Ogaden Online Editorial
Back in June 2008 this year, the internationally recognized human rights organization known as the Human Rights Watch (HRW) published the most detailed, first hand account of the type of atrocities and genocide carried out by the dictatorial regime in Ethiopian against the Ogaden civilians throughout Ogaden.
Among the HRW report’s findings and the indisputable facts submitted as evidence of Ethiopian army brutality were satellite imagery of before and after still images of the areas that were burned down.
Not only did the HRW report condemn the brutality and genocide carried out by the current Ethiopian regime led by Mr. Meles Zenawi, but it also, for the first time, put on the spotlight those Western countries such as the United Kingdom and the United States of America that perpetually supported the regime in Ethiopia under myriad pretexts.
At the time of the HRW publication and up until yesterday, the bevy of Ethiopian spokesman could not refute a single fact mentioned in the HRW’s report. Almost five months to the day when the widely received HRW report about Zenawi’s genocide in Ogaden were first published, the clique in Addis Ababa finally responded with what it billed as an ‘independent’ report.
This report is the furthest to anything a sane human being would call ‘independent’; hence let us call a spade a spade.
First, the report’s author is none other than a former Tigrian People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) foot soldier. In his own words, Mr. Lisanne Yohannes claims to be a “former high school Chemistry (sic) teacher, a Biochemistry (M.Sc.) graduate [who] then went on to join the TPLF to fight against the defunct regime, the DERG .”
Second, Mr. Yohannes is currently the chairman of a company based in Addis Ababa called GeoSpace Analytical Services (GeoSAS). In the ‘about us’ section of the GeoSAS website, the brief biography about Mr. Yohannes posits in part, “[that] in 1991 he joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and served as Chief of Cabinet of the Minister, Chairman of the Horn of Africa Standing Committee on Somalia, Special Envoy of the President of the Transitional Government/ Prime Minister of the FDRE and Head of Mission in PRC.”
How can a former TPLF soldier and an ex-Ethiopian Ministry of Foreign Affairs employee be tasked with investigating the very crimes that this ministry, the TPLF cadre, and the clique in Addis Ababa are accused of?
We, the Ogaden Editorial Board, do not know of any biochemistry training that could give Mr. Yohannes expertise in investigating the type of gross human rights violations and genocide that the Ethiopian regime is accused of in the HRW report published back in June this year.
We do not know of any objectivity scale that would confer credibility of independency on a former TPLF soldier such as Mr. Yohannes. We, further, have no idea how crass the Ethiopian regime is to present a former employee of the Ethiopian Ministry of Foreign Affairs as an ‘independent’ expert who can refute the facts supported among other things by satellite imagery that was provided by the HRW back in June.
What we do know for a fact is the very expertise that Mr. Yohannes’ GeoSAS company claims to have is the only piece of technology that could either corroborate what was presented in the HRW report or refute it conclusively. The fact Mr. Yohannes did not present evidence from the satellites he claims to employ in his company’s consulting engagements is proof enough that he had nothing to bring to the fore to refute the irrefutable, genocidal findings detailed in the HRW report.
Accusing the HRW of using ‘flawed methodology and unsubstantiated allegation’ is one thing, but using only victim interview as an investigative methodology with the presence of the very individuals and TPLF militias that were accused of having carried out genocide in Ogaden is nothing short of a badly executed public relations stunt on behalf of the TPLF regime.
The world community should not only forcefully act on the HRW report, but it should also prosecute individuals such as Yohannes who not only condone the genocidal policies of the TPLF regime, but also act as propaganda mouthpieces for such a despicable regime.
[email protected]
Ogaden Online Editorial
www.ogaden.com
CNN’s list of the 2008 top 10 U.S. political turkeys gave us an idea to prepare our own list of Ethiopian political turkeys.
10. Beyene Petros – has always been a turkey, not just this year.
9. Lidetu Ayalew – just look at him on tv sitting inside the fake parliament.
8. Ato Gebremedhin (Aba Paulos) – Beyonce did not keep her promise to come back and visit him.
7. Mesfin Woldemariam – tells Ethiopians not to call the fascist Woyanne regime an “enemy.” It is like telling a rape victim not to call her attacker a “rapist.” That is how twisted his logic is.
6. Seye Abraha – the hero welcome he expected did not materialize.
5. Abraha Belai – exposed himself to be less tribalist than Woyanne only by a small degree.
4. Azeb Mesfin – still claims that she is poor after having looted Ethiopia’s treasury for the past 18 years (ye chigaram neger).
