A must watch video about how the Meles regime in Ethiopia mismanaged the economy and lies about it with the full knowledge and complicity of the the World Bank and other financial backers of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (Woyanne). Watch below.
By Mikael Deribe
The life line of TPLF’s iron clad hold of power is the reluctance and inability of different Ethiopian political forces (in organization level) to move beyond their archaic and rigid political maneuvers. Each group seeks to obtain victory all alone in a quest to exercise its own political ideology without having to worry about appeasing any other organization. I doubt if they have realized yet that the old winner – loser politics will bring neither peace nor development to the people they claim to represent. TPLF has injected the possibility of cessation of any ethnic-based region by ratifying article 39 of its constitution early on. This issue all alone has been a single source of the uncompromising mentality reflected on the stubbornness of each political group and a problem that sustains TPLF’s hold of power by making a viable coalition of opposition forces nearly impossible.
Nationalist Ethiopians reject the idea of working with groups such as the OLF and ONLF by automatically citing their agenda of separating from Ethiopia and their account of Ethiopian history. OLF’s and ONLF’s claim of being “colonized” by Ethiopia angers many who consider Oromos and ethnic Somalis as fellow countrymen whom they have suffered alongside through the centuries long misrule under different regimes of our nation. Predictably, the TPLF regime works to exaggerate these differences as it knows that any dialogue and compromise between nationalists and cessationist will prove to be a major threat to their hold of power.
However, we should recognize that the leaders of OLF and ONLF have at different times shown their willingness to cooperate with nationalist forces (peaceful or armed) to work together toward liberating Ethiopia from the few TPLF mercenaries who live lavishly over the misery of our people. One example of this willingness is the formation of the Alliance for Freedom and Democracy (AFD) nearly two years ago that had TPLF leaders suffering from an acute case of paranoia. However AFD’s objectives were vague and lacked a clear picture of post-TPLF Ethiopia. AFD’s future endeavors were not discussed enough as some of the political forces in the alliance had conflicting political agendas. The alliance was not formed based on the prospect of bringing peace, stability and development to Ethiopia in a post-TPLF era but solely on the aim of overthrowing the TPLF-dominated regime. This apathy could have proved disastrous if AFD was viable until the eminent demise of the TPLF regime plunging our country into another political chaos.
Therefore, I believe, if any of the leaders of the Ethiopian opposition forces genuinely care for our people who currently suffer under a fascist regime, they will take the time to approach each other and set up a conference to at least discuss the root cause of the oppressive Ethiopian political culture and the prospect of a peaceful post-TPLF Ethiopia. This action will be crucial not only in clearing up the uncertainties of our future co-existence but also in nourishing our hope of liberating ourselves in unison. We Ethiopians do not expect these different political organizations to have a common manifesto overnight; however we do realize that there will not be unity if we remain afraid of dialogue and compromise. A viable coalition based on well-discussed political objectives regarding the pre and post-TPLF Ethiopia will be an unstoppable force not only to free our people from the ruthless tyranny, but also a remedy to tackle the many problems that has kept as the poorest of the poorest in the world.
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The writer can be reached [email protected]
ALEXANDRIA, VIRGINIA — On Sunday, August 10th, over 50 Ethiopians attended the Ethiopians for Obama meeting with Senator Obama’s African-American Constituency Director. The importance of each person’s vote was discussed as well as ways that Ethiopian-Americans can participate in the election by volunteering in registration drives.
The meeting took place at Bahir Dar Ethiopian restaurant in Alexandria, Virginia. Those in attendance were excited to see their fellow Ethiopians organizing such a structured and effective meeting. The message is clear, organizing and participating in the political process is a vital development in our community. The 2008 election marks the political maturation of the Ethiopian-American community. There are tens of thousands of Ethiopians who live in vital battleground states such as Virginia, Minnesota, and Georgia. A robust participation by Ethiopians in these states can be instrumental in helping to elect Senator Obama our next president.
In addition to voting for Sentor Obama, Ethiopian-Americans have an ability to take part in the electoral process on the local and state-wide races. Decisions that have an impact on our lives are most often made on the local and state level. A representative for Congressman Moran–a friend of the Ethiopian community–was in attendance to make this very point. In a state where local and state races often come down to a few hundred votes, the Ethiopian-American vote is vital to ensuring that salient issues in our community are addressed.
