Ethiopia under the boots of the Tigrai Peoples Liberation Front (TPLF) is a two-faced country. Foreign alms givers and the ruling party pat each other on the back for a job well done. For the average Ethiopian, the country is an oppressive virtual prison without opportunities — a sad, hopeless place that forces many frustrated citizens to migrate to an abusive Middle East. Ethiopia’s rulers are addicted to the foreign exchange earnings that are created on the backs of these women. There is much dissonance between imaginary growth figures bandied about and the depressing reality of the average Ethiopian on the ground. It is hard to think of any other country in the world many of whose citizens are willing to risk life and limb to get away from an oppressive system that has denied them a living.
Ethiopia to export half a million maids annually to Saudi Arabia
By zehabesha.com
May 16, 2012 (Durame) — Ethiopia commenced sending 45,000 Ethiopian housemaids per month to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), an Ethiopian official said by phone today.
The controversial recruitment strategy will send 500,000 Ethiopian women annually to a country long known for abusing housemaids and foreign nationals in the strict Sharia-governed Kingdom.
Amid tougher restrictions for housemaids working in KSA by the Philippines, Indian, Sri Lankan, Indonesian and Kenyan governments, Ethiopian housemaids have been in high demand by families in Saudi Arabia.
With little to no support from the Government of Ethiopia, many Ethiopian women are often exploited by Saudi families, working grueling 16-hour days and having their passports and earnings withheld to prevent them from running away.
Poverty and high unemployment in Ethiopia continues to be the leading factor that drives young women towards the Middle East.
“There are no opportunities in Ethiopia for employment. I either become a prostitute in Addis or a housemaid in Saudi Arabia. I have chosen the latter to support my family,” said 23-year-old Asamenech Alemu by phone.
Earning up to SR4,000 (USD $1,060) a month for legal housemaids, nearly a year’s salary in Ethiopia, hundreds of thousands of Ethiopian women will continue to flock to the Kingdom in search of employments, despite the risks of abuse.
In order to run a successful nonviolent civil resistance, you should know how much and which kinds of material resources are required to fulfill the grand strategy, and discover ways to fund-raise in order to keep your movement on a permanent offensive… [read more]
Ethiopian Youth National Movement
Ethiopian Peaceful Uprising
Nejashi Justice Council
Awolia: Ethiopian Muslim’s Peaceful & Democratic Movement
Center for Rights of Ethiopian Women
Empowering Ethiopian Women and the Abuse of Ethiopian Maids in the Middle East
Professor George Ayittey
Democratic Transition and the Role of the Ethiopian Youth
Dr. Berhanu Mengistu and Ato Solomon Tilahun
Conflict Resolution: Preparing Ethiopian Youth for the Future
Dr. Fisseha Eshetu
Ethiopian National Transitional Council and the Role of the Ethiopian Youth
Representatives from Alliance for Liberty, Equality and Justice in Ethiopia (ALEJE)
Congress of Ethiopian People’s United Struggle
The Struggle for freedom and democracy in Ethiopia and the Role of the Ethiopian Youth
In recognition of his outstanding contribution and inspirational commitment to the struggle for freedom and democracy, especially his encouragement, motivation and dedication to the aspirations of the Ethiopian Youth.
The Ethiopian Youth National Movement will present Certificate of Recognition to Journalist Abebe Gellaw
All Ethiopians who reside in Washington DC and surrounding areas are cordially invited to this important and timely public meeting.
Ethiopia: ‘Special Police’ Execute 10: Human Rights Watch
HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH (Nairobi) – An Ethiopian government-backed paramilitary force summarily executed 10 men during a March 2012 operation in Ethiopia’s eastern Somali region. Detailed information on the killings and other abuses by the force known as the “Liyu police” only came to light after a Human Rights Watch fact-finding mission to neighboring Somaliland in April.
On March 16 a Liyu police member fatally shot a resident of Raqda village, in the Gashaamo district of Somali region, who was trying to protect a fellow villager. That day, men from Raqda retaliated by killing seven Liyu police members, prompting a reprisal operation by dozens of Liyu police in four villages on March 16 and 17. During this operation the Liyu police force summarily executed at least 10 men who were in their custody, killed at least 9 residents in ensuing gunfights, abducted at least 24 men, and looted dozens of shops and houses.
“The killing of several Liyu police members doesn’t justify the force’s brutal retaliation against the local population,” said Leslie Lefkow, deputy Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “The Liyu police abuses in Somali region show the urgent need for the Ethiopian government to rein in this lawless force.”
The Ethiopian government should hold those responsible for the killings and other abuses to account and prevent future abuses by the force.
