Over the weekend, the Ethiopian Sports Federation in North America’s (ESFNA) board decided to invite Birtukan Mideksa as a guest of honor at its annual event (read here.) Today we have learned that the Woyanne-infiltrated 9-member executive committee of ESFNA is in the process of reversing the decision of the 39-member board to invite Birtukan. The executive committee took up the issue for reconsideration under pressure from Woyanne cadres and Al Amoudi’s thugs who made physical threats against the board members. For the past 5 years ESFNA has been hijacked by the Al Amoudi mafia led by Abinet Gebremeskel, even though most of the soccer players are patriotic Ethiopians. It seems this year the players have finally decided to fight back. The following are members of the ESFNA executive committee and board members. Let’s Bollinger them.
The Ethiopian Sports Federation in North America (ESFNA) board members held a meeting over the weekend to plan for its annual event. Toward the end of the meeting, the board members voted to invite Birtukan Mideksa as a guest of honor by an overwhelming majority over the objection of some of the Woyanne/Al Amoudi supporters in the board.
The Woyanne supporters, including Sebsebe Assefa and Yaya Arega, were outraged at the decision to invite Birtukan and tried to physically attack some of the board members. In the past, Sebsebe and gang would often succeed in intimidating the board into doing any thing they want. However, this time the majority in the board stood its ground and pushed them back.
The next step the board needs to take is to kick out these Woyanne thugs from the Federation. Most of the soccer players, without whose participation the ESFNA cannot exist, are patriotic Ethiopians who despise Woyanne and its agents such as Al Amoudi.
The decision by the majority of ESFNA board members to select Birtukan Mideksa is the first major step in declaring the group’s independence from Woyanne businessman Al Amoudi who has infiltrated the organization through his top aid Abinet GebereMeskel and his thugs Sebsebe, Yaya, Endale Turfa and others. (A full list of Woyannes in the board will be made public shortly).
Abinet and gang were behind the August 3, 2010, Woyanne demonstration in Washington DC.
ESFNA will hold its next event in the City of Atlanta in July 2011.
Following recent consolidation of power by Ethiopia’s despot Meles Zenawi and his wife Azeb Mesfin, several high-ranking and mid-level members of the ruling Tigray People Liberation Front (TPLF) have lost their jobs. Many of these TPLFites have been living in houses given to them rent free by the Rental Housing Administration. Now that they are no longer working for the “government,” the agency asked them to move out, which led to armed confrontations in some instances.
During the past few days, the agency has been trying to enforce its order by sending its staff accompanied by police officers who are armed with hand guns and eviction notice. In every occasion, the agency personnel and the police were chased away by the TPLFites who pulled out bigger guns.
The housing agency has also been going after several large, multi-million-birr houses that were confiscated during the Derg regime but later returned to their owners. Last week the agency told hundreds of home owners to evacuate, or else face forcible eviction. The agency’s reason is that the owners did not present enough evidence showing ownership. Many of the houses were returned over 15 years ago. One family Ethiopian Review associates spoke with has been given less than a week to evacuate, even though they have provided all the necessary documents that prove their ownership.
Meanwhile, after a great deal of public outcry, the Meles regime has temporarily halted its plan to uproot the St. Yoseph Cemetery in Addis Ababa.
UPDATE ( Oct. 17): A preliminary hearing has been scheduled for November 11 at the DC Superior Court. Also watch the video below.
(Oct. 16) — The owner and 4 employees of DC9, a night club on Washington DC’s U Street, savagely attacked and killed a young Ethiopian named Ali Ahmed Mohammed early Friday.
The owner of DC9 Bill Spieler and his employees were charged with second-degree murder in Ali’s “savage beating,” the DC Police Chief said initially, but at a court hearing today, the charge was reduced to aggravated assault, drawing anger and outrage among Ali’s family and friends. The five individuals chased Ali, tackled him to the ground and beat him to death as he begged them to stop, according to an eyewitness. This is murder, not assault.
Ali’s friends suspect that the charge could have been reduced due to political pressure since the owners of DC9 have strong contacts with some of DC’s most powerful politicians.
Five men were charged with aggravated assault (the charge was reduced from second degree murder) Saturday in the beating of Ali Ahmed Mohammed in front of a club at Ninth and U streets where the men worked.
Mohammed died early Friday at at a hospital, a short time after the alleged assault.
Four of the men were released after a court proceeding Saturday, and the fifth was to be released later in the afternoon. All were placed in a high-intensity supervision program, which includes electronic monitoring.
D.C. Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier on Friday called the incident a “savage” case of “vigilante justice.”
