The following is a story of one Ethiopian man who went to Ethiopia from Canada to visit his family and ended up in jail. This is one of the many horror stories we hear ever day about the lawlessness in Ethiopia under the Woyanne rule.
By Carol Sanders
(Winnipeg Free Press) — A Winnipeg man who has helped rescue hundreds of people from violence in Ethiopia fears he can’t save his own son, who was jailed there shortly after arriving from Canada two weeks ago.
“I’m very worried,” Juhar Hargaaya said Monday.
His 26-year-old son, Fewaz, left their home in Transcona to visit family in Ethiopia, but was arrested for carrying walkie-talkies and jailed at Dire Dawa in the notorious Ethiopian prison system.
“It’s very bad,” said his father, who arrived in Canada as a refugee in 1990.
Hargaaya, a forklift driver who works seven days a week with a part-time job on weekends, has helped to sponsor hundreds of refugees from Ethiopia over the last 20 years, said Tom Denton at Hospitality House.
Sponsorship documents from the Winnipeg refugee ministry were found among Fewaz’s things after he was arrested in Ethiopia. The forms, critical of the Ethiopian government’s treatment of its people, were for four Ethiopians who’d fled to neighbouring Djibouti, waiting to come to Canada.
Now, Fewaz is in trouble for criticizing the government, said his younger sister, Iftu.
“The conditions in Ethiopian prisons aren’t the best,” said the 24-year-old University of Manitoba student.
“We don’t know if he has access to food and water.”
Her brother hasn’t been able to contact his family or get a lawyer, Iftu said, adding “there’s a guard working in the prison letting our family know.”
What they know so far isn’t good.
“He got sick, so they took him to a hospital,” his sister said. “They said he should undergo an operation.”
Terrified at the prospect of being given anesthetics in an Ethiopian prison hospital, Fewaz refused and asked to go home to Canada for {www:treatment}.
“They brought him back to the prison,” Iftu said.
Desperate, he climbed onto a roof to yell for help and was shot at by prison guards. Though he wasn’t hit, he was grabbed, beaten and hauled down to an underground cell, she said.
The Hargaaya family contacted the Canadian government to have someone at the Embassy there check on Fewaz in Dire Dawa, she said.
Iftu fears her brother was jailed because he was trying to help people get out of the country and because their family is Oromo, a community struggling for self-determination in Ethiopia.
Fewaz was arrested after he refused to sell electronics he brought from Canada to a man, said Iftu. The {www:irate} buyer was angry and called the police, who found Fewaz with his Canadian “walkie-talkies.”
Police searched the home he was staying at and found sponsorship documents from Hospitality House for two more adults and kids Fewaz’s father in Winnipeg was trying to help come to Canada.
Hargaaya is one of Hospitality House’s most supportive clients, said Denton.
“It’s remarkable what he’s accomplished,” said Denton.
Hargaaya works two jobs and enlists the assistance of people he’s helped settle in Canada over the years. He’s got them paying it forward with financial support for more new refugees, said Denton.
“An organization like ours has the legal capacity to sponsor but doesn’t have the financial wherewithal to support these people when they get here so we enter into arrangements with family links who look after them when the people get here,” Denton said
“He has a network of people across the country and it’s probably people he brought here with our assistance. We’re very supportive of him and what he does.”
Now, his son is stuck in an Ethiopian jail and Denton hopes Canadian diplomats will check on his well-being and help him get home safely.
“I think anyone who is confined to a prison in the Horn of Africa is in serious danger,” Denton said.
For the past 13 years, the Woyanes have become so {www:predictable} when they are in a political quagmire. The recent political uprising in the Middle East and in the Northern part of Africa has Zenawi’s regime so concerned creating political diversion that is further from the reality was crucial in an attempt to {www:engross} mainly the people of Ethiopia and, if anyone is listening, the rest of the world.
Of course, Zenawi’s regime has no respect for what his own citizens think. The latest political stint is pretty much staged for the donors he can’t afford to upset since his survival is depending on what these donors think of him. One must keep in mind that the regime is so terrified of the potential up rise and measures to squash it must be justified ahead of time. One must also keep in mind that the regime is pretty good at taking survival measures since it has no principle of fundamental politics to lean on. It is that lack of core of principle the regime is suffering from that will ultimately facilitate its demise. The lack of principle of fundamental politics is a recipe for disaster as it has been witnessed in the past. The regime in Ethiopia is no different than the others with same deficiencies; however, what makes this regime unique is the fact that it receives unwavering support from the West for its unique ability of providing what the West needs. Perhaps, the West deserves share of the blame. In addition, the West needs to evaluate its policy towards the regime in Ethiopia and be on the right side of history, which ultimately benefits the West.
