marriage between global capitalism and capitalists and TPLF Inc. and its beneficiaries. This liberal development approach that opens-up Ethiopia’s “womb” to foreign investors and domestic capitalists (75 percent Tigreans, according to Oakland Institute) constitutes the greatest natural resource transfer in Ethiopian history. This is happening to our country as we watch with dismay but not an urgent sense of unified thought and action. What TPLF Inc. does is not surprising to me and many other foreign and Ethiopian observers. It is the other side of the equation that defies logic.

Equally damaging to communities that are being disposed, the entire society that suffers from a disastrous economic policy and the long-term security of the country, is our own individual and group behaviors and the dysfunctional way we interact with one another. This is the reason why Levine places much of the burden on us rather than on the repressive government led by TPLF Inc. We may or may not agree with Levine. That is not the point here. The point is that, at minimum, it behooves us to ask why we are generally dysfunctional when it comes to Ethiopian politics and future. I agree that there is no point in going back and ‘beating a dead horse’ with regard to the national question and why ethnic federalism that divides us and keeps the society at bay was institutionalized in Ethiopia; and why it contributed to the land-locked status of the country.

Part of the answer resides in what Levine says. “Everyone has grievance against one another as much as against the regime.” I am afraid that he is right. He is milder in his diagnosis than I was in my book (Amharic), “Yedemocracy meseretoch ba Ethiopia: yealama andinet wosagn naw,” following the 2005 elections. I will not repeat my research based observations here. Instead, I will strengthen Levine’s comments by extracting themes from research findings by Salaam Yitbarek. In “A Problem of social and cultural norms,” he says the following:

•“Ethiopian collectives tend to be ineffective, inefficient, and short-lived.” We tend to focus more on activity rather than results. We also tend to create groups and either let them perish or allow them to bifurcate. Why? This is because we do not focus on the goal but on personalities. Group meetings end up as bickering sessions or as debating societies instead of sources of creativity, innovation and positive change.

•Our communication style is typically adversarial, reinforcing the view that we are there to score points or to prove how wrong someone is. In Yitbarek’s experience, “communication is opaque (not transparent and direct); and “feuding and infighting is rampant.” The greater goal or agreed mandate is thus either sacrificed or compromised in the process.

•It is rare for Ethiopians to exercise openness. It is as if we are trapped in the “Wax and Gold” era that Levine attributes, partially wrongly, to the Amhara group. “Rarely does one observe open and frank communication amongst Ethiopians,” and their collectives regardless of national origin or religion or gender. The young generation does better than my generation. My generation is known for avoiding commitment to and communication on the basis of fundamental principles and values that can be tested in the real world.

•It is still not uncommon among Ethiopians to hold grudges and wait for a time to score points. This is the reason for Levine’s comment that revenge is an attribute that deters the formation of a democratic culture that entertains differences as normal. TPLF Inc. has perfected it to rule. We have yet to counter it with a new culture of forgiveness in order to serve the common good better.

•We tend to thrive on what I call ‘destructive’ rivalry that leaves little room for dialogue and compromise, a TPLF Inc. trait. We have observed over and over again that the minority ethnic-elite forces opponents to submit to its power by forcing the innocent to accept guilt. “The zero-sum view of the world leads many to view compromise as a weakness.” This is among the reasons why opposition political parties, civic groups and well-meaning individuals fail to accept the art of compromise as vital in resolving conflicts.

•We rarely use the best techniques to diagnose and resolve conflicts in organizations. “I have found little difference in the propensity and nature of conflicts that occur within collectives in Ethiopia and the Diaspora,” says the author. The Diaspora mirrors the same political and social culture that prevails in Ethiopia. This is exploited by TPLF Inc. to spread divisions, fear and backbiting amongst activists and opponents.

•The impact of these and related behaviors is that cooperation and collaboration, team work and unity of purpose or mandate are undermined.

•Although we do not accept them readily, we often personalize issues and seem incapable of distinguishing between the person and the substance he or she advances. This leads to “parochialism: friend, political party, civic or religious group, professional association, ethnic group,” or even village within a region. Who benefits from this typology? It is self-appointed leaders and TPLF Inc. The cost of these and similar tendencies is huge. For example, mistrust and fear deepen. We treat one another as adversaries and fierce competitors even in situations where we have no country where such competition would lead to power.

•We accuse TPLF Inc. of lack of empathy and compassion for people, including the poorest of the poor. The author says rightly that we ourselves make quick and unwarranted “judgment before reflection.” Quick and non-reflective judgments show a revenge mental model and tend to undermine mutual trust and empathy.

•Following the 1974 Revolution, character assassination was rampant. It still is. I know; I was one of the targets. One spreads unfounded rumors into the system such as “She/he is a member of the CIA or KGB or Mossad” was common among leftists of the day. Today, we hear similar character assassination, for example, those who were members of TPLF Inc. but have now rejected it are often accused of ulterior motives. Even within the most sacred of institutions, such as the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, character assassination has become a standard practice. Those who propagate this tradition fail to recognize the reputational risks involved; and the message this sends to the rest. Those who tend to do this forget that no person involved in Ethiopian politics is beyond reproach or blame. Therefore, we need to look at the impact and then change our behaviors. Unfounded character assassination deters cooperation and collaboration and harms the common cause.

These deficiencies in our individual and group behavior may seem academic. They are not at all. I will provide some additional examples to illustrate the point. We spend millions of hours of our time talking but have yet produce results that make a difference to the Ethiopian people. We have no measurements of effectiveness. We dwell more on differences rather than commonalties. Have you ever attended a meeting at which Ethiopians express their commonalities as naturally as their differences? Do we listen to one another with respect and civility? Have you wondered if Levine’s and Yitbarek’s statements resonate with political and civic actors? We need to be bold enough and honest enough to answer these questions. Otherwise, there will not be innovation and change in politics.

Assuming we share, at least, broadly, the above, we should not wonder that opposition groups and individuals cannot agree with one another yet. By definition, they work against one another. They see one another as rivals and fierce competitors. They hold one another with suspicion. They harbor grudges. This is why there is little mutual tolerance, respect or trust. We seem to be governed more by our differences than by our commonalties. In some cases, we are reduced to think as someone from a village and not the “Greater Ethiopia” that Levine’s book discusses with evidence. Where we all seem to agree is on hatred of the regime, and on its overthrow. This is not a sufficient condition for change that will lead to peace, national reconciliation, justice, fair play and political pluralism.

What can we do?

It is not sufficient to blame the regime for all our ills. I have done that as much as anyone. Equally, we need to recognize that we are still unable to break out an incapacitating culture of narrow rivalry, suspicion, egos and competition that lead to revenge and fear. We need to conquer our individual and group inabilities to forgive so that we can advance the common good of all of the Ethiopian people. We can start with small steps and not dwell too much on past mistakes by regimes, political groups and individuals. I believe that we can learn to avoid the mistakes of the past and chart a more promising future if we tap into the diverse talent pool that comes from Ethiopia’s rich mosaic. Ethiopia is a huge country with diverse talent. No single individual or group has the answer. Evidence shows that, together, we can come up with solutions. To do this, we, as individuals and groups, should conquer the revenge and fear culture that has incapacitated all of us and that sustains repressive governance.

We cannot afford to blame this on TPLF Inc. alone for our individual and group fear. What about us? Who is going to liberate Ethiopia and Ethiopians if we continue this culture? We can and need to advance openness and transparency; truthfulness and disclosure; and stop to vilify others on whom we have misperceptions. Vilification without cause and character assassination without facts, undermine cooperation and give signal that it is ok for TPLF Inc. to perpetuate the disastrous principle that Ethiopia is still “a prison house of nations, nationalities and peoples” under the guise of ethnic-federalism. Levine –a previous proponent– now admits that this form of federalism of “we the nations, nationalities and peoples of Ethiopia” does not advance peace, security, peace, and democracy. Given his vast knowledge of Ethiopia’s evolution and culture and the variety of federal systems that work, including the US, he should have disputed ethnic-federalism from its inception. Nevertheless, I admire his courage to question its validity today. This is more than the rest of us in the academic world are doing.

Do most of us in the opposition camp and in academia dare to reject the concept of “irreconcilability” of Ethiopians and the ethnic federal government formula that divides the country into 21st century ‘Bantustans’ and leads to ethnic-based killings and removals? Do we dare to ask who has taken advantage of this ideology that leftists and ethnic-based liberation fronts parlayed in the 1960s and 1970s and beyond?
One look at the demographic data of who is getting super rich; being driven out of their lands, properties and country; and is forced to flee the country in droves will provide answers. This is why Levine implied that the TPLF Inc. developmental state accepts the notion that TPLF Inc. finds it acceptable to uproot a few millions and make room for foreign and ethnic elite owned commercial farms. “Taking them out of their land is ok,” because it is being done for the greater good. The greater good serves global capital and the TPLF Inc. ethnic elite and its allies. After all, it is someone’s land that is taken away. It is someone else who is killed or is starved or is in jail or is forced to flee or is dispossessed. I suggest that such occurrences would not take place if we reject the culture of revenge and fear and cooperate for a transition.

Levine reminds us that Ethiopian society continues to pay a huge price from a political tradition that propagates “irreconcilability” of Ethiopians because of their ethnic make-up rather than strengthening the multiple threads (intermarriages, religious affiliation, domestic trade, settlement, unity against foreign aggression and so on) that bind our country together. I have tried to show that this so called “irreconcilability” makes many of us unforgiving and revenge oriented. I can understand why TPLF Inc. rules through revenge and hatred rather than mutual respect, acceptance and tolerance. It provides it the philosophical basis to reinforce submission to its authority. However, I wonder why those who are opposed to it persist in reinforcing the same political culture of revenge–constant fracturing and division of political groups and even churches. Shouldn’t they do exactly the opposite of the oppressive ethnic elite system that denies the vast majority both freedom and economic and social opportunity? This is why I suggest that there are consequences for bad behaviors and retarding culture.

I do believe that political and social elites, opposition political parties and civil society organizations as well as individuals can advance the causes of a just and inclusive system by demonstrating readiness and willingness to “forgive” one another and by focusing on the things we have in common rather than on the things that divide us.
In this regard, I am comforted by the ‘light at the end of the tunnel.” Ethiopians at home and in the Diaspora are meeting and conversing on how best we can reach-out to and cooperate with one another. They have begun to surface and debate hard questions that were left out in the past. There is more open dialogue on the kind of alternative future that will accommodate the hopes and aspirations of all Ethiopians rather than self-appointed political elites. A new generation of Ethiopians at home and in the Diaspora is engaged, and in some areas, shows leadership and organizational skills beyond ethnicity, religion, demography and gender. Ethiopian women in the Diaspora have begun to reengage.

Therefore, the rest of us can and should help strengthen the current momentum by overcoming dysfunctional behaviors and ways of dealing with one another; by helping conquer our individual and group inabilities to forgive one another; and by rejecting the incapacitating fear culture that envelopes Ethiopian society—the biggest hurdle of all. This is why we need to remind ourselves constantly that “We must build dikes of courage to hold back the flood of fear.” I propose that no one else in the world would save Ethiopia and Ethiopians from the abysmal condition they find themselves in except Ethiopians within and outside the country together. Our capacity to change depends on our individual and collective will and determination to make a difference and leave an enduring legacy. This will occur if we set aside ideological, ethnic and religious differences and focus on what matters the most: a compelling vision that will lead to a fair, just, inclusive system and serve all; and a robust process that anchors the struggle in the hands of the Ethiopian people.

Why did Maat have such a presence? What was its magical spell? I should now like to address these questions. The human self required an organizing moral principle. Life could not be lived without a moral frame, a frame that furnished the self with boundaries and limiting conditions of social action.

This was lacking in Egypt until its gods originated the expansive concept of Maat. Maat was symbolized by the feminine principle of “truth, balance, order and justice.” Maat was harmony, righteousness, patience and vision, born out of the feminine principle of patient labor. For the ancient Egyptians, the order of the universe was also the ideal order for the human world.

In this paper, I seek to theorize the relevance of Maat, a mythic concept, as a modern moral principle that can motivate both (a) organic leaders of the people, and (b) social movements themselves, to reorganize the public sphere in contemporary Africa, which is in serious crisis.

I

For the Greeks, the universe was ordered by Logos, by the rational word. It is this order that Plato used in his Republic, when he constructed an ideal city out of Logos. This principle was later translated into, “In the beginning was Logos,” and the Logos was God (John 1, 1). Jesus himself was Logos; in marked contrast, for the ancient Egyptians, the organizing principle of logos was replaced by the organizing principle of Maat.

The Egyptian city was ruled by Kings who personified Maat. The human heart, which was worshipped by the Egyptians, and which they considered the seat of thinking, was also the seat of Maat. The pharaohs were expected to rule with Maat. The Pharaoh’s greatness was measured by the quality and quantity of the Maat which he/she internalized.

After death, their hearts would be weighed by the scale of Maat, the scale of Justice.
When famines occurred and deep inequalities became a way of life, it was the duty of the rulers to uphold Maat and measure the depth and extent of the
suffering. Not that this practice was perfectly upheld, particularly, when nature overwhelmed the rulers’ ideals, but there was at least an absolute and
objective standard by which social/political life was judged and measured.

Maat requires an appropriate economic form, which has yet to be theorized. I would like to argue that the dominant capitalist economic form, no matter how
elastic and flexible, and however generously it is stretched, is morally vacuous and hence unable to accommodate Maat.

A moral form requires a supportive economic form. Classical Egypt had the right moral form but not the right economic form. Whereas Maat singled out the self
as capable of stepping out of its ego shell and embracing other egos outside itself, the corresponding famine and hunger situations forced the actual
Egyptian, not to embrace the other, but to destroy other selves. It is these particular moments of despair and anguish that killed the enabling moments of
patience, justice and love, Maat’s feminized principles. The Egyptian self was thus denuded of its potential grandeur, which would make many Afrocentrists –-
intent on proving the moral superiority of the African self –- cry in despair. The attempts by Egypt’s leaders and people to internalize the limiting
conditions of Maat prove the Afrocentric hypothesis that there was a particularly Egyptianized/Africanized effort at internalizing moral greatness,
but it was not institutionalized in Egyptian life in the way that the capitalist form was in 17th-century Europe and beyond.

The moral form of life that Maat promised remained on paper, as nothing more than an ideal. African thinkers did not take the trouble to embody this ideal
in the lifeblood of institutions. In short, the moral form did not produce a corresponding economic form -– in contrast to the capitalist economic form
which did produce a corresponding moral form, and institutionalized the latter in far-reaching structures of state and civil society. That is the task that I
should like to impose on myself.

The threat of inevitable doom has yet to be heeded, and capitalism itself continues to marvel at its resiliency in creating crises and immediately
correcting them, thereby proving its “naturalness” and making it easy for its proponents to present it to the world as a God-chosen economic form. Any
attempt to counter it with something like Maat is dismissed as a pipedream. No sane person is expected to take Maat seriously. And the fact that its
geographical origin is an African civilization, conveniently leads many to dismiss Maat as irrelevant and wishful thinking.

Maat as a moral form is considerably deeper than the passing moral sentiments that the Scottish moral philosopher proposed. Generosity, justice, uprightness,
tolerance, wisdom and loving patience go directly against our natural proclivity to injustice, dishonesty, intolerance, closedmindness, ignorance and hate. These
vices, which have been used to build empires and economic forms that support the visions of the rich and powerful, seem to fit the ready-to-hand tapestry of our
makeup, which by now has become so second-nature that no Maat is going to dissemble it. In contemporary life, revitalizing the features of Maat requires
nothing less than manufacturing a new human being.

II

We must create Ethiopians who can act generously, patiently, tolerantly and lovingly. We do not have such human beings in sufficient numbers to construct
an economic form that values justice, uprightness, wisdom, tolerance and loving patience. Taking the virtues singly, the following picture emerges. Let us begin
with generosity. Generosity is a virtue. It means that one is willing to give without receiving, or is willing to give without the deliberate intent of
receiving anything, or for which the receiving is only incidental. The generous person gives a particular good A to person B; and person B does not simply
receive A as a matter of course. B receives A with a profound respect for the giver, and even plans, if she can, to one day reciprocate not in the same way,
but in some way. The reciprocity need not be of equal goods (where equality is measured by money). What makes the act morally compelling is the desire to
reciprocate, and not the quantity of the reciprocity. One of the central pillars of Maat as an economic form is the cultivation of a human self willing
and able to act generously in the relational moral regime of giving and receiving, or simply giving without receiving, or receiving with a profound
sense of gratitude and respect.

Justice is one of the features of Maat and it is also a potential source of a Moral Economy, appropriate for the African condition. As Aristotle taught, one
does not become just merely by abstractly knowing what Justice is; rather, one becomes just by doing just things. The puzzling question is this: if one does
not know what justice is, then how can one know what just things are, so that one could choose only just things and not others? The question is not easy to
answer. But an example might give us a sense of what Aristotle means.

It is Christmas evening and a family is gathering for a dinner and the table is set for ten people. Among the popular dishes are five pies, and shortly before
the guests arrive, one of the family members has been asked to cut the pies into exact sizes, such that no single person would feel that he has mistakenly
picked one of the smallest pies. The task of the pie cutter was to observe that justice is served and that all the pies are cut evenly and fairly. What must
this person do? That is the moral question. Well, at the minimum the person must be just in order to perform just action, and in this instance, justice
means nothing more than cutting the pieces equally to the best of one’s ability. The pies must be cut with moral imagination and with intuitive
mathematical precision. There is a spiritual dimension to the science of measurement, which could have been simply done with a measuring rope. That
possibility, however convenient, is not elegant. Rather, the expectations are that (1) the person is going to make an effort to be precise, because her
intention is to be just, and (2) that her eyes are just, or that she prays that they would be. (1) and (2) are the requirements; the rest is left to moral
imagination.

She cuts the pies, and it turns out that all the pieces appear to be equal, and when the guests arrive, they randomly pick the pieces, and appear to be
satisfied. What we have here is a display of justice in the Aristotelian sense, in which justice is defined as an activity that is guided by a measure of
equality, and equality itself is manifest in the attempt at being fair to everyone -– in this case, an attempt to be fair to the guests, without their
ever knowing that they are being worked on. They judge the event as illuminated by justice, and as uplifting.

Generalizing to a higher level, what we can say is that any economic form must be guided with justice and that all the commodities that human beings should
want must be distributed with such a standard, the standard of justice as fairness. Given justice as fairness, commodity A can be distributed between
persons B and C, in such an equitable way that B and C share commodity A by getting the same amount at any time, any place and for a good reason.

III

Compassion is another feature of Maat; indeed, it is one of the cardinal moral forms for the new moral economy that I am theorizing here. Compassion is to
moral economy as greed is to capitalism. One cannot imagine capitalism without the salient principle of greed, and similarly, one cannot imagine moral economy
without the originary principle of compassion. The modern world, being what it is, is divided by class, race, gender, ethnicity and groups. Out of these
divisions, it is class division which is the most decisive, as it is also the one that seems to be so natural that we cannot surmount the pain and agony that
it produces. In a class-divided world, compassion is the least present; since there is no compelling reason for individuals to be compassionate if they are
not naturally so, or so inclined. In such cases, though, compassion could be learned, either by example or directly through teaching.

An example may elucidate the place of compassion in moral economy. It is summer, and exhaustingly hot. People that you encounter are hot-tempered too. Everybody
is on the edge, including you. You happen to be a coffee-lover, so there you are standing behind a long line of people to get your fix. The heat has made
you impatient, and you are ready to explode on anything around you. You are naturally generous, but not this day. Shortly before you leave the coffee shop,
a homeless person smiles at you and tries to talk to you, hoping that you will understand the purpose of the conversation. Of course you understand, but you
ignore him and walk by. But then something bothers you, and you came back to the coffeshop and generously give the man what he wanted. You are proud of
yourself, because you have done what generosity demands, that you control your temper and perform the morally correct action. Surely, you say to yourself, it
was not easy, but you did it.

Now you wonder what all this means, and why you did it. The answer is obvious. Indeed, it is because you are really a compassionate human being. You had no
obligation to pay attention to that person. He is not related to you, he is not an ex-friend that fortune turned against, nor did you do it so as to be a
media-hero. Your action is morally worthy only because you have internalized compassion. To you compassion comes quite naturally. It is part of your moral
frame. Any repeated action becomes a habit. So compassionate action comes habitually to you. You rarely fight it. Rather, you exuberantly let it lead
your way, as it eventually did on that hot and difficult day. But even on that day you conquered the temptation of doubt, and excessive self-love, by the
moral force of compassion. That is why you corrected yourself when you were briefly but powerfully tempted by forgetfulness, and returned to do the morally
right thing.

Compassion is morally compelling when it is extended to a total other, who has nothing to do with our lives, beyond awaiting our moral attention. It is much
easier to be compassionate towards a loved one, a friend, a relative and even an acquaintance; harder is the task when the subject is a real other, such as
that person by the coffee shop. In order for any action to be morally worthy, the motive must be pure, and the purity is measured by the quality and quantity
of the compassion that is extended to any needy human being, uncontaminated by external motives, such as love, friendship, acquaintance and relation. It is in
this particular way that I am arguing that compassion serves Maat.

IV

Tolerance is another crucial feature of Moral Economy. In fact, it could easily be argued that it is an indispensable organizing principle, which works in
tandem with loving kindness. Just as we cannot love a person –- except illusorily -– without respecting her, so we cannot live with one another
without tolerating each other’s needs, habits, likes and dislikes. In the economic sphere tolerance is subtly pertinent. We cannot readily sense its
inner working unless we pay attention to its musings at the workplace, as we interact with one another as managers and workers.

Consider the following example to underscore the point. There is this worker who does things in ways that many people find annoying. She customarily comes late
to work; she procrastinates; she spreads papers, cans and food stuffs all around her; sometimes she cannot even find herself amidst the dirt, the pile
and the dust. Yet, and this is the point, whatever tasks she performs are carried out as flawlessly as is humanly possible. Her supervisor has agonized
over what to do with her and has often contemplated firing her. Lulled by the elegance of her work and his loving-kindness towards her, he decides to keep
her. He has promised himself to erase those occasional thoughts of getting rid of her. As he told one of his friends, he has learned -– not very easily -– the
ways of tolerance as a principle of management, as an approach to dealing with workers who will not and cannot change their habits.

I consider this manager very wise and skilled at the art of management. He decided that it was better to change himself, as hard as it was, than to expect
the worker to change. The structure of his thoughts could be put syllogistically:

Y can change his way;
X cannot change easily;
Therefore Y must change for the sake of Z.

Y is the manager. X is the worker. Z is the organization where Y and X work In this situation Z was saved precisely because the manager internalized tolerance
and loving-kindness as the organizing principles of the organization. Y controlled his ego and chose to advance the interests of Z over and against his
own private needs. He did not fire X, nor did he insist that X must change. He must have intuitively and empirically concluded that it is pointless to expect
X to change, nor would it benefit Z to lose X, since X is an intelligent and skilled worker.

Where tolerance is habitually practiced at workplaces, it becomes an indispensable good that can save many enterprises the unnecessary costs arising
from hiring and firing workers -– including the distress of their families and loved ones. Tolerance can easily remedy the situation. If it is easier for
managers than for excellent workers to change, then it is the managers who must do so for the sake of a functional and democratic moral economy.

V

The Egyptians held the human heart at a level beyond any other organ, and this decision is not an accident. They revered the heart and mummified it, whereas
the brain was sucked and thrown out at death. While modern medicine treats the brain as the cognitive organ that originates and processes thoughts, the
Egyptians treated the human heart as the seat of thinking. To the Egyptians the human heart had both a physical and a transcendental function. Its physical
function is pumping blood, and its transcendental function is moral thought. Maat was guided by the human heart. The heart is the home of thought impulses,
or what we loosely call feelings.

The Egyptians accorded weight to the heart’s transcendental function. They reasoned that thoughts originate in the heart, are processed by the brain, and
are emitted as language. Some thoughts are expressed as speech and others are buried in the depth of the unconscious, beyond language, the realm of the
expressible. It is the Egyptian insight about the heart as the seat of thinking -– particularly moral thinking -– that gives the heart a central place in moral economy.

The citizens of the new moral economy must be encouraged to practice what they intuitively know: that moral thinking is both thinking outside of the self and
the attempt at reaching the unknown and perhaps unknowable other. This difficult task of embracing another person’s concerns as your very own is
precisely the territory that the human heart undertakes. The brain indeed processes those thoughts, moral and otherwise, which originate in that regime
of transcendental thought, but the depth of the need to embrace the other, to think for the other and with the other, are practices in moral thinking that we
feel deeply in our hearts, and the will propels us toward action, and the brain organizes the sequences of what must be done.

The new moral economy must make the heart the initiator of action, and citizens must be encouraged to take the language of the heart, namely feeling, much more
seriously. Where these intuitively felt and lived thoughts are temporarily absent from our busy lives, they must be made present by being remembered and
recollected as the citizens’ habits, on the basis of systematic education at schools, madrassas, churches and other institution of modern society.

The new moral economy desperately needs thoughtful human beings. A functioning moral economy not only needs leaders who follow the ways of Maat; more
importantly, it needs citizens who practice what they feel in their hearts, or who at the minimum know intuitively that that is what they must do, if they are
to preserve the human species. Maat shows us the way, and the human heart demonstrates the value of the practice.

Of course, what is difficult is the institutionalization of Maat as a regulatory ideal that could reform individual behavior. Social movements are composed of
individuals who can be guided by moral ideals such as Maat. The same social movements, however, also require institutional conditions, which can facilitate
individual behavior. The challenge is to use Maat both as a moral regulator and as the generator of institutions willing and able to encourage social movements
seeking to change dysfunctional moral principles – such as the principles of the capitalist state that does not embrace Maat as its moral ideal.

I modestly suggest to the transitoanl council that it considers the new moral economy as an alternative to bogus liberal democracy and tyrranical communism.

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

Shimeles Kemal said Ethiopia launched the attack because Eritrea was training “subversive groups” that carried out attacks inside Ethiopia.

Ethiopia and Eritrea fought a border war from 1998 to 2000. Tensions have reignited between the countries in recent months.
No details about the military operations or any damage or casualties were immediately released.

The “Eritrea government has continued launching attacks at Ethiopia through its proxy groups. The attacks had continued. And the recent attacks against European tourists is one of the reasons for the retaliation,” Shimeles said.

Militants attacked European tourists from five nations traveling in Ethiopia’s arid north in January. Five tourists were killed and two were kidnapped. The two kidnapped German tourists have since been released.

Ethiopia blamed gunmen from Eritrea for the attack.

The attacks Thursday by Ethiopian forces took place about 10 miles (16 kilometers) inside Eritrea’s territory in areas called Gelakalay and Gimbina, Shimeles said. The Ethiopian forces have returned to Ethiopia, he said.

“Today’s measures do not constitute a direct military confrontation between the two countries. The Ethiopian defense force has entered into Eritrea and launched a successful attack against military posts that have been used to organize, finance and train the subversive groups,” Shimeles said.

Shimeles said it was unlikely that Eritrea would retaliate because it is “not in a position to launch a counter attack.”

Eritrea’s ambassador to the Addis Ababa-based African Union, Girma Asmerom, didn’t immediately respond to phone calls seeking comment.

The border war between the two countries killed about 80,000 people. Recent signs have pointed to growing tension in the region.

Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Meles Zenawi told the country’s parliament in April that his government would actively support Eritrean opposition groups to help topple that country’s regime. Ethiopia also blamed Eritrea for scheming bomb attacks on several targets in Addis Ababa during an African Union summit in January 2011.

Eritrea doesn’t receive foreign aid and is sanctioned by the U.N. because of human rights violations. U.N. reports have indicated that Eritrea has supported Somalia’s top militant group, the al-Qaida-linked al-Shabab. Eritrea has denied those accusations.

TPLF`s leaders understand that the future of their regime depends on the effectiveness of silencing opposition groups, journalists, bloggers, and others concerned citizens. The regime’s constitution appears to be providing basic rights for all citizens, including freedom of press, but in practice all rights is almost non-existent or strictly controlled by the government. It is evident that the regime is continuing violating its own constitution by simply eroding – freedoms, civil liberties, with arbitrary orders to kill, and arrest those who have been fighting under given constitutional rights.

The opposition party leader, Andualem Aragi and journalist Eiskinder Nega and many other citizens are the recent clear examples of the arbitrary political motivated arrest. These patriotic indivuals took responsibility for protecting and defending our rights to live lives of freedom and equality under this evil regime. We say thank you to these and other patrotic indiviuals for having the courage and persistence to fight for the rights of all Ethiopian. They will be honored and remembered forever by all Ethiopians.

