In his interview with Ethiopian Current Affairs on Sunday, June 15, Ethiopia’s most distinguished human rights activist Prof. Mesfin Woldemariam has made some assertions that Tegbar for Unity and Democracy (Tegbar) respectfully disagrees with.
Issue 1: Prof. Mesfin said: “Ethiopians have not yet started the ‘peaceful struggle’.”
Following the 2005 elections, Woyanne had rounded up 80,000 Kinijit supporters and detained them in Nazi-type, disease-infested concentration camps. Thousands were brutalized and killed. All of Kinijit’s top leaders were thrown in jail. What more does the professor wants from the people of Ethiopia after he and the other Kinijit leaders had abandoned the struggle when they were led to jail without making any contingency plan on how the struggle can continue in their absence? The people of Ethiopia did not fail to struggle or to follow their leaders. It is Prof. Mesfin and colleagues who failed to lead. Now after tens of thousands of Ethiopians paid all that sacrifice, many of them with their lives, the professor tells us that the “peaceful struggle did not start yet.” Tegbar rejects that assertions.
Issue 2: Prof. Mesfin said: “Woyane canceling the recent UDJ meeting in Addis Ababa was a victory for Ethiopians.”
The professor, while failing to acknowledge the huge sacrifices being paid by the people of Ethiopia, now tries to tell us that getting dispersed by two police officers without any argument or semblance of resistance is a victory. What the professor and his colleagues at UDJ are currently engaged in is not peaceful struggle. It is submission to tyranny.
The professor also said in the same interview: “The fact that Woyanne prevented the UDJ meeting from taking place over the weekend will expose it to the world.”
We found this statement to be less than convincing because every one knows about Woyanne’s crimes against the people of Ethiopia and Somalia. Two policemen illegally and arbitrarily dispersing 400 delegates of an opposition party without any hint of resistance exposes the weakness of UDJ’s leadership more than it exposes Woyanne’s lawlessness. Because the world has already witnessed Woyanne as it engaged in mass murder of civilians, including recent satellite photos that show entire villages burned down by Woyanne troops. How much more Woyanne can be exposed?
Issue 3: Prof. Mesfin tried to explain that 400 people taking orders from two Woyanne security agents to shut down their meeting is “Ethiopiawi Chewanet.”
Our forefathers who fought tooth and nail to keep Ethiopia, the oldest independent nation in the world, must be rolling in their graves to hear such a statement from a senior leader of an opposition party.
Issue 4: Prof. Mesfin said: “People and organizations that don’t participate or only follow the peaceful and non-resistance path come from the neftegna culture.”
The professor is telling us that self-defense is a “neftegna culture.” By his definition, OLF, ONLF and other freedom fighters are “neftegnoch.” We disagree. It is a natural right for people to defend themselves against tyranny using any means available to them.
Issue 5: Prof. Mesfin said: “Ethiopia’s feudal culture is an obstacle to the process of fighting Woyanne.”
We find this statement to be off base since a large portion of Ethiopia’s population is under 40 and has not lived through the feudal regimes of the past. In addition, it is this young demographic group that is paying the most sacrifice in the fight against Woyanne.
The professor further explained that organizations that don’t participate or only follow the peaceful or non-resistance path want to take Ethiopia back to the old feudal governance.
One should then ask the professor the following questions: Is self-defense feudalism? Are freedom fighters such as OLF, EPPF, ONLF, TPDM and Genbot 7 fighting to bring feudalism back?
According to Prof. Mesfin, the reason freedom fighters in Ethiopia are chasing Woyanne from all corners is because they want to bring feudalism back. Not because Woyannes are massacring Ethiopians; Not because Woyanne is stealing from Ethiopia’s children and making them hungry to then turning around and use them to beg from its masters.
As much as we respect Prof. Mesfin, we strongly disagree with a series of statements he has made during his interview on Sunday denigrating the sacrifices of Ethiopia’s freedom fighters. The professor can continue with his non-resistance, but when he goes out of his way to label those who are paying sacrifices with their lives as fuedals and neftegnas, we are obligated by our conscience to speak up.
