ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) – [The Woyanne regime in] Ethiopia said on Tuesday it was not prepared to continue propping up Somalia’s interim government “indefinitely” and urged leaders there to embrace a peace process to stop 17 years of conflict.
Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf’s government has been unable to stop a two-year insurgency by Islamic militia, despite backup from thousands of Ethiopian Woyanne regime troops.
U.N.-brokered peace talks in Djibouti to end the war, which has created one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, have been rejected by Islamist hardliners, while a spat between Yusuf and his prime minister has further hindered the process.
“If they fail to grasp this historic {www:opportunity}, we cannot help them by taking the responsibility on their behalf,” Seyoum Mesfin, Ethiopian Woyanne foreign minister, told a regional meeting.
“I would like to reiterate unequivocally that Ethiopian Woyanne troops are not prepared to continue paying heavy responsibilities indefinitely… It is crucial to send the right message to Somali leaders at this critical time,” he told fellow foreign ministers from around the region.
The U.N. plan foresees the {www:withdrawal} of Ethiopian Woyanne troops. Addis Ababa welcomes that and wants to pull out, but not if that leaves the government at the mercy of the Islamists.
During the meeting, Seyoum said Kenya had pledged to send a battalion of troops to boost an African Union (AU) peacekeeping force. There was no independent confirmation from Nairobi.
“Kenya’s decision is a great {www:commitment},” Seyoum said at the end of a day-long meeting to discuss the Somalia crisis.
Some 3,000 peacekeepers from Uganda and Burundi are in the capital Mogadishu, short of the intended 8,000-strong AU mission.
(Reporting by Tsegaye Tadesse; Writing by Wangui Kanina)
Ethiopian Review will interview Ato Sileshi Tilahun, the head of organizational affairs for the Ethiopian People Patriotic Front’s International Committee, this coming Sunday, Nov. 23, 2008, at 3:00 PM Washington DC time, 8:00 PM London time.
Ato Sileshi will discuss his recent trip to Eritrea, and his visit with EPPF commanders and fighters in the field.
He will also talk about what the EPPF International Committee is currently doing to organize Ethiopians in the Diaspora.
As the political repression in Ethiopia gets worse, Ethiopians are increasingly turning their attention to organizations such as EPPF that are waging armed resistance.
EPPF’s newly reorganized International Committee is expected to play a major role in rallying Ethiopians around the world to support the anti-Woyanne resistance in Ethiopia.
EDITOR’S NOTE: The Tibetan leader Dalai Lama is a role model for Ethiopia’s surrenderist opposition group named UDJ that is led by Birtukan Mideksa and Mesfin Woldemariam.
DHARAMSHALA, India (AFP) — Tibetan exiles worked Tuesday to hammer out a new strategy for their fight against Chinese rule, as Beijing warned that embracing a pro-independence policy was “doomed” to failure.
More than 500 prominent Tibetans have gathered at the government in exile’s base in northern India to debate whether to ditch the Dalai Lama’s push for “meaningful autonomy” in favour of a demand for full independence.
B. Tsering, a delegate and president of the Tibetan Women’s Association, said the week of discussions could re-define the movement.
“Everyone feels the big responsibility entrusted to us,” she said after the first sessions of debate. “And there is concern that we are trying to come up with a solid strategic plan in just a few days.
“We are working in groups of 40, hearing representatives express the opinions that they have collected.”
The association has long supported the Dalai Lama’s “middle way” autonomy policy but Tsering said it was now time to ask if a new approach was necessary.
“All of us are aware that the Dalai Lama has left no stone unturned in his work and yet he has not had any breakthrough,” she said.
“If at the end of this week the majority feel we should stick to the ‘middle way’, we have to think how we can make it work better. Maybe we have to seek alternatives.”
The Dalai Lama, who is not expected to attend the talks, said earlier this month that the “middle way” had failed and he was now asking fellow Tibetans how to proceed.
