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የመለስ ዜናዊ ድንቀኛ ተረቶች
ከፕሮፌሰር ዓለማየሁ ገብረማርያም ትርጉም ከነጻነት ለሃገሬ ባለፈው ሳምንት በኢትዮጵያ በተካሄደው በ‹‹ ዓለም አቀፉ የኤኮኖሚ ስብሰባ ላይ›› የግፍ ገዢው የፈላጭ ቆራጩ መለስ ዜናዊ አርቲ ቡርቲ መነባንብ: …በኔ እምነት በታሪክም ሆነ በቲዎሪ የኤኮኖሚ እድገትና ዴሞክራሲ ቀጥተኛ ግንኙነትም ሆነ ተዛምዶ የላቸውም፡፡በኔ አመለካከት፤ በኤኮኖሚ እድገት ላይ የሚያስከትለውን ጫና ገሸሽ አድርገን ዴሞክራሲ በራሱ ጥሩ ነገር ነው፡፡በኔ አመለካከት አፍሪካውያን በጣም ስብጥሮች [...]
Send Meles to Guantanamo not to camp David
Press Release May 13, 2012 Condemn President Obama’s invite of Dictator Meles of Ethiopia. President Obama needs to stop supporting African dictators. Obama’s victory raised great excitement, hope and pride for the people of Africa. Unfortunately, his invitation of one of Africa’s worst dictator, Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia to Camp David on May 18, 2012 [...]
Homage to a great Ethiopian soul, Mulugeta Hailu
By Neamin Zeleke Mulugeta Hailu’s sudden death has been a source of much agony and shock to me as much as to countless others who knew and deeply appreciated and loved Mulugeta Hailu. Mule, as many call him affectionately, of course belongs to that generation, the gallant generation that rose up for social transformation of [...]
በካምፕ ዴቪድ የአፍሪካ የችጋር ትርኢት
ከፕሮፌሰር ዓለማየሁ ገብረማርያም ትርጉም ከነጻነት ለሃገሬ ባለፈው ሳምንት የሁዋይት ሀውስ ቤተ መንግስት ቃል አቀባይ ጄይ ካርኒ ፕሬዜዳንት ኦባማ የጋናን፤ የታንዛንያን፤የበኒን ፕሬዜዳንቶችንና መለስ ዜናዊን የስምንቱን የኤኮኖሚ ሃያላን ሃገሮች (G8) ስብሰባ ላይ በካምፕ ዴቪድ ሜሪላንድ በሜይ 19 ስለ ምግብ ዋስትና በሚካሄደው ውይይት ላይ እንዲገኙ መጋበዛቸውን ይፋ አድርገዋል፡፡ የአሜሪካን መንግሥት ለዘመናት ለአፍሪካ አህጉር የምግብ እርዳት ሲያደርግ መክረሙ ይታወቃል፡፡ [...]
A note to President Obama
By Yilma Bekele Dear President Obama, 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 [...]
Massive protest to save Ethiopia
By Robele Ababya, 04 May 2012 World of corruption dominated by thugs 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 [...]
Afework Tekle as rembered by Richard and Rita Pankhurst
As remembered by Richard and Rita Pankhurst Afewerq Tekle was Ethiopia’s most celebrated artist. Born in the old Šawan capital, Ankobar, on 22 October 1932, he was the son of Ato Tekle Mammo, a minor court functionary, and Woizero Felekech Yematawork. As a small child, Afewerq was seriously wounded during the Italian invasion. After the [...]
ይድረስ ለተከበረው ኢትዮጵየዊ ጀግና እስክንድር ነጋ!
ከፕሮፌሰር ዓለማየሁ ገብረማርያም (ትርጉም ከነጻነት ለሃገሬ) አይበገሬው እስክንድር ነጋ! በሜይ 1 2012 ኢትዮጵያዊው ግንባር ቀደም ጋዜጠኛና የፖለቲካ እስረኛ፤ የመጻፍ ነጻነት ተሟጋች አርበኛ፤ እስክንድር ነጋ፤ ከ1922 ጀምሮ በእንቅስቃሴ ላይ የሚገኘውና ለነጻ ፕሬስጥብቅና በመቆምለ ዓለም የጽሁፍ ነጻነት ተነፋጊዎች በመሟገት ላይ ያለው ታዋቂው የአሜሪካ ፔን ፤ ድርጅት ጭቆናንና አፈናን አሻፈረን በማለት በግፈኛ ገዢዎች ወደ ወህኒ ለሚታፈኑ የሚሰጠው ታላቁ [...]
በሳን ሆዜ፣ ሳንፍራንሲስኮ አካባቢ ታላቅ ስብሰባ May 5 ስብሰባ ሊያደርጉ ነው።
San Jose Brochure
ፍጥረታዊ ፍትሕ ወይስ ዘረኛ ፍርደገምድልነት?
ከፕሮፌሰር ዓለማየሁ ገብረማርያም (ትርጉም ከነጻነት ለሃገሬ) ተበዳዩን እንደ ወንጀለኛ! ባለፈው ሳምንት በኢትዮጵያ የመርገጫ ማህተም የሆነውን ፓርላማ ግፈኛው ፈላጭ ቆራጭ መለስ ዜናዊ ተገደው ከደቡብ ኢትዮጵያ ‹‹የተፈናቀሉትን›› የአማራዎች (አንዳንዶች‹‹በተንኮል ዘዴ ዘር ማጥፋት›› ብለውታል) በተመለከተ፤ በጉዳዩ ላይ ተቃውሞ ያሰሙትንና ፤ ዜናውን እንዲሰራጭ ያደረጉትን፤ በደፈናው ሃላፊነት የሌላቸው በማለት በማዉገዝና እውነቱን ሸምጥጦ በመካድ ጨርሶ መፈናቀል እንዳልተካሄደ ለማሳመን ሲፈላሰፍ ታይቷል፡፡ መለስ [...]
The giant shows signs of life
By Yilma Bekele I feel energized. Our freedom tree is bearing fruits. It is the result of the tireless effort of thousands if not millions of us working together in harmony. Due to the miracle of the Internet such as our independent Web sites and Social Media such as Facebook and Twitter and our potent [...]
Sisay Agena’s book launch in DC
Journalist Sisay Agena has published a new book. The book entitled Yekalitiw Mengist , will be launched in Washington DC, the coming Sunday, April 22. There will be a book signing and discussion program. Colleagues and friends of Sisay will be give brief speeches about his contributions for the press press in Ethiopia and now [...]
UN must stop barbarism in the Middle East
By Aie Zi Guo The Middle East is the epicentre of the world’s great religions: Christianity, Islam and Judaism. Great mathematicians, scientist and engineers originated from this part of the world. The pyramids of Egypt, the Walls of Babylon, the lamps of Aladdin, the great pharaohs etc are historical testaments of the ancient civilizations of [...]
Ridding Ethiopia TPLF injustice
One-people; one country! One man; one vote! 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 [...]
Ethiopia: The Bridge on the Road(map) to Democracy
Alemayehu G Mariam–Last week I had an opportunity to address a town hall meeting in Seattle sponsored by the Ethiopian Public Forum in Seattle (EPFS), a civil society organization dedicated to promoting broad dialogue, debate and discussion on Ethiopia’s future. I was asked to articulate my views on Ethiopia’s transition from dictatorships to democracy in light of my recent emphatic commentaries on the subject.
ኢትዮጵያ፤ ወደ ዴሞክራሲ የመጓዣው ጎዳና ካርታ ላይ
ከፕሮፌሰር ዓለማየሁ ገብረማርያም ትርጉም ከነጻነት ለሃገሬ ባለፈው ሳምንት በሲያትል ከተማ የኢትዮጵያን ራዕይ በተመለከተ ሰፊ ሕዝባዊ ውይይት፤ ክርክር፤ ለማካሄድ በተመሰረተ የኢትዮጵያ ሕዝባዊ ፎረም ላይ (EPFS)ላይ ተጋብዤ ተገኝቼ ነበር:: በዚህምስብሰባ ላይ በቅርቡ ሳቀርባቸው በነበሩት የኢትዮጵያን ከፈላጭ ቆራጭ ግዛት ወደ ዴሞክራሲያዊ አስተዳደር ሽግግርን በተመለከተ ማብራሪያ እንድሰጥ ተጠይቄ ነበር፡፡ እኔ በኢትዮጵያ ከፈላጭ ቆራጭ አገዛዝ ወደ ዴሞክራሲያዊ አስተዳደር ሊካሄድ ስለሚገባው [...]
Southern Ethiopia-the playground of Meles Zenawi
By Yilma Bekele Most locations are just bland places. There is not much variation in the topography. Look at Google satellite map of Africa and you will see what I mean. Endless flat land, a stretch of desert, an occasional river or a few hills is the norm. Our Ethiopia is different. In the North [...]
“Get out, you don’t belong here”
By Ephrem Madebo When I recently heard the sickening news of mass deportation of ethnic Amharas form the southern regional state, my stomach flipped and somehow I was catapulted back to my boyhood when I was a student in Awassa Comboni Elementary School. The Comboni School of my time was home to Amharas, Ormos, Wolayitas, [...]
የኢትዮጵያ ሽግግር ወደ ዴሞክራሲና የማንነት ፖለቲካ
ከፕሮፌሰር ዓለማየሁ ገብረማርያም ትርጉም ከነጻነት ለሃገሬ በኢትዮጵያ ታሪክ ራሱን ይደጋግመዋል ባለፈው ሳምንት የአሜሪካን ድምጽ የአማርኛው ፕሮግራም ዘገባ ከሃገሪቱ ደቡባዊ ክፍል በግዳጅ ከቀዬአቸው የተፈናቀሉትን በርካታ ኢትዮጵያዊያንን የሚመለከት ነበር፡፡ በዘገባው መሰረት፤ ከዚሁ ከደቡባዊ ክልል በጉራ ፈርዳ በግብርና ይተዳደሩ የነበሩ በርካታ የአማራ ተወላጆች በአካባባዊ ባለስልጣናት ንብረታቸውን ይዘው በአስቸኳይ ከአካባቢው ለቀው ወደ ‹‹ሞት ወረዳ›› የቀድሞ ቀያቸው እንዲሄዱ ለዳግም ስደት [...]
Identity Politics and Ethiopia’s Transition to Democracy
By Prof. Al Mariam–Last week, the Voice of America Amharic radio program reported on the forced official removal (“displacement”) of a large number of people e from the southern part of Ethiopia. According to the report, numerous Amhara farming families from the town of Gura Ferda were ordered by local officials to pack up and go back to their “kilil” ethnic homeland.
Dire need for Amhara-Oromo, et al to unite
By Robele Ababya The dismal performance of the African Union, since its establishment officially in Durban on the 9th of July 2002, is a burning issue especially to genuine intellectuals who have the interests of Africa at heart and the young generation who see their future blighted due to rampant corruption, inept leadership, contagious dictatorial [...]
Can ignore TPLF’s undoing of Ethiopia?
Aklog Birara (PhD) 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.
The last blow to Ethiopiawinet
By Dula Abdu The expulsion of the Amharic speaking people from the South is a final blow to Ethiopiawinet. The masterminds of Ethiopia’s demise have eventually succeeded in putting a death knell to what left of Ethiopia, complete segregation by tribe. By the way, according to the dictionary, a death knell is the ringing of [...]
Loving Ethiopia to death
By Yilma Bekele On November 11, 2011 Yenesew Gebre was driven to kill himself on behalf of all suffering Ethiopians. He killed himself out of love for his people and country. He made the ultimate sacrifice to wake us up so we can see what it means to be humiliated in your own home. Love [...]
Blogger fights terror charges as ruler praised
Last week in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, while Prime Minister Meles Zenawi was making a speech about Africa’s growth potential at an African Union forum, a journalist who his administration has locked away since September on bogus terrorism charges was presenting his defense before a judge. Eskinder Nega has been one of the most outspoken critics of Meles’ domestic leadership over the past two decades and has suffered imprisonment, intimidation, and censorship for it.
በዴሞክራሲያዊ ሽግገር ወቅት የሕግ የበላይነት በኢትዮጵያ
ፕሮፌሰር ዓለማየሁ ገብረማርያም (ትርጉም ከነጻነት ለሃገሬ) የሕግ የበላይነት፤በሰው ሕግ ፤ በሕገቢስነት ባለፉት፡ዓመታት ሳነሳቸው የነበሩት ርእሶች ሁሉ በአንድ መሰረታዊ በሆነ እምነት ላይ የተመሰረቱ ነበሩ፤ ይሄውም፡የሕግ፡የበላይነት ነው::የሕግ የበላይነት ምንድን ነው? በኢትዮጵያስ ከፈላጭ ቆራጭ ስርአት ወደ ዴሞክራሲያዊ ስርአትሽግግር ወቅት እንዴት ሊገነባ ይችላል? ‹‹የሕግ የበላይነት›› የሚለው ቃል ወይም አባባል፤ በለዘበ አለያም በተደጋጋሚ፤በምሁራን፤በሕግ ባለሙያዎች በብዛት ለፖለቲካዊ ውይይት መጠቀሚያነት ውሏል፡፡ የፈላጭ [...]
The Rule of Law in Ethiopia’s Democratic Transition
By Alemayehu G. Mariam 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
The displaced Ethiopians
By Yilma Bekele I am sure we are all familiar with what is known as the ‘melting pot’ concept when it comes to describing how America functions. The term is a metaphor ‘for a heterogeneous society becoming more homogeneous, the different elements “melting together” into a harmonious whole with one common culture. The concept was [...]
ለኢትዮጵያዊያን፤ የጨለመው ስደት በኖርዌይ
ከፕሮፌሰር ዓለማየሁ ገብረማርያም (ትርጉም ከነጻነት ለሃገሬ) በሃገራቸው ባለው ጨካኝና አረመኔያዊ አገዛዝ ሳቢያ፤ገዛዙ በፈጠረው የኑሮ ውድነት፤ የነጻነት እጦት፤በችጋሩ፤ በሙስና፤ አረመኔው መንግሥት ሆን ብሎ፤ አውቆ፤ ፍጥረቱ ለጥፋት ተልእኮው በኢትዮጵያዊያን ላይ ስደትናእንግልትን ማደርጀት ነው፤ በሚፈጽመው የዲያቢሎስ ተግባር ሃገራቸውን ጥለው የተሰደዱት ኢትዮጵያዊያን በሰሜን አፍሪካ፤በመካከለኛው ምስራቅ በሌሎችም የአፍሪካ ሃገራት ለባሰ መከራና ስቃይ እየተዳረጉ ነው፡፡ ኢትዮጵያውስጥ መኖር ሳይሆን ለመኖር ማሰብ እንኳ [...]
No way for Ethiopian refugees in Norway
Alemayehu G Mariam Ethiopians are having a very hard time. Inside their own country, they are victimized by dictatorship, famine and pestilence. Thousands of Ethiopians who have fled political persecution and economic privation caused by systemic and massive corruption and poor governance are facing unspeakable victimization in various parts of North Africa, the Middle East [...]
Interview with activist Meron Ahadu
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ESAT interview with Prof. Raymond Jonas on Adwa
Eritrea: An easy target to Ethiopia
By Simon Tisdall (Guardian) Ethiopia’s military incursion into neighbouring Eritrea, reinforced by weekend follow-up attacks, has received remarkably little international attention – and no outright condemnation, in the west at least. Britain said it was “deeply concerned” but declined to censure Addis Ababa. The US piously urged “restraint”. Eritrea’s demand that the UN security council [...]
እሪ ይበል ወንዙ፤ እሪ ይበል ሃይቁ!
ከዓለማየሁ ገብረማርያም (ትርጉም ከነጻነት ለሃገሬ) ከሶስት ዓመታት ቀደም ብሎ ‹‹እሪ በልልኝ ሃይቁ፤ በተፈጥሮ ላይ የተፈጸመ ወንጀል››በሚል ርዕስ ሳምንታዊ መጣጥፍ አቅርቤ ነበር፡፡ የዚያን ጊዜው መጣጥፌ ያተኮረው በወቅቱ ከአዲስ አበባ በስተ ደቡብ ላይ በ50 ኪሎሜትር ርቀት የሚገኘውና በአንድ ወቅት በጠቃሚ ወንዝነቱ ይታወቅ የነበረውን አሁን ለብክለት የተዳረገውን የቆቃን ሃይቅ ውሃ በመጠጣት፤ለበሽታና ለሞት የተጋለጡትን በአሰርት ሺህ የሚቆጠሩ ኢትዮጵያውያንን ሕለፈት በተመለከተ [...]
Ethiopia and Winds of war
By Yilma Bekele War is upon us again. War defines the Ethiopian Government. Since it came to power it has been at war with its citizens. No region or ethnic group has been spared from this infection. The regime is always at war with opposition politicians, journalists, publishers, intellectuals, and business people to mention a [...]
Delivering on Donald Payne’s Human Rights Legacy
Alemayehu G Mariam Donald Payne Was a Drum Major for Democracy and Human Rights Grassroots Ethiopian human rights groups and activists have been stunned by the death last week of Donald Payne, our strongest ally and advocate in the U.S. Congress. His passing marks a major setback to the cause of freedom, democracy and human [...]
TPLF Inc. survives through repressions
By Aklog Birara, PhD “Where there is corruption, there is more poverty.” Robert Klitgaard, one of the world’s authorities on corruption Those of us who enjoy freedom from constant harassment, intimidation and fear need to remind ourselves each day that the Ethiopian people continue to suffer from poor, corruption-ridden and repressive governance-induced hyperinflation, hunger and [...]
Chatting with a comedian
By Sisay T. Out of the handful entertainers our country has, the one who comes to mind first is undoubtedly Artist Tamagn Beyene. A lot has been said about his talent as a comedian, a host and even as player of musical instruments. Every comedian we know has his own style of presentation, but what [...]
TPL Inc: The ‘aid’ hurdle
By Aklog Birara, PhD “Men’s hearts ought not to set against one another, but set with one another and all against evil today.” Thomas Carlyle Ethiopia is, potentially, one of the richest countries in the world. It is a country that should not be poor. Why? It has the requisite natural resources: ample arable farm [...]
Ethiopia and Syria revisited.
By Yilma Bekele The Syrian regime is killing its own people to save the country from terrorists (Ashebari). The world is watching and keeping score. Thanks to social media such as Twitter and Facebook we are all witnessing this display of total madness safely from our home. The Missile attack on neighborhoods is televised in [...]
The Ethio-Norway forced repatriation in prospect
By Samson Seifu In my previous article entitled ‘’The Ethio-Norway Forced Repatriation Agreement in Retrospect’’ published on 13 February 2012 on different websites, I presented the background and the events which led to the signed Memorandum of Understanding (MoU). In this article the events after the announcement and the prospects afterwards with focus on the [...]
Ethiopia: TPLF Inc. as a “silent killer”
By Dr. Aklog Birara 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 [...]
Top patriot Abichu and his wartime heroic compatriots
By Robele Ababya Safeguarding dignity, liberty and sovereignty 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 [...]
37 years of TPLF and the footprints of Meles Zenawi
By Tesfaye Astsebha and Kahsay Berhe On 19 February 2012, the official 37th birthday of the TPLF, many people in Tigray have to think of their loved ones as martyrs as every year; it is a day for remembering the loss of about 60 000 young women and men; as well as thousands of civilians [...]
Deutsche Welle (Ethiopia): A Disgrace to Press Freedom?
In a memorandum sent to Deutsche Welle’s (DW) [Germany's international broadcaster] “correspondents outside Ethiopia” in late 2010, Ludger Schadomsky, editor-in-chief of DW’s Amharic program, blasted “ethiomedia and similar sites by extension” as a “disgrace” to press freedom. “The amount of hatred splashed across [ethiomedia] is a disgrace to any politically sober mind,” declared Shadomsky self-righteously.
An African victory, a powerful woman and racial truth
Though it may not be noted in every history book, in 1896 the Battle of Adwa took place on the Horn of Africa. The battle pitted the armies of Emperor Menelik II of Ethiopia against invading Italian forces commanded by General Oreste Baraterie. The Ethiopian victory produced a resonance that vibrated the entire western world for a number of reasons. For the first time African forces had defeated a European power bent on forging an empire in Africa. And once again in the history of Ethiopia, the victory was influenced by a powerful Ethiopian woman, Empress Taitu. Also, the question of racial superiority was beginning to affect western societies, especially post-slavery America. Many were surprised that an African nation could defeat a white colonial power such as Italy.
Stop land grabbing and restore indigenous peoples’ lands
Cultural Survival Ethiopia receives more foreign aid than any other African nation—upwards of $3 billion a year. Western governments see Ethiopia as a strategic bulwark in the “global fight against terrorism” and point to its progress toward achieving the Millennium Development Goals, an international program to end poverty and hunger. But Ethiopia’s policies are deliberately [...]
Insight interview with Prof. Donald Levine (Part 1)
Join the protest against brutality in Saudi Arabia
TPLF and the institutionalization of ethnicity
By Aklog Birara (Ph.D.) The pursuit of justice and political pluralism in Ethiopia has been severely compromised deliberately and systematically by the architects of an ethnic polity that is doing irreparable damages to all Ethiopians. Some see merit in the current system and suggest that ‘oppressed nationalities’ are better off today than they were under [...]
The art of bullying Ethiopians
By Yilma Bekele ‘Prime Minster Meles Zenawi said on Wednesday Ethiopia could pardon politicians and journalists arrested under a 2009 anti-terrorism law.’ That news was reported widely including inside Ethiopia. Normally what we hear outside and what the people are told is two different things. This time the message was meant for the Ethiopian people. [...]
The dragon’s dance with hyenas
Alemayehu G. Mariam The Chinese Dragon is dancing the Watusi shuffle with African Hyenas. Things could not be better for the Dragon in Africa. In the middle of what once used to be the African Pride Land now stands a brand-spanking new hyenas’ den called the African Union Hall (AU). Every penny of the USD$200 [...]
Interview with Prof. Donald Levine in Amharic
Prof. Donald Levine gave an extensive interview to the Ethiopian Satellite Television (ESAT) on wide ranging issues related to Ethiopia. ESAT will present the English version in a three-part series. Watch the Amharic interview below.
In support of Addis Dimts
Aklog Birara, PhD No society can advance democratization without access to credible and current information. It is for this reason that experts agree that a free press is the corner stone of democratic countries. The power of information via Twitter, YouTube, the Internet, radio and television undermined tyrannical regimes in North Africa and the Middle [...]
Open letter to Mr. Meles Zenawi
By Robele Ababya, 10 February, 2012 Mr. Zenawi, This letter is prompted by your short speech at the inauguration of the new African Union Headquarters built by the government of China at a cost of 200 million US$ as a ‘gift’ to Africa. In that speech you said “China, its amazing re-emergence and its commitment [...]
When we were the peacemakers
By Yilma Bekele There is a term some use to describe the US as being special. They call it ‘American exceptionalism.’ What the theory tries to define is the special and unique place the US holds due to the revolutionary nature of its founding and the emergence of an American Ideology that is based on [...]
Ethiopia’s conundrum: A statue for Nkrumah or Selassie?
By Janet Shoko / The Africa Report Kwame Nkrumah’s statue, which was recently unveiled at the African Union (AU) headquarters, has sparked anger amongst Ethiopian scholars, historians and politicians, who feel the country’s former leader Haile Selassie deserved the honour. Members of Parliament have also been drawn into the debate and on Wednesday raised the [...]
The Sino-African dictators corporation headquarters
The news about the new china’s building in Addis Ababa has inundated the African News Media. According to some news reports [1, 2], the current chairman of African tyrants expressed: “this building is the reflection of the new Africa, and the future we want for Africa.” What an embarrassing statement! In my opinion this man who talked representing his beggar friends should have said the building is the reflection of the current African dictators and the future these dictators want.
U.S. ally Ethiopia worst human rights abuser
By Jeff Furman–In recent years, investigations and reports carried out by independent organizations have described the steadily worsening human rights picture in Ethiopia. A 2007 report from the UN committee that monitors the implementation of the International Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD) was “alarmed” to find that security forces have been “systematically targeting” certain ethnic groups.
We have met the enemy
We’ve met the enemy and he is us. By Yilma Bekele ‘…. he was feared far beyond his might and respected far beyond his support, both which in the end proved meager. … would play one official off of another, promoting sons above their fathers, pitting the members of too-powerful families or clans or unions [...]
Hegemony: Potential for war between Ethiopia & Eritrea
By Robele Ababya The writing is mainly in response to Ethiomedia Editor’s question: “Will Eritrea and Ethiopia go back to war over the ‘volcano attack’? If yes, what do we have to do to stop the return to the 1998-2000 carnage?” posted on 26/01/12. Internecine war of 1998 -2000 The root cause of the ugly [...]
