The mere mention of the words “Issayas Afewerki” or “Shabia” causes Woyanne thugs to lose their mind. We’ll say more about the Woyanne reaction shortly, but for now here is a sample of how the Woyanne-backed Eritrean opposition reacted to Ethiopian Review’s selection of Eritrea’s president as “Person of the Year.”
The story of Eritrea tyrant Afawarki gets curiouser and curiouser! A very popular Ethiopian website selected Eritrea’s tyrant Afawarki the 2008 “Person of the Year” for contributing “the most to the betterment of Ethiopia”. As to Afawarki persistent strive for a United Ethiopia, it is no surprise. It is a manifestation of what he publicly proclaimed following the referendum in 1993. At the time Afawarki has let Eritreans know in no uncertain terms “that the border between Eritrea and Ethiopia will soon vanish and that Eritrea and Ethiopia would enter into an association of one form or the other.”… [read more]
(BBC) – [The Woyanne regime in] Ethiopia says its troops have begun their final pullout from Somalia, after two years helping the [puppet] transitional government fight insurgents.
Ethiopian Prime Minister dictator Meles Zenawi’s spokesman said the withdrawal would take several days.
A convoy of about 30 Ethiopian Woyanne vehicles loaded with troops and equipment has left the Somali capital, Mogadishu.
Hours earlier a roadside bomb killed two Ethiopian Woyanne soldiers and several civilians died when troops opened fire.
“We have already started to implement our withdrawal plan. It will take some more days. It is a process and it will take some time,” Bereket Simon, special adviser to Meles Zenawi, told AFP news agency.
There are currently some 3,600 Ugandan and Burundian African Union (AU) peacekeepers in Somalia who are due to take over security duties until joint units involving government forces and moderate opposition factions are established.
But there are fears that violence will continue despite a peace deal between Somalia’s transitional government and one of the main opposition factions.
Various Islamist and nationalist groups now control much of southern Somalia.
Government forces only control parts of Mogadishu and the town of Baidoa.
Soceity of Ethiopian Web Site Developers (SEWD) has released its annual survey of top Ethiopian web sites. See the result below.
Ethiopian Web site of the Year 2008 Result
ታላቁ የ2001 ዓ.ም የኢትዮጵያ ድህረ ገፆች ውድድር ውጤት
1. Best Design and Look
1. Ethiopian Review
2. EthioTube.net
3. Abugidainfo.com
2. Originally News and Content
1. Ethiopian Review
2. Abugidainfo.com
3. Aiga forum
3.Community Participation (blog, Social network, forum and comment)
1. Ethiopian Review
2. Cyberethiopia.com
3. EthioTube.net
4. Music, Video
1. EthioTube.net
2. Ethiopian Review
3. Addis Live
5. Informative (Business Directory, 411 and Other info)
1. Ethiopian Review
2. Jimma Times
3. Addis Fortune
6. Multilingual Content (Amharic, Oromogna, Tigrigna, Somali & Arabic)
1. Ethiopian Review
2. Jimmatimes.com
3. Walta Info
7. Alexa Web site traffic ranking
1. Nazret.com (not a fair comparison since Nazret is allowed in Ethiopia)
2. Ethiopian Review (blocked in Ethiopia)
3. Ethiomedia.com (blocked in Ethiopia)
8. 2008 Sewd Achievement Award.
1. Daniel Yacob founder of Ge’ez Frontier Foundation
2. Kitaw Yayehyirad Founder and Director General of Cyber Ethiopia.net
Overall Ethiopian Web Site of of the Year winners
1st Ethiopian Review
2nd EthioTube.net
3rd JimmaTimes.com
Note from ER Editor:
Ethiopian Review would like to thank SEWD for conducting this annual survey. ER is not only the best quality Ethiopian web site, according to your survey, but also the most visited, according to Statbrain.com, which takes into account several statistic tools, including alexa.com. Nazret.com claims to be the most visited site and shows off figures by alexa.com, but Statbrain.com tells a different story. Ethiopian Review is the most visited site despite being blocked in Ethiopia, unlike Nazret.com, which is accessible in Ethiopia. The only reason Nazret.com is even in a competition with EthiopianReview.com because Nazret.com is not blocked in Ethiopia.
The dictatorial regime in Ethiopia has charged editor of the popular Awramba Newspaper, Ato Dawit Kebede, of violating the Woyanne “press law.”
