The Meles regime plays China against the U.S. as more U.S. officials express discontent with worsening political crisis in Ethiopia. The news below about Woyanne’s military cooperation with China is Meles Zenawi’s way of telling the U.S. that ‘I do not really need your assistance, I can go to China.’ The Obama Administration must call Woyanne’s bluff and stop all assistance to the despised junta. It will crumble in not time like a house of cards. The U.S. is well served to align itself with the people of Ethiopia, not their tormentor, Meles and his gang of genocidal murderers.
(CriEnglish.com) — Senior Chinese and Ethiopian Woyanne military officials pledged Monday to establish closer relations between the two nation’s armed forces.
The Chinese armed forces attached great importance to relations with the Ethiopian armed forces, said Chen Bingde, chief of the General Staff of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) of China, while meeting with Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces of Ethiopia, Samora Yenus.
Chen hailed the long friendship between the two armed forces, saying the PLA hopes to work with the Ethiopian armed forces to further cement the traditional friendship and expand pragmatic cooperation.
Samora said the two countries are both dedicated to building sustainable and solid bilateral relations based on friendly cooperation.
Ethiopia is satisfied with the friendly cooperative relationship between the two armed forces, he added.
The Ethiopian armed forces hope to foster closer links with the PLA in the new century to benefit both armed forces, Samora said.
The U.N. and United States Department of State are slowly reversing their belligerent and misguided policy on the Government of Eritrea. U.N.’s change of heart is evident in today’s comment by Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who praised Eritrea as working for peace in the region. The U.N. made a grave error last December when it passed a resolution imposing sanction against Eritrea. We all know that Eritrea was targeted because of its moral and political support to Ethiopian freedom fighters. Somalia was used simply as a pretext. The misguided resolution was pushed through the U.N. Security Council by Amb. Susan Rice and other friends of Meles Zenawi at the U.S. Department of State. However, it seems that Zenawi’s 99.6 percent ‘victory’ at last month’s election has embarrassed the State Department. The May 2010 sham election also left Susan Rice and other cheerleaders of the Meles brutal dictatorship with eggs on their faces. Since then the U.S. has been trying to reach out to the Government of Eritrea. A couple of weeks ago, the State Department sent Amb. Donald Yamamoto to Asamra. Indeed it will be wise for the U.S. to revise its policy toward Eritrea if it wants to see lasting peace and stability in the Horn of Africa region. The U.S. State Department officials need to understand that Eritrea’s government is a strong ally of Ethiopian patriotic forces who are striving to bring about an end to Meles Zenawi’s genocidal reign in Ethiopia.
The following is Monday’s news release by the U.N. on Eritrea.
28 June 2010 (UN News Service) – Eritrea deserves credit for its recent constructive engagement with its neighbours and the international community, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon says in a new report in which he urges the country to provide evidence that it is complying with a Security Council resolution that imposed sanctions for the country’s destabilizing activities in Djibouti and Somalia.
“Despite the Government of Eritrea’s long-standing positions on Somalia and Djibouti, it has recently taken a number of steps towards constructive engagement with its neighbours and the wider international community,” Mr. Ban says in a report to the Security Council on Eritrea’s compliance on resolution 1907, issued in January last year.
“While recent developments represent a move in the right direction, I urge the Government of Eritrea to do more to provide evidence of its compliance with resolution 1907 and the practical measures set out in it,” the Secretary-General says.
The resolution imposed an arms embargo on Eritrea and a travel ban and an assets freeze on Eritrean political and military leaders who violated the embargo, provided support to armed opposition groups destabilizing the region or obstructed implementation of a previous Council resolution that demanded that Eritrea withdrawal its troops from Djibouti.
The resolution followed a request by the regional Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) and the African Union (AU) for the Council to take such action.
The positive steps referred to by the Secretary-General include Eritrea’s reception of the Sanctions Committee in Asmara, its participation in the Istanbul Conference on Somalia, and its engagement in regional mediation efforts led by Qatar on Eritrea’s border dispute with Djibouti.
“I am encouraged that Eritrea is now engaging in an effort to arrive at a peaceful resolution to the border conflict and normalize relations with Djibouti,” Mr. Ban writes.