A growing number of young exiles favour a call for independence but such a policy switch would likely see a sharp drop in international support for their cause — and could split the community.
China issued a pre-emptive warning Tuesday against any shift in policy.
“Our position on Tibet is clear and resolute. Any attempt to separate Tibet from China is doomed to fail,” foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang told reporters.
“The so-called Tibetan government-in-exile is not recognised by any government in the world,” Qin said.
Acharya Yeshi Phuntsok, a delegate and member in the parliament in exile, said the Dharamshala meeting, which began Monday, was also focused on the current situation in Tibet.
In March, protests against Chinese rule in the capital, Lhasa, erupted into violence that spread to other areas of western China with Tibetan populations.
Tibet’s government in exile said more than 200 Tibetans were killed in the subsequent Chinese crackdown. China has reported police as killing just one “insurgent” and blames Tibetan “rioters” for the deaths of 21 people.
Phuntsok said the Dharamshala talks had already revealed some reluctance to abandon the Dalai Lama’s moderate stance.
“The debate over the ‘middle way’ or independence has started but changing policy is not easy,” he said. “Perhaps we still have to give more energy to the present approach to see if it can work.”
Phuntsok described the meeting as “good brain-storming” that would result in a clear idea of Tibetan opinion.
The strategy session has no policy-making power — any recommendations would require the approval of the Tibetan parliament — but the prime minister in exile said the outcome would be influential.
“The atmosphere has been rather emotionally charged due to the repression in Tibet and the mixed feelings we have of fear and hope,” Samdhong Rinpoche told reporters on Tuesday.
“We are sincerely committed to democracy, and that means respecting the public opinion that is being sought in this meeting.”
The Dalai Lama was smuggled out of Tibet after a failed uprising against Chinese rule in 1959, since when thousands of his followers have also fled.
VALPARAISO, INDIANA – Two Valparaiso University faculty members have been named University Research Professors and will receive support for projects on traditions of restorative justice in Ethiopia and assessing the impact of Chinese air pollution.
Selected by the University’s Committee on Creative Work and Research for the awards were Dr. Charles Schaefer, associate professor of history, and Dr. Gary Morris, associate professor of physics and astronomy. They each receive a $4,000 grant to support their scholarly work along with one semester of full-time leave or two semesters of half-time leave during which they will focus on their research projects.
The grant awarded to Dr. Schaefer will support his research on various methods of restorative justice employed by Ethiopia’s emperor and imperial court to resolve conflict and bring about peace and reconciliation. That research is intended to be published in a book tentatively titled Traditions of Restorative Justice in Imperial Ethiopia, 1769-1960.
Dr. Schaefer is a leading expert on Ethiopia and serves as a country specialist on the country for Amnesty International-U.S.A. Born and raised in Ethiopia as the son of Lutheran missionaries, Dr. Schaefer said his research will add to global conversations about restorative justice.
“The histories of individual countries can offer models for how various peoples may reconcile victims with perpetrators in ways that are culturally appropriate and therefore meaningful to the indigenous population,” he said.
The Ethiopian example, Dr. Schaefer said, also demonstrates how accountability can be integrated into concepts of restorative justice.
“Too often restorative justice is accused of being soft by granting blanket amnesties, of encouraging a ‘forgive and forget’ approach,” he said. “Imperial Ethiopia granted ‘conditional amnesty’ with specified terms that had to be met; this could possibly mitigate the critique leveled at restorative justice.”
The grant will support Dr. Schaefer as he travels to Ethiopia and Great Britain to conduct research for his book.
Dr. Morris will use his grant and leave to review measurements of air pollution being carried by wind currents from China to Japan. Dr. Morris received a Fulbright Scholar grant earlier this year to help quantify how much air pollution China is generating, show how that pollution is affecting Japan and indicate the effectiveness of China’s pollution control strategy for the Beijing Olympics.