We urge the professor to focus his criticism on Meles Zenawi’s terrorist regime, not the freedom fighters who are fighting to liberate our country from it.
The Woyanne dictatorship’s attempt to cover up the ongoing famine in Ethiopia; Woyanne atrocities in Ogaden and Somalia, fighting in Ogaden, TPDM’s congress… and other news from EriTV. Watch below.
Ginbot 7 strongly Condemns the Appalling Crime against humanity Perpetrated by the Meles Zenawi Dictatorial Regime in the Ogaden region.
Human Rights Watch, a respected and credible human rights advocacy group, in its well-documented report has accused the tyrannical regime of Meles Zenawi to have had committed crime against humanity in the region of Ogaden on a report issued June the 12th 2008.
According to the report, many villages have been burned down. Children, elderly women and men have been brutalized by the Meles Zenawi army. Women have been raped, people have been forcibly displaced and their properties confiscated. Human Rights Watch clearly states that Meles and his cohorts should be held responsible for grave violations of human rights and crime against humanity.
For a number of years, such despicable crimes have been committed against the people of Ogaden and still continued unabated. It should also be noted that the brutal regime of Meles Zenawi has in the past committed and continues to commit similar crimes in other regions of Ethiopia. The crime committed by the regime in the Oromo, Gambella, Amhara, Southern Ethiopia, Afar regions and the city of Addis Ababa and many towns is well documented
Where as we all have suffered the indignity of brutalization by Meles’ regime and have been victims of it’s brutal acts of savagery, we have been handicapped to act together and rise against this evil. One main reason for our failure is our inability to work against the ethnically divisive politics of the regime and remove the seeds of discord the regime has sown among Ethiopians, in order to maintains its hold to power unchallenged.
Our deliverance from the difficult and tormenting situation that we all find ourselves lie only in our resolution to fight back this dangerous and venomous politics of division and incitement and to unite against the regime’s brutal army and its intelligence forces. It is only through sharing the pain and the suffering of individuals and communities anywhere in the country as the pain and suffering of all of us and generate within us the burning desire to do whatever it takes to stop it. The collective battle cry against tyranny should be “Injustice anywhere in Ethiopia is injustice every where in Ethiopia”
The time has come that we take the first step of building solidarity by condemning, in one voice and in the strongest term, the despicable crime being perpetrated on the people of Ogaden. This also goes to demonstrating to our compatriots in the Ogaden that we stand beside them in their hours of distress and sufferings.
Ginbot7 Movement for Justice, Freedom and Democracy strongly condemns this crime committed against the people of Ogaden. The Movement affirms its commitment to help in whatever way it can the struggle waged by the people of Ogaden to resist this appalling carnage unleashed against them by the regime of Meles Zenawi.
Similarly Ginbot7, calls upon political parties, members of the civil society, institutions and individuals to stand up and condemn the criminal acts of Meles’s regime in Ogden. We also reiterate our call to Ethiopians to take any wrong committed in any corner of the country as a crime committed against all the people of Ethiopia.
Only such act of unity and solidarity in our part will in the end abort the malicious plot by Meles Zenawi and co. to divide and rule us. It is only when we act with shared purpose and mission that we can stop the wanton destruction of lives and communities by the Meles’s regime and force this regime to account for the crimes and treason it has been committing against the Ethiopian people and the security of our country.
Ginbot7 uses this opportunity to urge the international community to stop the financial, military and material support it provides to a regime that is committing crime against humanity in its own country and beyond. In fact we would like to inform the international community that the close relation it has established with the most brutal regime in Africa is playing a huge part in prolonging the misery and the suffering of the Ethiopian people. It has to be noted that such practice has been generating serious resentment amongst the vast majority of Ethiopians. If the international community will not be forthcoming with reviewed polices that make the interest of the Ethiopian people, not the interest of a handful tyrants, the linchpin of its relation to our country, the consequence will be that it would end up being seen as an accomplice to evil in Ethiopia. In the long run, the spread and entrenchment of such extreme attitude amongst Ethiopians, will not be beneficial to both the interest of the people of Ethiopia and the international community.