Ethiopian authorities created the Liyu (“special” in Amharic) police in the Somali region in 2007 when an armed conflict between the insurgent Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) and the government escalated. By 2008 the Liyu police became a prominent counterinsurgency force recruited and led by the regional security chief at that time, Abdi Mohammed Omar (known as “Abdi Illey”), who is now the president of Somali Regional State.
The Liyu police have been implicated in numerous serious abuses against civilians throughout the Somali region in the context of counterinsurgency operations. The legal status of the force is unclear, but credible sources have informed Human Rights Watch that members have received training, uniforms, arms, and salaries from the Ethiopian government via the regional authorities.
Human Rights Watch spoke to 30 victims, relatives of victims, and witnesses to the March incidents from four villages who had fled across the border to Somaliland and who gave detailed accounts of the events.
Witnesses told Human Rights Watch that on the evening of March 16 the Liyu police returned to Raqda following the clashes with the community earlier in the day that left seven police force members dead. The next morning, March 17, the Liyu police rounded up 23 men in Raqda and put them into a truck heading towards Galka, a neighboringvillage. Along the way the Liyu police stopped the truck, ordered five randomly selected men to descend, and shot them by the roadside. “It was three police who shot them,” a detainee told Human Rights Watch. “They shot them in the forehead and shoulder: three bullets per person.”
Also on March 17, at about 6 a.m., Liyu police in two vehicles opened an assault on the nearby village of Adaada. Survivors of the attack and victims’ relatives described Liyu police members going house to house searching for firearms and dragging men from their homes. The Liyu police also started shooting in the air. Local residents with arms and the Liyu police began fighting and at least four villagers were killed. Many civilians fled the village.
After several hours the Liyu police left but later returned when villagers came back to the village to bury those killed earlier that day. Fighting resumed in the afternoon and at least another five villagers were killed. The Liyu police took another four men from their homes and summarily executed them. A woman whose brother was a veterinarian told Human Rights Watch: “They caught my brother and took him outside. They shot him in the head and then slit his throat.”
For five days Liyu police also deployed outside Langeita, another village in the district, and restricted people’s movement. The Liyu police carried out widespread looting of shops and houses in at least two of the villages, residents said.
Human Rights Watch received an unconfirmed report that following the incidents local authorities arrested three Liyu police members. However it is unclear whether the members have been charged or whether further investigations have taken place.
The Ethiopian government’s response to reports of abuses in the Somali region has been to severely restrict or control access for journalists, aid organizations, human rights groups, and other independent monitors. Ethiopia’s regional and federal government should urgently facilitate access for independent investigations of the events by independent media and human rights investigators, including the United Nations Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial and summary executions.
“For years the Ethiopian government has jailed and deported journalists for reporting on the Somali region,” Lefkow said. “Donor countries should call on Ethiopia to allow access to the media and rights groups so abuses can’t be hidden away.”
Liyu Police Abuses, March 2012
Summary Executions and Killings
Human Rights Watch interviewed witnesses and relatives of the victims who described witnessing at least 10 summary executions by the Liyu police on March 16 and 17. The actual number may be higher.
On March 16 in Raqda, a Liyu police member shot dead Abdiqani Abdillahi Abdi after he intervened to stop the paramilitary from harassing and beating another villager. Several villagers heard the Liyu police member saying to Abdiqani, “What can you do for him?” and then heard the shot.
The shooting ignited a confrontation between the Liyu police and the local community. The nine Liyu police who were deployed in Raqda then left via the road to the neighboring village of Adaada. A number of Raqda residents, including members of Abdiqani’s family, took their weapons, went after the Liyu police, and reportedly killed seven of them in a confrontation that followed.
The next morning, on March 17 at around 11 a.m., the Liyu police selected five men from a group of 23 men they had detained in Raqda and were taking towards Galka village in a truck. The Liyu police forced the five men to sit by the roadside and then shot them. Another detainee described what happened:
In between Galka and Raqda they stopped the truck. There were four other Liyu police vehicles accompanying the truck. This was around 11 a.m. They told five of us to get out of the lorry. They [randomly] ordered five out – none in particular. The man standing near the lorry ordered them to “Kill them, shoot them.” It was three police who shot them. They shot them in the forehead and shoulder: three bullets per person.
Another detainee saw the five being shot in the head and said the Liyu police threatened the remaining detainees, saying, “We will kill you all like this.”
The same day the Liyu police summarily executed four men in Adaada, where they had carried out house-to-house searches that morning. In all four cases multiple witnesses described the victims as unarmed and in custody when they were shot, either in the neck or head, shortly after having been dragged from their homes.