As mentioned above, the latest political stints by the regime were targeting two main elements: national security and economic growth. These two elements were brought to the surface with the assumption that they would create the type of political distraction the regime was hoping for. Unfortunately for the regime, any political stint comes with its own price.
National security:
In the name of national security, the regime was forced to bring Eritrea in this equation with the assumption that any mention of “a threat from Eritrea” will galvanize the nation. This may be true in 1998 -2000. Today, Ethiopians are more educated of what had transpired since the war between Ethiopia and Eritrea broke out. Moreover, Ethiopians are aware of the fact that legally, Eritrea had won the border issue fair and square. The 2002 decision by Hague took the air out of those who were beating the war drum to recover access to the sea. Though the regime in Ethiopia is not officially advocating the return of Assab, the thought process is that by creating the possibility of waging war with Eritrea, potential political capital could be gained, and will ultimately conciliate the anticipated potential threat from civil disobedience that is similar to what had transpired in the Middle East and North Africa. To the regime’s disappointment, the reaction from the vast majority of Ethiopians, including those in Diaspora was extremely negative of the war monger attitude of the regime.
Every time the regime in Ethiopia chooses to show its arrogance about its military superiority it admits its weakness ignorantly. Back in 2000 after the war was over and crowning itself as a winner, the regime couldn’t manage to hide how terrified it was of the strength of Eritrea’s military capacity. It was for that valid reason the regime asked guarantee from the West and the institutions that were involved in bringing peace between these two countries. The latest military bravado, from the regime’s Prime Minister, to invade Eritrea was also a message to the opposition groups who are currently waging internal war with the regime. This message was spawned out of fear.
The Grand Millennium Dam:
The regime’s infatuation to building a dam has been a discussion for quite a while. However, the magnitude of this project is so {www:humongous} some doubt the project would be feasible anytime soon due to financial reasons. The regime is banking on the west to assume the bulk of the financial responsibility. In addition, the regime is also taking advantage of this thrill-seeking project as way of communicating with the Diaspora and enticing them with potential investment opportunity hoping to gain political capital. Again, this also failed miserably as it became evident all over the United States where the regime tried to hold these meetings with the Diaspora this past weekend.
Given the regime’s past record, major projects such as the grand millennium dam were used to divert the political attention of the people of Ethiopia from war, economic and political crisis. In 1999, the regime boasted that “merkato” was supposedly to be bought by a Malaysian company for Six billion dollars. During that period of time, the regime also bragged about a 1.7 billion dollars investment on gas pipeline project connecting Ethiopia and Sudan. Of course, no one forgets the empty promises the regime was making about exporting power to Africa while the city of Addis Ababa was suffering from power shortage just about every other day.
Last,
As mentioned above, the political reverberation the regime in Ethiopia has created in the name of “national security” and “Economic growth” has produced no political dividend. Oddly, the regime bankrupted politically on both elements. The war drum against Eritrea was rejected by Ethiopians, which exposed the regime’s vulnerability should these two countries confront each other militarily. Furthermore, the regime credibility in front of the International community (those who matter) will further be damaged. The “economic growth” fiasco that was supposedly to be used as a conduit to establish a relationship with Diaspora with the hope to capitalize politically proved to be a disaster. If anything, this political miscalculation by the regime gives the Diaspora the energy it was looking for. One doesn’t anticipate the regime to try to coddling again with the Diaspora any time soon; however, one will not rule out this regime’s possible war adventure against Eritrea as desperate times call for desperate measures. The Weyanes are indeed desperate.
The Woyanne-installed fake patriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, Aba Gebremedhin (formerly Abune Paulos) has sent out a directive to 200 churches in Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa ordering them to buy 200,000 birr worth of government bonds each to help pay for the recently announced Nile River dam project. Most of the church refused to comply. Read more in the Amharic section here.
Except for some gullible individuals, most Ethiopians believe that Meles Zenawi came up with the plan to build dam along the Nile River in order to divert attention from the mounting domestic problems. Another politically motivated project, the Tekeze River dam, was built at the cost of over $350 million, and inaugurated almost 2 years ago, but it has not yet started producing power.