The charge specifies three articles and editorials that were published in the newspaper at different times that the prosecutor claims to be against the “Ethiopian government and constitution.”
The document signed by Bekele Eshete, a prosecutor for the Federal Ministry of Justice, says that the articles are also intended to incite violence.
It’s been a long-held tradition of Ethiopian Review to choose “Person of the Year.” The person who is selected by Ethiopian Review’s publisher, in consultation with associates and readers of the journal, is believed to have contributed the most to the betterment of Ethiopia in the past 12 months.
For the year 2008, Ethiopian Review has selected President Issayas Afeworki of Eritrea as “Person of the Year.”
The choice was an easy one. But it is expected to create a great deal of controversy because of a relentless propaganda campaign that the tribalist regime in Ethiopia, the Tigray People Liberation Front (Woyanne), has been waging to make sure that relations between Ethiopians and Eritreans will NOT develop and improve. It’s the same tactic that Woyanne uses inside Ethiopia and through out the Horn of Africa region to turn people against each other.
The Woyanne propaganda has been effective only to a certain extent. Through an aggressive counter campaign by the media from both the Ethiopian and the Eritrean sides, such as Ethiopian Review and EriTV, as well as the Eritrean government’s tireless effort, a great deal of improvements have been made in improving the relationship between the people of Ethiopia and Eritrea. This has been a nightmare for Meles Zenawi’s Woyanne, as well as those tribalists such as the Siye Abraha group that strive take over power after Meles is gone.
The person who is leading and putting the resources of his government behind the effort to create friendship and lasting peace among not only Eritreans and Ethiopians, but all people of the Horn of Africa is Issayas Afeworki.
Under President Issayas’ leadership, Eritrea has opened up its doors to Ethiopians who are fleeing Meles Zenawi’s bloodsucking dictatorship. There is no country in the world, perhaps with the exception of the U.S., where the rights and freedom of Ethiopian refugees have been fully respected and protected as much as Eritrea.
Freedom fighters such as EPPF, OLF, ONLF, TPDM and others are given shelters in Eritrea so that their wounded receive treatments and their leaders hold meetings unmolested by Woyanne agents, thanks to President Issayas. These freedom fighters are gaining ground every day and will succeed in removing the Woyanne cancer from the Horn of Africa. Only then Ethiopia’s unity can be saved, and a lasting peace in the Horn of Africa region will prevail. The humiliating defeat of Woyanne in Somalia — brilliantly masterminded by Issayas Afeworki — is a major step toward that goal.
While Woyanne-controlled radio and TV programs transmit daily barrages of propaganda that promote ethnic division, under the sponsorship of the Eritrean government, EriTV and Eritrean Radio are aggressively promoting Ethiopian unity — despite the tens of millions of dollars Woyannes spends to jam them. Issayas Afeworki has also authorized a publication named ‘One Ethiopia’ for the purpose of countering Woyanne’s anti-Ethiopia propaganda.
Why would Issayas Afeworki and his government want to help Ethiopian freedom fighters to free our country from the Woyanne cancer?
1) Between 1998 and 2000, Meles & gang have carried out a massive ethnic cleansing campaign against Eritreans. During this campaign, over 500,000 Eritreans, most of whom were born and raised in Ethiopia, had been stripped of all their properties and expelled from Ethiopia. Their homes and other properties were distributed among Woyanne officials and members. Because of forced family separations, it is estimated that close to 1 million Eritreans are affected by the Woyanne ethnic cleansing campaign. The ethnic cleansing that Meles, Seye & gang had carried out against Eritreans is a crime against humanity by any standard, which the United Nations has completely ignored. Getting justice for these Eritrean victims of ethnic cleansing alone is a good motivation for the Eritrean government to help Ethiopian freedom fighters eliminate Woyanne.
2) Eritreans are well aware that the endless ethnic and religious conflicts that the Woyanne regime is instigating in Ethiopia will continue to keep them in a perpetual state of war. They have seen it first hand how monstrous evil Woyannes are. Eritreans have suffered more during the Woyanne regime than through all the wars during the Derg regime. Currently, Woyanne has created a transitional Eritrean government based in Mekelle and is arming and training over 20,000 mercenaries. It is preparing to invade Eritrea and put a puppet regime in Asmara as it tried to do in Somalia. Getting rid of Woyanne, in collaboration with Ethiopian freedom fighters, is a matter of survival for Eritreans, not a just a kind favor for Ethiopia.
