The Ethiopian Athletics Federation (EAF) this week named its provisional squad of twenty-four athletes for the 37th IAAF World Cross Country Championships in Amman, Jordan on Saturday 28 March 2009.
With the absence of Kenenisa Bekele, Ethiopia’s hopes lie on trials winner Gebregziabher Gebremariam who won two silver medals in the 2004 edition of the championships (Photo: IAAF)
While the squad list is provisional with an actual starting line-up still to be decided closer to the championships it is now pretty certain that a slow recovery from a leg injury will rule out reigning men’s champion Kenenisa Bekele, while women’s champion Tirunesh Dibaba in an exclusive interview with the IAAF website has confirmed 100% she will miss Amman also due to injury.
But with the likes of 2006 short course champion Gelete Burka and two-time bronze medallist Meselech Melkamu picked by selectors, Ethiopia’s chances of taking honours remain good.
MEN – Could Gebremariam deliver?
The likely absence of Bekele, who has won twelve individual titles including a record six 12km victories, will be a massive blow to the Ethiopians as they will compete without the 26-year old in their squad for the first time in nine years.
The Olympic 5000m and 10,000m champion has not raced his November after he bruised his ankles while attempting the World 15km record at the 2008 Seven Hills road race in Njimegen, the Netherlands.
With Olympic silver medallist Sileshi Sihine also missing after failing to recover from training fatigue, Ethiopia’s hopes lie on trials winner Gebregziabher Gebremariam who won two silver medals in the 2004 edition of the championships. He will be joined by Tadesse Tola, seventh in Mombasa two years ago, Feyissa Lelisa, 14th in the junior race last year, and World Indoor 3000m champion Tariku Bekele.
Trials winner Ayele Abshiro, who finished in Edinburgh, leads the junior team this year hoping to make it better. Abshiro has already shown good form in cross country races this year with victory in Elgoibar, while beating Bekele in his failed World record attempt in Njimegen. Yetwale Kinde (21st) and Dejen Gebremeskel (18th) rejoin Abshiro in this year’s squad.
WOMEN – Genzebe takes the Dibaba name to Amman
Like Bekele, Dibaba’s absence is a major blow to Ethiopian medal hopes this year.
In an exclusive interview she has given to the IAAF website, Dibaba, who has competed in the last eight editions of the World Cross Country Championships, has confirmed that she will be out of action for two months and will only make a return to competition in the outdoor track season.
“I am not going to compete at the World Cross because of the injury,” she said. “It will be the first time in a long while that I won’t be running there, but it is for the better because I am injured at the moment.”
“After the wedding, I had gained a lot of weight and put pressure in my training in order to return back to shape,” she says. “The strain was maybe too much on my body and I started to feel pain in both legs at the beginning of January.”
Dibaba sought medical help in Germany, but was ruled out of her eagerly-anticipated 2009 debut in Boston where she was scheduled to run the 3000m.
“I skipped Boston as a precaution, but the pain started again whenever I trained,” she says. “I talked to the doctor if I should race in Birmingham and was advised not to take part in that race and also told to cancel my competition plans.”
“I think it is for the better that I am not running the World cross this year. I will miss running for my country, but I think it is better for me to recover from the injury. I know Genzebe (Dibaba) will miss me as she will have to look for a new roommate in the Ethiopian team.”
Without Tirunesh, junior champion Genzebe Dibaba will shoulder the expectation coming from the Dibaba family as she leads a strong junior team that also includes trials winner and World junior 5000m champion Sule Utura. Fifteen year-old Emebet Anteneh, who does not even have a club in Ethiopia, will compete outside Ethiopia for the first time.
The senior women’s team will be led by 2006 short course champion Gelete Burka and two-time bronze medalist Meselech Melkamu. Trials winner Wude Ayalew should also push for the medal positions after an impressive 2008/9 road and cross country season, while Sentayehu Ejigu, ninth in the 2004 Olympics 5000m race, is hoping for a comeback after spending the last two years out-and-form and injured.
Former street boys are seeing a dramatic change in their lives after having moved into a home run by a Maltese woman in Ethiopia. The home was set up by a 72-year-old Maltese woman Monica Tonna-Barthet, a former United Nations employee.
She had sold her home in Gharghur, her car, her collection of antiques and other possessions and used the money and her life savings to buy land and to pay for the construction of the The Angels Children’s Home back in 2007. The home was built in Addis Ababa under the umbrella of the Kebena Kidane Mihret Catholic Church.
