It is highly likely that Woyanne ‘investigators’ are fabricating stories and suspects for the missing gold from the National Bank of Ethiopia that worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
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Architects of Gold Scam Out of Country
(The Reporter, Addis Ababa) — Individuals who masterminded the recent gold fraud at the National Bank of Ethiopia (NBE) have left the country before police started to arrest suspects.
Reliable sources told The Reporter that the individual who first started to supply gold plated steel to the NBE was Asmare Ayalew. In 2005 Asmare’s close friend called Samson went to NBE with a forged gold export license named Kefeyalew Umeta Export. Samson, who used the fake identity, Ketyalew Umeta, as his name previously served in the Addis Ababa police commission with the rank of sergeant.
Samson (Kefyalew Umeta) gave a power of attorney to Asmare, which enabled Asmare to supply gold to NBE on behalf of Kefyalew Umeta and to receive payments. According to information obtained from NBE in 2006, Kefyalew Umeta supplied 239.36748 kg of gold with a total value of 35,924,502.59 birr.
From July to December 2007 Kefyalew supplied 222.9623 kg of “gold” valued at 35,974,160.34 birr. Sources told The Reporter that Asmare was supplying the product to NBE on behalf of Kefyalew Umeta and the payment was transferred to Asmare’s bank account in the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia (CBE). Sources said Asmare supplied the product to the NBE by bypassing the Ethiopian Geological Survey’s Central Geo-Chemical Laboratory which is supposed to inspect the gold. Asmare and Samson had wooden boxes which NBE gives to gold exporters.
They also had forged seal of the Ethiopian Geological Survey. According to information obtained from NBE, Kefyalew Umeta Export supplied 529 kg of “gold”, which only 30 kg was real gold. In 2005, the laboratory inspected 30 kg of gold brought by Kefyalew Umeta Export. The laboratory also inspected eight gm of real gold brought by Kefyalew but it was not supplied to NBE after the inspection.
According to sources, at least 200 million birr payment was transferred from NBE to Asmare’s account in CBE. Sources said Samson (Kefyalew Umeta) and Asmare left the country in September 2007. Sources added that Asmare now resides in the US while Samson is in Australia. Asmare helped other individuals who collaborated with him to get out of the country.
Asmare got an investment license to establish a big construction company here in Ethiopia which he used to legally send the money out of the country. Sources said Asmare opened a letter of credit at CBE claiming that he wanted to purchase heavy duty construction machineries from the US. The money was wired to a construction machinery manufacturing company in the US through City Bank. However, after Asmare went to the US he took the money from the company saying he had changed his mind. Asmare and Samson took their families with them.
The Federal Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission’s Prosecutor is expected to file charges against 26 suspects who are under custody accused of an alleged involvement in the gold fraud on the coming Monday. Sources said some of the business people under custody learnt about the fraud from Asmare and Samson.
When the commission took the case to the Federal High Court the file was called under the file of Kefyalew Umeta. However, now the file is called under the file of Mudesir Mohammed. Mudesir, owner of Sofam Enterprise, is in custody together with his four brothers and one nephew. Four individuals from the Ethiopian Geological Survey, seven from NBE and 15 business people and other individuals. According to the Federal Auditor General report, the NBE has lost 158 million birr. However, sources said Samson and Asmare defrauded the bank of over 200 million birr and this one was not included in the report. The court case is adjourned for 7 April.
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If it is true that a couple of individuals stole this much gold from the NBE (one of the most protected institution in the country), it only confirms what is already known: the Woyanne regime is a gang of dummies.
ADDIS ABABA (AFP) — Africa’s top athletes will be honoured in a new African athletics Hall of Fame award to be hosted in Ethiopia later this month, the continent’s governing body for the sport said on Saturday.
Seventy-two athletes, including track heavyweights Haile Gebreselassie, Hicham El-Guerrouj and Frankie Fredericks, have been chosen for the inaugural induction set to take place in a tribute gala on the eve of the 16th African Athletics Championships at the end of April.
