Criminal Colonialism
Ethiopia 1935-1941: Voyage to the shadowy heart of Italy
“Looking back on the war in Ethiopia today means having to deal with the way we are today: with the myth that is the popular saying, “the Italians are good”, always useful whenever there is an aggressive foreign war; with those prejudices that exist against anyone different which are also a product of a colonial past that has never been properly criticised; with the arrogant return of patriarchal ideas and the separation of the roles of the sexes. But if we deal with this, we must deal with it fully, seeking to understand it from the point of view of those Ethiopians, both men and women, who opposed the barbarity that called itself civility.”
Speakers:
* Mulu Ayele (Ethiopian community): Ethiopian women in the resistance to the Fascist colonialism;
* Loredana Baglio (Corrispondenze metropolitane): Colonialism and women;
* Nancy Aluigi Nannini (anthropologist): The colonial origin of prejudices.
Photographic exhibition (photos by A. Imperiali)
Portions of the films “Fascist legacy” and “Tempo di uccidere” will be shown.
DATE: Friday 24 April 2009 – at 5.00pm
PLACE: The Università La Sapienza, Faculty of Physics (old building), Rome
Organized by:
Laboratorio Sociale “La Talpa”
Corrispondenze Metropolitane
Comunità etiopica in Italia
Exodus (Ethiopian Cultural Service)
Federazione dei Comunisti Anarchici
Unione Sindacale Italiana
EDITOR’S NOTE: The self-proclaimed ‘first lady’ of Ethiopia, Azeb Mesfin, did not attend the meeting even though she is the vice chairwomen of “African First Ladies for Against HIV”. Azeb is worse than the HIV. She and her husband are responsible for more deaths than all the diseases in Ethiopia combined. The evil witch is now busy solidifying her position in EFFORT that will enable her to steal more money.
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – A group of African first ladies began a two-day meeting in Los Angeles on Monday to forge U.S. partnerships to try to improve health and education of women and girls in African communities afflicted by AIDS.
The wives of the presidents and prime ministers of Kenya, Nigeria, Angola, Zambia, Cameroon and 10 other nations teamed up with U.S. health experts, nonprofit groups and a clutch of celebrities to promote their work.
“Nowhere before in the United States has such a large group of African first ladies come together to talk as one,” Ted Alemayhu, founder of the Los Angeles-based U.S. Doctors for Africa, told a news conference.
Hollywood actresses Diane Lane, Maria Bello, Robin Wright Penn and Camryn Manheim were among the celebrity women who attended an opening day luncheon.
Singer Natalie Cole, daughter of the late Nat King Cole, will perform at a fund-raiser by oil company ExxonMobil, while Sharon Stone is due to moderate a panel aimed at transforming words into action.
The meeting hopes to raise awareness in Hollywood of various projects in Africa to supply clean water, fight malaria and combat AIDS.
The charitable group of 22 first ladies was formed in 2002 and is called African Synergy Against AIDS and Suffering. It was set up to highlight the vital role of women in education and healthcare in the world’s poorest continent.
Women in sub-Saharan Africa account for 57 percent of HIV infections and young African women are three times more likely to become infected than men of comparable age in the region, according to a 2006 United Nations Development Program report.
“As an African woman, this is really exciting and unprecedented,” said “CSI: Miami” actress Megalyn Echikunwoke, whose father is Nigerian. “For me this is really about finding out how we can support the first ladies.”
Oil giant Chevron, one of the meeting sponsors, announced a $5 million contribution to help fight malaria in Angola as part of its outreach programs in Africa.
Sarah Brown, wife of British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, will deliver a keynote address on Tuesday, while former U.S. first lady Laura Bush will make a video address.
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (AFP) – Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir yesterday taunted the international community by arguing that an arrest warrant against him for war crimes had earned him more support than ever.
Bashir made his statement after meeting Ethiopian Prime Minister dictator Meles Zenawi (who is also accused by international human rights groups of committing war crimes) in Addis Ababa, on his sixth foreign trip since the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued its warrant on March 4.
“For us, the ICC indictment has been positive,” Bashir told reporters.
The veteran leader is accused by the Hague-based court of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Sudan’s western region of Darfur, where the UN says six years of conflict has killed 300,000 people.
The arrest warrant was the court’s first against a sitting head of state and was seen as a key step in making world leaders accountable.
But Bashir, who has ruled over Africa’s fractious largest country for two decades, suggested the move had enhanced his domestic and regional standing.
“For the internal front in Sudan, we have all seen how the Sudanese people have come out in a spontaneous way to support the president of Sudan,” he said.
“We have found a very strong stance from the regional organisations like the Arab League and the African Union,” Bashir also said.
No Western representatives were at the airport for Bashir’s arrival yesterday.
A diplomat speaking on condition of anonymity said Western ambassadors and envoys would boycott a state dinner in Bashir’s honour after receiving instructions from their capitals not to attend.
But Meles, whose country has often had tense relations with Sudan, stood by his neighbour and said the ICC’s landmark decision was “totally unacceptable”.