It provides the boys, aged seven to 14, with food, shelter, clothing and medical support as well as counselling with a view to giving them the chance to experience love, friendship and discipline.
“The boys are doing extremely well in their schoolwork. They are also learning farming and producing some beautiful bamboo work” said Margaret Tonna-Barthet, Monica’s sister, after one of her regular visits to Ethiopia.
“They also love playing football and going out on education outings.”
The home is currently housing 20 sick street boys – including five who have HIV – and caring for another two who do not live in the home.
The ground floor has a refectory, a study, a kitchen and Monica’s bedroom. The first floor comprises dormitories, and the second houses a recreational area with two table tennis tables, an area for netball, a television set and games.
Ms Tonna Barthet thanked Maltese donors for their generosity, saying that their help was going a long way.
People can sponsor a child at the home at €340 per year. Cheques should be deposited at HSBC account 006 043 020 051, c/o Margaret Tonna-Barthet 61/2, Triq Windsor, Sliema 1852.
Information or photos are available from Margaret Tonna-Barthet on 2133 4162.
The voices of the Western world concerned with human rights routinely make clear that Ethiopia’s government is one of the most oppressive on earth. From sources as varied in perspective and interest as the U.S. State Department Human Rights Report and that of Human Rights Watch World Report that is the case.
Private organs like HRW do so, often with passion, in keeping with their mission but have little power. Public organs like State do so, usually with a sense of boredom at having to bother, and fail to exercise any power. However, as HRW says about the European Union’s reaction to the closing of the sole independent, though largely symbolic, sources of civil power in the country, the Western world provides not tacit but overt support for Ethiopian suffering:
“The EU should have condemned one of world’s worst laws on NGOs. Instead, it gave Ethiopia €250 million.
On 30 January, European Union policymakers sent a clear signal to Ethiopia: no matter how repressive the government becomes, vast sums of aid will continue to flow. This is emerging as a case study in bad donor policy.”
HRW has it wrong though. This is not an emerging case study of bad donor policy – this has been Western policy since 1991 when Meles Inc. took power. The basic approach was originally one of welcoming ‘anyone but Mengistu’ but over time that matured to a further embrace of low expectations.
For Europeans that became appreciating in Meles ‘an African we can deal with’ and for Americans seeing in him ‘our man in Africa’. Of course, seeming to be of use can cause many sins to be forgiven but even as reports and accounts of endemic human rights violations pile up the dictator’s words are accepted at face value. Meles is rewarded with status at G-8 summits and more importantly billions in unaccounted for aid that secure him in power and fill his personal coffers.
If not low expectations how else to explain a government with no basic institutions of civil society, not to mention democratic society, being so tolerated? There is a parliament, courts, elections, election board, etc. that only exist to give a patina of respectability to a government of thugs. None of those institutions matter – Meles makes decisions in concert with his slavish revolutionary nobility. Yet Meles’s words are heard as though they originated from any civilized process recognizable to any democrat – and Western governments eat it up.
The issue of bad donor policy extends beyond human rights to the intimately related sphere of economics. Ethiopia is one of the most desperately poor nations on earth with little prospect of improvement given the absence of every factor that made the West rich and so much else of humanity escape suffering as a tradition. Ethiopia has also, not by coincidence, one of the most corrupt governments on earth.
There is no right to own private property in Ethiopia – the people meaning the government meaning ultimately Meles own all of the land. The whole economy at every level from the debt bondage of fertilizer sales to poor farmers, local grain markets and all aid grain distribution, import-export businesses, agribusiness, construction, road building, to the absurdity of the commodities exchange are all united grasping tentacles of Meles Inc.
Every one concerned knows that no economy on earth has ever developed under those circumstances – yet the game goes on of pretending to believe what Meles says about democracy or economic growth. So far apart from Ethiopians who are on occasion heard because the West can’t pretend to ignore them any longer and apart from the support of friends of Ethiopia in places such as the US Legislature and the EU Parliament – the consequences of Western policy to Ethiopia are ignored.
This is not a ‘pull yourself up by your bootstraps’ issue or one that finally demands that ‘Ethiopians finally get their act together’. The West has made itself an active partner in support of Ethiopia’s dictatorship. As we have so often said before the Ethiopian Civil Contract is between Meles and Western governments. Ethiopians are just spectators and hostages.
You see the West occasionally threatens and begs Meles to treat Ethiopians better (at least those known to them and those withing sight of Embassies). Meles only pretends to do so and when that does not work only has to renew his eternal threat to drag tens of millions of them even further down into the depravity of his own reality before the West gets back in line.