However, he notes that the UN’s ability to verify Eritrea’s compliance with resolution 1907 is very limited, and expresses hope that the new monitoring group on Somalia and Eritrea, which will be established in due course, will provide for independent monitoring and reporting on the implementation of measures imposed by the resolution.
The Secretary-General also welcomes recent reports that indicate that Eritrea is taking measures to restore its representation at the headquarters of the AU and encourages the Horn of Africa country to make a similar effort in re-establishing its membership in IGAD.
“Eritrea’s enhanced engagement with regional organizations and international partners would be an important contribution to strengthening peace and stability in the Horn of Africa,” he adds.
He says that long-term peace and stability in the region require a comprehensive approach to address the interlinked conflicts.
Alemayehu G. Mariam
Note: This is my fourth commentary on the theme, “Where do we go from here?” following the rigged elections in Ethiopia last month in which the ruling dictatorship won by 99.6 percent[1]. In this piece, I express deep anguish over the enormous problems and challenges faced by Ethiopia’s youth, and urge them to emancipate their minds and work collectively to build the “future country of Ethiopia” that Birtukan Midekssa, Ethiopia’s foremost political prisoner and first woman political party leader in Ethiopian history, dreamed about.
Own the Youth, Gain the Future
In 1935, Adolf Hitler delivered a speech at the Reichsparteitag (national party convention) in which he declared, “He alone, who owns the youth, gains the future.” By impregnating German youth with Nazi ideology and unleashing them on the world, Hitler believed he could perpetuate the Third Reich for a thousand years. Creating an indoctrinated and brainwashed youth is the impossible dream of all dictators and tyrannical regimes. The Soviets created the Young Pioneers and Komsomols to integrate youth into the party structure and tighten their control over the population. In China, Mao’s anchored his theory of “permanent revolution” in the mass mobilization of youth; and in the late 1960s he formed the Red Guards to implement his Cultural Revolution.
During the 17 years of military dictatorship in Ethiopia following the overthrow of the imperial regime in 1975, much effort was done to convert the country’s youth to become supporters of the junta and its socialist revolution. That courtship ended in a so-called Red Terror campaign in which tens of thousands of young people were hunted down in the streets and in their homes and arrested or killed by junta cadres. In a monstrous act that will remain in infamy in the history of mankind, junta leader Mengistu Hailemariam forced the parents of Red Terror victims to pay for the bullets used to murder their children.
Today, the dictatorship of Meles Zenawi is busily implementing a master plan to “own” Ethiopia’s youth in a futile attempt to perpetuate itself for a thousand years. Zenawi’s strategy is straightforward. Force the best and the brightest of Ethiopia’s youth to make a Hobson’s choice: Become loyal party members or you will not have access to jobs, education, health care or social welfare programs. It is a simple Faustian bargain. The youth have the option of getting education, jobs, wealth, political power and social privileges in exchange for selling their souls and joining the party. Those who will not take the deal will be left to twist slowly in the wind. The political pressure on Ethiopia’s youth to join the ruling party is so staggering that young people who are not members or supporters of the dictatorship are routinely denied “support letters” from their kebeles (local districts) necessary to get public employment and other social benefits. To squeeze new college graduates into joining the party, the dictatorship has a “new scheme” in place: “Students graduating in the year 2008-2009 from all governmental higher learning institutions have been prohibited from collecting their academic credentials including the student copy until they find jobs which enable them to refund the cost sharing expenses utilized at the universities.”[2] This policy is inapplicable to members and supporters of dictatorship’s party.
Only Slaves Can Be Owned
“Owning” the youth of a nation remains the Holy Grail of every tin pot dictator and tyrant from Albania to Zimbabwe. The concept of “ownership” of youth evokes the imagery of slaves and masters. The slave’s sole purpose in life is to serve the master. Slaves work exclusively for the benefit of their masters, and receive nothing in return. Slaves always work involuntarily and do so because they are fearful of the painful sting of their overseer’s whip. The history of slavery also shows that the master can only own the body of the slave and rarely the slave’s mind. But the master’s ultimate aim is to enslave and cripple the mind of the slave by making the slave feel totally dependent on the master and imposing an overwhelming sense of fear, powerlessness, hopelessness and despair in the slave.