As we have read it in several free media a journalist/ blogger Eiskinder’s several articles had demonstrated his open minds with strong conscience, and love of his contury. He has option to join the exodus or to stay in the country. Although he had been in and out of jail under this regime for several times, he chose to stay in the country to continue fighting against injustice. What we witnessed – after his release from prison is for him to get back on his journalistic duty and write on local and international papers as well as online and critic the injustice the regime perpetrated on the people. The opposition party leader Andualem also did similar fights, he campaign and against all forms of injustice through his party platform and showed he no longer accepts oppression by this regime. This type of unfettered commitments and beliefs landed them to TPLF’s notorious prison. TPLF supporters and beneficiaries always turn their head pretending they just don’t see it. They choose to accept woyane’s crumbs and “guresha” as incentives as way of life.

Maeklelawi dungeon in Addis Ababa was infamous during the years of Derg now run by TPLF’s. Human Right Watch and others wrote about the prisoner conditions in the dungeon as the worst by any standards. According to former prisoners, the political prisoners were held in overcrowded conditions and cramped with other prisoners who committed horrible crimes. Conditions are poor and unsanitary. Their day began with the guards cursing the prisoners. The prisoners are subject to ruthless TPLF interrogator with harsh and life threatening condition. Their effort is to manufacture evidence for their kangaroo courts. As we have read and listen recently on free media the opposition leader Mr Andualem under their custody was severely beaten up by other prisoner who was coerced to bit Andualem, and left him unconscious. The dissidents that left the TPLF’s prison camp expressed that the images of past horrors are still too vivid in their mind specially the torture of each day. The informants are at every turn. They are posing as prisoners in an attempt to infiltrate the political prisoner’s networks. Informants are one of the main players in silencing opposition groups. As we have seen or heard they followed up on opposition party members, friends or relatives to their homes and take them away never to be seen again. There are still dozens of unresolved disappearance cases in need known.

The opposition group leader Negasso shall continue to demand Human Rights Watch or International Committee of the Red Cross to get access to this prison. To date, the regime failed to provide any information on prisoners to allow access to any human rights organization. Our political future is more uncertain, the regime continues routinely attack, kill, jail who voice opposition to his dictatorial rule. It is encouraging that lately diaspora community, civic activists, free mass media appears to be cooperating and continue relentlessly exposing the regime corruptions, illicit outflow of billion monies, the land giveaway, human rights violations, detentions, torture and other forms of cruel and inhuman punishment. This will lead significantly diminished the regime’s axis of evils operation, the reappearance of national unity and eventually restoring the livelihoods and lives of all Ethiopians.

Alem Dechasa, 33, hanged herself using her bed sheets between 5 a.m. and 6 a.m., Ethiopian General Consul Asaminew Debelie Bonssa said doctors told him. He spoke to The Daily Star while returning from the hospital Psychiatrique de la Croix Hospital, known as Deir al-Salib. Police took her to the hospital after the incident.

The video released by LBCI last week showed Dechasa moaning as a man, later identified as Ali Mahfouz, beat her and forced her into a car. According to Bonssa, who said Dechassa was in Lebanon illegally, the incident took place two weeks prior to its release. Mahfouz said Dechasa had previously attempted suicide.

Bonssa said he saw Dechasa Saturday and she appeared fine. Bonssa also said doctors told him they checked on her at 5 a.m. this morning and when they returned at 6 a.m. she was dead.

Bonssa said he was “deeply shocked” by the news.

The hospital declined to comment, citing privacy concerns.

ESFNA, with more energy than ever, is working very hard to make Dallas 2012, from July 1st to July 7th, 2012 a great success. We are anticipating the biggest gathering of Ethiopians in the history of our storied organization. The only one of its kind, ESFNA is nearing its 30th year of existence and Dallas will be the beginning of a yearlong celebration to commemorate this tremendous milestone.

Our goal for this year is for more than 100,000 Ethiopians to come to Dallas and make it a landmark year in which Ethiopians can show what we are capable of achieving when we work together. We hope 2012 is a pivotal year in which Ethiopians in many facets can begin to find common ground and collaborate even more towards a better future for Ethiopians around the world.

ESFNA would like to take this opportunity to wish EHSNA success in their 2012 Labor Day weekend event in Washington, DC. Our heritage is vast and wide and EHSNA’s effort to expose our children born outside Ethiopia and non-Ethiopians to our marvelous history and traditions are very commendable.

Ethiopian Sports Federation in North America (ESFNA):

Bringing Ethiopians Together™

ESFNA prides itself in creating a unique stage where Ethiopians of all background, ethnicity, religion and political convictions can come together to celebrate our long enduring unique heritage and the diversity that has become our strength through the millenniums. Our goal and vision through the past 29 years has been to maintain ESFNA’s annual festivities as the Mecca where ALL Ethiopians and supporters can come together once a year and create our own mini Ethiopia in the land of our refuge.

Founded in 1984, ESFNA is a non-profit organization dedicated to promote the rich Ethiopian culture and heritage as well as build positive environment within Ethiopian-American communities in North America. Its mission is bringing Ethiopians together to network, support the business community, empower the young by providing scholarships and mentoring programs, primarily using soccer tournaments, other sports activities and cultural events as vehicles. ESFNA, by virtue of its status is non-political, non-religious and non-ethnic. We adhered to this position all along because we are legally expected to take such a stance.

ESFNA Public Relations

Johnny G.Berhanu

email: yohannes23@gmail.com

Tel: 1 647 701 8527

The CSA report indicates that most of the increases in food prices are mainly on cereals, pulses, vegetables, fruits and spices. Therefore, compared with the January 2012 data, the increases in the price of cereals was 23 percent, meat 148 percent, vegetables and fruits 217 percent, foods taken away from home 118 percent and spices by 130 percent.

It is extremely surprising that in a year the government announced a harvest of 218 million quintals of crops, representing 7 percent increases, food inflation should rise so significantly, after declines were observed in the overall rate of inflation in the previous two months.

When Agriculture Minister Tefera Derbew came on Ethiopian television to announce this glad tidings on 16 December, he indicated that this amount surpassed that of last year by 15 million quintals (Ministry foresees 218 million quintals of harvest in the upcoming season).Normally, high inflation in Ethiopia is associated with poor harvests, not in a season of good harvests. Also bear in mind that, CSA Director General Samiya Zekeria was on television days before the minister of agriculture to announce on television the good harvest. His need to reiterate the same story is evidence of how much the government has taken the yields with great satisfaction.

Having gone through the CSA data, my mind went back to February when during his submission of the government’s six-month performance report to parliament on February 8, 2012 Prime Meles Zenawi briefly touched on the success of his policies in promoting growth and curbing inflation.

Amongst the things he referred to, one was the successful implementation of the budget during the first six months of fiscal year 2011/12. Budget deficit was contained at ETB 941 million. In its Historic Deficit article, Addis Fortune noted that this has left many experts scratching their heads for inexplicability of the unexpected shift in the numbers. In other words, inflation was not thought to worsen so soon, when improvements were expected.

At that time, also buoyed by slight improvements in tax collection—in a country of 85 million people where 962 taxpayers pay 70 percent of the taxes, as recently reported in 70% of Tax Revenue in Ethiopia Collected From 962 Taxpayers —the prime minister made references to the improved measures taken in monetary policy, including reduction of borrowings from the central bank, and on the fiscal front with a view to bringing down inflation to single digit within a few months.

Unfortunately, the February 2012 inflation data that came out late by a day only signaled its refusal to give testimony to and support for the prime minister’s claims, as shown by the rise in overall inflation.

http://transformingethiopia.wordpress.com/

The Italian Fascist military garrison and observation post at Deneba in north Shoa is an indelible symbol engraved in my mind of famous patriots and their followers comprising the Oromo and Amhara ethnic groups. My upbringing near this garrison, dominated by the two ethnic groups, living in enviable harmony at the time, had formed my character as a child and the memory of that experience refuses to go away until now. The purpose of this writing is to stress that the Zenawi regime is emulating the Mussolini doctrine to hit the Amharas & Oromos and that naïve Ethiopians are falling prey to the secret design of the regime to destroy the country.

Life as a child in the environ of Deneba

The garrison is one of the strongest World War II Italian garrisons in Ethiopia located in Deneba in the Tegulet Province of Shoa in northern Ethiopia. It was built on a high huge plateau from one end of which rises a steep tall hill used as an observation post overlooking the lower surrounding grounds visible to the naked eye as far as tens of kilometers away on a clear day. Imagine how further the Fascists could see with their binoculars to detect the movements of patriots that gave the invaders terrifying time during their short but destructive occupation of our motherland!

The parish Church Deneba Giorgis, where I went to ቄስ ትምህርት ቤት (priest school), was built on a big plateau beside the garrison. The two plateaus formed a narrow deep gorge providing a route for travelers to Addis Ababa and back with their belongings laden on their animals.

It was natural to speak in Oromiffa or Amharic under the same roof switching from one language to another swiftly. All of my playmates, the children in our village including me, were bilingual in that we all spoke both languages fluently.

Conversations in both languages among the elders were almost always monopolized by the atrocities the Italian Fascists cruelly inflicted on the people of Ethiopia. Famous patriots including the legendary guerilla leader Ras Abebe Aregay and others like Dejazmach Abera Kassa, Fitawrari Haile Balcha, Dejazmach Geleta Quoricho, Dejazmach Meshesha Banché and scores of others were gloriously mentioned for giving hell to the invaders in Deneba and its environ as far as Selalle, Yifat, Debre Berhan et al.

It would be interesting to note in passing that Selalle was the birth place of Abichu who was a dynamic young heroic organizer and brilliant leader of the Special Forces in Tembien, Adwa, and Maichew, among others, that demoralized Marshall Badoglio through a series of surprise attacks. The Emperor dubbed the young Abichu “Leju” (The Boy) and his compatriots in the war arena fondly nicknamed him Liju; he was known for his loyalty to his Commander of Selalle militia, Dejazmach Abera Kassa.

Traders and shoppers streamed to the Deneba market on the plateau – Amarigna speakers mostly from the north and east and Oromiffa speakers from the south and west. As I recall the market stood once a week on Mondays and goods were exchanged peacefully; the people treated one another with magnificent civility.

As children we played like crazy in the big grazing field adjoining Laga Jeldesa River (Zingero Wonze in Amahric) originating from the high ground in Debre Birhan. We played all kinds of games including hockey, wrestling, swimming, horse riding competition, running, you name it. Our technological contrivance was building wheels out of straw and chasing them in the wind until we were tired. In retrospect I imagine that our playful childhood life was an immensely pleasing reward to our parents; we relished the freedom our forebears had bequeathed to us by paying the ultimate price in fighting the Italian Fascist invaders.

In my tiny world at Deneba as a child, I thought Ethiopia was the home of only Amharas and Oromos (Galas) because these two were the only dominant ethnic groups that lived there. However I was to learn more in Addis Ababa about the reality of Ethiopia’s cultural and ethnic diversity.

Back to Addis Ababa

When I came to Addis Ababa at the age of nine I was surprised to find out that there were so many other ethnic groups with rich culture, dexterity and intellectual capacity that in retrospect I see as having enormous potential for development. But Amharas and Ormos were far more in number than any other ethnic groups and being fluent in these two languages I had no difficulty in communicating with the residents of Addis Ababa (Shagar).

In my elementary school, among boys in my class, some came from Tigray under the auspices of Ras Abebe Aregay who led an expedition there to quell the first Weyane uprising. One of them by the name of Bahta Meles and I became close friends until completion of our elementary school and for many years after till fate set us apart.

Zenawi’s paranoiac sustained hatred for the Amharas

A group of Ethiopians in the Diaspora originating from multiple ethnicities including me expressed strong support for the late legendary Professor Asrat Woldeyes for his noble effort to save the Amhara ethnic group singled out for vindictive onslaught by TPLF as soon as it took control of Addis Ababa in May 1991. We made financial contribution to the Professor’s All Amhara People’s Organization (AAPO) that he was then leading. I personally wrote to the AAPO pleading with it to shed its tribal garb as soon as the threat to the Amhara people had vanished. Unfortunately the Professor died prematurely before his honest cause bore fruit.

Now that Zenawi’s paranoiac sustained hatred for the Amharas has become increasingly acute and worrisome, Ambassador Imru Zeleke is right to rise to the occasion in mobilizing the victims for self-defense. One modus operandi is to create a website that would inform the plight of the victims to Ethiopians and the international community.
History affirms that the Italian Fascist invaders of Ethiopia, “dropped leaflets over villages in Tigray singling out and blaming the Amharas and Oromos in particular for hindering the ‘civilizing’ mission of Italy; the leaflets carried strict warning intimidating villagers not to cooperate with the Ethiopian army in any way.” Vide my article titled “Hegemony: Potential for war between Ethiopia & Eritrea” by Robele Ababya dated 03 February 2012.

It is crystal clear from the above that the TPLF strategy is to pulverize the Amhara stamina first followed by similar satanic action second – eventually to vanish the name of Ethiopia from the world map.

Conclusion

I understand the concern by some stakeholders in the unity of Ethiopia expressed in their reaction to Ambassador Imru’s initiative in the creation of a website that would serve the legitimate right of self-defense against the ongoing genocidal program aimed at the Amharas and subsequently at the Oromos. The central theme of the concern is that the gains towards unity so far made must not be lost.

Nothing should stand in the way of our critically needed unity. With the all the foregoing proviso intact, I support that the Amharas and indeed all other ethnic groups that are threatened by the Zenawi onslaught have every right to create complementary websites solely focused on attacking the heinous crimes of the TPLF regime in self-defense. In fact there are some such websites already in existence in symbiotic cooperation.

Abichu at the age of between 16 and 17 became commander- in- chief of peasant militia army organized under four Generals leading militia from Hamassien, Tigray, Gojjam and Sellale and in collaboration with the 15, 000 strong militia from Kembatta bravely mounted devastating attacks on Fascist bases in Tigray thus bringing tears to the eyes of Marshall Badoglio at his Headquarters in Mekele. Abichu and his compatriots exalted in reverence the beloved victor of the battle of Adwa, Immye Menilik II. Let us revive that heritage of spirit of unity to defeat Zenawi who publicly calls us his enemies.
The plight of the masses must come first. I hope that all pro-unity Oromos et al read me loud and clear!

Thank you Andinet.org for the inspiring logo below where the four words in Amharic on it mean Unity, Freedom, Equality, Prosperity:

LONG LIVE ETHIOPIA!!!
Release all political prisoners in Ethiopia including Andualem Aragie, Eskinder Nega et al
robele_ababya@yahoo.com

Over the past week, many Ethiopians who have worked with Don Payne and followed his labor of love in Ethiopia and Africa over the years have been asking what Diaspora Ethiopians could do individually or as a community to honor his memory and legacy. They all have great ideas: We should set up a scholarship fund in his name at his alma mater. We should sponsor a human rights conference in his name. We should contribute money in his name to his favorite charity. We should have a special occasion named in his honor. We should have a special memorial church service for him and so on.

These are commendable things to do in his memory; but I believe the greatest honor we can bestow upon our friend Donald Payne is to deliver on his rich legacy with steely resolve. Don Payne’s legacy is the active promotion of democracy and human rights in Africa. His singular legacy in Ethiopia is his unrelenting effort to link human rights to such core American values as the rule of law, accountability and transparency.
Donald Payne lived a life of public service both in his congressional district in New Jersey and in his larger “continental district” of Africa. He crisscrossed the continent to stand up and speak up for Africa’s voiceless, faceless and nameless who continue to suffer in quiet desperation under ruthless dictatorships. He never sought public recognition or accolade for what he did for Africans and in Africa. He never compalined about the hardships and risks he faced, and patiently deflected the slings and arrows of African dictators who never missed an opportunity to vilify and denounce him for his unwavering stand on democracy and human rights.

Don Payne was a person Dr. Martin Luther King would have described as a drum major for justice, for peace and for righteousness. We know him to be a drum major (leader) for democracy, human rights and freedom in Africa. He was a drum major for free and fair elections in Ethiopia. He was a drum major for an independent judiciary and for press freedom. He was a drum major for the unconditional release of all Ethiopian political prisoners from secret and regular prisons. He was a drum major for stability, democracy, and economic development in the Horn of Africa. He was a drum major for humanitarian assistance and economic development of Africa. He was a drum major for strengthening Ethio-American relations and collaboration in the war on terror. Donald Payne was a drum major for democracy and accountability in Ethiopia.

Delivering on Don Payne’s Legacy

Delivering on Don Payne’s legacy is delivering on America’s human rights promises in Africa, and particularly in Ethiopia. In December 2009, U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton clearly set out the foundations of American human rights policy. She said “the idea of human rights and freedoms” is not a “slogan mocked by half the world” and “it must not be mere froth floating on the subsiding waters of faith.” Human rights are universal values. There are no Ethiopian, African, European, American or other national forms of human rights. “Democracy, freedom, human rights have come to have a definite meaning to the people of the world which we must not allow any nation to so change that they are made synonymous with suppression and dictatorship.” Secretary Clinton urged that the “basis of the new world order must be universal respects for human rights.” Those rights “are simple and easily understood: freedom of speech and a free press; freedom of religion and worship; freedom of assembly and the right of petition; the right of men to be secure in their homes and free from unreasonable search and seizure and from arbitrary arrest and punishment.” These rights are the bedrock principles of human existence anywhere. “Freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of information, freedom of assembly–these are not just abstract ideals to us; they are tools with which we create a way of life, a way of life in which we can enjoy freedom.”

The key to democracy is the opportunity for people to make a free choice about their system of governance. Secretary Clinton said, “ The final expression of the opinion of the people with us is through free and honest elections, with valid choices on basic issues and candidates.” These principles are not mere platitudes; they are principles to be preserved, promoted and defended. In countries whose “governments are able but unwilling to make the changes their citizens deserve”, Secretary Clinton said, America “must vigorously press leaders to end repression, while supporting those within societies who are working for change… and support those courageous individuals and organizations who try to protect people and who battle against the odds to plant the seeds for a more hopeful future.” She proclaimed that there are four pillars that support the Obama Administration’s human rights policy:

First, a commitment to human rights starts with universal standards and with holding everyone accountable to those standards, including ourselves…. 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…. When we run up against a wall we will not retreat with resignation but respond with strategic resolve to find another way to effect change and improve people’s lives…. Third, we support change driven by citizens and their communities. The project of making human rights a human reality cannot be just a project for governments. It requires cooperation among individuals and organizations—within communities and across borders—who are committed to securing lives of dignity for all who share the bonds of humanity…. Fourth, we will not forget that positive change must be reinforced and strengthened where hope is on the rise and… where human lives hang in the balance we must do what we can to tilt that balance toward a better future.

Holding the Obama Administration Accountable for Human Rights

Secretary Clinton said that human rights accountability begins at home with “ourselves”. What has the Obama Administration done to preserve, protect and promote human rights in Africa in general and particularly Ethiopia? What did the U.S. do when Meles Zenawi claimed electoral victory of 99.6 percent in May 2010? Has the U.S. “vigorously pressed” Zenawi to hold free and fair elections? HAs the U.S. sought the release the thousands of political prisoners languishing in Zenawi’s secret and regular prisons? What did the U.S. do when Zenawi decimated the independent press in Ethiopia one by one and electronically jammed the Amharic broadcasts of the Voice of America to Ethiopia?

Responding With Strategic Resolve

Secretary Clinton said that “when we run up against a wall” of repression and see human rights trashed, “we will not retreat with resignation but respond with strategic resolve” to help victims of abuse. In his Statement celebrating World Press Freedom Day (May 2010), President Obama said, “Last year was a bad one for the freedom of the press worldwide. While people gained greater access than ever before to information through the Internet, cell phones and other forms of connective technologies, governments like Ethiopia… curtailed freedom of expression by limiting full access to and use of these technologies.” Today, Zenawi’s regime has gone beyond limiting access to “connective technologies” to shuttering newspapers and disconnecting broadcasts of the Voice of America from the people of Ethiopia. Has the U.S. responded with “strategic resolve” when it ran smack against Zenawi’s stonewall of press repression and free expression in Ethiopia?

Supporting Change Driven by Citizens and Their Communities

Secretary Clinton said that “human rights” cannot become “a human reality” unless it is possible for “individuals and organizations within communities and across borders” to work cooperatively in the cause of human rights. In February 2010, U.S. Undersecretary of State Maria Otero raised concerns with Zenawi over the so-called civil society organization law which Otero asserted “threatened the role of civil society” in Ethiopia. According to one report, as a result of this “law”, the “the number of CSOs [civil society organizations] has been reduced from about 4600 to about 1400 in a period of three months in early 2010. Staff members have been reduced by 90% or more among many of those organizations that survive according to my informants.” What has the U.S. done to “support citizen driven change” in Ethiopia as CSOs are wiped out? What has the U.S. done to support “courageous individuals and organizations” in Ethiopia, including civic society and human rights organizations, “who try to protect people”?

Tilting the Balance Toward a Better Future

Secretary Clinton said the U.S. will weigh in and work towards a better future “where hope is on the rise and human lives hang in the balance”. In the May 2010 election, the U.S. had an opportunity to help steer Ethiopia towards a better future. Immediately after the election, the U.S. issued a strong statement:

We have a broad and comprehensive relationship with Ethiopia, but we have expressed our concerns on democracy and governance directly to the government… Measures the Ethiopian government take following these elections will influence the future direction of US-Ethiopian relations… To the extent that Ethiopia values the relationship with the United States, then we think they should heed this very direct and strong message… We will continue to engage this government, but we will make clear that there are steps that it needs to take to improve democratic institutions.

Nearly two years after that election, countless numbers of individuals have been detained under a so-called anti-terrorism law, the independent press has been stamped out and a full-fledged police state established. Is the U.S. tilting the balance in Ethiopia toward a better future or bending it backwards to perpetuate a vicious cycle of the past into the present?

H.R. 2003- Ethiopia Democracy and Accountability Act Redux

Long before Secretary Clinton eloquently articulated America’s human rights policy, Donald Payne, and before him another New Jersey Congressman, Christopher Smith, were toiling away to make it a reality. In fact, H.R. 2003 (passed in the U.S. House of Representatives in October 2007) neatly and effortlessly combined all four pillars of the Obama Administration’s human rights policy. It is precisely the type of legislative action that could give real teeth to the lofty words of Secretary Clinton.
We can best honor Don Payne’s life and his legacy of human rights by re-committing ourselves to the re-introduction and passage of a bill that incorporates all of the elements of H.R. 2003. What was in H.R. 2003? The Congressional Research Service, a well-respected nonpartisan arm of the Library of Congress, summarized that the bill is intended to

(1) support human rights, democracy, independence of the judiciary, freedom of the press, peacekeeping capacity building, and economic development in the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia; (2) collaborate with Ethiopia in the Global War on Terror; (3) seek the release of all political prisoners and prisoners of conscience in Ethiopia; (4) foster stability, democracy, and economic development in the region; (5) support humanitarian assistance efforts, especially in the Ogaden region; and (6) strengthen U.S.-Ethiopian relations.

Human rights accountability legislation for Ethiopia began in earnest in the U.S. Congress following the officially documented massacre of at least 193 victims and wounding of 763 others in the afteramth of the May 2005 elections. In November 2005, Congressman Christopher Smith of New Jersey, then-Chairman of the Subcommittee on Africa, introduced H.R. 4423 (“Ethiopia Consolidation Act of 2005”). That bill focused on, among other things, the use of United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and provision of resources to Ethiopia to support civil society institutions, independent human rights monitoring and democratic capacity building for political parties, police and security personnel, development assistance for the construction of dams and irrigation systems and suspension of joint security activities until certification is made that Ethiopia is observing international human rights standards. H.R. 4423 morphed into H.R. 5680 (“Ethiopia Freedom, Democracy, and Human Rights Advancement Act of 2006”). In 2007 when Congressman Payne chaired the Africa Subcommittee, the bill was renumbered to H.R. 2003 (“Ethiopia Democracy and Accountability Act of 2007”) and passed the House in October. It is manifest that the legislative language and provisions in H.R. 2003 offer the perfect vehicle for effective implementation of all four pillars of U.S. human rights policy in Ethiopia and the rest of Africa.

In concluding her human rights policy speech, Secretary Clinton described the work that is required to protect human rights with special poingancy:

In the end, this isn’t just about what we do; it’s about who we are. And we cannot be the people we are — people who believe in human rights—if we opt out of this fight. Believing in human rights means committing ourselves to action. When we sign up for the promise of rights that apply everywhere, to everyone, the promise of rights that protect and enable human dignity, we also sign up for the hard work of making that promise a reality.

Upon the death of Congressman Payne, we can rekindle life in H.R. 2003 and finally transform lofty words into practical and concrete actions that will advance American human rights policy in Ethiopia and Africa. We can certainly “opt out of the fight” for human rights in Ethiopia, but then we cannot pretend to believe in human rights. Or we can “sign up” to continue the fight for human rights and human dignity in Ethiopia.

Fighting for a bill patterend after H.R. 2003 will not be an easy task or a fair fight. It will be a steep uphill battle for us as the commanding heights are controlled by some of the mightiest lobbyists in the world who will defend any tinpot dictator for $50,000 a month. Fighting against a formidable invisible army of highly paid lobbyists from “K” Street who lurk and silently creep on the granite floors of Congress to peddle their influence will be very hard. But we faced off that Army last time on Capitol Hill; and against all odds, we managed to win approval of H.R. 2003 in the House.But fighting in the cause of justice and righteousness has never been easy. It is always hard, very hard. So now Ethiopians, particularly those in the U.S., face a simple choice: sign up for the hard work — to do the heavy lifting — to make Donald Payne’s dream of an Ethiopia democracy and accountability act a reality; or “opt out of the fight” by cutting and running.

Generalization

Citizens under a given political structure do interact for their survival. In the process of their day to day communication the existing political atmosphere affects them positively or negatively. When their culture and language are politicized, barriers to cross cultural communication arise. This kind of political atmosphere tries and tests citizen tolerance of culture and language difference. Eventually this feeling can grow to destroy the psychological attachments of different cultural groups.

One of the problems that can be seen in such identity politics is that citizens begin to generalize individual strength and weakness. Generalization in this context is that whenever an unreasonable action is carried out by a single group member the other members of the same group do not easily admit that the act was in fact unreasonable, especially to members outside of their group.

When a political figure does a good work the atmosphere of identity politics pushes us to discover his culture and language belongingness and to generalize his strength in terms of his group. Conversely, attempting to deny negative behaviors of ethnic elites and make excuses to mask their wrong behaviors happens since group members identify themselves in terms of their respective group. Internally as well as externally citizens can become irrational and reactionary in the political and leadership discussion process.

Whenever high ranking political leaders are accused of having committed a crime they fear other groups will judge them in a generalized way. Believing that the weakness of politicians will be considered a weakness of the whole group, transgression is easily overlooked. In this kind of political atmosphere citizens can not build trust between groups because generalization is a virus spoiling even fair judgments of individuals. This disease affects the whole justice system of the country and ultimately hurts national cohesion.

Identity confusion

Once identity politics darkened the spirits of Ethiopian citizens they were pushed to identify themselves by their culture and language groups. During this time those who were floating in the “melting pot”, as well as those who were enjoying inter-cultural life and those of mixed-ethnicity faced identity confusion.

When government offices began to write ethnic origin on citizen identity cards a lot of citizens were confused. The confusion came from citizen’s previous feelings of identifying themselves nationally to their current feelings of identifying themselves by ethnic group. They already believed that being Ethiopian was their identity but the new political climate was forcing citizens to re-identify themselves with their heritage.

In history, in the republic of Rwanda, interahamwe operators forced Rwandans to write their cultural identity on citizen identity cards. This trend highlighted the differences of Rwandans and was not promoted by cultural or traditional leaders but rather was led by government bodies. This practice seemed to accelerate the potential conflict.

Separatism dilemmas

The political climate of identity politics causes citizens to develop feelings of separatism. As we have seen, ethnic federalism is a virus working to dismantle the confidence of citizens. First, trust between groups and the government is degraded making way for a lack of confidence of group elites concerning the uncertain future of the group. Next, in order to reduce uncertainty groups fall victim to identity politics or resort to politicizing their geography and culture. Finally, these trends bring about the state of being separated psychologically at which time groups stand opposed and for the sole benefit of their respective enclave.

Behaviors of the not only independent but separated ethnic groups are not based on justice and democracy but rather are driven by self-interest and checked only by self-preservation. They do not concern themselves with the cultivation of justice or the growth of development but instead invest their minds and lives to the business of their disparate localities.

Dysfunctional social cohesion

Ethnic federalism can damage the cohesion of Ethiopian ethnic groups as time goes by. Social cohesion is the guarantee of the continuation of multi-ethnic countries. The co-existence of ethnic groups is highly dependent on the health and quality of social interactions overall. Among the social systems that give life to the country is its political set up. If the political set up is a culture and linguistic oriented one, then it is natural that groups will develop a personality of suspicion and mistrust, especially, when the system is not worthy enough to rely on. Since the motive and the psychological down play of Ethiopian identity politics is a play of advantages (ene ekedim -ene ekedim). It is impossible to stop the feelings of mistrust among citizens unless the entire political arena is inoculated against this social virus.