BEKA has now spread to outside of Addis Ababa. Ethiopian Review has received the following photo that was taken at the Langano Wabishebele Hotel today (see below). The slogan is also written on hotel room and bathroom walls at multiple locaitons. BEKA (enough) is a slogan that calls for the end of Meles Zenawi’s 20 years of dictatorship and misrule. Langano is a resort Ethiopian town about 200 km south of Addis Ababa.
Laurent Gbagbo of Cote d’Ivoire arrested! Hosni Mubarak of Egypt in intensive care! Moamar Gadhafi of Libya under siege! Omar al-Bashir of the Sudan, a fugitive from justice. Ben Ali of Tunisia out of Africa! Meles Zenawi, sleepless in Ethiopia.
These are heady days on the African continent. These are days of joy. Africa’s thugdoms are crumbling like clumps of dirt underfoot. These are days of grief and tribulation. After one-half century of independence, Africa continues to sink deeper into a quagmire of dictatorship, corruption and extreme violence.
It was a crying shame to see the video footages of Laurent Gbagbo, the leader of one of Africa’s economic powerhouses, being collared, manhandled and dragged away with his wife like a common criminal thug. The last such shocking video came out of Africa in 1990 showing the gruesome torture and execution of Samuel Doe, the president of Liberia. (Doe had himself staged a televised torture and execution of his predecessor William Tolbert.)
Gbagbo’s arrest footage played straight into the stereotypical cartoonish image of the defiantly erratic African dictator often crudely portrayed in the media. Gbagbo looked pathetic as his captors surrounded him and barked out orders. He looked so helpless, defenseless, friendless and hopeless. His forlorn eyes told the whole story. The man who had thumbed his nose at the world for the past 5 months while his country burned was visibly hyperventilating and drenched in sweat. He could hardly put on his shirt. It was a totally humiliating experience for Gbagbo. It was devastating, depressing and dispiriting to any African who values self-dignity.
Gbagbo was not a run-of-the-mill African dictator. He did not bulldoze or shoot his way to power. For decades, he used the democratic process to struggle for change in his country. Unlike other African dictators who graduated with high honors from the university of intrigue, corruption, human rights violation, double-dealing, deception and skullduggery, Gbagbo graduated with a doctorate from the University of Paris at the Sorbonne, one of the greatest higher learning institutions in Europe. He was a learned and energetic professor and researcher at the University of Abidjan who used his knowledge to become the leading voice of resistance and dissent against dictatorship in his country. He was a union activist who organized teachers’ strikes and ardently worked to establish multiparty democracy. He was a lawmaker in the Ivorian National Assembly. He founded the Ivorian Popular Front, a center-left socialist party. He was a bold dissident who suffered imprisonment on various occasions for his political views and activities. He spent the 1980s in exile in France.
By all measures, Gbagbo was among the best and brightest of Africa’s democratically-leaning leaders. But as he completed his first term of office, he was afflicted by “cling-to-power-at-any-cost syndrome”, a political disease more commonly known as “I want to be president-for-life (PFL)” syndrome. Every African civilian or military leader since Kwame Nkrumah in the early 1960s has suffered from PFL. Gbagbo sacrificed the lives of thousands of his compatriots so that he could become president-for-life.
In the end, none of it mattered. Gbagbo proved to be no different or better than any of the other benighted and villainous African dictators who cling to power by killing, jailing, torturing and stealing from their citizens. He may now end up serving a life sentence for crimes against humanity.
The Ivorian president-turned-power-fiend could have had a dignified exit from power. He could have left office with the respect and appreciation of his people, and honored by the international community as an elder African statesman. He could have found different ways of remaining active in Ivorian politics. Many wanted to facilitate a dignified exit for him. Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga said, “I gave him [Gbagbo] an offer which had been given by the United States that he had an option to come into exile in the United States and that he would be allowed to be a lecturer at the University of Boston.” He could have cut a deal for a”golden exile” right after the November elections and lived out his life without fear of prosecution. He had been offered asylum in Angola, South Africa, Malawi, Nigeria and the U.S., but he turned down all of them. Like many of his predecessors, Gbagbo chose the path of self-humiliation and ignominy.
