Human Rights Watch has released a 111-page report that discusses how the $3 billion Ethiopia’s dictatorship receives annual from foreign donors is fueling the Meles regime’s machinery of repression while contributing little or nothing for the country’s development. HRW writes:
Led by the ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), the government has used donor-supported programs, salaries, and training opportunities as political weapons to control the population, punish dissent, and undermine political opponents—both real and perceived. Local officials deny these people access to seeds and fertilizer, agricultural land, credit, food aid, and other resources for development.
… But development agencies have turned a blind eye to the Ethiopian government’s repression of civil and political rights, even though they recognize these rights to be central to sustainable socioeconomic development.
While the conclusion HRW has reached about the devastating effect of foreign aid on Ethiopia is not new, the facts and figures that are included in the report make the case for holding the donor agencies directly accountable for the atrocities that are being committed by the Meles brutal dictatorship. The Obama Administration, in particular, is a major disappointment since President Obama gave hope that he would not support “those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent.” Despite his promise, he is currently giving the Meles genocidal dictatorship over $1 billion per year.
The solution for Ethiopians is within us. We must not depend on any one to remove the Woyanne cancer. Let’s identify Woyanne’s soft targets and start hitting.
Ethiopian Citizens Have the Absolute Constitutional Right to Listen to the VOA
So many lessons to learn from Columbia University! When dictator-in-chief Meles Zenawi spoke unceremoniously at Columbia on September 22, he was talking trash about the Voice of America (VOA). He said he decided to jam VOA broadcasts in Ethiopia “by taking a page from U.S. policy”[1]. He wildly alleged that an evil cabal of supporters of the defunct Ethiopian military regime disguised as journalists had taken control of VOA’s Amharic service.
Now, I don’t know if you know this but VOA [Voice of America] is not allowed to broadcast to the U.S. by law. It is not allowed to broadcast to the U.S. by law. It is allowed to broadcast to other countries, but not to the U.S. because it is supposed to reflect the policy of the government in power of the day. Now, VOA Amharic service happens to be dominated by people associated with the previous regime who tend to have a particularly jaundiced view of events in Ethiopia for understandable reasons.We took a page from the policy of the United States and said VOA is not welcome to Ethiopia either.
This past March, Zenawi made the downright wacky allegation that the VOA’s Amharic service staff had been engaged in plotting genocide in Ethiopia for “many years”:
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.
When the Voice of America’s Amharic Service interviewed me on October 1, 2010 to comment on Zenawi’s legal and policy justifications for jamming the VOA by taking a “page from the policy of the United States,” I told them it was a no brainer: “U.S. policy and laws are completely irrelevant to the exercise of expressive freedoms in Ethiopia. Ethiopian citizens have the absolute constitutional right to receive broadcasts of the VOA or “any other media of their choice.” Zenawi has no legal power or authority of any kind to prevent Ethiopian citizens from listening to VOA broadcasts.
The indisputable fact of the matter is that the right of Ethiopian citizens to listen to the VOA or “any other media of their choice” or to seek information from any source does not depend on U.S. policy or the permission of Zenawi. Their right is founded solely and exclusively on the sweeping constitutional guarantees they enjoy under Articles 29 and 13 of the Ethiopian Constitution. The language of these two articles is simple, plain, straightforward, unambiguous and requires no interpretation. Article 29 (reproduced also in the official Amharic text below[2]) states:
2. Everyone shall have the right to freedom of expression without interference. This right shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers [the official Amharic version reproduced below literally translates the word “frontier” to “without limits to information originating within the country or outside of the country”], either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through other media of his choice.
3. … Press freedom shall, in particular, include the rights enumerated hereunder: a) that censorship in any form is prohibited. b) the opportunity to have access to information of interest to the public.
In fact, the text of Article 29 (2) is taken almost verbatim from Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which provides:
Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
Article 13 bolsters Article 29 by tying the interpretation of all “democratic constitutional rights” enjoyed by Ethiopian citizens to international human rights treaties and conventions to which Ethiopia is a signatory, and explicitly mentions the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), which Ethiopia adopted as one of the original 48 members who voted for it in the U.N. General Assembly in September 1948. Article 13 (Scope and Interpretation) provides:
1. The provisions of this Chapter shall, at all levels, apply to the federal and state legislative, executive and judicial branches of government.
2. The fundamental rights and freedoms enumerated in this Chapter shall be interpreted in a manner consistent with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, international human rights covenants and conventions ratified by Ethiopia.
