Ethiopia’s tribal dictator Meles Zenawi and his Woyanne junta (the ruling party) have come up with a new gimmick trying to appear to be interested in what the people of Ethiopia have to say ahead of next month’s fake election. The people of Ethiopia, however, have already spoken five years ago at the May 2005 elections.
Woyanne has provided this following phone numbers and email address for the public to send questions and opinions to the genocidal murderer. The EPRDF (Woyanne) office issued a press release today with this contact info:
Opposition to Gilgel Gibe 3 hydro power dam in southern Ethiopia grows as environmentalists express concern about damage to the ecosystem and the impact on the lives of tens of thousands of people.
Epstein argues that the main cause of fertile southern Ethiopia’s chronic food shortages—the so-called “green famine” —is Ethiopia’s toxic and repressive political system, presided over since 1991 by Meles Zenawi. While Meles placates donors and Western governments with speeches about fighting poverty and terrorism, he has committed gross human rights violations at home, rigged elections, killed political opponents, and imprisoned journalists and human rights activists. Epstein on Meles’ doublespeak:
There is a type of Ethiopian poetry known as “Wax and Gold” because it has two meanings: a superficial “wax” meaning, and a hidden “golden” one. During the 1960s, the anthropologist Donald Levine described how the popularity of “Wax and Gold” poetry provided insights into some of the northern Ethiopian societies from which Prime Minister Meles would later emerge…. “Wax and Gold”–style communication might give Ethiopians like Meles an advantage in dealing with Westerners, especially when the Westerners were aid officials offering vast sums of money to follow a course of development based on liberal democracy and human rights, with which they disagree.
Several Western donors responded to Meles’ more blatant repression by channeling aid directly to local authorities, cutting out the central government. We have argued before that this strategy doesn’t work when there is evidence—which Epstein provides more of—that local government officials are instrumental in election-fixing and using aid to award political supporters and punish dissidents. Now, donors can no longer even support Ethiopian civil society to oppose these human rights violations, since Meles’ government recently passed a law that makes it illegal for civil society organizations to accept foreign funds.
Epstein concludes powerfully:
In 2007, Meles called for an “Ethiopian renaissance” to bring the country out of medieval poverty, but the Renaissance he’s thinking of seems very different from ours. The Western Renaissance was partly fostered by the openness to new ideas created by improved transport and trade networks, mail services, printing technology, and communications—precisely those things Meles is attempting to restrict and control.
The Western Renaissance helped to democratize “the word” so that all of us could speak of our own individual struggles, and this added new meaning and urgency to the alleviation of the suffering of others. The problem with foreign aid in Ethiopia is that both the Ethiopian government and its donors see the people of this country not as individuals with distinct needs, talents, and rights but as an undifferentiated mass, to be mobilized, decentralized, vaccinated, given primary education and pit latrines, and freed from the legacy of feudalism, imperialism, and backwardness. It is this rigid focus on the “backward masses,” rather than the unique human person, that typically justifies appalling cruelty in the name of social progress.
(TMCnet.com) — Ethiopia has the lowest overall teledensity in Africa. The population is approaching 90 million, but there are less than 1 million fixed lines in service, and a little more than 3.3 million mobile subscribers. The number of internet users is dismal below 500,000 at the end of 2009. Communications service provision is reserved for the Ethiopian Telecommunications Corporation (ETC), one of the few monopoly providers left on the African continent.
There are indications that the Ethiopian government will finally start to liberalise the telecommunications sector, and it has already appointed a French partner on a revenue sharing basis to assist with the management and technical operations of the incumbent ETC. Liberalisation will create a substantial set of investment opportunities in the ICT sector. It is expected that the liberalisation agenda will include allowing competition into the mobile segment. Key uncertainties are the timing and scale of liberalisation that will take place, but it is widely recognised that before the country sees any of the benefits of widespread communications access, it will need to allow the private sector to take a prominent role in developing the market.
By 2014 the number of fixed line subscribers in Ethiopia is expected to increase to 4.4 million, representing an annual average growth rate of 38% p.a. The number of mobile subscribers is expected to grow at 43% per year over the period, reaching almost 20 million by 2014. Even at these high growth levels the overall teledensity will be less than 25% in 2014, indicating that the market will be nowhere near saturation. The number of internet users will jump to 12 million, but internet subscribers will still be low at 1.4 million at the end of 2014. Ethiopia presents an opportunity for investors to reap vast returns as the liberalisation agenda gets underway.
In this report we provide a comprehensive analysis of prospects for investment in ICTs in Ethiopia. Forecasts are provided for mobile, fixed and internet usage. Investment opportunities are identified.