3. Al Amoudi – it turns out he is a fake billionaire who cannot even pay off a few million dollars debt.
2. Meles Zenawi – got his butt kicked out of Somalia by 3,000 ragtag rebels.
1. Birtukan Mideksa – falls from the most popular Ethiopian politicians to an irrelevant political figure in a matter of 6 months.
Genet Asrat, owner of Albo African Gift Shop
|
By ISABEL ESTERMAN
OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA – Inside Oakland’s Albo African Gift shop, at the corner of Alcatraz and Telegraph, a deep herbal aroma wafts from a row of colorful bottles labeled ‘frankincense.’ Ethiopian Singer Hamelmal Abate’s mournful vibrato pours out of the stereo, crooning over an incongruously lively beat, while the store’s owner, Genet Asrat, sits behind the counter, her black sweater brightened by a bold patterned scarf with a yellow border. The phone rings nearly continuously, and Asrat switches back and forth between English and Amharic as she fields calls, raising her precisely-arched eyebrows and flashing a big, quick smile as she taps away at her keyboard.
The store is filled with baskets, scarves, jewelry and clothing in brilliant shades of orange, red, pink and purple. The walls are lined with African-themed carvings and paintings. Customers come in to browse racks of T-shirts and books with African themes. And while T-shirts are the store’s big sellers, the repeat customers, like the young man who stands shyly by the door until Asrat beckons him forward, are immigrants who come to the store to wire money back to their families in Ethiopia, a service Asrat offers at less than half the price Western Union charges.
Businesses like Asrat’s may provide a touch of the exotic to the neighborhood, but for Ethiopian immigrants, they create a familiar space, and serve as a valuable link to their native country. Some of the phone calls, Asrat explains, are from customers looking for help booking flights home. Asrat doesn’t just a keep a shop or send remittances. “I’m also a travel agent,” she says. Many immigrants, she says, “don’t have the know-how” to look for discounted tickets online and are uncomfortable working with an English-speaking agent. “It’s easier for them, and it’s convenient for them to call and buy them from me.”
Meanwhile, Asrat’s old friend Fetlework Tefferi — whose businesses, Café Colucci and Brundo grocery store, are located to either side of Asrat’s shop – works to source spices from businesses in Africa that use organic ingredients and employ women. “I want to help women preserve their culinary heritage,” says Tefferi, an energetic woman who runs between Colucci and Brundo donning and removing a pair of rubber gloves while supervising the cafe’s redecoration, signing forms, and tasting new batches of spices.
Businesses like these make North Oakland a hub for the Bay Area Ethiopian community, even though neither census data nor anecdotal evidence indicates there is a particularly high concentration of Ethiopian immigrants living in the neighborhood. “They live everywhere,” says Tefferi. “They just have their businesses on Telegraph.”
According to the 2000 census, there are 1,444 foreign-born Ethiopians in Alameda County, and 228 living in north Oakland, although Rebecca Lakew, program director at the Ethiopian Community Center in Oakland, says that number is much too low. Some of the discrepancy may come from how people answer census takers or fill out government forms, Lakew says. “A lot of Ethiopian people, the people who are here as immigrants or refugees, they don’t say they are from there,” she says. “They mark ‘other’ or just ‘black.’”
Along with Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, Seattle, Atlanta and Houston, the Bay Area has one of the largest Ethiopian populations in the United States. Lakew estimates the number of Ethiopians in the Bay Area to be at least 20,000, and says the largest community event, the annual Ethiopian New Year festival, can draw as many as 40,000 people from Oakland, San Francisco and San Jose. “Every year it grows,” she says.
Large waves of Ethiopians began migrating to the United States in the 1980s and 1990s, as the political and economic situation in Ethiopia deteriorated. Marxist dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam overthrew Emperor Haile Selassie in 1974, and was immediately faced with a series of counter-coups, uprisings and border skirmishes. In 1977 – 1978, Mengistu attempted to crush opposition with a massacre known as the “Red Terror,” during which human rights groups estimate as many as 500,000 people were killed, tortured or disappeared by government-sponsored militias.
Mengistu continued to spend heavily on the military, especially to counter rebellions in the country’s north. When a devastating series of droughts and famine hit the country in the 1980s, the government was ill-prepared for the crisis, and nearly 1 million Ethiopians starved to death in 1984 and 1985.
Mengistu was forced to flee the country in 1991, and the first multi-party elections were held in 1993, but problems in Ethiopia continue to push people to emigrate. “There is a lot of corruption, there are no jobs, the standard of education is low,” says Lakew. Many look for opportunities abroad, she says, for the same reasons as emigrants from anywhere in the world. “They have to eat,” she says. “They have to work, they have to support their families.”