All of the foregoing legal language can be reduced to four simple but irrefutable propositions:1) Ethiopian citizens have the absolute constitutional right to hear any radio broadcast “or media of their choice”. 2) Ethiopian citizens have the absolute right to hear any radio broadcast “or “media of their choice” under international human rights laws and conventions to which Ethiopia is a signatory. 3) No official or institution in Ethiopia has the legal power to prohibit, exclude or interfere with the delivery of radio broadcasts or information from any other media (including internet sources) because “censorship in any form is prohibited.” 4) Zenawi is in flagrant, brazen and egregious violation of the Ethiopian Constitution and international human rights laws and conventions by jamming of VOA broadcasts in Ethiopia.
Living on Planet Denial-stan?
When Mahmood Ahmadinejad came to Columbia University in 2007 to speak, its president Lee Bollinger, rhetorically wondered why Ahmadinejad would deny the occurrence of the Holocaust, and concluded by telling him: “You are either brazenly provocative or astonishingly uneducated.” One is tempted to offer the same conclusion to Zenawi for saying the United States Government “for many years” has operated a radio broadcast service that had promoted genocide in Ethiopia and seeking to justify his jamming of VOA broadcasts on the basis of a U.S. Government “policy” that does not exist.
It would be easy to dismiss Zenawi’s outrageous allegations against the VOA as mere polemical political theatre but for a consistent pattern of other equally outlandish allegations and assertions he has made over the years. When I wrote my piece “The Grammar of Dictators” in August, 2008, I was fascinated by dictators’ use of language to humanize their cruelties and civilize their barbarism; or as George Orwell put it, to use “political language to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.”
The cumulative evidence of Zenawi’s double talk and preposterous allegations and assertions unmistakably point to the fact that his manifest perception of the facts is completely detached from reality. Back in April 2008, in a Newsweek interview, Zenawi triumphantly declared that his new press law “will be on par with the best in the world.” That same year he told Time Magazine that there is no famine in Ethiopia, only “pockets of severe malnutrition in some districts in the south and an emergency situation in the Somali region.” In September 2007, Zenawi said there is not a “shred of evidence” that significant human rights violations have occurred in the Ogaden region: “We are supposed to have burned villages [in the Ogaden]. I can tell you, not a single village, and as far as I know not a single hut has been burned. We have been accused of dislocating thousands of people from their villages and keeping them in camps. Nobody has come up with a shred of evidence.” In October 2006, Zenawi denied the existence of political prisoners in his prisons: “There are no political prisoners in Ethiopia at the moment. Those in prison are insurgents. So it is difficult to explain a situation of political prisoners, because there are none.” To make such statements, one must spend a great deal of time on Planet Denial-stan, where the operating principle is, “I think, therefore things exist or do not exist.”
Does Zenawi Really Believe the VOA is the VOI?
It boggles the mind to think that Zenawi actually believes the Voice of America is the Voice of Interhamwe, Rwanda. It is equally incredible why he would make such a statement without backing it up with solid evidence or even giving a single example of a genocidal broadcast of any kind made by the VOA anywhere, anytime. What is stunningly astonishing is the fact that these words rolled off the tongue of an individual lionized for his prodigious intellect and political astuteness. In 2005 at an award ceremony for Zenawi, the internationally renowned Prof. Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University, the man sworn to ending global poverty by 2015, could barely contain his fawning eulogy of Zenawi’s sagacity and intellectual prowess: “You have distinguished yourself as a one of our World’s most brilliant leaders. I have often said that our many hours of discussion together are among the most scintillating that I have spent on the topics of economic development. I invariably leave our meetings enriched, informed, and encouraged about Ethiopia’s prospects.”
Is it possible that “one of our World’s most brilliant leaders” actually believes the VOA is America’s version of genocide Radio Mille Collines, Rwanda!?!?
I cannot be sure, but I would like to believe Zenawi is being “brazenly provocative” by making such an allegation. I should like to think that he is using a “shock and offend” strategy calculated to trigger the ire of the United States Government and ensnare it in an all-out war of words on a propaganda battlefield over which Zenawi has control of the commanding heights. In other words, if the U.S. could be provoked to respond angrily or defensively to the allegation, it could then be dragged into a mud fight worthy of the proverbial wrestling match with the pig. At the end of the match both combatants will be filthy and exhausted, but one gets the distinct feeling that the pig enjoyed the experience very much. But the U.S. did not take the bait and steered clear off the mud issuing a terse statement: “Comparing a respected and professional news service to a group that called for genocide in Rwanda is a baseless and inflammatory accusation that seeks only to deflect attention away from the core issue. The Ethiopian government may disagree with VOA news, but interfering with its broadcasts undermines the nation’s constitutional commitment to censorship and freedom of expression.”
Why the VOA is Not Allowed to Broadcast Within the U.S.
