Woyanne apartheid regime is busy getting U.S. universities carry out development projects in Tigray with funds received in the name of Ethiopia. The water capacity building project in Tigray by the University of Connecticut that is reported below is a good example. The University has received funds from USAID in the name of Ethiopia, but the project is being done only in Tigray — the Woyanne {www:apartheid} system in action.
(UConn Press Release) — In the drought-ravaged expanse of Ethiopia, a sign in front of the Ministry of Water Resources (Addis Ababa) states simply: “Water is Life!!”
In April, a large multi-institutional team of researchers from UConn and Ethiopian universities was awarded a prestigious USAID/Higher Education for Development (HED) planning grant to support sustainable development and management of water resources in Ethiopia. UConn is committed to advancing hydrology studies and to bringing much-needed practical aid to regions of the globe where clean, plentiful water is scarce.
UConn Provost Peter Nicholls hailed the award. “UConn is committed to the application of our expertise to global grand challenges. What is more basic, more pressing, than water? We are deeply proud that UConn {www:faculty} are involved in this project to address Ethiopia’s water crisis and contribute to a transformative educational model that will allow Ethiopian citizens to solve the nation’s problems. I applaud our USAID/HED team.”
The team, headed by Drs. Michael Accorsi, Mekonnen Gebremichael and Guiling Wang of the Civil & Environmental Engineering (CEE) Department, and Drs. Jeffrey Osleeb and Carol Atkinson-Palombo of the Department of Geography, aims to help Ethiopian universities increase their {www:capacity} to educate their students and conduct research and outreach that will contribute to solving the water management and distribution challenges that plague their country.
Dr. Accorsi commented, “Increasing the capacity of Ethiopian universities is critical to economic development in the country. The Africa-U.S. Higher Education Initiative is an innovative program in that it directly addresses this need. It has been a distinct pleasure to work with our Ethiopian partners. They are extremely motivated and dedicated to moving this project forward. There is a tremendous opportunity, here and now, to make a difference.”
Based on their preliminary work, the team was one of just 20 (out of over 300) selected by USAID to submit a detailed, long-term planning proposal that includes the overhaul of the technology curriculum at Ethiopia’s three largest universities. They are joined by a multidisciplinary team of researchers from UConn, Addis Ababa University, Mekelle University and Hawassa University; IBM — through their “smart” water management initiative; Bentley Systems – a leader in the development of water management software; and the U.S. Geological Survey. The project is ambitious and requires significant matching funds from private donors to trigger substantial government support.
Ethiopian Odyssey
In July, six UConn faculty and staff members traveled to Ethiopia to meet with colleagues at three partnering universities as well as officials from various Ethiopian water bureaus, ministries and government units that will be key to the project’s success. Their experiences — from their exchanges with colleagues, officials and citizens to a serious accident that temporarily interrupted their plans — strengthened their intention to seek substantial funding support from USAID to move ahead with the project.
Despite abundant water reserves fed by nine river basins — including the Nile River in the northwest — across Ethiopia: half of the Ethiopian population walks up to four kilometers every day to fetch water; over 70% of Ethiopia’s population does not have access to safe drinking water; agriculture is primarily rain-fed, causing food insecurity, while less than 5% of the nation’s potential irrigable land is under irrigation; only 2% of the nation’s potential hydropower is utilized; and water-related diseases, such as malaria and schistosomiasis, are major public health problems. Recognizing this, the Ethiopian government has placed water at the forefront of its National Poverty Reduction Strategy. Despite the challenges, Ethiopia recently ranked second on the African Rainbow Consulting’s Star of Africa index, out of all 53 African countries, for water resources and overall potential for successful investment.
After a week of successful meetings, presentations and agreements with officials, the UConn team was en route to various locales in the country when their journey took an unexpected turn. A car carrying three of the team members was involved in a serious auto accident that injured Drs. Accorsi, Osleeb and Atkinson-Palombo. Over the next 24 hours, their experiences seeking medical assistance underscored why the USAID partnership is so vital to Ethiopia’s future.