He collected air quality data in Japan from early July through the end of September to observe changes in air pollution levels resulting from steps Chinese officials took to dramatically reduce emissions in the weeks leading up to the Olympic Games – including closing coal-burning power plants and factories and halting major construction projects.
Dr. Morris will return to Japan during the same period in 2009 to collect air pollution data at a time when Chinese emissions are likely to be closer to typical levels.
Dr. Morris, who for several years has studied the transportation of air pollution over long distances, said the project should add to scientists’ understanding of Earth’s interconnectedness. The results will help scientists and government officials throughout the world better understand how air pollution affects communities hundreds or thousands of miles away from the source of the emissions, improve air quality forecast models, assist in urban planning and tailor plans for improving air quality.
“Air quality, like climate change, is not just a local, but also a regional and global issue that recognizes no political boundaries and presents challenges for international relations,” Dr. Morris said. “Satellite data reveal pollution plumes emitted by Chinese industries and power plants crossing the Pacific Ocean to the United States, so this pollution isn’t just a problem for Asia.”
The University Research Grant program provides financial assistance to Valparaiso faculty members who have a demonstrated ability to conduct original research or produce creative work.
Jimma, Ethiopia — Coffee, as legend has it, was first enjoyed by goats that ate beans off wild bushes in the lush mountains of central Ethiopia. A shepherd boy observed the animals cavorting and ate some beans out of curiosity. He experienced the caffeine-induced energy that his goats displayed, and from that moment human consumption of coffee spread around the world.
Today, Ethiopia produces just a small fraction of the world’s coffee, dwarfed by coffee giants Brazil, Colombia and Vietnam, but that fraction holds a key to unlocking prosperity in one of Africa’s poorest countries. The lock can be opened if Ethiopia’s producers deliver consistently high-quality beans, on deadline, to supply a global niche market for fine coffees.
Sitting atop 2,000-meter-high mountains, workers at the 300-hectare Limu Kossa coffee plantation swing machetes at weeds between coffee bushes and apply organic fertilizer to the soil. During harvest, they will pick ripe, red berries, one by one, and spread them to dry on plastic mesh attached to poles above ground.
“Coffee is a very sensitive crop,” said Abayneh Alemu. “It absorbs everything around it. If the beans are on the ground, they will absorb all the impurities on it. If they are dried on wire mesh, they will absorb rust. That is why it is best to dry coffee beans on plastic mesh above ground.”
Alemu, a coffee agronomist employed by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), works with several dozen Ethiopian coffee growers to teach them techniques that will improve the yield of their plantations and the quality of their beans and link them with foreign buyers willing to pay top prices for premium quality. Alemu and two other coffee specialists teach the growers arcane but important information such as the optimal amount of sunshine and angle of the sun’s rays that fall on the coffee bushes and the way to obtain the proper moisture content of the beans. “If there is too high moisture, a fungus will grow on the beans and produce a toxin,” Alemu said. The optimum moisture content is 11.5 percent.
Ethiopia produces about 200,000 tons of coffee a year, a drop in the bucket compared to the millions of tons produced worldwide. “If Ethiopia is going to make money in the coffee industry, it has to appeal to the fine coffee market,” Alemu said.
In most countries where coffee is produced as an export commodity, machines strip coffee berries from branches along with leaves and twigs. Exporters do not pinpoint the exact location where each bag of beans is grown. The quality of the beans is variable, and extraneous matter ends up in the bags along with the beans, according to Alemu. In contrast, high-end coffee buyers insist on product purity and being able to trace the beans to the plantations where they were grown. They demand organic cultivation practices and fair treatment of laborers.
“The key to Ethiopian coffee is high quality, not massive production,” said Alemu.
The coffee growers accepted into the USAID’s coffee-development program must agree to follow all the instructions and to share their new knowledge with other growers.
Michelle Jennings, a USAID official working in agribusiness and trade expansion, said the aid agency does not build government capacity but works with private businesses to make them successful. “If they make money, they will create jobs, and other people will follow in their footsteps,” she said.