Voting is a right which we cannot take lightly. While the Ethiopian community is thriving in America, enough of us are not taking part in the political process by exercising a key right–our vote. Over 50 people attended the meeting to find out ways they can volunteer and help other Ethiopian-Americans to get registered. They left fired up and ready to ensure a record turnout from the Ethiopian-American community on November 4th.
published by ethiopiansforbarackobama.com
For more information, contact [email protected]
Union of Ethiopian Democratic Forces (UEDF) evaluates the policies and strategies of the opposition parties and comes up with its own proposal on how to bring an end to the fascist Woyanne regime in this 6-page statement. Click here to read.
By Nicholas Benequista, OneWorld
ADDIS ABABA – Ethiopian Woyanne officials have said that the country will increase its appeal to the international community for a third time this year, criticizing donors for failing to commit resources to a hunger crisis precipitated by drought and rising food prices.
“It is the humanitarian community’s obligation to see that the humanitarian needs are fulfilled,” said Simon Mechale, who heads the country’s disaster relief agency. “The humanitarian community has not been able to fully support what was jointly established.”
Ethiopia is still seeking funding from donors after appealing to them in June for support to feed 4.6 million hungry people. Ethiopian Woyanne State Minister for Agriculture Abera Deresa said the government would increase that number as early as next week, though he declined to say by how many.
Aid workers familiar with the new appeal say the government may ask for aid for as many as 8 million and accuse the government here of failing to admit the severity of the crisis in time. Ethiopia has been eager to leave behind a legacy of famine after a drought in the mid-1980s left nearly 1 million to starve, which may explain why the country was reticent to admit the severity of its latest crisis, they say.
Now, even if the expanded appeal matches needs on the ground, aid workers worry that it may already be too late, especially amid global shortages of food.
“The Ethiopian Woyanne government is facing the crisis and is ready to admit figures it wouldn’t admit in April and March,” one Western donor official said on condition of anonymity.
Donors can take weeks to raise cash and at least four months to provide commodities from their own farmers. Once cash is available, it can take as long as eight weeks to procure food internationally and deliver it to Ethiopia.
In June, Ethiopian Woyanne Minister of Health Tewodros Adhanom announced an appeal to donors for a total of 380,000 metric tons of emergency food this year to feed 4.6 million people, more than twice the 2.2 million thought to have needed aid in April. Tewodros argued then that the government had been carefully prudent to avoid requesting too much aid.
“We always felt that there were more needy people,” said David Throp, who runs Save the Children UK’s Ethiopian office. “We welcome any acknowledgement of additional needs because it allows the international community to respond, but now it’s a question of logistics and time-lags.”
Relief efforts are already suffering from shortages after the global spike in food and gasoline prices essentially cut the purchasing power of the UN’s World Food Program (WFP) in half. Only half the needy are receiving food aid, and the rations they receive have already been cut by a third to conserve resources.
According to a June report from the WFP, the worldwide prices of staple foods like wheat and maize have nearly doubled since the beginning of the decade, making it increasingly difficult for international aid agencies to buy enough food to support crisis-ridden regions.
At the Rome Food Summit in June, governments and international aid agencies pledged to contribute an additional $6 billion to help poorer countries cope with hunger amid increasing food prices.
Food security experts say the global food crisis has emerged due to a combination of factors, including climate changes that have altered rainfall patterns and decreased harvests, increasing demand for corn ethanol and other grains to fuel cars instead of feeding people, and skyrocketing demand for meat — which requires large amounts of grain in the form of animal feed — in rapidly developing countries like China and India.
Economic speculators, who buy up grain reserves in anticipation of selling them at higher prices, have also helped to decrease supplies and increase global prices, say analysts.
“This troubling situation is unlike any the world has faced before,” says Earth Policy Institute President Lester Brown, who has studied the convergence of ecological, economic, and humanitarian issues for decades.
“The challenge is not simply to deal with a temporary rise in grain prices, as in the past, but rather to quickly alter those trends whose cumulative effects collectively threaten the food security that is a hallmark of civilization.”
Brown says that the world’s most influential countries must act swiftly to “stabilize population, restrict the use of grain to produce automotive fuel, stabilize the climate, stabilize water tables and aquifers, protect cropland, and conserve soils.”
“None of these goals can be achieved quickly,” he notes, “but progress toward all is essential to restoring a semblance of food security.”