Gbagbo’s End Game
Gbagbo’s end game is to face justice for his crimes in an Ivorian court, a special court for Cote d’Ivoire or before the International Criminal Court (ICC). There is substantial evidence to show that as a direct result of Gbagbo’s refusal to concede the presidential election in November 2010, thousands of people lost their lives in officially sanctioned extra-judicial killings. In excess of one million Ivorians have been forced to leave the country to avoid the violence. Navi Pillay, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, took the extraordinary step of notifying Gbagbo and his henchmen that they will be held personally responsible and accountable for human rights violations in connection with the discovery of two mass graves. But there is also substantial evidence of extra-judicial or arbitrary executions, sexual violence, enforced or involuntary disappearances, arbitrary detentions and torture against Gbagbo and his regime dating back several years.
Allasane Ouattara, the new president, says Gbagbo will be brought to justice and a truth and reconciliation-style process instituted to address the causes and effects of the decade-long political crises in the country. ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo said he would like ECOWAS to request an ICC investigation into the massive human rights violations in Cote d’Ivoire, a preliminary step to Gbagbo’s prosecution. It is unlikely that any African organization will cooperate in such an investigation. In July 2009, the African Union refused to cooperate in the prosecution of al-Bashir of the Sudan: “The AU member states shall not co-operate… relating to immunities for the arrest and surrender of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir to the ICC.”
There is no question Gbagbo must be put on trial. If there are concerns about his prosecution in Cote d’Ivoire, his trial could be moved to The Hague as was done for former Liberian president Charles Taylor. Gbagbo’s trial will likely involve a protracted legal process. (Taylor’s trial concluded a few weeks ago after three and one-half years of litigation in the ICC, and a verdict is expected in the foreseeable future.)
Gbagbo is entitled to full due process and given ample opportunity to vigorously contest every allegation brought against him. His right to a fair trial must be observed meticulously. Prosecution must not be limited to Gbagbo and members of his regime. All suspects, including Ouattra’s supporters allegedly involved in human rights violations, must be investigated and brought to justice. There is compelling evidence that forces loyal to Ouattara have been involved in gross human rights violations, including extra-judicial killings, rapes and burning of villages.
Lessons of a Gbagbo Prosecution
Most African dictators will pretend a Gbagbo prosecution will have no effect on them. They will convince themselves and try to convince others that what happened to Gbagbo could not happen to them because they are smarter, shrewder, cleverer and more iron-fisted than anybody else. They will laugh until their belly aches at anyone who suggests that they too will one day stand dazed and with forlorn eyes before the bars of justice and held accountable for their crimes against humanity. Once upon a time, Mubarak, Bashir, Gbagbo, Ben Ali and Gadhafi also laughed at the very suggestion of being held accountable in a court of law. Are they laughing now?
We must all say no to dictatorship and human rights violations anywhere in Africa, in the world. On the question of human rights, we must take sides. When thousands are massacred and dumped in mass graves in Cote d’Ivoire, we cannot turn a blind eye. When we have proof that thousands of innocent demonstrators have been killed, wounded and imprisoned in Ethiopia, we must never cease to demand justice.
Human rights abusers learn from each other. When one dictator gets away with crimes against humanity, the others get emboldened to commit atrocities on humanity. If the international community had taken vigorous action in Ethiopia and brought to justice those who massacred hundreds of innocent demonstrators following the 2005 elections, the bloodbath and carnage in Cote d’Ivoire might have been avoided altogether.
Albert Einstein said, “The world is a dangerous place to live, not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don’t do anything about it.” It could be equally said that Africa has been made a dangerous place to live not because of the evil dictators alone, but more importantly because not enough good African people (and friends of Africa) are willing to stand up, speak out and do something about gross human rights violations on the continent. It has been said that “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” Laurent Gbagbo is now wholly within the radius of that arc. The other African dictators need only contemplate a paraphrased question from a popular song: “Bad boys, bad boys, what you gonna do when the ICC comes for you?” GAME OVER!
Tinsae Ethiopia and various other groups are intensifying preparations for anti-Woyanne actions next month, May 2011, with Beka (Enough) as their lead slogan. On Sunday morning, more BEKA slogans appeared in Addis Ababa around Abune Petros Statue and Teklehaimanot area. Meles Zenawi’s Woyanne junta is also preparing to throw lavish parties to celebrate their 20th year in power next months.