Witnesses described the summary execution of a veterinarian. The Liyu police dragged him from his home and shot him in the head, but when they realized that he was not dead, they slit his throat. The veterinarian’s middle-aged sister told Human Rights Watch:
They entered the home and asked where the man responsible for the home was. There were seven of them. They caught my brother and took him outside. They shot him in the head and then slit his throat. After killing him, they asked my niece where her father’s rifle was, but she could not find the keys and they hit her on the back of the shoulder with the butt of a gun.
Witnesses also told Human Rights Watch that a teenage boy was dragged from his uncle’s home, taken nearby, momentarily interrogated, and then shot. One witness heard him reciting a prayer before being killed. His body was left on the ground near a trash dump. A third victim, an elderly man, was taken from outside his home, interrogated for a short time, and then shot while standing. Several witnesses heard him pleading with the police to spare his life. The fourth victim was also taken from his home and shot shortly after.
At least nine other men were killed by the Liyu police in Adaada, but the circumstances of their deaths are unclear. There was armed resistance to the Liyu police attack, and some of the nine may have been armed. However, according to witnesses, the Liyu police shot several men, in the upper body and head, who were trying to escape. Two men fleeing were reportedly run over by Liyu police vehicles.
Abductions, Torture, and Ill-Treatment
During the house searches in Adaada, the Liyu police abducted a number of village men and tortured and mistreated several people, including at least three women.
An Adaada resident, one of the first to be taken from his home on the morning of March 17, described to Human Rights Watch his treatment by the Liyu police:
They entered and told my wife to shut up. Four men entered the house with four waiting outside. They came over to me and took me. They also took the gun from my house. They hit me with the butt of a gun and took me to a small river near my home. They tied a belt around my neck. I lost consciousness. They threw me in a berket [small water hole] that was 15 meters deep and then they threw branches over me. There was mud in the berket. I managed to climb up when I woke up.
The Liyu police seriously beat at least three women during house searches in Adaada. A young woman said that Liyu police members who had entered her home beat her after she told them that her husband was absent: “They said I was lying, they kicked me and crushed my head with the back of the gun. I had some injuries in my kidney. I lost a tooth.”
Three men who had been abducted in Raqda on March 17 told Human Rights Watch they were each detained for nine days. During the first 24 hours they were without water. For four days the Liyu police drove them around in an open truck between villages and towns in an apparent attempt to hide them from local residents, and possibly also from federal authorities.
During the first four days of their detention they were beaten by the police with sticks and gun butts. On at least two occasions the paramilitaries guarding them threatened to execute them. However, disagreements among the Liyu police on how to proceed apparently saved the men’s lives. One former detainee told Human Rights Watch:
We were driving around different villages and some of the police said they should release us because the federal government will give them problems, they will discipline us, as we have committed a crime. Others said, “Let us kill all 24.” There were different ideas among the police.
After four days in the truck they were detained for at least another four days out in the sun near the village of Langeita, where they received only minimal food and water. After that the Liyu police took them to Gashaamo, where they were released on March 25 as a result of negotiations between the regional government and clan elders.
Looting
Residents of Adaada and Langeita described widespread looting of property, food, and money from shops and houses by the Liyu police. Six villagers who spoke to Human Rights Watch said that their own houses, belongings, and property had been looted on March 17.
A 45-year-old woman from Langeita said that the Liyu police moved around the village in groups of five to seven and entered 10 stores. Two or three would enter a shop and steal shoes, clothes, drinks, and food. Two women said they could not return to their villages because they had lost all their property.
Reports from local authorities in neighbouring Somaliland suggest that discussions have taken place between clan elders from the affected villages and the regional authorities to negotiate a solution to the situation. None of the local residents who spoke with Human Rights Watch had current plans to return to their homes.
Background
Ethiopia’s Somali region has been the site of a low-level insurgency by the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) for more than a decade. The ONLF, an ethnic Somali armed movement largely supported by members of the Ogaden clan, has sought greater political autonomy for the region. Following the ONLF’s April 2007 attack on the oil installation in Obole, which resulted in the deaths of 70 civilians and the capture of several Chinese oil workers, the Ethiopian government carried out a major counterinsurgency campaign in the five zones of the region primarily affected by the conflict.
Human Rights Watch’s June 2008 report of its investigation into abuses in the conflict found that the Ethiopian National Defense Force and the ONLF had committed war crimes between mid-2007 and early 2008, and that the Ethiopian armed forces could be responsible for crimes against humanity based on the patterns of executions, torture, rape, and forced displacement.
These abuses have never been independently investigated. Ethiopia’s Foreign Affairs Ministry initiated an inquiry in late 2008 in response to the Human Rights Watch report, but that inquiry failed to meet the basic requirements of independence, timeliness, and confidentiality that credible investigations require. The government has repeatedly ignored calls for an independent inquiry into the abuses in the region.