Zenawi said he jammed VOA broadcasts “by taking a page from U.S. policy.” He must be “astonishingly uneducated” or willfully ignorant of some simple facts about the American system of laws and government. Anyone who has marginal familiarity with the American legislative and judicial process would refrain from making such an inane and thoughtless statement. The VOA (with over 1,500 affiliates throughout the world), is part of a larger system of global information, educational and cultural service created by the U.S. Congress to conduct “public diplomacy or government-to-people dialogue.” In 1948, Congress passed the United States Information and Educational Exchange Act with the purpose of “promoting better understanding of the United States among the peoples of the world and to strengthen cooperative international relations.” By authorizing the creation of a global broadcast service, the U.S. sought to create good will and shape the thinking and attitudes of elites in countries receiving the broadcasts.
Over the years, the VOA has played a central part in the U.S. media strategy to win hearts and minds in the Cold War. One of its central missions today is to uphold U.S. foreign policy objectives by promoting democracy, peace, prosperity, human rights and other programs to new generations in countries receiving VOA broadcasts. As absurd as it sounds, the VOA does not and has never fostered genocide of any kind in any country. In fact, Congress prohibited domestic U.S. broadcasts by the VOA to make sure that it is not abused politically by any individual or groups, and to make sure that the kind of state media abuse seen historically in totalitarian and other communist countries did not happen in the U.S. Because of this concern, Congress authorized the creation of a bi-partisan board consisting of eight members nominated by the President of the United States and confirmed by the U.S. Senate, with the Secretary of State as an ex officio member, to oversee its operations. To believe that the President of the U.S. would nominate individuals who would allow or condone genocidal broadcasts to Ethiopia using VOA broadcasts is downright crazy!
The fact of the matter is that whether VOA broadcasts are available domestically is of no consequence. Americans have more than 10,000 radio stations, tens of thousands of newspapers and magazines and millions of websites to get and choose the information they want or need. If they so choose, they can get VOA broadcasts instantaneously online, over satellite dishes, cellular phones and various other modern communications technologies.
But Zenawi’s campaign of fear and smear against the VOA Amharic service professionals is downright unfair and contemptible. If Zenawi has evidence, a molecule of evidence, to prove that these professionals are “people associated with” the defunct military Derg or part of a silent conspiracy with anyone else to promote genocide or anarchy in Ethiopia, he should produce it; and they will surely be held to account before the VOA administration and the law. If Zenawi has proof that their reporting is inaccurate, unfair, unethical or malicious, he should produce that evidence as well. Of course, he cannot produce a speck of evidence to back up any of his claims.
The reality is different. We could all criticize VOA’s Amharic service for whatever we choose, but we would be hard pressed to back up our criticism with substantial evidence of lack of accuracy, objectivity or fairness. Suffice it to say, how many hundreds of times over the years have we heard Amharic service VOA reporters announcing to their listeners: “We tried numerous times to get official comment from the Ethiopian Government but we were unable to do so because… the government official backed out at last minute… declined to comment… was not available for an interview at the appointed time… or…We will keep trying to get official comment from the Ethiopian Government.” That is what usually happens. The fact of the matter is that for whatever reason Zenawi has chosen not to make his people available to engage the VOA and challenge the Amharic service reporters on the air for all Ethiopians to hear.
Zenawi says the VOA operates in “wanton disregard of minimum ethics of journalism and engaging in destabilizing propaganda.” That is simply not true, and reflects his lack of knowledge of VOA’s strict legislative mandate. The VOA is a highly professional organization with journalistic integrity, and functions under close supervision of its presidentially-appointed board always guided by its clear legislative mandate set forth in its 1976 Charter which requires the VOA to 1) “serve as a consistently reliable and authoritative source of news [by making sure] news will be accurate, objective, and comprehensive; 2) “present a balanced and comprehensive projection of significant American thought and institutions ,and 3) ” present the policies of the United States clearly and effectively, and … responsible discussions and opinion on these policies.” If anyone at VOA promotes or attempts to promote genocide or “wantonly engages in destabilizing propaganda,” not only will such persons surely find themselves walking the streets without a job, they are guaranteed to do some serious jail time.
There are many things over which people could disagree. But there could be no disagreement over the fact that the sun always rises in the east, the law of gravity or the absolute constitutional right of Ethiopian citizens to listen to broadcasts of the VOA or any other “media of their choice.” Zenawi could learn a sound lesson from VOA’s founding motto: “The news may be good. The news may be bad. We shall tell you the truth.” If the VOA promotes genocide or broadcasts ‘destabilizing propaganda’, the Ethiopian people will be the first ones to vote with their fingers by turning their radio dials in a counterclockwise motion: Click!”