Illegal copy Mengistu’s memoir
By Prof. Donal Levine–The leaders in the EPRP organization who authorized the scanning and posting of the book published by Tsehai Publishers on debteraw.com committed an act that was illegal, unethical, and imprudent. To my mind, that marks it as “un-Ethiopian. ”As I have come to know Ethiopians in many traditions and walks of life, at first hand and through the reports of numerous scholars, I find them essentially law-respecting, ethical, and prudent human beings. Whether it is in observing the laws enacted by an Oromo gumi gayo assembly, a Sidamo town meeting, or Tigrayan court of justice, Ethiopians traditionally express a strong sense of devotion to validly formulated laws and judicial pronouncement
Open letter to President Barack Obama
The Honorable Barack Obama President of the United States of America The White House Washington, D. C. Mister President Ethiopia is deemed to be an ‘important regional security partner’ by the US government and is one of the largest recipients of US aid – over $1 billion a year since 2007. According to Human Right [...]
Ethiopia: Another instance of dysfunction
By Sam Juliano This past week saw a strange and somewhat comical scenario play out in one of the world’s preeminent track powers. Ethiopia, somewhat reeling from a disappointing team performance at the World Championships in Daegu, suspended indefinitely 35 of its finest athletes for not showing at a scheduled training camp. The suspension included [...]
Resettlement debate highlights Ethiopia’s rights problem
By William Davidson (AfricaArguments) Human Rights Watch released its latest highly critical report on Ethiopia last week, claiming abuse and coercion in a resettlement program. While Ethiopia’s government detests the interventions of foreign rights groups, a restrictive law means there are virtually no domestic monitors of abuses. ‘Waiting Here for Death’ screamed the headline of [...]
EFJA calls for concerted global effort to stop abuses
Press release The Ethiopian Free Press Association (EFJA) strongly condemns the use of Ethiopia’s controversial anti-terrorism law to persecute, muzzle and silence critics and journalists. EFJA also calls upon press freedom advocates, human rights organizations and freedom-loving individuals around the world to make concerted international efforts to stop widespread violations of human rights that are [...]
Homeless at home
By Yilma Bekele That is not the worst that has happened to my beloved cousin but that is good enough point to start this tragic saga. I know you are the perfect people I can share this sad story with. I can picture you my dear Ethiopian cousins, upon reading the headline you will bow [...]
The new way of thinking about redistribution
By Geletaw Zeleke For my discussion of the concept of Redistribution I thought it would be good to look at the formation of the word itself first. The term redistribution made of the dependent morpheme re- prefixed to the normative form of the word to distribute. The prefix re- telling of the repetition of the [...]
ክቡር ጠ/ሚኒስትር ፊስቡክ ላይ አድ አርጉኝ! (አቤ ቶኪቻ)
For PDF version click here አቤ ቶኪቻው abeto2007@yahoo.com ውድ ጠቅላይ ሚኒስትር… ብዬ ልጀምር ነበር “ዶሮን ሲያታልሏት በመጫኛ ጣሏት!” ሲሉኝ ታየኝና ተውኩት። አቤ ቶኪቻው ቆይ እስቲ ወዳጄ መጀመሪያ ከእርስዎ ጋር ሰላምታ እንለዋወጥ። እርስዎ ኖት ቀሪ ሃብቴ…! እንዴት አሉልኝ…? ጤናዎ አማን ነው? ግራ ቀኙ ሁሉ ሰላም ውሎ አድሯል? ጎሽ እንዲህ ነው እንጂ የጨዋ መልስ! እርሱ ጠባቂው ለወደፊቱም [...]
USAID supports land grab in Ethiopia (Petition)
Target: President Barack Obama and Dr. Rajiv Shah, USAID administrator Sponsored by: The Oakland Institute & Solidarity Movement for a New Ethiopia (SMNE) Sign Petition Ethiopia, which is deemed an “important regional security partner” by the US government and one of the largest recipients of US aid (over $1 billion a year since 2007), is [...]
Ethiopians in Atlanta to hold ESAT fundraiser
ESAT Atlanta to hold grand fundraiser on February 4, 2012 (Listen)
Ethiopia: Terrorism verdict quashes free speech
(Nairobi) – The Ethiopian Federal High Court on January 19, 2012, convicted three Ethiopian journalists, an opposition leader, and a fifth person under an anti-terrorism law that violates free expression and due process rights, Human Rights Watch said today. The Ethiopian government should immediately drop the case, release the defendants, and investigate their allegations of torture in detention.
Schadomsky and complaints of self-censorship at DW
By Tesfay Atsbeha I wrote an article under the title: “Forced indoctrination” in August 2011 and sent it to several Ethiopian websites. I made the following remark in relation to Mr. Ludger Schadomsky on the last page of the article: “It is unbelievable that some individuals even in the Voice of America and the Deutsche [...]
Ethiopia: Middle Passage to the Middle East
Alemayehu G. Mariam From the International Slave Trade to the International Maid Trade In the days of the Atlantic slave trade, the Middle Passage was the journey of slave trading ships from the west coast of Africa to the New World. Portuguese, British, French, Spanish, Dutch and other slave traders maintained outposts along the African [...]
Standing with Ethiopia’s tenacious blogger, Eskinder Nega
By Jason McLure (CPJ Guest Blogger) It would be hard to find a better symbol of media repression in Africa than Eskinder Nega. The veteran Ethiopian journalist and dissident blogger has been detained at least seven times by Prime Minister Meles Zenawi’s government over the past two decades, and was put back in jail on September 14, 2011, after he published a column calling for the government to respect freedom of speech and freedom of assembly and to end torture in prisons. Eskinder now faces terrorism charges, and if convicted could face the death sentence. He’s not alone: Ethiopia currently has seven journalists behind bars. More journalists have fled Ethiopia over the past decade than any other country in the world, according to CPJ.
OLF and Ethiopian sovereignty
By Zerihun Abebe Recently there is a growing debate within OLF regarding its stand on the question of a democratic Ethiopian unity and there seem to be a revitalization of the question of ethno-nationalism and Ethiopian sovereignty among the Diaspora. There are now a group of individuals who officially identified themselves and recognized by others [...]
The integrity of public writing
By Ephrem Madebo The recent land mark program change decision by one of the OLF factions has created a political wave that rocked political actors, civic society leaders and everyday Ethiopians from San Francesco to London, from Norway to Down Under and in all localities of Ethiopia. As important and as bold the decision was, [...]
A tale of two Swedish journalists
By Hindessa Abdul On July 1, 2011 freelance journalist Johan Persson and photo journalist Martin Schibbye were detained in the Ogaden region of Ethiopia. There are two versions as to why the Swedes were in the area. The first one, according to The Local, a Swedish online news journal, was to “report on the conflict [...]
Abusive old OLF leaders short of new ideas
By Robele Ababya, 11 January 2012 The new OLF’s reversal of its secession policy has no doubt sent a shockwave in the camp of Old OLF’s faction linked to the pariah dictator of Eritrea supporting the terrorist Al Shabab. The outpouring support to the new OLF has eclipsed the cry in the wilderness of the [...]
Why ethnic-federalism deters development
Aklog Birara, PhD “Hunger is actually the worst of all weapons of mass destruction, claiming millions of victims every year. Fighting hunger and poverty and promoting development are the truly sustainable way to achieve world peace. There will be no peace without development, and there will be neither peace nor development without justice.” Brazilian President [...]
The tell-tale signs of a falling ‘empire’
By Yohanes Berhe Empires don’t just fall suddenly, it’s a gradual process. A classic example is the “The fall of Roman Empire”, where the phrase itself become part of the conventional parlance to denote the occurrence of such event. The Romans did not wake up one day to find their Empire gone. Notwithstanding the ongoing [...]
OLF and Ethiopia
By Yilma Bekele The news that the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) has decided to struggle for freedom in consort with all Democratic forces in Ethiopia is the best Christmas present the Ethiopian people gave themselves. There is no question we are entering a new chapter in our struggle to be free like any other human [...]
Meles Zenawi and the “Republic of Tigray”
Amanuel Biedemariam On a recent interview with ESAT, former US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, Ambassador Herman Cohen made some startling revelations regarding matters that influenced the history of the peoples of Eritrea and Ethiopia. While I am not a fan of the Ambassador and cognizant of the negative roles he played on [...]
The ‘new’ OLF program: much ado about nothing
by Jawar Mohammed Earlier this week, one of the several OLF factions announced that it had adapted a new political program that apparently drops the ‘secessionist’ agenda. This announcement was preceded and followed by hyped fanfare by Ginbot 7 and its affiliates. The news had excited a segment of Ethiopia’s political community long haunted by [...]
Meles’ shame and the dead-end of hatred
By Messay Kebede (PhD) Meles Zenawi’s blatant hatred of Ethiopia is a puzzle that Ethiopian intellectual circles have in vain tried to decipher. While some propose the suggestion that the hatred betrays his commitment to his Eritrean side, others consider it as an expression of his ethnic racism. Still others remain baffled, unable as they [...]
OLF’s bold move to reverse secession
By Robele Ababya It was like I was hit by a thunderbolt when I heard the long yearned news that the OLF has reversed and discarded its secessionist policy at last affirming its commitment to the unity of Ethiopia and vowing to fully participate in coordinated struggles to stem tyranny in Ethiopia. I was numb [...]
Bereket Simon writes a book?
By Yilma Bekele Did you see what was coming out of North Korea this week? Someone referred to it as the ‘world’s largest display of uncontrollable grief.’ Kim Jung un ‘the Brilliant Comrade’ succeeded his father Kim Jung il ‘the Dear Leader’ who took over from his Grand Father the ‘Great Leader.’ The Korean people [...]
G7, OLF and EPRDF in 2012
By Yared Ayicheh, January 2, 2012 Ethiopia’s politics is hungry for result, for that matter, any result, from anyone, from Satan or God. But we want result. At least I know I want result, not talk, I want to see the political stalemate to end. But deep inside I know that is out of desperateness [...]
Ethiopians can indeed unite…
Ethiopians Can Indeed Unite if they are Willing, Part Six (d) of six Aklog Birara, PhD The December 28, 2011, video on “Ethiopian domestic workers in the Middle East” represents the ugly and inhumane face of uncaring, callous and debilitating governance in Ethiopia today. The voice of the young woman whose cries and pleas moved [...]
An “African Spring” in 2012?
Alemayehu G Mariam Waiting for the Dawn of “Africa’s Spring” in 2012? How about an “EthiopianTsedey” in 2012? In 2011, we witnessed the “Winter of Arab” discontent made glorious by an “Arab Spring” followed by an increasingly hot “Arab Summer” and deeply troubled “Arab Fall”. Bashir al-Assad continues to massacre his people by the dozens [...]
USCIS and alleged fraud of exporting Ethiopian children
Yosef Yacob, PhD, LLM, JD The processing of petitions filed by United States citizens for adoption of children from Ethiopia continues to raise serious legal and ethical concerns. [How Ethiopia's Adoption Industry Dupes Families and Bullies Activists.] In an earlier commentary, I sought to highlight the potential national security implications incident to the apparent failure [...]
Loving Ethiopia to death – the teacher
By Yilma Bekele The last few months I have been inflicted with a Herman Cain (HC) moment. You remember his interview with a newspaper publisher and when asked his opinion regarding President Obama’s policy on the uprising in Libya? My good old friend was completely stumped. After crossing his legs, shifting in his seat, clapping [...]
Ethiopians Can Indeed Unite
Ethiopians Can Indeed Unite if they are Willing, Part Six (c) of Six Aklog Birara, PhD In my capacity as the World Bank Group’s first and only Senior Advisor on Racial Equality (SARE), I had the privilege of representing this multilateral agency in numerous forums around the globe. The issue at hand was racial, gender, [...]
Ethiopia: 2011 in the Republic of Corruptistan
Alemayehu G. Mariam In December 2008, I wrote a weekly column entitled “Groundhog Year in Prison Nation” summarizing some of my weekly columns for that year. I used the “groundhog” metaphor from a popular motion picture in which a hapless television weatherman is trapped in a time warp and finds himself reliving the same day [...]
Operation ‘bulk coffee’ busted
By Wondwossen Mezlekia December 20, 2011 Last month, coffee buyers across the globe had a rare glimpse into Ethiopians’ day to day experience, where haphazard policymaking is used by the government to interfere in and control people’s business whenever it feels like it. A new directive requiring the shipment of coffee in bulk container (a [...]
Evolution of Dictatorship: Contrasting Burma with Ethiopia
Messay Kebede Since the release of Aung San Suu Kyi, the iconic leader of the opposition to the military rule, Burma’s (Myanmar) political evolution has become an important discussion topic for political observers and analysts. Detecting a promising shift toward democratic opening, Hillary Clinton recently visited Burma and held talks with political leaders. The hope [...]
Ethiopia: Land of blood or land of corruption?
Alemayehu G Mariam–Lately, the portrait of Ethiopia painted in the reports of Transparency International (Corruption Index) and Global Financial Integrity shows a “Land of Corruption”. That contrasts with an equally revolting portrait of Ethiopia painted in a recent broadcast of a fear-mongering three-part propaganda programentitled “Akeldama” (or Land of Blood) on state-owned television.
Ethiopians can indeed unite…
Ethiopians Can Indeed Unite if they are Willing Part Six (b) of Six—continuation Aklog Birara, PhD In Part Six (a), I offered a set of suggestions about our individual and group behaviors that must change in order to advance the human condition in Ethiopia. The tendency of my own generation to see issues in “black [...]
A climate of corruption, Ethiopian edition
By Janice Winter (Daily Maverick) COP17 is being hailed as “groundbreaking” as a deal was agreed after 14 days of difficult and, at times, deadlocked talks. One of the most contentious issues for Africa was the Green Climate Fund, which will go ahead despite anger at the overall failure of developed countries to commit investments. [...]
Thank you Amnesty, says Birtukan
Ahmar Mustikhan’s note: I first heard heard her name at Busboys & Poets at an event three years ago that was organized by the Amnesty International DC volunteers, a group of young Americans in the nation’s capital dedicated to making a difference in the world. Since then I made it a point to ask any [...]
Girma Birru, the dam, and the capital outflow
By Teferi Mengistie In a recent meeting held in Dallas, the soft spoken, Ambassador Girma Birru has tried his best to explain the rationale behind building the much heralded Renaissance Dam. I happen to have a chance to hear what he said in that fund raising night. In his narration, he stretched the timeline to [...]
“Akeldam” can’t eclipse demand for justice
The people’s demand for democracy and justice cannot be eclipsed by the “Akeldama” drama A press statement issued by Unity for Democracy and Justice (UDJ) Despite the fact that the people of Ethiopia have, for over four decades, waged a struggle that required precious sacrifices, they have not been able to establish a democratic system [...]
Ethiopians can indeed unite
Aklog Birara, PhD ( Six (a) of Six) The road ahead calls for sea changes in mindset I should like to set the framework for the set of specific suggestions promised in Part Five (b) of Six. Unity does not occur by chance. It takes commitment, hard work, a sense of belonging; and cooperation from [...]
Swedish journalists expect verdict
By Peter Heinlein (VOA) The trial of two Swedish journalists charged with supporting terrorism in Ethiopia has ended with a discussion of the role of reporters in conflict zones. The defense wrapped up its case by calling two veteran foreign correspondents as witnesses. A three-judge Ethiopian federal court panel is to hand down a verdict [...]
The fallacy of identity politics
By Yohannes Berhe Reason over emotion A favourite motto of mine, by the late Prime Minister of Canada, Pierre Elliott Trudeau, is “Reason over Passion / La raison avant la passion”. Among his many initiatives as Prime Minster, the charismatic Trudeau was particularly known for leading the fight against the separatist movement in the province of [...]
Famine of morality and superfluity of hypocrisy
Belayneh Abate I have never witnessed universal peace although one of the current ill-famed and self- acclaimed patriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahido church claims on his official stamp that he is the honorary president of the world religious peace. As a result, I have been searching to find out parameters that could guide me [...]
I am Eskinder Nega
By Anonymous I am one of the many voices of Eskinder Nega…. Eskinder is now in the infamous Maekelawi prison but he lives within all of us. He had baptized us all to become his followers with the incessant truth that was oozing consistently out of his pen. Eskinder is now a free man who [...]
Why Ethiopians must unite (Aklog Birara)
Part Five (b) of Six Aklog Birara, PhD In Part Five (a) of this series, I presented what I believe is a compelling case why the current political and socioeconomic system is inimical to the vast majority of the Ethiopian people. Among other things, the system has literally disempowered and disenfranchised them. It arrests, jails [...]
TPLF and the unbalanced growth strategy
By Geletaw Zeleke To help boost the economies of low income countries a development strategy named unbalanced growth theory was introduced by development theorists. With the use of this strategy select economic zones grow at rapid rates, while other economic zones experience stagnation or reduced growth as a result. The objective of this strategy is [...]
The Eruption of a revolution: A time bomb ticking
by Kiflu Hussain, Kampala The Arab world is not yet done with the Arab Spring. While the Egyptians and Yemenians have refused to give no quarter to their respective military dictators, the people of Bahrain whom I thought chickened out are showing us that they have only made a tactical retreat. Once again, they came [...]
Are we condemned to repeat history?
By Yohannes Berhe Close to a half decade now the Ethiopian people have been caught consistently off guard by the wind of change blowing across the nation purporting to establish a new political and social order. The 1960 coup attempt of Brigadier-General Mengistu Neway and his younger brother Girmame Newaye was one of the early [...]
Intervene and deny strategy in Somalia
By Keffyalew Gebremedhin Why deny what the obvious, perhaps a necessary evil? As a matter of habit, Ethiopia is in denial again about dispatching a sizable force across into Somalia nearly a week ago. This is not the first time Ethiopia has been equivocal about such actions. For instance, in November 2006 it did exactly [...]
The November Massacre and the voice of martyrs
By Kirubeal Bekele This is November. November is martyrs month. It belongs to them. November is another name for our Martyrs. This was the month in 2005 when 200 innocent sons and daughters of Ethiopia were massacred on the streets of Addis Abeba. Their innocent heads busted. Their bodies mutilated. Lying on the streets on [...]
Why Ethiopians Must Unite (Aklog Birara)
Aklog Birara, PhD “Give a man a fish and he will eat it for a day. Teach a man to fish and he will eat for a life time.” Confucius In the previous five commentaries, I provided compelling evidence that Ethiopia’s governance is repressive, exclusionary, discriminatory and essentially rent-seeking. The system reinforces itself and keeps [...]
Ethiopian Patriot Yenesew Gebre: Give me Liberty or Give me Death!
By Alemayehu G. Mariam–On 11/11/11, Yenesew Gebre, a 29 year-old Ethiopian school teacher and human rights activist set himself ablaze outside a public meeting hall in the town of Tarcha located in Dawro Zone in Southern Ethiopia. He died three days later from his injuries.
Yenesew paid epic price for freedom in Ethiopia
By Robele Ababya Gratitude to the priceless sacrifice of Yenesew Yenesew Gabre torched himself and paid the ultimate sacrifice for the universally immutable values of freedom, liberty, equality, democracy, social justice, pursuit of happiness for every individual living in a compassionate and caring society governed by the law of the people made by the people [...]
I am another Eskinder Nega
Anonymous From the confines of the dark dungeon in the Kaliti Prison where he is caged, I hear Eskindir’s voice, the whisper of his moving spirit and see the light it emits across Ethiopia and beyond. That must be why, like the millions of my fellow Ethiopians, I have become him, the freedom fighter – [...]
Yenesew’s self-immolation: The ultimate call for justice
By Jawar Mohammed–The self-immolation of Ethiopian high school teacher, Yenesew Gebre, 29, signals a clear message to Ethiopian leaders and their international supporters. In Ethiopian politics, practically everything is contested, a contest that has often taken an ugly face leading to arrests, tortures and disappearances of dissidents.
Love Ethiopia, Fear Its Government
By Temesgen Zewdie It is certainly pleasing to belong to a nation of people known for their hospitality, communal life of sharing and caring, refined social mores, compassionate to faults and longest surviving civilization in the world. With greater initiative and modern marketing, Ethiopia could have been the most preferred tourist destination of Africa, not [...]
Ethiopia: Terrorism and journalists
By Hindessa Abdul The Ethiopian Federal High Court was busy this past week looking into the case of scores of terror suspects that were paraded before them. Unfortunately dozens of them are still at large, but nonetheless tried in absentia. Ethiopian ministry of foreign affairs will be a little busy over the next couple of [...]
Tribute to heroic victims of Zenawi’s terrorism
By Robele Ababya Man was born free, and he is everywhere in chains – Jean-Jacques Rousseau Agonizing news of torture We have heard the gruesome news that our heroes leading peaceful struggle have been brought in chains to the Kangaroo Court in Addis Ababa. Zenawi controls all pillars of democracy as well as the armed [...]
“Freedom of expression has shrunk”
By Keffyalew Gebremedhin Finland’s Minister of International Development Heidi Hautala visited Ethiopia for four days from 23 October to see for herself what difference Finnish aid has made to Ethiopians. It was clear from her engagements with Ethiopian officials and from her public statement where she stands on policy:”In [the] cooperation between Ethiopia and Finland, [...]
I am Andualem Aragie
I am Andualem Aragie. I am Eskinder Nega’s brother in the struggle for democracy, human rights and the rule of law in Ethiopia. We are both political prisoners inside Meles Zenawi’s Maekelawi Prison. I have many brothers and sisters in this prison. Debebe Eshetu, the great stage and film actor is here with me. Others [...]
Why Ethiopians Must Unite
Aklog Birara, PhD (Part 4) In part three of this series, I indicated that there are major social and economic hurdles ordinary Ethiopians face each day that should compel Ethiopian opposition groups within and outside the country and the rest of us to make is their singular business to advance the cause of unity and [...]
የነገው አስፈራኝ (የሻንበል በላይነህ አዲስ ዘፈን)
በክፍሌ አቦቸር ተደርሶና በሻንበል በላይነህ አቀንቃኝነት ለህዝብ የቀረበው “የነገው አስፈራኝ” የተሰኘው ዜማ ጥልቅ መልክት የያዘ ነው። ይህ ዘፈን ዛሬ ህዝብን ከፋፍሎና አዱን ባንዱ ላይ እያነሳሱ የመግዛት ስልት ነገ ኢትዮጵያን አስፈሪ አዘቅት ውስጥ እንደሚከት ያስገነዝባል። ይህ ዜማ ለኢሳት አማካኝነት ለህዝብ እንዲደርስ በስጥታ ተበርክትዋል። “የነገው አስፈራኝ”
Gear up for the long haul
What I have grown to dislike is the reading of articles predicting the imminent collapse of Meles and his regime. Often written by people who sound serious, the articles affirm, with a nauseating regularity, that the regime is on its last legs without, however, giving any evidence supporting their prediction, except the state of generalized dissatisfaction of the Ethiopian society.
To Catch Africa’s Biggest Thieves Hiding in America!
Al Mariam–For the past four decades, a plague of cold-blooded thieves has descended upon Africa like a swarm of blood sucking ticks. These thieves masquerading as leaders have been trafficking in Africa’s natural resources and trading in the wealth created by the blood, tears and sweat of African peoples.
Dr. David Shinn and his peasant-based analysis
By Hewan Daniel, California–I watched a recent interview Abebe Gellaw held with Ambassador Dr. David Shinn, former US Ambassador to Ethiopia, on the Ethiopian Satellite Television (ESAT). He is a professor and Horn of Africa analyst. I have found the interview very informative and insightful especially in terms of understanding how the US, just like during the Cold War, is still obsessed with narrow “national interest” at the expense universal values of liberty and democracy, and of course when it comes to weaker African countries like Ethiopia.
African Dictators: The People Don’t Love You!
Alemayehu G. Mariam In February 2011, at the onset of the Libyan Revolution, Moamar Gadhaffi trumpeted to the world, “They love me. All my people with me, they love me. They will die to protect me, my people.” He called the rebels fighting to oust him from power “rats and cockroaches”. He believed it was [...]
The courage to swallow the bitter truth
The Courage to Swallow the Bitter Truth By Tecola W. Hagos “Life is fired at us point blank.” [José Ortega y Gasset (1883 – 1955)] I. Introduction The main purpose of my recent article “Men for All Seasons” (Part One and Part Two) was to help bring about the freedom of Eskinder Nega and Andualem [...]