The virus ultimately attacks all of the systems of the society not only the political system. The traditions of fairness of citizens will lose their place unless Ethiopians begin immediately to protect themselves from this virus of justice.

The emerging of revenge and hatred based political culture
Identity politics is never free and clear of revenge and hatred. Politics must be free from these thoughts. One of the ethnic federalism problem is that it victims political party leaders. Those who have power and control as well as their supporters will always work to maintain their power. Since ethnic-based politics have darkened the spirits of Ethiopians group grievances have grown year to year.

According to the failed state index the rise of the group grievance score is markedly increasing. In 2005 the score was 6, in 2006 it was 7, in 2008 the score was 7.8, in 2009 it was 8.2, in 2010 the score was 8.6, and in 2011 it was 8.4. This increase shows that the trust between ethnic groups is deteriorating rapidly. Again, Ethiopians must begin to take action to reverse the effects of ethnic federalism and to stop being the victims of hateful politics.

God Bless Ethiopia!

geletawzeleke@gmail.com

The thesis in this commentary is that TPLF Inc. has lost the trust and confidence of the Ethiopian people. There is very little evidence to show that it is ready or willing to reform itself. Nor is there any indication that the donor and diplomatic community appreciate the dangers the country faces in terms of its long-term stability and security and the welfare of its people. What could be more dangerous than the wholesale transfer of the pillars of the economy to foreigners and ethnic allies? The task to support the Ethiopian people rests with all who accept the dangers ahead and are ready, committed and willing to sacrifice time, resources and creativity now and not when things fall apart. We need to move from talk to action; and action is not overseas. It must be rooted in Ethiopia with the Ethiopian people who bear the brunt of repressive governance and economic mismanagement.

In commentary nine of this series, I showed how aid has done little to boost the capabilities of the Ethiopian people including smallholders. Close to 13 million Ethiopians depend on some form of international emergency food aid. A World Bank study last year showed that more than 5 million Ethiopians depend entirely on remittances. Thus, at minimum, 20 percent of 90 million Ethiopians depend entirely on some form of assistance from outside. Nationally, 21 percent are chronically unemployed. It means that growth has benefitted the few; but has not produced employment for most. At minimum 41 percent of the population is not part of the development process. With per capita income of $350 and with 46 percent wishing to immigrate, it is not hard to suggest that the mythical growth propagated by TPLF Inc. is not meaningful to most Ethiopians. It will not be until and unless Ethiopians enjoy a semblance of freedom to hold their government officials accountable.

In light of this, it does not take much to conclude that the country is more dependent now than ever before in its history. The Ethiopian people have less say and power compared to foreigners who own a large chunk of the pillars of the economy. Equally unprecedented is gaping inequality, corruption and illicit outflow. All these and more are indicators of repressive and corruption-ridden governance.

Anchor the struggle in Ethiopia and embolden Ethiopians
It is the above reality that leads me to suggest again and again that the vast majority of the Ethiopian people reject TPLF Inc. It is also this that prompts me to argue that any struggle for a better future for the Ethiopian people must be anchored in and led by civil society and political groups within Ethiopia. Those of us who sit on the sidelines must be persuaded that we are losing a country and all that this implies. No amount of wealth would recompense such a loss for generations to come. TPLF Inc. is now in the business of mortgaging the entire country in the name of development. What responsible government would allow or encourage the deforestation and desecration of lands around churches and monasteries such as Waldiba in the name of development? What is happening in Waldiba, Gambella, Ogaden, Afar and others erode trust and confidence in the regime. It does not seem to care. A recent example on corruption shows that confidence and trust in TPLF Inc. and its associates is practically zero.

I should like to remind the reader that graft, bribery, mispricing, jaded procurement, embezzlement and illicit outflow are possible in the absence of oversight. Independent oversight is virtually impossible when there are no nationally-oriented opposition parties, independent civil society organizations, academics and journalists. For this reason, TPLF Inc. does anything it wishes and gets away with ‘murder.” Here is the truth. “In Ethiopia today, it is argued, all civil society organizations, opposition political parties, individuals and groups in private enterprise, and other groups are described as rent-seeking, while in contrast, EPDRDF (run by TPLF Inc.), the ruling party, is claimed to be the only one which has developmental credentials.”
This attribution of “rent-seeking” to all opponents is granted to deceive and establish grounds for harassment, intimidation and fear; and to ensure that there is no competition. Here is part of the menu of evidence that says it all. In its seminal report last year, Global Financial Integrity (GFI) lamented that “The people of Ethiopia are being bled dry. No matter how hard they try to fight their way out of absolute destitution and poverty, they will be swimming upstream against the current of illicit leakage.” The reader will recall that, in 2009 alone, Ethiopia lost “US$3.26 billion in illicit outflow, exceeding both the value of its total exports and the total development aid it received that year.” You will agree with me that it is not leaders or members of “civil society organizations, opposition political parties” academics, journalists or other persons who did this. Critics are in jail or have been forced out of the country. Opposition political parties do not have the freedom to operate in the country let alone own businesses and steal from the society.

Top leaders and supporters of TPLF Inc. do not like people with integrity. Anyone who speaks the truth against the system is an enemy of the party and state and goes to jail if not worse. Truth and patriotism, justice and freedom and other indicators of good governance are inimical to TPLF Inc. As a result, it puts the argument upside down and accuses opponents of “rent-seeking.” The greatest “rent-seekers” are those who run the merged state—ethnicity, party and government. It is they who have perfected political capture and made it an instrument in the accumulation of incomes and wealth nationally. Governance is a business; and businesses will do anything and everything to thwart competition. At least, in the business world, there is some form of regulation and ethic that guides and governs them. In the case of TPLF Inc. there is nothing that contests it. Any contest or any telling of the truth will land you in jail unless you flee for your life. This cannot go on.

In “A Climate of Corruption: Ethiopian edition,” Janice Winter of Investigative Journalism captured mistrust and lack of confidence in the Meles Government when she said this. “Conveniently for Meles, no independent institutions in Ethiopia exists, to check the veracity” of anything, including “of government high growth rates” or corruption or gross human rights violations including killings and rapes. She continues to suggest that, “Indeed, the average growth for Meles’ entire 20 year rule is less than 5 percent (below the African average of 6 percent.” Ordinary Ethiopians know this better than Diaspora tourists who see glitz and accept it as structural change in the economy. Each and every day, Ethiopians live with “hyperinflation, widespread unemployment, a stagnant private sector and corruption.” Here is one critical point that I would like the reader to take. One of the casualties in Ethiopia today is the truth. Top officials of TPLF Inc. fabricate untruth like General Motors fabricates cars. The high growth phenomenon is part of the untruth factory; as is the fabrication that anyone who dissents is a terrorist. In 2005, the regime stole the election after it lost decisively and explained to the world that it had won. By any definition, fraudulent electoral outcomes emanate from corruption and lies.
Security, police and defense forces are deployed in parts of the country where there is potential dissent and threat with little or no differentiation. The Anuak killed or massacred in Gambella, Somali girls and women raped, indigenous people forced from their ancestral homes in the Lower Omo Valley, Tigreans kept numb and silent in Mekele and elsewhere, Amhara speaking residents in the Southern part of the country forced to leave their homes and property and Christian churches razed to the ground, Oromo students harassed, jailed and killed for seeking fair treatment and justice—these and more violations are justified by TPLF Inc. in the name of peace, security and the constitution. For almost 21 years, it has gone uncontested in pitying one group against another; in assaulting one group in isolation from the other and so on. The rest of us watch an untruthful group do this day after day. My question is simple. Don’t you find these as elements of justifiable cause for principled unity and action in unison? I do. These actions by TPLF Inc. erode public confidence and trust in their government and its officials at any level and in any region.
On Yekatit 1, 2004 Ethiopian calendar, Shiferaw Shigute, President of Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples (SNNP), was accused of corruption and embezzlement. This is not surprising as such occurrences from urban and rural land sales and leases, permits and trade are routine. What is stunning is what he said. He admitted that he and Azeb, Meles Zenawi’s spouse and one of the wealthiest persons in Ethiopia today, colluded and stole millions of dollars in illegal trade of coffee, Ethiopia’s main export.

Mispricing of coffee and illegal trafficking and trade in coffee and other commodities are among the major sources of illicit outflow. Meles Zenawi was forced to reverse the decision against Shiferaw. Family comes first; and not justice or the rule of law. The law and constitution are manipulated to serve an unjust and corrupt system.

In a similar vein, Mr. Omet Obang, Regional President, Gambella, was accused of ‘murders and massacres’ of his own people. He said, “If I go to jail for crimes against humanity, Meles Zenawi should to. It is he who gave me weapons and orders.” Obang did not go to jail and Meles remains in power. This is how the system works; and how corrupt it is.

Reports of endemic corruption and recurring illicit outflow of funds and other resources by UNDP, Transparency International and most prominently, GFI prompted global outrage and concern among donors and diplomats in Addis Ababa. The Ethiopian government was forced to hire an outside firm to conduct investigations of corruption. The country’s so-called Anti-Corruption Commission that has absolutely no teeth hired a Tanzanian firm, Kilimanjaro International to investigate corruption, a cancer that has infected the entire system. The firm was financed by the World Bank and cost almost half a million dollars. The firm interviewed and surveyed 6,500 persons and institutions. To the dismay of TPLF Inc. officials but not to Ethiopian society, the investigation concluded that five of 27 government institutions are the most corrupt across the entire country.

I should like the reader to remember that all state institutions cannot be alike. They play different roles. Some possess authority and power that allow them access to resources; and others not. Some have direct effect on the day to day lives of people and others do not. The five most corrupt institutions of government identified are the following:

1.Courts. In a country bound by laws and not political allegiance, courts adjudicate matters fairly, justly, impartially and with the highest level of integrity. The institutions that adjudicate the law and regulatory system are, themselves, soiled in corrupt practices. Officials have been reduced to rationalizing and defending a tainted system that cannot be saved without radical reform. Impartiality and justice are only dreams in Ethiopia today.

2.Police. In countries where institutions are de-politicized and de-ethnicized, public service and security are fundamental and observed by police. This is not the case in Ethiopia today. The police serve as instruments of harassment, intimidation and fear. They do what they are told regardless of innocence.

3.Customs. Licenses, import and export permits duties, trade transactions, fees and so on depend on ethnic and party affiliation. Thus, customs officials and their allies at the top have unlimited opportunities to game the system. It is who you know and who you ally with that matters most. No wonder that customs is one the most corrupt institutions in Ethiopia today.

4.Local and Regional Administration. Urban and rural lands, commodity marketing, the provision of services such as seeds and fertilizers are among the major sources of corruption and abuse of public trust. The SNNP and Gambella examples offer a glimpse of massive collusion. Nothing worthwhile occurs without some insider deals in local and regional administration in Ethiopia today. Now, global finance capital is in the act.

5.Municipalities. Does anyone know any urban place in the country where permits to acquire a piece of land, build something of value and licenses to operate something, to initiate a business and so does not require some form of bribe. This is why Freedom House and the Wall Street Journal concluded last year that the cost of doing business in Ethiopia is among the highest in the world today. It is “one of Un-freest countries in the world.”
Are there institutions that are relatively free of corruption? Yes; they include Ethiopian Airlines, the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia, the National Bank of Ethiopia and the Postal service. I should caution that it is not easy to steal from an airline. Is it? It is not easy to steal from a commercial bank at least directly unless you rob it. By the way, the government robs banks by forcing them to lend to it. The National Bank has become a piggy bank that prints money and contributes to hyperinflation and the erosion of the Birr everywhere in the country. These relatively corruption-free institutions are not the real service interface between the government and its citizens. The five are. So, it really does not make sense to compare apples and oranges as the Tanzanian firm has done.

Given the mix of the survey, the Tanzanian outfit concludes wrongly that corruption is 78th in the hierarchy of national crises. In my assessment, corruption that leads directly to illicit outflow is at the top of national crisis. Further, it is not sufficient to confine investigation on corruption to money and related concerns. Equally important is political corruption that has led and continues to lead to the rigging of elections. TPLF Inc. ‘won 99.6 percent’ of the votes in 2010 by barring others from competition. The ‘silent violence’ against dissidents, opposition political parties, civic organizations, teachers, students and others is a form of corruption.

The forced relocation of 1.5 million Ethiopians from their ancestral lands by 2015 is an abusive of authority and therefore a form of corruption. TPLF Inc. does not allow opponents to offer viable options; affected citizens have no say in the matter. Continued exodus of hundreds of thousands of Ethiopians from their country in search of alternatives abroad emanates from a corrupt and repressive system that does not allow them to prosper within their own homeland. More directly, corruption and illicit outflow of massive amounts of resources out of the country deprives communities, the society and the country the investment capital they need to expand productive capacity and capabilities: build quality schools, health facilities, safe drinking water, and access roads to rural communities, factories that produce fertilizers, basic consumer goods and so on. It is when the structure of the economy changes dramatically that hyperinflation can be contained Corruption and illicit outflow is therefore a tax on this and the coming generation. It is principally the system that produces and tolerates it.

Given the above, how and why would people trust the TPLF Inc. government, its officials and institutions that are corrupt and tolerate corruption; that lie to them that they are better off today than before it took power 21 years ago while compelling them to accept lies as truths; and that repress them while telling the world that these are done in the name of peace, national security, anti-terrorism and development? I am convinced that lies are an integral part of the ethos of TPLF Inc. and will not change until the entire system changes.

Governments with moral and ethical leadership change when they lose the confidence and trust of their citizens. TPLF Inc. and its civil servants seem to be both arrogant and oblivious or are in complete denial that they are unloved and unwanted. Berhanu Kifetew, the head of the Anti-corruption Commission confirmed this when he dismissed the modest findings and conclusions by the firm he helped hire. He said the study lacked “analytical and statistical depth.” This is a pattern. TPLF Inc. reached the same conclusion on killings and massacres following the 2005 elections; the same conclusions following the massacres in Gambella and the Ogaden.

The reader should never doubt that Ethiopia and the Ethiopian people are hurting big time from corruption and recurring illicit outflow of resources. The reader should not doubt that the beneficiaries of the system cannot possibly change the corrupt and repressive system that keeps them employed. The reader should not doubt for a second that corruption and illicit outflow undermine public trust and confidence in the government, its institutions and officials. Corruption will keep Ethiopia poor and push millions more into poverty.
What can we do?

We can do a great deal. It is up to those—within and outside the country–who love the country and respect the hopes and aspirations of all of the Ethiopian people, to work in unison and leave a legacy of peaceful transformation anchored in Ethiopia and owned by the Ethiopian people that future generations would recite and the world would admire. The key is to decide that change will only come if we support the Ethiopian people, civil society organizations, youth, opposition political parties and others in the country. The anchor is Ethiopia; and the social forces are the Ethiopian people. It is they who should guide our thinking and our actions.

3/07/2012

This is a first novel written by an Indian surgeon who was born and went to school in Ethiopia with a fluent knowledge of Amharic. Besides getting his medical degree from Ethiopia’s medical school, Dr. Verghese also got a Master of Writing degree from the famous Iowa University Writers’ Workshop. He is currently a professor and surgeon at Stanford’s medical school. Dr. Verghese left Ethiopia as the Dirgue regime came to power and threw the nation into a tailspin. His book had been reviewed by the book critics of major US newspapers, such as the New York Times and the Washington Post. I have not come across any review of the book by an Ethiopian, and I thought I should introduce the book to an Ethiopian audience by highlighting some of the novel’s salient points.

The title for the novel is taken from the Hippocratic oath that in part says “I will not cut for stone even for patients in whom the disease is manifest; I will leave this operation to be performed by practitioners, specialists in this art”.

The novel unfolds at a hospital in Addis run by missionaries that provides service to the Ethiopian indigent and officialdom alike. The hospital is called “Mission”, but Addis Abeba’s poor call it just “Missing”. The famous foreign characters in the story are two volunteer South Indian doctors, the woman and gynecologist Dr. Hema and her colleague and eventual husband Dr. Ghosh. Also, the British nun Matron serves as the hospital’s administrator and fund raiser. However, the drivers of the story are a Dr. Thomas Stone, a scrawny British volunteer surgeon and a young Indian nun nurse Sister Mary Joseph Praise. Coming to Ethiopia from India in a ship, and originally assigned to a hospital in Aden, Yemen, the nurse enjoys the companionship of the British doctor, and later joined him in Addis at Missing. She was his assistant at Missing while he performed operations, and the relationship grows and results in the nun bearing twins and dies due to complications of their birth. This tragedy must have driven the British doctor intensely guilty and sorrowful and he disappears from sight.

The twins, Marion and Shiva, are adopted by Dr. Hema who was mad as hell with Dr. Stone and wishes he would never come back to claim the children. Dr. Ghosh was in love with Dr. Hema, but she has consistently spurned him, and bored of the single life in Addis and at Missing, he had his visa ready to leave within a few months. But the birth of the twins changed all that. Dr. Ghosh also served as their surrogate father, and that led to Hema and Ghosh falling in love and fully adopting and parenting the twins. Ghosh loved Stone as his brother and never entertained ill feelings about his friend, an issue that did not sit well with his now wife Dr. Hema.

On the Ethiopian side, the main characters in the novel are Gebrew, guard, gardner and priest, Rosina (and her daughter Genet) and Alamz, maids to Dr. Hema and Dr. Ghosh, who now make one big family. Rosina is an Eritrean who lives with her daughter in a small house just behind her Indian employer’s house. The three kids -Genet, Marion and Shiva, grow up together, going to the same school, and being one happy family until puberty sets in.
Genet’s father Zemui does not seem to be formally married to Rosina, but comes occasionally and spends nights with her (he was in the army and later part of the generals coup against the Emperor and was executed). As the three kids grow together, the Indian family treated Genet with the same love as they treated their twins. Shiva started talking late, and was usually focused on a single task, while his identical twin was an all-academic youth with a flair for social activities. Marion gradually started getting attracted to the beautiful Genet as the shapely Genet matures into a young woman. One day they were playing naked in a room when Rosina stumbled upon them and, shocked, put a piece of cloth on her daughter and pulled her into their house. From that day on, she started suspecting that her daughter might be exposed to some horse playing. She took her to vacation to Asmara so that Genet could meet her relatives, and while she was away, Marion was burning with love and missing her a lot. In the meantime, Shiva was visiting prostitutes in Addis and becoming a typical teenager.

When Genet came back from Asmara, the three got together and started talking among other things about sex. Genet was also in heat and intensely desiring to experience it. Shiva started telling them in intimate details his sexual experiences. Marion was a bit shy and excused himself and left the room. Genet seduces Shiva to have her first sexual experience, and Rosina was heart- broken to find blood and semen in her daughter’s underwear. Fuming and suspecting Marion as the culprit, she barricaded her door and tried to mutilate Genet’s genitals by way of sewing her. This intensely painful and dangerous act ended in Genet being hospitalized and operated by the Indian doctors.

Marion was devastated at the betrayal of his brother, and his goddess Genet. He was never the same again, and this gulf endured for long between the brothers until later in life. Genet and Marion go to medical school, and Genet slowly loses interest and, once a brilliant student, starts failing classes. When Marion talked to her about what it was that was holding her back, he was talking to a different Genet who was political and caught in the Eritrean secessionist movement.

Soon after, Genet hijacked an Ethiopian Airlines plane along with her comrades and left the country. The Ethiopian intelligence agency was hot on Marion’s trail as a close confidant of Genet. He was forced to flee the country to Sudan through Asmara and EPLF’s field where he met medical school classmates now fighting as guerrillas and field medics. From Sudan to Kenya, and eventually settles in the USA as a medical intern at one of New York’s inner city hospitals.

Another Ethiopian character in the novel is the beautiful Tsigie. A young bar maid/bar owner she brought her sick child to Missing where the young Marion was helping his parents as he took his initial interest in the study and practice of medical science.

Marion empathized with the poor Tsigie whose child was coughing hard and seemed close to death. Marion arranged for her to see his doctor parents, but unfortunately they could not revive the child. Marion held Tsigie’s hand and comforted her, a kind act she never forgot. Tsigie was later to see Marion when he came to Boston and came to an Ethiopian restaurant to eat. Tsigie had emigrated to the US and was now an owner of the restaurant and an activist in the Ethiopian community there. Tsigie with the shapely legs brought back some love nostalgia, and both were not sure whether or not to rekindle the flame of love. In fact, when he was tempted to make the move, Tsigie advised the young doctor to go back to his home in New York and think hard about their relationship, and if he decided to come back to her she would be honored.

The subject of Genet was also discussed. To his utter surprise, Tsigie tells Marion that Genet was in the US, and that she had a child but she was now in jail. He could not believe what he was hearing. Tsigie said she helped Genet for some time, but lost track of her until she recently heard that Genet was in jail.

Back in New York lying on his bed in his single apartment, one day there was a knock on his door. When he opened the door, a disheveled woman was at his door. It was Genet. He was shocked, let her in, bathed and changed her clothes. She was coughing hard, and spitting blood. He tried to help her with home medication, and discussed how she got to this stage of her life. She told him that she married an Eritrean, had a son, but the husband was unfaithful to her and she killed him one day for which she served jail time. He felt sorry for her, and tenderly holding her body, made love to her…an act that almost cost his life, but in a twist of fate, cost the life of his twin brother who had deflowered Marion’s love in an earlier life.

The reason Marion went to Boston and met Tsigie at an Ethiopian restaurant was to attend a conference where a famous surgeon, Dr. Thomas Stone (his real father) was giving a speech. He confronted his father eventually, and shamed the British doctor who abandoned Marion and his twin brother in their infancy.

After Marion’s misadventure with Genet, she left and went away. But he became seriously ill. It was diagnosed by his father and doctor friends as hepatic coma – a life-threatening hepatitis. The ammonia level was very high and the liver hardly functioning. His adoptive mother (Ghosh was dead 2 years before Marion left Ethiopia) Hema and his twin brother Shiva came from Ethiopia to see the ill Marion. Hema was so terribly distraught. The doctors concluded that a liver transplant has to be done…but that was full of risks the least of which being the patient’s rejection of a foreign organ. Shiva volunteered to donate, and the operation was done by none other than his real father, Dr. Thomas Stone. The transplant was successful, and initially both donor and recipient fared well. But later, Shiva died.

Dr. Verghese has sprinkled a heavy dose of medical procedures and operations in his novel, thus Ethiopian medical doctors and medical practitioners would find in the book an appealing perspective. Shiva gives Marion as a gift when Marion left Ethiopia his dear and beloved possession, “Gray’s Anatomy”. Dr. Verghese has incorporated in his novel the fine fistula work the Hamlins have been doing in Ethiopia. Dr. Verghese has an eye for the suffering of the poor and the class basis of medical care, discussing the various ailments Ethiopia’s poor suffer from to the lack of staffing and equipment at inner city hospitals in New York and major US cities.

The 11th Commandment for Republicans in the US is “Thou shalt not badmouth another Republican”, an aphorism attributed to Ronald Reagan. For surgeons, Dr. Verghese tells us it is “Thou shalt not operate on a man in death”. Professor Asrat, who is mentioned in the novel, and most likely taught Dr. Verghese in medical school, also says something similar :” injuries to the vena cava behind the liver are when the surgeon sees God”.

The Amharic words Dr. Verghese used show his fluency in Amharic, and for possibly one error where he called the sticks the priests use for support at church mekuteriya, instead of mekuamiya.

Dr. Verghese loves Ethiopia dearly. Of Ethiopian Airlines, he says “the heroism of the security crew and the incredible skill of the pilots are very real (in the novel). He adds “Ethiopian Airlines remains, in my opinion, the safest and best international airline I have flown, with the most hospitable and dedicated flight attendants”.

His attribution of references is exceptional. Lest he be accused of plagiarism it seems, he even references sayings used in the novel; e.g., in the acknowledgments at page 536, Dr. Verghese says “her nose was sharp as a pen” is from Henry V, part II, and relates to belief that it represents Shakespeare’s astute clinical observation”.

By writing this novel, the good doctor has blended very well his South Indian heritage, his Ethiopian upbringing, and his love for medical science in a smartly written prose.

What are the salient issues that the author underscores in his intensive and extensive analysis of Ethiopia’s socio-economic disorder? Are there other authoritative Africa-wide and other findings of studies and established experiences that underpin the author’s findings and arguments about Ethiopia?

1.ISSUES THAT HAVE TAKEN CENTRE STAGE IN THE BOOK
1.1Giving away fertile farm land (at nominal fees) to foreign companies and individuals (with a select few of local elites also having some share) in the name of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI).
The foreign investors are given an unprecedented carte blanche.

With no binding and enforceable conditions included in the grant the foreign investors use the farm lands to grow products of their choices, use technologies to maximize production and export the produce to their countries of origin and, what are left there-from, to the highest external bidders. The continued wellbeing of the communities they displace and the growth and development of Ethiopia at large as well as the protections of environmental resources including wildlife do not go into their calculations. What is left for the displaced communities is the chance of seasonally selling their labour for meagre compensations.

The official arguments of (i) promoting growth and development through the land grant and (ii) the grant being only of unoccupied or unutilized land are a travesty. First, the author convincingly argues that the nation’s genuine and sustainable growth and development can occur only when Ethiopians own economic assets including land, produce what they consider are possible and economical, process their raw outputs into final use products and finally offer the fruits of their labour to the markets within and without. Second, there is no unoccupied or unutilized land except those lying fallow or are grazing areas left to regenerate.

Further, the highlands of Ethiopia constituting areas above 1500 metres above sea level and representing 40 percent of the nation’s land mass are home for over 80 percent (87 percent to be exact) of the population and correspondingly of the farming households. The farming households are in dire need of farm lands. Contrary to the land use master plan of the 1980s (jointly produced with FAO and UNDP) which prevents cultivation of land with inclination of 30 percent and above, small holding farmers continue to expand their cultivation of hillsides thereby degrading the vitality of the soil on them.

In the context of these vivid lines of the author’s arguments, the role of the Government should have been one of creating enabling conditions through distribution of land with the right of ownership, building of farm and market infrastructure and provision of inputs (including fertilizers) in the types and magnitudes required.

In a rare occurrence and providing the validity of the author’s argument the new Head of FAO and a Kenyan prominent businessman (the latter taking Ethiopia as a case in point) in an interview with Aljazeera, call land grant a complete failure.

1.2 Development for the author, as for others, means improvement of the lives of Ethiopians across the land. Fundamental in this argument is that when Ethiopians are not empowered to be active role players in their own development and continue to be side spectators development in the nation’s context becomes a misnomer. Growth can occur without development but only to raise the fortunes of a select group of elites and to improve income for the state treasury.

1.3 A misconceived view of the regime in power that the author brings to light in his researched findings is that development is faster and impacting when it is state-led. This, of course, is antithesis to the recorded experiences of development. The lessons from the defunct command economies of the past did not seem to have made a dent in the understanding of the power controlling the economy. Present day Vietnam, according to Greg Mills (Greg Mills, 2010) raised itself from a net importer of agricultural commodities including rice to the world’s second largest exporter of rice and coffee only after its land reform in which private ownership created a stake for those working on the farms.

1.4The private sector, normally considered as the engine of development has been, according to the researched findings of the author, wantonly weakened principally through monopoly of the major business and industry sectors by the state-cum-party enterprises but also through discouraging policies, tax burdens and bureaucratic machineries to reduce the level playing field. Evidenced by the findings is that there is a void in the enabling environment for the sector to function with freedom, fairness and unfettered drive.

A researched revelation by Greg Mills about private sector in Africa in his book “Why Africa is Poor” shows great similarities to the fate of private sector in Ethiopia. The following is what Greg Mills writes:

“Africa’s people are poverty stricken not because the private sector does not exist or was unwilling to work in sometimes difficult settings. These people and companies do exist, though the private sector is often not private at all, but rather an elite-linked system of rent seeking. Even where there is a degree of independence, government attitudes towards private businesses range from suspicion to outright hostility.

1.5Ethiopia, as truly and convincingly explained in the book, possesses bountiful supply of natural and human resources. The troubling reality, however, is that there is a web of man-made factors that continue to militate against the deployment of these resources to its growth and development: They included distorted policies, divisive and non-inclusive governance, state and party control of the economy, nepotism, rampant corruption, weakening of the private sector, absence of fair and impartial access to opportunities and declining relevance of education to growth and development. The regime in power preaches about agro-based industrialization which is a travesty in the absence of Ethiopians owning economic assets, playing the roles of producers, processors, exporters, importers and, in general, participants in their nation’s growth and development. The concept and practice of what the author calls “virtuous cycle” take root only when the latter conditions prevail.

1.6 Finally, the book makes extensive coverage of small holder Farms and the inherent economic benefits they create. In particular, the following superior values of the farms are articulated:

- Intensive use of land
- Capacity for rural labour absorption
- Crop-livestock integration
- High labour input per unit of area
- High responsiveness to incentives
- Great opportunity for land augmenting

Some living examples reinforcing the author’s down-to-earth analysis and convincing conclusions are the pathway to development followed by South Asian countries in the past and the remarkable development performance of Vietnam today which placed emphasis on small-scale agriculture.