Mr. Zenawi: “Tear down the electronic wall you have built to keep VOA radio broadcasts and ESAT (Ethiopian Satellite Television) service out of Ethiopia! Let Ethiopians hear America’s voice, the Voice of America. Let the VOA tell the truth to the Ethiopian people who have a constitutional and international legal right to hear it and decide for themselves.”
ATLANTA (WSBTV) — A limo driver who disappeared nearly a week ago turned up late Thursday night with no explanation.
Negero Debero, a native of Ethiopia, disappeared last weekend, sparking a search when police found his {www:smash}ed Lincoln town car abandoned on Interstate 85 on Oct. 8.
Friends of Debero told Channel 2 Action News the {www:circumstance}s of the disappearance seem very odd, and how he was located was more bizarre. “He was found in the bushes without his clothing. We’re hoping detectives on the case are still going to be working,” said Surafel Asmamaw.
Witnesses claim Debero was drinking at a bar they day he disappeared. During the week more than 100 people handed out flyers and searched the area. A $10,000 reward was even offered for his safe return.
“We still want answers to what happened that Saturday morning when he disappeared,” said Getachew Techill, Debero’s friend.
Debero was being treated at Gwinnett Medical Center.
The 22-yea-old daughter of Ethiopia’s despot Meles Zenawi {www:puke}s from over-eating and drinking…
… while over 80,000 resident of the capital city, including children, survive by eating trash (see here) at the city dump. See more photos here about the over-fed and {www:over-indulgent} children of the ruling Woyanne junta. The photo above shows Semehal puking at the side of a road after a night of partying at an exclusive night club where children of the ruling tribal junta throw lavish parties several times per week. The little girl in the photo below looks for food to eat at the Addis Ababa city garbage dump.
Two or three decades ago, every Ethiopian from each imaginable sector of society would have been grossly offended by the utterly sad spectacle of the brave Birtukan Mediksa, a defenseless woman, a mother of a child, paraded in public and forced to undergo televised self humiliation and public shame. Birtukan Medkesa’s ineffable inner turmoil and agony are, perhaps, best captured by Eskinder Nega’s acute observation when he wrote: “… Birtukan shook her head sideways as I spoke: ‘We are proud of you,’ I told her. ’You are our hero.’ There was pained expression on her face. Something is visibly bottled up in her, pushing to explode …” Then he poses the apt question: “…What kind of heartless men would threaten a woman with indefinite imprisonment until their demise unless she admits to ‘deceiving the nation and the government?’ Where is their moral compass?” The answer to Eskinder is that they have no moral compass. They never had one, nor will they ever care to have one. It should not be expected from sadist criminals who have savoured every bit, second and minute of the pain and agony they inflicted on an entire Ethiopian nation and millions of our people for the past twenty years, at every turn and interval.
It is known that the fundamental line of demarcation that separates dictatorship from democracies is the respect accorded in the latter for the sanctity and dignity of the human beings. Individual liberty as expressed by the concepts and practice of the rule of law and due process is at the very foundation of democracies. The glaring differences among the two political systems are the way they treat their citizens as subjects, on the one hand, and autonomous individuals with dignity and humanity on the other. In democracies the weakest members of society—prisoners of war, convicts, and the mentally ill—are treated humanely and in accordance with the rule of law. The laws protect the personal dignity and liberty of the human individual. The Geneva Convention and other norms and laws of international nature are also meant to guide the behaviours of states and non-state actors alike on ways in which “enemies” are supposed to treat and deal with each other. In democracies, the laws and norms of society do not permit a prisoner to be paraded for a televised public humiliation, like what Meles Zenawi and his thugs imposed on Birtukan.
Even convicted felons, jailed for murder, express themselves and testify in public only if they agree to it. Nothing is as much a nemesis to the supreme and cherished values of liberty and human dignity as to have to speak against one’s self interest leave alone to engage in an act of forced self-humiliation. Indeed, watching Birtukan give the interview the way she did, under apparent and tremendous duress, violates the core of our essence as Ethiopians. Where the actual shame lies is in fact in the coercion against a defenseless woman like Birtuakn.
But what were the purposes of shaming and subjecting a harmless and powerless woman to public humiliation by parading her on national television to utter the words she did? Is the target only Birtuakn, the woman and the mother, the political leader, or does it have a further reaching objective beyond the public and televised rape of her humanity and individuality? The intended effect of crushing one’s self esteem in this case is also meant to crush the self–esteem of her supporters: The millions of Ethiopians who advocated for her release, held vigils, went to demonstrations and rallies, put her picture high in public places from US to Europe, from New Zealand to South Africa. In his lust for vengeance, that is what Meles Zenawi had masterminded.
