ADDIS ABABA — Judge Luel Gebremariam sentenced Teddy Afro’s defense attorney Milllion Assefa, to a month and twenty days imprisonment, while also imposing a suspended one month imprisonment on the editor of Addis Neger, Mesfin Negash.
The sentencing was for a news report that appeared on the July 26 issue of Addis Neger, which carried a story about the controversial trial of Teddy Afro. The story quoted the defendant’s attorney, Million Assefa, who spoke of his intention to press charges against the presiding judge at the judicial administration commission; which screens the judiciary.
The defendant’s attorney deemed the last ruling by the court, which mandated for the continuation of the trial after the finale of the dubious evidences presented by the state prosecutor, as illegal.
The judge conceded that the statement was made out of court and that disciplinary complaints could be filed against him, but insisted that both his and the court’s reputations have been compromised.
Judge Leul also chastised and imposed the suspended sentence on Mesfin Negash, even though he and two other journalists, Abiy Teklemariam and Girma Tesfaw, offered an audio recording of the defendant’s attorney interview for evidence.The judge maintained that they are compelled by law not to run the story because “it infringes on the reputation of the court.”
When Bulcha Demeksa, an opposition member of the Ethiopian [rubber-stump] Parliament, feels compelled to denounce the Ethiopian Prime Minister dictator, he doesn’t bother to organize a political rally in Ethiopia or search for journalists eager to publish his rhetorical thunderbolts.
That’s because opposition rallies are banned in Ethiopia, and the press is government-controlled down to the last pixel and drop of printer’s ink.
Plus, Ethiopia’s jails are filled these days with people brave or foolhardy enough to speak out publicly against the regime of Prime Minister dictator Meles Zenawi.
By some estimates, as many as 30,000 political prisoners are presently being held in Ethiopian jails. Human Rights Watch and other watchdog groups over the past decade have documented thousands of cases of arbitrary arrests, extrajudicial killings and torture of political dissidents.
Suppressing Opinion
So instead of risking life and limb to speak at home, Demeksa travels to Minnesota. He did so last Thursday, speaking to a crowd of Ethiopian immigrants at a sometimes boisterous human rights conference at the University of Minnesota.
“We are ruled by a dictator who wants to cheat the U.S. and Europe by saying he is trying to democratize the country,” Demeska railed, pounding the air with his fists. “But he is not trying to democratize at all. He is suppressing the nation brutally, and he is suppressing difference of opinion. If you want to say something against him, somehow you will be silenced.”
Demeksa has visited Minnesota frequently over the years to build support and raise money for initiatives that he presses back home. Four years ago, following consultations in this state and elsewhere, he founded the Oromo Federalist Democratic Movement (OFDM), a political party representing 30 million members of the Oromo tribe, Ethiopia’s largest ethnic group.
Educated People
Freedom of speech is only one reason Demeksa likes to make political stump speeches in Minnesota. Even more important is that perhaps his wealthiest, most media savvy, and most politically influential constituency lives right here. Minnesota is home to around 20,000 immigrants from Ethiopia.
As a result, while he is straitjacketed and muzzled in Ethiopia, Demeksa’s political efforts here can inspire Ethiopian-born Americans to push U.S. officials to exert pressure on Ethiopia. He can get his central message — that Ethiopia today is ruled by a de facto dictator and a brutal one — into the international media. And sometimes he can raise more money in Minnesota than he could in Ethiopia.
“Our educated people are concentrated here,” Demeksa said. “If these people do not help us, who else will help us? First, by providing leadership, and secondly, with financial help. I come, and other politicians come, to allow people here to see problems developing in their country; to see if they accept our proposals; and to listen to their suggestions and proposals.”
Most Evicted
Yet things never go as smoothly in Minnesota as Demeksa would surely like. The same rancor and divisions that split Ethiopian politics are also present here in the state’s Ethiopian immigrant population.
Passions and grudges break in Minnesota along many fault lines. One of those is over whether opponents of the present Ethiopian regime should ever use more than words to fight the present regime. That topic was noisily debated at a political discussion Demeksa hosted with a group of young Oromo immigrants — mostly college and graduate school age — ahead of the conference’s academic lectures.
“The Oromo people are the most evicted, the most displaced, the most repressed and the most occupied people in Ethiopia!” one man in the audience exploded after Demeksa’s talk. “You are the advocate of an occupier! You are aiding this belligerent power! I ask you, are you defending the occupiers or standing with the Oromo people?”
Fever Pitch
Up on the dais, Demeksa blinked under the onslaught, paused for a moment and then pointedly answered his interrogator.
