The choice is simple, be about Hebret and charity or take part in evil and do Eskista as you protest AESA One as everyone—including me—laughs at you::
by Teddy (Ambessa) Fikre dated: Tuesday, June 26th, 2012
I am writing this open letter to my community to call you out on your own duplicity. I am directly challenging your love of Ethiopia and your professed desire to help the hopeless children of yena enat Hager. I have been a witness to our own inertia for too long, I have seen my own community cry crocodile tears for beloved Ethiopia while sipping buna at Starbucks yet do nothing more than say ye Habesha 911 as they say “MTS” every two seconds behind double-forked tongues.
I am sick and tired of supposed Jegnas who espouse war in Ethiopia while sitting in their lovely abodes in America. Today I say BEKA! Beka with your lies and your rank hypocrisy. Today is the day to separate the wheat from the chaff, today is the day to see how many Habesha men are wearing Habesha kemis—today is the day to expose the Woyanes in our midst. Today is judgment day. From this moment on, we will finally see who is about Ethiopia and who is prostituting our mother Ethiopia as they walk about town pleading poverty while they line money from our community in the name of helping our country.
I arrive at this day with pain in my heart. I have always thought that when the time of trouble arrives, our community would unite and meet challenges the way our forefathers did during the time of Adwa. This notion was dispelled when Eritrea broke away from enat Ethiopia. The saddest day of my life up to that point was looking at the map of Ethiopia and seeing her robed of her head—as if some evil axman came along and chopped her off at the neck. From that moment on, I have been crying blood embas, my innocence was robbed and I grew up to see the hatred of this world. I felt like a kid whose parents just divorced, I wanted to beg Eritrea to stay but I was a voiceless and a hopeless teenager. Thus, I turned to liquor at the age of 17 to numb my wounded heart.
Thus a plight towards misery commenced, I walked away from my community as my own community saw it fit to stab each other in the back over and over again. The Ethiopian churches I attended started to fracture just like Ethiopia—each supposed house of God ran by men with egos bigger than Bole and who don’t have the menfes of God in their hearts at all. It was then that I started to notice the duplicitous ways of our leaders in our community. I started to observe men of the cloth who at night wear the clothing of saytan. I started to see how supposed community organizers really rape the community as they line their pockets with our money. I started to sense the touch of the devil’s fingers when I realized that supposed doctors and professors who have so much respect from our community are not doctors and professors at all—instead of healing they just ripped open new wounds and instead of teaching they just professed hatred in the minds of our children.
It all made sense; we are colonized by our community leaders. We have no leaders at all; we are like Jews lost in the desert without a Moses in our midst. We are confounded and dumbfounded by lebas and hodamoch who go around DC and beyond professing their love of Ethiopia as they go home at nights and masturbate to the sound of their own voice. These people are poison, they are toxic to the core, they are the reason that children in Ethiopia die by the minute and the reason why the first page of Google image is populated with decayed bodies of Ethiopia’s lijoch. What a cursed people we are, we curse ourselves with our own meqegenenet and treacherous envy. We hold the gun to our heads and pull the trigger, we place the noose around the necks of dying children and break their necks with it, we feed our people back home Kitfo laced with arsenic only to turn around and have a community lekso filled by the tears of indifferent Habeshas who don’t give a shit about the country they cry for. I type these words without exclusion of any group in Ethiopia, I speak if of TPLF goons and of the 66 hodamoch opposition. I speak if of Tigray men and Amarha women alike, I speak it of Oromo or Wollo, not one ethnicity or religion in Ethiopia escapes this condemnation as I throw two iPad tablets at your collective foreheads the same way Moses threw the ten commandments at his lost tribe.
Grant it, not all Ethiopians are like this; there are some amazing Ethiopians who refuse to bend to the inertia of our people. They break their backs and never back down from the challenges they face when they try to convince colonized Habeshas to believe in Hebret as those same enslaved Habeshas accuse them of being lebas. I don’t speak of Ethiopians on this article; I speak of stupid Habeshas who call themselves Habesha even though that word is one that is used by Arabs to insult us to the bone. I speak of Habeshas who have evil intent and intentionally rape our community so they can have the finest dulet in the city. I speak of Habesha promoters who would quickly sell their own mothers to get a dollar. I speak of Habesha listros who sing the devil’s tune in order to get a few birrs from their fat cat pimp by the name of Al Amoudi from back home. I speak of Habesha political parties who advocate the death of Woyane; trying to start a revolution by openly espousing the eradication of Tigray people. What kind of sickness is this, who have we become as a people?
But most importantly I speak of Habeshas like you. Yes you, the one who gave up tesfa and walked away from your own community. I did it once myself so trust me I am not preaching. Gin I know one thing, I don’t blame evil people, evil people do evil because—well they are evil. But my ire is reserved for those people who should know better, my anger resides at those who chose indifference instead of action. I blame you—the reader—if you gave up and chose to walk away. I blame you if you choose to call out the evil ways of some in our community because you are afraid to rattle the boat. Again, I ask, what have we become as a people. We have supposed Jegnas who use the name Jegna on Facebook with fake pictures and then have the audacity to call others cowards. We have fereri trolls who create fake email accounts to spew some of the most vicious rhetoric but refuse to identify themselves. We have a people who see the work of the devil right in front of their face and walk away by saying “well everyone has a bit of evil in them”. I can’t believe we are the seed of Adwa, we have become tainted and rotten as a people—we went from Jegnas to niggas as we call ourselves Habesha which means nigger.