The congressionally mandated Diversity Immigrant Visa Program — which provides 55,000 Visas each year to people from countries with low rates of immigration to the United States — has opened up greater possibilities for Ethiopians wishing to immigrate. Nationally, Ethiopians have consistently been among the top groups receiving these visas, topping the list with 3,427 visas in 2005.
Lakew refers to the Diversity Visa program as “fortunate, but unfortunate.” Applicants are required to have either a high school diploma or at least two years experience in a skilled occupation, but many face still face high barriers when they arrive. “It’s the language, the lack of experience, even the cultural difference. They have a culture shock,” says Lakew. “The moment you arrive in the states, you expect everyone to be there for you. And they’re not.”
Newcomers are forced to rely on friends and relatives, and on community agencies like the Ethiopian Community Center, which provides job, housing and heath-care referrals, and works with Laney and Peralta college to get immigrants into English classes and career training.
This disorientation helps to explain why Ethiopian immigrants, no matter where in the Bay Area they live, congregate along Telegraph Avenue. “It’s creating a community in a way,” says Tefferi. “I think immigrants do that as a matter of course. We want to be all in the same neighborhood, so in case something happens, we can all be together, help each other.”
When Sheba Ethiopian restaurant opened on Telegraph in the 1980s, Tefferi says, local Ethiopians started going there to eat, and liked the area. The university, in particular, was a “natural draw,” Tefferi says. “Ethiopians congregate around schools. It’s like prestige, education.”
The diversity of the neighborhood was attractive as well, says Asrat. “It was very open, very international, it was very easy to mix.” So Asrat opened her shop in June 1991, and Tefferi followed, opening Café Colucci about two months later. “It just happened,” both Asrat and Tefferi say. “We congregate,” says Tefferi. “And the competition is not even spoken of as such.”
Tefferi, who lives in San Francisco, says she loves coming to work on Telegraph. “It’s like traveling to Ethiopia–I come here and it’s like I’m home,” she says. “I feel very complete when I’m here. I’m surrounded with the music, the spices, the food. I have the best of both worlds, and I’m always thankful for that.”
– Oakland North
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (Reuters) – Ethiopia’s dictatorial regime said on Wednesday a government-Woyanne-funded probe had found no evidence to support reports by a rights group that its military committed war crimes during a campaign against rebels in the eastern Ogaden region. [Woyanne investigating itself? This must be joke of the day!]
Human Rights Watch (HRW) issued two reports in June that it said documented attacks on civilians in the arid region; one based on witness accounts and another on satellite imagery showing burnt-out villages during a year-long military offensive.
Prime Minister dictator Meles Zenawi’s government junta accuses the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) of being terrorists supported by arch-foe and neighbor Eritrea.
It launched the offensive in April 2007 after ONLF rebels attacked Chinese-run oil fields in the region also known as Somali, killing more then 70 people [mostly members of the Woyanne death squad].
But Ethiopia Woyanne, which is a key ally of Washington’s war against terror in the region, said its seven-man -donkey team had proved that the HRW reports were fabricated.
“They found villages untouched that HRW alleged were burnt by Ethiopian National Defence Forces. Many of the names of those allegedly killed proved simply fictitious nor had populations been forcibly relocated,” the team said in a report.
“The investigation also found no evidence to support HRW’s allegations of systematic war crimes or crimes against humanity,” it added. [Even Yammammotto doesn’t buy this story]
The U.S.-based group had accused the government of limiting access to the region and had hit out at Western donors for failing to condemn war crimes on the mainly ethnically Somali people of the region.
But the two-month probe joke found that populations said to have been forcibly relocated were found in their original homes, while people who were allegedly tortured and killed were found alive and well.
Villagers and elders also denied allegations of extra-judicial killings, rape or torture by the security forces, the report said.
“The investigation demonstrated clearly that HRW perhaps unwittingly had allowed itself to be used as a propaganda tool by the ONLF terrorist organization which it has clearly romanticised.”
(Writing by Tsegaye Tadesse and Wangui Kanina; editing by Richard Balmforth)
By Tamiru L. Obole |Jimma Times
NORTH SHEWA – The unseasonable rain of last September, October and early November has damaged much of the harvest in the rural part of North Shewa of Oromya and Amhara regional states.
Leguminous plants, teff and wheat have already started germinating in their cases on farms.
“We received much of these crop varieties from aid organizations and the government as part of the scheme to be returned this year right after harvest,” said farmer Getachew at Mescha kebele of North Shewa, Amahra regional state.
However, the farmers could not have a harvest for themselves leave alone the return of those seeds. This has threatened the livelihood of the farmers and their families in Oromia and Amhara regions. For the years to come, these farmers will probably need seed and food aid.
International reports have shown that more than 14 million people need food aid, but the Ethiopian government says the figure is only 4.5 million.