Mohammed, 27, tried to enter DC9 early Friday but was turned away at the door. He became angry, picked up two bricks and hurled them through the nightclub’s front window, witnesses told investigators.
According to a police affidavit filed in court Saturday, the first officer on the scene at 2:30 a.m. Friday found Mohammed, of Silver Spring, “lying on the ground, unconscious and not breathing” and rendered CPR until medics arrived. Officers saw dried blood on Mohammed’s face and noticed that his head was swollen. He was taken to Howard University Hospital and pronounced dead about 3:15 a.m.
The five suspects in the assault are the co-owner of the DC9 club, William Spieler 46 (shown on the photo below), and four of his employees: Darryl Carter Jr., 20; Reginald Phillips, 22; and Evan Preller, 28, the club’s manager, all residents of the District; and Arthur Andrew Zaloga, 25, of Silver Spring.
One witness told police that five men chased Mohammed and that Preller caught Mohammed and threw him to the ground, according to the affidavit. The witness said he watched Carter, Zaloga, Spieler and Phillips “stomp the victim on the head and the body” as Preller held him down, the document states. Spieler kicked Mohammed several times, the witness told police, according to the affadavit.
A second witness told police that he saw Mohammed walking with what appeared to be two bricks. The witness asked Mohammed what he was going to do with the bricks and Mohammed responded: “[Expletive] those people up.” The witness said he also saw Preller catch and throw Mohammed down and that Mohammed was beaten. But this witness was less clear about the role each defendant played.
Second-degree murder charges were initially filed against the men. But the charges had been expected to be reduced because the D.C. medical examiner’s report on the cause of Mohammed’s death is pending, according to law enforcement sources. Although an autopsy was performed, authorities said, lab tests have to be done before a ruling can be made on whether the death was a homicide caused by the beating.
The law-enforcement sources, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the investigation is continuing, said the charges could be changed back to murder after the medical examiner rules.
Another witness, speaking to a reporter Friday, said the victim cried for mercy during the beating, shouting: “Please! Please! Please!”
Attorneys for Spieler and Preller said that Lanier’s comments Friday had been prejudicial and that she spoke before the incident was fully investigated.
“Chief Lanier jumped to conclusions before a full investigation was completed,” said Danny C. Onorato, Preller’s attorney, who said that his client is “innocent of any crime completely.”
Spieler’s attorney, Steven J. McCool, said his client is also innocent.
“Bill Spieler is a kind and gentle man,” McCool said. “We’re confident that when this investigation is completed, these men will be proven innocent.” He added that Mohammed’s death was a “tragedy.”
Both lawyers tried to enter not-guilty pleas in court Saturday, but Judge Frederick H. Weisberg said that was premature.
Attorneys for Phillips, Zaloga and Carter declined to comment.
Phillips “has never been in trouble,” said a man who identified himself as Phillips’s uncle but would not provide his name. “He’s a skinny kid. He’s nice. He’s docile.”
And a woman who described herself as a frequent patron of DC9 said she was “upset” by the way the police had handled the case.
“These are good kids, these are good people,” said Adrienne Wheeler. “At the end of the day, they were at work. These are professionals,” she said, and they would not have assaulted Mohammed in the way police say they did.
Skip Coburn, the executive director of the D.C. Nightlife Association, said Saturday that he had known Spieler “for years” and that he was one the most responsible club owners in the organization, a regular at safety and security training that the association provides its members.
“I would imagine that if someone throws a brick through your window, you’re going to make some attempt to apprehend the person,” Coburn said. But he said he did not believe that the club employees would then attack the brick-thrower.
Second-degree murder charges were initially filed against the men. But the charges had been expected to be reduced because the D.C. medical examiner’s report on the cause of Mohammed’s death is pending, according to law enforcement sources. Although an autopsy was performed, authorities said, lab tests have to be done before a ruling can be made on whether the death was a homicide caused by a beating. The D.C. medical examiner “did not observe external injuries sufficient to allow it to opine on the cause of death,” according to the police affidavit.
D.C. Council member Jim Graham (D-Ward 1), who represents the area, said Saturday that switching charges was “very perplexing. We need to get to the bottom of it as soon as possible.”
The law enforcement sources, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the investigation is continuing, said the charges could be changed back to murder after the medical examiner rules.
DC9 is a well-known, established club that often features indie bands. Its shows are listed and reviewed in publications across the region, including The Washington Post. The club remains closed after Lanier, acting within her authority as chief, ordered it shut Friday.
(Updated Friday at 4:15 PM) — Officials at the Medical Examiner’s Officer say they have not ruled Mohammed’s death a homicide. They would not elaborate. Police had called a press conference for 3:45 p.m. Friday to possibly amend the charges, according to sources. But that news conference was canceled.