Meles urging Africa to move to green economy…
By Keffyalew Gebremedhin These days, Prime Minister Meles Zenawi is in his ‘green economy’ mind. The problem with this state of mind is its inadequacy to differentiate between reality and aspirations. Whatever his definition of green economy, Meles has not said it in clearer terms heretofore in the Ethiopian context, i.e., until Tuesday 25 October [...]
SOS Awramba Times and Fetehe
By Hindessa Abdul Two Ethiopian privately owned newspapers are on the verge of folding. Six months ago the ploy used to kill the private press was a price hike on printing costs. That evidently did not work. Now the government is trying to silence them by all means possible. An orchestrated campaign against these newspapers [...]
Kangaroo justice for two Swedish journalists
Alemayehu G. Mariam–The old adage is that “ignorance of the law is no excuse.” Could it be said equally that arrogance excuses ignorance of the law? Dictator-in-chief Meles Zenawi recently proclaimed the guilt of freelance Swedish journalists Johan Persson and Martin Schibbye on charges of “terrorism” while visiting Norway.
What Indian companies do in Ethiopia…
African land grab: what Indian companies do in Ethiopia is What they are not allowed to do In India By Keffyalew Gebremedhin The question of land grab in Ethiopia and indeed in other developing countries would remain a topic of national and international conversations. The Ethiopian government is fully aware of this and has been [...]
Zenawi rubbing Sweden’s nose in the mud
By G. Samson The Meles Zenawi dictatorial regime is aiming at retaliating against Sweden for its longstanding criticisms of its human rights records. For a long time, Meles has also been angered by the pressure brought to bear on his regime by the previous Swedish government in being persistent about the release of Judge Britukan [...]
Ordeal of heroes and heroines under arrest in Ethiopia
BY Robele Ababya–I salute with all humility and candor all suffering ladies – among them Serkalem Fasil and Dr. Selam Aschalew who are dearly missing their spouses languishing in prison and Reeyot Alemu – the trio and other illustrious heroines are making heavy sacrifices on behalf of all their fellow citizens; they and other ladies in similar hardship are bearers of our hope for dignity, liberty, freedom, prosperity, democracy and justice in our Motherland, Ethiopia.
Defending the indefensible
By Tibebe Samuel Ferenji In mid 1994, when my father Samuel Ferenji, wrote and published a piece about the history of emperor Yohannes, the Honorable Mamo Wudneh responded by criticizing the historical accounts of my father. In his response, the Honorable Mamo Wudneh began by stating that it was considered unethical in Ethiopia’s Ministry of [...]
Eskinder Nega and Andualem Arage: Men of all seasons
We Ethiopians in the Diaspora do not seem to have a clear understanding of the seriousness of our problems. Over and above the political fracture and the economic total failure that Ethiopia is subjected to, our moral and social values are being destroyed also by greed and by total unfettered selfishness.
Eskinder Nega and Andualem Arage: Men for all Seasons
By Tecola W. Hagos “Will you walk into my parlor?” said the Spider to the Fly, “Oh no, no,” said the little Fly, “to ask me is in vain, For who goes up your winding stair can ne’er come down again.” Mary Howitt (1799-1888) PART ONE I. Eskinder Nega and Andualem Arage: Men for all Seasons [...]
Ethiopia’s highly distorted monetary policy
By Keffyalew Gebremedhin The Ethiopian Central Statistics Agency (CSA) on 11 October reported that overall inflation in Ethiopia in September 2011 remained as high as 40.1 percent. At the same time, food inflation has risen to 51 percent. With an increase of 24.2 percent, non-food inflation has stuck at 24.7 percent. The main reason for [...]
Don’t Kill Them; Break Them
By Messay Kebede (PhD) In the final analysis, the difference between the Derg and the Woyanne regime in terms of repression and exclusiveness is becoming blurred by the day since the 2005 election. In a previous article, I indicated that the toughening of repression is part of a political strategy associated with the “implementation” of [...]
Land grab and food security in Ethiopia
By Shawel Betru, Ph.D. We need food; we don’t have that much land! Food is the most basic of all needs. As early as 18th century the great political economist David Recardo saw man’s never ending demand regardless of his progress. In his Nobel Prize speech in 1970 Norman Borlaug said “civilization as it is [...]
Ethiopia: Divide and Misrule? Unite and Lead!
Alemayehu G. Mariam We, the People… Unity is the most powerful gravitational force in the life of any people or nation. When the Americans founded their Republic, they were driven to transform their colonial identity by creating unity in a new American community. “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a [...]
Serkalem Fasil: Eskinder’s Path
[This is a translation of a piece written in Amharic by the international award-winning Ethiopian journalist Sekalem Fasil on her husband Eskinder Nega, a very well respected and much loved Ethiopian journalist recently jailed by Meles Zenawi’s regime in Ethiopia.] You all know journalist Eskinder Nega. The government agents who recently arrested him say they [...]
Evil Genius, Dictator Meles of Ethiopia
By Dula Abdu Meles uses brute force at home and a massive PR machine abroad to crowd out the opposition and to hide his evil empire. Until their fall many evil geniuses like Ivan the Terrible, Pol Pot, Idi Amin, and Leopold II of Belgium exhibited similar behavior. Internationally, far too many individuals have become [...]
Ethiopian girl died starved in America (Court Document)
Ethiopia: The danger of ethnocentric democracy
A Call for Dialogue By Rev. Tegga Lendado, PhD. The dynamics of democracy and ethnocentricity set a puzzling paradox to my layman’s mind. I am troubled by thinkers who juggle with both political concepts. I will therefore, try to show the danger of African or Ethiopian ethnocentric democracy that advocates the principle of separate but [...]
Open letter to RH Andrew Mitchell
By Zerihun Zelalem Rt. Honourable Andrew Mitchell MP Secretary of State for International Development – UK Dear Sir, I was initiated to write this letter after watching the piece featured on News Night program of the BBC on 21st September 2011, regarding the abuse of aid by the Ethiopian authorities and the interview you gave [...]
Letter to US Secreatary of State Hillary Clinton
The Honorable Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton US Department of State 2201 C Street NW Washington, DC 20520 Madam Secretary: We are Ethiopian-Americans, Ethiopians, and friends of Ethiopia residing in the Washington, DC metropolitan area. We are gathered here in front of the U.S. Department of State today, 26 September 2011, in the wake [...]
Analysis: Did DFID properly investigate Ethiopian aid allegations?
By Angus Stickler (The Bureau of Investigative Journalism) Last month a joint, undercover investigation by the Bureau and Newsnight revealed sickening human rights abuses and the systematic misuse of aid by the Ethiopian government. The response from officials working for Prime Minister Meles Zenawi to the investigation was as expected: a vitriolic attack on our [...]
Born in pain, tortured in life
By Ephrem Madebo Six years ago – a predisposed Ethiopian prosecutor accused journalist Eskinder Nega and his wife, Serkalem Fasil, and charged them with treason. The young couples who love their country and profession were expecting their first child when they were sent to the notorious Kality prison. While in prison, Serkalem gave birth to [...]
Wave of arrests shatters hope for democracy
By Robele Ababya, 20 September 2011 Lives on the line in defense of basic values Parents, grandparents and indeed all genuine Ethiopians and citizens of Ethiopian origin, wherever they are living in our global village, cannot stay put in the face of the increasingly intensifying wave of arrests of Ethiopian political leaders most of them [...]
Ethiopia’s become the locus of mass incarceration (SOCEPP)
Arrests continue to forestall uprising (EAC)
Ethiopian Americans Council (EAC) FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – September 15, 2011 More important opposition party leaders, journalists, and others popular with the people of Ethiopia were arrested earlier this week. Popular Ethiopians Enskinder Nega and Andulalem Andargie Handcuffed, Jailed Popular Ethiopians Enskinder Nega and Andulalem Andargie Handcuffed, JailedThe Ethiopian American Council (EAC) regrets to recount [...]
We are all prisoners (Yilma Bekele)
By Yilma Bekele East Europe suffered under Soviet domination for over fifty years. While West Europe was marching forward, East Europe was engulfed in darkness and hopelessness. The Arabs with all their vast population and abundant natural resources stumbled around for so long they were considered people of no consequences. The East Europeans emerged from [...]
Democracy, irresponsibility, and dictatorship
By Kirubel Bekele It may be too huge a concept to discuss and fully cover in this painfully short article. But we can summarize the dynamics between democracy, irresponsibility, and dictatorship in more concrete and palatable forms in order to meet our day to day challenges of building a free society in Ethiopia. As all [...]
Why I don’t celebrate Ethiopian New Year
Yared Ayicheh Last week a family friend invited me to spend Ethiopian New Years eve at his home. I thought about how to respond to the invitation. Why would I celebrate Ethiopian New Year’s eve? After thinking about it, I told the friend, “I do not celebrate Ethiopian New Year”. My friend was puzzled at [...]
Zenawi cult in the offing amid famine
By Robele Ababya, 09 September 2011 The kleptocratic family of Zenawi’s ‘Golden Race’ is busy in the making of his personality cult amid famine on the watch of AU & immoral donors. His cohorts have dubbed him as “the Statesman leading Africa” despite his tribal policy, which is detrimental to racial harmony in Africa & [...]
Debebe Eshetu’s arrest and New Year
By Eskinder Nega Researchers detail ten types of smile. There is the tight-lipped smile which the English particularly fancy. There is the twisted smile of the angered. There is the dealer-smile of the sly. There is the nothing-I-can-do-smile of defeat. And on it goes. Most people could muster a reasonable mimic of most types of [...]
Ethiopia among worst places for kids
By Keffyalew Gebremedhin As part of its contributions to the 66th United Nations General Assembly Session, Save the Children has ranked in a new index (http://www.savethechildren.org.uk/en/docs/HealthWorkerIndexmain.pdf) the best twenty and worst twenty countries in the world children . By this index, Ethiopia is ranked 17th worst twenty countries, i.e., above Lao P.D.R., Somalia and Chad. [...]
What should starving Ethiopians do?
By Prof. Al Mariam In 1987 when Time Magazine featured a famine-stricken Ethiopian mother on its cover page, it failed to ask the most important question of all: What should Ethiopians do and not do to help themselves? It is the privilege of those who give to pity those who receive. One of the great [...]
Shewaye Molla: the new face of Ethiopia
By Yilma Bekele It looks like we are all upset. All our independent Web sites are headlining the news. It is the main conversation among our people outside of the country. Mere language is not enough to describe our profound displeasure with the Libyan ruling class. Our anger knows no bounds. What exactly is getting [...]
Ethiopia: Time for peaceful action
Eskinder Nega “Of course, you may change the subject of your presentation,” told me a UDJ official affably over his cell phone. “Thanks. Believe me, this is more topical. Anything else would almost be a waste,” I went on, perhaps a bit too enthusiastically. “What do you have in mind,” he asked cautiously. “How to [...]
Land Grab in Gambella (Ephrem Madebo)
By Ephrem Madebo It is inexplicable rather disgraceful that on one side western countries paint Africa as the bread basket of the world, but most western countries and their media talk about dictatorship, corruption and hunger in Africa [which actually is true]. On the other hand, western banks and investment companies, university endowments funds, and [...]
Book Review: Whose port is Asseb?
Review: Abebe Haile Author: Yacob Hailemariam, PhD There have been a continuous flow of articles, commentaries, symposiums, and book chapters on the question ofEthiopia’s right for access to the sea, particularly since the secession of Eritrea in 1993 and the Ethio-Eritrea border war of 1998-2000. However, this is the first book I am aware of [...]
IMF report chiding Meles’ policies
By Keffyalew Gebremedhin The latest IMF report, synthesized after a staff mission to Ethiopia from 18-30 May 2011, strongly underlines that Ethiopia’s macroeconomic performance “has deteriorated markedly”, according to the Ethiopian Reporter (Amharic) of 28 August 2011. What makes the mission’s observations tough for the government to swallow this time is not mainly what it [...]
African Union’s slippery road on Libya
By Keffyalew Gebremedhin The UN wants to be everything to its influential members and main financiers on Libya. To others, it shows smile that do not seem to help it now. Of late, the fact that regional organizations are increasingly becoming afterthoughts is a problem in its own right, as we see it at this [...]
Nile river row: Could it turn violent?
(Reuters) The giggles started when the seventh journalist in a row said that his question was for Egypt’s water and irrigation minister, Mohamed Nasreddin Allam. The non-Egyptian media gave him a bit of a hammering at last week’s talks in Addis Ababa for the nine countries that the Nile passes through. Allam bared his teeth [...]
What should the world do to help starving Ethiopians?
By Alemayehu G. Mariam Nearly a quarter of a century ago, Time Magazine on its cover page asked two weighty questions about recurrent famines in Ethiopia: “Why are Ethiopians starving again? What should the world do and not do” to help them? In my commentary last week, I gave ten reasons in response to the [...]
The Web is 20: Are Ethiopian media on board?
By Hindessa Abdul Though technological innovations are a long process, for the sake of history or patent issues, it has become customary to say something was invented on such day. So the World Wide Web (WWW or 3W) is said to have been invented in August 1991. The British computer scientist, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, is [...]
Syria and Ethiopia–two peas in a pod
Tahrir Square, Misrata, Darra, Homs are becoming a household name. They are home of the brave and the bold. History will show epic battles were fought in this locations and the people won. The battles were not against foreign aggressors but rather it was the people against one of their own. Movies will be made, musicals will be composed and poetry written chronicling the taste of freedom and the average person’s sacrifice to keep it.
Observations of Ethiopians in Paltalk
By Yared Ayicheh After attending Paltalk for four years I feel I need to put my feelings, thoughts and observations about Ethiopian interactions in Paltalk rooms. This is by no means an attempt to scientifically assess the Ethiopian Paltalk subculture; it is just an observation. From the hundreds of nick names I have seen in [...]
Fall of Gaddafi bodes similar fate for tyrants
Fall of Gaddafi bodes similar fate for Zenawi and Afeworqi By Robele Ababya, 25 August 2011 It was no other than my own role model of a smart statesman, former President Bill Clinton, who coined the accolade “New breed of African leaders” during his Presidency and conferred it among others on Isaias Afeworqi of Eritrea [...]
Unity in diversity versus diversity in unity
By Messay Kebede In an article titled “The Question of Unity: Do Words Matter?”, Maimire Mennasemay exposed the poison wrapped in the TPLF’s catchphrase “unity in diversity.” His insightful analysis reveals that the slogan is “diversity-centric,” in that it gives primacy to ethnic identities and conceives of unity as an agglomeration of sovereign and static [...]
Meles Zenawi and the fall of Gadhafi
By Eskinder Nega–Nero was famously eccentric in Roman times. He longed to be remembered for his theatrical abilities rather than leadership of one of the world’s greatest empires. But his other quirks were more horrifying than amusing. He imagined, for example, an implausible bed—yes, bed— which would commit murder. And there were the psychotic eccentricities of Russia’s Ivan the terrible who, as legend has it, had an elephant killed for refusing to bow to him.
The loss of a great friend of Ethiopia
Teklemichael Sahlemariam When I woke up yesterday morning and turned on CBC, I saw a line on the screen which increased my heart rate. The line reads: “Remembering Jack Layton.” I felt like I’ve lost a loved family member, and that is what exactly happened. Jack Layton, a friend of Ethiopians and the leader of [...]
What is my dividend?
Tarekegn Muchie I wonder how the so called Millennium Dam, a seemingly farcical play composed by Ato Meles Zenawi who is a well known playwright of various politically motivated deceptive plays ever since he appeared in the political scene of Ethiopia, could be fanned to the extent of this much; the extent which almost all [...]
Why are Ethiopians starving again in 2011?
By Alemayehu G. Mariam Time Magazine on its December 21, 1987 cover page featured a downcast and crestfallen young Ethiopian mother as a symbol of famine victims in that country. Time asked two timeless questions: “Why are Ethiopians starving again? What should the world do and not do?” In its analysis, Time wrote something that [...]
In search of a common ground
By Yilma Bekele How to manage and resolve conflict has always been our Achilles Heel. That is part of the reason why we stumble from one crisis to another. Last week was a perfect example of an attempt to try to find out a reasonable solution to a problem that arose in our region here [...]
Meles zenawi and Mengistu’s visit to China
By Eskinder Nega, Addis Ababa–This was a bitter sweet visit for Ethiopia’s increasingly precarious PM, Meles Zenawi. It was obvious he traveled to the Orient savoring the ensuing headlines. His cheerful mood was apparent as he boarded the chartered Boeing that was to ferry him to the Middle Kingdom. He was mysteriously all smiles.
Urgent appeal to Ethiopians (ENPCP)
We in the Ethiopian National Priorities Consultative Process (ENPCP) make a special appeal for all Ethiopians across the world to contribute to and support the relief effort to help save the lives of our Ethiopian and Somali brothers and sisters. It is not new that drought has been ravaging the region cyclically. However, the current [...]
When the ‘titans” clash, the people get hurt
By Allelign Sisay I watched the one hour and thirty minutes passionate debate between Ayalsew Dessie and Andargachews Tsege on ESAT TV. The debate was on the principles and strategies for the alliance of political forces with the liberation fronts to fight the current government. A copy of the debate is also posted on Ethiomedia, [...]
Why Eritrea is not begging for food?
By Tedla Asfaw I hold Meles Zenawi’s regime accountable for the famine in Ethiopia. I argued on medias why our starved people are not covered on local as well as International medias like the coverage given to Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya and Mogadishu, Somalia. Meles Zenawi is trying to blame this famine on Al [...]
Irksome debate on the Oromo question
By Robele Ababya I am prompted to write this short piece to argue my case as a proud Ethiopian born to mainly Oromo parentage whose ancestors lived in northern Shoa. As I have always been saying, I neither chose my parents nor place of birth, but I am happy to state that I became a [...]
Forced indoctrination (Tesfaye Atsbeha)
By Tesfay Atsbeha I listened to the interview of Meles Zenawi made in July 2011 and the article by Yilma Bekele on the interview entitled: “Emperor Tewodros and Ato Meles” reminded me of the need to add my views from additional perspectives. The journalist who interviewed Meles and whom Yilma has not mentioned by name [...]
Western aid stifling Democracy in Ethiopia
Ethiopian American Council (EAC)
Though the Ethiopian people have themselves known it for a long time, it should once again become apparent to the world community that the repressive regime in Addis Ababa is using the long-term aid from democracies around the world to stifle the democratic aspirations of this important but economically deprived African country. Nations on the Horn of Africa – Eritrea, Somalia, and to a lesser degree, Kenya – are all experiencing another severe drought this year, along with Ethiopia. The repressive regime of Meles Zenawi has been diverting all aid to the country only to those who are supportive of his party, the Tigray People Liberation Front (TPLF), leaving many thousand of his fellow citizens in dire and life-threatening circumstances.
What went wrong in Eritrea?
By Dawit Mesfin Eritrea’s hard-won independence promised much for the future, but instead it brought repression, war, secrecy and international pariah status I recently read an extensive report prepared by the UN Monitoring group on Somalia and Eritrea (pdf), which said Eritrea was behind a terrorist plot in January against an African Union summit in [...]
Liberty is what Ethiopians need
By Bereket Kelile The modern image of Ethiopia is defined by poverty and famine. Not only do the people lack the basic necessities of life but also the peace and prosperity that are found in a free society. The country has been ravaged by war, ethnic strife, oppression, endemic unemployment, and now rising food costs. [...]
Demystification: Questions to questions?
By Ambassador Imiru Zeleke I would like people to read my message carefully and studiously. I am not advocating any political ideology but for Democracy, Human Rights and the Rule of Law to be the best system of governance for our country and for the future wellbeing of our people. However, I believe that sometimes [...]
The folly of trusting Zenawi’s peacekeeping
By Robele Ababya Birth of the 54th Nation in Africa I was thrilled to watch on TV the birth of the new Republic of South Sudan, which has now become the 193rd Member State of the United Nations. A jubilant mammoth crowd of Sudanese took part to celebrate their hard won independence at the cost [...]
Back breaking tax burden (UDJ)
A press statement issued by Unity for Democracy and Justice (UDJ) Although the private sector of the economy in Ethiopia started to function with some degree of policy guidance some 60 years ago, it is still at the crawling stage. During the era of the monarchy, a somewhat conducive environment was created for domestic and [...]
Standing up for Ethiopian farmers (G Zeleke)
By Geletaw Zeleke In my last article “The Shocking Truth of ‘Double Digit Growth’ ” I spoke of the worsening economic conditions of Ethiopian civil servants over the last 20 years. This decline has resulted in the weakening of Ethiopian civil servants’ economic empowerment (ትዳር የማሸነፍ ጉልበት) by seven times in the face of government [...]
Meles Zenawi and the weaponization of famine
By Prof. Alemayehu G. Mariam–On June 16, 2008, I published a special commentary (reproduced below in its original form) explaining the sysetmatic use of disinformation by Meles Zenawi, the dictator in Ethiopia for two decades, to deny widespread famine in various parts of Ethiopia and insidiously manipulate famine as a political and military weapon to cling to power.
Meles Zenawi`s land lease and famine in Ethiopia
By Seifu Tsegaye Demmissi Failing rains and drought are not the primary causes of the chronic food shortage and persistent famine hitting Ethiopia given the immense potential the country has. Ethiopia is endowed with land and water resources and has the capability to achieve surplus food production and avoid the loss of human lives and [...]
The Diaspora as a teacher (Yilma Bekele)
By Yilma Bekele There are a lot of Ethiopians outside of their homeland. I have not seen a reliable statistics to tell us the real number, but there is no hiding from the fact that we have become a Nation that looks to outside to solve many of our pressing needs. Coffee, hides and lately [...]
Mubarak in court: Is Meles next? (Eskinder Nega)
By Eskinder Nega Thirty years in the limelight and yet Mubarak seldom smiled. Arab leaders rarely do. Perhaps it’s the 600 years under the Ottomans. But the last time he appeared on television, February 10, 2011, there was more than the customary solemnity. The sneer was manifestly apparent. This was after all a veteran solider [...]
Ethiopia aid exposed (Ana Gomes)
Analysis: Europe’s taxpayers fund abuses in Ethiopia By Ana Gomes The EU Election Observation Mission (EUEOM) in Ethiopia assessed in 2010 that ‘the electoral process fell short of international commitments for elections, notably regarding the transparency of the process and the lack of a level playing field for all contesting parties’. An unsurprising conclusion: results of [...]
Human rights and the war on terror in Ethiopia
By Abigail Salisbury–It is not entirely out of the ordinary to hear of the arrest of political dissidents in Ethiopia, but a recent cluster of arrests has drawn attention from the international human rights community. Over the last few weeks, a group of at least nine journalists, Ethiopian National Democratic Party members and others, have been arrested and detained under Ethiopia’s Anti-Terrorism Proclamation No. 652. This added to some two dozen other individuals said to have been charged under the same law over the last couple of months.
Ethiopia: VOA is not VOZ!
By Prof. Alemayehu G. Mariam VOA is the Voice of America. It is emphatically not the VOZ (Voice of Zenawi) or anyone else. Thus spoke VOA Acting Director Steve Redisch responding to the firestorm of controversy surrounding revelations of a blacklist of critics drawn up by the über-dictator Meles Zenawi and presented to a delegation [...]
The United Nations and famine in the Horn of Africa (FM Tsehai)
By Fikre Mariam Tsehai The declaration by the United Nations on July 20, 2011 about the unfolding famine in the Horn of Africa seems tosuggest that such a crisis occurred unexpectedly. The United Nations knows full well that there have been serious food shortages in the region. The U.N also knows that the current famine [...]
Ethiopia and the fears for the future (W Ezezew)
By Wondemhunegn Ezezew The ruling party in Ethiopia has strong historical connection with famine: TPLF was born out of the wombs of the 1974 famine. The military wing of this Front thrived on the back of the 1984 famine when its operatives hijacked some 95 percent of the relief money to buy bombs and ammunitions. [...]
Negaso and EPRDF: The Inside Story (E. Nega)
By Eskinder Nega Book publishing had its golden age in the 60s and 70s. So did theater. The singular genius of Tsegaye Gebre-Medhin, whose magnificent adaptations of Shakespearean plays are arguably the best of their kind anywhere in theworld, inspired and to a large extent sustained a rare, lively world of African theater. It may still [...]
Emperor Tewodros and Meles Zenawi
By Yilma Bekele–I watched a recent interview Meles Zenawi gave to a woman journalist. The edited version on You Tube and our Independent Diaspora sites starts without introduction and ends abruptly. We have no idea who the interviewer is and why she was granted a one-to-one interview. The role she took in the video is that of a question reader not an inquisitive reporter.