What, indeed, happened to Birtukan during those lonely days and nights over the stretch of two long years? What was it that sapped her ability to speak her mind as before? What horrors, physical and psychological, was she subjected to break her sense of self? What cruelly creative methods did her tormentors use to cause all the unspeakable effects of physical torture in ways that wouldn’t leave visible signs on the outside when she steps out of the prison cell and among the Ethiopian people? What toll did complete and total deprivation of information and communication with the outside world, supplanted by constant infusion of government propaganda, exact on her spirit? In his lust for vengeance to punish Birtukan for her act of speaking truth to his power, Meles Zenawi subjected her to the unspeakable and the unthinkable, to coerce her in front of the television camera, and designed such a heart wrenching spectacle to humiliate the millions of supporters of Birtukan by parading her on national television while millions watched the chilling scene in angst.
After all, for these millions and for us all citizens, Birtukan represents the struggle of the Ethiopian people for liberty and justice. She embodied their dreams and aspirations, for all those who watched her, the millions of Ethiopians longing for justice, equality, and liberty. Two years ago, Birtukan stood in defiance of the regime and its unjust demands. In “Qale”, a testament of her moral courage, she was defiant against an oppressive and unjust order of her captors and tormentors. During the nearly two years of languishing in jail she had to endure the torment of a solitary confinement, and so much more by way of physical and mental terror, to exact a heavy toll on her mind and soul, until Birtukan was made to engage in an act of public shame and humiliation.
There should not be a shadow of doubt that this basest of acts, such barbaric and heartless act was done with the calculated agenda of killing the ideals of liberty and justice she championed for the people of Ethiopia; it was done to murder the noble ideals to whose height Ethiopian humanity has aspired to reach; and it was done to stampede over the millions of Ethiopians hungry for freedom, equality and democracy. By desecrating and discrediting the messenger, the embodiment of our aspirations, with her own words in an orchestrated televised interview, those universal values of freedom, liberty and justice are also put to public shame and humiliation.
No lingering doubt should be nagging the mind of any sane citizen. The aim of the cruel drama is clear and loud: Meles declares once again, we can break your leaders; we will make them bow and cow to our will; we can humiliate the pan-Ethiopian identity Birtukan represents. Derivatively, we can, at any given time, take away your self esteem, your dignity and your self-respect as Ethiopians. We can make you shiver with fear; turn you into a sheepish subject that can only function under our will and whim. In her essay on Courage and Resistance, Susan Sontag wrote: “…Courage inspires communities: the courage of an example–for courage is as contagious as fear and fear disperses them…” It was Birtukan’s moral courage that was the target, in an attempt to replace it with fear. Fear of the power of Meles Zenawi’s state, an unjust power. Fear pervading the human individual and society, the Ethiopian people at large, as has happened in the near totalitarian police state of Meles Zenawi’s ethnocentric dictatorship.
Surely, the inhumane acts of public humiliation and forced confessions of course have their precedents where totalitarian dictatorships have reigned. As is well known, during the former regime of Col. Mengistu, under the spell of its Marxist Stalinist ideology, people were forced to conduct the so-called “self criticism”, admitting guilt or an alleged “crime” in public, if not televised, and engage in an imposed self incrimination. It is a practice that has its origins from Joseph Stalin’ s infamous show trials and self-incriminating confessions of Bolshevik leaders, his onetime comrades—Zinoviev, Kamenev, Nikolai Bukharin, “the golden boy” of the Bolsheviks, and many many others. A practice that became the norm on the dark side of the Iron Curtain, whose millions of dissidents found themselves in dungeons in Siberia, known as Gulags. Prisons and solitary confinements that were designed to crush the human spirit in freezing Siberia and other desolate places that also meant to desolate the human soul and break the will. Human spirits whose stories are embodied by such renowned Russian dissidents as Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and Andrei Sakharov. The award for which Birtukan is nominated bears the latter’s name. Brutal dictators of our most recent times including Sadam Hussein of Iraq and Idi Amin Dada of Uganda employed similar practices as well.
Not coincidentally, the regime of Meles Zenawi has its roots in the Stalinist-Albanian brand—an ideology he and his TPLF comrades espoused during their formative years. But even more, the Meles and TPLF Stalinist mode of thinking was born and reared with another quasi ideology — a vehement hatred of Ethiopians and Ethiopiawinet. Such a worldview was at the core of TPLF’s ideological outlooks starting from their early days when it championed its original agenda of the secession of Tigray from Ethiopia and the formation of the Tigray republic. Meles Zenawi and his friends saw the universe and the problems of society through the prism of ethnicity or “nations and nationalities”. Society’s prime contradictions had their basis in the “question of nationalities”. And the prime agenda of its struggle? That of ushering in a society in which “nations and nationalities” are the core organising principle of identity and society. In contrast, the human individual’s sanctity and dignity, liberty as well as moral values that sustain society, values such as self realization, a higher spiritual and attainment and the realization of a truly free being of the human individual, do not figure whatsoever in this worldview.