The reason why Woyannes have turned their backs on Eritreans after the Eritrean People Liberation Front helped them come to power is more psychological than any thing else. By nature, Woyannes are ravenously greedy (like hyenas), and more importantly, they suffer from chronic inferiority complex. That’s why they are extremely violent and ready to flex their muscle over every little disagreement.
For Ethiopian freedom fighters to fight and successfully defeat the Woyanne mafia, cooperation with Eritrea’s government is necessary. Those Ethiopian opposition leaders who have understood this fact have been doing that for a while now and in the past few months a great deal of progress has been made.
It is not an easy task to defeat Woyanne. Because unlike in Somalia, there are too many fake opposition figures in Ethiopia that create confusion. The only genuine Ethiopian opposition groups at this time are those that are shooting or ready to shoot real bullets at Woyanne.
For those who are able to see through the smoke that Woyanne propagandists are producing, it is easy to arrive at the same conclusion that Ethiopian Review has reached that Issayas Afeworki has contributed the most to the fight to remove the cancer that is eating away at Ethiopia in the past 12 months. President Issayas has been able to throw out of whack the Woyanne master plan of creating ‘Greater Tigray’ and fragmenting Ethiopia into 8 small countries with their own puppet regimes serving the ‘golden race.’
The visceral hate toward the publisher of Ethiopian Review by not only Woyanne, but also those who want to remove Meles but keep Woyanne in power, is caused by the knowledge that Ethiopian Review is succeeding in exposing their tribalist agenda. The selection of President Isayas Afeworki of Eritrea by the #1 Ethiopian journal will surely drive them more insane than they already are.
Let 2009 bring freedom and peace to Ethiopia and all the people of the Horn of Africa.
The following are some of the names of those civilians massacred by the Ethiopian regime [Woyanne] troops in Mooyaha village, Ogaden on December 17th 2008. Forty eighty civilians were gunned down in the village center. The area was closed of for several days in order to remove the bodies and eliminate the evidence of a massacre. These people were unarmed. The massacre was a war crime and demonstrates that the people of Ogaden continue to be targeted solely because of their ethnic heritage and their desire for freedom in a systematic and deliberate campaign of terror perpetrated by the Woyanne regime in Ethiopia. The United Nations continues to turn a blind eye to these events and has justified its inability to conduct an “independent investigation” into war crimes in Ogaden on the fact that the Meles regime has not invited them in. The ONLF notes that there is no evidence that the United Nations has even asked to be let in to conduct an “independent investigation” into gross violations of human rights as called for by the UN’s own humanitarian assessment team which visited Ogaden in late 2007.
List of Names Of Those Massacred By Woyanne troops
1. Sheekh Abdi Xaliimo Sh Muhumed
2. Mawliid Sh Abdi Haliim
3. Mohamed Abdi Haliim
4. Aw-Nuur Xaashi C/llaahi
5. Ibraahim Abdi C/llaahi
6. Sheekh C/llaahi Muxumed Kare
7. Muhumed Muumin
8. Qarayare
9. Ali Haydar Ali
10. Abdi Shafeec Hassan
11. Haashi Budul Osman
12. Hassan-Lacag A/llaahi Osman
13. Abdullaahi Shekh Hassan Dayib
14. Mohamed Sheekh Hassan Dayib
15. Daba-Geel
16. Dayr Xandulle
17. Ismail Gannad
18. Mohamed Farah Dheere
19. C/llaahi Badal
20. Arahman Mohamed Sugulle(Baylood)
21. Sandon
22. Mustafe Hassan Mahad
23. C/llaahi Ali Xaamud
24. C/llaahi Imaan Muhumed
25. Ibrahim Dhaga-Cadde
26. Ismail Aw-Dahir
27. Badal Idaan Xuseen
28. Maxamuud Cali Ciise Didhiq
29. Abdirahman (dharjaan)
30. Sheekh Abdullaahi Muctaad
31. Bacallaadh
32. Cumar-Qoofal
33. Geedi Ali Mahad
34. Badri C/llaahi
35. Abdi Hassan Khaliif
36. Ali Abshir
Source: Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF)