“The event is meant to pay tribute to the best (African) athletes during the past 50 years,” Aminata Gueye, spokeswoman of the Confederation of African Athletics (CAA), told AFP.
Gueye said only Olympic gold medalists, world champions and record holders from the continent are eligible for the Hall of Fame, and plans are also underway to create an exhibition.
“The athletes, both male and female, were selected through their achievements. We went through records three or four months ago and came up with the list,” said the CCA’s presidential advisor, Jean-Emmanuel Pondi.
Five former greats, including Ethiopia’s twice-Olympic marathon champion Abebe Bikila, will also be given posthumous awards, Pondi added.
Over 1,200 participants are expected to compete in twenty-three events during the five-day tournament.
This year’s competition, which has cost Ethiopia more than two million dollars to organize, is one of a selected number of international fixtures whereby qualification for the Beijing Olympics can be secured.
(AFP) – AN Ethiopian Woyanne kangaroo court has sentenced to death five top military officers of former Marxist ruler Mengistu Haile Mariam, for air raids that killed hundreds in an open market in 1980.
The state-run Ethiopian News Agency said the five officers were sentenced for the raid at Hawzen, along with five others given life sentences and four given terms of 19 years. All were tried and sentenced in absentia.
Ethiopian Air Force officers were [falsely] accused of bombing Hawzen in the northern Tigray region, killing hundreds of civilians on a market day on June 23, 1980, prosecutors said.
Ethiopia Woyanne has been trying former officials of Mengistu’s regime for the past 14 years for horrific killings carried out under his rule.
Most are in exile after rebels including the current prime minister, Meles Zenawi, overthrew him in 1991. Mengistu fled to Zimbabwe, where he lives in luxury under the protection of President Robert Mugabe.
The same court in January 2007 sentenced Mengistu to life in prison for killings thousands of people during his 17-year rule which included famine, war and purges including the “Red Terror” slaughter of suspected opponents.
Prosecutors have said his sentence was not commensurate with his crime and appealed for a death sentence in May. The court is expected to hear the appeal this year, but Mengistu is not likely to face justice.
(The Times) — If and when — and only when — a representative, internationally legitimate government has been installed in Zimbabwe, it will receive the support from donors and investors necessary for economic recovery to begin.
Zimbabwe today has one of the worst performing economies in the world. By the time of the elections on March 29, the inflation rate was estimated at 100000% a month, or nearly 275 % a day, a figure which makes the local currency essentially worthless.
But it is the human cost of the current crisis which defies comprehension. Life expectancy in Zimbabwe is the lowest in the world: 37 years for men and 34 for women. In 2004, the last year for which figures are available, it is estimated that around two-thirds of the rural population and over half of their urban counterparts (totalling some 7.5 million people) could not meet basic food and non-food requirements. Unemployment is more than 75% and HIV/Aids afflicts one in five Zimbabweans.
A number of international and regional economic initiatives have been proposed to end the crisis in Zimbabwe. For example, the International Monetary Fund’s 2007 “fishmonger’s” plan centred on the rapid delivery of foreign aid, amounting to US3-billion over five years, targeting key areas such as food support, infrastructure and emergency aid.
But while donor aid can play a stabilising role, long-term, sustainable recovery depends on getting the private sector working once more and on making fundamental reforms in some critical areas.
Firstly, it will be important to rebuild the foundations of its once highly profitable commercial agriculture sector, which previously generated most of Zimbabwe’s foreign earnings, employed the largest number of people, produced the largest proportion of the commodities needed by other industrial and commercial businesses, was the largest customer for the transport, construction, insurance, financial, commercial and legal service providers, and gave rise to the bulk of the government’s tax revenues.