With the help of Drs. Gebremichael and Wang, along with Robert Weiner of Engineering Computing Services, the injured members were transported to a town hospital, where the lack of electricity made it impossible to X-ray Drs. Osleeb and Atkinson-Palombo, both of whom sustained serious injuries. They next traveled to a hospital in the major city of Mekelle. Dr. Osleeb recalled, “When we arrived at the beautiful, brand new hospital, which did have electricity, we were shocked to learn there was no running water — anywhere in the hospital. The lack of water was a problem, but there was also a profound lack of trained medical personnel, so although we were the only patients in the emergency room, we were there six hours before our examinations were completed.” They eventually found skilled medical attention and relief in the trauma unit at a hospital operated by a Korean organization in Addis Ababa, where a Norwegian physician tended to their injuries. The dire conditions they witnessed in Ethiopia strengthened the resolve of the UConn researchers to find a {www:sustainable} solution for water resource management in developing countries.
Water: Complex Problem
The multidisciplinary nature of the team reflects the complexity of Ethiopia’s hydrology problems. The team of engineering faculty has significant expertise in rainfall and water resource prediction using satellite imaging, ground-based measurements and complex modeling. Dr. Gebremichael has long-term hydrology studies in place in Ethiopia, and since 2006, with National Science Foundation support, he has led student teams who installed weather stations and studied the hydrological processes in a key watershed of the Blue Nile basin region. His research in Ethiopian water resources is also supported by his NASA Young Investigator Award. Other team members, including Drs. Emmanouil Anagnostou, Amvrossios Bagtzoglou and Allison MacKay of Civil & Environmental Engineering, bring strong expertise in hydrology, climatology, meteorology, land surface modeling and groundwater analysis.
Dr. Osleeb, who is Head of the Department of Geography, is an expert in geographic information science (GISc), a discipline in which researchers “use computers in {www:conjunction} with digital maps to analyze aspects of the Earth. As a geographer, my role in this project will be to help our Ethiopian academic colleagues develop a spatial analysis curriculum. My interest is in economic geography, which means I’m interested in looking for the best location for facilities, in this case water facilities.”
Ethiopia’s water problems cannot be solved merely by drilling wells, building dams or other structures. The USAID project is aimed at “building capacity,” helping the nation nurture its own problem solvers who can address water distribution problems. Dr. Osleeb observed that “Although Ethiopia has excellent universities, the academic model there is different. Ethiopian professors are not rewarded for research, while in the U.S., we expect faculty to not only teach but also carry out original research, publish and mentor graduate students. This research focus helps us move from the textbook to solving the real world problems around us. We will help our Ethiopian colleagues adopt a new model for how faculty members are assessed.”
Dr. Atkinson-Palombo has similar interests in the project. She said “My overarching career goal is to engage in integrative research, teaching, and education about sustainable development, especially in cities. Geography has a tradition of encouraging thought about how place-specific factors influence the complex interactions between people, the natural environment, and the built environment.”
“The field trips, particularly those in the semi-arid regions, reinforced the importance of the spatial and temporal mismatch between people and water resources,” said Dr. Atkinson-Palombo. She continued “Water is plentiful, but it is not necessarily where people live and occurs in pulses in distinct “rainy” and “dry” seasons. So there is a dire need for mechanisms to store and manage rainwater in agricultural areas where people are predominantly subsistence farmers. In more urbanized settlements, visible water-related challenges are providing the necessary infrastructure to manage stormwater and sewage.”
Dr. Guiling Wang, an associate professor of Civil & Environmental Engineering and director of the Environmental Engineering Program, reflected “The need for water is so great and pervasive in Ethiopia that we can have an immediate impact in helping the country address this problem. The focus of our work is on capacity building. We won’t actually be solving the water problem directly. We will be helping our Ethiopian partners develop a more relevant engineering curriculum and a vibrant applied research program. At the same time, UConn faculty will benefit from increased competency in addressing global water issues and new partnering opportunities for research. My experience is in hydrology, biosphere-atmosphere interactions, climatology and hydrological forecasting, so I am interested in helping the universities develop a context-relevant curriculum.”
She said, “Another important aspect of this USAID project is the opportunity for graduate exchange between UConn and its partnering universities in Ethiopia. By providing students an opportunity to study hydrology issues in Ethiopia or other developing countries, and for UConn to host graduate students from our partnering institutions, we can build greater understanding and awareness of global connections and challenges.”
