By Donald N. Levine
April 2002
Radical politics and civil strife have transformed the face of the Ethiopian nation over the past quarter of a century. Besides drastic changes at home, refugees to more than a dozen countries have formed a diaspora which numbers somewhere between one and 1.5 million people. As Ethiopia’s refugees established themselves in local communities and organized themselves more widely through national gatherings and media, they created the basis for reconfiguring Ethiopia as one nation located in three domains: ye-bet agar, ye-wutch agar, and ye-cyber agar. The devotion to homeland that was distinctive of Ethiopians at home continues to burn brightly in the diaspora. It has motivated expatriates to create a number of projects designed to help the home country as well as to improve life in their new homes. In so doing, they participate in a process that is reconfiguring the world community in a global era–the growth of civil associations across national boundaries. Having engaged in some of these projects, I thought it might be useful to give them greater publicity. The first three projects I describe concern programs of social action and institution-building in Ethiopia; the next two concern projects to help Ethiopians in the diaspora; and the last two concern cultural projects to promote pan-Ethiopian communication.
1. AIDS EDUCATION
BACKGROUND: Cumulative fatalities due to the AIDS epidemic in Ethiopia are estimated at well over a million. By the end of 1999, it was estimated that some 700,000 children had been orphaned (loss of mothers or both parents) as a result of HIV/AIDS. According to the Center for Disease control, with 1% of the world’s population, Ethiopia contains 9% of the world’s HIV/AIDS cases. “Tackling AIDS is the most serious. problem that Ethiopia now faces,” Ministry of Health spokesperson Amsale Yelma recently told a United nations information source.
PROJECT A: Gathering and distributing information.
The Johns Hopkins University Center for Communication Programs (JHU/CCP) has announced establishment of an Ethiopia AIDS Resource Center which will provide health care workers, government officials and HIV/AIDS organizations, and journalists with the latest information on HIV/AIDS, other sexually transmitted diseases, and tuberculosis. Jointly sponsored with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Ethiopian Center is scheduled to open in Addis Ababa in December 2002. The Center will include print and web-based resources and will support a local AIDS telephone hotline that provides HIV/AIDS information and counseling services.
In addition, the Johns Hopkins Center, with the support of the U.S. Agency for International Development, has provided technical assistance to the National Office of Population in Ethiopia to develop a radio serial drama, “Journey Through Life,” designed to encourage young adults to protect themselves from HIV/AIDS and unwanted pregnancies. The series, which began airing on Sunday, Nov. 25, appeals to young married couples and unmarried adolescents in urban and semi-urban areas of the country. Of this series, Araya Demissie, country representative in Ethiopia for the JHU/CCP, said: “We are hoping Journey Through Life will help Ethiopians understand just how easy it is to become infected with the AIDS virus. But we also hope the program will convey just how easy it is to protect yourself.”
PROJECT B: AIDS entertainment-education in the countryside.
An initiative known as the Awassa Children’s Project has developed into a force for rural AIDS education. The project started around 1997 when Woyzero Sunnayit Bekele of Awassa began to provide food and school materials for a number of destitute local children. Aided by her sister Aster Bekele-Dabels, a resident of Germany, the project now aims to create a self-sufficient children’s home in Awassa, to prepare students for community service, and to train them as electricians, carpenters, textile workers, and computer technicians.
Subsequently, the director of Chicago’s Free Street Theater, David Schein, went to help these young people–now numbering around forty–create an outdoors theater project, which they call an AIDS Education Circus. Working with youngsters who had taught themselves gymnastics, juggling, tight rope, and other circus skills, Schein helped create a show that was performed in the Awassa marketplace before many thousands of people. During the circus performance, the children distribute educational materials about HIV and condoms. Currently they are seeking support from UNICEF and American AID to finance a tour of 12 markets in southern Ethiopia, while German, Ethiopian, and American friends are raising money to complete the construction of a Vocational Training and Arts Center in Awassa on land donated by the town.