The manager of the Limu Kossa coffee plantation, Halibo Aragawi, said that increased quality and quantity of production have brought more wealth to the plantation, and that has had a spillover effect with the neighboring farmers.
“We are getting higher prices for higher quality,” he said. “We are very grateful for the benefits that USAID has brought us,” he said. According to Alemu, Ethiopian coffee is getting three times higher prices for its coffee in 2008 than in 2006, the result of both global demand and improving Ethiopian quality.
Proof is beginning to emerge that it is worthwhile for farmers to adopt USAID’s technical guidance, according to Alemu. For the past few years, USAID has held demonstrations on plantations to teach advanced cultivation and processing methods. He said the demonstration farms are doing better business than other farms, attracting buyers who taste the product, inspect the cultivation practices and buy the beans on the spot.
USAID also helps the Ethiopian coffee industry develop a quality control system to give foreign buyers greater confidence in what they are buying. USAID has brought the services of the Coffee Quality Institute, based in Long Beach, California, to Ethiopia to train coffee “cuppers” who grade the quality of coffee. To date, the institute has trained 40 cuppers.
The institute also is helping the country develop a nongovernmental coffee certification group. “It is important that the certifying body be outside the government,” Alemu said. “The independence is needed to give confidence to foreign buyers.”
Sources close to Birtukan Mideksa’s new party, Unity for Democracy and Justice (UDJ), have informed Ethiopian Review that some of the top leaders of the party are considering resignation. The most prominent among them are Ato Temesgen Zewdie and Dr Yacob HaileMariam. According to the sources, Birtukan herself may not return to Ethiopia after concluding her European tour, which has been a dismal failure so far. What lends further credence to such talk is that her right hand man in the UDJ, Ato Melaku Fantaye, who played a key role in convening UDJ’s founding conference and worked hard to get her elected as chairperson, has fled to Kenya and is now seeking asylum. He has also joined Ginbot 7.
The reason these UDJ officials are leaving the party is said to be the worsening political repression in the Ethiopia. There are also some serious internal disagreements that are not needed to be mentioned here for now.
In regards to Wzt. Birtukan, Ethiopian Review doubts that she will come to such a decision. First of all, it seems that she is enjoying the role of ‘loyal opposition’ — crisscrossing European capitals and attending cocktail parties in the Addis Ababa diplomatic circles. Secondly, she doesn’t think that it is possible to defeat Woyanne either through election or any other means any time soon. She has recently revealed to her closest associates that her eyes are set on elections to be held 10 to 15 years from now, and that she doesn’t care about the 2010 elections. Hence her unwillingness to speak out against the ongoing political repression in Ethiopia by the Woyanne regime.
Nevertheless, let’s assume that Birtukan has the vision and courage that are required to make such a decision — a decision that her own close confidant has just made. Imagine how the Woyanne cannibalistic regime in Ethiopia would react to such a news. It would have been another major blow to Meles & Co., and a joy to the people of Ethiopia.
Woyanne has been tormenting 70 million Ethiopians for the past 18 years because many of the opposition leaders such as Birtukan do not understand or have closed their eyes to its pure evil nature. They have failed to organize the people to fight against the Woyanne fascism politically, diplomatically, ideologically, and militarily. Even as outsiders such as European Member of Parliament Ana Gomes says there cannot be free and fair election in Ethiopia under the Meles regime, Birtukan and others talk about participating in the 2010 election.
The people are showing their disappointment with Birtukan and her surenderist group by not showing up at her recent public meetings in Europe. In some countries such as The Netherlands, once a stronghold for Kinijit in Europe, she could not find any one to invite her. Her European tour has been a dismal failure. She is losing credibility and respect as a political leader who is out of touch with the needs of the people she claims to represent.