Since the escalation of fighting in 2007 the Ethiopian government has imposed tight controls on access to Somali region for independent journalists and human rights monitors. In July 2011 two Swedish journalists who entered the region to report on the conflict were arrested, convicted, and sentenced to 11 years in prison under Ethiopia’s vague and overbroad anti-terrorism law.
Gashaamo district, where the March 2012 events took place, is in Dhagabhur zone, one of the five affected by the conflict. However, it was not an area directly affected by fighting in previous years, and is largely populated by members of the ethnic Somali Isaaq clan, who are not generally perceived to be a source of support for the ONLF.
Meles Zenawi is a dictator! Meles Zenawi is a dictator! Free Eskinder Nega! Free Political Prisoners! You are a dictator. You are committing crimes against humanity. Food is nothing without freedom! Meles has committed crimes against humanity! We Need Freedom! Freedom! Freedom!
Zenawi was shocked, bewildered, flabbergasted and completely disoriented. It was as though 90 million Ethiopians had lined up pointing an accusatory finger at him and shouting in unison, “Meles Zenawi! You are a dictator!…” In that moment Abebe gloriously realized the true meaning of the tagline of his website addisvoice.com – “A Voice of the Voiceless”. Ironically, the voice of the voiceless rendered speechless the man who had rendered millions voiceless!
Silencing the Silencer: Zenawi Gets a Taste of His Own Medicine
Zenawi had just started pontificating about “agricultural transformation in Africa” and how a “partnership between the farmer and the private sector” would have to be formed to meet the continent’s food needs. But he could only get out 30 words before he was shouted down. It was an incredible sight to behold. Zenawi’s head snapped to attention when he first heard his name and title. He probed the audience confusedly to locate the heckler. When he made eye contact with Abebe, he came unhinged: His eyes bugged out with sheer horror. His jaw dropped as if he had seen a ghost. He looked like the proverbial deer in a headlight; or to use an African metaphor, the vaunted guerilla hero froze like a frightened wildebeest looking into the eyes of a hungry lion. The expression on his face was total disbelief. “Is that Abebe Gellaw? It can’t be! I thought I had him canned in Kality Prison with Eskinder Nega, Reeyot Alemu and Woubshet Taye. What the hell is he doing here?!?”
It was a defining moment — the classic Kodak moment — for Zenawi. After the initial shock, Zenawi tried to quickly regain his composure and continue with his carefully rehearsed and memorized statement. He could not afford to lose his spot in the well-rehearsed statement so he kept on repeating himself like a broken record, “Seventy percent, ah…, seventy percent of the population in Africa…ah..” Nothing doing. He looked to the to the moderator mournfully for help. But the best the stunned moderator could do was bleat out, “security, help please.” For seven seconds, the mighty Zenawi zoned out into a catatonic trance like the patrons of opium dens. For a fleeting moment, he seemed almost comatose. His head was bowed, his back hunched, his chin drooped, his lips quivered and his eyes gazed vacantly at the floor just like the criminal defendant who got handed a life sentence or worse. A close-up video showed him breathing heavily, almost semi-hyperventilating. His pectoral muscles heaved spastically under his shirt. An imminent cardiac event?
Zenawi’s body language spoke volumes. He propped himself up on the edge of his seat. He tried to keep a stiff upper lip as he soliloquized his well-rehearsed monologue. He preteneded as if nothing had happened. He tried to give the impression that he is as cool as a cucumber and unshakable under fire.
After Abebe was escorted out of the hall, Zenawi droned on for just under two minutes arguing for “public investment” and the need for partnership between the smallholder farmer and the private sector. But his argument made no sense at all because smallholder farmers in Ethiopia do not own the land they “hold” as private ownership of land is prohibited by law and the state owns all land. Is it possible to partner with sharecroppers? That was what Zenawi was really talking about. Anyway, he cut to the chase, the real deal: “We want the $22 billion promised. We want the money promised to be delivered,” demanded Zenawi with the polish of a loan shark. He did not say if he wanted it delivered in a suitcase. But everyone got the message. As the old expression goes, “it’s all about money, ain’t a damn thing funny. You got to have a con in this land of milk and honey.”
As Zenawi robotically regurgitated his rehearsed statement, his hands flailed and fingers steepled to give the impression of imperturbable self-control and self-confidence, steadfast composure and resolute authority. But his past demeanor belied his present cool bravado. This is the same man with a short fuse who went into spontaneous self-combustion at the mere suggestion that he give a break to his opposition: “If opposition groups resort to violence in an attempt to discredit the [2010] election,” Zenawi vowed frothing at the mouth, “We will crush them with our full force; they will all vegetate like Birtukan (Midekssa) in jail forever.” When ten thousand tons of coffee went “missing” in Ethiopia in 2011, Zenawi 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”. But he issued a stern warning that if anyone should steal coffee in the future, he will “cut off their hands”.
