The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has brokered a $30 million contract between a U.S.-based business and a company owned by Ethiopia’s tribal junta, according to a report by Jason McLure of Bloomberg News. This should not be a surprise since USAID and the World Bank, poverty mongering organizations, are as corrupt as the 3rd world vampires such as Meles Zenawi they support. These “development” organizations are the worst perpetuators of corruption and bad governance in Africa. Read the full report below.
(Bloomberg) — An Ethiopian opposition party has criticized a U.S. aid program for helping a textile plant with ties to the country’s ruling party win a multimillion dollar contract from an American company.
The program, known as the AGOA Plus project, is designed to help link African manufacturers to American buyers in order to take advantage of preferential tariff treatment under the African Growth and Opportunity Act. The so-called AGOA program, started by the U.S. government in 2000, allows about 6,500 products from Africa to enter the U.S. free of duties or quotas.
On Nov. 19, the U.S. Agency for International Development- (USAID) funded AGOA Plus said it brokered a contract worth as much as $30 million annually between Jackson, Mississippi-based Atlas Manufacturing Group and Almeda Textile. Almeda is part of a group of companies that was founded and is controlled by members of Ethiopia’s ruling party, [the Tigrean People’s Liberation Front (TPLF)].
[Alameda and 60 other mega-million-dollar companies are under the direct control of Meles Zenawi’s wife Azeb Mesfin through a conglomerate named EFFORT.]
“The American government is using public money to support a dictatorial government,” Beyene Petros, an opposition lawmaker from the Forum for Democratic Dialogue, said in a phone interview on Nov. 23. “This is simply crazy. I don’t know who is advising them or why they are doing this.”
As part of the deal, Almeda will produce restaurant uniforms and other garments for Atlas, which specializes in importing textiles to the U.S. from African countries eligible under AGOA. Ethiopian textile exports under AGOA were $18 million in 2008, lagging countries such as Lesotho, which exported $340 million in goods under the trade pact.
Economic Development
Michael Gonzales, a spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Ethiopia, said the goal of the project was to foster economic development, not help political parties. In matching U.S. buyers with Ethiopian manufacturers, it didn’t provide American companies with information about the ownership of Ethiopian factories, Gonzales said in a phone interview yesterday.
The U.S. works with the Ethiopian Textile and Garment Manufacturers Association, Gonzales said.
“Almeda is a member of this association,” he said. “Almeda is one of relatively few Ethiopian factories with the capacity to fill an order of this volume.”
Razvan Ionele, general manager of Almeda, said in an e- mailed response to questions that the deal would consolidate the image that Ethiopia is a possible sourcing location for producing textiles. He declined to comment on the company’s ties to Ethiopia’s ruling party.
James Langford, chairman of Atlas Manufacturing, declined to comment, when contacted via e-mail yesterday.
Elections
Foreign aid to Ethiopia has emerged as an issue ahead of national elections scheduled for May, which the opposition has warned may not be free and fair. Earlier this month, the Forum for Democratic Dialogue said its members had been denied access to a food aid program funded by the U.S., the U.K. and the World Bank as well as Ethiopian government jobs funded by foreign donors. The government has denied the allegations, and the American and British governments have said they are probing the claims.
Almeda, located in the northern city of Adwa, the birthplace of Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, is owned by the Endowment Fund for the Rehabilitation of Tigray, or Effort, one of Ethiopia’s largest business groups. It comprises more than a dozen companies established by former guerrillas from Meles’s Tigray Peoples Liberation Front that seized power from the Communist Derg government in 1991.
Effort’s CEO, Abadi Zemu, is a senior official in the TPLF, which has ruled Ethiopia for the past 18-years in an alliance of pro-Meles parties known as the Ethiopian Peoples Revolutionary Democratic Front. Effort’s deputy chief executive, Azeb Mesfin, is Meles’s wife.
Opaque
Last year, the World Bank’s Ethiopia country director said the finances of Ethiopia’s endowment businesses were opaque and a bank report this year called on policy makers to ensure that endowment firms are managed at arms-length to the government.
Effort is using the profit from Almeda and its other businesses for economic development and projects like schools and housing in Ethiopia’s ethnic Tigray region and not for political purposes, said Abadi.
“The initial money of course was from the TPLF,” he said in phone interview yesterday from the northern city of Mekelle. “But since then the ruling party cannot make any claim on its resources.”
Addis Alemayehu, the director of the AGOA Plus project, said his organization had been working on the deal for 18 months and said its intent was to create jobs.