“We don’t have cause of death yet,” Police Chief Cathy Lanier said in an email. The autopsy was not yet complete, she said.
(Original Post) — The owner and four employees of a popular nightclub off U Street chased and then fatally beat and stomped a man after he threw a rock through a window of the club, police said.
Ali Ahmed Mohammed, 27, of Silver Spring was killed outside the DC9 Nightclub in an act of “vigilante justice,” Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier said.
One of the club’s owners, Bill Spieler, 46, and four employees have each been charged with second-degree murder in Mohammed’s “savage beating,” the chief said.
The attack occurred about 2:30 a.m. about a block away from the club at 1940 Ninth St. NW, Lanier said, after Mohammed was denied entry to the club at closing time and threw a rock through the window.
The five men came out of the club, chased Mohammed for a block before all five tackled, punched, kicked and stomped him, Lanier said in an interview outside police headquarters. Mohammed, of the 11100 block of Norlee Drive, was barely conscious when police arrived, Lanier said.
“In my opinion,” the chief said, “when you talk about a beating like this as a result of property damage, a loss of life from a savage beating that appears to be vigilante justice, it’s just ridiculous.”
Lanier said she will close down the club Friday: “It will happen today.”
There was no evidence, Lanier said, that the attack was a hate crime. “It appears that the assault was precipitated by the fact that he threw a rock through the window.” She said there was no indication that any of the suspects knew Mohammed before the attack.
Police arrested another bar patron about 1:30 a.m. after the clubgoer scuffled with employees inside the club and was ejected, Lanier said. But police “have nothing to suggest” that incident and Mohammed’s beating “are connected in any way,” Lanier said.
Besides Spieler, the employees arrested were: Darryl Carter, 20, of the 600 block of Morton Place NE; Reginald Phillips, 22, of the 2000 block of Fifth Street NW; Evan Preller, 28, of the 2500 block of Mozart Place NW; and Arthur Zaloca of the12500 block of Epping Court in Silver Spring.
Joe Englert, who owns the club with Spieler, said in a telephone interview that “at least two and maybe three” of his employees had placed a 911 call to police after the window was broken “and were awaiting their arrival.”
Citing the police investigation, he declined to say whether the employees were detaining Mohammed “but we are confident, very confident in the honesty and integrity of the staff. They have been well trained,” said Englert. He said the handling of the earlier incident at the nightclub in which an unruly patron was ejected and later arrested “shows you our people are trained right.”
Mohammed’s death, said Englert is “tragedy and it is sickening that it happened but we are really confident that once everything is known it will all be fine for our people.” He said the club “will help Chief Lanier and work with police however we can.”
(Reported by Paul Duggan, Mary Pat Flaherty, Michael Birnbaum and Paul Duggan of the Washington Post. Staff writers Mary Pat Flaherty, Dan Morse and Clarence Williams and researchers Magda Jean-Louis and Julie Tate contributed to this report.)
Ethiopia[‘s dictator] has minted a new ministry of Communication and Information Technology. It is not yet clear what it is officially entrusted to do. The most obvious thing though, the country has largely missed out on information technology. The state’s monopoly on telecommunication didn’t help improve matters. To the contrary, it was part of the problem. Lately there has been some talk of liberalizing the sector. A French company is expected to take over the management of the dreaded Ethiopian Telecommunications Corporation (ETC).
Words spoken
“We plan to ensure universal access and Internet connectivity to all the tens of thousands of rural kebeles (districts) of our country over the next two to three years.” Prime minister Meles Zenawi. (AP, April 5, 2005). That is the Internet equivalent of three meals a day!
Sometimes back, the newly appointed minister while heading the Ethiopian Information Communications Technology Development Agency (EICTDA) was quoted as saying: “Ethiopia’s investment in Information and Communication Technology is considered to be one of the highest in the world”. Though we don’t know where he got the figure from , he unabashedly added : “the government has invested over USD 14 billion over the last decade.” (The Reporter, August 25, 2007)
Where is the beef?
The Phone – With a motto of “Connecting Ethiopia to the Future”, ETC has actually thrown the country in communication doldrums. Just a little over 3 million people have mobile phones. Ethiopia’s mobile phone penetration rate stands at 5% while that of sub-Saharan Africa is 39%. “Elsewhere in Africa, the debate is about the relative merits of Blackberries and iPhones. In Ethiopia, it is simply about getting a phone,” wrote the Economist in its May edition.