All of the give and take is between Meles and Westerners. Ethiopians are bit players in the drama. But … the only semi-civilized actor who may even consider the interests of Ethiopians are Westerners. Ethiopians have nowhere else to turn for help. They can only appeal to the better natures of Meles’s partners in crime in Washington and Brussels because Meles is the murderous, bratty, viceroy of the West in every way possible.
So how can the West take responsibility for its own actions and serve its own interests? The struggle against Islamic Fascism puts Western Strategic Dilemma in Eastern African into stark relief. The foreign policy of every country is based on self interest. Self interest and projections of self interest over time can combine with occasional frank altruism to bring about policy beneficial to countries like Ethiopia. Why not?
The donor nations seem to be in the process of making decisions for the future that are no longer based on wishful thinking about personalities and rhetoric. It is valuable to examine a similar situation in recent history for instruction. Once again we will ask our readers to take part in a familiar thought experiment. Close your eyes and imagine Ethiopia’s revolutionary nobility and its ruler were White and and not Black.
Especially given the foundation of the Ethiopian government de facto and de jure on ethnic / regional divide and rule where one’s tribe defines how anyone participates in society – very naturally one would make a comparison to Apartheid era South Africa or a nation fallen victim to colonialism long past its expiration date. Blacks in Apartheid era South Africa had far more political and economic rights than Ethiopians do today.
When White Africans mistreat Black Africans it seemed to matter quite a bit but when Black Africans mistreat other Black Africans that is accepted as a part of the world’s natural order. Indeed, the West is willing to finance the latter evil with no questions asked. The comparison to Apartheid era South Africa is apt. Wonder along with us why any dictator should be given credit just for looking like his victims?
There has long been an assumption that Bush was a key Meles ally solely because of the War on Terror and that the end of the Bush Presidency would mean more responsible Western policy towards Ethiopia. According to one senior State Department official quoted by HRW in 2003
“Ethiopia’s human rights record is ‘not a factor’ in the bilateral relationship.”
But … how about Clinton before Bush and his just as close alliance with Meles? Obama’s Secretary of State was decidedly not ushering in a new era of respect for human rights when she said of China’s dictators that
“We have to continue to press them. But our pressing on those issues can’t interfere with the global economic crisis, the global climate change crisis and the security crisis.”
That is diplo-speak for beat on the Chinese as long and as hard as you like. It is hard to think that where there are security interests to be pursued that Ethiopian suffering is going to count for more than the Chinese variety where there are financial interests to be considered. From China to Ethiopia the general Western attitude is wrongheaded and ultimately harmful to the West. But those facts are either not appreciated or at best they are simply inconvenient.
In this post we will explore the nature of the Western Strategic Dilemma in Ethiopia and explore how it can be dealt with while keeping the West firmly on the side of basic morality and civilization – while serving Western interests too.
ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA (afrol News) – The Ethiopian Broadcasting Agency (EBA) has ordered the existing newspapers and magazines to re-register within three months time and further barred property owners of such media from holding positions of editor or deputy editor in their media houses.
The EBA deputy director Desta Tesfaw said the aim of the new set of regulations was to guard against media monopoly and ensure diverse opinions in the industry which the official said plays a critical role in democratic dispensation.
Mr Tesfaw, said individuals registered as having more than two per cent stake in a media house, cannot be an editor-in-chief or deputy editor of publication, saying professionalism has to be brought into the local media.
According to EBA the mandate of the editor-in-chief designated by the publisher encompasses the power to supervise the publication and to determine the content so that nothing may be printed therein against his/her will.
Government critics and analysts said the new regulations are only aimed at trampling on the freedom of the press and media. “Such positions are held by proprietors who could be answerable to all the content in the paper,” one analyst said.
Local media reported Dr Haile Ayele, a specialist on Ethiopian media ethics at Vienna University, Austria saying the theoretical aspect of the law may be valid, but said it was yet another blow for Ethiopia’s media.
The EBA became the regulatory authority over print media when the Council of Ministers by regulation established the government Communications Affairs Office and thereby implicitly abolishing the Ministry of Information.
Following a critical report by the U.S. Department of State last week, the Woyanne tribal regime in Ethiopia has lifted its blockade on all news web sites such as Ethiopian Review, EMF and opposition web sites such as Ginbot7.org.