Hence, Ginbot7 particularly calls upon Western governments to revise their hitherto distorted policies on Ethiopia and rally behind the struggle of Ethiopians for justice, freedom, democracy and the respect of human rights.
EDITORS NOTE: It is true that Mugabe is another bloodsucking African dictator. But the British are worse. They have done more harm to Zimbabawe, and Africa, in general, than 100 Mugabes could possible have done. Take a look at what they are doing in Ethiopia and Somalia through their mercenaries Meles Zenawi and Abdullahi Yusuf [See this]. ER is not the only one that is saying this. Just watch this video in which a British Member of Parliament makes the same argument.
HARARE (By Cris Chinaka, Reuters) — Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe was quoted on Sunday as saying he would be willing to hand power to a ruling party ally when he was sure the country was safe from “sellouts” and from British interference.
But the state-run Sunday Mail newspaper said he gave no time-frame and again vowed to stop the opposition from ending his rule, which Britain’s foreign secretary David Miliband described as sadism.
Mugabe, 84, is fighting for re-election in a June 27 run-off against Morgan Tsvangirai of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). The opposition leader won the first round in March but not with enough votes to take the presidency.
The veteran Zimbabwean leader, who has ruled Zimbabwe since independence from Britain in 1980, has threatened to go to war to stop a Tsvangirai victory.
The Mail said Mugabe told a rally on Saturday that his “leadership was prepared to relinquish power to those (ZANU-PF officials) that uphold the country’s (independence) legacy”.
“This country cannot be sold at the stroke of a pen,” he added, repeating a vow not to let the MDC, whom he has branded as British puppets, rule the country.
The Mail said Mugabe urged supporters to concentrate on defending his government’s land nationalisation and black economic empowerment policies, and not on complaints by what he called “sellouts” that ZANU-PF has been in power for too long.
Zimbabwe’s agricultural sector, once one of Africa’s most prosperous, has collapsed, and shortages of bread, milk and meat are common. Inflation is 165,000 percent and unemployment 80 percent.
“We are the custodians of Zimbabwe’s legacy. We will pass this on to those we know are fully aware of the party’s ideology, those who value the country’s legacy,” the newspaper quoted Mugabe as saying.
“I WILL NOT GROW OLD”
Mugabe has previously said he did not want to name an heir over fears he or she would become a target of other officials nursing ambitions to succeed him as ZANU-PF leader.
The president gave no timetable for his possible retirement and added: “But as long as the British still want to come here, I will not grow old; until we know we no longer have sellouts among us.”
Mugabe this week threatened that he and his independence war veterans will take up arms again to stop the MDC taking power.
The MDC and rights groups say ZANU-PF have launched a brutal campaign of violence which has killed at least 66 MDC activists, wounded hundreds others and displaced tens of thousands since the March 29 election.
Britain’s Miliband said South Africa had a responsibility to do more to bring pressure on its neighbour, and condemned the violence that has marred the run-up to the election.
“The first thing is to be clear about the sadism, and I use that word advisedly, that’s going on … in Zimbabwe,” he told BBC television.
“People being killed, people being tortured, people being beaten. Election observers being stripped out, election officials being stripped out.”
The African Union expressed concern over reported violence and said it planned to send “a sizable” team of observers to monitor the run-off poll.
Tsvangirai says he is confident of victory despite the intimidation campaign in which he has been detained several times this month. (Additional reporting by Tsegaye Tadesse in Addis Ababa, editing by Gordon Bell)
The conscience of the world is challenged once again by the outrageous crimes of Meles Zenawi, who is using famine as a weapon of mass destruction and economic exploitation against the very people that he has ruled with an iron fist for almost two decades.
Without regard to repeated calls for action by humanitarian groups about the looming human tragedy, Zenawi and his repressive machinery have been running a campaign of misinformation and deception about the true cause, nature and severity of the famine.