The government has been resisting liberalization on this sector not wanting to share the profits with others. A couple of years back a top government official defending the monopoly was quoted as saying the mobile phone is a cow yet to be milked. That is at the expense of the population. Not only is the number limited, as the government controls the network, it can deny services at will. From 2005 to 07 Ethiopians were denied text messaging services because the ruling party fared miserably in the usage of the medium to garner support while the opposition parties were efficient in mobilizing supporters using the new media. When the government finally felt confident of its firm grip on power, text services resumed.
Internet – When it comes to the internet, the picture is even grimmer. Ethiopians not only are at the mercy of one single provider, but they get the most expensive service. A study on broadband internet connection access sponsored by UN tells a gruesome reality. Ethiopia is the second most expensive place to get a fixed broadband connection only preceded by the Central African Republic.
According to International Telecommunication Union, Ethiopia has around 360,000 internet users which is a mere 0.4 % of the total population. While some countries have already passed a law making broadband internet connection to each household an obligation so government can provide services online (Finland), Ethiopia seems to be in a medieval period. 15 years after the Internet has become a global phenomenon, it is only the lucky few who can chat over Skype or use web cams to communicate. And when it happens, in most cases it is with relatives and friends living abroad rather than Ethiopians living in different corners of the country.
It is not unusual to see people in Internet cafes reading magazines while surfing the internet. So much for the “highest in the world” investment.
Hope you like jammin’ too
If there has been a success in the government’s endeavor to develop the Information Communication Technology (ICT) sector so far, it is the blocking of websites and jamming of electronic media broadcasters. Ethiopia began filtering websites well before many countries as early as 2005. ETC’s monopoly helped ease blocking the sites and monitoring personal email exchanges, hosted in its servers. The Open Net Initiative, a leading internet freedom watchdog said of Ethiopia as “the only country in sub-Saharan Africa to actively engage in political Internet filtering.”
And it is right there where the motive of establishing the new ministry lies. To undertake the jamming and filtering more vigorously. Not playing a suicide bomber when jamming broadcasters. Remember when they knocked of poor ETV from the spectrum in their bid to jam ESAT!
As former security chief at the Bole International Airport, the newly appointed minister Mr Debretsion Gebremichael, knows a thing or two about jamming. Some are already calling him jammer-in–chief for the role he played so far. For that “unrelenting service”, last month he has been promoted to the 9 member TPLF executive committee. And his latest appointment is an extension of that. The move tells loads about where the rulers’ priority lies.
Getting by
Even with the abysmal state of the internet connection in the country people have been yearning to tap from the benefit of ICT. Recent studies indicate that there are about 143,000 Facebook users in Ethiopia. (Kenya with less than half the population of Ethiopia has close to a million Facebookers). Not that hooking to the social networking sites is the yardstick for ICT development, but it gives some idea about the level of expansion of the sector. People have long understood the benefits. The government which is supposed to expand the sector is trying their best to control it in every possible way, hindering the growth. Never forget that even with the most minimum access to internet, Ethiopians were among the first bloggers in the Sub Saharan Africa.
What’s to be done?
* The most straightforward thing to do is just expand the broadband connection. There were already talks about ETC signing contract with SEACOM, a Mauritius based company which was supposed to connect the country through submarine fiber optic cable to the rest of the world via Djibouti.
* Avoid ETC’s monopoly. ETC, at its current state, cannot connect Ethiopia to its past, let alone the future.
* Stop filtering online media and jamming electronics broadcasters. The World Wide Web carries information and ideas. ICT is not about the computers and the gadgets, it is about the information carried and transmitted through it.
* Finally, no need to reinvent the wheel by churning out new ministries.
Some families whose loved ones are buried at the St. Joseph (Kidus Yosef) Cemetery in Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa have contacted Ethiopian Review with information that the land is needed for development and that they need to remove the remains of their relatives.
Families are being told to {www:disinter} their relatives and rebury them on some plot of land located on the road to Jimma.
Obviously the information is terribly upsetting to a lot of people. Yosef Cemetery is about as old as the city of Addis Ababa and almost every resident of the city has some relative buried there.
Addis Ababa Administration, whose mayor is Meles Zenawi’s puppet Kuma Demeks, has warned that the bodies that are not moved by a certain date will be dumped in a mass grave.
Addis Ababa can expand in several directions and there is no shortage of land (see the video below). So it is not clear why the ruling junta is subjecting hundreds of thousands, may be millions of families to the {www:ghoulish} process of exhuming graves.
Kidus Yosef Cemetery is the final resting place for thousands of Ethiopian heroes and patriots such as Abebe Bikila, as well as average citizens. It is a cemetery steeped in Addis Ababa and Ethiopian history.
We invite readers who are knowledgeable about the Yosef Cemetery to share with us what they know about its historical significance to Addis Ababa and the whole nation of Ethiopia.