DebreTsion GebreMichael, Ethiopia’s Information Technology chief, has unblocked news web sites after a 3-year ban
The Woyanne regime’s propagandist (Liar-in-Chief), Bereket Simon, had persistently denied that there is a restriction on access to web sites.
The official in charge of the Ethiopian Telecommunications Corporation, Ato DebreTsion GebreMichael, who carried out the decision to ban web sites, also denies any such blockade.
Under DebreTsion’s watch, Ethiopia ranks lower than Somalia in Information Technology (IT) usage. As chief of Ethiopia’s IT, DebreTsion’s main focus is to limit people’s access to information, not to build the country’s IT infrastructure. As a result, Ethiopia with a population of 80 million has only 30,000 Internet subscribers, according to the State Department report.
My recent visit to Addis Ababa in Ethiopia revealed it to be a place filled with contrast, extremely warm characters and confusing timelines.
First up, the timelines. It’s like travelling back in time. No, literally. In Ethiopia it is 2001. Their calendar is seven to eight years behind ours, depending on whether we’ve had our New Year. This means the Ethiopians celebrated the turn of their millennium on 11 September 2007.
The Ethiopian year also has an extra month, giving them the perk that their tourism brochures can truthfully boast 13 months of sunshine (even though the thirteenth month lasts only five days).
Add the fact that they have a completely different time system, and you have the proverbial cherry on the cake. Please note I’m not talking about the three-hour time difference from GMT here.
At what we would normally regard as 0600, it’s twelve o’clock there. They have 12 daytime hours and 12 night time hours, so 1500 by our clock is nine in the afternoon by theirs, a member of Ethiopian’s PR team informs me, somewhat intrigued by my fascination with the subject.
Unsurprisingly this led to a degree of confusion over the timings of my Airline Business cover interview with Ethiopian Airlines CEO Girma Wake.
Ethiopian’s PR guy said by e-mail: “Your interview is scheduled at 9:00pm tomorrow. It will be done at the board room. I will arrange a car to pick you from Sheraton at 02:15pm.”
After a bit of clarification, it emerged that the interview was actually scheduled for 1500, not 2100. I take solace from the fact that even Ethiopians find the system a bit confusing.
The moral of this? Don’t expect simplicity from a country which has a 300-letter alphabet.
Then there’s the contrast. The Sheraton in Addis (grounds pictured above) could happily slot in unnoticed among Dubai’s many palatial hotels. The surroundings, beyond the boundries of the luxurious, landscaped hotel compound, however, could not.
Goats wander the edge of the road. Beggars mingle among the cars, selling tissues and audio cassettes. Women and children work on construction sites, the upcoming buildings clad in bamboo scaffolding.
There are colours everywhere, from vibrant parasols to the more sombre, but beautiful, red jewelled coffins stacked up outside shops neighbouring a church. Every dusty side track has a collection of residences, in the loosest possible use of the term, their walls formed from corrugated iron, fabric sheets or, as you go farther off track, wattle and daub.
The country’s warmth, quirkiness and unbreakable spirit can be felt at Ethiopian Airlines’ headquarters, where it’s easy to forget the poverty down town. But, as always, the devil is in the detail. In the ladies’ toilets there’s a container filled with free condoms for the airline’s staff. Outside there is an Ethiopian Airlines advertising billboard, which shows an aircraft but carries the slogan: “All of us have a responsibility to fight HIV/AIDS.”
But the people. The people are amazing. Ethiopian’s chief agrees to pose for a photo with Flight’s mascot, Stefan the pilot. Children and adults greet us with enthusiasm, smiling warmly and proudly as we take pictures. Their happiness is infectious and, amid the poverty, it made me question exactly what we westerners have to be so glum about.
Ethiopians are very family orientated. I regale our hosts with a story about my return flight from my last visit, when a Somalian co-passenger told me about his 70 brothers and sisters (I’ll save you the maths, it was one dad and several mums). Ethiopian’s various PR team members express surprise at the tale, but two of them have nine siblings – maybe not quite as extreme as my Somanlian friend but still a very big family by our standards. I’m introduced to one of the PR manager’s brothers, a restaurant manager at the Sheraton. He greets me like family, lots of photos are taken on their cameras and I’m invited in for coffee.
And then there’s the odd quirky surprise. Beware: Addis Ababa’s altitude makes bottles pop open, as I discovered when my roll-on deodorant successfully aimed, and then fired, its ball at my underarm.