Own-a-Youth or Rent-a-Youth?
In his “victory” speech celebrating his 99.6 percent win in last month’s “election”, Zenawi offered hollow gratitude to Ethiopia’s youth: “We are also proud of the youth of our country who have started to benefit from the ongoing development and also those who are in the process of applying efforts to be productively employed! We offer our thanks and salute the youth of Ethiopia for their unwavering support and enthusiasm!” Given the grim statistics on Ethiopia’s youth and children (below), it is not clear what “ongoing development” Zenawi is talking about.
Nonetheless, Zenawi’s message at the Third Annual Youth Conference in November 2009 provides some insights into his overall strategy to “own” (more appropriately “rent”) Ethiopia’s youth. Before a stage-managed hall full of young people sitting in numbed silence wearing party-issued baseball caps, purportedly representing Ethiopia’s youth, Zenawi laid out his over all youth strategy based on engagement of youth into his party structure. In sketching out his plan for “leadership succession” incorporating youth, Zenawi said that his party for the preceding three to four years had been engaged in preparing youth for political leadership by undertaking “broad recruitment, broad training and broad placement” efforts. His party has placed “no less than 30,000” youths in leadership positions at the local, district and even regional levels. Youth leaders that have shown potential for higher leadership positions will be “tried and tested” and elevated. The “main thing”, Zenawi said is to get youth — large numbers of them — enlisted in the party. In response to carefully crafted questions read out by apparently pre-selected youth, Zenawi assured the overwhelmingly male youth crowd that they have a much better chance of electoral participation than ever before, and have an “irreplaceable role” to play in ensuring “free and fair election” in the May 2010 “election”. He advised repeatedly to closely work with and report issues and problematic persons to the “authorities”.
The manifest aim of this youth strategy is to recruit and unleash hundreds of thousands of well-trained, loyal, bought-off robotic army of youths that will carry out the party’s programs, follow orders and serve as “shock brigades” in the implementation of party policies and Zenawi’s will. In time, the thirty thousand youths would proliferate to hordes of 3 million; and that way, the youth can be owned and the future gained. But the history of the 20th Century shows that many dictatorships have tried and failed in their efforts to recruit and enlist an army of brainwashed youths who could be cloned as successive generations of “True Believers” for the party.
Ethiopia’s Youth at Risk
In discussing Ethiopia’s youth here, I am not employing the standard quantitative age category of 15-24 years. In the context of the African economic realities, a broader swath of the age group under 30 is warranted. Article 36 of the Ethiopian Constitution enumerates a whole set of guarantees to ensure the health, education and welfare of the country’s children and youth. But the statistics on Ethiopia’s children in general is shocking. Though the population under the age of 18 is estimated to be 41 million or just over half of the country’s population, UNICEF estimates that malnutrition is responsible for more than half of all deaths among children under age five[2]. Ethiopia has an estimated 5 million orphans or approximately 15 per cent of all children. Some 800,000 children are estimated to be orphaned as a result of AIDS. These children are highly vulnerable to all forms of exploitation, including child labor and sexual, and receive little educational services, social support or supervision. Urban youth unemployment is estimated at 70 per cent. According to a Population Council report[3] “the vast majority of Ethiopian adolescents, 85 percent, live in rural areas. Levels of education are very low, especially for girls and for rural youth. A substantial proportion of adolescents do not live with their parents, especially in urban areas, where 33 percent of Ethiopian girls aged 10–14 live with neither parent. Some regions have extremely high rates of early marriage. For example, 46 percent of girls in the Amhara region were married by age 15.” There are also about 2.5 million children with disabilities receiving very little government assistance. Frustrated and in despair of their future, many urban youths drop out of school and engage in a fatalistic pattern of risky behaviors including drug, alcohol and tobacco abuse, crime and delinquency and sexual activity which exposes them to a risk of acquiring sexually transmitted diseases including HIV. There is a serious problem of child trafficking and highly publicized instances of adoption fraud and abuse cases have been documented in the international media in the past year.