As Woyanne’s cannibalism gets worse, however, it seems that finally genuine, promising leaders are emerging to provide strong leadership. Some who held the so-called “peaceful” struggle as a religious belief while their followers were being slaughtered right in front of their eyes have now come to the realization that the people of Ethiopia have the right to use any means available to defend themselves. Such leaders include those who have formed the Ginbot 7 Movement.
Others such as Birtukan Mideksa continue to shamelessly preach ‘peaceful’ struggle, which even her mentor, Prof. Mesfin Woldemariam recently said doesn’t exist in Ethiopia. He told a Washington DC audience that the peaceful struggle hasn’t started yet! Wzt. Birtukan, Prof. Mesfin and their surrenderist group refer to those who are forced to raise arms as “backwards.” Ironically, Prof. Mesfin calls those Ethiopians who try to defend their freedom with guns as ‘backwards’ while standing in the middle of Washington DC, the capital city of the United States, a country that protects the freedom of its citizens with thousands of nuclear arsenals.
It would have been a death nail to Woyanne if all the “loyal” opposition in Ethiopia announce that they are no longer able to operate inside the country and cease their political activities at once. It would devastate Woyanne if, for instance, Birtukan, Bulcha, Merera and others leave the country and lead their organizations from outside, as the leaders of South Africa’s African National Congress did during the struggle against the apartheid regime, or as Prof. Mesfin’s hero, the Dalai Lama, who is fighting for the freedom of Tibetans while living in exile. Such a decisive action by these leaders would completely change the course of Ethiopia’s current politics in favor of the opposition camp.
The real resistance
In the past few months, it seems a new chapter has been opened in the struggle against the Woyanne tyranny. Leaders who once stood with Birtukan, including those who were elected to parliament, have taken a different path. They have joined the real resistance. Their primary objective is to remove Woyanne before the year 2010 — not to prepare for another fake election. It is encouraging to hear that the Ginbot 7 leaders are setting that as a goal. G7’s Ato Andargachew Tsege has said in a recent interview with Ethiopian Review that Ethiopia cannot afford to remain under the destructive grip of the Woyanne junta and go through another sham election where the winner is predetermined.
People are starting to pay attention to the messages of EPPF, OLF, ONLF, TPDM, Ginbot 7 and others who have recognized the right of people to defend themselves and fight for their freedom. When these groups come together and form a transitional government in exile, put their fighters under a unified command, and make a call to the people of Ethiopia to rise up, Woyanne will crumble the same way its puppet regime in Somalia is falling apart.
Meles, Sebhat & Company are working day and night to prevent such an outcome through an aggressive multi-pronged campaign. Unfortunately, the ‘loyal opposition’ such as Birtukan and her few blind supporters are part and parcel of Woyanne’s countermeasure.
Birtukan is currently in Europe. If she is genuinely standing for the interest of the people of Ethiopia, she would not return to Addis Ababa. Instead, she would lead her followers inside Ethiopia and around the world from abroad — from such places as Asmara where she would have access to radio, tv, and other means of mass communication that she cannot access in Addis Ababa. If she goes back to Ethiopia, she would be returning into Woyanne’s jaws where she is of no use to any one other than Woyanne.
The real opposition groups need to take Ana Gomes’ advise to heart: A fair and free election in Ethiopia is possible only under a transitional government. EPPF, Ginbot 7, ONLF, OLF, TPDM and possibly other groups have the power and the means to establish such a transitional government in exile. It only requires political will and imagination on their part to achieve that. If Barack Obama, a person whom nobody knew just two years ago, can rise up to be leader of the most powerful nation in the world with his message of change, hope and ‘yes we can’ slogan, why not the leaders of OLF, G7, EPPF, ONLF and other Ethiopian opposition groups come together and liberate Ethiopia? The task for them is much easier than what Obama has been able to achieve, since their enemy, Woyanne, is the most hated regime that has ever come to power in the history of Ethiopia.
In the mean time, Birtukan and the surrenderist groups have a choice to make: continue to provide political cover for Woyanne, or stand with the people? Be in the service of fascism, or serve the cause of freedom?