Setting the record straight on the Nile (F Amdetsion)
By Fasil Amdetsion The coming together of six East African states to sign the Cooperative Framework Agreement regulating use of the Nile – the first basin-wide agreement to attract the support of a majority of Nile riparian states – has elicited widespread media coverage. Ethiopia’s announcement that it intends to build a new mega dam [...]
Holding BBG and VOA accountable (LJ Demissie)
By LJ Demissie According to the Voice of America (VOA) website, VOA Amharic Service attracts about one-fifth of the adult population. This is one of the largest audiences proportionally of any service at VOA. It appears to me that VOA Amharic Service draws the most audience comparatively of all the services VOA provides due largely [...]
Ethiopia: Dictator with a conscience (Prof. Al Mariam)
By Prof. Alemayehu G. Mariam Ethiopia, Famine and the Oxford Dictionary Oxymorons (figures of speech that combine contradictory terms) can sometimes provide unique insights into the cognitive process. Consider, for instance, the phrase “honest politician”. Is there such a thing? It sounds so comical to talk about “efficient government”? How about an “emerging democracy”? That’s [...]
Cry for ESAT, not VOA
By Elon Samson Almost all critical Ethiopian websites are crammed up with articles about the VOA saga. Reading some of the articles and reports on these websites, one can sense that the writers are filled with deep anger and frustration. I personally don’t understand the source of this deep anger and frustration. I sometimes ask [...]
VOA and its problems (Yilma Bekele)
By Yilma Bekele There is an Amharic saying that comes to mind when you think of the current revealations regarding VOA and its delaings with Ethiopia and Ethiopians. Thanks to Ato Abebe Gellaw’s investigative work we are able to see the inside workings of the independent News Organization. Its crediibility is under a magnifying glass [...]
VOA and Ethiopia: Challenges and Dangers
By Eskinder Nega, Addis Ababa (Ethiopia) Come Monday, July 25, 2011, a protest rally by Ethiopians on 330 Independence Avenue, SW, Washington, DC will most likely draw the keen interest of a southern Republican Senator, Tom Coburn. Here at last is the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), the US government agency which has oversight authority [...]
My reflections on Imru Zeleke’s “deconstruction of Ethiopia” (Elon Samson)
Elon Samson ( elonsamson@gmail.com) I am 38, therefore I am entitled to reflect my views on Ambassador Imru Zeleke’s letter addressed to the people of tomorrow. The People of Tomorrow , according to the Ambassador, includes those in the 20s and 30s. After reading the letter, I asked myself why the Ambassador chose to speak [...]
They chased me out; now they are chasing my idea
By Bahir Kemal Edmund Burke, the 18 century Irish statesman and philosopher, once said: “There were three estates in Parliament, but in the reporters gallery yonder, there sat a fourth estate more important far than they all.” Burke was referring to journalism or what we currently call the media. In Britain, the three branches (estates) [...]
The decontruction of Ethiopia (Amb. Imru Zeleke)
A letter to the people of tomorrow (an uneducated view) You are in your twenties and thirties, you have grown up in one of the most painful era of Ethiopian history, you have been traumatized by the violence and misery that you have endured and seen since your birth. All you have learned and viewed [...]
May I join your “VOA blacklist” club (Eske Meche)
By Eske Meche I want to be in it and I am not. You see, I really, really, really wanted to be in this list and you may or may not want to be in it. It matters who is in it and who is not. And you are in it. It matters who created [...]
Ethiopia: Unfreedom of information (Prof. Al Mariam)
By Prof. Alemayehu G. Mariam Life and Times of Democracy in Africa The long march of democracy in West Africa seems to be well underway. In July 2009, I wrote a weekly commentary marveling about Ghana’s multiparty democracy. Wistfully, I asked the rhetorical question: “Why is democracy in motion in Ghana, and on life-support in [...]
Arrival of the Ethiopian spring
By Yilma Bekele–No one likes a whiner. Why complain insistently when it is of no use. We used to be good at that. Whining was our domain. Did I just say ‘was’? Yes I did. It seems that we are coming out of our shell. The Arab Spring has arrived. The Diaspora is infected with a sense of optimism and hope. It is a very good feeling.
Ethiopian Love Story: EPRDF and Hunger (Eskinder Nega)
By Eskinder Nega The older the nation the more the partiality for reserved leaders. And Ethiopia is famously old. The penchant for romanticized leaders who overpower by mere grace and presence is an enduring national fantasy. The standards of public decorum established by Ethiopia’s royal courts remain undiminished as ever in public imagination. But in [...]
Open letter to President Barack Obama
OPEN LETTER TO PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA The Honorable President Barack Obama The White House Washington, D.C. Dear Mr. President: It is with great disappointment that we Ethiopians learnt the news that, following the meeting between a delegation of the Board of Broadcasting Governors (BBG) and the Communications Minister of the repressive government of Ethiopia, VOA [...]
On the VOA Saga (Ephrem Madebo)
By Ephrem Madebo When the founding fathers of the United States laid down the foundation of the nation, they clearly foresaw the universal role of the new republic; hence, they created a powerful model of liberty, justice, and democracy, not only for the newly born republic; but for the whole world. The founding fathers understood [...]
Meles Zenawi exposing himself in “parliament”
By Keffyalew Gebremedhin Why this article now? Initially, this piece was conceived in my mind as a personal reaction to the 5 July 2011 debate in the Ethiopian parliament at the conclusion of its debate on the 2011-2012 federal budget. I would return to that with some observations, based on experience and career in another [...]
Starvation can be made history in Ethiopia
By Tedla Asfaw Ethiopia needs emergency food aid until the end of this year according to UN. The hope is that if the rain comes we will be OK !! for 2012. The Horn of Africa estimated 10 million people are starving, dying live on TV as we followed it on BBC, in refugees camp [...]
Ethiopia: Apocalypse Now or in 40 Years?
By Prof. Al Mariam–In October, 2009, I wrote a weekly commentary titled, “Famine and the Noisome Beast in Ethiopia”:
It is hard to talk about Ethiopia these days in non-apocalyptic terms. Millions of Ethiopians are facing their old enemy again for the third time in nearly forty years. The Black Horseman of famine is stalking that ancient land. A year ago, Meles Zenawi’s regime denied there was any famine. Only ‘minor problems’ of spot shortages of food which will ‘be soon brought under control,’ it said dismissively.
Reflections on South Sudan’s Independence (Eskinder Nega)
By Eskinder Nega–If it was up to the Egyptians there would be no independent country called Sudan. And briefly, in the mid-nineteenth century, Egypt and present day Sudan were indeed one under the wildly ambitious and much romanticized Albanian Khedive, Ismail the Magnificent. But Victorian Britain, the premier world power in the nineteenth century, and [...]
ESAT interview with Dr. Getachew Begashaw and Dr. Berhanu Nega
Judging by the merit (Bahir Kemal)
By Bahir Kemal The judgment of the merits and faults of the work or actions of an individual or group by another is a short definition of criticism. To criticize does not necessarily imply to find fault, but the word is often taken to mean the simple expression of an objection against. There is variety [...]
Open letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
The Honorable Hillary Rodham Clinton Secretary of State U.S. State Department Washington, D. C. Your Excellency, Constituents for Democracy (Dejen Le Democracy), is a rights based Civil Society organization composed of democratic activists of Ethiopian origin in North Texas. For those who are not aware, you were in the lions’ den when you delivered your [...]
Dissent and terrorism in Ethiopia (Eskinder Nega)
Entrapment is often a controversial but yet an established component of law enforcement even in democracies. But true to form the controversy is wholly absent in authoritarian countries. Entrapment is embraced with spiteful fervor. It is an elemental attribute of tyranny. But more often than not it is the gullibly innocent rather than the unwary [...]
Ethiopia: “Terrorist journalists” and press freedom
By Abebe Gellaw–Two young Ethiopian journalists, Woubishet Taye, Deputy Editor of Awramba Times, and Reyot Alemu, a columnist of Fetih newspaper, have been facing terrorism charges under the controversial “Anti-Terrorism Proclamation No.652/2009”. Coincidentally, it was only last week that the 547-seat Ethiopian Parliament, where the ruling party occupies all but two seats, officially named Al Qaida, Al Shabab, Ginbot 7, the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) and the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF), terrorist groups.
Arab Spring: Nature of armies decisive in revolutions (Shashank Joshi)
Ethiopian free press journalists and the new song in town (Hindessa Abdul)
Hindessa Abdul At any given time there is an Ethiopian journalist in detention either in the notorious Maekelawi, Kerchele, and Kaliti or at times as far in a place as Assosa or even Gondar. Since the mid 1990s, scores of Ethiopian media professionals were put behind bars. The first victims of the government’s harsh response [...]
Ethiopia: U.S. Africa Policy: Empty words, emptier promises
By Prof. Al Mariam–When U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton made a brief stop at the African Union summit meeting in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia a couple of weeks ago, she was talking my language: human rights, democracy, rule of law, accountability, transparency and the rest of it. She announced to the coterie of African dictators that the “status quo had broken” and she had come to talk to them about how they can regain democracy, achieve economic growth, and maintain peace and security.
In Ethiopia, anti-terrorism law chills reporting on security
Mohamed Keita and Tom Rhodes–Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi’s ruling party has designated five groups as terrorist entities.
How can an Ethiopian reporter cover the activities of Ethiopia’s leading opposition figure, Berhanu Nega, or an attack by the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) rebels without risking prosecution and a 20-year prison sentence? Such questions have haunted Ethiopian journalists since a far-reaching anti-terrorism law came into effect in 2009. The law criminalizes any reporting authorities deem to “encourage” or “provide moral support” to groups and causes the government labels as “terrorists.”
Freedom of expression in the eyes my pro-Woyanne friend (K Hussain)
By Kiflu Hussain One pro-Woyanne1 friend of mine, who has been living in America for over two decades, cited Addis Fortune Newspaper as a testimony to the existence of freedom of speech in Ethiopia. Although, I can’t say Addis Fortune is a paper affiliated with Woyanne which is launched to give a semblance of freedom [...]
Constitutional Monarchy or Liberal Democracy? Or Developmental State? (T Hagos)
This way Ethiopia : Constitutional Monarchy or Liberal Democracy? Or Developmental State? By Tecola W. Hagos, June 22, 2011 I. Introduction I am reposting this article with some modification from two years ago because of the fact that our concern and needs have not changed; our political and economic situation has worsened a thousand fold [...]
Developmental State or a Neo-Liberal Economic Policy? (F Bekele)
A reply to Professor Messay`s Essay on a Grand Coalition to save Ethiopia By Fekadu Bekele From the outset I would like to express my frustration that Professor Messay`s article does not have any new substance or cannot be accepted as entailing a thoughtful idea. Those who side with the position of the Professor may [...]
“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere” (UDJ)
“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere” Press statement issued by Unity for Democracy and Justice (UDJ) Since the beginning of the emergence of world powers, superpowers of each epoch have played key roles in the relationship of nations. In the past, instead of aiming at seeing economically and politically stable societies emerge globally, [...]
A few points on democracy vs. development (W Ezezew)
By Wondemhunegn Ezezew The on going debate on the relevance of the “developmental state” for Ethiopia has been really encouraging. Though I was intrigued by Prof. Messay’s emphasis on the role of the elite in shaping the historical courses of their respective countries, I did not, however, like the authoritarian flavour that he wished to [...]
Meles ramps up the fear machine (Yilma Bekele)
By Yilma Bekele “… within an established totalitarian regime the purpose of propaganda is not to persuade, much less to inform, but to humiliate. From this point of view, propaganda should not approximate to the truth as closely as possible: on the contrary it should do as much violence to it as possible. For by [...]
Inside the mind of Meles Zenawi
The Mind of a Dictator By James Fallon, Ph.D. (Psychology Today) ——- James Fallon, Ph.D., is a Professor Emeritus, Anatomy and Neurobiology at the University of California at Irvine School of Medicine. He studies the neuroscience of schizophrenia, Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, as well as hostility and gender. He is the author of Neurotrophic Factors. [...]
Grandma and the Kitchen Story: The Forbidden Territory for Males (Maru Gubena)
What follows is a brief excerpt from my forthcoming book (planned to be a little over 300 pages), “The Ethiopian Revolution and the Generation of the 1970s: Dreams, Memories and Harsh Realities.” The two main characters – Jembernesh and Kurat – were childhood lovers in the 1970s. After being apart for many decades, they unexpectedly [...]
A Rejoinder of Professor Messay’s article: “Meles’s Political Dilemma…”
By Seid Hassan I am writing this brief note as a rejoinder to Professor Messay Kebede’s article titled as “Meles’s Political Dilemma and the Developmental State: Dead-Ends and Exit,” (as posted in http://addisvoice.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Meles-political-dilemma.pdf) and do so without overshadowing the illuminating points that Professor Messay has made and without repeating them here. My rejoinder stems from [...]
The serial plagiarism of Ambassador Tesfaye Habisso (Fikade Shewakena)
By Fekade Shewakena
I was dumbfounded when I first read Abebe Gellaw’s discovery and exposure of Ambassador Tesfaye Habisso’s naked plagiarism 1. I have to redo the search and see for myself to believe it. Talk about stealing a camel and trying to hide it in an open desert. I couldn’t believe the Honorable Ambassador can think of lifting a whole paper written by another person, claim it as his own work, write it on government and pro government media outlets, have it copyright protected and try to hide it, in this day and age of Google.
Mind the Jump: A Brief Response to Messay Kebede (By Abiy Teklemariam)
By Abiye Teklemariam Megenta Professor Messay Kebede’s challenging essay, “Meles Zenawi’s Political Dilemma and the Developmental State: Dead-Ends and Exit”, makes a lot of fresh arguments and suggestions. Some of them are deeply unsettling to many of us who consider ourselves to be part of a pro-democracy struggle in Ethiopia. To the extent that we [...]
World Bank unveiled Zenawi’s voodoo economics (Dula Abdu)
By Dula Abdu The World Bank unravels Meles’ voodoo economics by declaring it ” unsustainable”. In departing and frank remark, Ken Ohashi, World Bank’s director for Ethiopia, said Ethiopia’s five-year plan is a fantasy ” short of discovering huge oil reserves.” on June 8, 2011 to Bloomberg News. He asserted that besides unrealistic saving and [...]
Meles Zenawi’s Political Dilemma and the Developmental State (Messay Kebede)
Ethiopian awakening & the Arab Spring (March4Freedom)
Meles Zenawi: Enduring dictator (CBS)
CBS New Meles Zenawi, Ethiopia This is an installment in the WorldWatch series, “The world’s enduring dictators,” inspired by events in Tunisia and Egypt, in which CBSNews.com takes a look at the men who continue to rule their lands unimpeded by law. See a complete explanation of the series and a list of others profiled [...]
Meles blames the Ethiopian people (Y. Bekele)
By Yilma Bekele. I am not making this up. You can follow the link below and watch the four part video of the leader for life meeting with Ethiopian business leaders.[i] It is a very interesting video. The video is edited and posted on You Tube by Ethiopian TV. I am very grateful. They should [...]
The SEEDs of Hope in the Ethiopian Diaspora
Alemayehu G. Mariam [This commentary is an expanded version of remarks I gave at the annual SEED Award Dinner (Society of Ethiopians Established in Diaspora)[1] held at the Georgetown University Conference Center, Washington, D.C. on May 29, 2011.] I thank the Executive Board of SEED and its chairman Prof. Melaku Lakew for selecting me as [...]
Mobs of the millennium and the Renaissance Dam
By Ephrem Madebo
Power does not corrupt man; fools, however, if they get into a position of power, corrupt power- G. B. Shaw
When I first heard about His Imperial Majesty Haile Selassie’s “billion” dollar Swiss Bank account, I was a naïve 9th grader who has no idea what a million birr was let alone a billion dollar. Actually, I was a green country boy who never heard financial amounts over a couple of thousands and who never new what a television set looked like. Thanks to God, today TV is the last thing I see before I go to bed and it is the first thing I see every time I wake up.
Ethiopian Youth Movement Press Release
Dear Ethiopians May 28 marked the onset of all Ethiopians’ struggle against Meles Zenawi’s dictatorial regime. Our movement was planned months in advance and evoked a response of fear and intimidation in the regime. This was evident in the regime’s preparation for violent response against the peaceful demonstrators. Instead of celebrating the 20th anniversary of [...]
Ethiopia ‘day of rage’ hopes to oust Meles Zenawi from power
By David Smith, Johannesburg (The Guardian)
Democracy activists in Ethiopia have called for “a day of rage” on Saturday in the hope of joining anti-government protests sweeping Africa. An online campaign entitled Beka! – meaning “enough” in the Amharic language – aims to mobilise thousands of people against prime minister Meles Zenawi’s two-decade authoritarian rule.
May 28 and the Message to Meles Zenawi
By Eskinder Nega—Yes. The impossible has happened and come tomorrow 7300 days — twenty years — will come to pass since the astonishing accession of EPRDF to the helm of a nation it had never intended to lead. And a million-plus pro-EPRDF rally is being hastily organized in Addis for the big day, Saturday, May 28th 2011. Here is the EPRDF leadership at its best, cunning, manipulative and callous.
“Beka!”, “Enough!” Will Ethiopia be next?
By Rene Lefort (Open Democracy) Meles Zenawi has been protecting himself from any Arab-spring copy-cat movements in Ethiopia. On balance, it is unlikely that the opposition is strong enough to mount the kind of challenge seen in Egypt and Tunisia. Conditions are not seen to be as brutally unjust in Ethiopia, and no one doubts that the army would be loyal to the Tigray-dominated regime.
Opposition groups vow to coordinate efforts (PR)
A group of political groups, fronts and groups have issues statements condeming the repressions being perpetrated by the Tigray People’s Liberation Front and vowing to fight the injustiuce in a concerted manner. Following is full texts of press releases. ALEJE Demands (Amharic pdf) Amhara-D-F-M Demands (Amharic pdf) EPPF demands (Amharic pdf) Ginbot 7 demands (Amharic [...]
A day of rage in Ethiopia?
(Reuters) Ethiopia’s handful of TV channels are not carrying much news lately. Instead, broadcasters are spending most of their time covering every phase of the construction of a new mega dam along the country’s Nile waters. From mawkish ballads to patriotic poems and documentaries, programmes are waxing eloquently about how far the impoverished African nation has come since the dreaded Communist junta was toppled two decades ago, by defying Egyptian pressure and embarking on a massive project from its own coffers
Book review:The evangelical movement in Ethiopia (Messay Kebede)
Pentecostalism and Orthodox Christianity: Review of Tibebe Eshete’s Book, The Evangelical Movement in Ethiopia Pentecostalism and Orthodox Christianity: Review of Tibebe Eshete’s Book, The Evangelical Movement in Ethiopia Messay Kebede Published by Baylor University Press (2009), the book is a well-researched and abundantly documented account of the inception and spread of evangelical Christianity in Ethiopia. [...]
Africa: Cause Looking for Rebels
Alemayehu G. Mariam MAY 23, 2011 12:44AM Africa: Cause Looking for Rebels [This commentary is based on talk I gave at the first annual University of California, Los Angeles Habesha Student Association[1] Networking Night event held at Ackerman Union on May 14, 2011.] I have been asked to comment on youth political apathy and how [...]
The Sheikh wants his money back (LDJ)
By LJD, May 20, 2011 According to the Ethiopia First website editor, one of the cronies of Sheikh Al Amoudi, the Sheikh withdrew his sponsorship of the Ethiopian Sport Federation in North America (ESFNA). And he is asking back the $240K he donated this year to the organization. It appears that Al Amoudi went public [...]
TPLF and the art of reverse engineering
By Yilma Bekele When you take an object apart to see how it works, or take software and disassemble it to locate the source code, it is referred to as reverse engineering. Basically what you are doing is inverting the system by going backwards the developmental cycle all the way to conception. Reverse engineering begins [...]
Millennium bond: Redemption or deception (Dr. Getachew Begashaw)
Ethiopia: The Silence of Lying Lips (Al Mariam)
By Prof. Alemayehu G. Mariam Lies, Junk and Cut-and-Paste Meles Zenawi, the dictator-in-chief in Ethiopia, says he does not want to talk about the 2010 U.S. State Department Country Reports on Human Rights [Report] in Ethiopia. But speaking through his parrot Hailemariam Desalegn, Zenawi said the Report is a meaningless “cut and paste” exercise and [...]
Abune Mekarios call for radical change (ESAT interview)
Open letter to US State Department (ESAT)
Open letter to US State Department Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor ESAT is the voice of freedom loving Ethiopians In her remark at the release of the US State Department 35th Annual Report to Congress on the State of Human Rights around the World, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, said: “The struggle for [...]
Rivers key to new policy after TPLF’s demise (Robele Ababya)
Nile and other rivers as key to new policy after TPLF demise By Robele Ababya Starting with tribute to Heroic Ethiopians in London This writer was extremely delighted to learn that “TPLF ploy in London was totally ruined”, vide the inspiring report by Wondimu Mekonnen, dated 18 April 2011. Fellow citizens in London deserve lofty [...]
The Lion of Judah in the new world (Book Review)
Book Review Messay Kebede The latest book of Professor Theodore M. Vestal, The Lion of Judah in the New World: Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia and the Shaping of Americans’ Attitudes toward Africa (Praeger, 2011) presents an insightful, focused, and scholarly portrait of Haile Selassie. Revolving around the central issue of knowing how Haile Selassie [...]
Zenawi in his phantom dream to avert uprising in Ethiopia
By Robele Ababya Fitting tribute to heroic Ethiopians in North America This writer was exceedingly delighted by the heroic protest which was so bravely and systematically carried by esteemed fellow Ethiopians in North America and in that noble exercise humiliating the thug emissaries of tyrant Meles Zenawi that came to the United States with sinister [...]
We Export Food to Import Food!
By Nebyu Eyasu In recent years we have witnessed an upsurge of agricultural investment in the third world. Its alleged purpose is to curb the recent global food crisis that has introduced serious volatility in the global food market system, causing significant price hikes on key global foods, such as rice. The price hike in [...]
Why did it take so long to oust Gbagbo? (Keffyalew G. Medhin)
At long last, Ouattara, UN & France unite to remove albatross of sufferings in Côte d’Ivoire By Keffyalew Gebremedhin, 13 April 2011 My optimism for Côte d’Ivoire began, after I listened to Mr Alassane Ouattara’s address to his nation on 7 April 2011. Mr Ouattara appeared presidential in every sense of the word—stature, depth, and [...]
At Your service (Teodros Kiros)
By Teodros Kiros The music roars on, as teenage girls ranging for 13 to 19 are surveying the evening scene in a dimly lit disco, which calls itself, Kokeb, in the city of Addis. Teddy Afro’s music is blasting inside and customers are dancing away, including expatriates with heavy Europeans accents, and the young girls [...]
Ethiopia : Open letter to Ambassador Girma Birru
By Fekade Shewakena Ato Girma Birru, Ambassador of Ethiopia to the United States of America Dear Mr. Ambassador, I am an Ethiopian who lives in suburban Maryland and works for the NIH/NCI, a research institution in Bethesda, Maryland. I am writing this open letter to you in all sincerity and with all the intent to [...]
Meles and our Beka! movement (Yilma Bekele)
By Yilma Bekele By all accounts the minority based dictatorial regime in Ethiopia is in big trouble. Circumstances in the neighborhood are a bit disconcerting to Meles and company. You can tell from the flurry of activity being orchestrated the last three months that Arat Kilo is on pins and needles. The Woyane regime is [...]
Meles Zenawi’s threats against opposition parties
By Eskinder Nega A respectable crowd gathered to listen to him in a popular café in the middle of Piazza on Tuesday, March 15, 2011. They usually do, about once every three months, when he appears on televised sessions of Parliament. But this is hardly an assemblage in anticipation of a grand or an important [...]
Connivance of AU with African despots (Robele Ababya)
By Robele Ababya, 06 April 2011 The ongoing Libyan uprising The ongoing popular uprising in Libya and the brutal onslaught of the Gaddafi regime on pro-democracy opposition forces pounding them with heavy ground military weapons and fighter jet airplanes has no doubt put the relevance of the African Union (AU) on the spotlight [...]
Rulers to Be Wise Men, God-fearers…(T Lendado)
Rulers to Be Wise Men, God-fearers, Truthful and Haters of Unjust Gains Ex. 18:21 By Tegga Lendado Moses was playing the role of a law-giver, teacher, judge and an administrator to his people when Jethro, his father-in-law told him what he was doing was cumbersome for him and for the people he served. He advised [...]
Why Ethiopian and Eritrean youths should work in tandem (R Ababya)
By Roble Ababya Needless to mention that each time tyrants are confronted with suffocating domestic issues they concoct a foreign enemy to divert attention. For tyrant Zenawi, it was war with Egypt over the Blue Nile. Now that his accomplice in the fake drama Hosni Mubarak is disgracefully gone, Zenawi is beating the war drum [...]
Translate this darkness (Waltenegus Dargie)
By Waltenegus Dargie I grew up not very far from the famous Adola Gold Mine. When I was in the 9th grade, I travelled to Adola as a member of the Geographical Society of our High School and visited the ins and outs of the gold mine. The people who received us explained to us [...]
Ivory Coast: Unparalleled defiance against international will ( K G. Medhin)
By Keffyalew Gebremedhin, 30 March 2011 In an article on the IvoryCoast dilemma in its 10 March issue, The Economist had a fantastic and realistic lead that tells today’s tragedy and tomorrow’s story in one paragraph: “WHILE the rest of the world’s attention has been fixed on the upheavals to the north, the crisis in [...]
A failed mission of the Meles regime (G Mersha)
NEWS & THE FAILED MISSION OF THE ETHIOPIAN REGIME AT MIND CONTROL By Genet Mersha, 26 March 2011 By Genet Mersha How Germany comes into the picture I took on this issue to share my take on the news coverage of the review undertaken by the German parliamentary Committee on Economic Cooperation and Development of [...]
Lessons from the Libyan uprising (Seifu Tsegaye)
By Seifu Tsegaye The Middle East and North Africa are now in the spotlight because these are places where dictatorships are being challenged, threatened and toppled. As many Ethiopian commentators have rightly stated, the popular uprisings in these parts of the World have inspired Ethiopians and can reignite the movement for change in Ethiopia too. [...]
Ethiopia: The great land grab debate
(IRIN) Ethiopia has little time for critics of its large-scale land-leasing policy, insisting the millions of dollars of foreign investment will create jobs, improve domestic agricultural expertise and reduce both poverty and the country’s chronic food insecurity. The policy, part of a five-year Growth and Transformation Plan, has led to the cheap leasing of thousands [...]
Revolution betrayed: Ethiopia still reliant on aid
By Robele Ababya Those who think that all military leaders are not apprehensive about war are invited to ponder this quotation: “The world has achieved brilliance without wisdom, power without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants”, attributed to General Omar Nelson Bradley. This concern is similar to that of Jean-Jacques [...]
A response to Prof. Alemayehu G. Mariam (Teddy Girma And Sara Shiferaw)
By Teddy Girma and Sara Shiferaw Dear Editor: In a recent commentary posted on your website, Professor Alemayehu G. Mariam offers an analysis of the American foreign policy in Africa and its negative impact on stifling pro-democracy movements across the continent (“The Moral Hazard of U.S. Policy in Africa – Part I). We are fans [...]
Protests and Addis Ababa University
By Eskinder Nega–Imagine a student movement’s hall of fame, and two countries in Africa, Ethiopia and South Africa, would be its uncontroversial inductees. But whereas rowdy, angry and not particularly ideological students dominated the South African movement, disciplined, focused and highly ideological university students towered prominently over that of Ethiopia.
On Meles Zenawi and OPDO (Jawar Mohammed)
By Jawar Mohammed* A massive purging campaign has hit the Oromo People’s Democratic Organization (OPDO). While purging (later rehabilitating) those seen as disloyal to Meles has been a common practice for the organization, the latest drama that slashed 120 senior and mid-level members, is by far the biggest ever. Reportedly the same fate awaits the [...]
Meles says civilian uprising not possible
By Peter Heilein (VOA)–Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Meles Zenawi has accused a little known Muslim extremist group of staging a wave of church burnings to provoke communal tensions in the Horn of Africa country. Meles expressed concern about regional instability, but dismissed the possibility of a North African-style popular uprising in Ethiopia.
The beggar and his lavish banquets (By Wondimu Mokonnen)
By Wondimu Mekonnen, London In what appears to be a classic case of opposites attract, the more brutal a dictator gets the more appealing it becomes to the “democratically elected government of The United Kingdom.” Every government that comes to power in this country fails to understand that every human being in Africa also yearns [...]
Why Meles has to go (Negatu Derese)
By Negatu Derese There is no doubt in my mind that Meles Zenawi is an Ethiopian from Tigray. That is not what I question. His birth right is as valid as mine. I have no valid reason to question his being an Ethiopian from that part of citizenship. I know for sure Bereket Simeon is from parents that [...]
Protest and danger of military government
By Eskinder Nega—The announcement of Mubarak’s fall was greeted with the loudest cheer in Egyptian history. People power had come and triumphed in the Arab world’s most important country. There was every reason to celebrate. And with their live images broadcast around the world celebrate they did for a whole night.
The New Ethiopian Party (By Teodros Kiros)
By Teodros Kiros “The people are no longer a herd; they do not need to be driven. If the leader drives me on, I want him to realize that at the same time I show him the way” (Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of The Earth) The New Party in direct contrast to the tyrannical or [...]
TPLF: An incorrigible regime
By Petros Ashenafi The wheels of people’s revolution are turning. The events in Cairo, Tunis and the current Libyan scenes continue to bear testimony to the power of a common cause among a suppressed and oppressed people. It remains to be seen how the TPLF and indeed the Meles regime will see the ‘writing’ on [...]
Open letter to Professor Andreas Eshete
By Abebe Gellaw, First of all, I would like to congratulate you on your appointment as one of the many “special advisers” to Prime Minister Meles Zenawi. Though I am mindful of the fact that advising a tyrant is not an enviable job, I wish you all the best in your new position. On the positive side, your new position will undoubtedly give you a chance to look down the real Ethiopia from the tower of tyranny.
Revolt and the missing link (Anteneh Shiferaw)
A lot hangs in the balance now; Tunisia, Egypt, Libya for sure will never be the same here again – nor will the rest of the Middle East, for that matter, by in large, nor the rest of the world. However, an urgent question here is: what will be the role of the Ethiopian Youth [...]
Bereket and Seif El Gaddafi (By Yilama Bekele)
By Yilma Bekele “When a leader’s only means of staying in power is to use mass violence against his own people, he has lost the legitimacy to rule and needs to do what is right for his country by leaving now,” said President Obama. He was not talking about Meles Zenawi. President Obama was discussing [...]
Ethiopia’s courageous and defiant editor
By Many De Waal In spite of spending almost two years in the most appalling conditions in anEthiopian prison cell with 350 inmates, Dawit Kebede is unbowed. Jailed for speaking out against the Meles Zenawi government, Kebede continues to fight for constitutional rights and democracy by running Ethiopia’s last remaining independent and critical newspaper. The [...]
Ethiopians Unite Against the Meles Dictatorship
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Enough! Beka! Gaye! Bass! Yiakel! Washington D.C. – March 1, 2011- The winds of change that is sweeping through the Middle East and North Africa cannot be stopped by Meles Zenawi and his thugs. As the African saying goes, “No one can stop the rain.” No amount of wind bagging about economic [...]
Egypt uprising ditched parochial views to succeed (Robele Ababya)
By Robele Ababya–The firebrand revolutionary, renowned feminist and human rights activist Nawal El Saadawi, cherished the fruit of her struggle spanning over half a century at Tahrir square in Cairo. She expressed her feeling as one of being born again. It was deservedly so for the 80-year old bright lady spotted as a star among millions of Egyptians packed in the Liberation Square daily for 18 days until Mubarak relinquished power on 11 February 2011…
Nonviolent Struggle: Ethiopian Exceptionalism? (Jawar Mohammed)
Thugtatorship: The highest stage of African dictatorship
By Alemayehu G. Mariam—If democracy is government of the people, by the people and for the people, a thugocracy is a government of thieves, for thieves, by thieves. Simply stated, a thugtatorship is rule by a gang of thieves and robbers (thugs) in designer suits. It is becoming crystal clear that much of Africa today is a thugocracy privately managed and operated for the exclusive benefit of bloodthirsty thugtators.
An Ethiopian uprising is now or never
By Teodros Kiros Machiavelli, one of the architects of political thinking spoke convincingly about virtu and fortuna. Virtu is skill, the ability to be skillful and flexible, when time requires it; Fortuna on the other hand, is the tuning of one’s senses to the language of the right time. We must carefully listen to Fortuna [...]
Wind of change: No dictator is safe
By Hassen Hussein The unprecedented street protests sweeping North Africa and the Middle East have toppled dictators in Tunisia and Egypt. Three more undemocratic rulers— Yemen’s strongman Ali Saleh Abdella, the monarchy in Bahrain, and Libyan leader Muamar Gaddafi— are precariously hanging to ropes suspended above a raging river of protests — and those ropes [...]
Libya’s Gaddafi and EPRDF (Eskinder Nega)
By Eskinder Nega from Addis Ababa Strange as this may sound, there is a mainstream in the unsanctioned confederacy of dictators. Whether of the present times or from the distant past, the mainstream dictator is usually decidedly understated, more often than not a loner, eccentric in private habits, and almost as a trademark, lives in [...]
Can we go Egypt on TPLF Government?
By Olaana Abbaaxiiqi For eighteen full days Egypt shook the whole world. Those brave Egyptians inspired us, we were glued to our televisions and watched their every move, we envied them, rejoiced with them, felt their pain, and when finally the dictator fled the city we joined in their jubilation. The aftershock of this earth [...]
How to bring down Meles Zenawi
By Abebe Gellaw–In the first part of this piece, I started from the presumption that the vast majority of Ethiopians agree that their country is facing untold misery due to tyranny, corruption, discrimination, exploitation, injustice, abject poverty, rampant human rights violations and lack of accountability. The consensus on these popular grievances that have made the country an intolerable prison to the majority leads us to the fact that drastic socio-political change is badly needed to transform Ethiopia
Meles and Gaddafi: Partners in crime
By Yilma Bekele—They say ‘in any relationship, if one party wants a change, that party needs to instigate change.’ The Tunisian people felt change was necessary. The Egyptian people agreed. The Libyans, Yemenis, Algerians, Bahrinians and the Iranians are in the process of adapting the Tunisian model.
Out of touch in the Horn of Africa?
By Alemayehu G. Mariam–In 1884, the Berlin Conference was convened by the European imperial powers to carve out colonial territories in Africa. It was called the “Scramble for Africa”. In 2009, another Berlin Conference was convened by a high level group of diplomats (referring to themselves as the “partners”) from the U.S. and several European countries to hammer out an “agreement” on what to do (and not do) in the Horn of Africa.
35 plus Years of Meles in TPLF (Tesfaye Atsbeha and Kahsay Berhe)
The reign of a serial mass murderer By Tesfay Atsbeha and Kahsay Berhe For the TPLF the month of February is officially a month of its birth day celebrations. The real celebration behind the veil of the birth day is actually the propaganda of the regime to exploit the emotions of Ethiopians, especially Tigrayans who lost their [...]
The historic North African uprising… (G Araya)
The Historic North African People’s Uprising and Its Implication for American Foreign Policy Ghelawdewos Araia, Ph.D. The momentous people’s uprising of Tunisia and Egypt caught off guard peoples and nations around the world, and now clearly these upheavals have not only gripped the global community but they also seem to have wider ramifications in North [...]
Outburst of joy in Egypt and its impact on Ethiopia
Robele Ababya There is no doubt that the massive outburst of joy demonstrated by hundreds of thousands of Egyptians was shared by hundreds of millions of freedom-loving peoples around the world that were watching the unfolding of the truly momentous event displayed at the Tahrir Square in Cairo, the epicenter of the popular uprising which [...]
Open Letter to Professor Joseph Stiglitz
Professor Joseph Stiglitz University Professor Economics Department, Columbia University 814 Uris Hall, MC 3308 420 West 118th Street New York, NY 10027 February 15th, 2011 Dear Professor Stiglitz, First, we Ethiopian economists and scholars express our sincere admiration for and recognition of your distinguished work in advancing the frontiers of economic thinking and your world [...]
The upcoming uprising needs no leaders
By Teodros Kiros A dentist from Aswan… traveled 600 miles to be at the antigovernment protest. ‘I was expecting to find the Wafd were the leaders, or the Brotherhood were the leaders,’ he said, speaking of two of Egypt’s best-known opposition movements. But what he found was far better, he said. ‘There are no leaders [...]
Change, not repression is the answer (SOCEPP)
It has been reported that on Friday, February 11, 2011, a prominent Ethiopian journalist, Eskinder Nega was picked up as he walked out of an Internet café in Piazza at the heart of the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa and taken to headquarters of the police commission where he was told “he was attempting to start [...]
Africa’s youths united can never be defeated
By Prof. Alemahehu G. Mariam–A specter is haunting Africa and the Middle East – the specter of an awesome army of youths on the move, in revolt, marching for freedom, chanting for democracy and dying for human rights and human dignity. Millions of youths are standing up and demanding dictators to stand down and leave town. They are fed up with despotism, totalitarianism, absolutism, authoritarianism, monarchism, fascism and terrorism.
Mr. Tesfaye, Speak the Truth! (W Ezezew)
By Wondemhunegn Ezezew Note: this article is a response to Tesfaye Habisso’s e-mail reaction to my earlier article on his argument about the convicted former Derg officials. Thank you for your reaction. Actually when ever I raise an issue on Ethiopian economy or politics I do not expect any response from any TPLF/EPRDF supporter; even [...]
Ethiopians must rise: Which way Ethiopia?
By Teodros Kiros Aksum beg me to put Ethiopia on the path of justice; the Greek thinkersremind me that a great nation, the giver of the Alphabets and the originator of gold coins, must have a people who could speak for themselves; the priests of Adwa advise me to sculpt a nation of free people. All [...]
The Ethiopian soul crying for regime change
By Teodros Kiros Thousands of Ethiopians huddle at Cafés witnessing the birth of the people’s power in Egypt; a group of elders speak in whispers about regime change; mothers are subtly monitoring what their children are watching after midnight hours; the young, the old, men and women, are busily surveying the internet wherever they can; ten and more [...]
How to bring down Meles Zenawi
By Abebe Gellaw–As ordinary Egyptians have erupted in jubilant euphoria at Tahrir Square and on the streets of Egypt after the fall of the three-decade long dictator Hosni Mubarak, Ethiopians in and outside of the country have been keenly watching the wind of change from North Africa. We have witnessed history unfolding once again.
Thank you Egyptian youth (Golto Aila)
By Golto Aila On April 1, 2008, I wrote the article appended herewith.I bring it up because the Egyptian youth eventually overcame its fears, and decided to do justed what I was praying for, for our Motherland! The the fire of freedom they ignited engulfed ALL EGYPTIANS, and the consequence is a non-violent, good-humored, deliberate, [...]
May the sun of the people rise in Ethiopia
By Teodros Kiros The melodic voice of singers, the coterie of lawyers in mourning, the general strikes of the working people, that image of the mother with the king of the internet, the people in concert, massaged by the gentle strokes of the Eros Effect, when Eros visited Egypt, – all these forces of the [...]
The condemned of Ethiopia (T Kiros)
By Teodros Kiros “The unemployed graduate Bouazizi set himself on fire to protest police brutality after they harassed and stopped him from selling fruits and vegetables, which was his only means of a livelihood.” (Horace Campbell, “Tunisia’s Self- Organization for Self- Emancipation,” Pambazuka News, 2/7/2011 A mother of five children, raising them without a father [...]
Declaration in Defense of Human Rights
By Alemayehy G. Mariam–John F. Kennedy said, “Those who make peaceful change impossible, make a violent revolution inevitable.” The English colonial government made peaceful change impossible in the American colonies leading to the American Revolution in 1776, an event memorialized in the American Declaration of Independence and celebrated annually on July 4.
Beyond the inevitable fall of Zenawi…
By Robele Ababya “Where Law ends, Tyranny begins” is a quotation attributed to one of the most influential English philosophers, John Locke (1632 -1704). The interesting corollary: “Where Tyranny ends, the Law takes effect” should scare tyrants and embolden fighters for dignity and decency, which can thrive only in a compassionate democratic society under the [...]
To Uprise or Not to Uprise?
By Yared Ayicheh–Ethiopian Paltalk rooms have been discussing if Ethiopians should rise up against the Ethiopian government and overthrow it or not. Pro-government supporters respond by blindly denying the need for uprising, while the anti-government elements are salivating at this perceived opportunity.
Egypt and General Tsadkan’s lessons (E Nega)
By Eskinder Nega What the world did not see was how hard Mubarak fought Egypt’s youthful protesters before they attained critical mass last Friday. Arrayed against them in the first few days of the protests were a remarkably huge and mostly invisible complex of police and security agencies; 1.4 million strong, according to wikileaks’ leaked US [...]
Ethiopia: Catching that freedom fever
By The Mitmita Girl “You get your freedom by letting your enemy know that you’ll do anything to get it. Then you’ll get it. It’s the only way you’ll get it.” — Malcolm X The Mitmita Girls are all atwitter at the auspicious beginning of this new decade. First came the Sudanese vote, then Tunisia, [...]
Addis Ababa’s extreme makeover (G Belaineh)
By Getachew Belaineh Every city in the world has its own unique personality. Each represents aunique blend of history, natural settings, cultural patterns, and lifestyles. Some are old-fashioned yet attractive, others modern but boring. Likewise, Addis Ababa has its own unique personality. It is inherently a socially mixed city housing traditional and modern urban people. [...]
What is in the forest? (Golto Aila)
By Golto Aila Yesterday I posted “Ethiopia after Meles – Revisited”. I hope it is not interpreted as dissuasion from action, on the contrary, I believe action is overdue, but action must be tampered with caution and proper evaluation of consequences. Ethiopia is not Egypt or Tunisia, it is a different kind of forest and [...]
Save Africa initiative (EFPDD)
ETHIOPIAN FORUM FOR PEACE, DEMOCRACY & DEVELOPMENT The recent peaceful revolution in Tunisia may have opened a Pandora’s Box for people around the world to rise against many regimes of terror and coercion that are dominating their lives and holding back their progress towards democracy and freedom. Although the principal factors that have imposed such [...]
Africa yearns for change (F M Tsehai
Africa Yearns for Change By Fikre Mariam Tsehai “Without wise leadership, a nation is in trouble; but with good counselors there is safety.” These are Solomon’s wise words. Unfortunately, almost all African leaders do not heed these words of wisdom. Solomon is telling us through these words that a wise leader ought to feel the [...]
Revolution and Discipline in Egypt (T Kiros)
Revolution and discipline in Ethiopia; A lesson for Ethiopians By Teodros Kiros The peoples revolution in Egypt must succeed, otherwise tyrants in the region are going to feast and sharpen their military apparatus and jail thousands of those who camped out on the streets of the great Cairo, home to the pyramids and the great [...]
Ethiopia’s social movement must start now
By Teodros Hagos The Ethiopian people do know what they are against, but do not know what they are for. The first kind of knowledge is an essential property of the Ethiopian people’s instinctive right to revolt against tyranny. The second form of knowledge is the property of leaders and active intellectuals. We will soon [...]
Virtues of solidarity with Egyptians (R Ababya)
“The absence of alternatives clears the mind marvelously”. The quotation is attributed to Henry A. Kissinger, former US Secretary of State and National Security Adviser – Nobel laureate in 1973. Tunisians believed they had only one alternative, which was regime change and they succeeded; Egyptians are emulating that example to that end. Experience spanning over [...]
Ethiopia after Meles revisited (Golto Ayla)
By Golto Ayla About 5 years ago, after the 2005 elections, the demonstrations, and the violence which followed, I wrote a short article about my concerns regarding where our Motherland would be after the departure of Meles’ regime. As the North of Africa goes political convulsions, I thought I should present it again with some [...]
Dictatorship 101 (Yilma Bekele)
By Yilma Bekele According to Wikipedia “in contemporary usage, dictatorship refers to an autocratic form of absolute rule by leadership unrestricted by law, constitutions, or other social and political factors within the state.” That is what we have in Ethiopia. That is what we are used to in Ethiopia. We have never known any other [...]
Guerrila economics: hard to understand
By Dula Abdu Dictator Meles and former Marxist guerrilla leader may be providing western media including Bloomberg with bogus economic data. Recently, Bloomberg compared Ethiopia with the BRIC nations(Brazil, Russia, India and China) as possessing one of the fastest growing economies. Given the current institutional constraints, such as government control of the major means of [...]
Revolution at the seat of AU (Kinfu Hussein)
By Kinfu Husseein Right at this time, most of our African commander-in-thugs have assembled in my hometown, Addis Ababa. Imagine how these thugs would panic if Ethiopians suddenly rise up in unison like the Tunisians and Egyptians. The thugs would automatically abandon their comrade-in-thug, Meles Zenawi.By the way, Ethiopians are not new to making an [...]
US dilemma and the uprising in Egypt
By Genet Mersha At least, Mubarak proved wrong many who on Friday thought that he had joined his wife and son in London. It was a reasonable assumption though, given that the president was not seen in public or heard until half past midnight Saturday morning. Since last Tuesday, Cairo has been engulfed in protests [...]
Countdown to dethroning Zenawi (R Ababya)
By Robele Ababya Zenawi is one hell of a cruel dictator in the twenty-first century kept in power by the immoral flow of funds ironically from powers which profess guardianship of democracy and defenders of freedom of expression and respecters of fundamental human rights. He was invited to a red carpet treatment at the G8 [...]
Wither Ethiopia’s opposition? (Eskinder Nega)
By Eskinder Nega The news headlines are invariably dominated by the protests in Egypt, Tunisia and Yemen. Egypt in particular is at the core of international suspense. If Mubarak is successfully ousted, the protests will most certainly spread to other countries. But for many pundits, the surprising restraints of the security services also dominate their [...]
From Tunis to Cairo, from Cairo to Addis
Twenty Years After the Cold War, New Winds of Change in Africa By Maru Gubena I have often wished, especially given that things have started very recently in Tunisia and Egypt, to prove me wrong. I have even begged my Lord God, kneeling down and bowing my head to the ground, to prove me wrong, at least at [...]
Things fall apart, the centre cannot hold
By Ramesh Jaura IDN-InDepth NewsViewpoint BERLIN (IDN) – The tidal waves of an overwhelming desire for bread and work are pounding at the Arab shores of the Mediterranean Sea. Tunisia has surrendered to the anger of the hungry and impoverished youth. Egypt is reeling under the unrelenting pressure of the deprived and the oppressed. The [...]
Is truth my mother? (Maru Gebena, PhD)
Is truth my mother? Recalling my childhood memories By Dr Maru Gubena Scared that you, the highly loved, respected and wise mother, might possibly not enjoy the subject matter here and such talks in general, I seriously don’t know how or where to start – how to formulate the issues to be discussed and the [...]
From Jasmine to the Nile Revolution (Genet Mersha)
By Genet Mersha The Egyptian regime went about employing,in a typical fashion of a besieged regime Tuesday afternoon, to bedevilthe thousands of protestors in the streets. In Egypt, officially this was supposed to be a Police Day. Egyptian dubbed it a ‘Day of Anger.” By late Tuesday afternoon in Cairo, Alexandria, Suez, Mansoura, Mahalla al-Kobra [...]
Promoting tyranny and mediating for democracy
By Kiflu Hussain Although, the basis of global relations between nations have always been realpolitik that knows no moral principles, one might remain unaware of it unless the shady dealings by the existing global powers affect him/her directly.Yet,in the ever growing and fast moving information technology, for one not to have empathy let alone be [...]
Dictatorship for dummies, Tunisian edition (WP)
Dictatorship for Dummies, Tunisia edition By William J. Dobson (Washington Post) The world cheered as it watched Tunisians, who had long suffered under the stultifying weight of dictatorship, rid themselves of their tormentor. When protestors amassed in the Tunisian capital, something incredible happened: The autocracy that President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali had carefully cultivated for [...]
The Care of the self (Teodros Kiros)
By Teodros Kiros My concern with the cultural disease of decadence and its possible overcoming by cultural transformation will be delivered in a yearlong project in ten articles. Once my readers engage these articles, I will incorporate their responses into the body of the articles. I invite my readers to participate in this civic discourse, [...]
The problem of pardon (Waltenegus Dargie)
By Waltenegus Dargie The biographers of CS Lewis (H. Carpenter, The Inklings (1979); A.N Willson, C. S. Lewis: A Biography (1990)) tell us that so many Oxford Dons, including some of his ardent admirers (Tolkien being one of them), were offended by C.S. Lewis’s attempt to explain the problem of pain in his book The [...]