“What was done by the ICC to President Omar al-Bashir is an initiative with great implications not only for the people of Sudan, but also for Africans and for Ethiopia,” he said before going into talks with Bashir.
Meles condemned what he said was the “overpolitisation of the humanitarian issues and the overpolitisation of the international justice.”
Bashir has dismissed the notion that the warrant could restrict his travel.
No attempt has been made to arrest him during any of his recent trips, all to countries — Ethiopia included — that were not signatories to the 2002 international convention that created the ICC. Prior to his Ethiopian visit, Bashir on April 1 travelled to Saudi Arabia, where he performed the Umrah, or minor pilgrimage.
On March 30, he attended the Arab League summit in Doha, where other Arab leaders formally pledged their support for the indicted leader and condemned the court’s actions.
“We stress our solidarity with Sudan and our rejection of the ICC decision against President Omar al-Bashir,” the Arab leaders said in the summit’s final declaration.
Bashir has also travelled to Egypt and Libya since the warrant was issued but reserved his first trip for Eritrea.
BOSTON, USA — He had been among the leaders in the middle of the hills in Boston three years ago, but couldn’t finish. He had the Olympic bronze medal in hand coming into the stadium last year, but ended up fourth. This time, Deriba Merga vowed, he would be the last lion.
And so he was yesterday afternoon as the 28-year-old Ethiopian pulled off an impressive upset in the 113th Boston Marathon, ending Robert Cheruiyot’s three-year reign as men’s champion with an easy 50-second victory over Daniel Rono, Cheruiyot’s Kenyan countryman.
It was only the third men’s victory here for the Ethiopians, who would have swept the men’s and women’s races if Kenya’s Salina Kosgei hadn’t nipped defending champion Dire Tune at the tape. But the men’s race was decided 5 miles from the finish.
“I had full confidence to win the race from the beginning,” said Merga, who ran alone from Heartbreak Hill to Copley Square into a stiff headwind and finished in 2 hours 8 minutes 42 seconds, dashing the dreams of both Cheruiyot and Ryan Hall, who had hoped to be the first American victor here in 26 years.
“Would I have liked to win? Yeah,” said the 26-year-old Californian, who finished 8 seconds behind Rono in 2:09:40, the seventh-fastest time by a domestic runner here and the best in 15 years. “Did I think I had a legitimate shot? Of course. But a lot of guys have legitimate shots and don’t win.”
Most notable among them yesterday was Cheruiyot, the four-time champion who was bidding to become the first to win four straight here. But he fell out of sight after leading midway through, dropped out at Cleveland Circle, and was taken to St. Elizabeth’s Hospital to be checked out.
Unlike the women’s race, which could have been mistaken for a holiday fun run until the final few miles, the men had a demanding outing, with the lead pack dashing through the first 9 miles in course-record time. Setting the pace was Hall, who dashed away at the gun and stayed in front for almost the entire first third of the race.
“My plan was to run my own race from the get-go,” he said. “I like to run fast.”
Not since Cheruiyot’s record run (2:07:14) in 2006 had the leaders gone out that aggressively. They were through the opening mile in 4:40, 19 seconds under the old split, in three at 14:05 (50 under), in six at 28:27 (37 under).
“I wanted to make it a full 26-mile race and not let it come down to the final 10K,” Hall said. “I wanted to make it an honest race.”
At the half marathon, even after a persistent and chilly headwind had picked up significantly, there still were a dozen men jockeying in the lead pack, most of them warily glancing sideways at each other.
“I was thinking that the race would start at halfway,” said Rono, who finished third in New York last year.
When it still hadn’t by the time the runners reached Newton Lower Falls, former champ Timothy Cherigat and Stephen Kiogora took off on their own heading up the Route 128 overpass.
That sounded the alarm for Merga, who had planned to make his move during the “Haunted Mile” on the flats after Boston College, but decided he had to do it even before the firehouse turn that leads into the Newton hill country.
“There are a lot of strong athletes with us,” he said. “If I didn’t push, maybe I didn’t have a chance to win.”
So Merga quickly took it up a gear, with countryman Solomon Molla and Rono following. Just that quickly, it was a three-man race. Cheruiyot, who used to chew up his rivals around that point, had vanished.
“At 18K, he is coming from behind,” Merga said. “After that, he did not come. I think this day is not for him.”
Three other men – Clarence DeMar (1925), Bill Rodgers (1981), and Cosmas Ndeti (1996) – tried to win four in a row here and found that it was not their day. Once Merga concluded that Cheruiyot was finished, he made sure that nobody else could stalk him. So he put his head down, charged up the first hill, and dropped Molla. He pounded up the second and rid himself of Rono.
When he reached the crest of Heartbreak, Merga looked over his shoulder and saw nothing but blacktop. Rono was nearly half a minute behind. When Merga glanced backward again at Coolidge Corner, 2 miles from the finish, he realized there were no more lions to deal with.
“I am looking behind,” he said, “and there is nobody behind of me.”
Rono, who was making his Boston debut, was satisfied with second.