So I am here today to say ENOUGH! BEKA! I am calling you out on your own bullshit. I arrived at this juncture when I decided to attend an ESFNA fundraiser on Saturday at Maeza Restaurant. I went there with Fana from Sheba Post, Luladey, Liyou Gennen and a few other friends. We went there thinking we would not be able to get in or find an empty chair. Yet we arrive and not one person is in sight except the ESFNA soccer players and the organizers? Two hours pass and the room was empty except a few folks. Yet I hear assholes on Addis Demse screaming bloody murder about AESA One, but when the time comes to put their money where their mouth is, they slither away and disappear into the midnight sky. These people—ye Saytan lijoch—are organizing a march on RFK to oppose AESA One yet when the time comes to support our beloved ESFNA, they are nowhere to be found. AESA One is the essence of evil, we all know this, but those that oppose AESA One yet do nothing to support ESFNA are leflafa hodamoch! Ayeeee, our community, always against something but never standing for anything. CLICK! CLACK! KAPOW! Ethiopia murdered by the bullshit of her own children.
Now you know why I cuss liberally. Don’t think for a minute that this is due to my upbringing. My parents raised me well, I am respectful to the fullest and I defer to my elders ALL the time. I have love in my heart, I don’t have to list the many ways that I help out my own people—that is between me and God. Alas, I have become radicalized by my own people. A gentle soul has become a fire breathing dragon because I have swallowed the bullshit saytan kibrit of my own community for far too long. As much as I respect my community and my country, I will not stand pat and observe the germs that are killing us and our children. I am not the maker of Habesha, but I sure will be the shaker and breaker of Habesha. If you call yourself Habesha and have any ill intent towards the children of Ethiopia, consider yourself the enemy of the people and I will invest all my energy to breaking you in a trillion little pieces.
So here is the point of this article, I am now calling bullshit on anyone that professes to be a supporter of ESFNA. If you go to RFK stadium on Sunday to protest AESA One, you are not Ethiopian; you are an Habesha nigger of the worst kind. Go there and I will call you what you are, a banda who is trying to destroy our community and a Woyane who is trying to confuse us. How dare we—proud Ethiopians and supporters of ESFNA—go down to RFK to march against a people who are beneath us? That is like Obama holding a march against racist Tea Party Baggers. This is nonsense, if you want to help ESFNA and embarrass AESA One, then support us in what we are trying to accomplish.
Our plan is to have a free picnic on Sunday and Wednesday as well as a sendoff party for ESFNA on Saturday night. We will finance as much as we can to put these events together, but what we are planning will take thousands of dollars. Thus, here is your opportunity to actually be about the community if you say you are of Ethiopia. I am asking each and every one of you that is reading this article to give what you can by clicking on the picture below. There will be over 10,000 people who will read this article between Ethiopian Review and Brown Condor in the next 24 hours. If each one of you donates $1.00, we can put together an event that will utterly embarrass the TPLF goons at RFK. I do not want to cede DC to AESA One; initially I was going to go to Dallas to take part in the real soccer tournament. But upon further though, I am needed in DC and so are my friends who were going to go on an epic road trip with me. The bus convoy to Dallas has been promptly cancelled; all energy and focus will be putting on an epic event here.
I ask you my fellow Ethiopians, please believe. For once stop being jaded, give the next generation of organizers like me, Fana, Mastewal Sebro, Mo Nursani, Aster Tadesse, Fino Habte and the rest a chance to succeed where the older generation failed us miserably. Forget how young we are; value our vision and our audacious dreams instead of mocking us for being IBD or crazy. Stop calling us leba because others stole from you, open up your hearts and give fiker a chance. Give us chance to do something special and if you support us I swear it what we will do will be remembered in history as the third coming of Adwa. Give us a chance, give us a rock to work with and I promise you that we will slay the Goliath that is AESA One.
In the process, we will show you how all non-profits should operate going forward. We will track EVERY penny donated on a spreadsheet, we will update the spreadsheet on a day to day basis until our last picnic on July 4th. Not one person affiliated with this effort will get a penny; we are doing this for FREE and on a pro bono basis. Every dollar collected will go towards the expenses associated with putting these free events for our community. Every dollar after expenses will go towards feeding homeless people in DC (some of which are Ethiopian) and the rest will go to a non-profit that will feed children back home. We are negotiating with a few non-profits, if they can prove that every dollar will go back home to feed children, we will publicly announce them and make sure that all monies raised will go to that non-profit.
Semu, this is something big we are planning—something we can all be proud of. I want you to imagine Sunday and Wednesday—AESA One’s big days. I want you to imagine a sea of Ethiopians celebrating the true beauty of Ethiopia while half-way around the city a bunch of TPLF goons are doing Eskista and dancing to the devil music of gangster jigaboo bandas. I want you to imagine free food and free music, a big cultural celebration while AESA One is drowning in a sea of misery as their feature performers are rapping on stage yelling.. (CONTINUED)
Now watch the Woyanes attack me, Teddy Fikre, instead of either attacking the message or debating what I wrote. I told you today is judgement day, all those who attack a message of hope and unity are WOYANES. There, I just exposed them:: For those that are not WOYANE, please help us out by giving us HEBRET so we can give HEBRET to our community::
[click on picture to donate and help us put together this magical event]
As I promised, every penny raised from this event, EVERY PENNY, will go towards putting together this event. The remaining revenue raised will go towards feeding homeless people in DC and feeding hopeless children in Ethiopia. A detailed spreadsheet of expenses and reveune will be published on a daily basis on www.browncondor.com. Believe, please believe, I ask this of my community. Give us, the younger generation a chance and we will give you desta for a lifetime for it. Enamesegenalen!