From Tunisia with love (Yilma Bekele)
By Yilma Bekele Here we are celebrating New Year in Tahesas. Accepting January, as Meskerem is a tall order. Enqutatash or Adis Amet is Adey Abeba blanketing the mountains with its vibrant bright yellow colors and the sun shining with all its strength. We are in the middle of winter here in the Northern Hemisphere. [...]
No Place for Human Rights (Interview)
COLOGNE German-foreign-policy.com spoke with Seyoum Habtemariam, director of the Ethiopian Human Rights Committee in Germany, about the visit of German Minister for Economic Cooperation and Development, Dirk Niebel, to Ethiopia. gfp.com: German Minister for Economic Cooperation and Development, Dirk Niebel, visited Ethiopia last week. You, in the name of the Ethiopian Human Rights Committee, strongly [...]
A call for a national conference (Solomon Tarekegn)
By Solomon Tarekegn The continuously deteriorating social, economic, political, and national security situations of our country have been immensely worrisome for the large majority of Ethiopians. Over the past few decades, we have heard citizens expressing their concerns through various means but without resulting in any concrete remedial action to solve the problems. We have [...]
Dictators are giants with feet of clay (Dula Abdu)
By Dula Abdu Dictator Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia has established one of the most successful lobbying machines in America with various tentacles. Meles has penetrated the U.S. Congress, Academia, some Ethiopian churches, and community organizations, but all these can be defeated in due time by keeping pressure and exposing them, as they are nothing, but [...]
Holding back sobbing children (Maru Gubena)
Holding Back Sobbing Children at their Mother’s Untimely Death and Not Explaining what Happened is both Wrong and Unfair By Maru Gubena This is part one of about ten pages. This article was written in early September 2006, when both the actual climate in the western world and the political temperature within the Ethiopian Diaspora [...]
Legitimacy before pardoning criminals (R Ababya
By Robele Ababya–The ongoing debate whether pardon should be granted to the Derg officials is very interesting; and if so whether the illegitimate Zenawi regime has the moral authority to manage the process of granting the pardon holistically on behalf of the Ethiopian people is mind boggling given the shameful records of the regime in terms of betrayal of vital national interests and gross violations of human rights, including genocide, on a scale unprecedented in the history of Ethiopia.
Support ESAT to help Ethiopia
ESAT Press Release The successful launch of the historic Ethiopian Satellite Television (ESAT) service to Ethiopia on April 21, 2010 represents a giant step in the direction of freedom of information for all Ethiopians. ESAT is the result of the collective efforts of a small group of Ethiopians who are deeply committed to the principles [...]
Why US should support free media in Ethiopia (Susan Yirku)
The Ethiopian diaspora (Maru Gobena)
A Symbol of Pride and a Source of Unity for the Ethiopian Diaspora, and a Substantial and Commanding Influence in Ethiopian Affairs By Maru Gubena January 16, 2011 — As may be recalled, the issue of the Ethiopian Diaspora, its origin, and more particularly its potential role in and contribution to the process of political [...]
Nations and nation builders (Msmaku Asrat)
By Msmaku Asrat, PhD (This is a rather elaborate response to the objection raised by the good Sadiq Abdulrahman regarding my views about a future federation of Ethiopia with both S. Sudan and self proclaimed independent Republic of Somaliland (formerly British Somaliland) Sadiq and I have more in common than he realizes. We both have [...]
The way to pardon the Derg (Eskinder Nega)
By Eskinder Nega Even after 37 years, Makonnen Endalkachew, only son of Endalkachew Mekonnen, icon of Ethiopia’s long entrenched elite and briefly the nation’s Prime Minister, explodes with unrestrained anger when the issue of pardon for Derg officials is raised. “For those that are actively pursuing this issue (pardon for Derg officials) and suggesting that [...]
Cultural Decadence (Teodros Kiros)
By Teodros Kiros A young man reports to his friend with teary eyes, that his lady of many years, to whom he gave his heart whole and pure, had been dishonest to him and went as far as secretly marrying a lover whom she had kept in secret, and now he finds himself, nursing a [...]
People of the Plow (Review, Prof. S Gelaye)
Book Review Title: People of the Plow: An Agricultural History of Ethiopia, 1800-1990, 298 pages Publisher: The University of Wisconsin Press Author: Professor James C. McCann Reviewer: Professor Seyoum Gelaye I would first like to express my appreciation to the writer for spending fiveyears of his precious time immersed in the culture, [...]
ESFNA should fire its PR officer’s? (B Sinziro)
Why ESFNA Should Fire Its PR Officer? by Better Sinzeros, January13, 2011 “I love you, and because I love you, I would sooner have you hate me for telling you the truth than adore me for telling you lies” said Pietro Aretino. The Ethiopian Sport Federation in North America (ESFNA) Board of Director pressured [...]
Did NY Times over-redacted WikiLeaks on Ethiopia? (Sydney Smith)
StinkyJournalism received an e-mail from a banned Ethiopian journalist last month complaining about the redactions news outlets made in a WikiLeaks cable. Redactions were suggested by the “Obama administration,” accepted by the New York Times, and passed on to other newspapers like The Guardian. Nega is banned “from publishing a newspaper” and was accused – [...]
Regime change without cultural transformation
Regime change without cultural transformation is empty and cultural transformation without regime change is Blind. By Teodros Kiros The specter of revolution is haunting modern Ethiopia. We Ethiopians rightly want regime change, but the necessary cultural transformation is not there, although it ought to be. There is much that I admire about us Ethiopians, which [...]
Looking for Bob Marley and Fela Kuti (Al MAriam)
By Professor Almayehu G. Mariam Music as a Weapon of Protest It is said that “music is a universal language.” Using a few notes and inspiring lyrics, musicians and song writers have waged relentless battles against the perpetrators of tyranny, oppression, inequality and injustice. Music is a divine language that can pierce through the stony [...]
Ghana is no banana republic (Kiflu Hussain)
By Kiflu Hussain At a time when it is unequivocally revealed by wikiLeaks that not even Europe is immune from being pushed around by the corporate world of the United States and its government that has emerged as the sole super power, John Atta Mills, President of Ghana dared to take a different stance on [...]
Love from Meles to Laurent Gbagbo
By Fekade Sgewakena—My dear friend, I don’t understand for the life of me why this beautiful piece of land of Africa that you rule does not have an African name. But this is not the point of my cable today and maybe we can discuss this some other time. This cable is only about the damn election that you just held and has put you in the deep sh**t you are in now.
More talks on the land grab (Ephrem Madebo)
By Ephrem Madebo Given Ethiopia’s acute poverty status, its dependency on food aid, and the ever changing global economic context; there is no doubt that Ethiopia’s agricultural sector must change fundamentally, and there is no question that such a fundamental change requires sizable investment. Poor countries like Ethiopia are faced with a seemingly intractable dilemma [...]
Genocide and the unfinished debates
By Abebe Gellaw–First of all, I would like to commend Ethiomedia for publishing two contrary views on genocide, which is one of the most controversial legal issues among scholars and legal practitioners around the world. In response to Eskinder Nega’s article, “Derg: Guilty of genocide or politicide?” another writer, Tecola Hagos, tried to pointedly dismantle the latter’s argument with his rejoinder, “The crime of genocide vs. the crime of politicide.”
Why do things always fall apart in Africa? (Al Mariam)
By Alemayehu G. Mariam Copycat Dictators and Cartoon Democracies in Africa Ivory Coast, December 2010. Laurent Gbagbo says he won the presidential election. The Independent Ivorian Election Commission (CEI) said former prime minister Alassane Ouattara is the winner by a nine-point margin. The African Union, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the United [...]
On Assegid’s Gahdi and the TPLF (Mesay Kebede)
By Messay Kebede My purpose begins by stating that my reading of Assegid Gebre Selassie’sGahdi (part one) significantly departs from the review of the book by Tecola Hagos, an esteemed friend and an established public intellectual for the democratization of Ethiopia. Even though Tecola was critical of some aspects of the book, notably, of the [...]
Ethiopianity and independent thinking (Teodros Kiros)
By Teodros Kiros I love being an Ethiopian, and I am honored to have been born to Ethiopian lands; I am humbled by our sublime mountains designed to nurture spirituality, manifest in the birth of the great thinkers who grew up there; my soul is pervaded by the depth of thought that the ravines and [...]
The perils of Ethiopia’s federalism (Frew Kebede)
New Issue of Ee-JRIF out Now!
Press Release: Vol. 2, no.2 Special Issue on the Problems, Challenges and Future of Ethiopian Education http://www.nesglobal.org/eejrif4/index.php?journal=admin&page=index New Year Greetings! Ee-JRIF wishes all Ethiopians a happy, healthy and successful European New Year and urge all to use 2011 to become first twice (1 and 1) by learning to agree humbly on the key priorities to [...]
Will deceit generate food security? (M Tegegn)
By Melaku Tegegn Last August, the EPRDF government came out with a “policy of transformation” to ensure food security for Ethiopia in a span of just five years. For foreign observers, this sounds a bold policy and no doubt they will try to find out what resource Ethiopia has recently discovered to venture on such [...]
Unity with patriotism but without hypocricy
By Shimekit Debalke Often times in our history, the scoundrels wear the cloak of patriotism with inherently hypocritical egos. There have been times where we have witnessed the emergence and collapse of traitors in this country. During the liberation struggle against the Italian aggression in the 1930s, patriotic forefathers have fallen fighting the enemy whereas bandits betrayed [...]
The global aid racket is no cause for pride (DE)
By Patrick O’Flynn (Daily Express) WHAT would you think if you had a relative who was running a big overdraft for which you ere ultimately liable and yet made frequent expeditions to his town centre during which he gave away large sums to anyone in the vicinity? I bet pride would not be the first emotion [...]
The deputy PM’s embarrassing interview
By Emphrem Madebo–There is a grand colorful flag hanging in my living room right above my TV set, a flag that united our fathers to the only African victory over white supremacists and a flag that transcended the tumultuous history of Ethiopian politics. A flag that is not artificially decorated and a flag that my dad told me- “Son this is your real dad, not me”.
I am also aggrieved by the deputy PM
I too am aggrieved by DPM & FM Haile Mariam Desaleng’s interview on the nifty ITMN By Genet Mersha I am writing this piece to join Ephrem Madebo for finding time and strength to write his observation and personal reactions (www.abugidainfo.com, 28 Dec) to DPM & FM Haile Mariam Desalegn’s interview on India’s ITMN television [...]
Revisiting “Two concepts of Ethnicity” (T Kiros)
By Teodros Kiros In November 14, 2006 I published “Two concepts of Ethnicity,” in which I argued: The recent explosion of the politics of ethnicity in modern Ethiopia calls for a re-theorizing of the idea of ethnicity itself. The situation is so grave that it compels a philosophical intervention. I would like to argue that [...]
Here we go again! (Dires Nega)
Controversy over pardoning Derg Officials Dires Nega ESKEMECHE After following the discourse on the drive for pardon and forgiveness of the Derg officials by certain groups, I wanted to draw everyone’s attention to why we are doing this to ourselves. What is really going on? Why are we discussing this and put up another dividing [...]
Federalism: Meles style (Biratu)
Biratu–The so-called International Conference on Federalism was held in Addis from 13-16 December. Meles Zenawi took the opportunity to declare that federalism is working in Ethiopia. According to Zenawi, Ethiopia’s federalism proved the sceptics wrong. Dictator-in-chief Meles said: “Over the past 20 years we have proved the sceptics wrong..”
Ivory Coast: UN picks the gauntlet (K G. Medhin)
IVORY COAST: UN PICKS THE GAUNTLET IN A RARE EXPERIMENT WITH USE OF FORCE Keffyalew Gebremedhin In recent years, election frauds in Africa have intensified. Domestically, elections are greeted with fear, often imposing flight for some, imprisonment for others and still for some others the live-let-live attitude of enforced servitude. These days the international community [...]
Which Constituition? (Wondemhunegn Ezezew)
Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord. –Romans 12:19 “I was made, by the law, a criminal, not because of what I had done, but because of what I stood for, because of what I [...]
Ethiopianity or Ethnic Federalism (By Teodros Kiros)
A brief response to Professor Andreas Eshete’s uses and abuses of cultural diversity By Teodros Kiros Federalism has two moments: A Political moment and cultural moment. As a political moment, politicians use it to control the governance of the population, particularly when the polity has a rich cultural and linguistic diversity; as a cultural moment [...]
Reaching out to spread joy on Christmas
By Obang Metho–Christmas greetings from the Solidarity Movement for a New Ethiopia (SMNE) to our Ethiopian brothers and sisters of Christian belief as many gather together for religious services and meals with family and friends to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. At the same time, many non-Christians will celebrate this day as a secular holiday—as a time to “bring some joy”
A message for Christmas (Girma Kassa)
May the Lord open our mind for wisdom By Girma Kassa Our Lord Jesus (or Issa) is worshipped by Christians as the Son of the Living God and adored by Muslims as a Prophet. It was His birth two thousand years ago in Bethlehem that we commemorate and celebrate as Christmas or “Genna”. There were [...]
Forgiving Derg officials for Christmas
By Eskinder Nega–Come January 1974, Ethiopia was quiet as a calm sea. The low-key insurgency in Eritrea, the only organized political movement in the country, was going nowhere. Having successfully confined the insurgency to the peripheral low-lands, the army’s casualty figures (after more than ten years of fighting) were still remarkably low.
Human Right Watch challenges World Bank
Dear Mr. Ohashi,I am writing to respond to the October 21, 2010 statement of the Development Assistance Group (DAG) in Addis Ababa regarding Human Rights Watch’s recent report, Development without Freedom: How Aid Underwrites Repression in Ethiopia. Our report presented serious allegations about the misuse of donor-supported programs for repressive purposes by the government of [...]
Ethiopia: “So what?” (Prf. Al Mariam)
By Prof. Alemayehu G. Mariam–”So what! Soo what!! Sooo whaaat!!!” was the repetitive mantra of dictator Meles Zenawi recently in response to pesky questions lobbed at him in parliament about his so-called Growth and Transformation Plan[1] (GTP), which will presumably make Ethiopia self-sufficient in food production in the next five years and expand the “industrial-led export sector”,
Thinking of Birutkan Mideksa (Teodros Kiros)
Ethiopia’s Spiritual warrior and Communicative Rationalist By Teodros Kiros Gone are the days of life in the beauty of darkness and the cruelty of solitude I imagined her, pensive, still and determined to live; I imagined her behind rusty prison rails thinking about the millions of Ethiopians gazing at stars and praying to the transcendent; [...]
Ethiopian Diaspora’s clashing viewpoints
By Maru Gubena Many of us – particularly the political activists of the Ethiopian Diaspora – are firmly convinced that the basis for Ethiopia’s everlasting, multiple and mounting economic problems and the political repression by successive regimes lies exclusively with bad leadership and bad policy/governance. Other Ethiopians, however, attribute the prolonged agonies facing Ethiopians, including [...]
Thoughts on chauvinism in Ethiopia (Eskinder Nega)
By Eskinder Nega–“What is it about this (new) cabinet that attracts so much attention?” asks Tsegaye Chama in an article posted on Ethiomedia (Attacks on fair cabinet, ethnic minority group, Tsegaye Chama December 1, 2010). “The explanation for this gruesome fixation is simple,” Tsegaye assures readers.
On “Philosophical Essays” (Tecola Hagos)
Teodros Kiros, Philosophical Essays, Trenton , NJ: The Red Sea Press, 2011, pages 101. $19.95. – Teodros Kiros, Ethiopian Discourse, Trenton , NJ: The Red Sea Press, 2011, pages 236. $24.95. “And the impulse to write is almost always fired by reading. Reading, the love of reading, is what makes you dream of becoming a [...]
Non-transparent ESFNA! (LDJ)
Non-transparent ESFNA! By LJD, December 15, 2010 “Correction does much, but encouragement does more,” said Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. There is unhealthy fundamental problem with the Ethiopian Sport Federation in North America (ESFNA) Executive Committee: the lack of transparency. To the surprise of nearly everyone, the Executive Committee is not defending its reputation, although it [...]
Ethiopians should not abandoned (MEP László Tőkés)
ETC: Same old wine in new bottle? (H Abdul)
By Hindessa Abdul The Deal The Ethiopian government has ceded the management of the Ethiopian Telecommunication Corporation (ETC) to a French company: Orange. The official reason is the corporation’s inability to meet the ever increasing demands of the country. Apart from the management, ETC also got a new name: Ethio -Telecom. We can as well [...]
WikiLeaks: US backs Somalia invasion (R Prince)
By Rob Prince (Foreign Policy in Focus) By mid 2007, the 50,000 Ethiopian troops that invaded Somalia in late 2006 found themselves increasingly bogged down, facing much fiercer resistance than they had bargained for as Somalis of all stripes temporarily put aside their differences to stand together against the outside invader. As the military incursion turned [...]
National cohesion key to advancing Nile interest (Jawar Mohammed)
By Jawar Mohammed For Ethiopia, if there is a single war worth sacrificing the blood of its children, it is the fight to break open Egypt’s century old blockade of the Nile river. More than 90% of the water and 96% of the transported sediments carried by the Nile originate from Ethiopia, yet our legitimate [...]
The politics of the Nile (Girma Kassa)
Some accuse the Zenawi regime of using the Nile issue to divert attention away from its human right records and portray itself as nationalist. As evidence, they site the Ethio-Egyptian 1993 Nile Accord [1]known as the “Framework for General Co-operation between the Arab Republic of Egypt and Ethiopia” which they consider to be a sell-out of [...]
Payback for the exploited children of Blue Nile
By Robele Ababya There are three major drainage systems in Ethiopia. The first and largest is the western drainage system, which includes the watersheds of the Blue Nile (known as the Abbay in Ethiopia), the Tekeze, and the Baro Rivers in Gambella. All three rivers flow west to meet the White Nile in The Sudan. [...]
Lidetu’s pitiful politics (Fikade Shewakenaw)
By Fekade Shewakena Many people seem to be angry by Lidetu Ayalew’s political actions, his unqualified Diaspora bashing, and his attempts to belittle and badmouth people who don’t agree with him. I am among those who feel sorry for him and pity him rather than feel angry. He has become an angry man who speaks [...]
The “fantastic Somalia job” (Prof. Al Mariam)
By Prof. Almayehu G. Mariam—”Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive,” said Sir Walter Scott, the English novelist and poet. It looks like the U.S. of A is really in a pickle tangled in a web of lies, deceit and diplomatic chicanery about its role and involvement in the 2006 invasion of Somalia by the dictator in Ethiopia, Meles Zenawi.
Revisiting the 2005 elections (M Gubena)
By Maru Gubena (PhD) Five year ago, though there were feelings of uncertainty and fearfulness about the future direction of Ethiopia itself, as well as its politics – including the possible transfer of power from the regime of Meles Zenawi to the then opposition parties – a good number of Ethiopians both at home and [...]
A defining moment for Tigray (A Biedemariam)
Amanuel Biedemariam For a while many Tigrayans, some openly and some behind the curtains, have been ripping some benefits from the tyrannical Meles regime unashamedly, boldly and with impunity. They are benefiting at the expense of all Ethiopian ethnic groups in many ways in the name of Tigray. Why this issue warrants an attention is [...]
Turning blind eye to Ethiopia (MEP Ana Gomes)
By Ana Gomes—Since European Voice’s last article on Ethiopia, the EU Election Observation Mission (EOM) has published its final report on the general elections held in Ethiopia this May. The report, finally published on 8 November, found that “the electoral process fell short of international commitments for elections, notably regarding the transparency of the process and the lack of a level playing-field for all contesting parties”.
WikiLeaks: Meles vows to crush opponents
The following is contained in a WikiLeaks cable in which Meles lectures on democracy to a US official. “We will crush them with our full force,” Meles said, and “they will vegetate like Birtukan (Midekssa) in jail forever.” Prime Minister Meles Zenawi told Under Secretary for Democracy and Global Affairs Maria Otero his government placed [...]
Wikileaks and papers to censor Ethiopian cables (E Nega)
By Eskinder Nega—-“(Soon) Everywhere there is a US post (embassy or consulate), there is a diplomatic scandal that will be revealed,” wrote Bradely Manning, 22, from a US army base outside of Baghdad, to his online friend, Adrian Lamo. “Hillary Clinton and several thousands diplomats around the world are going to have a heart attack.”
The irony of the Nile accord (Robele Ababya)
Robele Ababya Harnessing Ethiopia’s rivers for development “Thirsty child of the Nile” is a popular proverbial irony in water-rich Ethiopia where hunger and thirst are rampant amid plenty. The Amharic version widely used is “Ye Abayin lij wuha temat”; it is meant to ridicule the paradox of abject poverty amid plenty; it extends to laxity [...]
Reflections on Thanksgiving (Al Mariam)
By Prof. Al MAriam–In 1620, one hundred and two prospective settlers left England and set sail for over two months to come to the New World. They landed in what is now Plymouth, Massachusetts. Nearly one-third of them were religious dissenters escaping persecution. A group of English investors had provided the voyagers transportation, provisions and tools in exchange for 7 years of service upon arrival at their destination.
Zenawi: The Sarah Palin of Ethiopia (Y Bekele)
By Yilma Bekele The fearless leader from Wasilla said “This speaks to a bigger picture here that certainly scares me in terms of our national security policy. But obviously we’ve gotta stand with our North Korean allies.”—Discussing Obama’s foreign policy in an interview with fellow whacko Glenn Beck. Someone should tell dear old Sarah it [...]
The Berhanu Nega-Lidetu controversy (E Nega)
By Eskinder Nega—Somber faced Ethiopians stared in rapt attention as Dr Berhanu Nega’s voice resonated with pronounced intensity. As he dramatically details a 2005 discussion between CUD leaders, his face is noticeably flashed with emotion. “What are the findings of the Committee tasked with exploring the political options available to the CUD as the post election controversy heats up?” we the CUD leadership asked Lidetu Ayalew.
The oak tree on the hill (Lemlem Tsegaw)
“I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live by the light that I have. I must stand with anybody that stands right, and stand with him while he is right, and part with him when he goes wrong.” [...]
Ethiopia: The aid-politics trap (Tom Porteous)
By Tom Porteous–The Ethiopian government’s political use of international humanitarian aid is a test of donors’ commitment to human-rights principles. By Ethiopia is the largest recipient of western development assistance in Africa. In 2005-08, aid to Ethiopia more than doubled – from $1.9 billion to $3.4 billion. Yet the country’s domestic politics are becoming less democratic and more repressive.
Is it possible to reform ESFNA? (Kirubel Bekele)
By Kirubel Bekele Most of you probably remember my last piece, “Squandering the power of ESFNA.” In that article, I emphasized not to kill ESFNA while trying to save it. But I did not suggest ways to reform it. Now I do. And I will throw some of my ideas and others as well. Take [...]
Talking trash, speaking truth (Prof. Al Mariam)
Prof. Al Mariam–Looking up from the sewers, everything must look like garbage! Last week, dictator Meles Zenawi ripped the final election report of the 2010 European Union Election Observer Mission to Ethiopia (EU EOM) as “trash that deserves to be thrown in the garbage”. He said, “The report is not about our election.
The discord between Sweden and Zenawi
By Feyissa Woyessa, Sweden The Ethio-Swedish cooperation is long standing and goes back to the period of emperor Haile Selassie. Records show that Sweden is among the wealthy European countries offering a significant aid package to the ethno-fascist government of Meles Zenawi. Albeit limited and unlike many of its western counterparts, Sweden continued to provide [...]
Abay Tsehaye: Minister of Sugar & Salt (A Gellaw)
By Abebe Gellaw—Meles Zenawi’s game of succession is getting more and more bizarre. He preached about the urgency of giving the mantle of power to the “younger generation” and the accomplished Machiavellian removed almost all the veterans and promoted his own wife as second in command in the TPLF oligarchy. Zenawi has not stopped there. He has been deploying his tired horses in many odd places.
Meles discussing trash and garbage (Y Bekele)
By Yilma Bekele As you all know Ethiopia held what is referred to as ‘elections’ last May. The ruling TPLF party won 545 of the 547 seats in Parliament. One can tell from the results that either the TPLF party is the most popular association in the country or the election was rigged and the [...]
I always wanted answers: Dawit Kebede
By Joel Simon/CPJ Executive Director The last few weeks have been extremely busy for everyone at CPJ as we’ve been preparing for the 2010 International Press Freedom Awards. Today’s press conference in Washington will be followed by a series of events culminating in our awards ceremony Tuesday in New York. As always, the awardees make [...]