Ethiopia’s Youth as Ticking Bomb
The wretched conditions of Ethiopia’s youth point to the fact that they are a ticking demographic time bomb. The evidence of youth frustration, discontent, disillusionment and discouragement by the protracted economic crisis, lack of economic opportunities and political repression is manifest, overwhelming and irrefutable. The yearning of youth for freedom and change is self-evident. The only question is whether the country’s youth will seek change through increased militancy or by other peaceful means. On the other hand, many thousands gripped by despair and hopelessness and convinced they have no future in Ethiopia continue to vote with their feet. Today, young Ethiopian refugees can be found in large numbers from South Africa to North America and the Middle East to the Far East.
The dictatorship in Ethiopia hopes to neutralize the youth by “buying” (renting) the “best and the brightest” to serve them. But they also see the writing on the wall clearly. When youth experiencing such high levels of frustration represent such a high percentage of the total population, the implications for a small repressive dictatorship without any broad societal support or acceptance are plain. The critical questions are: Will the frustration, hopelessness and despair push the youth to take a path away from peaceful change? Will the hand-selected and well-trained cadre of rent-a-youth be able to provide a buffer between the masses of locked-out youth and the dictators or demand change? Does the dictatorship really “own” the youth cadres, or merely “renting” them by offering them lavish rewards and incentives? The answers to these questions appear plain to the reasonable mind.
What Can Be Done?
Given the enormity of the problems facing Ethiopia’s children and youth, there are no easy answers or solutions. But the real and lasting solutions to the problems of youth will not come from self-serving cynical dictators, party hacks, academics or self-indulgent intellectuals. The search for solutions must begin with the youth themselves.
Ethiopia’s Youth Must Be Seen, Heard and Engaged
As I have observed and studied Ethiopian politics, it seems that the old adage holds true: “Children should be seen and not heard.” Though young people represent a significant segment of the Ethiopian population, they are marginalized and largely ignored in the governance process. A study of Zenawi’s speech and exchange with the youth “leaders” at the Third Annual Youth Conference provides an object lesson in how political leaders of all stripes have dealt with the youth in a condescending and patronizing manner. At that conference, Zenawi did not solicit the views of the youth “leaders”, he lectured them like school children. He did not allow them to interact with him freely, rather designated individuals asked specific written questions in apparent trepidation. It was obvious that they were not even allowed to improvise in asking questions or follow up with additional questions. The stage management of the questioners was so mechanical and robotic that the observer could easily tell that the youth asking the questions did not formulate the questions themselves. The very nature of the questions points to the fact that they were planted. One would reasonably expect a youth conference representing the interests of all of Ethiopia’s youth to focus largely on matters that have direct relevance to youth. It seems odd that such a conference should devote so much attention and time to questions of leadership succession, party organization of youth and placement of youth in local, state and national offices. The point is that all young Ethiopians, regardless of their party affiliation or ideology, should be encouraged to be actively engaged in the political process, become civically engaged, take volunteer and formal leadership roles in their communities and become active participants in the governance process.
We Must Listen to the Youth
It is necessary to listen to and understand the views and perspectives of Ethiopia’s youth on the issues and problems vital to them. They should not be marginalized in the discussions and debates. The older generation is always quick to tell the youth what to do and not do. We lecture them when we are not ignoring them. But rarely do we show them the respect they deserve. We tend to underestimate the intelligence of youth and overestimate our abilities and craftiness to manipulate and use them for our own cynical ends or in our political struggles with our adversaries. How many of us in the older generation have made the effort to interact with young people regularly and tried to understand their pain, despair, hopelessness? How many of us have taken the time to talk to small groups of them to find out the issues that are most important to them and what they desire in the future? How many of us in the older generation truly believe that the youth own the future and we do not own them?