Most of my readers know how much I enjoy “bedtime stories”. Recently, I wrote about my favortie bedtime story of Pinocchio in Africa. Ever heard of the story of Chicken Little? One day Chicken Little was scratching around the yard when something fell on her head. “Oh,” screeched Chicken Little, “The sky is falling. I must go tell the king.” Chicken Little ran and ran until she met Henny Penny. “Why are you running so fast, Chicken Little?” asked Henny Penny. “Ah, Henny Penny,” said Chicken Little, “the sky is falling, and I must go and tell the king.” Chicken Little and Henny Penny told the same story to Ducky Daddles, Goosey Loosey, Turkey Lurkey and Foxy Loxy along the way to the king’s house. “I know a shortcut to the palace,” said Foxy Woxy. “Come and follow me.” But the wicked Foxy Woxy led them right up to the entrance of his foxhole where he planned to dine on the fine feathered friends. Just as they were to enter the hole, they heard the king’s hunting dogs growling and howling. Foxy Woxy ran across the meadows and through the forests with the hounds on his tail. He ran until he was far, far away and never returned.
The story of Chicken Little illustrates the angst, hysteria and paranoia of the ruling regime in Ethiopia. The sky is always falling whenever dictator Meles Zenawi wants to tighten the screws on news and information reaching the people. In 2010, Zenawi justified electronically jamming Voice of America Amharic broadcasts by making the preposterously outrageous claim that the Voice of America was promoting genocide in Ethiopia: “We have been convinced for many years that in many respects, the VOA Amharic Service has copied the worst practices of radio stations such as Radio Mille Collines of Rwanda in its wanton disregard of minimum ethics of journalism and engaging in destabilizing propaganda.” In other words, the Voice of America is the Voice of Genocide, Rwanda. In February 2012, Lebanon’s Telecommunications Minister Nicolas Sehnaoui served a formal complaint on the ruling regime in Ethiopia and demanded an immediate end to the illegal practice of jamming Arabsat transmission of ESAT (Ethiopian Satellite Television) programming.
In the past year, Zenawi has been telling the world that he has caught and jailed some of the most dangerous and wild-eyed terrorists in Ethiopia today, including the incomparable Eskinder Nega, the 2012 winner of the prestigious Pen’s Freedom to Write Award, the indomitable Reeyot Alemu, a young woman journalist who won the 2012 International Women’s Media Foundation Courage in Journalism Award and the intrepid Woubshet Taye, managing editor of the now shuttered Awramba Times. Last week, in his statement in the Congressional Record, U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy noted that the ruling regime in Ethiopia has made it impossible for “journalists like Eskinder Nega to do their work of reporting and peaceful political participation.”
Zenawi has been running in overdrive trying to plug every nook and cranny by which Ethiopians could get news and information from independent sources. According to recent statements of Reporters Without Borders Africa (RWB), “The Ethiopian government is trying to attack every means of information exchange.” Ethiopia’s Chicken Littles are so paranoid that they are now requiring the printing presses over which they have total monopoly to censor newspapers printed in the country. Last month, Berhanena Selam, the largest regime-owned printer and other smaller printers were “trying to impose political censorship on media content before publication.” In a proposed “standard contract for printing”, these printers claimed they have the right to refuse to print any text if they determine they have “adequate reason” it breaks the law. RWB noted, “This [contract] openly contravenes article 29 of the 1994 federal constitution, which guarantees press freedom and bans censorship in any form…. Only an independent and impartial judge should have the power to impose any kind of sanction or prohibition affecting media freedom.” Nice try by RWB, but talking constitutional law to Zenawi and Co., is like preaching Scripture to a gathering of Heathen.
RWB further reported that the regime-owned internet service provider “Ethio-Telecom” had installed a system for blocking access to the Tor network, which allows users to browse and access blocked websites anonymously. According to data published by Tor, the highest number of Tor users in Ethiopia between March and June 2012 peaked at a little over 350 individuals! All of the trouble and expense to block fewer than 400 individuals out of 85 million from anonymously browsing the internet.
The Skype is Falling!
Skype and other internet-based phone call services and social media are popular among a microscopic segment of the younger set who have access to the internet cafes in the urban areas and affluent types who could afford a personal computer and internet service. But the number of users of Skype-type services is infinitesimally small and the available internet service in the country is limited, unreliable and retrograde. A 2010 Manchester University’s School of Education study cited in Freedomhouse’s Freedom on the Internet 2011 report (FFI 2011) found that “accessing an online e-mail account and opening one message took six minutes in a typical Addis Ababa cybercafe with a broadband connection.” Anyone who has made or received Skype calls to or from Ethiopia knows that it is like pulling teeth, an exercise in self-aggravation. Ethiopia is only second to Sierra Leone Internet for having the least internet penetration at 0.5 percent of that country’s 85 million population. Internet service is “almost entirely absent from rural areas” where 85 percent of the population lives, according to FFI 2011. Similarly, Ethiopia is the only country in Sub-Saharan Africa to impose nationwide, politically motivated internet filtering:
Although Ethiopia is one of Africa’s most populous countries, poor infrastructure and a government monopoly on telecommunications have significantly hindered the expansion of digital media. As a result, Ethiopia has one of the lowest rates of internet and mobile telephone penetration on the continent… The government has responded by instituting one of the few nationwide filtering systems in Africa, passing laws to restrict free expression, and attempting to manipulate online media. These efforts have coincided with a broader increase in repression against independent print and broadcast media since the 2005 parliamentary elections, in which opposition parties mustered a relatively strong showing.