“Boston is the toughest of all,” he said. “I was very happy to secure my position.”
And Hall, who had dropped to 11th coming out of Wellesley Hills, was content with the late, if extraordinarily painful charge, that put him on the podium.
“My day will come,” he declared, “and I’ll be back.”
This is a race that rewards persistence. Rodgers dropped out of his first Boston before winning four times.
“I was learning the marathon,” Rodgers said, “and Boston is a cruel place to learn it.”
Merga’s Boston debut in 2006 ended 2 miles short and his experience at Olympus, where countryman Tsegaye Kebede outkicked him, was dispiriting. But after he destroyed the Houston course record in January, Merga sensed it was his year. Yesterday, he knew it was both his and his country’s day.
“Boston is one of the biggest marathons in the world,” said the man from Addis Ababa. “Because of that, our people are very happy.”
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Sudan’s president made his sixth foreign trip since his indictment on charges of war crimes in Darfur, traveling Tuesday to Ethiopia despite the international warrant for his arrest.
An Ethiopian foreign ministry spokesman said President Omar al-Bashir would not face arrest.
He will discuss “political, economic and security matters” issues with Ethiopian officials during a daylong visit and will meet with Prime Minister dictator Meles Zenawi, spokesman Wahide Belay said.
“He is welcome as a guest to Ethiopia,” he said. “As you know, we have opposed the arrest warrant as a country, as a government, within (regional groups) and within the African Union. There is no reason to take any action on the president.” […read more].
OROMIYA, Ethiopia (UNFPA) — If you were to visit 65-year-old Ayatu Nure and his family at their compound in the Oromiya region of Ethiopia, you would probably find eight of Ayatu’s 12 wives harvesting banana roots for dinner, while chasing after their combined 78 children. At first glance, this unlikely family appears carefree — but a closer look reveals that many of Ayatu’s children are hungry, possibly even malnourished. Their main source of food — banana roots — doesn’t provide much nutrition, but unfortunately this is the only thing Ayatu can afford.
In this remote, densely-populated region of Ethiopia, it is common for men to have multiple wives. In Ayatu’s case this tradition has backfired. Years ago, he had enough land and food to satisfy everyone’s needs. This changed when Ayatu had to sell land or cattle to make the dowry payment for each new wife he took, usually a sum of between $500 and $1,000. Now, the family compound is almost bare from overgrazing, two of his wives have moved with cattle in search of greener pastures, and two others died from unknown illnesses in the 1990s. The situation is so desperate that Ayatu cannot afford to send his children to secondary school, and he is marrying off two of his 15-year-old daughters to ensure they are fed. Thirteen others are living with their married siblings.
Living with two wives and eight children in a neighbouring town is Ayatu’s eldest son, Dagne. Dagne said he and his father made a mistake by taking more than one wife and blames it on a lack of education, “Men and women don’t have the knowledge of birth spacing or the desire to seek this information,” said Dagne.
Ayatu’s family is enormous by any standards. In Ethiopia, having at least five children per mother is the norm. “The population is growing at a rate of 2.7 percent annually, said Dr. Monique Rakotomalala, the Ethiopia representative for UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund. With the population of the country now at 73 million, she is concerned. “That means two million new people every year.” At this rate, the population could double over the next 24 years, severely stretching existing resources. Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Ethiopia’s Minister of Health, says the secret is smaller families. “We have to educate our communities and tell them the benefits of smaller families because it will bring a better quality of life to each household.”
To assist families like Ayatu’s, the Government of Ethiopia has launched a network of 29,000 health extension workers to teach both men and women about family planning and provide contraceptives to those who want to delay childbearing. So far, two of Ayatu’s wives are using long-term implants. Many women in remote villages opt for this method because of the distance between their homes and health centres. Yet, health extension workers visiting families in this pastoral landscape also face difficulties as they have to walk long distances to reach one household, and sometimes lack sufficient stock to meet the demands of many communities.
Ayatu admits he failed to acknowledge the consequences of having such a large family, and wants to be a role model for young people so they will not make the same mistake. “I wasn’t educated,” said Ayatua. “Nobody asked me. Nobody told me of the consequences”.
“Looking back on the war in Ethiopia today means having to deal with the way we are today: with the myth that is the popular saying, “the Italians are good”, always useful whenever there is an aggressive foreign war; with those prejudices that exist against anyone different which are also a product of a colonial past that has never been properly criticised; with the arrogant return of patriarchal ideas and the separation of the roles of the sexes. But if we deal with this, we must deal with it fully, seeking to understand it from the point of view of those Ethiopians, both men and women, who opposed the barbarity that called itself civility.”
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (AFP) – Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir yesterday taunted the international community by arguing that an arrest warrant against him for war crimes had earned him more support than ever.
BOSTON, USA — He had been among the leaders in the middle of the hills in Boston three years ago, but couldn’t finish. He had the Olympic bronze medal in hand coming into the stadium last year, but ended up fourth. This time, Deriba Merga vowed, he would be the last lion.