The ethnocentric driven quasi ideology which Meles Zenawi’s TPLF erected as the edifice of the current Ethiopian state has become the alpha and omega and the standard bearers against which all and sundry policies, activities, and ideas are measured. Of course, sooner rather than later, the hidden agenda behind the official ideology of the state, and the attendant hodgepodge “Revolutionary Democracy,” proved to be a façade to mask ethnic minority domination and the all too pervasive hegemony of the ethnocentric elite of Tigray over the rest of the Ethiopian people. (The term here is used to differentiate the latter from the non-ethnocentric and democratic elite of Tigray). The current reality in Ethiopia reminds one of the proverbial Orwellian dictum found in Animal Farm that “some animals are more equal than the others.”
As argued in the preceding sections, when the cruel sadists chose to savour watching such a sad spectacle of a defenseless woman being paraded on national television, they surely have a dual pronged evil agenda. In the process, the tens of millions of Ethiopians are humiliated too; they are made to feel that they are powerless, and indeed are made to feel the pangs emanating from the mighty power of Meles Zenawi, at the helm of the ethnocentric dictatorship. The purpose is none other than exacting submission, subservience, and fear by the populace. Let us recall what was done to Tamrat Layne. The erstwhile prime minister of the TPLF/EPRDF regime was forced to confess his alleged crime in front of the so-called parliament, and the public watched him, dumfounded, on national television. The rest is a well known story of Meles Zenawi’s one time comrade in arms serving prison for several years on corruption charges.
One is hard pressed to pose the following question. Is it then only a coincidence that the only two high profile cases during the reign of the TPLF/EPRDF regime of Meles Zenawi’s ascent to state power who were made to endure the agony of public humiliation and shame happened to be non-Tigrayans? This line of reasoning and claim is not without a foundation. A glimpse can be offered of the thinking behind Meles Zenawi’s and that of his associates in the TPLF and their stooges in the so-called EPRDF. In the Aftermath of Birtukan’s release, the prime website of the Woyanes in the Diaspora wrote the following about a TPLF cadre known as Amora and in whose honor they produced a film: “Let us hope lessons have been learned here by every one! By now we should all know, after watching the story of Amoraw and others, if there is injustice and repression Ethiopians do know how to fight till the last drop so to speak. Amoraw died because he did not want to blink even when faced with certain death to save his life let alone a warm jail! He fought till death and brought about the current constitution. The constitution must be respected. The Government must be respected for it is the government of the people! And these are the lessons we hope Birtukan and others have learned, that no one is above the law!” So goes the editorial posted on the said Woyane Website. The message of is clear, only the TPLFites can endure pain, torture and death.
Be that as it may, for any one person who has any lingering doubt, what has emerged once again is further proof of the baseness of the characters at the helm of the Ethiopian state: Brutal, cruel, sadistic, and low life scum of the earth. A bunch of cold blooded thugs that have no moral compass whatsoever, as the prominent journalist Eskinder Nega tried in vain to find one. Today, such are the people claiming to rule over the eighty million plus Ethiopians, claiming to be the “government” of Ethiopia worthy of respect, acceptance legitimacy by the citizens of the Ethiopian nation. If there is a single soul who is not utterly outraged at the multiple crimes committed on Birtukan by the Meles Zenawi, it is telling as to the lowest depths we have sunk as Ethiopians. It is also telling of the degradation of our essence as human beings devoid of all moral values–compassion, empathy, forgiveness, respect and empathy for the weak and powerless—which have been the pillars of functioning societies throughout the ages.
We have seen our nation our people subjected to all forms of agonies; we have witnessed in agony piles of skeletons; we have carried heaps of humiliations against our humanity and Ethiopian identity until this very day by the Meles Zenawi’s regime. The people of Ethiopia have no choice but to redouble the resolve to fight and remove this sadist group of criminals from power by all and any means necessary. Let us then resolve and fight until the end to bring about a truly democratic political order, where the dignity and sanctity of human beings and the freedom of the individual are held the paramount values in our ancient land.
One bard stated some time ago: “I believe in aristocracy, though, if that is the right word, and if a democrat may use it. Not an aristocracy of power, based upon rank and influence, but an aristocracy of the sensitive, the considerate and plucky. Its members are to be found in all nations and classes, and all through the ages, there is a secret understanding between them when they meet. They represent the true human tradition, the one permanent victory of our queer race over cruelty and chaos. Thousands of them perish in obscurity, a few are great names. They are sensitive for others as well as for themselves, they are considerate without being fussy, their pluck is not swankiness but the power to endure.”