Why would Zenawi want to send a citizen to the slammer for 15 years just for making a phone call using a computer phone? Informed commentators suggest that the “telecom fraud law” is motivated by the bottomless greed and consuming paranoia of those who cling to power in Ethiopia like engorged ticks on an African milk cow. Elizabeth Blunt, a former BBC correspondent in Ethiopia, explains that the telecom fraud law is intended to suppress competition by “Internet cafes [which] may be allowing people to make calls for far less than the cost of Ethiopia telecom, the state’s telecommunications provider that has the monopoly and charges very high prices – and doesn’t want to have its service undermined. But there is also the issue that Skype can’t be listened to so easily and can’t be controlled.” RWB is concerned that the latest paranoia which has caused the regime to “block access to Tor might be the first step towards creating a system that would allow the regime to intercept any email, social network post or VoIP call made in the country.”
The 2012 “Proclamation on Telecom Fraud Offences”
The now widely publicized “Proclamation on Telecom Fraud Offences” (PTFO) 2012 appears to be in draft form, despite reports to the contrary. The PFTO purportedly repeals provisions in Art. 25 of the Telecommunications Proclamation No. 49/1996 as amended by Proclamation No. 281/2002. But none of that amounts to a hill of beans because there has never been a draft “law” presented to Ethiopia’s rubber stamp parliament that has ever been rejected. Draft or no draft, for the rubber stamp parliament, Zenawi’s word is law. The rubber stamp parliament will blindly adopt the most nonsensical, illogical, ineffectual and immoral “laws” presented to it by Zenawi. Without a shadow of a doubt, the rubber stamp parliament will unanimously (at least by a margin of 99.6 percent) approve the PTFO . But what the hell is the PTFO?
It appears that the PTFO is another one of those haphazard and slipshod cut-and-paste jobs (similar to the so-called “Anti-Terrorism Proclamation No 652/2009) scarfed from the laws of other countries, arguably the U.S. The patches of vacuous phrases and empty clauses interspersed in the PTFO uncannily mimic certain U.S. anti-wire fraud statutes such as 18 U.S.C §§ 1343 (wire fraud), 1029 (fraud and related activity in connection with access devices) and 1030 (fraud and related activity in connection with computers). The U.S. laws, consistent with the presumption of innocence, require the government to prove knowledge, intent and willful participation of the accused in the fraudulent act or scheme using wires or electronic access devices.
The PTFO is completely oblivious of the most elementary requirements of any criminal law: the concurrence of intent (mens rea) and the commission of the criminal act (actus reus). For instance, under Part Two (2) of the PTFO, “whosoever uses or holds any telecommunications equipment without obtaining prior permit… shall… be punishable with rigorous imprisonment from 1 to 4 years…” Accordingly, “‘telecommunications equipment’ means any apparatus used or intended to be used for telecommunications services, and includes its accessory and software.” Under these tandem provisions, any person who “holds” a mobile phone, a child “holding” a toy Walki-Talkie, or any person who “holds” a laptop bundled by the manufacturer with communications sofware or encoded in the operating system or hardware without license from the Ministry of Communications would be looking at “1-4 years” in the slammer. (Obviously, those who drafted the “law” are clueless about the evidentiary distinction between “holding” and “possession”.) Arguably, anyone who uses a tin can phone (which is within the PTFO’s definition of “telecommunications equipment” since “electromagnetic” waves vibrate through the string connecting the cans) would be exposed to the same penalty. The PTFO is the kind of law Charles Dickens would have called “an ass, an idiot”.
On its face, the PTFO is a “law” made necessary by the alleged fact that “the legal provisions in the country are not sufficient to prevent and control telecom fraud.” Telecom services includes “cellular mobile service, internet data communication” and other “transmissions or receptions through the agency of electricity or electromagnetism (sic)…” Anyone who “manufactures, assembles, imports any communications equipment without permit” will be sitting in the penitentiary between 10-15 years in prison. Anyone who “uses or holds” such equipment is looking at 1-4 years. Anyone who provides “telecom service without license” will be locked up between 7-15 years. Anyone who “uses telecom network or apparatus to disseminate any terrorizing message connected with a crime with the anti-terrorism proclamation….” faces 3 to 8 years (Art. 6). Anyone who “obtains any telecom service without payment of lawful charge or by means of fraudulent payment” will be punished by “rigorous imprisonment from 5-10 years.” (Art. 7). Anyone who “establishes any telecom infrastructure” or “bypasses the telecommunication infrastructure other than the telecommunication infrastructure established by the telecommunication service provider (sic)” is subject to 10-20 years imprisonment (Art. 9). Anyone who “duplicates SIM cards, credit cards, subscriber identification numbers…” faces 10-15 years imprisonment. “Whoever provides telephone call or fax services through the internet commits an offense punishable by 3-8 years.” The person using the service will cool his heels in the clink for up to 2 years. (Art. 10, 10(3)).
Law Making in a Rubber Stamp Parliament
No one should see how sausages, or laws are made in Ethiopia’s rubber stamp parliament. Perhaps that is an overstatement. The fact is that “laws” are not made in Ethiopia’s parliament. They are rubber stamped. That parliament approves “laws” faster than a Chinese factory can crank out a T-shirt. But rubber stamping the will of one man does not a law make. As Shakespeare said, “Lawless are they that make their wills their law.”
