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Eleni Gabre-Madhin threatens a U.S. newspaper reporter

Posted on by Elias Kifle

Who’s getting coffee from Ethiopia right now?

By Melissa Allison

The Ethiopia Commodity Exchange wants people to know that the country is still exporting coffee. When I declined to correct this blog post from last week, because it accurately says that the country’s six largest exporters — not all of its exporters — have been shut down, here’s the e-mail I got in return:

Eleni Gabre-Madhin, CEO, Ethiopian Commodity Exchange

Dear Melissa,

I find it difficult to believe that a title that starts “Ethiopia halts coffee exports..” can be in any way conceived as factually acceptable since it is blatantly false. Ethiopia has continued to export coffee every day since the legal actions taken by the regulators. There are more than 120 registered coffee exporters and this is an action concerning 6 companies. I also find it incredible that [another reporter] finds this to be a correct title since he knows firsthand that a statement that Ethiopia has halted coffee exports is patently untrue and extremely damaging to our industry. Unfortunately, neither you nor [the other reporter] are holding yourselves to the standards of truth that we hold you to as what should be responsible members of internationally recognized media. Please be assured that unless appropriate retractions and corrections are made, we will hold you accountable and pursue this matter in a more formal manner.

Best regards,

Eleni Gabre-Madhin
CEO
Ethiopia Commodity Exchange

The other reporter is from another news organization and for some reason was copied on the original request for a correction from me. He responded that he didn’t think my post needed a correction, saying “If a newspaper writes a headline: ‘Police Arrest Bank Robbers,’ it’s understood that the police may not necessarily have arrested all bank robbers, everywhere.”

The New York Times corrected a post I had linked to that incorrectly said no coffee is leaving Ethiopia.

Ethiopian agribusiness expert Bruck Fikru, who appears to work for Fintrac, correctly points out that I should do more research.

For example, Fikru wrote, I was wrong in saying that “U.S. importers can’t buy directly from the growers they prefer.”

Yet I’ve heard from Seattle roasters who say they got beans out of Ethiopia just in the nick of time.

So who’s getting coffee from Ethiopia these days, and how’s it going?

15 thoughts on “Eleni Gabre-Madhin threatens a U.S. newspaper reporter”

  1. We do not expect anything good from the TPLF robbers like Eleni who are in Ethiopia to pillage and enrich themselves. Now the coffee business is to be fully controlled by the Woyannes and others are to be out of the business. The Ethiopian economy is under the Woyannes who are getting favors and preferential treatments since they control power in the country.

  2. Eleni: c/o Ethiopian Review
    You should have other priorities that are pending such as solving the ECX problems that is plaguing the country. Instead you are wasting public money and time with reporters in the US.
    So where does your priorities lie – with the US public or the Ethiopian people whom are expecting something fruitful from you?

  3. Kill those who earn money with their effort. I personally know some of these coffee exporters. They are smart Ethiopian sons who made their fortune with their hard work and strating from the scratch. And the government is now robbing the fruite of their life-time effort to simply let its cadres control the business. Leboch!

  8. It is communism, stupid. Any ways most Ethiopian political parties are sugar coating their communist brainwashed ideology with liberal democracy. Unfortunately, those in their fifties and early sixties need detoxification from this seek ideology of snatching someones hard earned money. It is sad to hear from so many educated and uneducated Ethiopians “gosh deg aderegachew woyane”, how in the hell is a country going to go ahead when hard working people are being robbed by the same government that is supposed to protect them. Isn’t this destroying the fabric of society. Why is the Ethiopian mind set on snatching other’s property. Derg did it. Woyane didn’t honestly return confiscated property to its owners. Sad to see those hard working Ethiopians whose property was confiscated by Derg, now in dire poverty. Again now Derg(B) or Woyane is copying the same strategy that Derg use. The Ethiopian people are not “experiment rats” but respected people with heritage and great culture. You can’t be driveing 90 miles and hour and then make a u turn with the same speed. ECX in Ethiopia is a new phenomenon. It should take some time to implement. Any one involved, including government officials need to be educated about it. It has to be attractive to everyone. You can’t just continue the rebel style governance. This is really sickening. I don’t really have great sympathy for most of Ethipia’s wealthy business men, for the are crooks who have no philantrophy set of mind but that is not the point. It is the principle of liberal economics that is being shaken from its foundation. This is not different that Derg officials action that when kebele officals are short of transportation during critically dangerous era of the revolution, they knock on your door and order you to lend them your car. When you get back your car, some silly kebele offical who may not have a good driving skill would mess up your car to the point of sometimes totalling your car. I have witnessed these types of abuse. It is coming again people.

  9. Hi Elias (ER Intelligence Unit)

    Please write down someinfo about “who is Eleni ?” and Ethiopia Commodity Exchange organization. I barely know her.

    Thanks,

  11. Hi guys,

    I will write details about Eleni and her scam under this ECX case which she is joking and eating flesh of poor farmers. She is a complete freak who has been jumping from WB to IFPRI and now ready to scavenger the poor, another fat cat trying to establish similar stock fraud on agriculture.

  12. I heard that Dr. Eleni G.M. is a good economist and studied in one of the top universities in the US. But now she is loyal to Woyanne and it doesn’t matter whether she is brilliant or not. Woyanne is Woyanne, enemy of Ethiopia

  13. This is not even about Eleni, this is about the “lazy mind set”. Instead of working hard, wanting someone’s money. The whole culture needs to change.

  14. If there are 120 exporters, why did the Meles Government nationalized the 6 exporters?, unless they are the major exporters. Eleni’s negative and threatening reaction to reporters puts her right under Woyanne control of the Exchange. True, she is a good economist with a PhD from Stanford, Ca.

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