“For me, you go to the factory and you look at the 2,000 to 3,000 Ethiopians working, that’s all I care about,” he said in a phone interview on Nov. 23 in Addis Ababa. “There’s always going to be a negative side when it comes to deals like this.” [Wushetam. How much commission did you, Addis Alemayehu, receive from the deal?]
Currently there exists a moral bankruptcy of opposition political leadership in Ethiopia. Hailu Shawel is the embodiment of such bankruptcy.
By Neamin Zeleke
“In our time, political speech and writings are largely the defense of the indefensible.” So wrote George Orwell, one of the great public intellectuals of the 20th century who spoke truth to both left and rights powers. No matter all the posturing and attempts to justify it with so much and contradictory statements and interviews by the actors and supporters alike, the recent act of singing the so-called “code of conduct” remains nothing but a grand betrayal. A betrayal is the name that could aptly characterize the document that does not meet the criteria to hold free, fair and credible elections in Ethiopia.
Chairman of All Ethiopian Unity Party (AEUP) Ato Hailu Shawl’s recent action is nothing less than reneging on the loftiest goals of the democratic movement, under whose banner thousands paid the ultimate price, including those who followed him and believed in him during the 2005 national elections that was rigged by the ruling party and the bloody aftermath. As a result of such betrayal, the movement to liberate Ethiopia from Woyanne has been forced to take a step backwards as the ruling party is using him — and that of the so-called “third way” “critical supporters” like Ato Lidetu and Ato Ayele Chamiso, the very men who betrayed Ato Hailu and the rest of Knijit leaders when they were thrown in prison — to tell the international community that now it has made an agreement with opposition forces.
By signing on this lame “code of conduct,” Ato Hailu has compromised the strategic objective of even those who struggle via peaceful means, i.e., the widening of the political space in order to hold free and fair elections by forcing the ruling party to compromise and given in to serious concessions. If Hailu Shawel can make an agreement with the Woyanne with whom he has an ocean of differences, as he made it clear in the public declarations of AEUP objectives, why can’t he agree with other opposition groups in order to increase their bargaining power? Doing so would enable him and the other groups to attain the bargaining muscle and political clout. At the end of the day, the more the political space and real democratic political order materialize, the more all players benefit to compete freely once the playing field is leveled.
What is also sad, as others have pointed out, is the fact that he did not put on the table even half of the 8 point preconditions that the Kinjit presented to the Woyane during the massive fraud committed by the ruling party following election 2005. The damage goes even further: The agreement he entered into with the regime and the two parties has blunted the attempt by Medrek to get at least better concessions as they have made known that a free and fair election cannot be held while the ruling TPLF/EPRDF controls the Election Board and appoints the 200,000 election workers at nearly 40,000 polling stations. They have also demanded the release of all political prisoners.
In addition, the absences of these demands, the lack of even the gesture to negotiate about the release of all political prisoners is a tragic, callous and immoral act. One cannot talk of struggling against dictatorship when he or she clearly knows that political prisoners, irrespective of their affiliation, are political prisoners including his former colleague, Judge Birtukan Midekesa, who is currently languishing in Meles Zenawi’s prison.
Ato Hailu Shawel has found it better to come to an agreement with the ruling party in the hope of carving his own little political space and concerned only about his political future — a breathing space for his organization at the expense of the overwhelming majority of Ethiopians hungry for rule of law, democracy, respect for human rights, their empowerment in the political and economic affairs of their country.
Let us recall that Ethiopians supported Kinjit and its leaders during the 2005 elections due to its forceful demands and clear alternatives to Woyanne and its promise to deliver democracy and rule of law for the people of Ethiopia. It was not the persona of Hailu, Lidetu, Berhanu… that did the magic of what was then called “Sunami”. It was their unified and unifying message and the vision that did the magic. It was not even the details of the program that people rallied behind. I doubt if the majority of Ethiopians even read much of it. Instead, it was Kinjit’s clear and simple message of change and alternative to the ruling party that won it a widespread support throughout Ethiopia. As observers aptly said, it was a “protest” support and vote by an electorate that wanted real change and saw Kinjit at its rightful agent.
Where then is the moral leadership that is expected of opposition leaders under conditions of dictatorship? Is opposition political leadership, under the context of a dictatorship, simply about making calculated moves to benefit single organizations or few organizations? Ato Hailu discussed only about AEUP’s political prisoners. Even then, I am not sure how many of them are released, if ever the harassment has stopped. But we would not even know as he said that the “EPRDF does not like it when we make too much noise; we find it better to write letters and follow up their case” (his interview on the Reporter).