The PTFO is a pitiful exercise in lawmaking. In substance and form, it is no different than the dozens of “proclamations” that have been approved by the rubber stamp parliament over the past decade. It is arbitrary, capricious, thoughtless, reckless and, and most of all, pointless. Having studied so many of these “proclamations” over the years, I am amazed and dismayed by what passes as lawmaking in Ethiopia’s parliament. In one of my recent commentaries on the cut-and paste anti-terrorism law proudly pirated from the laws of other countries, I stated: “I cringe in total embarrassment at such a stunningly shallow understanding of jurisprudence, glib talk about the law and inattention to a glaring logical fallacy in one’s argument.”
The deficiencies of the PTFO are not limited to lack of legislative purpose, policy substance or logical structure; they also extend to the cavalier, crude and clumsy approach to legislative draftsmanship. On its face, the PFTO is bereft of any elementary sense of proportionality, the simple idea that the punishment should fit the crime. How can any sensible legislator or executive propose to punish a citizen with 15 years hard labor for talking into a computer phone? This is not just inane, it is insane!
Equally important, the PFTO is unsupported by any discernible legislative need or justification. In its preamble, it states that “the legal provisions in the country are not sufficient to prevent and control telecom fraud.” But that claim is completely speculative and unsupported by any factual findings. There are no studies referenced – independent or regime-sponsored – which show the magnitude of the “internet fraud” problem or the alleged threat to “national security” posed by the improper or illegal use of the internet. There is no research or analysis supporting the proclamation. There is no expert testimony to support it and no opportunity has been made available for public comment or input. It is a “law” based purely on fear and smear.
Catching the Real Con Artists, Scammers, Swindlers and Fraudsters
There is plenty of evidence of massive fraud elsewhere that requires immediate and decisive action. Remember the 2008 cat burglars who heisted “USD$16 million dollars” worth of gold bars and simply walked out of the bank in broad daylight? Although the heist was widely believed to be an inside job and a number of suspects were fingered, no one was ever prosecuted. In 2007 when Ethiopia’s auditor general, Lema Aregaw, reported that Birr 600 million of state funds were missing from the regional coffers, Zenawi fired Lema and publicly defended the regional administrations’ ‘right to burn money.’” The ashes of that “burned money” were never found. In February 2011, Zenawi publicly stated that 10,000 tons of coffee earmarked for exports had simply vanished from the warehouses. He called a meeting of commodities traders and in a videotaped statement told them he will forgive them because “we all have our hands in the disappearance of the coffee”. They drank coffee, sang Kumbaya and went on their merry ways.
Last December, Global Financial Integrity reported, “Ethiopia, which has a per-capita GDP of just US$365, lost US$11.7 billion to illicit financial outflows between 2000 and 2009. In 2009, illicit money leaving the economy totaled US$3.26 billion, which is double the amount in each of the two previous years…” Now, there is a gigantic fraud problem crying out for a law and aggressive prosecution. Last month Zenawi mused philosophically, “What is the poison that leaders face when you go to national palaces, and transforms people with vision sometimes into ordinary thieves? Let’s start with the total amount of loot in Africa, and what our role as leaders in that looting is…” Great question! The man with the “vision of an Ethiopian Renaissance” should have a ready answer. But for the rest of us, a more mundane question is : Why not start the anti-fraud campaign by going after the looters who are looting millions from the national treasury and the army of looters illicitly laundering billions of looted dollars in foreign banks before hounding nickel and dime internet cafés which survive by peddling feckless Skype service for pennies?
The PFTO is wrong-headed and mean-spirited. Its sole aim is to suppress all communication technology the regime believes could be used to provide the people access to indepednent sources of information and news. The infinitesimally small number of Skypers use the service to talk to family members and friends abroad. They pose no threat to anyone. The threat of arrest and harassment against perceived opponents is so pervasive that few would hazard to use Skype or similar technology as a means of political agitation.
The PTFO is vague and overbroad, and cannot pass constitutional muster as RWB has suggested. Many of its provisions are ambiguous, nonsensical, unintelligible and just plain legal gobbledygook. What is a “terrorizing message” under art. 6? Could a ringtone on a mobile phone which rings by announcing, “Meles Zenawi is a dictator!” (as it appears to be a common ringtone among a segment of mobile phone users in Ethiopia), result in a 15 year sentence for the hapless user? (On second thought, I may have to concede that legal point in light of the sheer “terror” Zenawi displayed at the G-8 Summit in Washington, D.C. last month when he faced the young lionhearted Ethiopian journalist Abebe Gellaw.)
For me, the principal purpose of the law is to protect liberty and establish a just society. But on that point, I shall defer to Shakespeare:
We must not make a scarecrow of the law,
Setting it up to fear the birds of prey,
And let it keep one shape, till custom make it
Their perch and not their terror.
….
For pity is the virtue of the law,
And none but tyrants use it cruelly.
As to the criminalization of Skype, my practical suggestion to Ethiopians wishing to communicate with their families and friends abroad is to quickly learn the arts of using smoke signals, drum beating, pictogram drawing, pigeon flying, ram’s horn blowing and to drill down on the science of tin can phones and Morse Code. (Oops! Forget Morse Code, it uses “the agency of electricity or electromagnetism”, whatever that is!)
-… . -.- .- !