To the deserved credit of the author, he does not underestimate the significance of large-scale farming. In fact, he reminisces about graduates of the then Alemaya agricultural college and retired citizens of the nation going into operating large-size farms with impressive successes. His prime contention is that that ought to be left to native Ethiopians.

2.“The primary reason why Africa’s people are poor is because
their leaders make this choice” (Greg Mills, 2010).

A few statements are quoted from Greg Mills in some of the preceding paragraphs to support the arguments of the author about some of the issues on Ethiopia. Greg Mills, in fact, highlights many more retarding factors regarding the development of Africa which have astounding similarities to those that the author discusses on Ethiopia. The following are some of them:

- Reliance on primary commodities for exports and incorrect policies and procedures to facilitate trade
- Inefficient land use
- Ruinous and self-interested decisions taken by single parties and with no bottom up pressure
- A system thriving on corruption and nepotism
- Land holding structure in which it is distributed on the basis of political allegiances thereby impeding ownership and entrepreneurship
- Top down imposition of the will of governments and resulting institutionalization of weak governance
- Bad choices in place of better ones in the broader public interest because the latter is not in the leaders’ personal and often financial self-interests.
- Leaders externalizing their problems making them the responsibility of others.

An interesting conclusion comes out visibly from the research outputs by Greg Mills about Africa and by the author on Ethiopia: The issues highlighted for Africa as a whole and for Ethiopia as part of Africa greatly coincide. This certainly is not because the two authors came together and shared or reconciled findings but rather each independently carrying out his own research supported by his own vast experiences led him to the conclusion that happened to be similar to that of the other. This is a telling evidence that the book by the author on Ethiopia is the outcome of a dedicated research by one who has his country at heart. The regime in power opted for almost all the failing strategies that stunted and still continue to stunt the development of Africa. The book deserves not only to be read but also owned by all Ethiopians and by those whose hearts go out to Ethiopia.
Final Point:

A considered suggestion to the author is to produce an abridged version of the book both in English and Amharic to serve as handbooks of this historic work. This, of course, implies more in terms of effort, time and material resources but the potential rewarding impact will outweigh all of these.

The author can be reached at Biraraa@yahoo.com

Congressman Payne was a passionate voice for the people of Ethiopia and a tireless advocate for human rights, democracy and respect for the rule of law in Africa and the world. The courage and dignity he exhibited in his fight with cancer was surpassed only by his lifelong commitment to civil rights and his impeccable service to his country and to the people of New Jersey that he has served so well for the past 27 years.

Millions of Ethiopians and Ethiopian-Americans will always be grateful for his leadership in providing guidance for the passage of H.R. 2003 “ The Ethiopia Democracy and Accountability Act of 2007” in the U.S. House of Representatives.

On behalf of all members of Ginbot 7, today and in the coming days ahead our thoughts and prayers are with the entire Payne family. We hope it is a comfort to his family, friends and dedicated staff that the nation and the world mourn the loss of this dedicated public servant, compassionate human being and legendary human rights defender.

The Afar Revolutionary Democratic Unit Front (ARDUF) said in a statement it had apologised to the two Germans and handed them over to local elders.

Gunmen killed two Germans, two Hungarians and an Austrian in a dawn attack on a group of tourists in the remote Afar region on Jan. 17, and seized two Germans and two Ethiopians.

The German Foreign Ministry said it could not confirm the release, adding it did not “want to comment further in the interest of those involved and in the interest of resolving the issue”.

The Ethiopian government quickly blamed its neighbour and arch-foe Eritrea for the deadly attack, saying it had trained and armed the gunmen.

ARDUF released a statement several days later saying it was holding the German tourists, but disputed the government’s version of events.

Hungarian survivors of the attack told how they were woken by gunshots in their campsite in the shadow of the Erta Ale volcano before being hauled from their tents and beaten with clubs.

University researcher Zoltan Winter told a news conference after returning to Hungary that the gunmen made them line up with other colleagues and fired shots at them.

Foreigners who venture out into the area usually include researchers, aid workers and about 500 adventure tourists each year, visiting geographical wonders such as the Danakil Depression, with ancient salt mines and volcanoes.

Afar is an arid stretch in Ethiopia’s northeast that is home to some of the world’s harshest landscape with high temperatures regularly exceeding 50 degrees Celsius in the summer.

In 2007, gunmen there seized five Europeans and eight Ethiopians. The Europeans were handed to the Eritrean authorities less than two weeks later and Britain said Asmara had helped to secure their release. The eight locals were freed a few weeks later.

Payne’s brother, William, said he died at St. Barnabas Hospital.

The 12-term member of the House had announced in February that he was undergoing treatment for colon cancer and would continue to represent his district.

He had held his congressional seat since 1988 and was elected to a 12th term in 2010. He represented the 10th District, which includes the city of Newark and parts of Essex, Hudson and Union counties.

Payne was a member of House committees on education and foreign affairs. He also had served as chairman of the House subcommittee on Africa, and had traveled many times to the continent on foreign affairs matters.

During an April 2009, mortar shells were fired toward Mogadishu airport as a plane carrying Payne took off safely from the Somali capital. Officials at the time said 19 civilians were injured in residential areas. Payne had met with Somalia’s president and prime minister during his one-day visit to Mogadishu to discuss piracy, security and cooperation between Somalia and the United States.

Payne had been chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus and a congressional delegate to the United Nations. He also was a member of the Newark City Council from 1982 until 1988 and was a teacher in Newark for 15 years. He also served as president of the national YMCA. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Seton Hall University in 1957.

Payne was a widower with three children and four grandchildren. His son, Donald Payne Jr., is a Newark city councilman.

Congressman Donald Payne has been a true friend of the Ethiopian people,”For over a year, I constantly argued that the Ethiopian government used excessive force against innocent civilians. Many innocent civilians lost their lives. Parliament established a Commission of Inquiry to investigate the killings. The Commission interviewed dozens of people and spent months investigating and documenting what they saw and heard. When the time came to submit the report, parliament was adjourned a day early, denying the Commission the opportunity to present their findings. The decision was deliberate in order to force the Commission to change its findings.”

“There was a murder attempt against me and according to criminal procedure, I want to file a charge against the prison because I did not get adequate medical attention,” said Andualem Arage, of the Unity for Democracy and Justice (UDJ) party.

“I demand to be taken out of that prison,” added Andualem, who has been in detention since September.

Andualem, who walked in court limping and complained of severe headache, has been charged alongside 23 others, including prominent Ethiopian journalist Eskinder Nega.

He said he was beaten on February 16.

Judge Endashaw Endale said the prison administration must present the case to the court before formal charges lodged.

Andualem’s co-defendants said they feared for their own safety since the inmate accused of attacking Andualem had not been relocated.

“We are afraid, so we take turns sleeping and we are afraid he will poison our food,” one of the accused, Kinfemichael Debebe, told the court.

UDJ chairman Gidada Negasso said the accused attacker, convicted of murder, should not be held with prisoners undergoing trial and should have been reprimanded.

“Right away the court should have said this is wrong and… the prison administration should also punish him,” he told AFP.

Negasso filed a complaint with the Human Rights Commission about the attack, but said he had not received a formal reply.

Government officials were not available for comment. The trial is expected to resume on March 26.

All the 24 accused are charged under Ethiopia’s anti-terrorism legislation, which rights groups have criticised of being far reaching and used to stifle peaceful dissent.

Some 200 people were charged under the legislation in 2011.

Sub-Sahara Africa has also seen its share of fallen dictators. Laurent Gbagbo of Cote d’Ivoire was collared holed up in his palace and turned over to the International Criminal Court to face charges of crimes against humanity. Mamadou Tandja of Niger tried to cling to power by ignoring constitutional term limits, but Niger’s military ousted him. Tandja’s principal opponent was subsequently elected president. Recently, the 85 year-old Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal tried to steal a third term in office and faced a firestorm of public protest. He ran but failed to win a majority, and now faces a runoff with the certainty of civil strife to follow should he “win”.

In January 2011, I wrote a weekly column entitled, “After the Fall of African Dictatorships” and posed three questions: “What happens to Africa after the mud walls of dictatorship come tumbling down and the palaces of illusion behind those walls vanish? Will Africa be like Humpty Dumpty (a proverbial egg) who “had a great fall” and could not be put back together by “all the king’s horses and all the king’s men”? What happens to the dictators?” I thought I had a ready an answer to the last question, though not for the first two:

When the people begin to beat their drums and circle the mud walls, Africa’s dictators will pack their bags and fly off like bats out of hell…[Some of the dictators] will hide out in the backyards of their brother dictators… [or] remain fugitives from justice … The rest will fade away into the sunset to quietly enjoy their stolen millions… The fact is that the morning after the fall of Africa’s dictators, the people will be stuck with a ransacked economy, emptied national banks, empty store shelves, torture chambers full of political prisoners and dithering and power-hungry opposition leaders jockeying for position in the middle of political chaos.

Who Could Put Ethiopia Together After the Fall?

What could happen to Ethiopia after the mud walls of dictatorship come tumbling down? Will Ethiopia have a great fall and shatter into pieces? Will Ethiopia face Libya’s fate? Egypt’s? Tunisia’s? Or will she face Syria’s fate? No one can predict with certainty, but one can be sure that Ethiopia’s destiny is not as preordained as her current rulers would like to remind us: “If Ethiopia disintegrates, so be it. It was not meant to be.”

What can be said with absolute certainty is that there is a decisive role to be played by all Ethiopians and friends of Ethiopia in shaping a post-dictatorship Ethiopia. Individual Ethiopians, groups, civic society and independent press institutions, pro-democracy activists, human rights advocates, political parties and grassroots organizations can come together to discuss and spearhead dialogue and debate on Ethiopia’s transition from one man, one party dictatorship to genuine multiparty democracy grounded in the rule of law. If Ethiopians are to have hope of a better future and a fair chance at fulfilling their destiny and secure the blessing of liberty for themselves and for posterity, they will have to come together, work collaboratively, discuss differences civilly, think creatively, deal with each other honestly, respectfully and forthrightly, negotiate unconditionally, bargain considerately, speak candidly, communicate openly, defend the truth fearlessly, approach their differences open-mindedly and accept the judgment of the people unquestioningly and respectfully.

The Ethiopian National Transition Council (ENTC)

Recently, a group of grassroots advocates has taken the challenge of thinking through and charting possible transitional courses for a democratic Ethiopia after the inevitable collapse of the mud walls of dictatorship in that country. The Ethiopian National Transition Council (ENTC) seeks to mobilize and engage Ethiopians from all walks of life in the dialogue and debate over how to transition Ethiopia from dictatorship to democracy. Its declared aim is to “facilitate the process of collaboration, consensus building, networking and information dissemination” to diverse stakeholders in Ethiopian society. ENTC is not affiliated with any political party nor does it have any political ambitions beyond grassroots advocacy for democratic governance and respect for basic human rights. Its ambition is to become an independent and all-inclusive collaborative forum for pro-democracy civic advocacy and activism with the agenda of helping to establish a free, democratic, peaceful and prosperous Ethiopia.

One of the individuals in the forefront of this effort is Dr. Fiseha Eshetu. Fiseha is an extraordinary young Ethiopian with a peerless record of achievement in Ethiopian higher and technical education. In 1991, he planted the seeds for what was later to become Unity University, the first and largest privately owned and fully accredited institution of higher learning in Ethiopia to be given full accreditation. In 2008, after years of fighting government regulation and fending off official efforts calculated to undermine private higher education, Fiseha sold his beloved university and went into exile. (I have extensively commented on the subject previously in my commentaries “Ethiopia: Indoctri-Nation” and “Ethiopia: Education Unbanned!”.)

Fiseha is an unlikely person to lead such an effort, or even to be so civically engaged. He openly admits that he was one of those Ethiopians who stayed away from politics because he believed business and politics do not mix well. Though he witnessed corruption, maladministration and abuse of power in Zenawi’s regime, he would hear, see or speak no evil. He says he reached a point where he “just did not care” and even “hated being Ethiopian”. But in time he was gripped with a “guilty conscience” witnessing the suffering of the people every day. He could no longer watch from the sidelines and hide behind a veil of self-serving neutrality. In the depth of despair, apathy and bitterness, he says he found strength in the “truth and his faith in God.” He says he has taken on this task of helping to transition Ethiopia from dictatorship to democracy because he believes he has a moral duty to stand up and speak up and help his countrymen and women to his “last penny”. But he readily confesses: “I would rather be in higher education training hundreds of thousands of young Ethiopians for Ethiopia’s future.”

Listening to Fiseha, one is disarmed by his gentle and obliging candor and openness. His words are plain and unguarded; and he totally lacks the calculated ambiguity of professional politicians and knavish obscurity of pundits. He speaks his mind without mincing words. His public statements echo and resonate Gandhi’s ideas about “Satyagraha” (truth force). He says, “The reason we are one hundred percent we will succeed in our efforts is based on two things. First, everything we do is based on truth. Second, we believe in God.” There is also something “Mandelan” about his outlook. He keeps repeating: “For my country, I will work with anyone to bring about democratic change in Ethiopia.” The great Nelson Mandela taught, “If you want to make peace with your enemy, you have to work with your enemy. Then he becomes your partner.” Fiseha says ENTC will reach out to anyone without preconditions or stipulations as long as they are willing to work and help transition Ethiopia from dictatorship to democracy. He has the faith of men on a mission: “If every Ethiopian sacrificed 1 per cent, we can bring about massive change in 6 months. We need to develop a mentality of public service.” In the end, he has begun this odyssey out of love of country, honor, duty and public service, not the morbid and joyless love of power: “We have no interest or aspirations for political power. Our wish is to help finish this transition to democracy as quickly as possible and return to our chosen professions.”

Transition From Dictatorship

The road from dictatorship to democracy in Ethiopia will be challenging but not impossible. What will the transition to democracy look like? When the mud walls of dictatorship crumble in Ethiopia and the veil of secrecy and hype is lifted, two facts will stand stark naked. First, the people will find out that their national treasury is empty and the country is teetering on the brink of bankruptcy and crushing international debt. Second, they will find out that in the absence of durable democratic institutions and procedures, they could face a period of significant political instability, tension and conflict. But to better understand the challenges of that transition — that moment in time between the end of dictatorship and the onset of democracy — one must begin with an analysis of the objective conditions in Ethiopia today.

To facilitate their grand strategy of divide and rule, Ethiopia’s current dictators have carved out the country into ethnic enclaves reminiscent of South Africa’s Bantustans. That is likely to be a source of contention. Political parties are suppressed and neutralized through arbitrary regulations or direct repression and prevented from organizing and campaigning. There will likely be jockeying for power by some. Opposition leaders are jailed, intimidated and/or bankrupted. Dissidents are persecuted as “terrorists” and their exercise of their constitutional and human rights criminalized. A sudden opening up of political space could add a layer of confusion. The rule of law is trampled as citizens are arbitrarily arrested, detained and brought before kangaroo courts for summary judgment. Torture is commonplace in the secret and regular prisons as has been documented. The call for justice will likely take precedence. There are no personal freedoms– no freedom of expression, press or association. Alternative sources of information are electronically jammed; independent newspapers are shuttered and editors and journalists jailed or exiled. Political institutions are degraded with a rubber stamp parliament, and a judicial system populated by obstuse party hacks lording over kangaroo courts. Executive power is vested in one man who exercises power without any constitutional constraints or institutional checks and balances. Transition from such a state of political affairs will require not only a tectonic shift in the structure and process of governance but also a fundamental transformation in citizens’ attitudes and the civic and political culture of the country.

Transition from Dictatorship to Democracy: It is All About the Transitional Period!

Dissolution of the dictatorship in Ethiopia does not guarantee the birth of democracy. There is no phoenix of democracy that will rise gloriously from the trash heap of dictatorship. Birthing democracy will require a lot of collaborative hard work, massive amounts of creative problem-solving and plenty of good luck and good will. A lot of heavy lifting needs to be done to propel Ethiopia from the abyss of dictatorship to the heights of democracy. It will be necessary to undertake a collective effort now to chart a clear course on how that long suffering country will emerge from decades of dictatorship, without the benefit of any viable democratic political institutions, a functional political party system, a system of civil society institutions and an independent press to kindle a democratic renaissance.

The recent history of societies that have transitioned from dictatorship to democracy demonstrates that the most important part of the transition is the transitional process itself. There is a narrow window of opportunity between the demise of the dictatorship and the emergence of the new order that has the effect of historical determinism. What happens in that window of opportunity determines whether democracy will rise from the ashes of dictatorship, or another equally virulent dictatorship rises from the ashes of the dictatorship that just ended. Simply stated, the transitional window between dictatorship to democracy is the most important element in the entire democratic process. If the transition turns out to be destructively competitive and conflict ridden because stakeholders distrust each other and are rigidly wedded to their positions, the “democracy” that will result from that will be weak, unsteady and ineffectual, if one emerges at all. If the transition is marked by genuine negotiations, bargaining and compromises, a strong and durable democracy will very likely emerge.

Ethiopia’s history offers the most compelling lessons and evidence in support of this proposition. During the U.S. brokered “transition” in 1991, Zenawi was able to masterfully short-circuit the transition process by outsmarting and outplaying the U.S. and all of the other stakeholders. Herman Cohen, the U.S. official who played the mediator role, recently gave an interview and explained, “The TPLF was at the gates of Addis. We wanted to make sure that the war ended with what we called a soft landing in Addis and there should be no destruction….We didn’t say takeover the government. We said take over Addis. We needed to have somebody takeover in Addis and then start transition toward a new governmental system.” But there was not much of a transition. Cohen added:

I opened the meeting with a statement urging the parties to work out a transition to a democratic form of government and to maintain a single economy of Ethiopia and Eritrea…After my statement, the three parties decided to continue on their own without a mediator…They repaired to a private room for their own discussions, which produced a short public statement. The statement said that a decision has been made to hold an all-parties conference in Addis Ababa no later than 1 July, at which time a transitional government would be debated and launched.

With one communique, Zenawi succeeded in hijacking the transitional process, and with lightning speed managed to consolidate his power and establish his dictatorship. That is why the transitional period is the most critical moment in the passage from dictatorship to democracy. It is vitally important to maintain unrelenting vigilance during this critical period to make sure that no one individual, group or party will have a tactical advantage to hijack the next transition to democracy.

The transitional process itself determines that type of “democracy” that will emerge. It is possible to have different types of transitions with different results, outcomes and reconfigurations in the balance of power among the stakeholders. For instance, if the transitional process is bogged down in ethnic politics, hostility and competition among the major ethnic groups, the chances for a successful democracy will likely diminish. If particular political or social groups seek to engineer another hijacking of the transitional process, the results will be catastrophic.

What does the transitional process to democracy mean? My view is simple. I begin with basic assumptions: Democracy in cannot emerge in Ethiopia by force, trickery or backroom intrigues. It cannot be dictated by one man, one party, one group, one ethnicity or one segment of society. It cannot not come through artificial and expediently formulated consensus and lip service to unity and collaboration. Democracy can be birthed in Ethiopia if and only if the transitional process from dictatorship provides all stakeholders a genuine opportunity to come together to discuss, negotiate, bargain and compromise about the future of Ethiopia. Counter-intuitive as it may sound, my view is that for the transition to democracy to be successful, what is supremely important is not the existence of broad consensus and unity among the stakeholders; rather, it is the existence of divergent interests and the ability to bring the stakeholders of these diverging interests to work through their stalemate at the negotiating table in an environment of awareness of a common destiny. In other words, when all the relevant stakeholders come together with the simple awareness and deep understanding that “we are all in the same boat. We are all rowing against a tidal wave on a sea of repression, corruption, exploitation and subjugation. In the end, we will swim or sink together.”

What is to be done before the window of transition opens and once it is opened? We have to start with the basics. What kind of “democracy” do we want? For two decades, we have been hoodwinked by a hollow but seductively phrased “revolutionary democracy”. Is a constitutional democracy desirable and timely for Ethiopia now? A constitutional democracy is based on the idea of limiting and defining the powers of government and those exercising political power. The constitution serves as the supreme law of the land and no individual or institution can breach it. Governmental authority is legitimately exercised only in accordance with the constitution and and other laws consistent with it and enforced in accordance with established procedures and in conformity with international treaty obligations. As additional safeguards against the potential of arbitrary government actions, power could be vertically divided between the central and local governments in a system of federalism (“ethnic federalism” is to genuine federalism as dictatorship is to genuine multiparty democracy). Political institutions, particularly the judiciary, will have complete independence from those exercising executive authority and will be vested with full judicial review powers. In a constitutional democracy, political parties are always at risk of losing elections (in fact, they are doomed to lose elections if they fail to listen to the people); and it is impossible for any party to win an election by 99.6 percent in a constitutional democracy. Simply stated, in a constitutional democracy government always fears the people and the people never fear their government. Is it time for constitutional democracy in Ethiopia?

Waiting for a Dictatorship to Fall?

Some are overly concerned about fixing the time when the mud walls of dictatorship in Ethiopia will come tumbling down. Neither Gadhafi, Ben Ali, Mubarak nor Saleh knew or could predict the end of their dictatorship. Even the most sophsitcated intelligence gathering operations could predict the Arab Spring. But Gandhi’s iron law of history of dictators predicts with certainty that “tyrants and murderers for a time seem invincible but in the end, they always fall – think of it, always.”

The end of dictators comes when it comes, but the facts hastening the end are plain to see, and could be extrapolated from parallel historical events elsewhere. Dictatorships are internally weak, inherently fragile and unstable. The body politics of dictatorships is poisoned by corruption and abuse of power. Unable to win hearts and minds, dictatorships maintain support by purchasing the loyalty of those from whom they seek support and use force and intimidation against their opponents. Their operating principle is total distrust, including their own supporters.

The answer to the end game of the dictatorship in Ethiopia is written plainly in the faces of the millions who are starving, the toiling peasants and day laborers, those whose lands were taken and sold for pennies to international land grabbers, the masses of young men and women who have been deprived of educational and employment opportunities, the multitudes of the homeless, the diligent businessmen and women who are victimized by paralyzing taxes, the pensioners who have lost hope in the sunset of their lives and so on. But if one were pressed to provide an answer to the question, it would be simply this: Dictatorships are doomed when citizens value their dignity above all else and join hands and stand together to defend their collective humanity. That is the singular lesson and the ultimate truth about the Arab Spring.

Guarding Against the Great Fallacy of Electoralism in a Democratic Transition

There are some who believe that the transition from dictatorship to democracy can be achieved by waving a magical wand of elections at the critical point in the demise of a dictatorship. The impulse to put all of the political eggs in the election basket and hope for the best is irresistible. Herman Cohen said that during the transition in 1991 he had accepted Zenawi’s assurances that there would be elections to sort things. But commenting on the 2005 elections, Cohen said he became publicly critical of Zenawi because the 2005 “elections were stolen, clearly stolen.” After 2005, elections in Ethiopia were not just stolen, they became the stuff of political comedy as the ruling party proclaimed: “Behold our 99.6 percent electoral victory in May 2010!” “Marvel at our democracy in 2008 in local and by-elections in which we won all but four of 3.4 million contested seats!”

ENTC: Carpe Diem! (Seize the Day!)

The idea of having individuals and groups involved in grassroots democratization efforts is heartwarming and inspiring. The idea of engaging individuals and civic groups in activism and advocacy to alleviate human suffering and to defend the defenseless, the faceless and voiceless is priceless. The idea of grassroots organizations spearheading the transition from dictatorship to democracy in Ethiopia opens up boundless opportunities. When hope itself seems hopeless and our faith in the future is swallowed by our present despair, we must replace our outrage with courage and be prepared to give 1 percent of our time and energy to the cause of transitioning Ethiopia from dictatorship to democracy.

The first time I came across this great person was when he was in Dallas to lead the stage for Ethiopian Community Day event. Some friends I knew have arranged a dinner party in his honor and I was an invitee to that party. I was amazed by his humility to avail himself up close and personal. He levels himself down to everyone. He respects
others view. I learned that as much as he respects others he deservedly demands to be respected as well. He has high regards for his principles and his own personal attachment to his country, her flag and unity. This is the person who is arguably the top entertainer in the country of 80 million people. You should understand if I felt privileged to talk to him.

At the beginning of the discussion some of our friends were unhappy about the uncivilized message we were getting from the usual destructive forces in our city. I think some of them have issues with Tamagne because he, or they think he, has aligned his activism with the group that was open to talk and work with parties like OLF and ONLF. The others who rumored around the community were the pro-EPRDF elements.

Surprisingly, their message was the same. They have this archaic and feudalistic view that a comedian (in their parlance ‘Azmari’ –they meant it to be a derogatory term) cannot be up to the task of a ‘noble’ person’s deeds; the deeds being that of leading an organized group, becoming a political activist and understand the intricacies of politics. Well, some have moronic views that everything Tamagn does is somehow meant to make us laugh and could not measure up to be a serious matter. Although I disdain these unenlightened comments, it pains me to see such views still prevalent in our society. I wish they had seen him how thrilled he is in becoming a comedian and fervently loved to be named a comedian or an ‘Azmari’ for that matter. To my angry friends, Tamagn has simply quelled them by unashamedly calling himself an “Azmari’ whose agenda is to see a democratic and united Ethiopia.

His opponents and critics alike have thrown every name at him. They said he is uneducated and he has no business in politics. This is an absurd prejudice. These people have been propagating against Tamagn to intimidate and subdue him. I don’t know what kind of diplomas and degrees he has or which college he attended. I believe the level of education one has cannot be a standard to determine his ability to stand up for freedom and democracy. Let truth be told, however, I can confidently say that Tamagn is an autodidact whose general knowledge is in par with the class of political elites. I was mesmerized by his sharp memory and his skills in storytelling and putting narratives in perspective. He is for sure an ardent follower of current affairs. More than anything else, you can clearly see his strong social value system and a decent personal character. Did you remember how Tamagn had trounced his opponent on the debate he had with a certain EPRDF supporter on VOA? You can surely say that he knows about the Ethiopian Constitution more than most Members of Parliament in Ethiopian.

We all know that nobody has pushed him to do this very difficult job. Through times, he is the only unflinching activist who virtually spent his entire life in exile to fight against injustice. And that was not happening without cost and sacrifice. Can’t he promote and shoot further higher and higher to enrich himself. Can we imagine the emotional trauma this individual has been living to balance his personal and activist life? Do we know how it feels to be away from your dear wife and kids days in and days out and doing that for a number of years? That means he has to say no to his kids whenever they asks him to be with them. We all know that Tamagn can give his family and himself a better life if he uses his talent for money alone. For instance, the night he was in Dallas to promote his country’s cause, his much junior comedians, Meskerem Bekele and Kebebew Geda were performing in DC making a hefty sum of money.

Forget everything and think even after he left the country and become their enemy number one, wouldn’t EPRDF guys love to win him back by offering millions of dollars. We have seen some low rated activists awarded a whole lot of dollars for abandoning their opposition to the government. Ali Birra and Kemer Yosuf were reportedly awarded huge amounts of dollars just to go to Addis and perform. Even that buffoon, Solomon Tekalign was worth something to EPRDF. Let me digress a bit and say few words about Solomon. I know Tamagne would not want me to talk about this moron on the same breath I talked about him. Because, Tamagn and Solomon are on a very different scale, and from a different pedigree, I shall say. Any ways, I visit Aiga Forum once in a while and one day I saw a link to Solomon Tekalign’s radio station. That was one thing to be bemused. But sooner I was further bewildered when I learned that EPRDF heavyweights, like the Deputy PM and the former Minister for Foreign Affairs, were the guests for his show. I click on the link and started to listen but before going further I not only cringe on his gaffs and utter incompetence, I also felt deeply sadden by the fate of my country who has lost all of its talented and qualified broadcasters and journalists and now become a playground for bush-leagues. The Deputy Prime Minister giving a prime time interview to the most unskilled and untrained radio host. This says a lot about EPRDF, and its inept leaders. I thought the Aiga Forum boys were smarter than this. How low our county is going to go down? God has mercy on Ethiopia.

Such was Fisseha Abraha, the gallant man from the north. A brother to Seeye Abraha, an Ethiopian hero, Fisseha has paid heavy price for speaking power to truth and was imprisoned in Ethiopian dungeon on false charges. Those days in prison have cost him his health. It is said that while in prison he was confined with six hundred others whose sweats were literally dropping on his body against which he attempted to protect himself by covering himself with plastic bags to no avail. During those prison days, many of his Oromo prison mates profoundly thank him for empowering them to listen to the Ethiopian opposition radio broadcasts in their native tongue, when the prison wardens of existing regime had forbade their right to listen. The fearless Fisseha defied that illegality. He heroically fought for their rights and the inmates heralded his name and sung his praises.

The thinness, which invaded his elegant frame, began appearing during his prison days. It lingered since then and diffused its power all over the body, attacking his ailing body. There are those who attribute the cause of his death to the nearly four long years in prison. He left prison as a weakened man, consistent with the intentions of those who condemned him to the prison hole. Of course, the powers to be will characteristically deny this charge, and will dismiss it as a lie propagated by the infamous Diaspora.

