This lengthy article (Amharic, pdf) discusses possible motives behind the attempt on Amare Aregawi’s life last Friday.
Ato Amare, publisher and editor-in-chief of The Reporter, was brutally attacked by three unidentified individuals in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on Friday, Oct. 31. He is currently recovering in Hayat Hospital from a non-life-threatening head injury.
The articles gives a good insight into what may have transpired that led to the assassination attempt. Those who may have motives to send a serious warning or eliminate Amare range from Bereket Simon to Al Amoudi. Click here to read.
All Ethiopian Unity Party (AEUP), a former member organization of the Coalition for Unity and Democracy (Kinijit), is reporting that police in the town of Sodo entered it’s vice-chairman Dr Tadiwos Tantu’s hotel room and confiscated his documents on Oct. 28. According to AEUP’s press release, Dr Tadiwos Tantu was on a working visit in Sodo at the time.
Another official of AEUP, Ato Ali Mirah Yayu, was arrested in Assayita Zone by the local police on Oct. 27, 2008, and released the following day. Ato Ali was arrested on the order of the Assayita police commander Shambel Mohammed Abdela, according to AEUP. Ato Ali Hareb, the property owner who rented his building to the AEUP for office, was beaten up and tortured by the Assayita police.
Ato Getye Desta in Northern Shoa and Ato Bekele Girma in Gedio Zone — both AEUP officials — are currently languishing in jail.
Two days ago, UDJ vice-chairman Ato Gizachew Shiferraw and two other party officials were arrested in Gojjam, northern Ethiopia.
On the same day, secretary general of the Oromo Federal Democratic Movement (OFDM), Ato Beqele Jirata, was arrested by the Federal Police while on his way to his office. His home was searched and documents were confiscated.
On Friday, Ato Shiferraw Jarso, a Woyanne regime official, was on Voice of America claiming that opposition parties are free to operate in the country. Click below to listen:
ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA – Getting around Addis can be quite a hassle. Public transportation is provided by hundreds of ‘mini-buses’ that are actually secondhand Toyota vans from Europe. While it’s cheap, it’s certainly not the most efficient method. All summer I’ve been scheming and brainstorming different methods of transportation. Unfortunately, the tax on cars is something like 240%, meaning a twenty year old Land Cruiser runs you about $20,000 USD. Not exactly within my budget. Donkeys are readily available and cheap, about $60-80 USD, but they are a little undersized. Bicycles are expensive, approximately $120 USD, and you are limited to the city, unless you are Lance Armstrong. Bajas, three wheeled golf-cart like taxis, are one of my favorite means of transport, but they are too expensive unless you plan to use it as a taxi, roughly $4,000-5,000 USD.
That left one option: a motorcycle. My top two choices, Yamaha or Suzuki (also the most popular models in Addis) where both too expensive. You can always count on the Chinese for a cheap imitation though, and that’s exactly what I went with: a Loncin 125. I know, it’s a small engine; give me a break, it’s all I can afford.
The other day I was humming along, on my way to the gym when the bike started sputtering and then ran out of gas. Luckily, I was going downhill, so I coasted to the bottom where I knew a gas station to be. I pushed the bike into the station only to find it was a diesel station.
Time to push it back up the hill, to a Shell station about a half-mile away. Ethiopians are some of the most willing people when it comes to helping a commuter in distress; two guys immediately helped me push it up the hill. This was not because I was a ‘ferenge’ (foreigner). I have, on numerous occasions, witnessed people help push broken down cars and buses.
After reaching the Shell station I gave the guys a few birr for their help and then asked for a fill-up. ‘Sorry, petrol yellem (out of gas).’ A gas station out of gas, fantastic I thought; time to walk home and leave the bike. I parked my bike in the corner of the lot and started walking but was immediately called to the gas station café by an Ethiopian who was having a beer with his buddies. His English was near perfect and, to my surprise he asked me if I would like to borrow his car and jerry-can to fetch some gas. I was about to accept, and then decided I did not want to take the risk of a fender bender in someone else’s care.