Zenawi would have gladly crushed Abebe with his full force, have him vegetate like Eskinder Nega, Reeyot Alemu and Woubshet Taye and even cut off his hands, if he could. But the pompous, imperious, derisive and hubristic Zenawi whose lips usually hemorrhage with insolence, insults, cheap shots, sarcasm, acrimony, antipathy, contempt and slander was tongue-tied and speechless against his young accuser. The man who loves to bark, growl and snarl at his parliamentarians, mock and caricature his opposition, play clever semantic games with his interviewers and always eager to display his faux intellectual prowess and erudition to the world sulked and sat mute as a fish listening to his young accuser call him “dictator, a criminal against humanity…”
But there was not much Zenawi could do in America where “free speech is king” and “kings” dutifully bow and kneel before the altar of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. He sat on the stage among the other dignitaries and absorbed a full blast of the raw truth in the face, “Meles Zenawi is a dictator….” “The Emperor has no clothes!”
For the first time Ethiopians witnessed Zenawi at his most vulnerable, outside his cloistered bubble unguarded by his yes-men and unsheltered by his gaggle of worshipping cronies. For some, Abebe’s confrontation of Zenawi represented a triumph of David over Goliath; but for others it was a pathetic and pitiful sight to behold the man who had silenced an entire nation for 21 years rendered speechless in 19 seconds flat!
The Power of Free Speech and Speaking Truth to Power
I am for free speech for all, including dictators. I fiercely defended Zenawi’s right to speak at Columbia University’s World Leaders Forum in September 2010 despite withering criticism from many in the Ethiopian opposition. But I also defend the right of hecklers to heckle the high and mighty into humility. Why not? President Obama is frequently heckled during his speeches. This past March, he was heckled at Ohio State University. He did not miss a beat talking back to the heckler: “Sir, I’m here to speak to these folks. You can hold your own rally. You’re being rude… don’t interrupt everybody else. Alright?” It did not faze him because he understands the role of hecklers in the comprehensive scheme of free speech.
The “heckler’s veto” is one of the most precious rights of American citizens. The idea is really simple. It is always governments who abuse their power to silence their critics and those who disagree with them. With the “heckler’s veto”, the individual silences the government and the powerful. The tables are turned. In other words, Zenawi was silenced by Abebe!
But as always, Zenawi never misses an opportunity to miss an opportunity. Here he had the perfect chance to deftly respond to Abebe’s claim that “we need freedom more than food.” He could have paused for a few seconds and told him, as countless African dictators have since the early days ofindependence, that the masses of poor, illiterate, hungry and sick Africans are too dumb and too stupid to appreciate democracy. The African masses are interested in the politics of the belly and not in the politics of democracy. Africans live for and by bread alone. Elections, human rights, the rule of law and all the rest are figments of warped Western neoliberal imaginations. The fact of the matter is that Ethiopia for the last 21 years under Zenawi’s boots has had no freedom and very little food to feed its people. So the question is not food without freedom; the question is starvation under extreme oppression.
It is possible Zenawi may think that he should be treated with respect and deference as an African “leader”. Wikileaks cablegrams paint a portrait of a man who suffers from a chronic Adulation Deficit Disorder (ADD). Zenawi desperately seeks praise, adulation, flattery and acceptance in the West and in the Ethiopian Diaspora. He wants to be seen in the West as an African black knight in shining armor thrusting a lance into the heart of poverty, injustice and inequality. He wants to be praised by the Ethiopian Diaspora as a visionary modernizer, creative trailblazer and as a charismatic and transformative leader. He often harps about the failure of Diaspora Ethiopians in not recognizing and giving him credit for the roads he has built, the shiny glass buildings he has erected in the capital and for all of the fabricated improvements in education, health, energy and so on. In fact, that was the very point made by the brutish thug in his security detail who threatened to kill Abebe in the hallway of the food security conference: “Ethiopia has changed. It is because you have not been back and seen the changes [that you are complaining]. Ethiopia is in a very good situation. It is people like you who make noise from a distance.”