Facts however, have a way of itching themselves to the souls of sensitive observers.

Intimate friends and relatives of Fisseha Abraha speak of him, as a family man who carried family matters on his burdened hands. His life long commitment to the family who witnessed a string of tragedies begun with the death of his brother Gebreselassie in 1978 during the red terror. Asmelash and Woldeesellasie who were then in Mekele were forced to return to Adiha, their birthplace to save their lives from the red terror campaign. Their father Girazmzch Abraha Hagos was, however, subsequently killed and their property burned to ashes in the hands of the Derg in 1979. Shortly thereafter Asmelash and Woldeesellasie determined to join Seeye in the struggle against the Dreg. Fisseha and the young Mihreteab were fated to face destiny.

The family home was thus emptied except for the unflinching efforts of Fisseha to preserve and reconstruct it from a scratch. From then on Fisseha and his youngest brother, Mehreteab, alone become the living pillars of the Abraha family. Fisseha singlehandedly stayed home to take care of their ailing mother, woizero Alganesh, and the rest of the extended family.

In 1982 Fisseha decided to join his brothers in the fight against the military regime. He was assigned to work around his birthplace as a public administrator. During this time he survived several attempts to his life, by assassination squads of the military regime.

He gallantly stayed on and fulfilled his responsibilities with extraordinary care that comrades and surviving family members remember fondly.
His mother singularly blessed him and thanked him for everything that he did for the family, before she passed away, a couple of years ago.

Later on he decided to join the struggle and joined the freedom fighters and left a mark as a gallant fighter. When the armed struggle was ended and he became a civilian he became a model father to his own children and many others. The surviving relatives remember his kindness with broken hearts and powerful words of gratitude.

Such was the life of this great man who died without taking a break and lived for his family and all those Ethiopians for whom and with whom he fought.

Fisseha, the lonely moral star from the north, is no more. May his family pray for this extraordinary Ethiopian to be embraced by the Transcendent who has now
welcomed him to his house, where there is no pain but eternal joy.

The idea of an Ethiopian government in exile has been mooted for some time. The purpose of this piece is to examine the viability of that government and the chance (probability) of success in forming it given the lack of trust among the opposition forces to unite. Besides, there is already one formed by the Crown Council of Ethiopia in exile. The aim of this writing is to sincerely trigger civilized debate without fear or favor. Let us briefly delve into the repertoire of history on the subject in order to agree on the best way forward.

The submission in this piece is made in the context of Ethiopian politics starting with the Kushite Kingdom of Ethiopia since the dawn of written history followed by the Solomonic Dynasty marked by the forced dethroning of Emperor Haileselassie who had neither renounced His power nor surrender to the Mengistu regime. It is further assumed that our long history confirms that we have come a very long way in building one unbreakable multicultural society within one country as amply demonstrated in the May 15, 2005 Ethiopian election where one’s ethnic background was not a factor in dealing a humiliating defeat to the ruling brutal regime.

Actions of governments in exile

Readers are invited to make the entry “List of governments in exile” and run a Google search to find the following texts in quotation extracted for the purpose of this piece:
“International law recognizes that governments in exile may undertake many types of actions in the conduct of their daily affairs. These actions include:

• becoming a party to a bilateral or international treaty
• amending or revising its own constitution
• maintaining military forces
• retaining (or “newly obtaining”) diplomatic recognition by sovereign states
• issuing identity cards
• allowing the formation of new political parties
• instituting democratic reforms
• holding elections
• allowing for direct (or more broadly-based) elections of its government officers, etc.”

“Governments in exile frequently occur during wartime occupation, and sometimes also in the aftermath of a civil war, revolution, military coup, or widespread belief in the illegitimacy of a ruling government. For example, during the German expansion of the Second World War, some European governments sought refuge in the United Kingdom rather than face destruction at the hands of Nazi Germany. The effectiveness of a government in exile depends mainly on the support it can get from foreign governments on the one hand and from the population of its own country on the other. Some governments in exile can develop into a formidable force, posing a serious challenge to the rival in actual possession of the country, while others are mainly maintained as a symbolic gesture with little effect on the actual situation.”

Emperor Haileselassie’s Government in exile
The 235th Monarch of the Solomonic dynasty, Emperor Haileselassie I was forced into exile in Great Britain on 2nd of May 1936. He took with Him the aura of the famous Battle of Adwa at which His cousin Emperor Menilik II scored a humiliating victory over Italy that not only shockingly surprised European powers but also became a beacon of hope for all oppressed black people in the world struggling for their freedom and dignity.

The Monarch played key diplomatic roles among which his prophetic speech to the League of Nations of which Ethiopia was one of the founding members. The unheeded prophetic speech came to pass when Hitler and Mussolini made an alliance to conquer the rest of Europe in World War II. The alliance of the duo became a decisive opportunity for Ethiopia in that Great Britain, France and even the USA that were supportive of the Italian Fascist occupation before the breakout of WW II changed their minds and forged alliance with Ethiopia to help the Monarch militarily or otherwise to return to Ethiopia and regain and sit on his throne to exercise His power. This is perhaps a unique case in history where heads of exiled government made a successful comeback to power.

In implementing most of the actions permitted under the corresponding international law, Emperor Haileselassie made excellent use of His: remarkably superb diplomatic skills, charismatic stature, exemplary decorum and rich heritage. He gave interviews that were broadcast in Great Britain and the USA, made His famous speech to the League of Nations, and issued travel documents to His subjects in exile, ad infinitum. The peoples of Great Britain and the USA were roundly sympathetic to His cause in spite of their governments siding with Mussolini at first before WW II broke out. His Majesty had considerable support of his subjects in His occupied country, Ethiopia.

The Emperor had written a book titled “ሕይዎቴና የኢትዮጵያ እርምጃ” (My Life and Progress of Ethiopia) in which His Majesty vividly explains about His activities and ordeals in exile in London and until His eventual return to Ethiopia. It is very much worthwhile reading the book.

Crown Prince Asfawosen’s government in exile

Crown Prince Asfaw Wossen was proclaimed Emperor of Ethiopia in exile in April 1989 at his residence in London taking the throne name Amha Selassie. The Emperor and Empress in exile moved to Virginia a year later. He founded the Moa Anbesa in 1991 – a “Monarchist Movement to promote a monarchial restoration in Ethiopia and announced his intention to return to his country for a visit”. Source: Google.

Emperor Amha Selassie’s intended return to Ethiopia had to be postponed over the TPLF’s refusal to hold state funeral for the late Emperor Haile Selassie.

Prince Ermias Sahleselassie’s government in exile

The Crown Council of Ethiopia under the leadership of His Imperial Highness Prince Ermias Sahleselassie claimed exile in 1974 and declared so in 1973. The Council is located in the Washington D.C. area and claims that the Emperor is the legal head of Ethiopia. It is active in matters of vital interest to Ethiopia such as demanding the Vatican to apologize for its blessing of Mussolini’s army to invade Ethiopia; the return of the properties of the Royal Family in which it had partially succeeded; participation in internal politics under the umbrella of “Lion of Judah” It would be foolhardy to underestimate the rising popularity of the Council made possible by the atrocities perpetrated by the Mengistu and Meles regimes in the past 37 years of their gruesome violations of basic human rights and mismanagement of the national resources.

Concluding remarks

In an article entitled “Government in exile for Eritrea” posted on the EthiopianReview website on 04 February 2008, the Editor’s Note reads: “Woyanne is creating an Eritrean government in exile composed of Eritrean opposition groups, according to the Reuters’ report above. Ethiopian Review has been urging Ethiopian opposition parties create an Ethiopian government in exile or a shadow government. The Alliance for Freedom and Democracy (AFD) can serve as a good platform for the creation of such government.”

But this writer would like to inform readers that AFD itself failed to take off due to sabotaging by habitually disruptive elements among other reasons.

•
As it were,” too many cooks spoil the broth”; this old adage clearly suggests the number of political forces and civic organizations opposed to the misrule of tyrant Zenawi should for the sake of effectiveness be voluntarily reduced through mergers and coalitions as long as their goal is to evict the TPLF repressive regime from power and bring its leader to justice. In this way, resources could be better distributed and focused to shorten the days of the brutal ruling party in power.

Notwithstanding his unswerving strong support for the UDJP, this writer sees the practicability of a constitutional Monarch as head of state without any executive power emulating the example of the U.K. for an example. On the other hand, the head of government should be elected by nationwide suffrage through fair and free election in which various political parties vie for power.

To think of any other rival government in exile to be formed opposition forces in the Diaspora is a pipe dream unachievable in practice given their failure to forge unity in the past 37 years. Add to these diehard political entities with their fossilized selfish attitude that has been detrimental to unity over the same period.

Finally, this writer would like to bring to the attention of readers that the idea of a constitutional Monarch was contemplated immediately after the breakout of the Ethiopian revolution in 1974 and, in fact, a draft constitution to that effect was circulated. The idea is still likely to be an acceptable option, but it is only the Ethiopian people that can so decide in a referendum.

The need for coordinated civil strikes for peaceful change is urgent! Act now to save UDJP/Medrek leaders from the wrath and onslaught of Zenawi.

LONG LIVE ETHIOPIA!!!

Release all political prisoners in Ethiopia including Andualem Aragie, Iskinder Nega, Nathnael et al

robele_ababya@yahoo.com

However, what surprised me most now is that Messebo is grumbling, according to Addis Fortune, perhaps because it could not take the heat of competition from other producers of cement. The good thing for Ethiopian is that the price of cement has come down for ordinary builders.

EFFORT should take time to admonish its cement arm to recall that in the early days they had prospered controlling the fertilizer market. Many peasant farmers were held at gunpoint and threats of ruling party cadres to accept fertilizers, and pay the price demanded whether the chemicals worked or not. Anyone who cannot trust my words, consult the observation the UNDP country office wrote at the time to its headquarters!

Since fertilizers were just imported with a business interest, many peasants lost their crops using chemicals inappropriate to their soils and in a country with 17 different ecological variations. Incidentally, this problem persists, if any one listens to agricultural experts and peasants from as close distance to the capital city, see, round Addis Abeba or Working Together towards Self-sufficiency or outcome of last summer’s proceedings of Ethiopian agricultural experts seminar. Bear in mind also that, when EFFORT was in the fertilizer business, it managed to force closure of a few private importers! One of the businesspersons left the country and exiled himself to the United States. I do not know whether it is that same problem that has now shifted from fertilizers to the cement producers, hopefully not.

From the message Messebo threw in all directions, one gets the impression that it feels stabbed from the back by Debra Cement management, which is owned by Sheik Al Amoudi—the man —the man whose control of Ethiopia’s economy has jumped by several notches up with his possible acquisition of the few remaining state companies from the Ethiopian Privatization and Public Enterprises Supervisory Agency. I assume this present duel is only about cement prices, not about who controls what in the Ethiopian economy!

At this point, Messebo must understand that the Ethiopian people would only care about whoever gives them their hard-earned monies worth. Clearly, Messebo has suffered setbacks with the price it has now shipped the cement to South Sudan. If that is the stone in its shoes, I would remind EFFORT leaders of their own words about their boastful claim of bringing about discipline into the Ethiopian business environment, when they spoke to Dr. Sara Vaughan in December 2010 when she was preparing Rethinking business and politics in Ethiopia: The role of EFFORT, the Endowment Fund for the Rehabilitation of Tigray (August 2011).

In December 2010, when Sara Vaughan, Affiliate of the Africa Power and Politics Program (APPP), a creation of the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID) and IrishConcern, spoke to Ato Abadi Zemo and Ato Getaneh Kassa of EFFORT in connection with the above-mentioned report, they repeatedly gave EFFORT flying colors and to its role in the Ethiopian economy as a genuinely competitive concern with both the private sector and state enterprises. All other businesses were dismissed as irrelevant and, at its worst, impediments to development. she interviewed

In fact, these two officials are quoted attributing the prevalent corruption in the country today to others outside EFFORT, while presenting themselves as the guys with integrity. The report recalls EFFORT’s relations with other Ethiopians, where it states:

… [T]hroughout the 1990s the EPRDF had an ambivalent relationship with the Ethiopian urban middle classes and entrepreneurialism more broadly, explicitly prioritising its commitment to the rural majority. Whilst ruling party ideology and policy changed in 2002, it remains the case that the private sector is not always seen as the natural ally of ‘revolutionary democracy’, at least under current circumstances. There is an irony here. Ruling party interlocutors insist the private sector is key to the ‘transition to capitalism’ which they seek to achieve, and that entrepreneurs rather than politicians should lead the process, firstly because (being rich) they are less likely to be corrupted than politicians, and secondly because they have a literal investment in the success of the transformation. Meanwhile, however, politicians are clearly in the driving seat and the transition is still very much in the future. The institutionalisation of trusting co-operation between Ethiopian entrepreneurs and the ‘developmental state’ in pursuit of commonly conceived goals remains very much a work in progress. Rhetoric that characterises many business people as ‘rent seeking’ rather than ‘value creating’ is symptomatic of this.
Of course, I have felt uncomfortable with the integrity of the report itself since the authors have bent backwards to accommodate Ato Abadi Zemo and Ato Getaneh Kassa’s interests, who constantly requested revisions on the various drafts leading to the final report. In the end, the EFFORT was literally given a veto over its final version.

From some sentences, one can sense the veiled frustration of possibly Sara Vaughan, who wrote it singlehandedly. At one point, she states: “there is much stress in the official rhetoric associated with EFFORT on the importance of the fund and the companies it owns playing an ‘exemplary’ role in terms of business probity and payment of taxes, specifically in order to influence the behaviour of other business actors (interviews).”

I must admit, of everything that is being said by the Ethiopian society about EFFORT, the report captures at least one strand: “… it seems likely that EFFORT companies experience many aspects of the day-to-day micro-sociology of dealing with Kafkaesque regulation as easier to negotiate than most.”

See the article by Addis Fortune entitled Messebo Exports 2,000ql of Cement to South Sudan

http://transformingethiopia.wordpress.com/

That is what came to mind when I heard about good old Saleh being run out of Sanna, Yemen. They are dumping their debris and I was wondering how much The Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia was charging for this waste. It is a container full I am told. Considering all the wives and the children and the nephews and the cousins and fellow partners in crime it is quiet a heavy load. It is raining dollars for EFFORT and junior associates.

You might think I am being too harsh. I am being hateful and it is wrong to vent in such a way. You must be saying how rude of me to call a former President such a name. I very much doubt you would judge me harshly after I tell you who Mr. Saleh is. I assure you he is not an ordinary refugee like most of us. None of us left on a chartered plane did we? I present you fellow refugee Ali Saleh.

Ali Saleh has less than elementary education. In 1960 he graduated from the North Yemen Military Academy with a rank of Corporal. In 1978 as a Second lieutenant he was appointed military governor of a province. Upon the assassination of the President Second lieutenant Saleh was appointed a member of the four-man Provisional Presidency Council. The date was June 24th of 1978. On July 17, 1978 Second lieutenant Saleh was ‘elected’ by the parliament to be the President of North Yemen and Chief of staff and Commander-in-chief of the armed forces.

His first act as president was execute thirty officers after charging them with conspiracy. That took place on August 10th. Of 1978. In 1979 he fought with the Peoples Democratic Republic of Yemen his southern neighbor. In 1990 the two counties merged as Republic of Yemen and the newly minted colonel Saleh became the first president. In 1994 he declared state of emergency and dismissed his Southern partners from office. Fighting ensued between the two Yemen’s. There has been no respite from civil war and civil unrest ever since he came to power. It did not matter the North or the South it was always war and conflict. In his own words he survived ‘by dancing on the heads of snakes.’ He is able to do so by manipulating tribal alliances, political intrigues and iron fisted approach to deal with real and perceived enemies. He created the situation and benefited himself and his family and other criminal friends. He lived in a palace that even got ‘gold-crested armchairs.’

By 2006 Yemen was averaging income of $5.5 billion from oil exports. In 2006 Yemen was allocated $4.7 billion from Europeans and their rich Gulf neighbors. Yemen was not hurting for money. The problem was management of all that was pouring in from oil, donors and remittances from poor Yemenis scattered all over the Middle East.

That is what happens when one is cursed with a sick leader in charge. His political and economic policies are designed to satisfy his and his clan’s parasitic existence not the needs of the country. Coffee used to be Yemen’s main export and principal form of foreign exchange until it was replaced by the non-sustainable (qat). Instead of developing domestic industry thru better education and incentives to entrepreneurs Saleh’s policy made Yemen dependent on outsiders and forced his youngest and brightest citizens to migrate out to send him remittances that he squandered. Yemen became what is known as a ‘failed state.’

As his domestic policy revolved around the survival of his family and friends his foreign policy showed the erratic nature of his regime. Saleh’s support of Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait was so disastrous it caused the relocation of over 850,000 Yemenis. They were unceremoniously deported, kicked out, pushed away from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf. His clueless dance with Tehran isolated Yemen from its Arab neighbors.

Tyrants are peculiar animals. The same Saleh who was a friend of Saddam and ally of Iran was not shy visiting Washington in 2001 and declaring himself to be the number one fighter against ‘Islamic terrorism.’ It gave him new ammunition against domestic opponents and millions of dollars in US aid to his private army. Did I tell you that his oldest son Ahmed is the commander of the US funded Republican Guard and his nephew Amar is in charge of National Security; his other nephew Tariq is the head of the Presidential Guard while another nephew Yahya controls the Counter-terrorism unit. It is all in the family. He is still dancing on the head of snakes.

Poor Yemen that has been limping from one crisis to another saw an opening with the arrival of
‘Arab Spring’. Tunisia stirred their passion for freedom. January 27, 2011 is a blessed day. That was the day Yemenis got rid of fear and went out in mass demanding the ouster of Saleh and family. A cancerous tumor that has taken over thirty years to attach itself to the host cannot be excised so easy. It took exactly a year to drive this varmint out of Yemen. Human Rights Watch has documented the deaths of 270 protesters and bystanders during last year’s protests. Thousands more protesters were injured by live ammunition. The country was turning or stands a good chance of becoming another Somalia. Saleh is the owner of this debacle.

This is the toxic garbage dumped on our country. The Yemeni people will demand justice. They will hunt this criminal and his family to the end of the earth to bring him to justice. No one can blame them. Ethiopia will be exposed to their righteous anger and be caught in this family affair. Our country that has prided itself protecting freedom fighters and is the seat of African Union is fast becoming a refugee to criminals and misfits running away from their sins and International Justice. Today Saleh may be tomorrow Sudan’s Al Bashir and who is to stop Assad from pitching his tent in the rift valley. Ironic that her children are run away while criminals are welcome.

International treaties and conventions are nothing to sneer at. It is true they serve the interest of the big powers in more ways than one. It is also the best tool at hand that usually serves the interest of the weak. Go to International Criminal Court of Justice Web site and look under ‘situation and cases’ and you will see what I mean. (http://www.icc-cpi.int/Menus/ICC/Home) That is one scary bunch you see there. The ICCJ is a last resort of the weak and the voiceless. Our country has appealed to the League of Nations and the UN when invaded. Turning against international rules and convention is not the way to garner respect or legitimacy.

What is troubling to the rest of us is the role played by the Western powers in this tragic affair. They were perfectly aware that Saleh is not a pleasant human being to be associated with. They encouraged him because he served their purpose. Wikileaks was kind enough to expose their duplicity in this criminal enterprise. In 2009 the US gave $150 million including $45 million to equip and train an aviation regiment for Yemeni Special Forces. It is sad that in order to safeguard their own security that they turn a blind eye when the same weapon is used against unarmed civilians.

They are the ones that forced the Yemeni people to swallow this poisonous pill of ‘immunity’. The so-called agreement brokered by the US and the Gulf states is supposed to shielded Saleh, his friends and family from all criminal act against their own people. Thus the Yemenis are expected to pretend thirty-four years of crime and destruction did not happen.

It is supposed to be civilized to forgive and let go. Civility as a principle is understandable but the danger I see is when it is practiced to mask issues such as accountability, justice and the rule of law. What the Western powers did was push international law, international treaties under the rug so some still surviving tyrants will not be unduly alarmed. The about-face action by dear allies and friends of Mubarak and Gaddafi has been duly noted by a few in the neighborhood. As recently as January 6, 2012 UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay reasserted that an amnesty cannot be granted for serious crimes under international law. Who is listening?

I was contemplating issues such as this when I heard a report regarding Gambella, Ethiopia – on public radio. Mr. Saleh is being welcomed to settle in our country and Ato Okok Ojulu is displaced from his ancestral land to roam the planet as a refugee.

Ato Ojulu’s Gambella is in Western Ethiopia. It is sparsely populated. They are settled farmers. They are blessed with a beautiful land that has sustained them for generations. Our leader has determined since he is the owner of the land he felt he is better of leasing it to outsiders. The plan consisted of moving Ato Ojulu and his village to a new area. They did not even have time to harvest when they were forcefully moved.

A peaceful villager is now a refugee in Kenya. He is not equipped to live outside of his village. His land is his identity. He was content where he was. Today his beautiful Gambella is becoming one big commercial farm. They are talking about investing billions and growing rice. They are going to use the mighty river for irrigation and dump their fertilizer waste into the water. The fishes and wild animals are going the way of Ato Ojulu. Gambella will be no more. The Anuk way of life will soon be memory.

I sat in my car. I am responsible for my brother’s plight. I let his village down. Ojulu my brother is telling his story all the way from Kenya. He was keeping the spirit of his ancestors alive. He has no control over the action of the Ethiopian Government that looked at him as insignificant. There is nothing he can do about the Saudi/Indian/Chinese investors. My brother Ojulu has control over his own response. He is fighting back the way he knows how. It was a single voice from across the planet but I heard it loud. My friend Solomon heard it and called me. I am sure lots of people heard it and felt moved. How we respond is up to each of us. I also know Ojulu is not asking for pity.

As he remembered his displaced people he is asking us to do what is in our power to help him save a way of life and a proud people. There is a lot we can do. Get involved and make a difference. All our independent sites are filled with programs to help us get informed and be intelligent citizens. Our love and can do spirit will defiantly neutralize all the negatives emanating from the palace. As my brother Ojulu did let us be in control of our response. (http://www.solidaritymovement.net/signPetion.cfm )

Now I hope you will not judge me harshly regarding my indignation about the individual Ali Saleh. He has caused pain and agony to a lot of people. Answering why will never explain how his criminal activity has impacted real people. Due to his madness and delusion he felt that he was the only one fit to govern. He felt others lack his superior intellect and don’t even know to appreciate how lucky they are to have him at the helm. Any one that thinks different is nothing but an enemy of the state to be eliminated and wiped out.

In an Interview he gave a few weeks before he left this is what Saleh said about the uprisings in the area “This is a virus and is not part of our heritage or the culture of the Yemeni people.” I would say boy did they ever surprise him! This is the person parking his criminal behind on our precious land. I feel like a doormat.

Resources used:
• http://www.icc-cpi.int/Menus/ICC/Home
• http://cironline.org/projects/food-for-9-billion
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ali_Saleh
• http://www.solidaritymovement.net/signPetion.cfm
• http://wikileaks.org/
• http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Category:Yemen
• http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2100431,00.html
• http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2107926,00.html#ixzz1nwZLoORH

As variously reported by human rights groups such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the like, at different time, Ethiopia has become hell for refugee returnees who had and continue to be “disappeared”. As one of the few nations concerned about the plight of refugees and human rights abuses around the world, Norway should have known and done better rather forcing refugees to a country they were forced to leave.

Just like many organizations that have documented systemic violation of the people’s rights in Ethiopia, we at SOCEPP Canada would appeal to the conscience of PM of Norway – Honorable Jens Stoltenberg, and the UNHCR to intervene and stop the deportation of Ethiopian refugees.

We have no doubt that the Honorable Prime Minister and the UNHCR would do the right thing and avert this human tragedy.

Please write your appeal to the following addresses:

The Honorable Jens Stoltenberg,
Prime Minister of The Royal Kingdom of Norway
E mail: postmottak@smk.dep.no

The Honorable Jonas Gahr Store
Minister of Foreign Affairs
E mail: umin@mfa.no

SOCEPP Canada
www.humanrightsethiopia.com

In a show of solidarity that is common and expected in the Ethiopian Diaspora community, the Ethiopian Heritage Society of North America (EHSNA) has agreed to defer its Ethiopian Heritage Festival so that it does not conflict with the sporting events being promoted by the Ethiopian Sports Federation of North America (ESFNA).

Because of timing conflicts, many Diaspora Ethiopians came forward to express that they did not want to miss either event. The EHSNA Heritage Festival, going on its second year, was initially held in the first week in July in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. ESFNA is approaching its 29th year of holding its annual sporting events in early July in Dallas, Texas. In a show of support, the younger of the two organizations, EHSNA, has agreed to move it’s Heritage Festival to the Labor Day weekend.

The Ethiopian Sports Federation will hold its sports events in Dallas from July 1 to July 7. The Ethiopian Heritage Festival will be held in September, using the three-day, Labor Day weekend to its full advantage. Exact times, dates, and places will be announced. The festival, now entering its second year, will probably be held in the D.C. area, as it was in the preceding year.

Praise for the Ethiopian Sports Federation

The Heritage Society takes this opportunity to praise and celebrate the Ethiopian Sports Federation for its longevity – this will be its 29th year of holding the sports events. The Heritage Society also praises the Sports Federation for its efforts to thwart the reach of the illegitimate TPLF government now in power in Ethiopia.

That regime had been trying to reform the Sports Federation to work on its behalf. The Federation has managed to fend off the regime’s efforts to subvert their organization. The regime wanted to make the Sports Federation a satellite from which to influence or spy on other Ethiopian Diaspora organizations and communities.

The Ethiopian Heritage Society Approaches a Second Year of Success

The Ethiopian Heritage Society held its First Annual Ethiopian Heritage Festival in early July of 2011, with the theme, “Celebrate and Discover Ethiopia!” The festival showcased the historical, cultural, artistic, athletic, and culinary treasures, creativity, and talent from the Ethiopian community for the enjoyment and education of the public at large.

After the festival, the Heritage Society hosted Camp Agelgel the following September. Camp Agelgel was a thanksgiving event with many participants and many activities. It was held to thank the businesses and individuals in the Ethiopian Diaspora who helped make the first Ethiopian Heritage Festival such a success.

Second Ethiopian Heritage Festival Promises an Even Better Experience

Details for the Second Annual Heritage Festival, to be held this year around Labor Day, will be announced as soon as possible. The Washington Metro Area will probably be the site. Those wishing to attend should keep their calendars open for the first weekend in September. This second annual festival will set the tone for future festivals in that it will be bigger and better than the last. Not only will there be fantastic entertainment, but also events that will reflect the Ethiopian heritage and solidarity within the Ethiopian Diaspora community. Youngsters are especially welcome so that they can understand and appreciate their Ethiopian heritage.

Keeping Ethiopian Heritage Alive

Diaspora Ethiopians should also look to join the Ethiopian Sports Federation in Dallas, Texas. Participants can enjoy and partake in their sporting events and their celebration of the heritage of the Ethiopian Diaspora Community. Friends and members of the Ethiopian Heritage Society of North America and the Ethiopian Sports Federation of North America, ask all interested folks to attend and enjoy both events.

If you are an appreciator of Ethiopia and its peoples, or if you love your heritage and seek to preserve it for yourself and for our younger generations, this is an easy way and a fun way to become or to remain involved. We may not be able to call Ethiopia as home right now, but we still can retain our heritage and our love of the land. Both EHSNA and ESFNA are working to sustain that love and that heritage.

European member of parliament and former Belgian Foreign Minister Louis Michel expressed optimism that Swedish journalists Martin Schibbye and Johan Persson could be released within days.

“I expect the solution will be found rather quickly, and I am rather optimistic about this issue,” Persson said.

An Ethiopian court last December convicted the two men of entering the country illegally and supporting a rebel group the government has classified as a terrorist organization.

Michel said he was in productive discussions about the pair’s release with Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi. The veteran diplomat said he was encouraged by a meeting Mr. Meles had with Sweden’s Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt in London last week on the sidelines of an international conference on Somalia.

“Sincerely I have felt that Prime Minister Meles is conscious that it is embarrassing,” Michel said. “And I believe he wants to have a solution, which, of course, is on line with the rule of law. And he’s rather creative to find this if goodwill is coming from these prisoners, also with an understanding position from the Government of Sweden.”

Michel said he was allowed a private visit on Wednesday with the two journalists at the Addis Ababa prison where they are serving their sentences. He said he was impressed by the prisoners’ condition and with their remorse.

“Those two journalists first of all said to me that they made a very big mistake and were regretting to have done so, that they were ready to apologize and to promise not to repeat this mistake and learning lessons from this bad experience,” said Michel.

After their conviction and sentencing, Schibbye and Persson declined to file an appeal, saying they would ask for clemency. The pair were arrested last June in Ethiopia’s Somali region, while traveling with rebels of the outlawed Ogaden National Liberation Front.