Dr. Gebremichael reflected, “Ethiopia has one of the world’s largest climatic variability, resulting in a highly variable distribution of water in space and time. One major challenge to Ethiopian water resources planning and management has been the lack of reliable measurements. . .Here at UConn, we have developed a tool that uses readings from government satellites and computer models to measure how much water is “available” and “consumed” across a large region. This information is crucially needed in Ethiopia, and it is bound to change the face of Ethiopian water resources development and management.”
The team’s vision is “to radically transform the capacity in Ethiopian universities to better understand and plan for sustainable water resource management by establishing an institutional structure for long-term partnership.” According to Dr. Accorsi, the partners hope to deploy various strategies to achieve their aims, including the development of an interdisciplinary, integrated water resources {www:curriculum}; graduate student exchange programs between UConn and its partnering universities; optimization of resource efficiency; centralization of water resource facilities — including databases and libraries; support for research and the research community; and efforts to secure long-term funding that will sustain the project. A major focus will be on the development of an Ethiopian Institute of Water Resources to facilitate these goals.
Rounding out the U.S. portion of the team are Dr. Anji Seth of the Department of Geography, Dr. Farhed Shah of Agricultural and Resources Economics, Dr. Jun Yan of Statistics, Dr. Eugene Salorio of Management, and Dr. Edward Rossomando of the Center for Waterborne Diseases.
There are three classes of the rich in Ethiopia: 1. the Woyannes (the super rich), 2. their hodam supporters (bottom-feeders), and 3. honest wealthy Ethiopians whose number is diminishing by the day.
(Note to non-Ethiopian readers: Hodam is one who has no conscience, who sells his country, his people, his soul… for material gain. Woyanne is the ruling junta in Ethiopia.)
Among the hodam class, the second richest person in Ethiopia, next to Al Amoudi, is said to be Samuel Tafesse, a business partner of Meles and Azeb, the Nicolae and Elena Ceausescu of Ethiopia.
Samuel has been known to flash his conspicuously massive wealth by building a palace for himself in the middle of Addis Ababa, and throwing lavish parties.
This week, Samuel Tafesse and friends, including top Woyanne officials, are arriving in Washington DC to attend an extravagant party to celebrate his 25th wedding anniversary. The party will be held next Saturday night, August 28, at the Mandarin Oriental, one of Washington DC’s most expensive hotels.
The who’s who of Woyannes and their hodam supporters, about 500 of them, have been invited to dine, wine, and dance.
The cost for throwing the party is estimated to exceed $200,000.
Etete Restaurant in Washington DC has been hired to cater the Ethiopian food (Tel: 202 232 7600).
Woyannes and the hodam class in Washington DC are busy this week buying party dresses and going to beauty spa in preparation for the party.
The wedding anniversary celebration will be followed by a house warming party for Samuel Tafesse’s mansion that is being built in Alexandria, Virginia, at the cost of $5 million. Construction crews are currently hurrying up to complete the house (shown below), which is sitting on 2 acres of land, located 20 minutes drive from Washington DC..
Fairfax County public records show that the 2-acre land (see below), located at 6434 Casperson Road, Alexandria VA, was sold to Samuel for $750,000 in December 2008.
When presented with the plan to build such a huge house, city officials were unhappy because the land could be used to build at least 10 townhouses. They urged him to build his mansion in another location further in the suburbs, which he refused.
(The above satellite photo was taken before Samuel’s mansion was built. City planners wanted to use the land to build townhouses similar to those in the area.)
The small house in the middle of the land (shown above) has now been torn down to build Samuel’s 16,000 square feet gigantic mansion.
One amused neighbor who saw the construction wrote: “It is being built as strong as a bunker. The basement looks like you could practice firing machine guns without disturbing neighbors. The 4 car garage is larger than my townhouse.”
Building big homes and buying luxury items is not a crime. In fact, they need to be encouraged since they help create employment for many people. But when such wealth is accumulated illegally, by crushing other businesses through unfair competition, by bribing government officials and partnering with heads of governments, it is harmful to a nation in so many ways.