CONTACTS: A. For more on JHU/CCP AIDS programs in Ethiopia, see
B. For information on the Awassa Children’s Project AIDS Education Circus., contact Aster Bekele-Dabels, at
2. ADDIS ABABA UNIVERSITY
BACKGROUND: The intellectual and professional life of Ethiopia requires the nourishment of first-rate universities. The abrupt dismissal of some forty Ethiopian faculty members in April 1993 struck a serious. blow at the quality and morale of the Addis Ababa University program, as did the arbitrary imprisonment of Prof. Emeritus. Mesfin Wolde Mariam and Prof. Berhanu Nega in May 2001. As my letter reprinted at
PROJECT A: In June, 2001, Professors Ivo Strecker of the University of Mainz, Donald Crummey of the University of Illinois, and I organized the International Ethiopian University Support Committee (IEUSC), a group of Ethiopianists from seven countries who wrote letters protesting the imprisonment of Drs. Mesfin and Berhanu. These letters went to a number of embassies as well as heads of the Ethiopian government, and may have helped to secure their release. Beyond that, Strecker established a continuing web site, which provides information about the university and statements from a wide group of scholars supporting academic freedom in Ethiopia. (The site also reprints my 1993 article, “Is Ethiopia Cutting Off Its Head Again?”) As of December, Dr. Makonnen Bishaw has been serving as coordinator of the site. The committee is working to maintain a continuing presence of foreign scholars to monitor the situation in Ethiopia and provide future support for the University.
PROJECT B: An exciting initiative has recently gelled in Addis Ababa. Professor Baye Yiman, current director of the Institute of Ethiopian Studies, has launched a new Institute of Ethiopian Studies Library Project, estimated at five million U.S. dollars. The project proposes to erect a new structure to house the library’s thousands of books and periodicals. The current library in Ras Makonnen Hall is not able to hold the weight of the vast growing collection of books, manuscripts, and periodicals. The collection is so crowded that proper cataloguing has become problematic. The proposed structure will be situated to the east of the former Palace building, in the area of the former stables. The new library will house the literary collection properly and provide computer and audiovisual facilities.
CONTACT: A. For information on the IEUSC, visit the web site
B. To assist the Institute of Ethiopian Studies project, send donations to the Institute and Society of Friends of the Institute of Ethiopian Studies, P.O. Box 1176, Addis Ababa. For more information on the IES project, email the Addis Tribune at [email protected]. Donors in the United States can give tax-exempt financial support by sending their checks to: American Friends of the Institute of Ethiopian Studies, P.O. Box 15438, Washington DC, 20003-998, U.S.A.
3. HUMAN RIGHTS
BACKGROUND: Each of the three last regimes in Ethiopia committed serious infringements of human rights. Under the Derg the attacks on human rights escalated horrifically. Under the EPRDF and EPLF regimes in the past decade, human rights conditions in certain respects improved; in other respects they worsened considerably. Each year brings numerous cases of unjust imprisonment, torture, and killing under these regimes.
One other thing that has been different during the past decade has been a more active presence of the United States Government and other donor countries. In particular the U.S. State Department has supported a full-time officer devoted to monitoring human rights conditions (in June 1992, for example, I accompanied the then Human Rights officer to prison to interview OLF candidates who had been imprisoned apparently illegally, and who then filed a report raising questions about those cases). Concerning the 1995 elections, the U.S. and other donor countries produced a confidential report listing numerous. instances where legally registered parties faced intimidation, arrests, and closure of offices.
PROJECT A. Political action in the U.S. Congress.
Action by Ethiopians in the U.S. and American friends of Ethiopia was successful in getting the U.S. Congress to pass unanimously an amendment to the Foreign Aid Bill in 1995 tying future aid for the Ethiopian government to demonstrated improvement in its human rights record. More recently, action by Ethiopians in Illinois was crucial in getting Senator Dick Durbin, who with six other senators to sent a letter to Secretary of State Powell protesting EPRDF human rights violations, which elicited Powell’s prompt statement of support.
PROJECT B. Human Rights Information.
1. Ethiopian Human Rights Council (EHRCO). In Ethiopia itself, the Ethiopian Human Rights Council, a non-governmental human rights organization established in 1991, has been monitoring and reporting on the human rights situation in the country. To date, it has issued some 17 regular and 47 special reports, including comprehensive reports on the most recent general and local elections. A number of persons in Europe and North America, identified on the EHRCO web site, provide support for the association.
2. Amnesty International. Amnesty International has a long record of monitoring human rights conditions in Ethiopia. This goes back as far as early 1961, when they sent observers to the trial of Gen. Mengistu Neway following the attempted coup of December 1960. Most recently, they made the case of Dr. Taye Wolde-Semayat a project for their Freedom Writers in October. This means that something like 5,000 letters were written on his behalf by the Freedom Writers Network, which is committed to writing for whatever case is identified during that month.
AI will continue to monitor Dr. Taye’s trial, and will report on it in their Urgent Action bulletins. The most recent of these bulletins reported on the imprisonment of nine Eritrean journalists who were “detained incommunicado at a police station in the capital, Asmara, for over a month. They are not known to have been charged with any offense, or brought to court within 48 hours, as required by law. Conditions in police cells in Eritrea are harsh, and they are at risk of ill-treatment. They were arrested after 19 September, when the government ordered all independent newspapers to cease publication.” Dr. Taye also headed the list of five prisoners of conscience selected by Amnesty International for their annual
3. Human Rights Watch, and its subsidiary, Africa Watch, report regularly on human rights conditions in Ethiopia. Most recently, they posted a letter of protest against the suspension from operation of the Ethiopian Women Lawyers Association (EWLA), a leading local nongovernmental women’s rights organization.