Tomorrow the TPLF/EPRDF will tell him to stop writing the letters and then he would do so, if we take his logic. Where does it stop? What then can we call such an organization that abandons its own methods of exposing human rights abuses, even those enshrined in the so-called constitution under whose ambit it claims to operate?
This last point brings us to the heart of the matter. The constitution is said to be the supreme law of the land. But the TPLF/EPRDF has trampled on it time and again, violating each and every article for the past 16 years since its adoption. There is no reason to expect that, the agreement, a mini version along with few purported benefit to a “privileged” opposition groups, could not be violated by the TPLF.
Nothing better should have been expected from Hailu Shawel, considering his track record of throwing a monkey wrench amidst the democratic movement since 2003. This was the time when he decided to leave UEDF (coalition of 15 political parties formed in 2003) without solid reasons. He left just ten days after his delegates Major Getachew Mengistie, and the late Dr. Mekonnen Bishaw made a public statement that they would play a great role in strengthening UEDF. Hailu Shawel lied in a statement made public while the real issue was that he was unhappy due to the fact that the conference held for seven days did not elect him as the chairman in his absence. Had he been at the all party conference he would have been elected. But he gave the lame excuse that he was sick, to show up in DC in just about a week to start dismantling UEDF and pull AEUP out. The other causality in that incident was Ato Wondayehu Kassa, AEUP North America representative who was found to be an obstacle to the devious act of Ato Hailu’s decision of withdrawing AEUP from UEDF.
For anyone involved in the details of what was going on then, one can safely reach to a conclusion that the man is not amenable to political compromise among opposition forces and one who is incapable of handling contradictions in a farsighted and statesmanlike manner as our struggle demands from those who claim to be leaders of the struggle of our people for democracy and freedom.
The root of Kiniji’s split and its collapse has much to do with such a character, if not the only reason. When the problem of Kinjit surfaced, several elder groups genuinely tired to reconcile the minor differences between him and the rest of the Knijit leadership. It is a very well known fact that he was the one who obdurately refused to make peace. He even refused to respond to messages and phone calls from those who tried to reach and talk to him about reconciliation to save Kinjit from the impending collapse. As well known, the split of Kinjit took a heavy toll on the hope and aspiration of several millions of Ethiopians for change and freedom.
Tragic, indeed, that he has the heart sit, negotiate, and agree on a non-essential document that cannot add an iota to bring about a positive change in Ethiopia. Indeed, he had the stomach to shake hands with a dictator whose hands are drenched with the blood of thousands without getting substantial concessions to hold free and fair elections in Ethiopia.
If our struggle is for raw political power and under a condition where there is a democratic system, I can understand and go along with the view that some have argued in recent days that each party acts and calculates its steps to maximize its position in relative to other players on the political landscape. But when it is done under a dictatorship such as our ever miserable people are, and when our central quest is to win our freedom denied to us Ethiopians by successive dictatorships including the TPLF/EPRDF, it becomes a cynical pursuit at the expense of the broader struggle of the Ethiopian people for genuinely democratic and free Ethiopia.
Let us leave all the past evil and wrongs that the TPLF has wrought on Ethiopia and our people. Just think for a single moment of all those teenagers, mothers, elders, and men and women, who were savagely gunned down after the May 2005 elections by Agazi forces under Meles Zenawi’s direct command. Why did they die? Why did mothers lose their loved ones? Sons and daughters, children and the new born lost their loved ones. Why and why indeed? All the bloody massacre against unarmed protesters and non-protesters alike and whose innocence was proved by the report made public thanks to the courageous move of the Inquiry Commission Meles himself appointed.
Think of all those tens of thousands who were tortured and subjected to inhumane treatment following the May 2005 elections. Recall all the brutalities, humiliation, and debasement tens of thousands of Ethiopians had to endure. Was it for individuals and political organizations to calculate as to how to maximize their individual and organizational power, increase their sits in an impotent rubber stamp parliament? Was it for a being “privileged” than other opposition groups?
The brutal reality remains that one should not have any illusion that a minority dictatorship like the TPLF will ever give up political power through peaceful means only. Even if defeated at the polls, it will not give up all its economic, political, and military domination of Ethiopia that it has amassed during the past 18 years. There are too much at stake for the TPLF, its ethnic supporters and their cronies from other ethnic groups.