During the trial, the pair admitted entering Ethiopia illegally from Somalia, but denied supporting the rebels. They told the court they were investigating a Swedish oil firm with ties to the country’s Foreign Minister Carl Bildt. The company was alleged to have hired as guards former Ethiopian soldiers who are accused of human rights violations in the Ogaden.

Aid continues to grow as repression intensifies

Destitution, malnourishment, hunger, hyperinflation estimated at 50 percent last year, 60-70 percent unemployment among youth in urban areas and at least 21 percent nationally, endemic corruption and massive illicit outflow estimated at US$3.26 billion in 2009 alone, have done absolutely nothing to deter the donor community from making the Meles regime a darling of its development assistance. This is done for a good reason: Ethiopia’s strategic location and the reliable interlocutor role that TPLF Inc. plays not only in Ethiopia but also in the Horn and the rest of Africa assures a semblance of peace and stability. Yet, people suffer each day because of a system that does not free them from destitution. There is thus symmetry of interests between foreign governments and firms on the one hand, and the interests of the governing party on the other. Given this symmetry, I find it legitimate to examine the thesis of whether or not the medium and long-term security and other strategic interests of the country and the current vital economic and social needs and demands of the vast majority of the Ethiopian people are being served or compromised either by the donor community or by the Ethiopian government or by both.

The aid business

Ana Gomes, Chief of party of the European Union’s Election Observer Team to Ethiopia in 2005, and one of the few staunchest Western supporters of free and fair elections in Ethiopia offered insight into the contradictions between the altruism of aid on the one hand and a blind eye to repression by the Ethiopian government on the other. “There is this industry or aid not only in the European Commission but in the different member countries, namely those who are the biggest aid donors to Ethiopia, like Britain (the second largest bilateral donor after the US), like Germany, who want the business to continue as usual because they have their own interests at stake.” This, in my own research and estimation, is the lead reason why aid continues to flow to the Ethiopian governing party despite worsening conditions in all areas: gross human rights violations, hyperinflation, high unemployment, income inequality, hunger, malnutrition, theft, embezzlement, growing corruption and massive illicit outflow of foreign exchange. This leads me to enumerate on the purpose of aid, a subject on which I feel competent to speak and write.

I ask your indulgence for a minute and forget or park the usual cultural traits of ‘what is new?’ Why is this priority? Forget the standard cynicism that is rampant among us. Overlook the dysfunctional behavior that this is not the current issue or crisis in Ethiopia. After all, I am not talking about illusive notions of freedom and liberties in a country where people are crying for basics such as food to eat and a decent place to live. Park the perennial thought of aligning my name with my ideas. Think of me as someone from planet Mars. Try to focus on the concepts here and see what I am trying to convey with regard to the convenient marriage of repressive governance and aid. Ignore for one minute your suspicion and mistrust of what anyone on earth says about aid and the miracle growth in Ethiopia. Instead, open your mind and learn its impact on the poor and on the few rich. Try to place yourself in a tukul or hut in Gambella, SNNP, Afar, and Beni-Shangul Gumuz or anywhere in the country where the poor live and work like their ancestors have done for thousands of years. Kindly reflect on their conditions. It is they who matter the most; and who should drive our thoughts and actions. For them, life is a constant struggle to survive. Aid has done little to nothing in removing the structural and policy hurdles that keep them in this status.

The altruistic side of development aid is to help people help themselves. It is to unleash local and national capabilities so that people and the country will not have to rely on aid in perpetuity. It certainly is not to contribute to repression, discrimination, inequality, corruption, a closed and monopolistic market or uneven development. In countries such as China, Indonesia, Korea, Vietnam and Brazil, aid played and still plays catalytic roles in lifting millions from destitution and poverty by empowering beneficiaries; not by keeping them captives. These countries are led by nationally committed leaders and institutions even if some manifest authoritarian rule and corruption. They try to level the playing field as much as possible. It is true that, in almost all cased, aid stimulates some growth. However, growth supported by the aid stimulus does not necessarily transform a poor country into a sustainable and equitable one. Why is this? It is principally because governance conditions do not put country and beneficiaries in the driver’s seat. TPLF Inc. and the donor community do not make any effort to put the Ethiopian poor and the country in the driver’s seat.

From its offing, TPLF Inc. was determined to take control of the commanding heights of the Ethiopian economy in the name and on behalf of the Ethiopian people. It crafted a new democratic constitution and made a mockery of the rule of law. It tantalized ‘marginalized and oppressed nations, nationalities and peoples’ to side with it; TPLF Inc. being the policy and decision-maker as discussed in commentary eight. In the aid business, relations are rarely horizontal, namely, with local communities and with the population (beneficiaries) at large. Aid is discussed with and channeled through the central government regardless of repression and dispossession. William Easterly, one of the most formidable critics of the aid business said: “Aid agencies do not even criticize specific tyrannical acts, although they might advocate ‘good governance’ and they wind up supporting bad governance with aid funds,” (the Whiteman’s Burden).

This statement is corroborated by numerous others. On August 5, 2011, BBC news-insight, in collaboration with Investigative Journalism, confirms that “Ethiopian federal and regional governments control the distribution of (all) aid in Ethiopia.” In other words, localities and ordinary people have no say in how aid monies are used; by whom and for whom. The same report quotes Professor Beyene Petros, a member of the opposition, who says, “There is a great deal of political differentiation (discrimination)…The motive is buying support (for the governing party), that is how they recruit supporters, holding the population hostage.” This is the critical point to note. It is Ethiopian communities and the larger population that should be the ultimate beneficiaries from aid. They cannot demand government officials to account if they are held “hostage” by their own government. This is why they cannot question aid’s effectiveness. They cannot ask donors why aid–principally supposed to lift millions out of destitution and poverty—is used as an instrument of control or “hostage.”

Here is the explanation for this phenomenon that is unlike other countries. A government that is not accountable to the population has a better chance of deploying foreign aid as it wishes than a participatory or pluralist one. In a one party ethnic- elite state, the opportunity to divert billions is, thus, a given. There is no accountability to the public. There are no independent institutions to monitor graft, bribery or hush money; or to assess appropriate procurement of goods and services and so on. Institutions such as courts, police and customs, local and regional administrations, municipal authorities—all faces of the governing party—are infected with corrupt officials. They are part of the problem. For this reason, we cannot afford to be callous and unconcerned about the role of aid in Ethiopian society. We need to appreciate and respond to the immediate concerns of ordinary people before we can entertain the lofty ideals of freedom and liberty as important as these are long-term. What we need to look at and act on immediately is the sad impact of “differentiated” or discriminatory allocation of resources by TPLF Inc. and its subordinates on ordinary citizens, especially the poor, the marginalized and dispossessed who have no voice or representation. It is Diaspora activists of all varieties who should advocate accountability in the use and abuse of aid.

The diversion of funds or their misuse affects ordinary people in real ways each day. I suggest that this happens regardless of ethnicity or religion. The poor and hardworking women and women are the ones who need basic services such as safe drinking water, basic health services against communicable and preventable diseases, adequate food supplies at competitive prices, fertilizers, seeds, credits, farmlands, rural roads, education for their children and so on. These are the things aid is supposed to fund but is not and cannot. Why? It is because monies are channeled directly to the governing party. Aid is used for political rather than for social and economic development purposes. “Differentiated” or discriminatory treatment of Ethiopians on the basis of ethnic or party or other affiliation deters sustainability and undermines the fundamental principle of equitable development. The reader may ask, ‘so what?’ There is a cost. In the long run, “differentiation” or discrimination is destabilizing for the country. More and more people will be poorer and poorer. This is happening now.

Almost all development experts agree that there cannot be peace and stability without fairness and equity. If you share this thesis, you would agree with me that development aid that does not unleash the productive potential of a broad spectrum of Ethiopians and places them on an equitable trajectory will not lead to sustainability. Instead, it will aggravate social and geopolitical imbalances and societal tensions.

Aid and imbalance

Uneven development and income inequality are, largely, a result of how the society is governed and how resources are used, misused and appropriated. In Ethiopia, the key agent of growth and development is the government. Increasingly, evidence shows that it determines who becomes rich or poor; who lives or dies; and who lives the country and who immigrates. What the single party state decides affects the lives of ordinary people, communities, regions, and the country. What philosophical argument do the brains behind the single ethnic party state use to justify concentration of wealth and assets in a few hands? It is rapid development that will lead to Middle Income status in the next few years. This is done by barring opponents and civil society. “In Ethiopia today, it is argued, all civil society organizations, opposition political parties, individuals in private enterprise, and other groups are described (by TPLF Inc.) as rent-seeking, while in contrast, EPRDF (TPLF Inc. at the helm), the ruling party, is claimed to be the only one which has development credentials” (Dessalegn Rahmato, in Large-Scale Land Transfers in Ethiopia, AA, 2011).

Ethiopia is not financial capital rich; and relies heavily on aid and remittances to achieve development objectives of the state. Outside those who belong to the governing party and those who are avid allies– whether in the public or private sector– the rest of social, economic and political actors are suspect of “rent-seeking.” This is to say that they are after their narrow self-interest exploiting others; making profits and corrupting the system. According to TPLF Inc. these actors captured in the above quote have no legitimacy. They have no role in advancing themselves or in advancing their country’s development. If one extends this verdict of TPLF Inc., those outside the governing party are inimical to it; and are a deterrent to the advancement of communities, regions and to the country as whole. TPLF Inc. wishes this mantra for a sound self-serving reason. This notion provides the top leadership of TPLF Inc. the developmental rationale that all authority in the country is and should be vested in it. A political, social, leadership and organizational vacuum serves TPLF Inc. best. This is why opponents cannot afford to delay cooperation, collaboration and solidarity.

Why the rest are restricted or banned

In the absence of independent civil society organizations (banned), opposition parties (either banned or heavily restricted), free and independent press (banned), nationally oriented private sector (restricted and crowded out by party and endowed enterprises and favored individuals), and patriotic individuals (encouraged to leave the country in droves), the political, social, economic and diplomatic space is void of competition. It is real political, social and economic competition that TPLF Inc. hates most.

Opponents ought to grasp the reality that the strategy for continued restrictions in the political, social and economic space is to achieve and maintain two key objectives: to ensure that political power is not shared broadly; and to make certain that the governing party and its allies have complete control over the commanding heights of the national economy, aid and other sources of funding. This is the reason why the rest of us cannot afford the luxury of fighting one another.

Despite the above condition that vests authority, power and wealth in a hegemonic single ethnic-party state, we continue to fight one another at huge costs for the poor who are getting poorer, ordinary Ethiopians who suffer from hyperinflation and the country we love that is caught in a vicious cycle of dependency on foreign aid. The struggle “ought not to be against one another.” Rather, it should be against an ugly and “evil” system that spreads its tentacles everywhere; and causes the dispossession and disempowerment of the majority by pitying people at home and us against one another. It is sad but true; donors and the diplomatic community understand this. However, they are unable and unwilling to change their programs anytime soon. It is those who want a better future for the Ethiopian people who must create solidarity among one another and with those who struggle for justice at home.

Whatever the volume, aid can serve the Ethiopian people as a catalyst in raising productive capabilities of the Ethiopian people only if and when it is completely depoliticized. I do not believe that TPLF Inc. will depoliticize aid or land tenure or other forms of the economy or political system on its own. It is not in its interest to change structure and policy. What then? It is when Ethiopian political and social elites set aside minor differences for the sake of the greater good, cooperate with one another, speak with one voice, and demand accountability from the governing party that donors and the diplomatic community would begin to listen and to change. If the donor and diplomatic community would heed to anyone, it would have heeded to the devastating report by Human Rights Watch (HRW): Development without Freedom.

In its seminal report, HRW reported that “development aid flows through, and directly supports a virtual one-party state with a deplorable human rights record. Government practices include jailing and silencing critics and media, enacting laws to undermine human rights activity, and hobbling (stomping out) the political opposition.” Where and how does aid feature in all of these? HRW gives aid prominence to the undermining of potential beneficiaries, especially the rural poor who constitute the majority. There is no sustainable or equitable development without them. “The government has used donor supported programs (the Safety net initiated by the World Bank when I served there), salaries and training opportunities as political weapons to control the population (making it “hostage”), punish dissent, and undermine opponents—both real and perceived.” Forget sophisticated urban elites and focus on the rural poor who punished if they do not support TPLF Inc. How does it do it?

TPLF Inc. and its agents and allies in rural areas deny “access to seeds, fertilizers, farmlands, credit and food aid.” It restricts these and other inputs and privileges to those who support the governing party. This politicization of the aid industry or business sends “a potent message that basic survival (in Ethiopia today) depends on political loyalty to the state (the only legitimate development agent) and the ruling party (the sole authority that rules through an iron-fist).” This condition sends shivers and fears through the entire system and justifies corruption that the top leadership of TPLF Inc. says is anathema to sustainable and equitable development. Deeds speak louder than words. TPLF Inc. cannot escape the verifiable truth that it is not opponents who are “rent seeking” and corrupt. They are not in power and cannot be held accountable. Instead, it is those who wield political power, control the national economy and enrich themselves, their families, relatives, friends, ethnic elites and party and endowments who are accountable for the abysmal situation Ethiopia and Ethiopians face today.

Commentary ten will examine the nexus among three variables: aid, TPLF Inc. governance and corruption. 2/28/2012

The “Gulag” prison system in the old Soviet Union was infamous for warehousing and persecuting dissidents and opponetns. The gulags were used effectively to weed out and neutralize opposition to the Soviet state. They were the quintessential tools of Soviet state terrorism. Some called them “meat-grinders” because of the extremely harsh and inhumane conditions. Torture, physical abuse by prison guards, solitary confinement, inadequate food rations and officially instigated inmate-on-inmate violence were the hallmarks of the gulags.

Ethiopia’s prison system today are reminiscent of the Soviet gulags in their abuse and mistreatment of political and other prisoners. Let the facts speak for themselves: In a recent column on two Swedish journalists arbitrarily held in one of the Ethiopian prisons near the capital, N.Y. Times’ columnist Nicholas Kristoff described the prsion conditions as

filthy and overridden with lice, fleas and huge rats… a violent, disease-ridden place, with inmates fighting and coughing blood… 250 or so Ethiopian prisoners jammed in the cell protect the two [Swedish] journalists, pray for them and jokingly call their bed ‘the Swedish embassy’.

The U.S. State Department Country Reports on Human Rights Practices in Ethiopia (April 2011) documented:

…Human rights abuses reported during the year included unlawful killings, torture, beating, and abuse and mistreatment of detainees and opposition supporters by security forces, especially special police and local militias, which took aggressive or violent action with evident impunity in numerous instances; poor prison conditions; arbitrary arrest and detention, particularly of suspected sympathizers or members of opposition or insurgent groups; detention without charge and lengthy pretrial detention… Numerous reliable sources confirmed in April 2009 that in Maekelawi, the central police investigation headquarters in Addis Ababa, police investigators often used physical abuse to extract confessions.

In its 2010 World Report-Ethiopia, Human Rights Watch (HRW) concluded that

… torture and ill-treatment have been used by Ethiopia’s police, military, and other members of the security forces to punish a spectrum of perceived dissenters, including university students, members of the political opposition, and alleged supporters of insurgent groups… Secret detention facilities and military barracks are most often used by Ethiopian security forces for such activities.

The U.N. Committee Against Torture (November 2010) validated HRW’s conclusions.

The Dewar Report on an Ethiopian Gulag

The regular and secret prisons maintained by the ruling regime in Ethiopia today are among the most inhumane, primitive, barbaric and sadistic in the world. In July 2008, the regime of dictator Meles Zenawi secretly commissioned retired British colonel Michael Dewars, an internationally recognized security expert, to undertake an assessment of the prison system and make recommendations. In his report, Col. Dewars expressed total horror and shock over what he witnessed in one of the prisons he visited in Addis Ababa. He recounted:

I asked to go into the compound where the prisoners are kept. This consisted of a long yard with a shed to one side which provided some sort of shelter. The compound had a wall around it and a watchtower for an armed sentry overlooking it. Inside must have been 70 – 80 inmates, all in a filthy state. There was insufficient room for all these people to lie down on a mat at once. There was no lighting. The place stank of faeces and urine. There appeared to be no water or sanitation facilities within the compound. There was a small hut in an adjacent compound for women prisoners but there had been no attempt by anybody to improve the circumstances of the place. The prisoners were mostly on remand for minor crimes, in particular theft. Some had been there for months….

Col. Dewars concluded:

Detention conditions of prisoners are a disgrace and make the Federal Police vulnerable to the Human Rights lobby…. The prison I saw was a disgrace. No one is recommending a Hilton Hotel, but, if any human rights organization were to get inside an Ethiopian jail, they would have enough ammunition to sink all our best efforts.

Col. Dewars

recommended that the Government should investigate this situation with the intention of improving the current appalling conditions inside Ethiopian prisons, which must brutalise prisoners and their goalers equally… and that senior Ethiopian Ministers and Police Officers visit the prison that I visited.

Over the past several years, I have written extensively on torture and mistreatment of political prisoners in Ethiopia. In my numerous columns on the incarceration of former judge Birtukan Midekssa, the first woman political party leader in Ethiopian history, and other political prisoners, I have pointed out the “soft torture” techniques used to crush her spirit and break her body. She was subjected to prolonged solitary confinement, sleep deprivation, visitation deprivation, daily humiliation and mindless interrogation. Birtukan faced untold suffering in prison. Zenawi could not bear the thought of Birtukan going free; and in a moment frustrated defiance declared: “There will never be an agreement with anybody to release Birtukan. Ever. Full stop. That’s a dead issue.” In the end she prevailed and became free. Just last week in Washington, D.C., she presented her study on the challenges confronting the Ethiopian opposition and offered specific recommendations for strengthening multi-party democracy in Ethiopia as a Reagan-Fascell Fellow with the National Endowment for Democracy.

Andualem Aragie Inside the Belly of the Beast

Zenawi has replaced Birtukan by another young Ethiopian leader, to be sure several dozens of young opposition leaders, journalists, activists and others. Last week, the former Ethiopian President and current leader of the Unity and Democracy Party (UDJ) Dr. Negasso Gidada reported that Andualem Aragie was severely beaten by a death-row-inmate-turned-lifer while confined in his cell. The facts of Andualem’s abuse are shocking. According to Dr. Negasso, Andualem was held in a “windowless cell for 14 people with a number of other political prisoners including Bekele Gerba, Olbana Lelisa and Tilahun Fantahun.” About a month ago, a convicted murderer whose life sentence had been commuted to life in prison was allowed to join Andualem’s cell. This criminal savagely assaulted Andualem inflicting severe injuries to his head. He was reported to lost consciousness following the assault.The Voice of America reported that “Relatives who have seen Andualem say his head injury appears to have affected his ability to maintain his balance.”

This inmate is notorious for his assaultive behavior inside the prison. He has a long record of violence and abuse of inmates. He is known to receive special accommodations for being a prison enforcer for the authorities. Rumors are rife that prison authorities paid the criminal a substantial sum for beating Andiualem.

Prior to his arrest on bogus terrorism charges, Andualem was a rising leader in the UDJ and served as its spokesperson and external relations officer. Andualem is among a new breed of young Ethiopian political leaders, journalists and civil society advocates who are widely respected and accepted. In the months leading up to the May 2010 “election” in which Zenawi claimed a 99.6 percent victory, Andualem demonstrated his unflinching commitment to democracy and the rule of law. With breathtaking clarity of thought, razor-sharp intellect, incredible courage, mesmerizing eloquence, piercing logic, stinging wit, masterful command of the facts and steadfast adherence to the truth, Andualem made mincemeat out of Zenawi’s vacuous lackeys in several televised pre-“election” debates. It was a sight to behold.

In September 2011, Andualem and 23 other individuals were “accused under the anti-terrorism law of being members of a terrorist network and abetting, aiding and supporting a terrorist group.” Earlier this month, a group of independent United Nations human rights experts (U.N. Special Rapporteurs) condemned the so-called anti-terrorism law and diplomatically cautioned that “the anti-terrorism provisions should not be abused and need to be clearly defined in Ethiopian criminal law to ensure that they do not go counter to internationally guaranteed human rights.” Andualem and the others are expected to have their day in kangaroo court on March 5.

Torture, Abuse and Plausible Deniability

Plausible deniability is the ability to deny a fact or allegation, or previous knowledge of a fact by shifting blame on someone else. In Andualem’s case, plausible deniability allows Zenawi’s regime to deny any awareness or knowledge of a criminal or criminally negligent act by its officials or unofficial agents in the prison. By allowing a notoriously violent criminal to assault Andualem, they aim to plausibly avoid responsibility. In other words, they have sought to remove their fingerprints, handprints, palmprints and footprints from the cowardly criminal act perpetrated on Andualem. But their MO (modus operandi) is well known. Whether they acted through their goons uniformed as prison guards or their deputized convicted thugs, they are exclusively responsible for the safety of all pretrial detainees like Andualem. Regardless of how one looks at it, what happened to Andualem, and has happened to other political prisoners countless times, represents a clear case of extrajudicial punishment (torture) in violation of Ethiopia’s Constitution and international human rights conventions.

Speaking of Constitutional and International Law…

The Ethiopian Constitution provides specific safeguards for the safety and protection of pre-trial detainees awaiting trial. Article 16 guarantees that “Everyone has the right to protection against bodily harm..” Andualem has the constitutional right to be secure from violence while awaiting trial. Article 110 of the Ethiopian Criminal Code (Proclamation No.414/2004) specifically requires that “prisoners who are sentenced to rigorous imprisonment or special confinement shall be kept separate from prisoners who are serving a sentence of simple imprisonment or awaiting judgment.” The criminal thug who assaulted Andualem should have never been allowed in the area reserved for pre-trial detanees. Article 18 provides, “Everyone has the right to protection against cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.” The savage beating of Andualem in plain sight of prison guards constitutes “cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment”. Article 20 provides that, “During proceedings accused persons have the right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty according to law…” Since Andualem has not been found guilty “according to law”, he is innocent of the charges and should have been accorded his rights consistent with that presumption. Article 21 guarantees that “All persons held in custody and persons imprisoned upon conviction and sentencing have the right to treatments respecting their human dignity.”

International law protects all prisoners, and particularly political prisoners, from inhumane and barbaric treatment. Under Article 13 of the Ethiopian Constitution, the “fundamental rights and freedoms enumerated… shall be interpreted in a manner consistent with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights [UDHR], international human rights covenants and conventions ratified by Ethiopia.” Article 5 of the UDHR (incorporated by express reference in Art. 13 (2) of the Constitution of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia) prescribes that “no one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.” Article 10 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) (ratified by Ethiopia on June 11, 1993 and similarly incorporated) provides that “all persons deprived of their liberty shall be treated with humanity and with respect for the inherent dignity of the human person.”

The U.N. Body of Principles for the Protection of All Persons under Any Form of Detention or Imprisonment (1988) (Principle 8) specifically provides: “Persons in detention shall be subject to treatment appropriate to their unconvicted status. Accordingly, they shall, whenever possible, be kept separate from imprisoned persons.” Article 1 of the Declaration Against Torture (1975) defines torture as “… any act by which severe pain and suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted by, or at the instigation of a public official on a person for such purposes as …punishing him for an act he has committed; or intimidating him or other persons…” Article 16 of the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (acceded to by Ethiopia on April 13, 1994) mandates that signatories “shall undertake to prevent… acts of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment…” Article 5 of the African [Banjul] Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ratified by Ethiopia on June 15, 1998) prohibits, “all forms of exploitation and degradation of man particularly… torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment and treatment.” The U.N. Basic Principles for the Treatment of Prisoners (1990) provide that “all prisoners shall retain the human rights and fundamental freedoms set out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other Covenants. Articles 7 and 8 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court include torture as a crime against humanity and a war crime.

I write about the law on the protection of the rights of political prisoners to set the record; for I know that preaching the law to outlaws is like pouring water over granite.

Free those who are wrongly imprisoned…

In August 2009, I spoke at a town hall meeting organized by “Gasha for Ethiopia”, a civic organization, on the importance of remembering Ethiopian political prisoners:

In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends,” said Dr. Martin Luther King… Nothing is more important and uplifting to political prisoners than knowledge of the fact that they are not forgotten, abandoned and forsaken by the outside world. Remembrance gatherings at town hall meetings such as this one serve to remind all of us who live in freedom the divine blessings of liberty and the unimaginable suffering of those trapped in the darkness of dictatorship.

Andualem Aragie and countless political prisoners in Ethiopia reamin trapped in the darkness of dictatorship. They have been beaten down and brought to their knees. We cannot hear their whimpers of pain and desperation. Few, other than their tormentors, will be able to see their mangled bodies. Because they have no voice, we must be their voices and speak on their behalf. Because they are walled in behind filthy and subhuman prison institutions, we must unflaggingly remind the world of their suffering. We must all labor for the cause of Ethiopian political prisoners not because it is easy or fashionable, but because it is ethical, honorable, right and just. In the end, what will make the difference for the future of Ethiopia is not the brutality, barbarity, bestiality and inhumanity of its corrupt dictators, but the humanity, dignity, adaptability, audacity, empathy and compassion of decent Ethiopians for their wrongfully imprisoned compatriots. That is why we must join hands and work tirelessly to free all political prisoners held in Ethiopia’s public and secret gulags. “Let the oppressed go free, and remove the chains that bind people.”

Uncage Andualem Aragie and All Political Prisoners in Ethiopia!

The last year has been a very tumultuous year in our neighborhood. We have all witnessed the happenings in Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Bahrain and Syria. All these countries have imploded from inside. There was no outside interference so to speak of. There was no scapegoat. If you look closely there is one theme that is common to all. The existence of what is called a ‘strong leader’; ‘dictator’ or ‘mad person in charge’ is what is true in every instance. Change was overdue but dictatorship and change are not compatible. Dictatorship cannot be overcome by evolutionary means. Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Syria are living examples of the validity of that statement.

I am sure the citizens of all those countries would have preferred a peaceful route to bring needed change. I am also sure they for many years, have tried to convince their respective Leaders to accommodate their demands. The upheaval is the result of the inability of the system to fulfill the aspiration of the people. When the needs of the citizen and the wishes of the dictator clash the country enters a very volatile state that can only be resolved by some sort of explosion.

There are controlled explosions and spontaneous explosion. The transition from the Derg to TPLF was a good example of controlled explosion. The transition from the Emperor to the Derg was a very haphazard, creeping and tiring kind of wimpy explosion. The last one standing won. The one with balls but no brains was victorious. Result speaks louder than words.

Syria is entering or has entered that stage. This is the last show and the curtains are coming down. There will be no repeat performance. We all know how it is going to end. By ‘we’ I mean the rest of the world except of course the Syrian ruling lass. All Dictators have a tendency for getting caught by surprise. For some the denial is so strong they don’t even have an escape plan. That is what Gadaffi aide said in an interview. The Leader never thought his ‘people’ would be able to gather their nerves and rise up against him. Didn’t he crush their will and personhood? The Idiot was surprised!

Our current object Syria is nothing but a continuation of Arab awakening or “Arab Spring” that originated in Tunisia. But it has its own unique features. In the scheme of Dictatorships in history, it gets a grade of D- at best. It looks like it will only last a single generation. It is nothing to write home about. I do not mean no disrespect or sneer at ours that is gasping to last even a half-life but that is the nature of the business. Africa is littered with wannabe dictators that have lasted less.

The Assad’s have managed to exist by all sorts of trickery and Ponzi scheme. This includes Clannish behavior, benefactor role, blackmail, extortion, assassination and every kind of criminal activity that buys them another day. Today the fabric that has been painstakingly woven is breaking apart. It has run its course and there is no new trick left to prop up the dying system. The Assad’s know it, their Alawit Clan is aware of it and the Syrian people are doing all that they could to hurry matters along.

What exactly is arrayed against the Assad clan is a good question. The main characters all are easy to spot. We are witnessing their cajoling for the best spot after the dust settles. And there are many actors in this farce. The Israelis want a weak Syria with Assad in charge. Their motto is decapitate but not kill. The Jordanians are not thrilled by another crazy regime on the other side of their border. Iraq has already caused a lot of dislocations. The Lebanese are as usual caught between a rock and a hard place. They are keeping a low profile. Turkey is delirious by the opportunity to be seen as an emerging neighborhood bully. Turkey is flexing its muscles.

Iran is depressed. This could not have come at a most unfortunate time. Iran is under siege and it its important ally is jumping from a plane without knowing if the parachute would work. The Mullahs in Quom are not happy and the Islamic Republic will do all that is necessary to prop up the dying regime. The US is walking a tight rope. Mr. Obama does not want anything to complicate matters in this election season. The Israeli Lobby is beating war drums. Mr. Obama has no intention of picking a fight with a powerful constituent no matter what the cause is.