Tsefay, my new friend’s name, was as polite as he could be. Rather than simply wishing me well when I declined, he asked the gas attendant to suck a liter out of his car and put it in my bike. Wow, what I guy I’m thinking. He then asks, ‘What’ll you take?’
“Giorgis, of course,” I said as I ordered the local beer. While we enjoyed our beer, along with a host of his friends, he told me he learned a lot from US soldiers stationed in Ethiopia when he was kid. The two main takeaways being spoken English and beer drinking. At least you are still doing both well, I thought to myself. I also learned that he had had a bike for over twenty years, and knew what it was like to be stranded. As we talked, one of his friends slipped out and told the attendant to transfer 3 liters of gas, rather than the initially ordered one liter.
When I saw what was going on, I was worried Tsefay would get mad and take it out on me. I immediately said I’d pay the difference, but he laughed it off and said he’d get his friends back. I finished my beer and told them I had to be on my way. Before leaving I bought them all a round and thanked them for their generosity. As I jumped on my bike however, I had a hard time getting it started. Tsefay came out, visibly concerned that the beer had affected my judgment.
“Are you OK with the beer?”
“Yes, I’m fine with the beer, I have experience.”
“Doesn’t look like it, are you sure the beer is OK with you?”
“Yes! I just need to get this bike started. The bike’s not OK with me.”
Eventually, we got it started, but Tsefay would not let me leave without promising to call him when I arrived at my destination. I was afraid he may not even let me go, he was so worried. I called him upon reaching the gym. He was thrilled and relieved that I had reached my destination safely.
I’m from the South, as the southeastern part of the US is referred to, and we like to pride ourselves on hospitality. I am not sure, however, that even in the South a perfect stranger would receive the type of generosity and hospitality that Tsefay showed me. The Ethiopian people are truly some of the most generous, hospitable people I have met.
NEW YORK – This is where unfulfilled Olympians come for redemption and a Gotham-sized consolation prize, as Bill Rodgers first did in 1976. Paula Radcliffe came up lame in Beijing and placed a career-worst 23d. Catherine Ndereba thought she was winning until she discovered that Romania’s Constantina Tomescu-Dita had run away from the pack. Gete Wami, who’d been up with the leaders, dropped out with intestinal miseries. And Kara Goucher finished well out of the medals in the 5,000 and 10,000 meters on the track.
So they’ve all come here for this morning’s 39th New York City Marathon, which has gotten so big (39,000 runners) that there will be three separate wave starts on the Verrazano Narrows Bridge. The rewards, as always, are worth the trip.
For Ethiopia’s Wami, finishing first or second would mean retaining her WMM title and collecting another $500,000 payout. And for Goucher, a former miler who’ll be making her 26-mile debut, it’s a long shot chance to become the first US woman to win here since Miki Gorman in 1977, when 2 hours 43 minutes was good enough for a laurel wreath.
For Radcliffe, the defending champion, it’s the lure of a third women’s title, which nobody has managed since the legendary Grete Waitz claimed nine between 1978 and 1988.
“What Grete did there winning nine was amazing,” said the world record-holder, who won here in 2004 after dropping out of the Olympic race. “But to even just win New York three times is a big achievement and would be to me.”
For Ndereba, a Kenyan who has won four times in Boston and twice in Chicago, a triumph here would complete the American triple crown and possibly clinch the World Marathon Majors title.
“It means a lot,” said the two-time world champion and two-time Olympic silver medalist, who has been runner-up here twice. “I don’t even have words to explain.”
“I hope I can fight through the pain,” said Goucher, who has never run more than a half-marathon. “It’s more like, ‘Please let me be able to keep going for 2 1/2 hours.’ ”
In the absence of Kenyan defending champion Martin Lel, who broke his left foot in the Lisbon half-marathon in September, the men’s race figures to be a jostle among the three previous titlists (Brazil’s Marilson Gomes dos Santos, Kenya’s Paul Tergat, and South Africa’s Hendrick Ramaala) plus Morocco’s Abderrahim Goumri, last year’s runner-up, and top domestic hope Abdi Abdirahman, who dropped out of the Olympic trials here last year.