But Ethiopia is not in a “very good situation.” Though Ethiopia is Africa’s oldest independent country and has the second largest population, she is also the second poorest country in the world after Niger according to the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHDI) Multidimensional Poverty Index 2010 (formerly annual U.N.D.P. Human Poverty Index). Tens of millions of Ethiopians have managed to live for the past two decades only because of international food handouts. Transparency International (Corruption Perception Index) has ranked Ethiopia at the bottom of the barrel of countries ruled by the most corrupt governments for the past decade. The Legatum Institute in 2011 reported Ethiopia has the “sixth highest unemployment rate in the world… [It has a] communication infrastructure [that] is weak with only five mobile phones for every 100 citizens…The education system is poor at all levels and its population is deeply dissatisfied… Access to hospital beds and sanitation facilities is very limited, placing the country 109th and 110th (very last) on these measures of health infrastructure…”
Just last week the Economist Magazine reported: “The heart of the Ethiopian capital may be traversed by new concrete arteries and bridges, built by Italian and Chinese contractors with Chinese loans. But the rest of Addis Ababa is a patchwork of dirt paths lined by corrugated-tin dwellings that are the capital’s shantytowns and slums… Outsiders wanting to do business in Addis Ababa must forge good relations with Mr Meles and his ministers.” In other words, if you want to do business in Ethiopia, you better be prepared to grease some palms (that is, lay some serious cash on Zenawi and Co.) big time. These are the incontrovertible facts about Ethiopia’s “very good situation”.
A Teachable Moment
In 1798, the U.S. Congress passed the Alien and Sedition Act and imposed fines and imprisonment against anyone who “wrote, printed, uttered or published any scandalous and malicious writing” against the government. Various newspaper editors of the time were arrested and some imprisoned for criticizing President John Adams’ “unbounded thirst for ridiculous pomp, foolish adulation, and self avarice”. Thomas Jefferson pardoned all of those serving sentences under the Act when he became president. In 1787 he wrote: “If I had to choose between government without newspapers, and newspapers without government, I wouldn’t hesitate to choose the latter.”
The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution offers no safe harbor from criticism to the president of the United States or to a tin pot African dictator visiting the United States. Withering and stinging criticism are the price of political office in America. Holding political office in America is a solemn constitutional duty and criticizing political leaders and institutions is a bedrock constitutional right of all citizens. All American politicians understand and live by one rule: “If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.” It’s good advice Zenawi should heed.
Just as I am for free speech, I am also for civility, affability and cordiality. But Zenawi must understand that he cannot get what he cannot give. In his stage-managed dramatic appearances at his parliament, he harangues, berates, belittles and humiliates his timid rubber-stampers. He scorns, scowls at, threatens, browbeats and mocks his opposition. He desecrates the memory and scandalizes the names of past Ethiopian leaders who fought European colonialism with bows, arrows and spears and shed blood, sweat and tears to keep Ethiopia free and independent. Today, he has placed on the auction block the land those great leaders fought to keep free for the new colonial masters from India, China and Saudi Arabia. Wikleaks cablegrams even show that he manipulates, badgers, bullies and strong arms diplomats who interact with him and give him counsel to temper his vengefulness with reason and mercy. But in a country where free speech is a secular religion, he should expect that every word he utters will be challenged, every sentence scrutinized and every idea he introduces in the public forum sliced and diced on the chopping block of critical analysis. More specifically, when Zenawi comes to America on official visit, he has to come prepared not only to con the American public and snag billions in handouts but also defend his shameful record of massive human rights violations in Ethiopia.
It would be a crying shame for Zenawi to hop on his plane and go back to Ethiopia mumbling to himself something about the ‘extreme Diaspora’ and so on because he is heckled, disrupted or somehow impeded from speaking… Perhaps this opportunity will afford him a glimpse of the clash of ideas that routinely take place in American universities. He may begin to appreciate the simple truth that ideas are accepted and rejected and arguments won and lost in the cauldron of critical analysis oxygenated by the bellows of free speech, not in prison dungeons where journalists and dissidents are bludgeoned and left to rot… Free speech is the key by which one escapes from the steel bars and stonewalls of ‘prejudice and narrow-mindedness.’ I sincerely hope Zenawi will find that key at Columbia and finally escape from his bleak and desolate planet of ‘prejudice and narrow-mindedness.’
Hope, I hope, springs eternal in Ethiopia. I doubt Zenawi will draw a positive lesson from this trip to America, but I pray he will draw a much bigger lesson from history itself: “Those who make peaceful change impossible make violent change inevitable.”
“Food is nothing without freedom! We Need Freedom! Freedom! Freedom!” Abebe Gellaw
The Washington DC incident with Ato Meles is the talk of all Ethiopians in the Diaspora. I found out there is no reason for me to raise the issue, every one I met sooner or later will say something about it. I have made it a point to notice the different reaction both live and virtual on the Internet. It has been a fascinating week to say the least. Our varied response is what got me interested.
For those that are not familiar with the incident, here is a brief description. President Obama organized ‘food security symposium’ at the Regan center in Washington DC. The Ethiopian PM Meles was one of the guests arrayed to discuss the issue. During one of his responses Ato Abebe Gellaw, a reporter in the press box stood up and shouted slogans regarding the lack of human rights in his native land Ethiopia. The program was interrupted for a few minutes due to the incident.