The fruit of $1.5 billion donation to the Meles regime by the U.S., EU, and other international donors.
By Alex Perry / Kuyera
All morning in the village of Kersa, the hills have echoed with the wails of women walking in from the fields. They gather on a patch of open grass before a stretcher made from freshly cut bamboo, bound and laid with banana leaves. On it is a small bundle wrapped in a red and blue blanket. An imam calls the crowd together, asks them to take off their shoes and arranges them in two lines, women behind men, facing east. “Allah Akbar,” he says twice. Then four men pick up the bier, easily handling its weight with one arm, and walk a short way to a freshly dug hole, into which they lower the bundle and bury it. Three other small, fresh graves nearby indicate Ayano Gemeda, 6, was not the first child to starve in Kersa this year. The distended bellies and chicken-wing limbs on other children looking on suggest he won’t be the last. “It’s very bizarre,” says Jean de Cambry, a Belgian member of Medecins Sans Frontieres and a veteran of crises from Afghanistan to Sudan. “It’s so green. But you have all these people dying of hunger.” The reasons are paved in the good intentions of rich nations, good deeds that have punished Ethiopia with perpetual want.
The day photographer Thomas Dworzak and I arrived at Kuyera, four children died. There were four more the next day. Hundreds queued with their parents in the rain outside the gates, waiting to be weighed and measured. Inside, children were sectioned by age and urgency. Each were given red and green plastic bowls for diarrhea and vomit. On that first day, I glimpsed Ayano in the intensive care room, wrapped in a red and blue blanker, struggling to breathe, his eyes tipped back into his skull. When I next saw him, he was trussed up the blanket that had become his death shroud, lying on a slab next to two other small bundles in the morgue.
Transport was scarce. So for five days, we turned our hired SUV into an ambulance, ferrying bodies of dead children back to their villages, picking up the starving and taking them to Kuyera. It was depressing work, and insufficient. The two children — Nuritu, 6, and Gemechu, four months — we picked up in Kersa were just the most emaciated among scores that needed help.
The trips to the villages provided glimpses into how emergency food aid worked — or didn’t. Hundreds of millions are spent on immediate food relief because the popular notion is to alleviate the plight of starving children. But that means little is spent on economic development to prevent the shortages that led to hunger in the first place. Says Mafa E. Chipeta, East Africa coordinator for the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization: “This is not an emergency only for this year. This is a persistent problem that we have failed to deal with. Aid needs a complete rethink.” In many places, because food comes so abundantly from abroad, local farming is an undeveloped and unreliable source of sustenance. The farmlands may appear teeming but Ethiopians know enough not to trust it. And so, food is apportioned with Malthussian rigidity.
This was evident when we ferried one mother, Medina Wago, with the body of her six-month-old daughter back to their village of Sedeguge. Medina told us Feyinae was the third of her many children to die. The fields of Sedeguge were a patchwork of bright greens and deep, moist browns. Inside the family hut were five full sacks of maize.
Another day, we took Germeda Koro from Kuyera, where he was caring for his daughter Ramete, 6, to Gode village for the funeral of a neighbor’s child. Koro said 20 children had died in Gode. The surrounding fields were overflowing with abundance. On the drive in, we passed a roadside auction for potatoes, huge yellow boulders stuffed 50 kg to a sack. When I asked Koro why people didn’t kill the goats, cows and chickens that roamed the village to save their children, he replied: “Look, maybe one or two of your children get sick every year. But if you kill your animals, you’re ruining everything you have, and everything you’re going to have. You’re risking the lives of the whole family.” Even the decision to take a starving child to hospital — and spend a family’s life savings on a bus ride — was agonizing. The children who died mostly belonged to parents who, hoping for a miraculous recovery, left it until too late.
The UNFAO’s Chipeta said he thought the world food crisis might help Ethiopia in the long-run. Shortages and higher prices would cut food aid. The immediate effect would be harsh, and thousands would die. But if Ethiopia were ever to feed itself, he argued, “you have to make sacrifices at some point.” In the villages, they were already making sacrifices. Children were being left to die so a family might live. That’s a calculation that can strike outsiders as cruel. Some conclude life in Ethiopia is cheap. That’s would be a mistake, as anyone who has heard the funeral wails can tell you. Because of food aid, Ethiopians have learned to make the tough choices.
(With reporting by Kassahun Addis/Addis Ababa)