“If I didn’t have a chance of winning this race, or didn’t believe I can win the race, I wouldn’t come to the race,” said Abdirahman, who’d be the first US male to win since Alberto Salazar in 1982.
The Americans have been creeping closer, with Meb Keflezighi placing second in 2004 and third in 2005. Abdirahman, who was fifth in 2005, would have a decent chance in a tactical race.
“The things I’ve been doing the past few months indicated that I’m capable of running a real fast time,” said Abdirahman, whose personal best is 2:08:56 in Chicago. “And I’m ready.”
The odds are longer for Goucher, who’s up against a brutal field that also includes former champions Joyce Chepchumba and Tegla Loroupe of Kenya and Ludmila Petrova of Russia and a couple of Boston victors in Ethiopia’s Dire Tune and Kenya’s Rita Jeptoo.
“When I look over the field at everyone’s stats and everything they’ve done in the marathon, it’s a little bit overwhelming,” acknowledged Goucher.
Radcliffe’s stats are the most impressive. Besides the world mark (2:15:25 set in 2003), she has won every marathon she’s run outside of Olympus and probably should have skipped Beijing since she was recovering from a stress-fractured femur.
“It’s the Olympic Games,” Radcliffe said. “I wanted to go there and give it the best shot I could.”
Ndereba, who didn’t know that Tomescu-Dita already had dashed away from the leaders when she joined the pack, thought she had the gold medal until she spotted the Romanian up ahead with too little time to catch her.
“If I win New York,” she said, “I just count it as if it was Olympic gold.”
The Games have come and gone, but there’s still one more piece of glittering fruit on the global tree this year.
“I don’t associate New York with being a place where I have to go to get over something bad,” said Radcliffe. “But at the same time, I do have good feelings about the place that, yes, when I go there I can race well and something special can happen there.”
On VOA’s Crossfire program Friday, Kinijit’s (now UDJ) member of parliament Ato Temesgen Zewdie and Woyanne’s puppet head of the rubber stamp parliament, Ato Shiferraw Jarso, were engaged in a brief but heated debate. VOA’s Addisu Abebe should have given them more time or continued the debate today. He cut the debate off prematurely without giving Ato Temesgen a chance to respond.
In the debate, Ato Temesgen has practically admitted that peaceful political activity has become impossible in Ethiopia under the Woyanne dictatorship. He said that Ato Shiferraw has recently summoned him to his office and asked him if he wants to raise his children or not. According to Ato Temesgen, the Woyanne puppet threatened him for demanding to know the details of the land giveaway to Sudan by the Meles regime. Click below the listen the debate.
[podcast]http://www.ethiopianreview.info/audio/voa_crossfire_temesgen_vs_teshome.mp3[/podcast]
.
Meanwhile, Ato Gizachew Shiferraw, Ato Aemero Aweke and Ato Lebawi Abebe of UDJ were arrested while on a working visit in Gojjam yesterday. All three were later released. Also yesterday, the Secretary General of the Oromo Federal Democratic Party (OFDM), Ato Beqele Jirata, was arrested by the Federal Police while on his way to his office. His home was searched and documents were confiscated.
Despite our recent criticism of UDJ, Ethiopian Review admires Ato Gizachew Shiferraw and colleagues for traveling to Gojjam and meet with the people. UDJ needs to do more of this — and stop attacking freedom fighters who raised arms — if it is to be taken as a real opposition party. UDJ also needs to adhere to Kinijit’s 8 Points and stop acting silly by preaching to the people of Ethiopia that Woyanne is not an enemy. Woyanne is more than an enemy. It is a gang of blood thirsty monsters who torture, rape and kill women and children.