“Baloney!” he barked. “This is the same propaganda that has held us back and kept us down for so many years. You cannot say that I am a friend of the government. They think I am an enemy. They want to kill me.
“I don’t believe you can take power by force,” he added. “If you do, another force will take power from you, and it will go on endlessly like that.”
Whether conditions in Ethiopia are now so bad that only violent resistance will change them has been argued at fever pitch in Minnesota’s Ethiopian population in recent months.
Frustration has been fueled by one after another atrocity in Ethiopia, especially since 2005 when government troops killed more than 200 demonstrators at a rally protesting the national elections that year. Local elections earlier this year have also been widely dismissed as fraudulent by Demeksa and international monitors.
Fault Lines
Recent crackdowns by Ethiopian troops in the eastern Ogaden region and the western Gambella region of Ethiopia; total press censorship and control; and the widespread jailing and torture of political dissidents across all ethnic lines have all added urgency and credibility to the Oromo’s longstanding complaints against the regime’s brutally oppressive tactics.
By virtue of its enormous size – comprising roughly 40 percent of Ethiopia’s population – the Oromo have an especially strong claim to deserving a greater voice in Ethiopian politics and culture. Yet Demeksa’s OFDM party holds only about 2 percent of the seats in the Ethiopian parliament.
At the discussion with young Oromo immigrants, Demeksa’s insistence on non-violent resistance hardly mollified the crowd.
“Demeksa has good ideas but no way to get to his goal,” said Sena Jimjimo, an Oromo student who traveled to Minneapolis from Chicago to attend the conference. “He calls for peaceful demonstrations, but there are no such things in Ethiopia. It’s impossible. So my question to him is, ‘If I go to demonstrate, what guarantee do I have that I will come back alive?’”
Apartheid Parallel
I chatted with several of the young people during a break. None of them agreed with Demeksa’s insistence on using only non-violent means to establish democracy in the country of their birth.
Instead, they cited the American Revolutionary War and the sabotage and other violent tactics used by the African National Congress in its long struggle against South African apartheid, as possible models for Ethiopia.
“Martin Luther King needed Malcolm X to pave his way,” one Oromo woman said. “I agree with that. We have reached the point where we need change in Ethiopia by any means necessary.”
Douglas McGill has reported for the New York Times and Bloomberg News—and now the Daily Planet. To reach Douglas McGill: [email protected]
(Reuters) — When Haile Gebrselassie was taking distance running to new levels a decade ago few could have imagined that even before he had retired he would be eclipsed by another Ethiopian, Kenenisa Bekele.
If, as expected, the two men line up for the 10,000 metres final in Beijing it will be world record holder, Olympic and triple world champion Bekele who will be the hot favourite.
Bekele, 26, has a remarkable record of consistency, winning championship titles, setting world records and dominating cross country running over the past six years.
This year he regained the world cross title to make it 12 wins in 13 attempts over the two senior distances.
His 10,000 metres world record of 26 minutes 17.53 seconds, set in 2005, is more than five seconds faster than Gebrselassie’s world mark of 1998 – itself half a minute better than William Sigie’s 1994 mark that he first surpassed in 1995.
Bekele also has the 5,000 world record of 12:37.35, previously held by his compatriot, a double Olympic champion at 10,000.
His style is modelled on Gebrselassie too. Both men destroy their opponents with their finishing speed and it is not unusual for Bekele to post a 53-second final lap.
In Athens four years ago the Ethiopians tried to run as a team to help Gebrselassie challenge for a third gold but, injured, he dropped off the pace leaving Bekele to blast through the last lap to win.
Eight days later Bekele just missed out on the double when he was outkicked by Hicham El Guerrouj over the final 50 metres of the 5,000. Despite that setback 2004 remained an annus mirabilis for Bekele.
Within four days of the new year, his fiancee, 18-year-old Alem Techale, died while the two were running together.
Bekele recovered to win double gold again at the world cross country three months later and in that August won the second of his three consecutive 10,000 world titles.
In 2007, he married Ethiopian actress Danawit Gebregziabher. She watched him in championship action for the first time when he reclaimed the world cross title in Scotland this year.
He has carried that form on to the track with the fourth-fastest 10,000 metres – 26:25.97 – in an almost solo effort at the Prefontaine Classic in the United States in June.
With only six days between the 10,000 and 5,000 finals in Beijing, Bekele had said he planned to run only the longer distance but it now looks possible he could double up.