Executive Summary: The Ethiopian telecommunications liberalization agenda sets framework for growth and investment The telecommunications market in Ethiopia is on the verge of massive growth, leading to a wide range of investment opportunities in telecommunications and downstream information and communications technology (ICT) segments, according to a new study published by Technology Strategies International in partnership with BroadGroup TMT Ventures. The report, titled Investment Opportunities in the ICT Sector in Ethiopia: 2010, predicts that by 2011 the state-owned incumbent, the Ethiopian Telecommunications Corporation (ETC) will have a privatisation timetable in place, and that liberalisation of the mobile market will take place shortly after that.
The Ethiopian Government recognizes that the country is being left behind in terms of digital inclusion, and urgently needs to address this if it wants to reap the benefits that other African countries have demonstrated from embracing ICTs, notes Christie Christelis, President of Technology Strategies International. It may also become an important political issue in the next elections.
While the Ethiopian Government is on record saying that it will not hasten the liberalization process, and will not succumb to pressure from the international community to liberalize its banking and telecommunications sectors in order to accede to the WTO, Christelis believes that there is neither any reason for, nor any benefit from delaying the process further.
Liberalization of the telecommunications environment will create a raft of ICT investment opportunities in Ethiopia, Christelis says. The Chinese have already recognized the potential of Ethiopia and are building an electronics manufacturing facility to address the high growth expected in demand for handsets and accessories. They are also providing supplier financing in certain telecommunications investments in order to address the shortage of domestic capital.
The report predicts that over the next five years the number of mobile subscribers in Ethiopia will grow at an annual rate of 43% (CAGR), to reach almost 20 million subscribers by 2014.
Christelis says that Ethiopia will provide a range of excellent investment opportunities for foreign investors interested in the ICT sector, but warns that the window will not be open indefinitely. He predicts that the next four years will be critical in shaping the Ethiopian ICT sectors future and will provide high return opportunities for foreign investors that have the risk tolerance, and ability, to capitalize on the coming surge in ICT-related markets.
The 37 page report provides a comprehensive review, analysis and forecast of investment opportunities in the ICT sector in Ethiopia. It analyses the investment environment in Ethiopia and in identifies key providers of capital. It highlights growth segments in the Ethiopian telecommunications market in the context of important developments in the economy and in the political environment. Detailed forecasts are presented for fixed line communications, mobile communications and internet usage. Specific investment opportunities are identified and categorized in terms of scale of investment.
The Gibe 3 Dam and Ethiopia’s coming elections have something powerful in common: the silencing of dissent at any cost. Ethiopia’s government has systematically developed a culture of fear that silences any dissent of the ruling party and its policies. In villages, people fear what they say or do could be reported to officials by their neighbors.
As Gibe 3 Dam is a priority project of Prime Minister Zenawi’s government, anyone seen to be critical of the dam – including project-affected people asserting their legal rights – is seen as an enemy. Up to 63 local associations in South Omo Zone have been suspended, pre-emptively shutting down forums for discussing local issues. The government has denied licenses for community radio stations, and two-way radios are considered contraband. One Ethiopian was arrested for unknowingly wearing a Gibe 3 protest shirt borrowed from a cousin across the Kenyan border. Worse, a translator was reportedly arrested for treason after helping independent researchers communicate with affected communities. Other translators have been harassed and intimidated, helping drive the government’s greatest silencing tool: its culture of fear.
One month from today, Ethiopia will hold its first national elections since 2005, when hundreds of protestors and opposition leaders were beaten, thrown in jail and killed. Several opposition leaders are still in jail, including Birtukan Mideksa, one of Africa’s most notable political prisoners. She was pardoned in 2007 but re-arrested and returned to prison in 2008. Her health is suffering immensely and she has been denied access to medical personnel.
Last September, the International Crisis Group predicted a violent crackdown in the run-up to next month’s elections. Sadly, the crackdown seems to be swinging into full force. In March, Aregawi Gebre Yohannes, an opposition candidate, was stabbed to death in what was believed to be a political murder. Earlier this month, another opposition activist, Biyansa Daba, died a week after being brutally attacked at home.
Any skeptic of Zenawi’s silencing methods should read Human Rights Watch‘s new report, “One Hundred Ways of Putting Pressure: Violations of Freedom of Expression and Association in Ethiopia.” The report documents how the ruling party has used its near-total control of local and district administrations to undermine opponents’ livelihoods through withholding services such as agricultural inputs, micro-credit, and job opportunities. New legal restrictions limit the ability of independent Ethiopian groups to monitor the elections; to date, only government-affiliated organisations have been licensed. A recent electoral code of conduct for the media forbids interviewing voters, candidates and officials on Election Day, while observers are barred from making any statements until election results are announced.
The ruling party is also shutting down the media. Ethiopia’s most prominent independent weekly, Addis Neger, shut down in December 2009 after several editors feared arrest and fled the country. Last month, the US State Department criticized Zenawi’s government after it admitted to jamming Voice of America’s broadcasts. VOA officials say their Amharic broadcasts were also jammed in 2005 and 2008 around elections.