The measures taken by Zenawi relative to the famine and other public tragedies have been consistent with a policy intended to use these calamities for political and economic gains. More precisely, the famine has been exploited as an instrument of revenge for the humiliating loss the despot suffered in the 2005 elections, as a continuation of the ethnic cleansing he has officially embraced, and as an economic opportunity for his immense financial enterprise that has unlimited control over every major economic activity in the country.
Zenawi and his ruling clique grudgingly acknowledge the tragic situations in the country only if they perceive that the relief efforts add business value to their economic monopoly or if they feel that leaked reports of the famine would jeopardize the flow of the billions of dollars of donors’ money to their private bank accounts.
In his book, Development as Freedom (Oxford, 2001; p.16), the winner of the 1998 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science, Amartya Kumar Sen, wrote: “…no famine has taken place in the history of the world in a functioning democracy …”.
Indeed, no dictatorship has exemplified the correlation between dictatorship and famine more affirmatively than the tyrannical rule of Ethiopia’s Meles Zenawi.
In its June 13, 2008 issue, The Economist squarely placed the current human tragedy in Ethiopia on the failed policies of the autocratic government of Zenawi.
Pointing to the greedy economic agenda of the dictator, the paper argued:
After several good harvests since the last big famine, in 2003, Ethiopia had a chance to progress. Instead, it dithered over reforms to promote private business and overhaul the country’s sclerotic banking system and mobile-phone sector. …. Ethiopia is one of Africa’s very few countries that still has virtually no serious private business—and thus few jobs—outside the state sector. Almost three-quarters of the population may be under- or unemployed.
With regard to the viciousness of the dictatorship imposed on the people of Ethiopia, the report further noted:
The government’s lack of enthusiasm for private enterprise is matched by its lack of enthusiasm for competition in politics. Mr Zenawi has already splintered the … opposition parties with the liberal use of torture and imprisonment.
Earlier, the world reacted with compassion and held accountable the government of Emperor Haile Selassie and that of the tyrant Mengistu Haile Mariam for the famines of 1973 and 1984/85, respectively.
Tragically, the human disasters that shocked the world in the 1970’s and 1980’s pale in comparison to the horrifying situations under Zenawi’s autocratic rule.
* According to a July 28, 2003 report of the New York Times, while a million people died in the famine of 1984 and 1985, in 2003 more than 12 million were at risk, half of those children under 15.
* Based on a recent report of the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), eight million Ethiopians are chronically food insecure and at least 3.4 million Ethiopians are in need of emergency food relief.
* The Centre for Research on Globalisation (CRG), an independent research and media group, disclosed: ”… several million people in the most prosperous agricultural regions have … been driven into starvation. …. This time, as eight million people face the risk of starvation, we know that it isn’t just the weather that is to blame.
* A recent report of Concern Worldwide confirmed that the present drought has severely affected people in Ethiopia’s rural south, forcing many to eat the seeds that they would have planted for this year.
The measures that the dictator took to deceive the world about the famine, and its exploitation for political and economic ends, include numerous instances of misinformation, diversionary propaganda, and blatant intimidation of foreign and domestic observers:
1. In an address to his rubber-stamp parliament on March 18, 2008, Zenawi mendaciously and brazenly declared that reports of drought-related deaths were “false.”
2. Zenawi has “… denied that pastoralists in the south are losing livestock to the drought or that the rates of malnutrition elsewhere are at all close to what foreign aid workers claim.” [The Economist, June 13, 2008]
3. Recently, he ordered his Deputy Prime Minister to denounce reports of the current famine. In a bizarre press conference, Addisu Legese blamed the messengers by declaring:
“….. some institutions engaged in relief work consider the decline in the number of the needy as a threat to their existence. They therefore have been suggesting to report inflated figures so as to get huge assistance…”
4. As reported by international humanitarian agencies, he has greedily impeded steady flow of foreign relief supplies to affected regions by charging exorbitant fees and requiring exclusive use of the transportation system controlled by his financial empire.