During our trip we visited a cultural restaurant, with local singing, dancing and cuisine. Ethiopians don’t traditionally use cutlery, so a waiter – armed with liquid soap, an ornate kettle and a large dish – appeared, pouring soap and warm water over our hands at the table.
Our shared platter (pictured below) includes injera, a pancake-like bread, which I’d experienced during my previous visit. At the time I wasn’t aware it was a bread and its grey, spongy, flannel-like texture made question whether it was, in fact, animal’s intestines. Injera is served rolled, like a napkin. One of my Ethiopian hosts says unknowing tourists often shake out the injera, neatly placing it on their laps in preparation for the meal.
The Ethiopian PR guys say it’s normal for visitors to have their feet washed after the meal. Thankfully, this didn’t happen and I later gather that this is a standard joke to use on westerners. Unfortunately they weren’t joking when they merrily summoned a local dancer, encouraging Tom (our photographer) and I to mimic the professional’s impossibly controlled neck movements in front of a full audience. I think I’ll stick with journalism.
With the goal of exploring a bit more of this fascinating country, we show our hosts an article in Ethiopian’s in-flight magazine about the ruins of Washa Mikael church, which was built from a single piece of rock and is situated on the outskirts of Addis. It’s accessed by a 45-minute walk, but the article says you can get there by car. One of the PR team says, grinning: “When they say ‘car’, they mean ‘CAR’.” A jeep shows up at the hotel. The engine starts, and I have a terrible feeling that our CAR may have an internal carbon monoxide emissions issue. I don’t mention it.
DSCN2869.JPGAs we steadily trundle on, it emerges that the exact location of our destination is, erm, hazy. At one point we were stopping every 50 feet to ask directions.
We ventured off-tarmac, to an unpaved road, and our route dilemma became a little clearer. We asked two random students (pictured right) for more directions. They, of course, hopped in the back to join our unlikely posse. The road then became bumpy. Very bUmPy.
When we finally arrived at the ruins, Tom and I stood by as a long, passionate discussion ensued between the church’s curators, our driver, Ethiopian’s PR guy and the students. The debate’s key prop was a notice board and the discourse seemed to centre on money, opening hours and more money to use cameras. I don’t know the details; I still hadn’t mastered the 300-letter Amaric alphabet by that point.
Negotiations amicably concluded, the church ruins (pictured left) were revealed in their serene beauty.
Once we’d fully taken in the worn, old building, our intrepid crew, which had now grown to eight including a priest and a guide (or nine with Stefan!), trekked briefly through a eucalyptus-perfumed forest to a nearby vantage point.
The view over Addis was stunning and we all gathered on a large rock to take it in.
It’s hard not to smile and relax when you’re in an environment which is this far removed from normal day-to-day life.
When we were finally reunited with our jeep, a young girl, who seemed to be the daughter of the priest, was keen to see the photos I’d taken of her and her brother. I showed her and she gave me a huge, delighted smile before being summoned back to dad. I captured the two of them together in a final photo.
Seriously, if you get the opportunity, do visit Ethiopia. It’s a fantastic country, filled with fantastic people, who have an amazingly positive outlook on life. I have never smiled, laughed, or felt so humble, on a press trip.
Former street boys are seeing a dramatic change in their lives after having moved into a home run by a Maltese woman in Ethiopia. The home was set up by a 72-year-old Maltese woman Monica Tonna-Barthet, a former United Nations employee.
First up, the timelines. It’s like travelling back in time. No, literally. In Ethiopia it is 2001. Their calendar is seven to eight years behind ours, depending on whether we’ve had our New Year. This means the Ethiopians celebrated the turn of their millennium on 11 September 2007.
Then there’s the contrast. The Sheraton in Addis (grounds pictured above) could happily slot in unnoticed among Dubai’s many palatial hotels. The surroundings, beyond the boundries of the luxurious, landscaped hotel compound, however, could not.
There are colours everywhere, from vibrant parasols to the more sombre, but beautiful, red jewelled coffins stacked up outside shops neighbouring a church. Every dusty side track has a collection of residences, in the loosest possible use of the term, their walls formed from corrugated iron, fabric sheets or, as you go farther off track, wattle and daub.
Our shared platter (pictured below) includes injera, a pancake-like bread, which I’d experienced during my previous visit. At the time I wasn’t aware it was a bread and its grey, spongy, flannel-like texture made question whether it was, in fact, animal’s intestines. Injera is served rolled, like a napkin. One of my Ethiopian hosts says unknowing tourists often shake out the injera, neatly placing it on their laps in preparation for the meal.