Suu Kyi, Birtukan & deceptive tyrants (G. Mersha)
By Genet Mersha, 14 November 2010 On November 7, Myanmar held national election, after twenty years of military rule. Quoting a senior party official, Reuters reported that the Union for Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) has taken as many as 80 percent of the available seats for parliament. News sources report that the USDP is [...]
The police killed my son (Prof. Brook Hailu)
By Brook Hailu: On the morning of Dec. 10, 2008, I said goodbye to my 19-year-old son, Hailu Brook, and left for work. It was the last time I would see him alive. The pain of what transpired that day will remain with me and my family until we die. But it has been made so much worse by the Fairfax County authorities’ refusal to provide answers to our questions.
Fighting for the slice (E Madebo)
By Ephrem Madebo The EPRDF/TPLF exclusive pre-election campaign and the extremely lop-sided and disproportional results of the 2010 election are indicatives of a growing trend in Ethiopia where institutional rules including the constitution are largely irrelevant. Although Ethiopia has a constitution and a body of laws that provide formal limitations on how power is to [...]
EPRDF and its bloated cadres (Robele Ababya)
EPRDF and its bloated army of parasitic cadres By Robele Ababya, 11 November 2010 By Robele Ababya “Man is born free; and everywhere he is in chains.” Jean-Jack Rousseau Rousseau’s continuing influence on politics It is widely argued the philosophical works of Jean-Jack Rousseau, one of the most influential thinkers during the period of the [...]
Native Indians and deer (Fikere Tolossa)
NATIVE INDIANS AND DEER By Fikre Tolossa, Ph. D. In the days gone by, in the glorious past, Indians and deer lived together in harmony, The deer feeding the Indians, and they preserving The deer and their home, without inflicting agony. Then came the merciless hunters Of the Indians and the deer, From cruel, distant [...]
The book that unmasks TPLF (T Hagos)
By Tecola Hagos This is one book that I wish I read years back, even before its printing date, for the content of the book is exceptionally important and relevant for any degree of understanding of the political and military saga in the recent history of Ethiopia. The author, Asgede Gebre Selassie [hereafter "Asgede"] has [...]
The ugly face of ESFNA ( Yilma Bekele)
The ugly face of Ethiopia by Yilma Bekele “It is true lots of illigal things were done, that is why I apologised ahead. I want to admit that the executive commitee did not carry its duties in a proper manner. The issue should not have been brought for voting at all on the otherhand it [...]
Is Medrek against Secession Clause? (S Gashu)
By Semahagn Gashu One of the most significant achievements in recent Ethiopian political dynamics is the forging of alliance between pan-Ethiopian and ethnic nationalist parties coming under the umbrella of an organization ,namely, Ethiopian Federal Democratic Unity Forum (Medrek).Whether we like it or not, the Ethiopian political future depends on the political consensus reached between [...]
Congratulations Sir Bob Geldof! (Tizbtu)
Profuse apologies not for the truth but for ‘semantic jargon ‘on behalf of the BBC and millions of Ethiopians who perished whilst millions of dollars/pounds begged on their names is spent on purchasing and arming one of the most unforgiving and cruel gruella-mafia groups headed by Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia who is still starving millions [...]
Who is the loser? ESFNA or Birtukan? (M Desta)
By Mululu Desta With all its backwardness and aristocratic arrogance there is flavor and sweet nuance to some of our highland jokes of yester years. The jokes actually are taken today as representing and of course reflecting the socio‐economic lives which the under‐trodden section of our society was subjected to vis‐ à‐vis the landed‐gentry. I [...]
What makes Haile great? (Joe Battaglia)
By Joe Battaglia, Universal Sports NEW YORK — In the lead-up to the ING New York City Marathon, Haile Gebrselassie has been referred to on a number of occasions as the best distance runner in history. Before the world record holder from Ethiopia takes to the streets of the Five Boroughs, we take a look [...]
Meles’ new cabinet: Haile Mariam’s rise (E Nega)
By Eskinder Nega from Addis Ababa (Part II) Unusually for the impetuously explosive Meles Zenawi, his reaction to the turbulent events of the second half of 2005 was in the best manner of the (long idolized) silent, strong Ethiopian male: he internalized his emotions. Unsurprisingly, he was a decidedly depressed man by early 2006. There [...]
Resolving the ESFNA Impasse (F Shewakena)
By Fekade Shewakena Almost every year there appears to be some ritual around ESFNA of creating a dust up, on issues big and small. I have always found myself on the side of the Federation and defended it to the best of my ability. I did so, like many others, largely because I respect ESFNA [...]
ESFNA still misleading stakeholders (R Ababya)
By Robele Ababya–This time in the long history of Ethiopia is unlike any others in the magnitude of betrayal of vital national interests, grave violation of human rights and endangering regional stability. The naked invasion of Somalia by the puppet ruling regime is detrimental to the most desirable and essential neighborly relations between the peoples of the two countries for a very long time.
Ethiopia: Education unbanned! (Al Mariam)
Prof. Alemayehu G. Mariam–Last week, it was quietly announced that the official wholesale ban on distance learning educational programs in Ethiopia has been lifted. In August 2010, the ban was imposed out of the blue “because of quality concerns”. According to one report, following six-weeks of “negotiations” between education officials and distance learning service providers a settlement was reached…
Education in context (Waltenegus Dargie)
When in 1929 Freud started to write about “Civilization and its discontents”, he interrupted his article more than four times to tell us that he was aware of the fact that he was not writing something original, something that had not already been raised by others. My present assignment is by far simpler and straightforward [...]
Meles, the donors and HRW’s report (N Gama)
By Neguse Gamma The Human Rights Watch (HRW) report that documented the ways in which the Ethiopian government used donor-supported resources and aid as a tool to consolidate the power of the ruling TPLF/EPRDF might seem shocking to those who do not know the history of the tribal party and the ruthless tactics it employed [...]
ESFANA’s guest of honor problem (Samuel Teku)
The controversy surrounding ESFNA’s decision to exclude Birtukan Medeksa as a guest of honor for the 2011 Ethiopian soccer tournament in Atlanta has raised the age-old question about the relationship between sports and politics. However, the online discussion on the topic has largely been an incoherent discourse filled with the same old epithets, threats and [...]
Sacrifice (Ephrem Madebo)
By Ephrem Madebo “Today is the saddest day ever . . . seriously!” said a ten years old boy who for the first time in his short life experienced a horrible loss of life. The little boy has everything ahead of him, but with his mom and dad taken away from him by Zenawi’s bullet, [...]
Remembering the November massacre
Eskinder Nega–With the benefit of hindsight, Meles Zenawi’s repressed thread of thought in 2004 and 2005 that led to a brief phase of political liberalization is markedly apparent: a wild goose chase to justify an illegal purge in the TPLF as a means to an end in which the nation becomes freer than ever before. And when this was buttressed by political and intelligence assessments about the opposition’s lack of preparedness,…
ESFNA and the art of lying (Yilma Bekele)
What is it about us Ethiopians that invite abuse? Is there a big fat lettering stuck on our forehead that proclaims ‘I am stupid?’ It is not some idle question but a subject that requires some soul searching and must be answered if we have to move forward and expect to bring positive change to [...]
How Europe contributes to repression (L Lefkow)
By Leslie Lefkow—In 2009, Human Rights Watch interviewed more than 200 people across the country, and they described the many ways in which assistance is used by the government to cement support for the ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front and to punish anyone who dares criticise its policies and ideology.
What is the lifespan of EFFORT? (W Banti)
By Wardoffa Banti–Today’s Ethiopia is filled with tales of astounding and yawning economic differences between citizens – between the very few “haves” and all the rest “have-nots”. The evolution of nations is characterized by economic and social transformation with emergence of classes of people who would be identified with levels of wealth and economic prowess.
Aid as a weapon (Leslie Lefkow)
By Leslie Lefkow–Many western officials who manage international aid cite Ethiopia as an example of how assistance from donors like Canada can help African nations escape poverty. The reality is far more complicated — and far more cruel. A recent Human Rights Watch report reveals that Ethiopia’s repressive government has put foreign aid to a sinister purpose
Birtukan Mideksa and ESFNA (Tesfaye Abebe)
ESFNA AND BIRTUKAN: A MEMBER”S PERSPECTIVE Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts. Daniel Patrick Moynihan In this article I, as a member of ESFNA affiliated club, would like to address the ‘Birtukan and Guest of Honor’ issue that has come to be a discussion topic among some Ethiopians in [...]
The Meles Doctrine (Yilma Bekele)
By Yilma Bekele What exactly is a doctrine is a good question. It is a formal way leaders lay down their beliefs, principles, and/or vision so that their citizens will have some clue of where they are taking the country. Apparently Sarah Palin was not aware of the concept, when she sat down with a [...]
Ethiopia:Feed them and bleed them (Al Mariam)
By Prof. Al Mariam—The helping hand that feeds Ethiopians is the same hand that helps bleed Ethiopia. Every year, the U.S., U.K, Germany, the Netherlands, Canada, Japan and other Western countries hand out billions of dollars in “humanitarian” and “economic” aid to dictator-in-chief Meles Zenawi in Ethiopia. Every year, these donors turn a blind eye and a deaf ear…
Zenawi biting one, kicking the other (Jawar)
By Jawar Mohammed* Whether it is out of sheer arrogance, overconfidence or from being out of touch with reality, the strategic rationales behind Meles’ recent political decisions reflect a poor judgment. Much like the disastrous 99.6% electoral victory that blew up on his face, the decision to re-imprison and the childish manner in which he [...]
Can ESFNA stand up for Ethiopia? (E Madebo)
By Ephrem Madebo The late Yidnekachew Tessema, the undisputed father of modern sport in Ethiopia, was a man who effectively used sports to create closeness, peace, and understanding between people. Mr. Yidnekachew hailed from a highly political and uniquely poetic family, but during his lifelong service to our nation and to the African continent at [...]
The real story behind Meles’ new cabinet (E Nega)
By Eskinder Nega (Addis Ababa)-Ideally, a Prime Minister is only a first among equals in a cabinet. The cabinet, the traditional name allotted to a Council of Ministers, is a collective decision-making body which formulates government policy. But with the unabated expansion and increasing complexity of modern governments, the primacy and dominance of Prime Ministers is acknowledged even in mature democracies.
A letter to my Ethiopian sisters (M Gessesse)
By Mesrak Gessesse October is “Breast Cancer Awareness Month” in the United States. I am writing this “letter” in hopes of raising greater awareness about the disease among Ethiopian women and encouraging them to fight the disease effectively with early detection and treatment. With the types of treatments available today, breast cancer is a disease [...]
British aid not reaching those most in need (DT)
Damien McElroy (Daily Telegraph) British aid to Ethiopia is being denied to people in need, according to a Human Rights Watch report that accuses the Department for International Development (DfID) of failing to safeguard its £7.8 billion budget. Meles Zenawi, the country’s prime minister, had used a DfID-backed scheme to reward loyalty to his regime [...]
Misgana Ethiopia:New music from Gigi (Review)
Michael Rugel I’d always liked the food and the little music that I’d heard, but I realized I was in a great place to explore Ethiopian culture more deeply when I noticed that the Shell gas station on my block sold injera. My first step into examining Ethiopian music was buying two CDs: Ethiopiques Volume [...]
Open letter to district attorney Machen Jr (SMNE)
Murder cover-up in the making? (Tibebe Samuel)
By Tibebe Samuel Ferenji For any one willing to see. all the signs are there; a sign to cover up a crime. Some of the individuals who allegedly involved in the murder of Ali Ahmed Mohammed are well connected with DC politicians. Unfortunately, the statement made by some of these politicians, publicly, seems to [...]
Aid sustains repression in Ethiopia (HRW Report)
development without freedom
TPLF’s technological warfare (Dawit Chebo)
Despite some recent encouraging rhetoric, Meles has made Ethiopia an economic and political basket case. Both his economic and political strategies made Ethiopia a failed state, unlikely to recover or survive as a viable political or economic entity. The absence of free market or control of an economy by a tribal junta, the infusion of [...]
Let Ethiopians hear America’s voice (Al Mariam)
By Prof. Al Mariam—So many lessons to learn from Columbia University! When dictator-in-chief Meles Zenawi spoke unceremoniously at Columbia on September 22, he was talking trash about the Voice of America (VOA). He said he decided to jam VOA broadcasts in Ethiopia “by taking a page from U.S. policy”. He wildly alleged that supporters of the defunct military regime had taken control of VOA Amharic.
Men in uniform (Lemlem Tsegaw)
Men in Uniform What is the occasion? Men in uniform, no question to ask, no smile to wear, like prisoners of consciousness. Men in uniform you emit fear and uncertainty. Are you men of destiny? Men in uniform with necktie, what is your intent? Men in uniform, standing so quiet are you in fear and [...]
Reflection on the life of Tolstoy (W Dargie)
By Waltenegus Dargie I completed reading “The Life of Tolstoy” by Aylmer Maude amidst a veritable pile of work and deadlines. The problem with my profession is that there are so many deadlines and notifications. You submit a project proposal, your lifeline, and wait for the decision; you submit papers to journals and conferences and [...]
Open letter to Birtukan Mideksa (Eskinder Nega)
Eskinder Nega— The world-wide campaign to free Birtukan between 2008 and 2010 is a book-length story. However, in its broad outlines, it mirrors multitude of other campaigns to free famous prisoners around the globe— South Africa’s Nelson Mandela , Burma’s Aung San Suu Kyi, and now that he is a Noble prize winner, China’s Liu Xiabo. Inevitably, an exalted image of the prisoner towered over the substance of the issue…
Internet equivalent of three meals a day (H Abdul)
Hindessa Abdul Ethiopian has minted a new ministry of Communication and Information Technology. It is not yet clear what it is officially entrusted to do. The most obvious thing though, the country has largely missed out on information technology. The state’s monopoly on telecommunication didn’t help improve matters. To the contrary, it was part of [...]
Dinaw finds ways to ‘read the air’ (NPR)
It’s easy to label a novel as a familiar “immigrant story,” says novelist Dinaw Mengestu. “To actually understand the particulars of those stories seems like a burden sometimes,” he says. “People would rather have a kind of general, flat story that they’re already familiar with.” But readers looking for a generic retelling of the immigrant [...]
Birtukan and her ordeals (Yilma Bekele)
By Yilma Bekele Birtukan is out of jail. Without exception (not including Woyane thugs) all Ethiopians are pleased. After all we are the reason why she went to jail isn’t it? I heard about Weizero Birtukan five years ago. She was one of Kinijit’s leaders and associates that were hauled to Kaliti after the 2005 [...]
The pains of national humiliation (N Zeleke)
By Neamin Zeleke—Two or three decades ago , every Ethiopian from all walks of all would have been grossly offended by the utterly sad spectacle of the brave Birtukan Mediksa, a defenseless woman, a mother of a child, paraded in public and forced to undergo televised humiliation and public shame. Birtukan Medkesa’s ineffable inner turmoil and agony are, perhaps, best captured by Eskinder Nega…
Last minutes push for Sakharov Prize ( A Gellaw)
By Abebe Gellaw—As it has been widely publicized, Ethiopian heroine Birtukan Mideksa is one of the nine nominees being considered for the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought by the European Parliament. Thanks to the great friend of Ethiopia, MEP Ana Gomes, Birtukan has a chance to be this year’s winner of this coveted award that annually recognizes and honors extraordinary freedom fighters.
A closer look at the pardon letter ( W Dargie)
By Waltenegus Dargie When Tolstoy first saw Nikolai Nikolaevich Gay’s “Quod Est Veritas?” (what’s truth?), he was so shaken and agitated that for days after he could hardly speak of anything else. Previous European paintings on the same subject had tried to portrait Pontius Pilate as one who was impatient with Jesus’ Philosophy of Truth [...]
Ethiopia: Birtukan unbound! (Prof. Al Mariam)
By Prof. Alemayehu G. Mariam—The great American novelist Thomas Wolfe wrote: “All things on earth point home in old October; sailors to sea, travellers to walls and fences, hunters to field and hollow and the long voice of the hounds, the lover to the love he has forsaken. …” On October 6, 2010, Birtukan Midekssa, Ethiopia’s First Daughter, also headed home from nearly two years of captivity to the loves of her life….
Congressman Mike Honda on Birtukan’s release
For immediate release Contact: Ahmed Bhadelia 202-225-2631 Statement of Support Release of Birtukan Mideksa October 6, 2010 As the founder and Chair of the Congressional Ethiopia and Ethiopian American Caucus, I would like to take this opportunity to express my full hearted support of Ethiopian leader Birtukan Mideksa’s release today after close to two years of [...]
How Birtukan won my heart (Samuel Teku)
By Samuel Tiku The recent release of Judge Birtukan Mideksa from Kality encouraged me to share this personal reflection focusing on my own political transformation in the last four months. I got a call from a friend on May 23, 2010 that jolted me back to reality. It was around midnight when my cell phone [...]
Get rid of Ethiopia’s president (Samuel Gebru)
By Samuel Gebru In the 1995 Constitution of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, the Office of the President was formed with the writing of Chapter 7, Articles 69-71. The responsibilities of this appointed office are listed in Article 71 and are by far and large symbolic. Aside from serving as Head of State, the [...]
Remembering the November Massacre (PR)
Ethiopian civic and political groups, media, activists, scholars, and artistes have named November “Ethiopian Election Massacre” commemoration month around the world. In preparation to commemorate the 5th anniversary of the Ethiopian Election Massacre, a worldwide task force has been formed. The task force organizes various activities and a worldwide conference next month. On May 15, 2005, over [...]
A few minutes with Birtukan (Eskinder Nega)
By Eskinder Nega from Addis Ababa—Birtukan shook her head sideways as I spoke: “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.
Tribute to Ethiopia’s heroine (Robele Ababya)
By Robele Ababya Lady Liberty, Birtukan Mideksa, is released to join millions of her ardent supporters in the larger prison in Ethiopia where the quest for freedom unity, democracy and Justice, is still raging and the rule of law is dead. Lady Liberty paid a priceless sacrifice for what she believed in and stood firm [...]
Birtukan’s arrest was a criminal act: Group
For Immediate Release Coalition of Ethiopian American and Ethiopian Political, Civic, and Media Organizations Ethiopian civic, political and media groups as well as activists in the Diaspora held a meeting today and issued the following statement on the release of Birtukan Mideksa. After holding a sham election in May 2010, and forming a fake parliament [...]
Birtukan’s release in perspective (Yilma Bekele)
By Yilma Bekele Chairman Bertukan Mideksa has been released from Kaliti Jail after spending six hundred forty four days, one hundred forty of it in solitary confinement. We are happy she is reunited with her family and loved ones. She was thrown in to a rat infested jail not because she committed some dastardly crime [...]
Birtukuan, Tell Me! (Dr. Ghelawdewos Aria)
Dr. Ghelawdewos Araia What have you done my dear To be thrown into the jail of Qaliti Is it your elegant appearance? Or your formidable political stance Is it your political consciousness? Or your stubbornness for not apologizing Is it your conscience and love for Ethiopia? Or your unassuming tenacity Is it your incompatibility with [...]
Cutting ties with democratic states is reckless
Robele Ababya This piece is written to challenge the outrageous response by the TPLF’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs to the statement issued by Mr. Lawrence Cannon, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Canada, on the fourth national elections in Ethiopia. The response is appalling to say the least, but not surprising coming as it did from [...]
Open letter to Ambassador Genet Zewide
Embassy of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia 7/50-G, Satya Marg, Chanakyapuri New Delhi 110 021 (INDIA) Tel : 0091-11-26119513, 26119514, 24675367 E-mail : delethem@yahoo.com Dear Ambassador Gennet Zewide: The Solidarity Movement for a New Ethiopia is writing to you as we believe that so many Ethiopians have a question for people like you and the [...]
Azeb Mesfin and EPRDF’s 8th Congress
By Eskinder Nega—Pronouncing himself a “TPLF/EPRDF supporter”, Zegye (last name not given), could not help exploding over the internet: “First, I would like to declare that I was a strong supporter of the TPLF/EPRDF. If I were Meles, I would have blocked her (Azeb Mesfin, Meles’ wife) ascendance to such high power, the Executive Committee of the TPLF.
TPLF abusing Ethiopia’s resources
By Robele Ababya—Ethiopia is blessed with abundant resources including large population, hardworking people, vast arable land that citizens have proven record to develop, and plenty of water. The dependence on her rivers by neighboring countries including Sudan, Egypt, Somalia and Kenya coupled with the present scramble for her fertile farmlands…
Celebrations in Oakland and New York
By Yilma Bekele It was a beautiful weekend in Oakland. It was sunny, warm and clear blue skies. We celebrated Meskel like never before. Every year you see more young ones scurrying around between your legs and all over the place. It is a population explosion with the new arrivals and the newly born. As [...]
Acute poverty vs. double-digit growth
By Prof. Getachew Begashaw—Gebru Tareke, once a professor of history at Haile Selassie I University, wrote: “…by supporting a social hierarchy that was markedly extractive and exploitative, Ethiopian peasants lived for very many years in a terrible state of ignorance and gruesome conditions of deprivation and poverty”. Philippa Bevan of the University of Bath made reference to this statement to explain exploitative structures…
Unity is no longer elusive to defeat tyranny
By Robele Ababya Bravo, the heroic Anti–Meles demonstration! Meles has at last made his speech at Columbia University against mounting opposition that may have forced the University officials to move the venue from the stately Low Rotunda to the class-room-like Roone Arledge Auditorium. President Lee Bollinger was a no show, reportedly away in Washington DC. [...]
The ghost and the spirit
By Prof. Alemayehu G. Mariam—After the dust settled following Meles Zenawi’s speech at Columbia’s World Leaders Forum, a dark shadow and glowing light were visible on stage to behold. The dark shadow was cast by the ghost of the erstwhile Ethiopian junta dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam. The glow of light was radiated by the spirit of Ethiopia’s First Daughter, Birtukan Midekssa
Devaluation: The wrong bitter pill?
By Tesfaye Kidan–In his June 8, 2010 budgetary speech to the parliament, Minster Sufian Ahmed indicated that the 2010/11 budget is prepared under the assumption that Birr will depreciate by 5% during the 2010/11 budget year. However, on September 1, 2010, in less than two month since the onset of the budget year, the national bank devalued birr against dollar by 20%.
Veni, Vidi, Orator, Fugio!
By Prof. Alemayehu G. Mariam—In 47 B.C., the Roman Emperor Julius Ceasar sent his senators news of his military victory in a simple declaration: “Veni, Vidi, Vici.” (I came, I saw, I conquered.) “Emperor” Meles Zenawi, Ethiopia’s dictator-in-chief, would have loved to send the same message to his “senators” in Addis Ababa following his speech at Columbia University’s World Leaders Forum
TPLF’s New Plan: Let them Eat GDP!
By Wondemhunegn Ezezew “He who oppresses the poor to make more for himself or who gives to the rich, will only come to poverty.” Proverbs 22:16 Ethiopia has recently announced its new five year economic plan dubbed as Growth and Transformation Plan (GTP) which details the main economic performance targets and goals as [...]
Meles Zenaw’s humiliation at Columbia
For best view click ‘Full Screen’ below
Meles’ Columbia nightmare: Step-by-step guide
Eskinder Nega from Addis Ababa. First, I take off my hat to a brilliant week in which people power prevailed over the trappings of power. The heros of this saga:Ethiopian websites; DC Amharic talk radios; and Freedom Riders from DC and Boston. Here is the full story: September 13 2010—Meles’ bio: the “seasoned leader”! Columbia University’s [...]
TPLF’s new education directive
TPLF’s New Education Directive: Another Abuse of Power By Gizachew Admasu On August 26, 2010, the Ministry of Education issued a directive that categorically bans all public and private higher learning institutions from running distance education programs, and all private higher learning institutions from offering on-campus law and teachers’ education programs. The directive came out [...]
EPRDF: The graduation to absolute dictatorship
By Jawar S. Mohammed* The changes, the demotion and promotion of the political figures, that has taken place within member parties and the EPRDF might appear a normal course of government constitution after “election” to the novice of Ethiopian politics. But this change is a critical leap in the intra-EPRDF politics and power dynamics. I [...]
Dictators on campus: Still not a free speech issue
By Armin Rosen (Reason) Over at the Huffington Post, Political Science professor Alemayehu G. Mariam argues that Ethiopian dictator Meles Zenawi’s upcoming talk at Columbia University is in fact a free speech issue, a notion that I tried to debunk last week. Mariam is no Zenawi supporter—he’s a passionate and extremely well-versed opponent of Ethiopia’s apparent president-for life, [...]