Having said that, I do not have any objections towards those organizations waging their struggle through peaceful method of struggle so long as they genuinely promote the establishment of real multi-party democracy and the rule of law, and equality of all citizens and ethnic groups in our country by replacing the dictatorship of the TPLF/ERPDF and the hegemony and domination of an elite of a minority ethnic group and their surrogates from other ethnic groups in all realms of Ethiopia’s national life at the expense of the rest of the Ethiopian people. In other words, as long as these opposition forces struggle peacefully and legally with a view of democratizing Ethiopia, as opposed to having a limited end to shilly-shally in order just to get crumbs and increase their seats in the lame duck parliament by the “good will” of the ruling party and serve it as junior partners of the status quo.
In view of what has transpired in recent weeks, it is safe to argue that there exists a moral bankruptcy of opposition political leadership under the current Ethiopian condition. Ato Hailu is the embodiment of such moral bankruptcy. In the meantime, our people are under the yoke of a corrupt ethnic dictatorship that will leave no stone unturned, no tactic unused, no cleaver games from being played out to perpetuate its hold on to state power by all and any means.
Lisbon, Portugal (IAAF) – Reigning World Cross Country champion Gebregziabher Gebremariam opened the IAAF Cross Country Permit season with a victory at the Oeiras Cross Country on Saturday.
The 25-year-old Ethiopian proved his power in Oeiras over the elements – strong winds and hard rains – as well as his opponents. From the outset a group of six ran together at the front and followed a strong pace: Gebremariam, his countryman Tariku Bekele who won in Oeiras in 2004 (and was second in 2005), the Kenyans Edwin Kuambai and Kiprono Menjo (third in Oeiras in 2006), Italian cross country champion Andrea Lalli, and the surprise in the field, the Portuguese Eduardo Mbengani.
Lap after lap, the lead group grew smaller and in the last of the five laps we saw a strong finish sprint between the young Portuguese and the world champion. At the line, Gebremariam take the victory, just one second ahead of Mbengani.
“This wasn´t as easy as some may think,” Gebremariam said. “I’m pleased with the course, it was very good. But the weather was not so good – too much wind and rain – but I’m training to achieve my goals and this event was wonderful for my preparation». He also said that he was pleased to pull off the win over a long sustained sprint against Mbengani. “I’m happy to see that are good runners in Portugal. I tried to help him, but in the final I made my move.”
“This was a surprise,” said Mbengani. “I didn’t expect to be second in this cross, but this was the mirror of my preparation, which wasn’t so good at all because of some injury problems. I’m very happy to achieve my first goal: to make a good showing to get on the national team for the European Cross Country Championships.”
Finishing in third place was Kiprono Menjo, repeating his finish from 2006, followed by the European hope, Italy’s Andrea Lalli, who was fourth ahead of Edwin Kuambai. In fifth place was the Portuguese veteran (41 years old) José Ramos, one second ahead of José Rocha, the winner of last weekend’s contest in Torres Vedras. Bekele was a distant eighth, more than 50 seconds behind the winner.
Portuguese podium sweep – women’s race
In the women’s event, as with predicted, the Portuguese women lived up to their billing as the favourites. Jessica Augusto, who failed to start last weekend in Torres Vedras, moved herself to the lead and showed everybody why she was last year’s European championships runner-up. With a solid pace she moved ahead a created a strong advantage between the following group, which included Inês Monteiro, the European bronze medallist last year, and Anália Rosa. Upping the tempo, they left Kenyan Milka Jerotich more than 90 metres behind.
After them Ana Dias, fifth here the last two years, repeated this place and prove her candidature to the national team.
”The win wasn’t easy,” Augusto said. “It’s never easy win in Oeiras, because this is a tough course. I’m very happy to win today, I expect to get to the national team and I’m doing my best to go there and try to get another medal.”
António Manuel Fernandes for the IAAF
Leading Results –
MEN (9000m):
1. Gebre Gebrmariam ETH 24.41
2. Eduardo Mbengani POR 24.42
3. Kiprono Menjo KEN 24.45
4. Andrea Lalli ITA 24.56
5. Edwin Kuambai KEN 25.19
6. José Rocha POR 25.24
7. José Ramos POR 25.25
8. Tariku Bekele ETH 25.30
WOMEN (5000m):
1. Jessica Augusto POR 15.39
2. Inês Monteiro POR 15.49
3. Anália Rosa POR 15.51
4. Milka Jerotich KEN 16.11
5. Ana Dias POR 16.14
6. Sara Moreira POR 16.17
7. Leonor Carneiro POR 16.23
8. Mónica Rosa POR 16.28
SANA’A, (Saba) — Yemen Ministry of Interior reported that police arrested 277 Ethiopians on Monday, including 18 women, as they tried to illegally to enter the country.