As a close friend and business partner of Ethiopia’s brutal dictator Meles Zenawi and wife Azeb Mesfin, Samuel’s company, Sunshine Construction, is the first in line to receive the most lucrative contracts for construction projects around the country. Conveniently, Samuel’s wife is the sister of Public Works Minister Kassu Illala, who supervises all major construction projects in the country.
Samuel’s partners, Meles and Azeb, whose wealth is estimated to be $1.2 billion, get a cut from all the profit he makes. Since profit is the only motive — and in the absence of genuine inspection — most of the buildings and roads Sunshine and the other corrupt companies build do not meet quality standards. Some of them are already falling apart. In short, Samuel’s wealth is accumulated through pernicious corruption — the kind of corruption that suck the life blood of a nation.
There are so many hard working, honest Ethiopians who could be as rich. But they are kept down, pushed out and many are leaving the country because they are NOT friends or partners of powerful government officials. It is such corruption and greed on the part Woyannes and their hodam supporters that have created an environment where most Ethiopians are unable to work and earn decent income in a country as rich in natural resources as Ethiopia. Instead of living under such a system, many are fleeing the country, in the process being subjected to the kind of humiliation and indignity as shown below where poor, innocent fellow Ethiopians are forced by Kenyan police to lay on the ground, face down.
The difference between these desperate Ethiopians and the likes of Samuel Tafesse is that the poor and destitute Ethiopians are not friends and partners of the ruling class. They are not any less hard worker or less smart than the hodam class who are flashing their ill-gotten wealth in our face.
Woyannes and their hodam supporters are committing egregious offenses, with impunity, against Ethiopians because the Ethiopian elite, including scholars, religious leaders, artists, the media, those leading opposition parties, have all failed to provide leadership. It’s easy to blame every thing on Woyanne, but the truth of the matter is that Ethiopians in every field who have the responsibility to provide leadership have miserably failed, as Teshome Mitiku points out in this song below:
Leader-less people by Teshome Mitiku
[podcast]http://www.ethiopianreview.info/music/TeshomeMitiku/TeshomeMitiku-Leader-less-people.mp3[/podcast]
When Ato Gebremedhin (formerly Aba Paulos) recently erected his statue in Addis Ababa, he has drawn widespread condemnation. Even some religious Woyannes were unable to defend his action. The erection of his own statue, however, is just one part of the self-promotion campaign Aba Diabilos has been waging at the expense of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church.
Ethiopian Review Intelligence Unit has learned that Orthodox Churches in Ethiopia are being forced to display larger-than-life size posters of the fake patriarch as shown below.
Ancient Ethiopian monasteries are falling apart due to lack of funds needed for maintenance, and yet, the Church’s scarce resources are being used to erect bronze statues and display posters of a gun-totting Woyanne cadre who claims to be a pope.
Such self-promotion is also considered sacrilegious among followers of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church.
Ato Gebremedhin has been trampling upon Ethiopian Orthodox Church’s rules, traditions and customs ever since Woyanne chased away the legitimate patriarch and installed him as head of the Church.
Upon taking over the church, he started to wear a white robe instead of the black robe Orthodox priests traditionally wear, show off a large gold cross necklace, and carry a handgun. Now he orders the erection of his statutes, and churches are being forced to display his posters like a Hollywood celebrity. What’s next?
Ethiopians in Europe who are attending their annual festival in Amsterdam this week have attacked a Woyanne cadre who dared to wear a t-shirt with Meles Zenawi’s photo and walk in their midst.
After getting what he deserved, the cadre ran away and later came back with police officers. The Ethiopians told the officers that the fool was wearing a t-shirt bearing the picture of a mass murderer. They explained that it is like carrying Hitler’s photo at a Jewish festival. Many of the people at the Amsterdam festival have been traumatized and forced into exile by Meles Zenawi. The police understood the situation and took the guy away with an advise not to return.
Ethiopian Review has learned that the cadre had arrived in Amsterdam just 2 days ago from Ethiopia, and some suspect that he was sent to the festival to measure the mood of Ethiopians in the Diaspora.
Ethiopian Review has been the most tolerant among the Ethiopian media as far as allowing free expression of ideas and views, even though some of the views expressed tend to be full of hatred and insults.