The power to endure all trials and see the inevitable triumph of humane and just Ethiopia over cruelty, injustice, and dictatorship. No doubt at all, we shall overcome indeed!
Birtukan Mideksa is out of jail. Without exception (not including Woyane thugs) all Ethiopians are pleased. After all we are the reason why she went to jail isn’t it?
I heard about Wz. Birtukan five years ago. She was one of Kinijit’s leaders and associates that were hauled to Kaliti after the 2005 elections. She symbolized Kinijit from jail. Birtukan’s letter from jail was very powerful. Here in Oakland we made a poster quoting a line from her letter “Kinijit is spirit. It is a spirit of freedom – a spirit of love and unity.” It is very uplifting. Dr. Berhanu thru his intellect and Weyzero Birtukan thru her magnetic personality and charisma emerged as the two leaders that took Ethiopia by storm.
Upon their triumphant release the two leaders choose different means to achieve their goal. Although they are taking different routes the destination remains the same, a free and democratic Ethiopia. Judge Birtukan’s determination and tenacity paid off with her successful launch of Andenet Party. Wz. Bertukan is no weakling. It took all of her strength to reconstruct Kinijit. She was harassed, detained, her supporters beaten sometimes hounded out of towns but she stayed the course. There was not any stone they left unturned to frustrate and force her to give up and ‘go home’. She has demonstrated her free spirit when she defied Ato Meles and set his friend Seye Abreha free on bail. They call it judicial independence.
Andenet was her answer to Woyane leaders. She was going to beat them working within their restrictive laws. Bertukan became the talk of the country. Again Ato Meles used illegal means to arrest her. He is above the law of Ethiopia. The law of the land and the Constitution do not apply to the ‘leader’.
Chairman Bertukan was not just thrown in jail. For six months that we know of she was kept in solitary confinement. She was not allowed visitors, the Red Cross, outside medical help or any contact except her guards.
Solitary confinement is torture. It is considered a form of psychological torture. It is illegal and it is a criminal act. It is inhuman. Senator John McCain knows about solitary confinement, here is what he wrote:
“It’s an awful thing, solitary,” John McCain wrote of his five and a half years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam—more than two years of it spent in isolation in a fifteen-by-fifteen-foot cell, unable to communicate with other P.O.W.s except by tap code, secreted notes, or by speaking into an enamel cup pressed against the wall. “It crushes your spirit and weakens your resistance more effectively than any other form of mistreatment.”
Terry Anderson the chief Middle East correspondent for the Associated Press was kidnapped by Hezbollah in Lebanon in 1985. He was released in 1991. In his memoir ‘Den of Lions” he recounts his bitter experience and ‘solitary confinement’ is a bitter chapter he would rather forget. He wrote ‘“The mind is a blank. Jesus, I always thought I was smart. Where are all the things I learned, the books I read, the poems I memorized? There’s nothing there, just a formless, gray-black misery. My mind’s gone dead. God, help me.”
After sharing a cell with other hostages he was thrown into solitary confinement and after a few weeks he recalled in his memoir “I find myself trembling sometimes for no reason,” he wrote. “I’m afraid I’m beginning to lose my mind, to lose control completely.”
Under the guidance and leadership of Ato Meles and his associates Ethiopia has become one of the few places in the world where government sanctioned torture and inhuman punishment is the norm. This is not news to all the western enablers of Ato Meles including the United States, Great Britain, Germany and France. After all the US is training his army and Special Forces while the British trained the police. I don’t mean to leave the Chinese out but you really don’t expect the People’s Republic to be bothered with such trivia as Human Rights. We Ethiopians are perfectly aware of what goes on in ‘Meakelawi’ and in all the Kilil Bantustans but we choose to look the other way. We seem to be willing to substitute the building of a few condominiums and phantom economic growth to loss of liberty and decent to one-man rule.
Guess what the more you tolerate the bully the bolder he gets. Bully’s feed off other peoples discomfort and misery. Our TPLF bosses use bullying to ‘conceal shame or anxiety to boost their self-esteem: by demeaning others, they feel empowered’. What is being played this past week in our country is both sad and shameful. This indecent and inhuman show of power by a government against a solitary human being soiled our nation.
The injustice done against Chairman Birtukan demeaned all of us Ethiopians. It showed how mean and callous we have become. This kind cruelty against a citizen by the state is considered obscene. It is very difficult to understand how a ‘leader’ of eighty million people take personal revenge against an opponent and use state machinery like the courts and public security to break the will of the individual? I felt emptiness in my stomach when I saw our sisters/mother/party leader’s interview prominently displayed at their foreign web sites and broadcasted to the Ethiopian people. It was a slap in the face. All I could do was marvel at the capacity of those producing this unfolding event. .