Eritrea: The siege state [Crisis Group report]
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Eritrea has been deeply troubled since independence in 1991. Following the devastating war with Ethiopia (1998-2000), an authoritarian, militarised regime has further tightened political space, tolerating neither opposition nor dissent. Relations are difficult with the region and the wider international community. At African Union (AU) behest, the UN Security Council imposed sanctions in [...]
A day of infamy at Columbia University
Advocacy for Ethiopia (AFE) Ethiopian American Civic Advocacy (EACA) For the past 20 years, the Ethiopian people have suffered from repressive political governance and a socioeconomic architecture that has enabled a minority-ethnic based leftist political party, the Tigray Peoples’ Liberation Front, to dominate the national economy by merging ethnicity, party and state. The consequence of [...]
Mr. Zenawi goes to college
By Prof. Alemayehu G. Mariam—Fresh on the heels of shutting down all private distance education, including distance higher education, and “winning” the parliamentary election in May by 99.6 percent, dictator-in-chief Meles Zenawi is scheduled to speak at Columbia University on September 22 and trumpet his accomplishments as the guardian of democracy and prosperity in Ethiopia.
The elusive search for a common purpose
The elusive search for a common purpose in multi-ethnic Ethiopia By Dr. Aklog Birara It has become a cliché that Ethiopian civic organizations, political groups and intellectuals opposed to the current government led by a single ethnic-based political party, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) and its umbrella group, the Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Democratic Front [...]
Can we have a non-TPLF Prime Minister?
Can we have a non-TPLF Prime Minister? Muse Abebe The next five years will be Meles Zenawi’s last term as Prime Minister unless this promise is not broken once again. For that matter, as far as TPLF/EPRDF is in power, it is irrelevant whether he is at the front seat riding the country or behind [...]
Columbia: Naive or morally bankrupt?
By Robella Mash With reference to World Leaders Forum and the warm reception given to Meles Zenawi by the University of Columbia, my question goes like “Why Columbia University got it wrong and failed to make background check on Meles Zenawi, the self-acclaimed prime minister of Ethiopia, before rushing for blunders for a University as [...]
Eskinder and Serkalem’s letter to Columbia
President Lee C. Bollinger Office of the President Columbia University 202 Low Library 535 West 116th Street New York, NY 10027 Email: officeofthepresident@columbia.edu Dear President Lee C. Bollinger, The victims of rights abuse take on WLF’s invitation to PM Meles Zenawi, who though an infamously adept human rights violator, the details of which are conscientiously [...]
Solidarity’s letter to Columbia University
Open Letter to Columbia University students and faculty Columbia University in the City of New York 2960 Broadway New York, NY 10027-6902 Dear President of the Student’s Union, Columbia University students and faculty: My name is Obang Metho and I am writing to you, first and foremost, as a fellow human being who believes that [...]
Professor decries accolades heaped on Zenawi
In an email message sent to Columbia Economics faculty, world-renowned economist, Jagdish Bhagwati, vehemently denounces the ill-advised tribute earlier accorded to Ethiopia’s dictator, Meles Zenawi. Characterizing the Columbia faculty who were behind the invitation of Zenawi as “entrepreneurs,” Professor Bhagwati writes: … as soon as you dilute these objectives [i.e., teaching and high-quality research, the [...]
Open Letter to Dr. Lee C. Bollinger
By Solomon Tarakegn It is with utmost disappointment that we learned the news that the evil dictator of Ethiopia Meles Zenawi has been invited to deliver a keynote speech at Columbia University. According to the University, The World Leaders Forum aims, “to advance lively, uninhibited dialogue on the large economic, political, and social questions of [...]
EPRDF: Reshuffling or repositioning?
By Oromsis Adula—EPRDF, Ethiopia’s ruling junta, has just concluded its 8th organizational conference held in Adama town, Oromia from September 15 – 17, 2010. The conference was purportedly aimed at “rejuvenating the party (or more bluntly tightening the grip on power) and implementing an optimistic five-year economic plan (or its pet name, Growth and Transformation Plan (GTP)”.
Re-writing TPLF’s history (Part Two)
Eskinder Nega, Addis Ababa She was sitting at the corner of Mexico square in downtown Addis, intensely engrossed in a thin book dangling between her delicate fingers. A book worm myself, I couldn’t resist the temptation to pop the question. “Good book, eh?” I inquired. She looked up, and smiled. “A collection of poems,” she [...]
Columbia university: Dancing with a criminal
By Yilma Bekele Let just say it is painful to hear that a prestigious University like Columbia has invited Ethiopia’s tyrannical leader Meles Zenawi to speak at the annual World Leaders Forum. As an Ethiopian I feel insulted and mocked upon. Then again we Ethiopians are used to having our country and people judged with [...]
Open letter to Columbia University President
By Prof. Alemayehu G. Mariam Dear President Lee C. Bollinger: On September 22, 2010, Mr. Meles Zenawi is scheduled to deliver the keynote address at an event sponsored by Columbia University’s Committee on Global Thought. There is widespread belief among Ethiopian Americans that Mr. Zenawi’s invitation to speak at this event necessarily implies the University’s endorsement [...]
Ethiopian history can help cure ethnic ills
By Robele Ababya Unity has eluded us for the last four or so decades to find common ground to deal with our divisive political ills through genuine dialogue on the basis of credible history of Ethiopia. It is long overdue to recognize the immorality of twisting history thus misguiding the young generation for cheap political [...]
Dictator on campus: Is it free speech?
By Armin Rosen—Whoever signed off on inviting Meles Zenawi to speak at Columbia University’s World Leaders Forum probably figured that the Ethiopian dictator’s obscurity would protect the school from any criticism. Let me be the first to prove that person wrong: Zenawi is like a watered-down Robert Mugabe meets a watered-down Omar al-Bashir; a strongman who has impoverished his own people.
Apples to apples
By Ephrem Madebo Last week, I needed to take a vacation from my brain – so I did, and I ended up in the Shenandoah National Park where the sigh of a glowing sunset over the Blue Ridge Mountains takes your breath and where the feeling of being immersed in nature gives the soul more [...]
Open letter to Professor Stiglitz
By Selam Beyehe, PhD Joseph E. Stiglitz University Professor Uris Hall, Room 814/Columbia University 3022 Broadway, New York, NY 10027 Phone: +1 (212) 854-1481 Email: jes322@columbia.edu cgtmail@gmail.com Dear Professor Stiglitz, It is with a great sense of dismay and incredulity that we learned about the invitation extended to Prime Minister Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia as [...]
Open letter to Columbia University
By Oromsis Adula I learned about the invitation of Mr. Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia to “World Leaders Forum” with a shocking disbelief. As the world’s most important research center and top academic institution, Columbia has a long tradition of engaging world leaders on the multifaceted issues facing our global world. Established in 2003 by Lee [...]
Agricultural outsourcing and looting of Ethiopia
By Zekarias Ezra “I can´t believe Ethiopia or any other government would allow their country to be used like an empty womb. The human spirit would not allow it.” Mafa Chipeta, FAO´s representative in Ethiopia, (Washington Post, November 23, 2009) Land is finite. There is so much of it and that is it. So, food-importing [...]
NES-Global aims to narrow knowledge gap
By Prof. Mamo Muchie The ‘Network of Ethiopian Scholars-Global’ NESGLOBALwww.nesglobal.org) brings to the public the Ethiopian e-Journal for Research and Innovation Foresight (Ee-JRIF) as one of the electronics vehicles for the circulation and mobility of Ethiopia’s global higher education, knowledge, research, training and publishing activities by connecting seamlessly the past, present and future from both [...]
New Year message from Solidarity Movement
May All Ethiopians Have a Blessed New Year and to all our Muslim Brothers and Sisters, Eid Mubarak! May This Be the Year of Truth, Tolerance, Reconciliation and Cooperative Action to Build a New Ethiopia! September 10, 2010 The Solidarity Movement for a New Ethiopia (SMNE) wishes Ethiopians of every ethnicity, religion, region, economic status, [...]
Misguided policy behind the blasts in Uganda
Uganda as a haven for refugees It was with profound sorrow that I expressed my solidarity with the people of Uganda in regard to the savage act of unleashing twin bomb explosions by terrorists at two locations in Kampala on 11 July 2010 that claimed at least 76 lives (later revised to 78 dead) and [...]
Meles Zenawi: Smart or idiot?
By Hama Tuma (Afrik) An intelligent dictator in my view point is as incandescently oxymoronic as an idiot savant, a fine mess, a little pregnant, or accurate rumors. The renaissance of oxymora in what concerns Ethiopia has not only been limited to the country’s “abundant poverty”. In fact, we have recently seen the impossible possibility [...]
Devaluation of the Birr: A layman’s guide
By Prof. Seid Hassen–Devaluation is associated with fixed or pegged exchange rates systems whose value is not being determined by the normal (free) mechanics of supply and demand. In general, devaluation reflects the existence of serious macroeconomic problems (imbalances) and also reflects weaknesses of the government which is devaluing its currency.
Famine and Foreigners in Ethiopia
By William Easterly–If it were possible to sum up in one sentence Ethiopia’s struggles with famineover the past quarter-century, I’d suggest this: It’s not the rains, it’s the rulers. As Peter Gill makes clear in “Famines and Foreigners,” his well-turned account of the country’s miseries since the 1984-85 famine and the Live Aid concert, drought has not been as devastating to Ethiopians as their own autocratic governments.
The Ministry of Indoctrination
Prof. Alemayehu G. Mariam–This past week Ethiopia’s Ministry of Education issued a “directive” effectively outlawing distance learning throughout the country. According to reports, the directive of the Ministry’s Higher Education Relevance and Quality Agency (HERQA) prohibits enrollment of new students in all distance education programs.
Consequences of birr’s devaluation
By Mike Peter—Devaluation of a currency makes it low-priced. This means that foreigners can buy that currency at a lower rate. It also makes all such goods whose value is originally fixed in birr to be cheaper for foreigners but not to the people of that country, where the currency is devaluated.
Re-writing TPLF’s history
By Eskinder Nega–The much anticipated book about Meles Zenawi, ‘Meles Zenawi and the Voyage of the TPLF’ (Meles Zenawi ena YeHewat Yetegel Guzo), hit the main thoroughfares of Addis early Monday morning, with vendors confidently displaying dozens of copies for passersby to pickup. It was officially launched on Saturday, at a gala event in one of the Sheraton Addis.
Energy and security issues in the Red Sea
Analysis by Gregory R. Copley Major new energy issues are about to transform still further the strategic balance of the Horn of Africa and the Red Sea, with foreseeable consequences for the global energy market over the coming decade. Soon-to-be-evident new wealth in the Red Sea/Horn of Africa region will transform the intensity of conflict [...]
It’s the development, stupid!
By Ephrem Madebo Just days after the ground invasion of Iraq, 90% Americans approved President Herbert Bush’s job performance. In just a little over a year, President Bush’s job performance rating was 29%; and he eventually lost his re-election bid to Bill Clinton. Why? It’s the economy, stupid. President Barak Obama enjoyed 69% job approval [...]
Desta and King Solomon’s coins (New Book)
Getty Ambau’s moving and riveting epic novel–a family saga, spanning three generations and dealing with their dark and mysterious past, is set in a magical mountainous countryside, in a world of monkeys, goats and spirits. Desta, a seven-year-old boy and Abraham, his middle-aged father, are on separate but parallel missions. The boy dreams of climbing [...]
Somali pirates, Ethiopia and the United States
By TOM MOUNTAIN, Counter Punch The warlords in Puntland are allied with the Ethiopian regime, led by Meles Zenawi, a Marxist guerilla turned G-20 statesman. With both regimes built on a house of cards the USA and its western allies are afraid to place any stress on the lot in fear of it all falling [...]
A brand spanking new constitution
By Prof. Alemayehu G. Mariam–Constitutional government is fundamentally about the rule of law. Organic rules are established to protect the rights of citizens from arbitrary and abusive exercise of government power, and ensure leaders and institutions are held accountable under the “supreme law of the land”.
Economy: Big numbers, empty bellies
By Fekade Shewakena–Poverty is Ethiopia’s persistent reality and has long been the country’s definer. The country’s mainstay, agriculture, is predominantly subsistence and is still only one drought season away from a multimillion killer famine unless we beg in time. Meles Zenawi often talks of poverty as being the number one problem of the country.
Somalis pay price for Zenawi-US blunder
By Gweynne Dyer (AN) The US decision in 2006 to send Meles Zenawi’ troops into Somalia in 2006 was one of the stupidest moves of the decade. This week, some of the chickens spawned by that decision came home to roost. On Monday the Al-Shabaab militia launched a “massive war” against the 6,000 African Union peacekeepers, most [...]
EU final election report causing sadness
The European Union Election Observation Mission to Ethiopia deployed over 160 experienced observers during the May 2010 national elections. The mission headed by Thijs Berman, a Dutch Member of the European Parliament, released its preliminary report on May 25th based on its observations and evidence it collected on the ground.
Obituary: Berhanu Gebyehu (1964-2010)
By Jon Abbink It is with the deepest sadness that we announce the sudden and premature death of Berhanu Gebeyehu in Addis Ababa on Monday 19 July 2010. Berhanu was an Ethiopian scholar of literature, an Assistant Professor at Addis Ababa University and a PhD student at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam. He was also [...]
Controversy over Abune Paulos’ statue
By Eskinder Nega (Addis Ababa)–Clad in the distinctive black robe of the Orthodox clergy, Abune Petros, one of Ethiopia’s four native- born Abuns (equivalent to Bishops) under an Egyptian Copt Patriarch, stood in a manifestly noble pose before an Italian military tribunal in 1936, the year that Fascist Italy invaded Ethiopia. A preposterously pompous Colonel presided over the proceedings. He was visibly relishing his moment.
Irrelevant OLF maybe, the struggle is for justice
By Oromsis Adula* I read the piece about OLF that appeared on EthioMedia by certain Jigga Wakko, a temptingly Oromo sounding name even if misspelled. I am also aware of the exchange between Shiferew Abebe and Dumessaa Diimmaa that prompted Mr. Wakko to pen his grossly uninformed charges against OLF. In this short piece, I [...]
How did al-Shabab emerge in Somalia?
By Nir Rosen The concerns and agenda of Somalia’s al-Shabab militia are very much rooted in local politics. However, its rise to prominence is tied to decisions taken by the U.S. and its regional allies in pursuit of the Bush Administration’s global war on terrorism. Following the 9/11 attacks, the U.S. deemed the 10-year power [...]
The end of Apartheid is close
By Teshome Debalke The rogue regime’s Prime Minster recently threw the usual economy growth figure and his willingness to negotiation with the oppositions. It was good try for ethically vacant and morally bankrupt apartheid regime. No one is impressed except those who he spins at a figure tip for a variety of their corrupt petty [...]
Making a case for liberal democracy
By Mersae Kidan These days it would be rare for one to surf pro-regime websites andnot find an article about neoliberalism written by a “revolutionary democrat.” One would be forced to wonder “what is all the fuss about Neoliberalism?” It looks some of the old tactics of the revolutionary democrats which have been relegated to [...]
Medrek to adopt anti-Apartheid struggle
The Deputy Chair of the Unity for Democracy and Justice Party, has said that Medrek will draw lessons from the anti-Apartheid movement in South Africa in order to mount an effective challenge against Zenawi’s tyrannical regime. In an interview with VOA, Ing. Gizachew Shiferaw dismissed Meles Zenawi’s claim that Ethiopia is becoming a dominant party system.
Gambling: Zenawi’s new foreign policy
By Jawar Mohammed–In recent years, Prime Minister Meles Zenawi has been pushing hard to signal to the West that they cannot use their leverage to pressure him into undertaking economic and political reforms that threaten his power. At times, he propagandizes his seemingly anti-imperialist “nationalism” against this so called “neoliberal” pressures.
Henok Tesfaye: Young parking lot czar in D.C.
Young parking lot czar is the face of Ethiopian success in the D.C. area By Derek Kravitz (Washington Post) Ask any of the thousands of Ethiopian immigrants working as parking attendants or cabbies around Washington whom they aspire to be like, and you’ll probably hear about Henok Tesfaye. Tesfaye, 37, started as a parking valet [...]
Beware of those who bear olive branch
By Alemayehu G. Mariam–“Beware of Greeks bearing gifts,” goes the old saying. I say beware of those bearing fake olive branches. In many societies, “extending an olive branch” symbolizes an act of reconciliation, goodwill and peace. In ancient Greece and Rome, people gave each other olive branches as tokens of their intention to bury the hatchet and make up.
Ethnic federalism: Problem or solution?
Ture Hirbe, Ph.D. Many Ethiopian elites blame Ethnic Federalism as a source of current political turmoil in Ethiopia, and they consider Article 39 of the Ethiopian Constitution as a threat to the unity and territorial integrity of the country. They attempt to present it as a new phenomenon invented by TPLF/EPRDF to divide and rule [...]
On Solomon Tekalign and Ben of hodfirst.com
By Mezgebu Tsegaye A few hundreds of TPLF agents, sycophants and opportunists were out in Washington DC on August 5 to express their solidarity with the genocidal dictator Meles Zenawi. Well, in the US even Neo-Nazist groups have a right to rally like decent groups. So it is a bit confounding to see ETV, Aiga [...]
The Reminiscence of Col. Mengistu (Book Review)
By Fikre Tolossa (Ph.D) The second volume of the reminiscence of Colonel Mengistu Haile-Mariam, the ex-president, authored by Weyzero Genet Ayele saw the light of the day recently. I had a chance to read review and analyze it. The book is divided into two parts. Part I, deals with the Colonel’s memoir and his views [...]
Autocracy: China’s unsolicited export
Ephrem Madebo The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, signaled the reunification of Germany, brought the demise of the Soviet Union, initiated the birth of a single super power, and created a wave of new democracies in Eastern Europe ending the Cold War superpower conflict that had governed international relations and world politics for [...]
Zenawi`s maneuver over the Nile
By Seifu Tsegaye Demissie–The last week`s pro-Meles Zenawi demonstration in Washington DC using the Nile as one of the rallying issues, is Zenawi’s political maneuver in the waters of the Nile. The main purpose and timing of this maneuver are all combined in a manner which is meant to send out signals of deterent or scare Ethiopians struggling for democracy…
Civilized politics imperative to societies
Civilized politics is imperative to contemporary societies By Dejenie A. Lakew, Ph.D I read an article by Mr. Obang Metho, regarding an unknown personality with a pseudonym- Dr. Megalomanias, who uses an American journal (American Chronicle ) to seed hate and saw genocide in Ethiopia. I personally wrote to him several times thinking that he [...]
Identity politics and struggle for liberty
Berhanu Nega–The political opening that ushered a meaningfully contested election in 2005, all but died with the death of over 200 unarmed civilians that peacefully protested the blatant stealing of the election by the ruling party. Election 2010 that gave the ruling EPRDF a 99.8% victory finally put the death nail on democracy.
Pride goes before ruine, arrogance before failure
By Zekarias Ezira I was prompted to opine this after reading Eskinder Nega’s brilliant piece on the apparent ‘invincibility of EPRDF”. Let me start by quoting Eskinder: But what is troubling is not that gullible grassroots believe the myth, but that its leaders have also come to believe in it. Their intransigence is now intertwined [...]
Donors betray African democrats
By Willian Wallis–There are plenty of reasons to be hopeful about sub-Saharan Africa. Progress towards more democratic rule, however, is no longer among them. Anyone persuaded otherwise needs to take a hard look at recent elections and revisit history for a reminder of the costs of stolen ballots and stifled ambition.These can be heavy in countries where people still tend to vote on the basis of their ethnic identity.
The Africa kleptocracy project
By Prof. Alemayehu G. Mariam Note: This is the fourth installment in a series of commentaries I intend to offer on U.S. foreign policy (or lack thereof as some would argue) in Ethiopia. In this piece, I argue that the Obama Administration’s recently announced Kleptocracy Asset Recovery Initiative to go after corruption in Africa and [...]
Functionally illitrate intellectuals
Teshome Debalke On Thursday August 6, 2010, VOA Seta Geba program Amharic presented EPRDF member/supporter Dr. Kefyalew G. Georgis and Isayas Lesanu representing the opposition voice. Dr G. Georgis, once again proven to be a classic case of what the Founder and President of Free African Foundation-Professor George Ayittey of Ghana calls; ‘Functionally illiterate’ better [...]
Meles Zenaw’s disingenuous peace deal
By Sadiq Abdullahi Abdirahmann In Ethiopia, Al-Itihad, a notorious former religious group led by Sheikh Ibrahim Mohamed, who was deported in a few years back from the United States, had unequivocally accepted to surrender the group to Ethiopia. Despite a mindboggling editorials bombarded via the internet by Al-Itihad supporters which tried to hide facts that the [...]
Defeat division to see miracles of unity
By Abebe Gellaw—Today two Ethiopian groups held two different rallies in Washington DC. The first one was organised by tyranny lovers, those mostly associated with the ruling party with an ideology called opportunism. It is not that they never know what is going on in their country. But they have chosen to deliberately deny and distort the reality in the service of tyranny.
Ethiopia: 10 pc growth 90 pc poverty
Ethiopia: 10% growth and 90% abject poverty By Ephrem Madebo–”But the OPDO development is – development and repression at the same time. They can build roads to the moon but I won’t vote for them until we’re equal” Anonymous Oromo Peasant The above quote is not a random view of the Oromo peasant interviewed by [...]
Risk taking and the Ethiopian economy
By Tigabu Molla Meresa Economic analyses of growth have bewared that sustainable economic growth has been incumbent upon the level of technological development; which has also been the source of divergence in economic strengths and growth rates between countries across the world. The technological breakthrough that steered Industrial Revolution and its lasting effect on the [...]
Ethiopian-Somalis denounce TPLF rally
Ethio Somali Advocacy Council (ESAC) Statement on the Untimely and Bogus TPLF Demonstration in Washington DC Ethiopian-American Ad Hoc for Democracy, an organization milking the resources of Ethiopian people and endorsed the killing machine of Woyane regime, is planned to stage so-called peaceful demonstration in Washington DC. As you all know organizing a successful peaceful [...]
TPLF’s illusory democracy without people
By Gizachew Admasu Under the current constitution Ethiopia is, by name, a democracy, a federation, and a republic the kinds of state and government structures many Ethiopians, I believe, would like to see their country truly become. Regrettably, however, that is just a name on paper, and Ethiopia has had no chance to truly embrace [...]
Muhammad Megalommatis: A preacher of hate
Click here for the full text of the letter What is Megalommatis up to?
Tell nothing but the whole truth
I would like to thank you for posting Samuel Gebru’s piece, Media Jamming and the Constitution. While Samuel started by raising an important issue, i.e. the violation of the constitution in relation to freedom of expression, the writer fell off track in the last laps of his essay. According to him, certain elements in the Diaspora including the VOA are guilty …
Media jamming and the constitution
By Samuel Gebru–”Everyone shall have the right to freedom of expression without interference. This right shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through other media of his choice.” Article 29 (2) Freedom of the press…is guaranteed!
Mengistu Hailemariam speaks again
By Eskinder Nega, Addis Abab–Ethiopia’s impenitent ex-dictator, Mengistu Haile-Mariam, is back in the limelight—nineteen years after his ouster and just before the publication of his much anticipated memoir in the US. The second series of interviews between him and Genet Ayele came out to little fanfare in Addis last weekend.
Ethiopia: Major problems and remedies
By Ture Hirbe, PhD While living in democratic countries we envy the citizens of these countries to see them exercise their right to elect their officials at all levels of the government. For example, the USA possesses more than 500,000 elected offices. Other things being equal, the greater the number of offices subject to competitive [...]
West endorsing cooked elections
By Thomas C. Mountain–Ethiopia held another “election” in late May, 2010 and the sort of “democracy” the powers that be in the West support with annual “aid” and “loans” to the tune of billions of dollars was the only winner. Western aid dependent Ethiopia, population 80 million, is one of the poorest, most underdeveloped countries in the world.
Sorry, Lencho can’t speak Amharic
By Tizibt Ayele Lencho Leta, one of the founders and old timers of the Oromo Liberation Front, was on ESAT a couple of days ago. That is not news for me. What was news for me was his refusal to be interviewed in Amharic. At a time when the Oromo Liberation Front has proven nothing [...]
Why can’t we be Ethiopian first?
Samuel Gebru For the past months I have mentioned on my blog and other venues that the Ethiopian community in the diaspora is seemingly more divided than it is united. I also mentioned how our divisions are over superficial things that have over-occupied the lives of our self-appointed theorists and human rights activists, who, by [...]