Let’s Help Develop Youth Leadership and Inspire Them
One of the major problems of Ethiopia’s youth is that the older generation refuses to get out of the way. At the Third Youth Conference, Zenawi used an interesting analogy involving a “traffic jam” to describe his sense of the intergenerational leadership succession. He said it was necessary to create an orderly succession in the transfer of power from one generation to another in the same way as traffic on the highway should flow “smoothly” and in an “orderly process.” It is ironic that he does not see himself as the principal cause of the 20-year total traffic jam on the Ethiopian political freeway, but his analogy is instructive. Speaking particularly to the older generation opposition, we need to realize that we are cluttering and congesting the political highway with our old clunkers and jalopies. We need to graciously accept the fact that we need to get off the highway so that the youth driving their turbocharged cars can zoom to their destinations. The point is that the older generation can be most helpful by providing guidance and advice to the youth instead of getting on the highway and blocking the flow of traffic. Leadership is not limited to the political realm. Youth can be engaged in activism on community, environmental and human rights issues; they can participate in volunteer community service and take leadership roles in civic and cultural institutions. We can help enlighten, inspire and empower the youth. The basic challenge is not only to engage the youth in governance but also in preparing them to take diverse leadership in the future. Those in the opposition should seriously consider drafting a formal youth agenda with the significant input of youth addressing the wide range of problems and issues.
Link Diaspora Youth with Youth in Ethiopia
There is a big disconnect and a huge gulf that exists between young Ethiopians in the Diaspora and those in Ethiopia. That is partly a function of geography, but also class. It needs to be bridged. Youth in the Diaspora are in the best position to create linkages with their counterparts in Ethiopia using cyber-technology. Many young Ethiopians born in the West are often heard complaining and expressing concern over the enormous problems faced by young people in Ethiopia. Diaspora youth endowed with higher education and resources can use their creativity to create networks and linkages to help their counterparts in Ethiopia.
My Humble Message to Ethiopia’s Youth
I have no magic formula for any of the problems faced by Ethiopia’s youth. My humble message to all young Ethiopians is simple. Never give up. Never! Emancipate your minds from mental slavery. Develop your creative powers. Learn and teach each other. Unite as the children of Mother Ethiopia, and reject any ideology or effort that seeks to divide you on the basis of ethnicity, language, region or class. Study and acquire knowledge not only about the arts and sciences but also your legal, constitutional and human rights. It is easier for tyrants and dictators to rob you of your rights when you are ignorant and fearful. It has been said that “ignorance has always been the most powerful weapon of tyrants; enlightenment the salvation of the free.” Jamming the airwaves to keep information from reaching the youth and the larger population and maintaining a pall of darkness over society is the weapon of tyrants. Blocking access to the internet, banning the free press and exiling independent journalists are all weapons in the arsenal of tyrants who fear the truth and despair over their rendezvous with the dustbin of history.
President Obama was absolutely right when he said, “We’ve learned that it will not be giants like Nkrumah and Kenyatta who will determine Africa’s future. It will be the young people brimming with talent and energy and hope who can claim the future that so many in previous generations never realized.” The destiny of “the future country of Ethiopia” is in not in the clenched fists of dictators but in the palms of the likes of Birtukan Midekssa and all the youth like her yearning to breath free. Ethiopia’s youth owes a lot to Birtukan. She is in prison for life not only because she stood up for her rights; but most importantly because she wants her generation of young people and posterity to live free in the “future country of Ethiopia” that she often dreamed about. If the dictators do not own the youth, they can not own the future!
Alemayehu G. Mariam is a professor of political science at California State University, San Bernardino, and an attorney based in Los Angeles. He writes a regular blog on The Huffington Post, and his commentaries appear regularly on pambazuka.org, allafrica.com, afronline.org and other sites.
[1] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alemayehu-g-mariam/
[2] http://www.abugidainfo.com/?p=10670
[3] http://www.popcouncil.org/pdfs/TABriefs/PGY_Brief06_Ethiopia.pdf
An Indian journal, The Hindu Business Line, is reporting that the ruling junta in Ethiopia is renting fertile Ethiopian land for $1 per acre in a form of long-term lease to foreign corporations, while starving the people of Ethiopia through its misguided and corrupt farm policies. Read below:
Ethiopia is offering one acre of land on annual lease for just $1 for 100 years. “We can grow pulses there and bring it back to the country,” Dr S. Ayyappan, Director-General of ICAR, said.