Recently I have been receiving complaints from readers, particularly fellow Muslim Ethiopians, about some comments that are being posted on Ethiopian Review’s comments sections. Indeed some of the comments contain languages that do not belong in a civilized discourse.
Relations between Ethiopia’s two major religions — Christian and Muslim — have been harmonious for centuries. What I am witnessing these days, however, is disconcerting. It is the responsibility of every Ethiopian to make sure that the harmonious relations between Ethiopia’s Christians and Muslims will continue to be a role model to the world.
To this end, I am introducing a new editorial policy: Negative views about the Christian or Muslim religions are prohibited on Ethiopian Review as of today.
The wise Emperor Menelik II said, hager yegara, haimanot yegil. Let’s keep religious views private and focus on how we can help build our Ethiopia, which belongs to all religions and ethnic groups.
Following its 4th regular session early this month, the OLF National Council issued a communiqué wherein it calls upon “all the forces opposed to the dictatorial regime of the TPLF to struggle for liberation, freedom, democracy, the rule of law, peace, and prosperity.” The communiqué states that there is “no more option left except to rise up in unison and struggle to get rid of the tyrannical minority rule.”
To this end, the Council instructs to “set our priorities in order and forge a meaningful alliance against the TPLF rule.” Then the Communiqué states that OLF is ready for “a meaningful cooperation and alliance with serious political organizations fighting and struggling for liberation democracy, the rule of law, and human rights and human dignity for all the peoples in Ethiopia.”
Is there anything new or grand about the above pronouncement? Does one see any change in form or substance that could make this communiqué a different read from what one can glean from OLF’s mission and policy statements on the OLF website? Nope. The So-called Council is still singing from the same old song book. OLF still maintains that the Oromo people are a people in Ethiopia, not a people of Ethiopia. The not so-subtle difference between the notions of “peoples in Ethiopia” and the “people of Ethiopia” actually makes all the difference between OLF and other opposition forces that are fighting to build a better Ethiopia for everyone. The fact that the Council listed liberation along with democracy, the rule of law and human rights does not camouflage the true color of OLF or its mission which remains to be the “liberation of Oromia from the Colonial empire of Abysinnia.”
So the natural question is why on earth should other opposition forces, which consider themselves Ethiopian and want to see a united, democratic and strong Ethiopia get into an alliance with an organization that doesn’t see itself or the Oromo people as Ethiopian? Why should Ethiopians who stand against TPLF’s ethnocentric policies form an alliance with an organization whose stated mission is dismembering their country? At a time when coalitions such as Medrek are declaring the advent of a new form of alliance where respect of both individual and group rights can be pursued and achieved within a united and democratic Ethiopia, why should one entangle itself with an organization such as the OLF that clearly pictures a different Ethiopia post TPLF rule?
Now one may argue that OLF doesn’t mean what it has put in black and white on its website, which is the liberation of Oromia from Abyssinia. One may say that the leadership needs to continue to use same liberation message (i.e., lying about it) to keep their rank and file intact. If this is how the OLF leadership handles openness with its rank and file regarding a major policy shift , that in itself should be highly disconcerting to anyone who contemplates to enter into any form of alliance with this organization. At any rate, sorting out OLF’s rank and file issues is OLF’s own responsibility. What other organizations should demand from OLF from the outset is to come clean and openly clear on where it stands on such a fundamental question as the unity and integrity of Ethiopia. With anything less, OLF would be a liability to any coalition it might enter into even if one were to believe that OLF has moved from its historical stance on the issue of unity.
The option for OLF has been very clear since it left or was kicked out of the coalition government back in the early 1990s: to either align its struggle with the rest of Ethiopians who are victimized under the same regime to bring about a political system that would allow nationalities or ethnic groups to exercise their legitimate rights within a united Ethiopia, or to remain an exile secessionist organization, forever giving false claims and hopes to its ever fracturing membership. For close two decades, OLF’s choice has been the latter. Three regimes have changed hands in Ethiopia since OLF came into existence. As an organization, OLF is the same age as, if not older than, TPLF. But look where TPLF is now and where OLF is. Even when one may say that TPLF no longer represents the people of Tigray, it has perhaps done more to the people of Tigray from the Minilik Palace than what OLF could dream all night for the Oromo people from the capitals of Western nations.