Russia is posturing. Mr. Putin still possess a few not sea worthy submarines prone to accident and rusting nuke Silos and for some reason the West pretends he packs a punch. Clint East Wood would say “Go ahead Vladimir make my day.” Russia’s useless posturing is tolerated because it buys the West time to figure out the volatile situation inside Syria.

The Chinese are looking after number one here. They are thinking “if these foreign devils pass a resolution regarding interference in Syria what is to stop them doing the same when it comes to Tibet?” China is still smarting over being tricked into going along with the invasion of Libya. They have concluded this not to be the time to posture but send scouts to bid on infrastructure building that will definitely follow the mayhem.

Did you notice who I left for last? Yes, good old Syrian people. I am afraid they allowed this abuse by the Assad family and his minority Alawit Clan to go for so long they have become an after thought in the search for a solution to their problem. No one takes their protestations and defiance seriously. Outsiders are looking for a ‘solution’ to impose on them with little or no regard to what they want. It is exactly like what parents say to their child ‘eat your vegetables, it is good for you!’

We Ethiopians are looking closely at the situation in Syria. We have a lot in common. We are both victims of a mad leader and minority clan rule. We both live in a very dangerous neighborhood where others use our precarious existence to wage proxy wars. My interest in writing this paper is to show you what will be done to your country and people in the next few months. I hope you will not feign surprise or pretend you were in the dark. What you see in Syria will be what you will witness in Ethiopia. It won’t be exact but it will be close enough to act as a model. I promise to be the happiest person if I am proven wrong, but that would be flying against facts.

In a very simplistic term this is what we got in Syria. Assad is a second-generation dictator. His power base is the minority Alawit Clan. They consist 12% of the population and occupy all the upper echelons of the military. Security is in the hands of close family members. The economy is used to reward or punish the rest of the population including the majority Sunnis. All media is under the control of the State.

Syria has been in turmoil since March of 2011. The official figure is over seven thousand killed. The Syrian government has killed over seven thousand of its own citizens to stay in power. Bashir and his Alawit Clan are telling the rest of the Syrians either we rule or you all die. It is that simple. He owns a formidable army. Unlike in Egypt the Army is disciplined and controlled better from above. They do not hesitate to fire even into populated areas. Assad, his family and Clan today are feeling like cornered animals. Due to situation they created their escape route is narrowing as we read this. Under the circumstances the only thing to do is pray that the Syrian people put their differences aside and finish this varmint once and for all.

When we look at Syria in the mirror why do I get this feeling that we see Ethiopia. Look at the bright side. This gives us the opportunity to avoid disaster. If we share a common problem and if one of us self-destruct trying a solution I believe the second party should lean from the mistakes and adjust accordingly. That is where we come in. Observe and study all the wrong moves taken by the Dictators and circumvent it before it takes place. I agree it is not easy for Prime Minster Meles and his group. It is a little naïve to think they are doing this because they are evil or lack the expertise. The simple answer is because that is the only way they know how. But it is very easy for us to learn and adopt.

A far as Assad or Meles are concerned the last thirty years has only proved the effectiveness of their method. I said effectiveness not correct and sustainable. Since their inception the use of brute force has been the only way they have resolved any contradiction. The chances of teaching them the value of compromise and the lasting nature of give and take is not possible and utterly a waste of time. It is not going to happen. Gadaffi did not fall for that. Assad will not even consider such farce. The TPLF party is not into committing suicide. We all know they are not capable of learning.

I was talking about us. I believe we are capable of learning from the failed experience of Gadaffi, Saleh and Assad. Ato Meles is not going to invent a new reality. He is going to act exactly like his fellow criminals in a predictable manner. Killing and more killing is the only solution. They assume the more they kill the less we rise up against them. That always worked. Unfortunately once the population gets rid of its fears death is not a valid threat anymore. More killing only breeds more sacrifice and primal anger. Go ask Gadaffi he will tell you what the wrath of the people feels like.

There isn’t much the world can do for the Syrians. Send ‘coffins’ is what a Syrian said in the town of Homs. The Syrians are on their own. May be it will be a good idea to work on our collective responses when the time comes. We Ethiopians are going to find ourselves on our own pretty soon. Thus when you hear the agony of Homs think of Addis Abeba, when they mention Daraa you might as well cry for Dire Dawa when you read the shelling in Hama remember that is what is waiting Hawasa. You might say I exaggerate but really isn’t it the same Meles that killed close to three hundred unarmed kids? Isn’t it Meles and company that used their EFFORT lorries to haul any body and everybody to Zuwai, Sendafa etc? Do you think I am being an alarmist?

We have an opportunity to find a way to work together and minimize the damage that is bound to occur when this unfortunate experience implodes on itself. Sergena meta berbere kentesu is not a winning strategy.

The distinguished young patriot Abichu from Selalle in his twenties and compatriots in his peer group scored magnificent victories in battle fields in northern Ethiopia over Italian Fascist invaders in 1935. An indelible edict was written with their blood and sealed with their covenant vowing in the name of Menilik II that the unity of their motherland, Ethiopia, must be defended at all costs. They did their ultimate best bequeathing a glorious example of determined resistance against a far superior enemy in terms of professional manpower and modern warfare equipment (including poison gas prohibited by law) that came to rob our basic values of dignity, freedom and sovereignty. The onus now is on the present and succeeding young generations, the Ethiopian National Youth Movement in particular, to emulate the noble deeds of Abichu and his compatriots to do their part in the struggle to free Ethiopians from the tight grip of the puppet TPLF regime and restore our basic values in caption..

Organization of the militia army of Abicu and compatriots

I believe it is normal to seek inspiration from heroic deeds of the past in order to make further justification for the call of unity of democratic opposition forces to forge that critically and urgently needed unity of action among and between opposition forces that had so far stubbornly remained elusive.

So it occurred to me that such source of inspiration is abundantly available in the outstanding feat of courage demonstrated by young patriots during the war against the invasion of Italian Fascist army. One such superbly brilliant patriotic leader was Abichu – a hero with distinction but little known to the present generation.
The peasant militia army of the hero and adventurer Abichu albeit not publicly declared was organized as follows under his overall command:-

1. The militia army of the children of Hamassein commanded by General Haptom;
2. The militia army of the children of Tigray (Mekele) under the command of General Tesfatsion;
3. The militia army of the children of Gojjam (Damot) commanded by General Gashu; and
4. The main militia army of the children of Selalle under the command of Geneal Worqu

Source: Habešská Odyssea (YeHabesha Jebdu) የሃበሻ ጀብዱ by Adolf Parlesak Translated by Techane Jobre Mekonnen – page 274.

It is to be recalled that the peasant militia army of Ethiopia had to travel to the warfront for six to seven months most of them on bare foot, others on horseback or mule carrying their provisions by donkeys or on their backs – climbing and descending rugged steep mountains. Those from the south including the 15,000 peasant militia army from Kembatta are reported to have closely coordinated with Abichu in their armed encounter with the enemy. They all affectionately vowed in the name of Immye Menilik II to fight the enemy to the last drop of their blood.

What is most remarkable and pleasing to me is that the children of Ethiopia, unknown to each other and hailing from distant regions and all of them young, could form their own command which by his own admission became excruciating thorn in the flesh of Marshal Badoglio – supreme commander of the invading Italian Fascist Army.

Yes these young heroes were a nightmare to Marshal Badoglio; they frequently ambushed and decimated his convoy transporting arms and supplies to the frontline escorted by armed soldiers; they confiscated valuable items including provisions and arms, which they shared with the rest of the peasant militia army under the command of Ras Kasa and Ras Seyoum Mengesha in Tigray. They raided Italian garrisons, slaughtered the enemy and made away with whatever booty they found useful for their armed struggle in that harsh terrain.

The bandits loyal to the renegade Dejazmatch Haileselassie Gugssa, great grandson of Emperor Yohannes, panicked and fled at the sight of the militia army of Abichu and his compatriots. So did bandits that were hampering operations against the Italian Fascist army in Tigray.

The fame of the rising star Abichu reached the ears of Emperor Haileselassie prompting His Majesty to issue instructions to Ras Kasa to stop the “Boy”. The Monarch reportedly thought the adventure of the young fighter would undermine His effort to find diplomatic solution to the Italian aggression.

The cardinal question is interest is where did the glue that bound these heroes of various linguistic group come from. The answer is common values of dignity, freedom and liberty for which Menilik II fought and scored victory in the famous Battle of Adwa that became a beacon of hope for the oppressed black race in the whole world.

The brutal regime is bent on firmly entrenching a disgusting and balkanized old political order based on ethnicity and underpinned by communist ideology for tightly controlling what it calls “nations and nationalities”. This is meant to undo the noble accomplishment of Immye Menilik.

The irksome problem of secession

It is a matter of record that Stalin did not allow any Republic of the USSR to secede despite his theory on the question of nations and nationalities. In fact, he relocated by force … for seeking separation; other individuals that supported secession were considered lunatics running away from haven and banned to Siberia where the temperature ranged from -50 to +50 degrees Centigrade. Incidentally, the disciple of Stalin tyrant Zenawi sends his democratic opponents for peaceful change to his Qaliti dungeon where a hired criminal serving life sentence severely beats political prisoners and leaves them unconscious; a recent victim is the charismatic young leader, Andualem Aragie.

The phrase “up to secession”, which is the main bone of contention in Article 39 of the TPLF Constitution would have made no sense to Abdisa Aga and the young Abichu who under the tricolor Ethiopian flag valiantly fought the Italian aggressor. The two illustrious warriors would not have approved the idea of some exponents of secession to form Oromia state for their foresight was dignity and freedom in a united country. It is sad that few scholars in Ivy League institutions are still hell bent to revive the idea of secession, which is unworkable for Ethiopia given the historic, cultural and blood bond of her ethnic groups spanning over centuries.

Conclusion

The stalwart patriot Abdisa Aga gave Italians a hell of a time on their own turf after breaking out from a high security prison and joining Marshal Tito’s forces in the Italian mountains. Abichu became a piercing thorn in the flesh of Marshal Badoglio in Tigray where the Fascists almost lost the war had it not been due to airpower dropping bombs and spraying poison gas on the peasant militia army of Ethiopia. The two super heroes neither attended a military school nor had fighting experience in war prior to the Italian invasion, but became leaders to contend with by the Italian Fascist authorities. At a speech he made at a function, I was one of those lucky invited guests to see patriot Abdissa Aga with my own eyes displaying the very Ethiopian tri-color flag that he hoisted on a mast at his hideout camp in Italy.

It is a bizarre contradiction in terms that few OLF elites are ignoring the fact that Oromos had been and still are part and parcel of the Ethiopian civilization for centuries with their parents ruling as Emperors, Regents, Aristocrats and dignitaries in Ethiopia should lament as being oppressed and for that matter seeking to secede in order to set up their own independent state.

The bottom line of my argument is that it does not make sense at all for an individual to remain ensconced in old political ideas in this age of information that is driving the rapid change of science and technology in the 21st century; it would be suicidal to be locked in a tribal cocoon only to be devoured by a brutal regime that is playing the ethnic divide and rule card in order to stay in power.

LONG LIVE ETHIOPA!!!
Release all political prisoners in Ethiopia including Andualem Aragie, Iskinder Nega, Nathnael et al
robele_ababya@yahoo.com

Have you ever wondered, as I have, why Ethiopia and the Ethiopian people are caught in a vicious cycle of disillusionment, dispossession and disempowerment? Have you pondered, as I have, the simple truth that the vast majority of the Ethiopian people have less say and thus less power over their political and economic affairs in their own country compared to a few ethnic elites and foreign investors such as Saudi Star and Karuturi? Have you taken a few minutes of your time to reflect why Ethiopian Christians working in Saudi Arabia find themselves in a predicament for praying in a Muslim State while Saudis are free to build mosques and to pray as they wish anywhere in Ethiopia?

Anywhere one looks, Ethiopians within and outside the country cry for a government leadership to protect theirs and their country’s national interests. These and other core policy related questions on Ethiopia and Ethiopians suggest an enormous gap in organization and leadership that is purpose-driven. I would argue that the urgent gap in responsive governance is ethnicity, religious and demography neutral. All Ethiopians feel it in some form or another. All Ethiopians have a stake; and are thus responsible in filling the vacuum. In light of this, it is time that we expand and embrace the definition and action steps that will lead the entire society to a better and more promising alternative than the current one. We cannot do this as long as we are guided by the ethnic and divisive script imposed on us by TPLF Inc. We need to consider the higher moral ground that the same way “families and friends need leaders who model purpose-driven lives,” Ethiopian society and communities anywhere and everywhere should expect to defend their human rights; improve their lot; and chart a more promising future for their children. Can this really be done? Can Ethiopian political, civic and faith leaders and intellectuals surmount their own narrow interests and prejudices for the sake of the country and its diverse population? The simple answer is that there is no other choice. Otherwise, we should stop the entire business of protest politics and politics as a business enterprise: the model TPLF Inc. has imposed on each of us.

I suggest in this piece that Ethiopians who wish to be treated with respect and dignity anywhere in the world and who wish a better future for this and the coming generation stop the none sense of ethnic and religious or demographic divisions. They can start with baby steps: stop demeaning and undermining one another. Reach-out to and talk to one another as adults. Work with and collaborate with one another. Campaign against all forms of injustice collaboratively. Accept our diversity as a source of strength and celebrate one another. Demand and promote innovative, inclusive, smart and wiser alternative organization and leadership–with demonstrated capability of grasping what is at stake and with commitment to set aside minor differences; and the discipline and consistency to forge a unity of purpose among all ethnic, religious and demographic groups. If we fail to do this fast, we have no one to blame but ourselves. These baby steps will not be easy.

In the Ethiopian context, a unity of purpose must affirm failures of the past without being trapped in it. It must affirm commitment to justice, the rule of law, unfettered and equitable access to economic and social opportunities, and representative governance based on free and fair elections. A child in Gambella must believe that he/she is an Ethiopian and deserves the same rights as a child in Tigray or Oromia or Addis Ababa and so on. Creating favorable conditions that embrace each child regardless of ethnic or religious affiliation would have the best chance of safeguarding past gains while advancing a more promising future for the vast majority of Ethiopians that the current system is unable to deliver. This will not happen unless adults show commitment that transcends ethnicity.

The acid test of alternative organization and leadership is readiness and ability of political, civic, religious and other elites to mobilize the country’s mosaic and establish a brighter and more inclusive alternative that restores faith and confidence in the political process of the future. This will not be as easy as it seems. If it were; it would have been achieved by now. I will give you a simple example on hypocrisy. A group of activists tried to mobilize the Ethiopian Diaspora in the Washington Metropolitan Area for a protest against Saudi Government mistreatment and human rights violations of Ethiopian Christians. Religious leaders failed to participate and give moral support.

Given the formidable forces we face as people , any alternative organization and leadership would have little chance of success unless and until we unlearn the debilitating impacts of ethnic politics: the ‘silent killer.’ How can we do this? Why not embrace and practice such fundamental principles as integrity, purity of heart, spirit of cooperation with one another, commitment to serve the entire population and the country in our day to day lives? Why not show capacity to reject all forms of ethnic, religious, gender and age based prejudice, corruption, nepotism and discrimination ourselves? Why not subordinate narrow, personal and group agendas to the common good? How difficult are these to do? How would we triumph over TPLF Inc. without dramatic changes in our own mindset, values and how we treat one another as Ethiopians? I suggest that discussing alternatives without demonstrating real change in our own dealings with one another will not be credible in the eyes of the Ethiopian people or the global community. This is a real challenge for all activists.

At the risk of repeating, those of us who wish to pursue a more promising future for all Ethiopians must appreciate that our own division is the single most important contributor to the strength of TPLF Inc. By all accounts, less than a quarter of Ethiopians accept the legitimacy of the current governing party (Gallop). It is thus an understatement to say that regardless of ethnic, religious or demographic affiliation, 75 to 80 percent of the Ethiopian people want change. The root causes of disillusionment, disempowerment, dispossession, abject poverty, hunger and intellectual and financial capital flight out of Ethiopia is deliberate ethnicization of politics and economics by TPLF Inc., a monopoly. Almost everyone is reduced to subservient status.

Almost everyone is forced to fear the system that keeps them entrapped. People know but cannot contest that the primary motive of ethnicization is to run the country purely as a business monopoly. The formation of political parties on the basis of ethnic affiliation serves the ultimate purpose of command and control over local, regional and national politics, resources and markets. This is by no means to suggest that there are no second class type beneficiaries. Some prefer second class status because they have not experienced a better system; and are suspicious of change. TPLF Inc. is smart enough to remind secondary beneficiaries that they should guard against restoration of the old system. The hidden message is specific to one so called dominant ethnic group. The tragedy is not so much that this camouflage persists; but that the rest of us fall into the trap. The result is a reinforcement of ethnic division that serves TPLF Inc.
Duality of ‘silent violence or killing’
Ethnicization of politics and economics serves two strategic objectives: divide and rule and extract as much rent as possible from the national economy. The greater the division among Ethiopians; the larger is the opportunity to extract rents in different forms.

Extraction is hard to do in a multiethnic society unless some of the benefits go to supporters and ethnic elites who serve as intermediaries. Foreign Direct Investment operates within this environment and serves TPLF Inc. best. Whether we accept it or not, it is, largely intermediaries who facilitate the policy and decision-making authority of TPLF Inc. When you are a subordinate, the likelihood of dissenting against the dictates of the merged state is negligible. The Constitution, laws and regulations are bendable and changeable in accordance with the demands of TPLF Inc. Anyone who threatens TPLF Inc. risks the possibility of losing his or her private property or citizenship at any time. There is nowhere to hide except fleeing the country. More intellectual flight, especially those who are national leaning means more domestic vacuum that can compete and safeguard national resources and markets.

Under this system, regulations, laws, banks and other financial intermediaries serve political purposes: the staying power of TPLF Inc. They are therefore not value neutral. How else would you explain the phenomenon that generals and high officers–paid modest salaries to defend the country–are among the wealthiest and most powerful people in the country? Their powerful and wealth status resembles corrupt governance in Egypt and Pakistan than Ghana, Mauritius or Brazil. These generals and high officials are coopted through financial and economic incentives the same way as ethnic elites who belong to the EPRDF and who serve as intermediaries. Both are among the lead proponents of TPLF Inc. This phenomenon leads me to assert that the business of ethnic politics in Ethiopia today is financial and economic reward. It is the notion of “what is in it for me” that seems to prevail throughout the entire system. Some in the Diaspora reflect the same values. This is why the Diaspora’s role in prolonging the system that divides and disempowers is coming under increasing scrutiny by activists. In any case, it is fair to conclude that the system does not encourage commitment to and service to ordinary citizens, communities and the country.

In this sense, the Ethiopian Prime Minister is absolutely right when he said to business leaders last year that if people are not careful they will more or less lose their country. Why did he say this? Increasingly, foreign firms are assuming the pillars of the economy while Ethiopians with wealth are either investing in consumption oriented ventures or taking their monies out of the country at an alarming rate.

The problem is that it is the system that created selfishness, greed, capital flight and unbelievable income inequality. This phenomenon does not surprise me a bit. It takes an enabling social, economic and political environment to encourage saving and investment in productive sectors. It takes national leadership to motivate the private sector to do what is right for the country and its diverse population. Some of the most corrupt nations in the world, Indonesia for one, were and are still led by nationalist groups. At least, what is stolen is invested domestically in factories that generate jobs and raise incomes. This is not the case in Ethiopia. It seems that the system has created a culture of greed, fear of the future and total disregard for this and the coming generation and the overall development of the country. The current motto is “What is in it for me?”

In this reward and punishment type of arrangement that serves TPLF Inc. and its allies well, the real and potential losses for communities, the society and the country are self-evident. They are everywhere for anyone willing to see. Sad but true, some in the Diaspora who run back and forth on a visit to the country as tourists or to manage their assets or to access opportunities fail to reflect on how the vast majority of the population lives. It is glitz of villas, apartments, eating places, hotels, roads and other physical infrastructure– that needs to be maintained and paid for—that catch their fancy and immediate attention. I often wonder whether Diaspora tourists ask the prudent question of how road infrastructure that lasts an average of five years will be maintained. Who will pay the maintenance costs?

A properly and well integrated and planned economy stimulates productivity and raises individual incomes from large numbers of people. Investments in industry, agro-industry, agriculture and so on trigger structural changes in dramatic and sustainable ways. Infrastructure alone will not do that. The Ethiopian economy is import dependent.

Industry accounts for about 4 percent of exports. By structural changes I have in mind factories that offer job opportunities to millions. I have in mind a smallholder farming revolution that is supported by low cost inputs such as fertilizers, better seeds, access to credits and markets and so on. A smallholder farming revolution would do wonders for the country and the rural and urban population than land giveaways to Saudi Star to feed rich consumers in the Gulf or to Karuturi to supply cheap foods to Indian consumers. For this to occur, Ethiopian smallholders deserve tenure security and freedom to produce and market and gain higher incomes so that they can send their children to school and so on. I suggest that glitz alone does not contribute to sustainable and equitable growth and development regardless of the number of high-rises, condominiums, hotels, eating places for the few well-to-do, including Diaspora tourists, villas etc. Ask a simple question. Who, among the Ethiopian poor or low level civil servants or soldiers or factory workers or Saudi Star employee can afford to live in a condo in Addis Ababa, Mekele or Gondar?

Portrayal of ‘silent violence or killing’

The Socialist military dictatorship killed innocent people in public and boasted about it. TPLF Inc. learned from this mistake and ‘kills quietly or silently’ than its predecessor. This makes it more dangerous and sinister. We see this vividly in the brutal beating of Andualem Aragie in jail. Given this most recent example, dissidents and reasonable people in the Diaspora cannot afford to forget and neglect enormous losses for the society and the country under TPLF Inc. Loses occur on a recurring basis. The concern I have is that we seem to be in a mode of just accepting loses as normal; and go on as if nothing has happened. Here are clear and harmful examples with devastating impacts. Ethiopia lost its sea ports for which the society pays billions of dollars for services. This loss took place without the consent of the Ethiopian people.
In a secret deal with the now northern Sudanese government led by President Bashir, Prime Minister Meles’ government granted substantial pieces of Ethiopian territory to Bashir’s regime. During the initial period if TPLF Inc. lands from Gondar, Wollo and other regions, were carved out and reconfigured for the benefit of what is commonly known as “Greater Tigray,” a condition that will not serve the greater good. This ethnic based reconfiguration and incorporation will create animosity among the population for generations to come.

TPLF Inc. granted millions of ha of the most fertile farmlands and water basins to businesses and individuals from 36 countries and to Tigrean elites. Oakland Institute reported that 75 percent of domestic owners in Gambella are Tigrean. This comes across as internal ‘land colonization.’ Ethiopians suffer silently from a double whammy: foreign large-scale commercial farm colonization by invitation and real natural resource transfers to ethnic allies. Karuturi, Saudi Star and other foreign owned large-scale commercial farms are the new landlords in the country. These new land lords gain profits by dispossessing Ethiopians. How would an Anuak child feel about a condition that displaces and dispossess her/him? What are the rest of us doing about it? Transparency International, Global Financial Integrity and UNDP all confirm that billions of dollars of scarce foreign exchange is stolen from Ethiopian society each year. Corruption is a net cost to this and the coming generation in multiple ways.

Ironically, foreign owned large-scale commercial farms are protected by branches of Ethiopia’s police, security and defense forces. Those who struggle for alternative organization and leadership ought to ask, “Whose interests do police, security and armed forces protect in Gambella or the Ogaden or anywhere?” It certainly is not the interests of the people who are forced out of their lands or the long-term interests of the country. Opponents have a moral responsibility to educate ordinary soldiers, police and others that their repressive roles on behalf of TPLF Inc. will alienate them from their own extended families and communities. We cannot do this in meaningful ways if we are detached from the Ethiopian reality on the ground.

‘Silent violence or killing’ does not discriminate

Regardless of ethnic or religious affiliation, those who dissent against the above and other social, political and economic injustices are subjected to cruel and inhumane treatment without any let up. Andualem Aragie, an individual who hails from Gondar, was beaten up in his cell by an inmate because he stood for justice, democratic freedom and the rule of law. He did not dare to challenge the system because of his ethnic affiliation. He did this as an Ethiopian. His is a prime example of ‘silent killing’ by TPLF Inc. I do not have any proof to suggest that the inmate was planted by the governing party. However, I challenge the notion that anyone imprisoned by the one party state cannot and should not expect safety and security even in jail. It is a travesty that says more about the cruel and unjust system than about the inmate. The system does not tolerate dissent or symbols of dissent whether in jail, in the Diaspora or within the country.

This takes me back to the formation and acceptability of ethnic-based political parties under TPLF Inc. I argue that this is part of the strategy of divide and rule; and a clever mechanism to coopt and subordinate the majority by using ethnic elite and other self-serving intermediaries. The more division there is; the less challenge to and dissent against TPLF Inc. Aspiring elites are recruited to the club on the basis of their submission, commitment to defend and serve the system while advancing self-interest. The business of ethnic politics is therefore to ensure that narrow band of-largely ethnic elites- are well served. Those of us who want a better future for all Ethiopians need to accept the truth that ethnic division and narrow self-interest entail enormous costs for the majority of people; and for the long-term viability and security of the country. The economic and financial incentives that accrue from this system are so critical for the beneficiaries that they become both pawns and the most avid supporters of ethnicization of politics and economics. At one level, it is hard to blame secondary beneficiaries. It is a matter of survival. What other option do they have? Those of us who oppose the system do not show consistent commitment to come to the aid of those who suffer within the country. Secondary beneficiaries who may resent the system know our weakness, namely, our inability to mobilize resources and aid those who advance justice and fair treatment. The challenge for us is to make distinctions between the top leadership of TPLF Inc. and the rest. We can plant seeds of separation among constituent parts that sustain TPLF Inc.

Focus on the system that sustains ‘silent violence and killing’

I suggest that our singular focus should be less on our division and more on the system that sustains repression through division; and breeds social and economic inequality. I further suggest that the real political and social foundation of the struggle for a better and more inclusive society is in Ethiopia. TPLF Inc. created the EPRDF to mobilize dissatisfied ethnic-based political elites in order to enlarge the party’s narrow political power base. To some, this strategy gave ethnic politics a democratic façade. This façade has no human face. However, it is, ultimately, the Ethiopian people who should judge in a free and fair election. The system now uses this ethnic architecture against those it perceives inimical to its well-designed political, social, financial and economic goals and interests. This is why Andualem and others are paying with their lives. Like other patriotic and nationalist individuals who stand for justice, the rule of law and political pluralism, he represents the hopes and aspirations we all share. He is thus a symbol of a brighter future. TPLF Inc. applies the same methodology of punishing him, his family and friends and his community by making life totally intolerable. The intent is to make sure that others fear the brutality of the regime.

Given this recurring history of gross human rights violations against the innocent and those who stand firm for justice and freedom, I am saddened to note that even Andualem’s dire and deplorable condition does not move and revolt those of us in the Diaspora in meaningful and sustainable ways. I opine that we can no longer see him or others like him just as another individual activist individual in trouble. Rather, we must see him as a symbol of resistance and defiance from a new generation of potential leaders who represent hope and promise: “purpose-driven lives.” It is time that we wake up and reject ‘silent violence and killing’ against any Ethiopian such as Andualem who stands for justice and freedom.

First of all, the building is a metaphor for the way most African countries are run. The Chinese handout in Addis Ababa that is going to house the AU is more than a symbol that perpetuates the beggar image that has defined most African countries for a better part of their modern history. Most African countries have decided to achieve development and modernization by substituting working hands and innovative minds with hands stretched toward foreign aid and largess. This Chinese handout symbolizes Africa’s failure and speaks about a leadership that has completely failed to understand that you can’t have your pride and dignity, and a respectable place in the community of nations while living on the handouts of others. Indeed, it is a testament and stark reminder to an increasingly frustrating reality that the leaders of African have given up on any attempt at self reliance.

Just ask why it should be so difficult for 54 African countries to contribute no more than four million dollars each and build this building on their own? Is it the addiction to handouts? You may even ask why any African in position of power and with minimal self respect and knowledge of history could not have wanted the building designed by African architects. You may even wonder why there was no one among these leaders to think such a structure should have an architectural design that is made of a touch of African architecture and culture, say for example, something like a combination of the pyramids of Egypt, the obelisks of Axum, Lalibella, the magnificent libraries of ancient Mali and the numerous beautiful tukuls that dot the African landscape to mention just the few we know well.

Imagine how such a product owned and built by Africans could be one huge source of pride and something to show for African ingenuity. For a continent that looses tens of billions of dollars in elicit capital flight and outright theft every year, isn’t two hundred million dollars just peanuts? And don’t this honorable guys ruling Africa read history? Haven’t they read that Africa has been there before and done that? How can you forget that the first things that European colonialists brought to Africa before they began looting the land and enslaving Africans were glittering gifts to local tribal chiefs?