4. The U. S. State Department. Reports on human rights have been produced every year since 1993 by the Department of State. These reports have been valuable in securing asylum for Ethiopians who have been endangered because of dissident political activism and independent journalism.
CONTACTS:
For EHRCO’s reports and links, see its web site: http://www.ehrco.net/
For a write-up of the case of Dr. Taye, see http://www.amnestyusa.org/action/special/wolde_semayat.html
For the Freedom Writers Network, see http://www.amnestyusa.org/freedomwriters/
For the Urgent Action bulletins, see http://www.amnestyusa.org/urgent
For Human Rights Watch coverage of Ethiopia, see http://www.hrw.org/press/2001/10/ethiopia-1017-ltr.htm
For the U.S. State Department Human Rights Reports on Ethiopia, see http://www.state.gov/www/global/human_rights/hrp_reports_mainhp.html
4. DIASPORA COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT
BACKGROUND: As Ethiopians fled to various. countries during the Derg years, they came to form self-help organizations to minister to the adjustment needs of their compatriots. I shall describe a few of them.
Chicago, Illinois. The Ethiopian Community Association of Chicago (ECAC) has long provided numerous. services for Ethiopians in the Greater Chicago area. Geared initially to refugee settlement, employment, and adjustment problems, its emphases have evolved as the immigrant community matured. ECAC now provides Amharic instruction to Ethiopian children born in the U.S. as well as English-language training to adults, translation and interpretation services, and assistance for new entrepreneurs. Recently it opened a Computer Training Center; equipped with state-of-the-art facilities, the program includes career counseling and job placement services. The ECAC helps other groups as well, through such cooperative activities as health outreach services and youth development projects. It regularly organizes community events such as Enquetatash celebrations and publishes a handsome bilingual quarterly magazine, Mahiber.
Seattle, Washington. The Ethiopian Community Mutual Association has been active for close to 20 years. Its services include case management and advocacy for Ethiopian expatriates, job placement, language training (Amharic and English), translation and interpretation, and citizenship classes. The association also organizes sports activities, after-school tutoring, and parenting classes. During the past year it has opened a Computer Resources and Training Center that offers classes five days a week at beginning, intermediate, and advanced levels.
Hadera, Israel. Founded in 1996, the Ethiopian Immigrants Volunteer Organization grew rapidly in response to the requirements of a large immigrant community. Its activities cover the entire gamut of adjustment needs, from infancy through senior citizens, with programs for parents and pre-school children, school children, adult education, community service, and culture. The organization features a holistic conception, whereby every member of the community is enabled both to give and to receive services according to their abilities, with continuous. follow-up to ensure meeting the stated objectives. Some distinctive elements include a program to help parents guide their children through kindergarten; a two-year leadership program that trains members of the community to develop good relationships with local government and regional and national institutions; a program to assist community elders (shemagles) help families and individuals solve issues in accordance with community customs; and a program to preserve traditional Ethiopian music and teach it to the next generation. New projects under way include the construction of a community cultural center and the creation of a course for mothers who can complete high school programs while learning to work as assistant teachers in kindergartens.
PROJECT: Ethiopian Community Association Networking
Representatives of these organizations with whom I have spoken indicate that it would be helpful to have some sort of clearinghouse whereby they could be in contact with one another. They have comparable problems and stand to benefit from ways of sharing information about how they have solved or are working on those problems.