Secondly, the “land issue” is central to conditions and perceptions of governance and the rule of law in Zimbabwe. Clear policy on land is required as a key step in rebuilding domestic and foreign investor confidence in public institutions and practices. The inequitable, pre-1999 land dispensation can neither be reinstated, nor can the currently unsustainable situation, which has brought untold misery to millions of Zimbabweans, be tolerated. A balanced strategy involving reform, restitution and recapitalisation has to be devised for the land to realise its true commercial (and collateral) value.
A pragmatic and more equitable arrangement also calls for a systematic targeting of a small number of farmers previously engaged with large-scale farming and willing to return. Their knowledge and experience should be harnessed as part of a new contract between them and a select number of incumbents who have — by whatever means — taken up title to farmland. This new agreement should seek firstly to provide food security in Zimbabwe and, over time, to become a driving force of the country’s economic recovery, exploiting both its available skills and economies of scale.
The police force has ceased to be a national force and has become a party police force of Zanu-PF. In the judiciary, judges who found against Zanu-PF in the initial land cases have been marginalised and were eventually forced to resign if they did not heed government’s wishes. The military, too, has become an extension of the ruling party. Its powers and responsibilities have been directed towards protecting the party and suppressing any form of opposition.
A health warning: if Zimbabwe’s rate of economic decline has averaged more than 8% a year since 2000, it will take the same rate of growth for the same period to get back to the moment of decline.
Nonetheless, as has been learned from post-conflict situations including Ethiopia and Mozambique, a rapid bounce-back to respectable levels of income is possible if there is political normalisation and the reinstatement of market principles to the economy.
Dr Herbst is Provost at Miami University of Ohio and author of State Politics in Zimbabwe; Dr Mills heads the Johannesburg-based Brenthurst Foundation; Dr McNamee is with the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies based in Whitehall, London
The Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) is prompted to issue this statement in response to the statement by the UN’s News release, dated March 28, 2008. The News Release reports, among others, that, “The deteriorating situation with regard to human health, food security, livelihoods, and livestock health, initially reported in Borne zone has spread to Bale, East Hararge, Guji and Liben zones of Oromia Region. Poorly performing rains for upcoming rainy season forecast by National Meteorological Agency are likely to exacerbate the exiting situation in lowland agropastoral areas of Oromia Region.” The report predicts that, “An estimated 88, 000 people in affected woredas [districts] in Borana zone require emergency assistance from government, humanitarian partners and UN agencies.” The News Release also warns of similar “emergence of hotspots in the SNNPR.”
The OLF applauds the UN’s news release for bringing to the attention of the World Community the grim situation that Oromo people are facing at this difficult time and for calling for emergency assistance for those affected in Oromia and other parts of Ethiopia. The OLF leadership believes that no responsibility is greater and no calling nobler than saving the lives of our pastoralists and farmers who are victimized by forces beyond their control.
At the same time, the OLF would like to point out that the cause that the UN Report gives to the calamitous situation of the Oromo people as “poorly performing rain” is only a part of the truth. The other part of the truth is bad governance of the Ethiopian regime, which has made the lives of the Oromo truly miserable. What is more, the current Ethiopian regime, which is dominated by the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), follows discriminatory and lopsided economic development policy in Oromia and other regional states in southern Ethiopia.
It is imperative to remember that since the Meles regime came to power in 1991″the effects of the dry season”, the usual cause for famine in Ethiopia has shifted from Northern Ethiopia, in general, and Tigrai, in particular, to the Southern Ethiopia, in general, and Oromia, in particular. The Tigrai region, the home base of the Meles and the regime’s ruling elites, that used to be known for drought and famine for several decades, is now boasting for unheard of all round economic progress. These days there are no warnings of famine concerning Tigrai. It is good news that Tigrai economy is progressing and the people of Tigrai are no longer subjected to starvation like the Oromo.