Amharic translations of recent commentaries by the author may be found at:
Yachi Neger is a condom called our conscience, if we wear it we can reside in the grace of God or we can disrobe from this same condom and dwell in the abode of Saytan::
by Teddy Fikre dated: Friday, June 22nd, 2012
Tesebsebu lijoch, kuch belu. Sit down and listen to a story that I am about to tell you that might one day either give life to your future children or entomb you a wooden box. This is a story of lust and love intertwined with greed and hubris. This is an article inspired by Jah Lude and written by the blood of millions of Africans as they made love in the midnight sky only to be greeted by death by the morning sun. This is story of disease more pernicious than meqegenet, a lethal virus so deadly that Africa is being whittled into an empty continent because they refuse to use Yachi Neger.
The disease I am talking about is HIV/AIDS. AIDS has decimated Ethiopia and the rest of Africa. It is not fair to be honest, a people who love God like Africans are the ones who always get it the worst. We do as God tells us, yet our children starve and perish in unmarked graves. It breaks my heart and I cry a million tears for million African children who will perish this year because they don’t have anything to eat and they drink from dirty pools of water right outside of Addis Sheraton. There but for the grace of God goes my child in Bole; there goes my child famished and dying from malnutrition as I complain in my posh apartment about eating Ramen noodles. I feel like cursing God at these moments when I see wealthy Ethiopians giving Hebret to our mother country by giving a couple of hundred birrs to a 12 year old innocent girl who was forced to become a prostitute in order to eat.
There, this is the heart of the matter. You see, Yachi Neger is really Yeze Neger. A dear friend let me borrow her Jah Lude CD last night and I have been playing track four on repeat all day as I ponder and wonder how we have become lost as a people. The difference between life and death is information, we Ethiopians in the Diaspora have more knowledge than Google, yet we turn to prostituting Ethiopia for the sake of a couple of birrs. Mata mata you can do your dirty deeds in the darkest nights yene gayta gin nege nege the world will always know what you are up to because you are a rotten injera. So this is my attempt to lift the veil of ignorance from my community and let you see that we are all intertwined under on the mattress called Ethiopia. We were all born in between bed sheets and birthed by our mothers on blankets of hope. Yet we can choose to perish overnight on the same bed sheet and be enveloped in darkness in a blanket of disease if we don’t use protection and protect ourselves from our own demise and our own greed.
All these reflections manifested into my menfes because Jah Lude sang a song about condoms titled “Yachi Neger”. It is for this reason that I am elevating Jah Lude to the status of Teddy Afro and Tilahun Gessesse, one CD and he has joined a pantheon of Ethiopian legends. You see, there is a difference between a singer and a virtuoso. Singers sell products by the way of CDs; virtuosos sell visions by way of redeeming their people. Two-bit crooners sing about “Fiker” while saying nothing but konjo, virtuosos like Tilahun and Jah Lude sing about “Fiker” and in the process apply love to Ethiopia and her people. The difference between Soulja boy and Talib Qweli is the difference between genocide and reclamation. Any denkoro can pick up a mic and sing a song of misogyny and malfeasance, but it takes a true visionary to grab center stage and sing a song of love.
Remember these words when the denkoros at AESA One prostitute our country as they hold their first annual Ethiopian cultural sham while inviting gangster rappers by the names of Jeezy, T-Pain, and Llyod to represent our beautiful country. I wish I could put Yachi Neger on them all and make them go away into the midnight sky. They call themselves AESA One; I call them AESA Dicks because they are useless sperms of Ethiopia who are whoring out our names for the sake of a few dollars. To the AESA crew, you chose to disregard “Yachi Neger”, just remember as you curl your lips between the hips of Al Amoudi that the thousand dollars you make today will not take away from the fact that you just burned yourself with HIV money.
I hope you go buy a double-sided Sealy mattress so that your double-sided tongues can slither at peace while you sleep with the thought of a 13 year old innocent Ethiopia girl being sold into prostitution in Saudi Arabia. The money you are using to plaster DC with AESA One is blood money and for that we will forever remember your dastardly deeds. You justify your greed by saying you are… continued…
After reading the above article by clicking on above link, view MUSIC VIDEO ABOUT YACHI NEGER::
[please click to listen to Yachi Neger -> Ethiopian Killers by name of AESA One]
So Al Amoudi gave you $2,000,000 to put together an ARIF Ethiopian cultural event. You could have gotten performers like Common, Beyonce, John Legend or Lauren Hill to put the most positive light on Ethiopia. Instead you chose to go with T-Pain, Jeezy, BoB, and LloydSo time to focus on the word your feature performers say. This flyer will be translated in Amharic (using GRAPHIC words) and will be plastered all over DMV. I am going to get 10,000 posters and flyers printed myself and plaster EVERY Ethiopian restaurant, church, market, and business in the DMV to show how duplicitious this event is.
Everyone, please share this article to the world and print it out and post it where you can. Let’s be like Adwa Jegnas and defend the honor of our mother Ethiopia and expose those who do wrong by our community….peace and le zelalem Ethiopia and stay away from RFK stadium on July 4th, the event is put together by BLOOD MONEY. Just know that somewhere in Saudi Arabia a 12 year old Ethiopian girl is being raped by an Arab Sultan as you do Eskista at RFK. Any promoter or business person that does business with AESA One is taking part the raping of Ethiopia and they are enemies of the people.
Over my dead body will you advertise this phony event using the clean flag of Ethiopia while the AESA One pimp back in Addis has the dirty Ethiopian flag with the devil’s symbol on it. You are not slick, we see what you are doing, and I will make sure that Washington Post, New York City Times, Congressmen from VA & MD, the DC City Council, Mayor Grey, and Senators all know how you are financing your event. Judgment cometh AESA One. Peace::
The origins of the Internet can be traced to ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network) that was funded by the US Department of Defense (DARPA) for use by its research labs in the 1960’s. The Internet as we know moved from connecting research institutions and Universities into commercial use in the middle of the 1980’s.