The ICAR (Indian Council of Agricultural Research) has said that Africa promises gold for agricultural entrepreneurs, scientists and academics.
He called upon academicians and entrepreneurs to look at the opportunity seriously. He also mooted the idea of sending teams comprising retired professors and scientists and entrepreneurs to explore the opportunity.
“You may not believe that some countries in the African continent are offering land for very cheap rentals. We can take advantage of this,” he said.
Dr Ayyappan was speaking at the Acharya N.G. Ranga Agricultural University (ANGRAU) which hosted the two-day conference of Deans of Agricultural Universities from across the country.
He asked the Deans to encourage entrepreneurs to tap such opportunities.
”]
Ethiopians suspected to be victims of a human trafficking racket, were discovered on Wednesday at a bungalow on the outskirts of Nairobi.
The 41 men were found in a secluded house about three kilometres from Ngong Town. The quiet compound had no sign of life except for the caretaker, who could barely speak English or Kiswahili said: “Nobody here, nobody no English no Swahili.”
However, he opened the gate and letting the journalists into the house. At first he was certain he had succeeded in misleading the journalists until the reporters peeped through the windows and saw the men lying on the floor heaped on each other.
There were more than 100 plates and cups in the kitchen which is at the entrance and two big charcoal stoves stood there, evidently showing they were recently used for cooking.
Watched in horror
The room in which they were crammed together, also served as the entertainment hall for the young men who were visibly weak and distraught. At one end of the room is a TV set and a DVD player.
A few scattered compact discs were strewn all over the place as they watched in horror as journalists took pictures. Some of their colleagues were fast asleep and did not even wake during the entire time.
The caretaker who gave his name as Bastin Yahanis said that he was expecting a vehicle that normally brings food from Ngong Town. He gave the a phone number of the man he claims is his boss who operates in Eastleigh area.
The boss, a Mr Dahir who talked to the journalists on phone said he would come to the house. But an hour later, he said he was at Karen and will not come after all.
“Go put the information in the media – all newspapers and television and radio stations… after all am helping them,” said Mr Dahir and then switched off his phone.
— Daily Nation
By Yilma Bekele
Foreign policy magazine had an article by Professor George Ayittey titled “The worst of the worst-bad dude dictators and general coconut heads.” As an Ethiopian I was sold by the title. I knew I was in familiar territory. That is one category we can claim ownership. There are a few human experiences that are sort of associated with our country. It is like when you mention marathon or distance running the first thing that comes to mind is mother Ethiopia and her barefoot runners. That is good. On the other hand say famine or starvation the face presented is that of an Ethiopian. That is bad.
Thus I was sure that Professor Ayittey’s article was such a place where our country will outshine the competition. Yes sir, we will make them eat dust. Gentlemen rev your engines here comes the most important list. This special list contains 23 autocrats that control 1.9 billion people. Here is how he started his article:
I call these revolutionaries-turned-tyrants “crocodile liberators,” joining the ranks of other fine specimens: the Swiss bank socialists who force the people to pay for economic losses while stashing personal gains abroad, the quack revolutionaries who betray the ideals that brought them to power, and the briefcase bandits who simply pillage and steal. Here’s my list of the world’s worst dictators. I have ranked them based on ignoble qualities of perfidy, cultural betrayal, and economic devastation. If this account of their evils makes you cringe, just imagine living under their rule.
That is just page one. So I shout hurry up with the list and turn the page over. Number one is Kim Jung IL of North Korea. It is ok no surprise here. Kim Jung is a formidable tyrant with some sort of crude Nuclear weapon by his bedside. Guess who comes next. Freaking Mugabe, that is who. I was a little disappointed but continued turning the page. The picture was that of General Than Shwe of Burma. He looks like some character from Disney with all the self- awarded medals covering half his chest. No mention of us. Next is none other than our neighbor General Al Bashir of Sudan.