At this point it is pertinent to ask why Oromia is starving while Tigrai is prospering? Since the creation of the modern Ethiopian empire in the 1880s Oromia has been known as the breadbasket of Ethiopia. More than sixty percent of Ethiopian government revenue comes from Oromia. Most of Ethiopian cash crops come from Oromia. Oromia, the Oromo regional state, is the most fertile part of Ethiopia, which enjoys abundant rainfall and has numerous rivers and lakes. With its hardworking farmers and abundant animal population Oromia always prided itself not only on its self-sufficiency in food production, but also produced surplus for the rest of Ethiopia and for international market.
Why is the same land now starving and needs humanitarian assistance of food? The answer is very clear. The root cause of the famine in Oromia is the TPLF regime’s policy towards Oromo people. Because the Oromo constitute almost forty-five percent of the population of Ethiopia, the TPLF, which represents less than seven percent of the population of Ethiopia, fears Oromo numerical strength. As a result the TPLF dominated Ethiopian regime follows the policies of destroying all independent Oromo organizations and impoverishing the Oromo people.
How does the TPLF regime impoverish the Oromo people? The regime follows well documented discriminatory economic policies. It provides disproportionate and unfair budget allocation to Oromia. It is this regime that has classified the educated and the entrepreneurial classes of the Oromo as enemies of its ‘revolutionary democracy’ ideology. What is more, the regime has imposed gross human rights violations in Oromia, which forced tens of thousands of Oromo farmers to seek refuge in the neighboring countries in the Horn of Africa and beyond. Since it came to power in 1991, the current Ethiopian regime has dispossessed, displaced, and disenfranchised tens of thousands of the Oromo people, which is the real root cause for the underdevelopment and starvation in Oromia
today.
As if its gross human rights violations in Oromia are not enough, the irresponsible and myopic TPLF regime has been engaged in an intentional deforestation of Oromia since it came to power. On the pretext of flushing out the OLF guerrilla fighters, the current Ethiopian authorities, intentionally set fire to Oromia’s natural forest that is a cause for the fast degradation of Oromia’s ecological system. It is worthy of note that the most recent intentionally set fire to Oromia’s natural forest is that of the Shakiso forest of Bale zone destroying huge forests.
The OLF would like the UN and the world community to know that the TPLF regime is punishing the Oromo people for demanding their fundamental human rights. The regime deprived the supply of fertilizer to Oromo farmers for their alleged support of the OLF. It was with the intention of depriving the Oromo people a relief and development assistance that the TPLF regime banned the Oromo Relief Association (ORA) from legally functioning in the country.
The regime also illegally confiscated ORA’s assets and properties, including a ready for distribution relief and humanitarian aid. The TPLF regime has either withheld the humanitarian and development assistance provided by the Western World from the Oromo people or diverted it to the Tigrai region or used it for a provision of its armed and security forces.
Therefore, the OLF calls on the UN and other humanitarian agencies to directly help the needy Oromo and other people in Ethiopia. We also request that the UN and other humanitarian agencies make sure that the humanitarian aid that they provide reaches the needy people. The TPLF regime is totally discredited to be entrusted with the task of distributing humanitarian aid.
The OLF would like the UN and the world community to know that so long as the tyrannical regime of Meles Zenawi is in power, the World Community would continue to hear more alarming reports about the famine in Oromia and other parts of Ethiopia. What will end famine and gross human rights violations in Ethiopia will be the replacement of the current regime by a government that does not discriminate among its citizens, a government that does not pursue discriminatory economic development policies, a government that is accountable to the people, a government that honors the rule of law and human rights.
Finally, the Oromo people are struggling for their freedom and basic democratic rights- to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. We call upon the Western World and all concerned governments and organizations to impress upon the Ethiopian government to immediately stop its gross human rights violations in Oromia and other parts of Ethiopia and to end without delay its discriminatory economic development policies, which are the main cause of famine in Oromia.
Victory to the Oromo People!
Daawud Ibsaa
Chairman, National Council of the OLF