One is forced to ask why all this display of their ugly side for the whole world to witness?
Is the reward worth the deed? What was the message and was it effective? Did Ato Meles and company gain from the current tragic event they have unveiled? How is it different from the other methods they have used to destroy the lives of past leaders? In today’s Ethiopia TPLF atrocity against citizens has become something of a spectator sport.
Assefa Maru of Ethiopian Teachers Association was gunned down by ‘state security’ while on his way to his office. They did not try to hide it. Dr. Taye Woldesemayat was kept in solitary confinement while being chained like a wild animal and was exiled upon release. Dr Asrat Weldeyes died due to abuse and denial of medical treatment. Dr. Berhanu would have met the same fate if he had set foot back home. Ato Bekele Jarso of Oromo Federalist Party was kept at Kaliti to show him of things to come and quietly chased out of his country. As we witness the release of Bertukan, General Asmenew Tsige is being slowly made to die by his captors. The extent of Woyane terror will be told and humanity will cringe. We Ethiopians will shrug it off. We have become immune to acts of cruelty against each other.
Why do you think Ato Meles and company feel safe and comfortable doing all this atrocity? Do you think we have something to do with it? Did you see Ato Meles and associates celebrating their cherished accomplishment last week? They were happy they got the apology they demanded. They were acting like little kids in a candy store. Look you worthless Ethiopians, we can jail your leader, torture her and make her apologize to the mighty Meles for daring to question his superior mind and intellect! And there is nothing you can do about it. That is what they said. Their actions spoke loud.
Our response was predictable. ‘I told you he will destroy her’, ‘she should have known better’, ‘it is too bad she suffered’, ‘it is nice she is back with her family’ etc. etc. Where is the rage? Where is the response to do something about it so it does not happen again? The fact of the matter is Chairman Bertukan does not want our sympathy. Did it occur to you may be the Chairman was perfectly aware of the danger she was in by challenging the dictator? May be that is what dedication to a cause is all about. The possibility of being hurt or killed is part of the package of challenging a totalitarian state. Leaders like Chairman Bertukan do it not for personal gain or fame but out of a sense of doing the right thing. It is people like the TPLF folks who claim to have fought Derg injustice but turn around and demand payment for their service. Mercenaries, if you ask me. People like Chairman Bertukan require no payment or sympathy from us. They just want us to wake up from our slumber and do the right thing.
We are proud of our sister. The fact that she was able to walk out of Kaliti hellhole intact is a testimony to her strength. The prince of darkness and his associates used the two years to break her will and damage her humanity. They used sleep deprivation, isolation, starvation, physical violence and selective admittance of current bandas like the so-called elders including Ephraim Isaac, Pastor Daniel and other trash to infect her brain with demoralizing stories. It was an all out war orchestrated by the Prime Minister and his associates. Ato Meles was on top things with his periodic report to the rest of us regarding her weight gain and her being ready to sign his confession.
After everything is said and done the only thing left is sadness at the situation our country finds itself. We are being shepherded by shameless characters that have no sense of human decency. The fact they engage in such criminal act for the world to witness and congratulate each other for a job well done is testimonial to their madness. They display the typical characteristics of intolerance, indifference and grandiosity seen in dangerous leaders like Hitler, Saddam or Kim Jung Il.
Chairman Bertukan needs rest. We urge her supporters to give her time to decompress and unwind. She is in a fragile state of mind. She has gone thru a lot of ordeal. We urge her family and supporters to be aware of the people around her. It is our responsibility to shield her from further pain as she slowly recovers. Mental and physical abuse is not a simple matter to be shrugged off. What was done to her by Ato Meles and his security personnel will haunt her for a long time to come. We should avoid demanding from her but rather give her the time to work things out her own way and her own pace.
The best medicine for Chairman Bertukan is to go out of Ethiopia and get peace of mind and professional help. The problem is if she does that Woyane thugs will start the rumors that she abandoned the cause. That is their way of keeping her close to her abusers so they can prolong her agony. And some of us like a wound up doll will repeat Woyane logic and hurl insults at her. It is not farfetched. We saw it happen to Dr. Berhanu. There were plenty that were ‘disappointed’ he did not go back. They are the same folks who praised Bertukan for retuning but went into their hiding place once she was jailed. Do you think Woyane skirt is big enough to hide all these hodam enablers?
Friends of Debero told Channel 2 Action News the {www:circumstance}s of the disappearance seem very odd, and how he was located was more bizarre. “He was found in the bushes without his clothing. We’re hoping detectives on the case are still going to be working,” said Surafel Asmamaw.