My analysis is regarding how Ethiopians in the Diaspora viewed this situation. Due to the absence of free media in our homeland it is a little difficult but not impossible to gauge the reaction of the Ethiopian people. Based on what we observed outside it will not be unfair to extrapolate the impression to our people in general.
The incident was caught beautifully both on video and still photography. To state it is a dramatic confrontation is an understatement. It has everything one can think of for an unrehearsed play. It was loud, full of action and priceless expressions both from the victim and the conqueror. We were all captivated by this gift from God to help poor old Ethiopia recover a semblance of pride and respect.
The protagonist Ato Abebe Gellaw is a consummate professional. He is a very successful individual that has excelled in the field he choice to fulfill his life’s calling. He has been exiled from his homeland and currently resides in Washington DC. He in charge of the Ethiopian Satellite Television (www.esat.com) that has steadily been winning hearts and minds of Ethiopians both at home when available and in the Diaspora. It is a publicly funded enterprise that is mostly stocked by highly educated professionals most of whom are victims of arbitrary and capricious actions by the Meles regime.
The victim is Ato Meles Zenawi, a dictator from Ethiopia and currently holds the title of Prime Minster and Chairman of Tigrai Peoples Liberation Front (TPLF). He has led this rogue mafia outfit for the last forty years or so and is known to be a ruthless boss with out an ounce of empathy towards his comrades or followers. He basks in his show of arrogance and is known to enjoy berating and putting his people and country down. In other words he is a serial bully of the highest magnitude. He resides in a palace and is completely isolated from the people he has put himself in charge of. He travels in a convoy, all streets are cleared of any traffic when he ventures out and his security is visible even to the blind. It is possible to conclude he lives in constant fear.
The venue was Washington DC and the discussion was food and the lack of it in Africa. Ato Meles is one of the architects of this human disaster. Theoretically the Country Ethiopia has a capability to feed all of East Africa and more. It is blessed with good weather, plenty of rivers and vast virgin land that awaits human ingenuity. In real terms the country in underdeveloped with all land and resources controlled by the government under Ato Meles. Over 80% of the population is involved in subsistence agriculture. Education is very rudimentary and health care is non-existent. The average peasant owns a plot as big as a football field and uses farming implement that has been in existence since millennia. The vast majority of the population relies on less than 300 calories a day and is a recipient of food aid donated by the West.
This is the background to our story. During a question and answer period in the proceedings the Ethiopian reporter Ato Abebe Gellaw used the occasion to interrupt the Prime Minster and speak his mind regarding the personhood of the TPLF leader and his actions against the interest of the Ethiopian people. Ato Abebe spoke loud, his expression was intense and his delivery was flawless. The incident took exactly twenty-five seconds and there was no question all-present heard every word that was said. Ato Abebe was promptly removed by the secret service and handed over to the local police for questioning.
The Prime Minster was caught off guard. This has never happened to him. When he speaks in front of his kangaroo Parliament or organizes his press conference everything is choreographed and control is the key. You can hear a pin drop in his briefings. When he heard the first shout his face jerked to the left in the direction of the noise. His eyes bulged wide open. He turned back to the front and realized there is no possibility of help coming to rescue him. In his panic all he could do was look down and avoid any eye contact. He stayed down. The color left his face. His agony was visible in High Def. and can be heard in Dolby sound.
That was the situation in the gathering place. Ato Abebe was questioned by the police and released without much fanfare. There was no crime committed other than speaking out of order but under the circumstances it is considered ‘seizing the moment’ to advocate what one holds dear to his heart. ESAT and reporter Ato Sisay Agena were waiting out side to give their audience perspective on what happened. Over all the presentation was as expected the work of professionals doing what they do best, keeping their people informed.
The response by the Ethiopian community both inside and the Diaspora is both heartwarming and beyond expectations. In my limited survey I can proudly say the vast majority were pleased by Ato Abebe’s heroic and self less act and were pleasantly surprised by the reaction of Ato Meles. The individual has made his mark in belittling people and here he was seen without his clothes and it was a painful sight. You can’t help but cringe at his cowardice. He can dish it out but it is obvious he cannot take it. Some one said he looked ‘like a deer caught in a head light’ and I agree. He was at a loss and it showed. Without his gun-totting pose around him he was just another garden-variety bully that lacks spine.
Our people have all sorts of take on the incident. As I said the vast majority were empowered by Ato Abebe’s action. The direct translation from Amharic would run like “our heart was laced with butter.” It is meant to show the highest form of satisfaction. A few questioned the appropriateness of Ato Abebe’s action. They reasoned since he was invited as a reporter he should have stuck to asking questions instead of humiliating the tyrant. They claimed he debased his profession. A few called it ‘uncivilized’ behavior. In their opinion as a reporter he should be unbiased and not taken side.