Gibe 3 Dam and the election have something else in common: donors who may overlook Ethiopia’s fear factor unless we make enough noise. The International Crisis Group believes that the international community should take Ethiopia’s governance problems much more seriously and that donors must convince Ethiopia to improve current standards of governance and promote democratic reform or risk destabilisation in the Horn of Africa. International Rivers believes that donors must also withhold funds from Gibe 3 Dam. Real development does not come at the cost of human rights and the silencing of dissent.
* Watch the media for coverage of the runup to Ethiopia’s May 23 elections and the government crackdown on dissent. Tell your government officials to withhold support of this repressive regime.
(Since joining International Rivers in 2004, Terri Hathaway has visited dam-affected communities and NGOs in Cameroon, DR Congo, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Nigeria, South Africa, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe. She lives in Yaounde, Cameroon.)
KNOXVILLE, Tennessee (AP) — Police say a gunman who opened fire outside a Tennessee hospital was mentally ill and thought a monitoring device had been implanted in him during an appendectomy in 2001.
Knoxville Police Chief Sterling Owen IV identified the gunman as Abdo Ibssa, a naturalized citizen from Ethiopia. The gunman shot three hospital workers, killing one, before killing himself.
Owen said Ibssa first entered a medical tower near Parkwest Medical Center and asked for the doctor who performed the appendectomy. He then went to another area where patients are discharged and opened fire.
Owen said a note alleging the doctor implanted a chip was found in Ibssa’s apartment after the attack. Owen said Ibssa’s family had him committed for mental treatment in February.
UPDATE:
KNOXVILLE(AP) — A gunman who opened fire outside a Tennessee hospital seemed focused on the sprawling medical complex, directing his cab to stop first at an adjacent tower before he went to another entrance where he killed one medical worker and wounded two others, a taxi driver said.
Police haven’t said whether the gunman had a connection to the Parkwest Medical Center, where he shot the three women before killing himself. The women were current or former workers at the hospital, police said.
Cab driver Freddys Sakhleh said he picked up the gunman outside an apartment complex, and the man told him he wanted to go to the western side of Knoxville. They stopped at an ATM, where the suspect withdrew $20 before telling Sakhleh to take him to the medical center complex.
Sakhleh said the man seemed angry and depressed and said little about himself, only that he was from Atlanta.
Police, who planned an afternoon news conference, haven’t yet released the gunman’s name or any motive for the attack.
Sakhleh said he was directed to take the man to the medical center tower and told to wait for him to come back. When his passenger returned, Sakhleh said, he told the driver to take him to the hospital entrance.
Sakhleh said the man then got out of the cab, handed him $20 and told him to wait five minutes. He returned, grabbed a gun from his waist and started shooting, first to the right and then to the left.
“I called 911, and I said, ‘Please send some people here, this man is shooting like crazy,'” Sakhleh said. He said the gunman then shot himself in the head.
“All of this happened in a matter of seconds,” the driver said.
The shooting happened Monday outside the discharge area at Parkwest Medical Center, Knoxville Police Chief Sterling Owen IV said. Police said they had found no connection between any of the women shot and the man, who has not been named.
Police spokesman Darrell DeBusk said investigators don’t think the suspect ever worked at the hospital.
Photographs of the discharge area, where vehicles can pick up patients, showed a man’s body lying face down, surrounded by police. Yellow crime tape was stretched around the area and police took photographs inside of the van taxi.
The two women who survived the shooting were taken to the trauma center at the University of Tennessee Medical Center. Spokeswoman Karen Bultman said Tuesday morning the women were in stable condition.
The women’s families issued statements expressing thanks for prayers and support.
The family of Ariane Reagan Guerin, a 26-year-old employee at Parkwest, said they were hearing promising information about her prognosis. The family of Nancy Chancellor, 32, said she was doing well.
The woman killed was Rachel Wattenbarger, 40. Her father, Ray Wattenbarger, said she had worked at the hospital for about five or six years, helping discharge the elderly. He said he would remember his daughter’s smile.
Linda Cody, whose father was a patient at the hospital, had gone to smoke a cigarette when she saw the gunman’s body, surrounded by blood. She quickly learned the victims had been shot in the same area where she normally smoked.
“It was scary,” she said. “It kind of gives you the willies thinking that could have been me five seconds ago.”
Charles Billingsley was taking his sister to a nearby doctor’s office and heard the shooting, though he wasn’t close enough to see the attack.
“I heard five pistol shots, back to back, and then another and then another,” Billingsley said. “I just saw people running from the hospital.”
Sakhleh, the cab driver, said he was lucky to be alive.
“My wife always tells me, ‘Be careful, be careful.’ But after tonight, I’m going to be real careful.”
(Associated Press writer Sheila Burke in Nashville contributed to this story.)