Four-times 10,000m world champion Gebrselassie is putting everything into that race after opting out of the marathon after concerns over the air quality.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Half of that might be from child prostitution, and the profit goes to the pockets of Meles, Sebhat, Azeb and other leaders of the Tigrean People Liberation Front (Woyanne).
ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) – Ethiopia Woyanne hopes to boost tourism earnings 15 percent to $200 million this year, the government the tribal regime said on Wednesday.
“Tourist flow into Ethiopia has shown a marked improvement over the last five years,” said Solomon Ali, head of public relations at the Ministry of Culture and Tourism.
“That is due to publicity campaigns aimed at changing the country’s image from the stereotypical picture of famine and war to a nation of ancient history and culture.” [Currently Ethiopia is free from starvation. People are eating 5 times a day.]
Solomon said Ethiopia hopes to attract 400,000 tourists this year, up from 340,000 in 2007 when it earned $170 million.
The country hopes to trade on its reputation as the cradle of humankind, and the government has invested heavily in hotels, airports and other infrastructure to lure visitors.
Much of the focus has been on historic sites in the north, which include the obelisks at Axum — reputed to be the home of the Biblical Queen of Sheba — the stunning rock-hewn churches of Lalibella and several ancient castles.
Many tourists also visit Afar in the far northeast of the country to see the site where “Lucy”, the fossilised bones of a 3.2 million-year-old hominid, was discovered.
Solomon said Lucy’s remains were currently on a six-year tour of museums in the United States, and officials hoped this would create more interest in Ethiopia. Some Ethiopians, however, worry that the fragile bones may not survive the tour.
(Report by Tsegaye Tadesse. Writing by Daniel Wallis, editing by Mary Gabriel — just copying statements that are given to them by propaganda chief Bereket Simon.)
Listen to the report: [podcast]http://www.voanews.com/mediaassets/english/2008_08/Audio/mp3/08-06-08%20(DBA)%20Fente%20Ethiopia%20Justice.mp3[/podcast]
In Ethiopia, the trial of a controversial pop star is raising questions about the independence of the judiciary and of the press. The government has arrested a journalist covering the court hearings and a defense attorney. Both men are expected to appear in court today (Wednesday).
Ethiopia’s rising pop and reggae singer Teddy Afro has been in jail since April. He was charged with a hit and run road accident and remains in jail after being denied bail. Teddy has pleaded non-guilty, and his attorney argues that prosecutors have not presented enough evidence to detain his client.
But as of Monday, the defense attorney, as well as a journalist covering the trial joined the pop singer behind bars.
Mesfin Negash, the editor of a weekly newspaper in the Ethiopian capital could be sentenced to up to six months in prison, if found guilty of contempt of court. Facing the same charges and also in police custody is Teddy Afro’s defense attorney Million Assefa, who was quoted in an article published by the paper.
The judge overseeing the case said the interview constituted interference in the due process of law. He issued a subpoena for their arrest.
One of the editors of the newspaper Dagninet Mekonnen says his paper has done no wrong.
“We have absolute right to publish this material. The content of the interview with Teddy Afro’s lawyer Ato Million Assefa was that he (the attorney) wants to sue the judge for not complying with the right procedures. We have nothing to do with condemning the due process of law at hand.”
New York based Committee to Protect Journalists, the CPJ and Reporters Without Borders criticized the arrest of the journalist in separate statements. CPJ Africa Program research associate Mohamed Keita calls it a systematic way to detain journalists covering sensitive issues.
“It is rather unfortunate that a journalist be detained for essentially interviewing the lawyer of Teddy Afro and essentially doing his job.”
Journalists who were in court yesterday to report the incitement of the attorney and the journalist, said a US Embassy representative was present in the hearing.
Teddy Afro’s high-profile trial has grabbed the attention of many of his fans. Thousands of his followers rally in front of the courthouse whenever he appears in court. Within minutes, the police reportedly break up their demonstrations.
Government-controlled radio stations in Ethiopia have banned songs from Teddy Afro’s third album “yasteseryal”. “yasteseryal” makes an implicit mockery of what it sees as failure of political movements in the country since a socialist military junta overthrew Emperor Haile Selassie in 1974.
This tune was particularly popular during Ethiopia’s parliamentary election in 2005. And many say the ban shows the singer is indeed controversial and that his trial is a political gimmick.
(Reuters) — When Haile Gebrselassie was taking distance running to new levels a decade ago few could have imagined that even before he had retired he would be eclipsed by another Ethiopian, Kenenisa Bekele.
In 2007, he married Ethiopian actress Danawit Gebregziabher. She watched him in championship action for the first time when he reclaimed the world cross title in Scotland this year.