For some of our people the situation was a little confusing. Our culture dictates that we speak softly and keep differences low key. We abhor washing dirty linen in public, and felt this exposition of the tyrant’s actions should be kept behind high walls. That is why some felt the embarrassment of Ato Meles as their own. A few felt pity. It is human to feel the pain of others. A very small minority as usual brought ethnicity into the picture, but it did not get traction.
The response from the TPLF supporters was as usual as far removed from reality as possible. Without question the best take on this incident is by none other than Mimi Sebehatu, a low level TPLF functionary peddling her ‘bed time for Bozo’ stories on her FM station in Addis. It is claimed this puppy ranted like never before calling Ato Abebe every name she can think of. She compared his actions to that of Italians jeering our Emperor at the League of Nations assembly in Rome. Yes she did that. Makes you wonder about her grasp of reality or her understanding of history. On the other hand when you think both are foreign subjects to our Woyane warriors her displaced analogy is understandable. We will laugh it off.
Cadre Mimi is the owner an FM station that she uses to attack the free media and signal consorted campaign against our reporters on behalf of her party. She peddles useless music and stuff to keep the youth docile and wastes a broadband on triviality instead of in the service of our people. Ato Abebe is the perfect candidate for her moronic editorial and pedestrian analysis of realty. The positive aspect of her stupid barking is that it confirmed the heroic deed of our hero to the Ethiopian people. The formula is ‘if it upsets’ the TPLF mafia it must be good for the rest of us! Thank you Cadre Mimi. May I suggest you hold another session and invite Bereket, Shimeles and Azeb? Please note Cadre Mimi has her US passport in her purse ready to bail out when the ship starts to sink.
Last but not least there is the response by the vast majority of the rest of us. I am assuming no response to be a form of response here. A lot were happy, exited, tickled and discussed it with anybody close by. That is right, this was the extent of their involvement. Case closed, another story please, another excitement is what they requested. In this era of a twenty-four hrs news cycle we are always waiting for something new, something different to happen. We get bored easy. We find hard work and sustained involvement is not our cup of tea. We have this tendency to leave a task unfinished. This is one instance this behavior manifested itself glaringly. We are not interested in formulating a plan to channel our response so we can build on this accomplishment by Ato Abebe. That is not part of our makeup.
Seattle is one place that is showing signs of positive vibrations. Seattle has always been the lion’s den and it is leading the way with our newfound activism. In Seattle they are working on holding a public meeting to bring all of us together and take activism to higher level. That is what is called taking advantage and transforming our movement into an all-inclusive mass based venture against tyranny. That is how we show appreciation to the wonderful work by Ato Abebe and reward his sacrifice in a meaningful manner. Talk is cheap. Temporary feel good is fleeting satisfaction. Consorted effort to do what is needed to continue the fight against tyranny is what the situation calls for.
We are also emboldened by the actions of our people in South Africa. It was to Johannesburg the little tyrant slinked into after his DC public flailing. That is what he has been doing the last twenty years. He always got a bag ready to attend meetings, conferences, symposiums any place where they will give him a chair and allow him talk trash. That is how he proves to the Ethiopian people how ‘important’ and ‘respected’ he is by rubbing shoulders with democratically elected leaders. Never mind his formula in Ethiopia is to earn their love by terrorizing them. Fear is what he peddles in Ethiopia. Anyway he had the nerve to show up in South Africa. Our fifty thousand strong exiles were ready for him. He was unceremoniously booted out of his speaking slot. He was declared ‘persona non grata.’ That is a fancy way of saying ‘you are not wanted’ in Latin. Go back to your gilded cage is the message Ethiopians are sending to the killer, abuser, and tyrant. Let us all resolve to make the little chat addicted tyrant ‘persona non grata’ on plane Earth. Amen!
Zenawi had just started pontificating about “agricultural transformation in Africa” and how a “partnership between the farmer and the private sector” would have to be formed to meet the continent’s food needs. But he could only get out 30 words before he was shouted down. It was an incredible sight to behold. Zenawi’s head snapped to attention when he first heard his name and title. He probed the audience confusedly to locate the heckler. When he made eye contact with Abebe, he came unhinged: His eyes bugged out with sheer horror. His jaw dropped as if he had seen a ghost. He looked like the proverbial deer in a headlight; or to use an African metaphor, the vaunted guerilla hero froze like a frightened wildebeest looking into the eyes of a hungry lion. The expression on his face was total disbelief. “Is that Abebe Gellaw? It can’t be! I thought I had him canned in Kality Prison with Eskinder Nega, Reeyot Alemu and Woubshet Taye. What the hell is he doing here?!?”