CONTACT: For the Chicago association, contact Dr. Erku Ymer, Director, at 5. REPATRIATION PROJECT A: Several people are working to set up a structure to coordinate efforts among a number of interested parties. These include Ethiopian Jews in Israel who may wish to return to Ethiopia; Ethiopian Jews in Israel who wish to stay there but can help others to return; Bete Israel who have already returned, to Gondar and their traditional agerbet as well as to Addis Ababa; and members of Gondar Development Associations in Addis Ababa, Gondar, San Francisco, and elsewhere who wish to help their countrymen resettle. They are talking about a plan to make Weleka, the traditional Bete Israel homeland, the first site of resettlement. A target for the first phase would be about one hundred settlers. The idea would be to build houses at Weleka and also construct small plants for producing bricks, hollow blocks, and pottery. Weleka could become a center for training rural people in handicraft and trade skills. CONTACT: Mulugeta Wudu of San Jose 6. PAN-ETHIOPIAN RELIGIOUS DIALOGUE BACKGROUND: Ethiopia is perhaps the only country where the three great Semitic religions have not only lived side by side for centuries, but where their adherents have converted back and forth a fair amount and even celebrate festivals together. The annual pilgrimage to Qulubi Gabrael in December is a case in point. Encouraging communication among representative figures of each of the three faiths would not only advance the cause of Ethiopian unity but also be an important exemplar for other countries at this troubled time. What is more, many traditional Ethiopian religions have elements that show a family resemblance to the sacred symbols and practices of the Semitic religions. Might it be possible to contemplate resemblances as well as differences among the conceptions of Oromo Wak and other non-Semitic Ethiopian deities, Christian Egzhiabher, Jewish Yahweh, and Muslim Allah, and thereby open a process of communication of benefit not only Ethiopians but more than half of the world? PROJECT: One way to pursue such conversations would be to hold them in a supportive, neutral place–perhaps even outside of Ethiopia. One possible site for this would be the center of Etz Hayyim, a restored ancient synagogue in the town of Hania, Crete. A historic temple whose congregants were all annihilated by the Nazis and whose building was later destroyed by an earthquake, it was placed non the list of endangered monuments of international cultural concern. Dr. Nicholas Stavroulakis spearheaded the campaign to restore the synagogue and maintains it now as a museum and conference center to promote dialogue among the Semitic religions. Dr. Stavroulakis has recently offered the site as a place for Ethiopians to meet and pursue a pan-Ethiopian ecumenical dialogue. CONTACT: I am looking for a few Ethiopians who would be willing to help organize a project of this sort. If qualified and interested, please contact me at 7. PAN-ETHIOPIAN SCHOLARLY DIALOGUE BACKGROUND: For many years, the world of Ethiopian Studies comprised a vibrant international community whose participants knew and respected one another and where it really didn’t matter much if one were linguist or historian, geographer or musicologist, Northerner or Southerner, habesha or ferinj. Apart from the usual academic communications in what has been term an invisible college, the community manifested itself every few years in international conferences of Ethiopian Studies. As Ethiopia became internally divided, however, the community of Ethiopianist scholars registered similar divisions, above and beyond the worldwide processes of professional specialization. Two splinter groups formed, the Eritrean Studies Association and the Oromo Studies Association, and for some years their respective members have had little or nothing to do with one another. PROJECT: A small number of scholars who have been active in these associations are beginning to open a dialogue about finding ways to restore and enhance collegial communications. They include Drs. Asmarom Legesse, who originated this idea; Mohammed Hassen; Alessandro Triulzi; Donald Donham.; and myself. The idea is to organize a conference on a theme that would invite participation on a pan-Ethiopian basis and that might be relevant to the construction of a more democratic national society in Ethiopia. The idea of the first projected conference is to examine traditions of local democratic practices in the various. societies of historic Ethiopia. CONTACT: Further details will be announced during the coming year. Concluding comment.
< [email protected]>
For the Seattle association, contact Belay Demssie, Director, or Emanuel Habte, Secretary of the Board, at [email protected] , or see their web site at
For information on the Hadera association, contact Tesfaye Aderajew at 972-4-630-3211; Fax: 972-4-624-8353, or
For qualified and interested volunteers to assist in the networking effort, please contact me at
BACKGROUND: Many Ethiopians who left under duress during the Derg period would be interested in returning to their homeland, but they may require special assistance. Repatriation is not a simply matter of getting on a plane and disembarking. It involves a whole complex of adjustments, requiring the establishment of a supportive milieu often quite different from what was left behind. This may be particularly true of Jewish Ethiopians, known as Bete Israel (FKA Falasha), who emigrated to Israel en masse in 1986 and 1991 Many of them are having difficulty finding employment because they have not learned to speak Hebrew. Having left a condition of extreme poverty and often discrimination, they may find it especially difficult to repatriate. On the other hand, some who have acquired modern training may wish to return to help rebuild their homeland.
PROJECT B: Another initiative would be to establish a clearinghouse of information for other Ethiopians anywhere who wish to repatriate as part of a movement to build a unified and democratic national society. The United Nations High Commission for Refugees may be a place to start working on that.
The networks of communication among Ethiopians in the diaspora and with those at home make it possible to envision new dimensions of strength in the effort to help Ethiopia recover from the traumas of the past generation. Supposing all Ethiopians in the diaspora committed themselves to participating at some point in one or another project of the sort described here or elsewhere? Might it be possible to view them now, not just as “expatriates” but as “external patriots”?