Today the Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks. The beauty of the Internet is nobody really owns it. Every computer that is connected to the Internet is part of the network. Your laptop or desktop together with millions of private, public, academic, business, government networks forms part of this vast system of interconnected computers.
The Internet has revolutionized human communication like nothing before. It is the most outstanding innovation in human history regarding communication capability. Our lives have changed dramatically due to the Internet. The great economic boom of the 90’s all over the world can be traced to innovation that accompanied the Internet. Where does our Ethiopia fit in this human advancement story?
I am afraid we are absent or unaccounted for! We are not even in the periphery. Our participation in this humongous, game changer event is nothing to write home about. It is so embarrassing the best option is not to talk about it, discuss it or raise the issue. If our country was a computer it will be considered to be in hibernation mode, not on not off barely alive. The Meles regime and his TPLF party can get all the credit for condemning eighty million people to live in darkness. That is exactly where we find ourselves-in complete darkness and no chance of light at the end of the tunnel either. You think I am exaggerating and being so negative because I am filled with hate. I am afraid that is not so. Look at the table below and you be the judge my friend.
Country Internet users % Of Population Internet providers
Ethiopia 666,101 0.75 1
Ghana 2,081,056 8.55 12
Uganda 4,174,835 12.5 9
Kenya 8,568,890 20.98 15
Tanzania 4,608,218 11.0 17
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_Internet_users
See what I mean? Out of eighty million plus people only half a million Internet users. That leaves seventy nine million five hundred thousand in the dark. Why do you think this is so? Is it because we are poor? We are stupid? Uneducated? Unable to figure how it works? Not interested? Didn’t think it is important? Felt investment in such technology is a waste of time and resources? Or too busy developing other technology? Or you think it could it be due to lack of leadership? As people we are no different than Americans Europeans or our African neighbors. The only thing we see here is the quality of leadership that differentiates our country from others. The leaders set the pace, define the priorities and the people follow.
When it comes to the Internet our leader felt that is not a priority and that is not where our budget should be invested on. Why do you think Ato Meles and company felt the Internet not to be the place to invest and grow? The simple but obvious answer is the word ‘communication’. Communication is knowledge and knowledge is the first causality of a tyrannical regime. Keeping people in the dark is the main goal of a dictatorship. Illiterate people are docile. It is easy to manipulate a damned down population. Internet is the number one enemy of the Ethiopian government. Instead of laying fiber optic to speed up the wiring of our country the Meles regime invests the limited budget in blocking, censoring and spying on the citizen. The last two weeks have been a busy time to the TPLF regime. It has rolled out one draconian law after another to bully, intimidate and ride rough on our people. Here is the evidence.
Skype is a voice- over-Internet Protocol service and software application. Skype allows users to communicate over the Internet using voice, video and instant messaging. As of September of 2011 Skype has over six hundred million users worldwide. The Ethiopian government has made using Skype a crime punishable up to fifteen years in prison.
Tor (short for The onion router) is a system intended to enable online anonymity. The Tor project a 501(c) research/education nonprofit organization distributes the software free of charge. According to the wonderful people of Tor network their ‘client software routes Internet traffic through a worldwide volunteer network of servers to conceal a user’s location or usage from anyone conducting network surveillance or traffic analysis.’ The Ethiopian government is actively blocking Tor network.
There are over eighty million Ethiopians. As of 2012 there are about a million fixed line service users and close to three million mobile users in Ethiopia. It is the lowest teledensity in Africa. There are less than half a million Internet users in Ethiopia and that is in the bottom even for Africa. That number constitutes .06% of the Ethiopian population.
Why is the Ethiopian government enacting such draconian law when you can clearly see Internet does not play any major role in the life of the citizen? Why is the government becoming the laughing stock of the planet by equating phone usage to committing murder? All indications are the issue is not about Skype or Tor but it is all about control and bullying into submission. It is all about instilling fear. Fear is the main currency of a dictator. They are not worried about the .06% but they are very much interested in showing the ninety nine percent who exactly is in charge. In your face is how they like to operate. They are saying we can do anything we want and tough luck there is nothing you can do about it!
Do you think they are crazy? I am afraid not. They have been getting away with that kind of attitude the last twenty years what makes you think it will be different this time? We will talk about it, we will gossip, we will condemn silently ( yechelema gelmecha) and life will go on as usual. Actually that is not true about all of us. There are a few working hard to circumvent this tragedy. Groups such as Ginbot7, OLF, ONLF, ALF, Andenet Party, our independent Web sites, ESAT among others are working day and night to teach, organize and help our people stand up to Woyane abuse.
There are different avenues to fight injustice. There are hundreds of ways to resist oppression. I will paraphrase two Chinese educators on this subject. According to Sun Tzu the ‘best defense is a good offense’ and Mao Zedong followed it with ‘the only real defense is active defense.’ meaning for the purpose of counter attacking and taking offense. I believe the current aggression against our people begs for a robust counter offense. Here I am speaking about cyber warfare.