Well you should see my disappointment. Why do you do this to me Professor, I plead. Are you trying to take the only thing we got going for us? The professor is very cruel. He ranked some dentist turned tyrant from Turkmenistan as number six, followed by our neighbor from the north Isaiyas Afworki, coming at number eight is a ‘ruthless thug’ from Uzbekistan, and Ahmadinejad of Iran taking the number nine spot. Our dear leader for life, architect of 99.6% victory Prime Minister Meles is ranked number ten.
To say I was furious is an under statement. I was crushed. I Googled Professor George B.N. Ayittey’s name. I wanted to know what beef he got with mother Ethiopia. What is going on here? What kind of joke is the professor playing on us? I can understand number three, may be number four but number ten seems a little harsh to me.
This does not bode well to either the Prime Minister or his TPLF cadres. They have been sharpening their craft for the last twenty-five years and all they got to show for it is lousy number ten ranking? I do believe the Professor is trying to make them the laughing stock of the country if not the neighborhood. Have you ever heard of respect for number ten?
As a self-respecting loyal subject of number ten I fired off an email to the good professor. I told him in no uncertain terms that we take offense to that. I understand we might not brandish Nuclear weapons like ‘Dear Leader’ Kim but we make it up with other cowardly acts. Just take the ranking of those crude Generals from Burma as number two. What do they got that we don’t have? For starters they have the Nobel Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi but we got Bertukan Mediksa. That is a wash. On the other hand while Aung San Suu Kyi is under a house arrest, Judge Bertukan is in solitary confinement at the rat infested Kaliti Prison. Surely number ten gets extra points for that.
Number ten has sacrificed over eighty thousand subjects in the Eritrean war with another ten thousand or more in Somalia and various other conflicts, can the Burmese tyrants equal that? They don’t even have the balls to start a war with their neighbors. Give me a break professor. The lower ranking of Mugabe and Al Bashir is further insult that should not go un noticed. When it comes to terrorizing ones own population they can’t even hold a candle to number ten. We are talking about targeted shooting of unarmed peaceful demonstrators in broad daylight, imprisonment of over forty thousand suspected opposition sympathizers and incarceration of the entire opposition party leaders. None of the two tin pot dictators can boast of such a feat. A few unorganized acts of terror here and there but I doubt they have a well-equipped Agazi force at their disposal.
I am really surprised that of all the glorious achievements by number ten the Professor saw fit to mention the following:
Worse than the former Marxist dictator he ousted nearly two decades ago, Zenawi has clamped down on the opposition, stifled all dissent, and rigged elections. Like a true Marxist revolutionary, Zenawi has stashed millions in foreign banks and acquired mansions in Maryland and London in his wife’s name, according to the opposition
I tend to disagree. I would like to think murder and genocide will out rank simple thievery in the scheme of criminal acts. I also think those properties are a ruse to camouflage the real location of the retirement venue. As you know both countries have no qualms regarding shipping former tyrants to The Hague, thus I would think number ten is aiming for either Shanghai or Pyongyang.
Further more do you see any of the other contestants at the G20 meeting anywhere? No sir, it is number ten that shows up consistently. The fact that he has noting of value to contribute hasn’t stopped him from hobnobbing with elected leaders. It is not lost on the organizers that number ten’s presence gives vibrancy to a boring and uneventful gathering. It is also true that the organizers reserve a special section for the Ethiopian Diaspora to vent out while forcing number ten to crawl down in the back seat. Master Card is doing a commercial based on this true story. According to reliable sources the ad campaign goes like this:
Plane ticket to Toronto- $1500.00
First class Hotel- $2000.00/night
Limousine rental $500.00/day
The look on number ten hiding in his limo driving by angry Ethiopians: priceless.
There is some things money can’t buy, for everything else there is MasterCard!
In the name of fairness and decency we ask Professor Ayittey to revise his list and restore our well-deserved ranking. Number ten is getting ready to take the oath of office after the grueling campaign and we hope this ranking will not deter the Mugabes, Al Bashirs and other highly rated misfits from skipping the ceremony. Some are claiming that the lower ranking is a conspiracy by Ethiopian haters to discredit numbers ten’s glorious achievement, but I wouldn’t go that far. I urge the Professor to reconsider. You can read his article by clicking at the following site. http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/06/21/the_worst_of_the_worst?page=0,0