This building is not only a case of what we in Ethiopia call “የሰው ወርቅ አያደምቅ” – which roughly translates as, “you cannot look beautiful by wearing gold jewelry that belongs to other people”. As the history of Africa itself attests, these so called gifts are often down payments for the merciless exploitation of the continent’s natural and human resources. How do we Africans overcome the stereotype that we are incapable of changing our reality while we keep doing this crazy thing of repeating the same thing over and over again even after we have confirmed that it is not working to our advantage?

I hope there is no any idiot out there who thinks the Chinese gave this building to Africa out of compassion for Africans or out of plain generosity or reasons charity. We all know that there are more destitute people inside China than all the destitute people in sub Sahara Africa combined. It is clear that the Chinese leaders are making an investment with sacrifice to help their long term plan, their future. It is now an open secret that the Chinese think of Africa as a solution to their overpopulation and pollution problem and have already gone a long way on that line. In the last decade alone nearly eight hundred thousand Chinese have settled in Africa and China towns are proliferating in many cities in Africa. There are reports that Chinese experts are planning and working to settle some 300 million Chinese in Africa as a solution to their overpopulation related problems.

It appears that the Chinese are applying the advice of a certain racist British named sir Francis Galton who a little more than a hundred years ago, sometime in 1873, wrote that the continent of Africa which he defined as “occupied by lazy, palavering savage people” be taken over and tenanted by what he said were “industrious and order-loving Chinese”. Trends of the last decade or two shows that the Chinese seem to have taken this once despised racist advice to heart. They are working hard to make this a reality and to some extent succeeding. They are working hard and sacrificing to solve their demographic and pollution problems on the backs of Africa.

Unless Africans are aware of this fast creeping Chinese takeover now, it would be too late when we wake-up tomorrow. The leaders of Africa who are blinded by their desire to preserve their power and material benefits never seem to care. The new AU building is only one in a series of bribery to Africa’s ruling elite. The Chinese know they will get back their two hundred million dollars in one or two transactions of their cheap toys to Africa and the minerals and lumber they plunder cheaply. At the end of the day it is poor Africans who will stand there holding the bag.

There is also another ugly side to look at when seeing this shameful hall of shame in Addis Ababa. If you uncover the veils and secrecy inside Chinese capitalism, you will see that it is an extremely criminal enterprise. The “gift” standing in Addis Ababa is tainted with blood, tears and sweat of other unfortunate human beings being mercilessly ruled and exploited. It is an open secret that Chinese workers are subjected to slave type labor where in many cases, protest by workers in a factory and demands of workers to be heard takes the form of committing group suicide. To see what kind of blood money the AU building may be tainted by, read this recent New York Times exclusive investigative report about the horrible life of the workers who supply products to the manufacturers of our iPads. After reading the report I could not believe that the ipad I am using is tainted with that horror. Shouldn’t Africans that have suffered merciless exploitation themselves of the kind Chinese workers suffer today be the first to reject any Chinese offer out rightly on grounds that it is a reminder of their own painful history?

I am also disappointed by the muted response of the African elite regarding this shameful “gift” and creepy Chinese takeover of Africa. It appears that we all have given up on Africa, I mean, ourselves. How many cases do we have to be ashamed of about being African? The brutal and savage killings of one another, being ruled by cruel tyrants for decades on end, our poverty in the midst of plenty and perennial beggary for food handout, are killing us already. Should accepting a down payment wrapped as a “gift” while being set up in plain sight for a new round of slavery and plunder be another one?

The leaders of Ethiopia, particularly Ato Meles Zenawi, did us a favor inadvertently by not lobbying to have Hailesilassie statue erected there along with that of Nkrumah. Ethiopians should be happy that Hailesilassie’s statue and through that Ethiopia’s contribution was not erected anywhere near this hall of shame. If the Ethiopian leaders just whispered Hailesilassie’s name, I am sure there will be a unanimous vote by African leaders to honor Hailsilassie and through him Ethiopia by building his statue there. Yes, we can debate the good and bad he did to his own country. But no one, except men with little minds and little sense of history question that he, Hailesilassie, and through him Ethiopia, stood the tallest among the tall when it comes to fighting for the independence of Africa and bringing Africans together. It is one of Ethiopia’s epic images that history will not forget and one that never needs a statue as a reminder. I am happy this image is not tainted with Hailesilassie’s statue in that hall of shame. Now the debate should not be whether Hailesilassie’s statue and though him Ethiopia’s should have been built along with Nkrumah in front of this hall of shame, it should be weather even that of Nkrumah’s should be standing there to adore a symbol of Africa’s shame.

Fekadeshewakena@yahoo.com

For a few oppressors and exploiters as well as their supporters it is a day of celebrating their gains and luxuries. There is also the macabre situation of the sad being forced to celebrate their losses.

There are special events which transcend regimes and ethnic membership, like the victory of Adwa, which are celebrated by Ethiopians, but the birth of the TPLF will never be one of them. The celebration of this particular event is unlikely to outlive Meles. We Ethiopians, as many other people all over the world, do not have a tradition of celebrating events which do not have a positive meaning for posterity. We do not celebrate victories per se. No victory of Tewodros over Ras Ali, Dejatch Wondyerad etc. no victory of Yohannes over emperor Teklegiorgis, no victory of Menilik over king Teklehaimanot is celebrated by Ethiopians and therefore no victory of the TPLF over the Derg which ended up in the tyranny of Meles will be celebrated by Ethiopians in the future.

When it comes to principles, Ethiopians celebrate and pay respect only to those historical figures who selflessly struggled against invaders and for the dignity of the people, no matter whether such figures were victorious or not. Patriots like Abune Petros and Zeray Deres who sacrificed their lives for a genuine cause are as much respected as the patriots who victoriously defended the independence of Ethiopia. As we are living at a stage of the development of the world at which the struggle for (at least formal) independence is a thing of the past, Ethiopians have been struggling for democracy since almost four decades. The TPLF under Meles and his clique has proved itself without any reasonable doubt so far that it is not only anti-democratic but also extreme ethnic nationalist by obeying the orders of Meles to the disadvantage of more than 94% Ethiopians. We say “so far” by probably hoping against hope and taking into consideration that some members of the TPLF who have not committed crimes can still get rid of the criminals and help facilitate the transition to democracy in Ethiopia; because although it is very late it is not too late.

Meles has been paying lip service to the martyrs, hiding his own atrocities and talking about those of the Derg to present himself as a liberator and benefactor of the people. In actual fact, Meles has by his evil deeds played a decisive role in destroying the possibility for the martyred and living members of the TPLF to have a positive history all over Ethiopia.

Whenever the anniversary is followed by fake elections, Meles uses the occasion to disseminate lies, hatred and fear. On the 30th anniversary of the TPLF in 2005 before the fake parliamentary election, Meles told the people of Tigray not to worry about the enemies, because we (meaning the TPLF and the people of Tigray) have knocked out the teeth (in the sense of defeating and disarming them) of the enemies. He was referring to the legal and peaceful opposition and maliciously equating the opposition with the deposed military regime (the Derg) without mentioning the regime by name. By telling the people to consider the opposition parties like CUD as enemies, Meles was conveying the distorted message that the multi-ethnic Ethiopian organizations have to be associated with the Derg, chauvinism and Interhamwe.

On the occasion of the 35th anniversary of the TPLF which was again about three months before the fake election of 2010, Meles with his boundless rudeness could not behave even like a simple disciplined Ethiopian citizen, let alone like a prime minister. He portrayed Tigrayans who were in the opposition as a cover used by the enemy of the people of Tigray to cheat the people of Tigray, insulted them as chaff, dirt etc.. and agitated the people to be angry at them. Then, he hypocritically advised the people not to physically attack members of the opposition, not because they don’t deserve it, but because the opposition would use it for mud slinging. The speech of Meles was a green light for his tugs to attack the opposition, which they did. Aregawi Gebreyohannes from the opposition Arena was stabbed to death. We don’t mind if Meles considers any Ethiopian multi-ethnic organisation as his enemy. However, the claim that such organizations are the enemies of the people of Tigray by falsely associating them with the Derg is an act of irresponsibility and evilness.

Now, since there is no election, an election cannot be a motive for Meles to abuse the occasion to harass people. The regime is currently preoccupied with prosecuting and terrorizing patriotic and peaceful journalists as well as opposition leaders by using its own distorted interpretation of terror. It is also distorting history by denying emperor Haileselassie’s rightful place in the formation of the OAU and therefore in paving the way for the formation of the AU. It is also continuing with the double digit growth rate of the economy which is rather a double digit growth rate of its lies. The evil performances of Meles on the issues pertaining to the interpretation of terror, the denial that emperor Haileselassie belongs to those who deserve a statue as well as the lie of a double digit growth of the Ethiopian GDP will be the footprints of the TPLF with the limelight taken by Meles.

As we are writing this article in connection with the 37th anniversary of the TPLF, we will make a short review of the footprints of the TPLF in the course of 37 years and thereby concentrate ourselves on the less known aspects of the history of the organization. We hope readers can compare and contrast our presentation with what they know about the regime and make their own judgment about our characterization of the TPLF.

It would only be an anomaly, if tyrants came to power in a democratic society or organization. As Professor Messay Kebede wrote somewhere that the TPLF is as much the creation of Meles, as Meles is the creation of the TPLF, Meles has absolute power, because the members of the TPLF were and are – as many Ethiopians – vulnerable to tyranny. The underdevelopment of our country is mainly caused by submission to the tyranny of a single individual who suppresses ideas, drives the educated out of the country (brain drain) and blocks correction of wrong policies. Why do evil individuals come to power in Ethiopia? Why has not our moral standard been strong enough to deter criminals from being our masters? Is our enlightenment so low or not so wide spread enough that our society can be manipulated by bad people? Could it also be that there are many Ethiopians who appreciate any victory by evil means, as long as it is a victory, like doping to succeed in a sport competition?

In respect to the last question, an innocent Ethiopian said something surprising. It is important to mention that the gentleman is innocent as this would apply to many innocent people. In a heated discussion about the atrocities of Mengistu Hailemariam, the murder of the 60 ex-officials and that of General Teferi Banti and others were cited. When the phrase: “They wanted us for lunch, but we made them a breakfast.”, which is supposed to have been said by Mengistu was mentioned, the gentleman who was actively participating suddenly said: “but he is also a man (ginko wend new)”. It was shocking. Mengistu was actually a coward and a power monger who murdered his compatriots and told a lie that he did it in self-defence or in defence of the revolution. If people appreciate the success of crime and the successful criminal, it is a sign of the lack of moral virtues and encourages criminals who should be condemned. Of all criminals a criminal politician is the worst, because such a criminal, like Meles, can commit several acts of crime simultaneously and rule by (criminal) force.

The TPLF is not principally made up of progressive elements who consciously struggled for democratic and human rights. Such rights have never been respected in the organization itself. Conversely, although the TPLF never needed Meles and it would have been much better off without him and therefore without his anti-Ethiopian views and activities, serial mass murders, lies, deceptions, ethnic divisions, corruption etc. the TPLF behaves as if it were created to fulfil the wishes of Meles. The Front has so far really been devoid of any freedom, tolerance and any differences of ideas short of enmity, as if all members of the organisation were produced with a programme to act like a private army of Meles. Meles has cultivated such an undemocratic, unpatriotic, servile and irresponsible behaviour in the TPLF that this behaviour has also been extended to the other members of the EPRDF and its sympathisers. In this sense, Meles has also partially re-created the TPLF as an organisation of servants who in turn treat their subordinates and the people as servants. This system of Meles was already in place during the armed struggle, during which the “freedom fighters” could not even defend themselves and their peers against arbitrary killings and physical beatings within the organization. The history of the members of the TPLF which could have been associated with the promotion of democratic and human rights has been turned by Meles to a history of a tool of terror, repression and corruption.

It was a (feudal) tradition for civil servants including the armed forces and dignitaries until Emperor Haileselassie to portray themselves and even boast as the servants (ashker) of the emperor of their respective time. Since the reign of the military regime, the servants do not call themselves “servants”, but they are more servile and less free than their predecessors. It seems that the 1974 revolution has abolished some words of servility, like ashker and replaced them with words like “comrade” without any change in the content. In the meantime, the culture of treason, serial mass murders, lies, deception, ethnicity, fear, hatred and corruption has become an integral part of the system of Meles as we will show some of it chronologically.

What troubled Abrham Yohannes, also editor of Ethiopian Legal Brief, was Article 3 (2) (b), which states,“this Proclamation does not apply to contracts a public body enters into with another public body for the provision of goods, works, consultancy or other services at cost.” By the inclusion of this article, the law has set public agencies, the ministries, higher education institutions, commissions, etc, which are partly or wholly financed by the federal government to go their ways, since they would not be subject to procurement procedures, when acquiring goods and services.

Bear in mind that, as a ‘developmental state’ Ethiopia’s development activities are mainly spearheaded by the numerous state agencies acting as its vehicles. With pen strokes, as per Article 3 (2) (b), its officials are under no requirements of the law to be obliged by the need for transparency or competition, when they expend huge amounts of taxpayers’ funds every year for the purchase of goods and services. In this regard, the importance of Abrham Yohannes’s insight into the serious deficiency in our country’s public procurement law he has pointed out cannot be sufficiently emphasized.

The overriding tasks of these government agencies is service, which they have to develop and provide the public. To do so, they promote development ideas, plans and implement programs and projects, hire consultants, contractors and sub-contractors. They also consume lots of expensive goods procured from domestic and foreign markets. Perhaps the concern here may appear a bit magnified. Nevertheless, it is important to realize that, of itself this requires them to engage in numerous investment activities using public funds, operating as contracting parties in agreements and contracts they sign with other agencies — even if with other state agencies — behind which there could be an outside firm, domestic or foreign, since other government agencies cannot produce all the goods and services others need.

Readily comes to mind a kind of arrangement that can arise between EthioTelecom and EEPCo, ministry of water resources and EEPCo or two or three universities looking for some materials or that sort of thing. There are possibilities where the distinction in engagement between public and non-public contracts could get fuzzier.

Clearly, what Article 3 (2) (b) underlines is, so to say, the irrelevance of the law to procurement contractual relations between public bodies. There are enormous possibilities that this could allow subtle collusion of personal interests. If one examines this closely what they have done with that provision is to handicap possibilities of closing down loopholes against crafty individuals that could exploit today’s business exchange sophistication to personal gains.

In addressing his concern regarding this aspect of the public procurement law, Ato Abrham Yohannes’s premise is:

Generally speaking, the regulatory framework of public procurement as tool in the formulation and implementation of an effective and efficient system of public procurement should be guided by some internationally accepted basic principles. These principles are: transparency, accountability, objectivity, fairness and non-discrimination.
The principle of transparency helps to attract a greater number of participation, thereby encouraging competitiveness. It also makes the whole procurement process open and fair, thus avoiding the possibility of favoritism and discrimination. Transparency also makes it easy for procuring entities and officials to be accountable. Most importantly, it is an effective tool to curb corruption.

In fact, he argues that irrespective of the role played and the level of participation of the government or the private sector, the whole purpose of the exercise is to acquire the best quality of services with minimum cost, which makes an efficient and effective system of public procurement an indispensable necessity.

In other words, if officials running public agencies are left free to act as they like, unchecked by laws and regulations as has been so far, it means that no thought has been given to the fact that they are only lesser gods. In our country’s traditions and the prevailing political environment, they are likely to be constantly torn apart by the temptations of giving and receiving favors to political connections, the pressures of nepotism and expectations of other connections. How many of them mangage do not to blink in the face of it becomes very clear if the constant allegation by the prime minister’s about “our thieves” within his government should serve as a guide to the answer.

It should be borne in mind that it is the good laws in society, their applicability to all that shape and strengthen society’ values. It is a system and same process that everyone follows and governs everyone that can help society get and give its best. This is because in the process individuals could develop faith and confidence in the system and they are also helped to grow and institutions to function better. The author of the article stresses that transparency helps to attract wider participation, thereby encouraging competitiveness. He observes that by itself would make the whole procurement process open and fair, shutting any openings for favoritism and discrimination. Mosat of all, he argues, “Transparency also makes it easy for procuring entities and officials to be accountable.”

While Ato Abrham Yohannes acknowledges the improvement Proclamation No.649/2009 has introduced over a past that has been ‘lawlessness’, he still worries on wo accounts. Firstly, the exception granted to government agencies under Article 3 (2) (b) exonerates them from being subject to procurement regulations and procedures if they intend to participate in the provision of goods, works, consultancy or other services at cost. In effect what happens is that these bodies win contracts without any competition. Because of that they they would not have to labor to improve their performances and the quality of services they provide to the public. Most of all, they would not have to worry about costs since the state budget takes care of it.

His second concern is that this is a federal law and it applies only to federal entities. Unfortunately, the regional states are getting their lessons from a bad teacher. The writer cites the initiatives by the Amhara regional state, Addis Ababa and Dire Dawa administrations that, in devising their own procurement laws, have followed the model of the federal government in turn giving exemptions to their regional state agencies in respect of procurement.

In so doing, just like federal government agencies, the regional governments also have deprived themselves of the prospects of building a better system through greater transparency that competition forces and improves delivery of their services that such a system obliges their agencies to deliver in such areas as education, health, roads, water, extension services to farmers, veterinary, etc –.

As the country moves more and more into regional integration with other neighboring countries, one should not also exclude how its undeveloped procurement laws at the national and regional levels would make it difficult to benefit from good competitive procurement laws or loose out altogether.

I cannot thank enough Abrham Yohannes for putting his finger, as he did on something that has been badly wrong in our country! I share his conviction that, if Ethiopia is to fight corruption successfully, more particularly as a country that has been profusely bleeding, among others, from the rising level of corruption in the country and the massive capital flight it has experienced over the years, the first step to sealing the leaking hole is to design a good law. Only such laws and their proper implementation would stop the bleeding.

It means that, as a first step the country needs to be armed with the requisite laws! The second step is compliance with the law, which cannot be demanded when and where there is no law or regulation to comply with.

http://transformingethiopia.wordpress.com/

Why is Schadomsky bent out of shape over “ethiomedia and similar sites by extension”? Apparently, he had been chewed out, tongue-lashed, dressed down, squeezed, badgered, blackmailed and “monitored” by none other than dictator Meles Zenawi’s doppelganger in charge of information. Schadomsky explained to his staff:

You will be aware of the close monitoring of the Ethiopian government of any activities by our staff members perceived to be ‘opposition activities’. I have a number of names thrown at me by Bereket Simon every time I am in Addis… We will be embarking on another attempt to secure additional licenses in Ethiopia. You will appreciate that any activity outside the realm of objective news reporting will harm those efforts, and is generally not in line with our editorial policy.”

In an “Open letter to ethiomedia.com” in January 2012, intended to refute “a number of articles on Ethiomedia alleging self-censorship at DW Amharic,” Schadomsky triumphantly depicted himself as a fearless defender of press freedom and a paragon of journalistic integrity. He declared unabashedly:

I would like to go on record as saying that we at DW Amharic neither bow to pressure from the government of Ethiopia, nor give in to the increasingly outrageous demands made by radicalized opposition figures and organizations. Our editorial policy is guided by one principle only, namely: to provide millions of Ethiopians with access to free and fair information in a country where media freedom is heavily curtailed.

Schadomsky claimed to be “flabbergasted” by allegations made in an “open letter to German Chancellor Angela Merkel that DW Amharic deliberately shuns voices critical of the [Ethiopian] government in its programmes.” He carped, “One expects a certain degree of harassment from an authoritarian government… (but) I did not expect the same, and worse, harassment from people who claim to champion democracy and freedom of speech.” He pontificated: “You don’t have to be a citizen of a country still struggling with its Nazi past to find the phrase ‘the fascist Woyane regime in Addis Ababa’ horribly inappropriate, no matter how much one may disagree with the present government.”

Who is a Disgrace to Press Freedom?

As Schadomsky furiously wags an accusatory finger at “ethiomedia and similar sites by extension” and vilifies them as a “disgrace”, he fails to notice that three fingers are silently and squarely pointing at him. But closer scrutiny of Shadomsky’s claims reveal some unsettling facts:

Editorial Policy: Shadomsky vaguely alludes to DW’s “editorial policy”, which he claims is “guided by one principle only, namely: to provide millions of Ethiopians with access to free and fair information in a country where media freedom is heavily curtailed.” How does he reasonably expect to provide “free and fair information” to the Ethiopian people when is on his hands and knees groveling for “additional broadcasting licenses”? When did freedom (in any from including expression and the press) become a licensable activity or commodity in Germany?

Editorial policy uninformed by ethical and professional standards and principles of press freedom is pointless and delusional. The Code of Ethics of the Society of Professional Journalists (which has been in operation since 1909 and universally adopted by professional journalists) urges journalists to “give voice to the voiceless” and to “tell the story of the diversity and magnitude of the human experience boldly, even when it is unpopular to do so”. It instructs professional journalists to “avoid conflicts of interest, real or perceived” and to “remain free of associations and activities that may compromise integrity or damage credibility.” Schadomsky does not seem to be aware of these obligations.

Curiously, Schadomsky seems to have a very narrow understanding of journalism as he commands his staff to stay away from “any activity outside the realm of objective news reporting”. In pursuit of political correctness and “additional broadcasting licenses”, he has resolved to sacrifice news analysis, editorials and presentation of divergent viewpoints to his audience. Following Schadomsky’s “objective news theory”, DV Amharic could report that a major Ethiopian opposition political figure has been jailed, but related news or discussions of the legality of the imprisonment and the pattern and practice of official political persecution and human rights violations which nurture such arbitrary arrests and detentions in the country would be off limits. “Objective news” is meaningless without context, frame of reference. If “objective news” reporting is about fairness, accuracy and minimization of bias, the best way to achieve that is to allow expression of divergent views and opinions, and not underestimate the intelligence of Ethiopian listeners to separate fact from opinion.

The claim of pursuit of “objective news” is contradicted by other facts. For instance, coverage of certain opposition figures including Birtukan Midekssa while she was in prison was off limits. There is evidence showing that members of Zenawi’s embassy in Germany have met with DW’s Amharic staff at least twice and dictated terms and conditions to Schadomsky for their cooperation and granting of additional licenses. Among these conditions include DV’s avoidance of human rights related issues, banning of certain individuals from DV microphones (a fact Shadomsky admits when he stated in his memo, “I have a number of names thrown at me by Bereket Simon every time I am in Addis…”) and glorification of the economic and political progress made under Zenawi’s leadership.

Schadomsky also appears to believe that his editorial policy of tokenism by inviting a handful of Ethiopian opposition representatives from time to time proves journalistic neutrality and inclusiveness. He seems to believe that an occasional interview with Thilo Hoppe, German lawmaker and critic of Zenawi’s regime, opposition leader Berhanu Nega and “sole opposition MP, Ato Girma Seifu” in Ethiopia adequately represents the diversity of Ethiopian opposition views, or affords opponents of Zenawi’s regime a fair opportunity to be heard. But this policy of tokenism belies Schadomsky’s systematic and relentless browbeaitng and badgering of the Amharic staff to avoid certain subjects and ban certain critics of Zenawi’s regime from DW’s microphones, including Eskinder Nega, the present author and others.

But Schadomsky’s issues appear to go beyond lack of basic familiarity with professional journalistic ethics, conflict of interest principles, difficulties with truth-telling and imperious and cavalier treatment of his staff. Schadomsky can be challenged in three specific areas: 1) He simply cannot back up his accusatory claims which buttress his conclusion that “ethiomedia and similar sites by extension” are a disgrace to press freedom and the politically sober mind. 2) He manifests extreme sensitivity to criticism of his editorial policy or allegations of “self-censorship” and being a regime “mouthpice”. 3) There are significant questions which raise doubt about his professional competence to discharge his duties as editor-in chief of the Amharic program.

Hate Speech: In his January 2012 “Open Letter” Schadomisky alleges: “It is our view that some of the content splashed across certain news sites constitutes hate speech, and DW will not allow opinion pieces by its journalists to be posted alongside hate speech.” This conclusion is unsupported in Art. 5 (1) or other provisions of the Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany (BL). Under the BL, there is a world of difference between offering an opinion and engaging in hate speech. Art. 5(1) guarantees that “Every person shall have the right freely to express and disseminate his opinions in speech, writing…”

On the other hand, hate speech refers to “utterances which tend to insult, intimidate or harass a person or groups or utterances capable of instigating violence, hatred or discrimination.” The German Federal Constitutional Court has held that “opinions are characterized by an element of taking a position and of appraising” and “demonstration of their truth or untruth is impossible.” Consequently, opinions “enjoy the basic right’s (BL) protection regardless of whether their expression is judged to be well-founded or unfounded, emotional or rational, valuable or worthless, dangerous or harmless… and do not lose this protection by being sharply or hurtfully worded.”

Schadomsky’s offers only one concrete example of alleged hate speech by “ethiomedia and similar sites by extension” in his hyperbolic allegations of “splashed hate”. He claims: “You don’t have to be a citizen of a country still struggling with its Nazi past to find the phrase the ‘fascist Woyane regime in Addis Ababa’ horribly inappropriate, no matter how much one may disagree with the present government.”

This alleged example of “hate speech” is nothing more than an opinion — a value judgment, a statement of belief or impression — and is fully protected by Art. 5(1) of BL. Fascism is a discredited, though historically a dominant, political ideology. It extolls a party and state led by one supreme leader who exercises dictatorial powers over the party, the government and other state institutions. Fascist regimes reject liberal (“neoliberal”) forms of democracy based on majority rule and egalitarianism in favor of centralized power in the hands of a few.

It is not “hate speech” for one to call a regime a “fascist Woyane regime” (“Woyane” referring to a rebellion in Northern Ethiopia in 1943) if one holds such an opinion. Neither is it hate speech to lambaste Diaspora Ethiopian critics as “fundamentalist neo-liberals”, “extremist hardliners” or to bandy other silly but colorful descriptions.

Extreme Sensitivity to Criticism. For reasons that are not apparent, Schadomsky goes ballistic when faced with criticism. He seems to be particularly stung by criticism that his program practices “self-censorship” and has become a “mouthpiece” of Zenawi’s regime, something he claims has “dumfounded him” in light of the fact that the “Government of Ethiopia routinely jams our broadcasts for months at a time… and [has] refused us additional reporter licenses”. To paraphrase Shakespeare, “Schadomsky doth protest too much, methinks.” By overreacting to such criticism, caustic and scathing as they may sound, Schadomsky risks validating them. The fact of the matter is that those in the media must tolerate criticism of their work and role because it comes with the territory. They just have to deal with it, not mope around moaning and groaning about it!

Competence to Serve as Editor-in-Chief: There is evidence to suggest that DW has a basic policy of appointing editors-in-chief in its radio programs who have facility in the particular programming language. For instance, the editors of the Africa programs — Hausa, Kiswahili, Portuguese — are said to be fluent in their respective languages. Schadomsky is said to have no fluency whatsoever in Amharic and largely depends on a single subordinate for advice and counsel in making editorial decisions. While this is an administrative matter, it does detract significantly from Schadomsky’s claim “to provide millions of Ethiopians with access to free and fair information in a country where media freedom is heavily curtailed.” His handicap in the Amharic language and reliance on the “heavily curtailed” information he receives from a single subordinate makes his claim of serving millions of Ethiopians rather hollow, if not laughable.

Schadomsky’s memo demonstrates that he is obsessed with political correctness, and fearful of unleashing the wrath of the powers that be in Ethiopia. This untenable situation has created a credibility gap for DV and a gullibility gap for Schadomsky. He can claim that there is no “self-censorship” at DV Amharic; but his memorandum is proof positive that there is not only self-censorship but also fear and loathing among his staff who wince at the very thought of expressing their views under his gag order. He can mount a campaign of fear and smear against “ethiomedia and similar websites by extension” and bombard them with verbal pyrotechnics in an attempt to deflect attention from his professional deficits and anemic ethical standards.

The fact of the matter is that the credibility of DV Amharic has been damaged beyond repair after the revelation of Schadomsky’s sanctimonious memorandum. As long as he remains at the helm, DV Amharic will be regarded by millions of Ethiopians as self-censoring, cowardly and trifling. Those who may listen to DV Amharic may do so not out of thirst for useful information but sheer habit. For most, DV Amharic will remain background static noise over the airwaves.

Apology is Due to Ethiomedia and Other Pro-Democracy Ethiopian Websites

Schadomsky owes “ethiomedia and similar sites by extension” an apology. He has unfairly characterized them as hateful and not having a “politically sober mind”. In other words, he has called them crazy hatemongers. They have their own viewpoints and perspectives as they are entitled to have; and they are passionate about their beliefs. Whatever faults they may have, one of them is not putting on a charade of being an independent news agency. I am confident that Ethiomedia and the other Ethiopian pro-democracy websites fully subscribe to the proposition that “A cantankerous press, an obstinate press, a ubiquitous press, must be suffered by those in authority in order to preserve the right of the people to know.”

There is no disgrace in standing up for one’s beliefs; but it is a disgrace to speak with forked tongue. My deepest gratitude and appreciation goes to all of the pro-democracy Ethiopian websites worldwide.