The Ministry quoted security sources as saying that that 202 Ethiopians disembarked at the coast of Abyan Province in south Yemen from a smuggling boat.
In Medi city of the Hajjah Province, additional 72 Ethiopians, including five women, were arrested.
In the City of Mahweet, Yemeni authorities have arrested three Ethiopians aged 18-20 who reached Yemen by smuggling boats.
Spokesman for the inJustice Ministry in Ethiopia, Ato Mekonnen Bezabih, said today that his regime is seeking death penalty against most of the 46 individuals who are accused of plotting coup d’etat and convicted by the Woyanne kangaroo court last week.
VOA’s Peter Heinlein reported the following:
ADDIS ABABA — Prosecutors in Ethiopia are seeking the death penalty for 40 people found guilty of conspiring to overthrow the government. Twenty-seven of the defendants were tried and convicted last week. Thirteen others, most of them living in exile, were earlier found guilty in absentia. This VOA correspondent was in the courtroom as the 27 in custody pleaded for reduced sentences.
One by one, the 27 convicted conspirators were given a chance to explain to a three-judge panel why they should not be executed for planning a campaign of violence aimed at bringing down Meles Zenawi’s government.
The group was convicted of five charges. Among them were trying to incite rebellion within the army, plotting to kill senior government officials and destroy strategic facilities.
All were said to be members of the outlawed Ginbot 7 Movement led by exiled political leader Berhanu Nega.
Berhanu, now a university professor in the United States, was among the 13 convicted in absentia. He has denied the existence of a plot, but has repeatedly called Meles’s government ‘illegitimate’ and said it should be removed by any means.
Many of 27 convicted last week are current or former military officers. Speaking to the court, they pointed to their decades of decorated service. Some spoke of fighting with the forces that overthrew the previous Marxist regime. Several listed the medals they had won and the wounds they suffered fighting for Ethiopia in its Woyanne’s war against Eritrea a decade ago, or serving in Somalia, or in the counterinsurgency campaign against rebels in the independence-minded Ogaden region.
Two defendants, both former army majors, admitted their guilt and threw themselves on the mercy of the court.
Ethiopia’s inJustice Ministry spokesman Mekonnen Bezabeh says while the death penalty is being sought for all 40, the two who pleaded guilty would get special consideration.
“We asked the court for the death penalty, but we also asked the court to minimize the penalty for two persons who told to the court their activities,” Bezabeh said.
The other defendants, including the lone woman among the 40, maintained their innocence throughout the trial, though some said they respect the court’s decision.
Several defendants, including the few represented by attorneys, questioned whether the death penalty is appropriate in a case where the charge is simply planning a coup, not carrying it out. Presiding judge Adem Ibrahim was silent on the matter, but Justice Ministry spokesman Mekonnen said the cumulative weight of all the charges calls for the maximum punishment.
“According to our procedure law, if there are so many charges, each penalty will be added and they will be penalized the sum of the penalties, so when we see their convictions, by acting contradiction with the constitution, and also they conspired to make a crisis between army forces, the penalty would be the highest penalty point, which is the death penalty,” Bezabeh said.
Those facing the maximum penalty include Melaku Teferra, a senior member of Ethiopia’s opposition UDJ, or Unity for Democracy and Justice Party. Melaku was among the scores of political leaders convicted of inciting post-election violence in 2005, then later pardoned.
In outlining the charges Tuesday, Chief Prosecutor Berihun Tewoldeberhan singled out Melaku, saying he should have learned from his past mistakes.
Melaku is one of two top UDJ officials in prison as next May’s elections approach. The party’s main leader, Birtukan Mideksa, was also among those jailed after the 2005 election and then pardoned. But she was sent back to prison last December and ordered to finish serving a life sentence after denying that she had asked for the pardon.
A museum is being erected in Bonga, Ethiopia — the birthplace of coffee. But because small-scale farmers are fragmented and disorganized, they are not reaching the potential of the coffee crop.
Worldfocus correspondent Martin Seemungal reports from Ethiopia’s coffee country, where farmers are deciding to plant corn and khat, a leafy drug that is chewed with stimulating effects somewhere between caffeine and cocaine. Watch the report below:
Lisbon, Portugal (IAAF) – Reigning World Cross Country champion Gebregziabher Gebremariam opened the IAAF Cross Country Permit season with a victory at the Oeiras Cross Country on Saturday.