5. Zenawi has proposed a new law on charities and NGOs to essentially paralyze the activities of groups “working to improve human rights and encourage press freedom.” [The Economist, June 13, 2008]
6. “The government has banned photographs of the starving and has told field workers not to give information to foreign journalists.” [The Economist, June 13, 2008]
7. Earlier in 2007, his government refused to declare a cholera outbreak that killed hundreds of people and infected more than 60,000. Despite U.N. tests showing that the epidemic was indeed cholera, Ethiopian officials insisted on calling it “acute watery diarrhea”.
In view of the unfolding human tragedy in Ethiopia,
* We call upon the world community to condemn the systematic starvation of millions of Ethiopians under the cruel and genocidal policy of Meles Zenawi and his ethno-fascist regime.
* We urge all organized groups inside and outside the country to coordinate their efforts and bring an immediate end to Zenawi’s egregious use of famine as an instrument of repression.
* We particularly call on the armed forces in Ethiopia to question their allegiance to a vicious dictator, who has repeatedly demonstrated lack of basic human decency and subjected the vast majority of the citizens to perpetual misery, hunger, ignorance and destitution.
* And lastly, we ask international organizations, donor countries, and religious institutions to actively engage in preventing a human catastrophe perpetrated by one of the most vicious dictators of our time.
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The writer can be reached at [email protected]
Many Ethiopians, especially those in the Diaspora community have been and still are puzzled by two contradictory phenomena regarding the Ethiopian economy. On the one hand, the ruling party, the EPDRF, has been reporting record-breaking growth rates of the Ethiopian economy, year-after-year. Year after year, we have been informed that the state of the Ethiopian economy was on a higher growth trajectory, “thanks to the policies of the ruling government.” As of this writing, a rosy forecast is provided by the government for both this year (2008) and the next one, while at the same time, the United Nations humanitarian agencies such as UNICEF are reporting, as did the Voice of America on its June 6th broadcast, that “Ethiopia Faces Worsening Food Shortage…” Nearly a month ago, the prime minster, Mr. Meles Zenawi told the parliamentarians the rampant inflation rate that has engulfed the country was due to the “empowered” peasants1 asking for higher prices for their produce and due to a growing economy.
On the other hand, Ethiopians, including those of the members of the Diaspora experience increased squalor, disease, unemployment (known to be way over 50% in urban areas), hopelessness, unnecessary deaths, chronic poverty, these same filth and misery and chronic poverty increasing over time. Every time the members of the Diaspora visit their country of origin, they observe that the people they used to know and their own families are growing into abject poverty. Most importantly, they read Ethiopia being listed at the bottom of the world country rankings. They read, among other things, Ethiopia being one of the poorest and highly indebted nations in the world. They know that the country’s human poverty index is ranked as 98 out of 102 countries, and its human development index is 169 out of 177 countries, and so on. The rosy forecasts and actual growth rates were given to us while, at the same time, the CIA World Fact Book states, on a yearly basis, that “Ethiopia’s poverty-stricken economy is based on agriculture, which accounts for half of GDP, 60% of exports, and 80% of total employment. The agricultural sector suffers from frequent drought and poor cultivation practices…” They also hear the existence of perennial food deficits and watch on worldwide TV networks pictures of starving Ethiopians. They hear, read, and watch video clips of their fellow Ethiopians being swept away by the currents of the Indian Ocean while trying to flee poverty and dictatorship. They also hear their compatriots being massacred by religious extremists. They read and hear on the news that their country men and women languish in the jails of neighboring countries after
escaping the unbearable hardships within their own country. They know that their sisters are being abused by their modern slave masters in the neighboring countries, some speculating the human trafficking masterminded by the TPLF members. Nowadays, it is not uncommon to hear Ethiopian women, who are abused by both the modern slave owners and their jealous wives. For some of them, when the abuse becomes unbearable, some of the abused Ethiopian women have been reported to have lost their minds and become totally crazy. In some situations, the modern slaves are reported to have killed the wives of their modern slave owners. It has also been reported that, no matter the psychological circumstances of the Ethiopian women, the courts have ruled against them… Continue reading >>