After close to four decades of existence, OLF is not closer to, indeed is further away from achieving its stated goal. Each day it is not getting stronger but weaker and less relevant. So, at this point, it has neither the moral nor the material leverage to entice anyone to enter into an alliance with it as long as it sticks with the same old political agenda. The future is more unlikely to reward OLF with better results if it stays on the same track.
One wonders why OLF is not doing the one right thing once for its life, namely, come up with true and realistic goals and aspirations for the Oromo people and for Ethiopia in general, close ranks with other opposition organizations in a truly new and lasting alliance, and fight to get the country rid of the TPLF repressive and regressive regime to build a free, democratic and prosperous Ethiopia where all people of Ethiopia will live in harmony and economic prosperity?
One plausible explanation could be OLF’s utterly exaggerated, if not entirely false, sense of exclusive tenure to the cause of the Oromo people and consequently its misplaced pride in the purity of its stance, namely the “liberation of Oromia from the Colonial Empire of Abysinnia.” Otherwise, why should OLF still maintain the colonial theory and liberation objective when other Oromo political organizations are fighting for the cause of the Oromo people within a united Ethiopia?
When the current regime took power in 1991, it declared that Ethiopia would no longer be a prison of nations and nationalities. Forget that this was a preposterous notion, but even if one were to believe this notion in 1991, 19 years is too long a period of time not to re-evaluate this notion against the reality now on the ground. The unquestionable reality is that it is actually now or over the last 19 years that Ethiopia has been made a prison of Oromo activists, students, and elders. Previous regimes have not arrested a fraction of the number of Oromos that have now congested the Kaliti Prison. However, it would be a gross misperception, once again, to think that only Oromos are languishing in TPLF’s prisons. Equal, if not more, numbers of non-Oromos are sharing those same prisons. Their common enemy is the authoritarian regime that wields power not by the will of the people but by its military and security might.
Looking forward, what the Oromo people want is to become makers of the Ethiopian destiny, not just their own destiny as an ethnic group. One is not complete without the other. What the Wollega Oromo wants in life is not fundamentally different from what an Amhara in Gojjam wants. Both want equality and a fair opportunity to take part and derive benefits from the economies of their regions and their country at large. Both wants to promote and exercise their culture, to preserve and share the good of their identity, which together with the culture of other people of Ethiopia makes Ethiopia a mosaic of cultures. Each wants, democracy, unfettered participation in the political life of their respective regions and their country. Each wants peace and prosperity to raise children and leave them a better legacy and opportunity. This is the kind of vision on which a meaningful alliance should be built up on among Ethiopian opposition forces.
Many Ethiopians would like to see OLF playing a constructive part in the political struggle to build a better Ethiopia for all. Many Ethiopian opposition organizations have in the past responded generously to OLF’s slightest gestures of moving away from its longstanding stance. The recent, now defunct, Alliance for Freedom and Democracy is one example. But OLF has proved to be incapable of extricating itself from the past and formulate a realistic and functional political program for the future. Until it does so, its call for any form of alliance will not and should not get a sympathetic ear. The ball is still in OLF’s court.
In April, a large multi-institutional team of researchers from UConn and Ethiopian universities was awarded a prestigious USAID/Higher Education for Development (HED) planning grant to support sustainable development and management of water resources in Ethiopia. UConn is committed to advancing hydrology studies and to bringing much-needed practical aid to regions of the globe where clean, plentiful water is scarce.
Dr. Accorsi commented, “Increasing the capacity of Ethiopian universities is critical to economic development in the country. The Africa-U.S. Higher Education Initiative is an innovative program in that it directly addresses this need. It has been a distinct pleasure to work with our Ethiopian partners. They are extremely motivated and dedicated to moving this project forward. There is a tremendous opportunity, here and now, to make a difference.”
She said, “Another important aspect of this USAID project is the opportunity for graduate exchange between UConn and its partnering universities in Ethiopia. By providing students an opportunity to study hydrology issues in Ethiopia or other developing countries, and for UConn to host graduate students from our partnering institutions, we can build greater understanding and awareness of global connections and challenges.”