It is about time our people developed this type of self-defense to protect our freedom. It is within our capability and it is our moral duty to protect our country and people. According to a recent Time magazine article that is what the US is helping the Syrian opposition with. Developing a cyber warfare capability. They are training the freedom fighters to resist the Assad regime in the art of circumvention technology. The use of encryption, SIM card in cheap burner phones that can easily be discarded and developing ‘Internet in a suitcase’ to provide Web access when Assad shuts it down is being explored. Apps are being developed that download a panic button that will instantly wipe out contacts and documents from smart phones and computers. They are experimenting with Apps that present a false screen when the wrong security code is entered and Apps that blur the faces of dissidents when posting videos and photos on line. Today the camera is as powerful as the AK47.
It is also important our highly educated lawyers and Human Rights advocates explore the concept of ‘I am just following order’ defense that is sure to be used by those that are doing the dirty work for the minority based illegal regime. Whereas the current Ethiopian Constitution is full of guarantees of rights and freedom to the citizen those that are killing, imprisoning, torturing, spying and using their know how to block and jam should be warned about accountability. They should be made aware of their oath to uphold the Constitution not the rule of one man or a single party. ‘I am just following order’ did not hold water in the Nuremberg trials of Nazi criminals.
Those educated Ethiopians that are enabling the regime to spy on fellow citizens, block Web sites, target emails and social media postings should be warned about the consequences of their actions. They are following illegal and immoral orders given by those that are using force and coercion to stay in power. Sooner or later this house of cards will come tumbling down and it will be time to answer for all those that used their technical know how to hurt their people. Blind allegiance is not a wining strategy or ignorance a valid defense. It is a shame some sell their soul to the devil for fame and fortune.
The Woyanne junta has sent thousands of heavily armed troops to the southern Ethiopian town of Awassa today to prevent a protest rally that has been called for tomorrow, Saturday.
Security check points have been set up at several places, buses have been ordered to stop services, and transportation in and out of the town has been restricted.
During the past few days, pamphlets have been distributed through out Awassa (called Hawassa by the Woyanne junta) calling for mass demonstration in opposition to some law that was recently passed. … stay tuned for more updates
I am writing this open letter to my community to call you out on your own duplicity. I am directly challenging your love of Ethiopia and your professed desire to help the hopeless children of yena enat Hager. I have been a witness to our own inertia for too long, I have seen my own community cry crocodile tears for beloved Ethiopia while sipping buna at Starbucks yet do nothing more than say ye Habesha 911 as they say “MTS” every two seconds behind double-forked tongues.
It all made sense; we are colonized by our community leaders. We have no leaders at all; we are like Jews lost in the desert without a Moses in our midst. We are confounded and dumbfounded by lebas and hodamoch who go around DC and beyond professing their love of Ethiopia as they go home at nights and masturbate to the sound of their own voice. These people are poison, they are toxic to the core, they are the reason that children in Ethiopia die by the minute and the reason why the first page of Google image is populated with decayed bodies of Ethiopia’s lijoch. What a cursed people we are, we curse ourselves with our own meqegenenet and treacherous envy. We hold the gun to our heads and pull the trigger, we place the noose around the necks of dying children and break their necks with it, we feed our people back home Kitfo laced with arsenic only to turn around and have a community lekso filled by the tears of indifferent Habeshas who don’t give a shit about the country they cry for. I type these words without exclusion of any group in Ethiopia, I speak if of TPLF goons and of the 66 hodamoch opposition. I speak if of Tigray men and Amarha women alike, I speak it of Oromo or Wollo, not one ethnicity or religion in Ethiopia escapes this condemnation as I throw two iPad tablets at your collective foreheads the same way Moses threw the ten commandments at his lost tribe.
So I am here today to say ENOUGH! BEKA! I am calling you out on your own bullshit. I arrived at this juncture when I decided to attend an ESFNA fundraiser on Saturday at Maeza Restaurant. I went there with Fana from Sheba Post, Luladey, Liyou Gennen and a few other friends. We went there thinking we would not be able to get in or find an empty chair. Yet we arrive and not one person is in sight except the ESFNA soccer players and the organizers? Two hours pass and the room was empty except a few folks. Yet I hear assholes on Addis Demse screaming bloody murder about AESA One, but when the time comes to put their money where their mouth is, they slither away and disappear into the midnight sky. These people—ye Saytan lijoch—are organizing a march on RFK to oppose AESA One yet when the time comes to support our beloved ESFNA, they are nowhere to be found. AESA One is the essence of evil, we all know this, but those that oppose AESA One yet do nothing to support ESFNA are leflafa hodamoch! Ayeeee, our community, always against something but never standing for anything. CLICK! CLACK! KAPOW! Ethiopia murdered by the bullshit of her own children.
I ask you my fellow Ethiopians, please believe. For once stop being jaded, give the next generation of organizers like me, Fana, Mastewal Sebro, Mo Nursani, Aster Tadesse, Fino Habte and the rest a chance to succeed where the older generation failed us miserably. Forget how young we are; value our vision and our audacious dreams instead of mocking us for being IBD or crazy. Stop calling us leba because others stole from you, open up your hearts and give fiker a chance. Give us chance to do something special and if you support us I swear it what we will do will be remembered in history as the third coming of Adwa. Give us a chance, give us a rock to work with and I promise you that we will slay the Goliath that is AESA One.
[click on picture to donate and help us put together this magical event]
The Sky is Falling!
Tesebsebu lijoch, kuch belu. Sit down and listen to a story that I am about to tell you that might one day either give life to your future children or entomb you a 
The Woyanne junta has sent thousands of heavily armed troops to the southern Ethiopian town of Awassa today to prevent a protest rally that has been called for tomorrow, Saturday.