The miserable life of Ethiopians is replete with facts such as:
Ethiopian girl looks for food at a city dump in Addis Ababa
Ethiopia is ranked at 210th out of a total of 210 countries.
That Ethiopia by any measure is the 2nd poorest nation in the world.
That it is at the bottom of the list of the three weighed indicators of well-being.
That 64.9% of school children are not enrolled.
In health, child mortality, it stands at 38%.
85.7% lack electricity.
54% do not get any clean water.
89.5% do not have any cooking oil.
It has one of the smallest economies in Africa inspite of its population, accounting only for the continent’s 1% National domestic product.
90% of the nation’s 77 million people live below the poverty line (Getachew Begashaw, “Acute Poverty amidst “Double Digit Economic Growth”: Contradiction in Terms, Addis Voice, 2010)
Yet the regime is daring us, when it has selected Boston and Los Angeles as cities in which to display its vacuous new five-year plan.
The gruesome facts above should have been attended to twenty years ago, and by now nine of the points above could have been reduced to at least one half and yet twenty years later Ethiopians are still saddled with this primitive existence unfit for animals. The Prime Minister is more concerned to clean his legacy in four more years and fool the Ethiopian people, again and shamelessly with false promises.
Which transformational strategy is going to make Ethiopia free of famine in five years, when the regime had twenty long years of attending to them slowly, carefully and intelligently? Instead, the reality on the ground can be changed only by a total regime change, consisting of new faces, new thoughts, and new transformational strategies.
The new plan may aim at embarrassing the Diaspora opposition but the regime forgets that it will only embarrass itself when its plans are logically attacked by those who know and by those who see through the aim of the caravan of another five year plan and will subject it to a vigorous scrutiny and demand that the regime gives a regime change a real chance for the love and respect of the Ethiopian people.
The new plan does not address the existential and political rights of the people, the violation of their dignities and economic opportunities. Only a civilized uprising can change the reality on the ground, with a new vision of the Ethiopian person, a new political party and most importantly replacing ethnocracy with Ethiopianity.
Two weeks ago, Ethiopia’s khat-addicted tyrant Meles Zenawi sent a 35-member high level delegation to North America to promote his new gimmick, “Growth and Transformation Plan” “Grand Theft Plan” (GTP). The dictator who cannot stay one week in power without foreign aid has spent close to a million dollars for the 14-city tour in the U.S. and Canada involving 35 government officials and the 10 “journalists” who accompanied. In every city they visited, the delegates were confronted by protesters, and in Washington DC and Los Angeles, they were forced to cancel their meetings. The tour was a major public relations disaster for the decayed regime.
The two senior TPLF members, Berhane Gebrekirstos and Arkebe Equbai, who led the delegation were particularly shaken by the intensity of the protests and accused Girma Birru and other non-TPLF diplomats of not doing enough preparations. It is now rumored that Girma’s days as Woyanne ambassador to the U.S. are numbered.
Girma and the other puppet diplomats are in a quandary since they have little say to begin with. It is the TPLF cadres at the embassies who are the decision makers. In Girma’s case, he reports to Wahde Belay, a TPLF cadre whose official position is head of public relations, but in reality he is the real ambassador who gives orders to Girma and every one at the embassy.
Just a few months ago and for 20 years before that, Meles Zenawi and his ethnic apartheid junta have been taking the side of Egypt when it comes to Abay (Nile River). In fact, shortly after Meles came to power in 1991 with the help of Egypt, he flew to Cairo to sign a secret agreement with Mubarak (see here) that strips Ethiopia’s claim.
(Updated with some corrections)
1) As of August 22, 2010, 7 months ago, EEPCO’s 5-year-plan did not include Nile River, according to an EEPCO official (read here).
2) When the north Africa and Middle East popular uprisings broke out, the state-run Ethiopian Electric Power Corporation (EEPC) revised its 5-year plan to include Nile basin projects as part of the Woyanne so-called “Growth and Transformation Plan” (GTP). (see here)
This is one more proof that Meles and his propaganda chief Bereket Simon concocted the Abay dam idea in a desperate attempt to divert the public attention from saying BEKA (enough) to 20 years of dictatorship and misrule. The people of Ethiopia have had enough of Meles-Bereket’s lies for the past 20 years. What we Ethiopians need is freedom, not fake plans by a gang of proven thieves, rapists and murderers. For Ethiopians trusting the Nile issue with Meles is like some one trusting his daughter with a rapist. (see EEPC’s five-year-plan here. It doesn’t mention Abay.)
Ginbot 7 chairman Dr Berhanu Nega, OLF Atlanta representative Jemal Gelchu, and Ogaden Atlanta community representative Abdul Hakim will hold a public meeting in Atlanta to discuss current Ethiopian issues.
Date: Saturday, April 23, 2011
Time: 1:30 PM
Place: Dekalb County Library, 215 Sycamore Street, Decatur GA 30030
In a debate with a Woyanne cadre on VOA, Tamagne Beyene does an effective job of countering Meles Zenawi’s new propaganda campaign that is centered around a plan to build a massive dam along the Nile River. Except for some gullible individuals and {www:fence-sitter}s, most Ethiopians understand that Meles is talking about building a dam not for the good of Ethiopia, but in order to divert the public’s attention from his regime’s 20 years of disastrous rule. Listen the debate below:
