Ethiopian Tariku Bekele won the title in the men’s 3,000-meter race on Sunday at the 12th IAAF World Indoor Championships in Athletics in Valencia, Spain.
It shouldn’t come as a shock to anyone that the first time a major global title would be transferred between siblings, that the family name would be Bekele. With a dominating second half performance Tariku Bekele succeeded older broth Kenenisa as World Indoor 3000m.
Tariku, sixth behind his brother two years ago in Moscow, played the favourite’s role admirably, biding his time in the race’s first half before taking control over the second en route to a convincing 7:48.23 victory.
Kenyan Paul Kipsiele Koech, who took command of the race in the early stages, held on to finish a distant second in 7:49.05.
“It was a very good race,” said Bekele, who arrived in Valencia as the world leader at 7:31.09, notably, faster than his brother this year. “Winning is not easy but I have been training hard. My tactic was to run really fast during the last kilometre.”
Kipsiele Koech, better known as a steeplechase specialist, took control from the gun, followed by Ethiopian No. 2 Abrahem Cherkos, with Bekele and Australian Craig Mottram tucking in behind. Little changed by 1000m, with the field running as a fairly solid pack.
The order remained with 800m to go, but the pack was beginning to spread out, with Koech still in the lead, and Bekele ready to pounce.
He took the lead with two laps to go, with Koech, Cherkos, Mottram and Edwin Soi struggling to hang on. With Soi and Mottram dropping back, the medals and finishing order were already decided.
“I’m happy because I won a medal,” said Kipsiele Koech. “I expected to at least get something.”
Cherkos, only 18, followed Koech across the line to take bronze (7:49.96) in his first World Championships appearance, followed by Soi (7:51.60) and further back, Mottram (7:52.42).
“This is very good for the Ethiopian team,” Cherkos understated. “We are very strong runners.”
Bekele’s victory was the fifth in the event for Ethiopia. Boding well for Bekele is that he not only succeeds his brother, but also three-time winner Haile Gebrselassie as well.
Meseret Defar wins women’s 3,000m title at indoor worlds
+ –
On Saturday, Meseret Defar from Ethiopia won the gold medal in the women’s 3,000 meters.
Defar dashed to the fore in the last two laps to finish race at a speed of eight minutes and 38.79 seconds.
The reigning Olympic and World 5,000 champion has headed the world season lists after clocking 8:27.93 in Stuttgat and earlier in the indoor campaign she smashed the Two Mile world best with 9:10.50 in Boston.
Her compatriot Meselech Melkamu won the silver medal with a speed of 8:41.50.
Melkamu, three-time senior World cross Country bronze medal list is unbeaten over 3,000 meter this season and her best time of 8:29.48 recorded in Valencia marks her out as serious medal contender.
Morocco’s Mariem Alaoui Selsouli, who led the race most of the time, finished third at 8:41.66.
The supreme council of the Coalition for Unity and Democracy Party (Kinijit) chose a new name today: “Unity for Justice and Democracy” (አንድነት ለለፍትህና ዴሞክራሲ).
Kinijit was forced to take this action today after the Woyanne-controlled Electoral Board of Ethiopia arbitrarily gave the name to an individual named Ayele Chamiso in order to derail Kinijit’s movement in Ethiopia.
The executive committee will resubmit its registration application with the new name to the election board tomorrow, Monday.
Starting Tuesday, the party’s high-level delegation with travel to Gonder and several other cities to consult the change of name other matters with supporters.
Kinijit North America has released the following statement regarding the change of name. Click here.
Senate African Affairs Subcommittee Schedules Hearing on U.S. Policy Options on the Horn of Africa
Dirksen Senate Office Building – SD 419
Tuesday, March 11 at 10:15 a.m.
COALTION FOR H.R. 2003 URGES ALL ETHIOPIANS IN THE WASHINGTON, D.C. METRO AREA TO ATTEND HEARING AND SHOW SUPPORT FOR SENATOR FEINGOLD’S EFFORTS
The Senate African Affairs Subcommittee has scheduled a hearing on U.S. policy options on the horn of Africa on March 11, 2008. The Coalition for H.R. 2003 urges all Ethiopians in the Washington, D.C. metro area to attend the hearing, and show support to Senator Feingold in his efforts to bring about change in U.S. policy in the horn of Africa, and particularly in Ethiopia.
The Subcommittee has not issued a statement on the specific issues to be covered in the hearing. However, on March 3, 2008, Senator Russ Feingold, chairman of the Subcommittee, gave a passionate statement on the floor of the Senate expressing his deep concerns on the political situation in the Horn of Africa and massive human rights violations in Ethiopia. Informed sources suggest that his Senate speech provides a good indication of the scope and direction of the hearing.
In the March 3rd statement, Senator Feingold stated “Ethiopia sits on the Horn of Africa – perhaps one of the roughest neighborhoods in the world” surrounded by the “failed state of Somalia”, an “authoritarian regime in Eritrea”, a “genocidal regime in the Sudan” and Kenya that is “descending into crises”. He criticized the “Bush Administration’s approach to strengthening and building bilateral ties with Ethiopia has been short-sighted and narrow” and ignored “poor governance and human rights concerns” in Ethiopia.
Senator Feingold stressed that U.S. policy should be based on a clear understanding of “what is really occurring in Ethiopia. Rather than place our support in one man, we must invest in Ethiopia’s institutions and its people to create a stable, sustainable political system.”
Senator Feingold expressed his deep concerns about the human rights violations in Ethiopia:
Mr. President, I am seriously concerned about the direction Ethiopia is headed – because according to many credible accounts, the political crisis that has been quietly growing and deepening over the past few years may be coming to a head. For years, faced with calls for political or economic reforms, the Ethiopian government has displayed a troubling tendency to react with alarmingly oppressive and disproportionate tactics… [W]e received reports of massacres of civilians in the Gambella region of Ethiopia, which touched off a wave of violence and destruction that has yet to truly loosen its grip on the region. At that time, hundreds of lives were lost, tens of thousands were displaced, and many homes, schools, and businesses throughout the area were destroyed. Credible observers agree that Ethiopian security forces were heavily involved in some of the most serious abuses and more than 5 years later no one has been held accountable and there have been no reparations.
Senator Feingold deplored the stolen elections of 2005:
The national elections held in May 2005 were a severe step back for Ethiopia’s democratic progress. In advance of the elections, the Ethiopian Government expelled representatives of the three democracy-promotion organizations supported by USAID to assist the Ethiopian election commission, facilitate dialogue among political parties and election authorities, train pollwatchers, and assist civil society in the creation of a code of conduct. This expulsion was the first time in 20 years that a government has rejected such assistance, and the organizations have still not returned to Ethiopia because they do not feel an environment exists where they can truly undertake their objectives…
Senator Feingold on the brutality of the Ethiopian regime’s military policy in the Ogaden, and Somalia and the threat to regional stability created by the reckless military policy:
This tendency to portray political dissent as extremist uprisings has been repeated more recently with regards to what is being characterized by some as a brutal counterinsurgency operation led by Ethiopia’s military in the Ogaden, a long-neglected region that borders Somalia… I have been hearing similar reports of egregious human rights abuses being committed in Somalia, about which I am gravely concerned. When I visited Ethiopia just over a year, I urged the Prime Minister not to send his troops into Somalia because I thought it might make instability there worse, not better. Tragically, more than a year later, it seems my worst fears have been realized as tens of thousands of people have fled their homes, humanitarian access is at an all time low, and there are numerous reports of increasing brutality towards civilians caught in the crossfire. In the interest of its own domestic security, Ethiopia is contributing to increased regional instability.
In criticism of the Bush Administration’s failed policy in Ethiopia, and highlighting recent efforts by the Zenawi regime to jam VOA broadcasts, Senator Feingold stated:
The Administration’s efforts at backroom diplomacy, Mr. President, are not working. I understand and respect the value of quiet diplomacy, but sometimes we reach the point where such a strategy is rendered ineffective – when private rhetorical commitments are repeatedly broken by unacceptable public actions. For example, recent reports that the Ethiopian government is jamming our Voice of America radio broadcasts should be condemned in no uncertain terms, not shrugged off.
Committee action has yet to be taken on H.R. 2003. The scheduled hearing on U.S. horn policy should prove to be an excellent transition to consideration of H.R. 2003.
CASPER, Wyo. (AP) – Sen. Barack Obama captured the Wyoming Democratic caucuses Saturday, seizing a bit of momentum in the close, hard-fought race with rival Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton for the party’s presidential nomination.
Obama generally has outperformed Clinton in caucuses, which reward organization and voter passion more than do primaries. The Illinois senator has now won 13 caucuses to Clinton’s three.
Obama has also shown strength in the Mountain West, winning Idaho, Utah, Colorado and now Wyoming. The two split Nevada, with Clinton winning the popular vote and Obama more delegates.
But Clinton threw some effort into Wyoming, perhaps hoping for an upset that would yield few delegates but considerable buzz and momentum. The New York senator campaigned Friday in Cheyenne and Casper. Former President Clinton and their daughter, Chelsea, also campaigned this week in the sprawling and lightly populated state.
Obama campaigned in Casper and Laramie on Friday, but spent part of his time dealing with the fallout from an aide’s harsh words about Clinton and suggestions that Obama wouldn’t move as quickly to withdraw U.S. forces from Iraq if elected. In Casper, Obama said Clinton had no standing to challenge his position on the war because she had voted to authorize it in 2002.
Clinton, buoyed by big wins in Ohio and Texas last Tuesday, said she faced an uphill fight in Wyoming. Her campaign also holds out little hope for Tuesday’s primary in Mississippi, which has a large black population.
Obama had 59 percent, or 4,459 votes, to Clinton’s 40 percent, or 3,081 votes, with 22 of 23 Wyoming counties reporting.
Obama won seven delegates and Clinton won five. In the overall race for the nomination, Obama led 1,578-1,468, according to the latest tally by The Associated Press. It will take 2,025 delegates to win the Democratic nomination.
Obama’s campaign credited the candidate’s message for the win.
“Especially in the intermountain West, people are hungry for something different, people are hungry for someone who’s a uniter, who can bring together a coalition of change,” said Gabe Cohen, Obama’s state director in Wyoming.
Clinton’s campaign took heart in their ability to pick up more delegates.
“We knew that Wyoming was an uphill climb and that Senator Obama was expected to win,” said Ben Kobren, a spokesman for Clinton’s campaign in Wyoming. “We’re glad we were able to bring out our grassroots support and come very close in delegates.”
Both candidates were looking ahead to the bigger prize – delegate-rich Pennsylvania on April 22.
From the first caucuses of the day, it became clear the state’s Democrats were showing up in large numbers. In 2004, a mere 675 people statewide took part in the caucuses.
In Sweetwater County, more than 500 people crowded into a high school auditorium and another 500 were lined up to get inside.
“I’m worried about where we’re going to put them all. But I guess everybody’s got the same problem,” said Joyce Corcoran, a local party official. “So far we’re OK. But man, they keep coming.”
Party officials struggled with how to handle the overflow crowds. The start of the Converse County caucus was delayed due to long lines.
In Cheyenne, scores of late arrivers were turned away when party officials stopped allowing people to get in line at 11 a.m. EST. A party worker stood at the end of the line with a sign reading, “End of the line. Caucus rules require the voter registration process to be closed at this time.”
State party spokesman Bill Luckett said they were obligated to follow its rules as well as those of the Democratic National Committee regarding caucus procedures.
“Everybody knew the registration began over an hour before the caucus was called to order. We’ve done everything we could to accommodate people in the long lines,” Luckett said.
After initially accepting provisional ballots from about 20 people who remained behind at the caucus site, party officials said they and both campaigns had decided not to count those votes. John Millin, state party chair, said doing so would have been unfair to those who had left after being turned away.
In Casper, home of the state party’s headquarters, hundreds were lined up at the site of the Natrona County caucus. The location was a hotel meeting room with a capacity of 500. Some 7,700 registered Democrats live in the county.
“We’ll have to put ’em in the grass after a while,” said Bob Warburton, a local party official.
About 59,000 registered Democrats are eligible to participate in Wyoming’s caucuses.
Only in the last few weeks have the campaigns stepped up their presence in Wyoming, opening offices and calling voters and sending mailers.
Although a win in Wyoming may not persuade many superdelegates, it will be one more prize for the candidates as they make their case for the nomination.
Clinton has hinted recently that if she wins the nomination she would consider sharing the ticket with Obama. But in an interview Friday in Wyoming with KTVQ-TV, a CBS affiliate based in Billings, Mont., Obama shied away from that possibility.
“Well, you know, I think it’s premature. You won’t see me as a vice presidential candidate – you know, I’m running for president,” Obama told the television station. “We have won twice as many states as Senator Clinton, and have a higher popular vote, and I think we can maintain our delegate count.
“What I am really focused on right now, because all that stuff is premature, is winning this nomination and changing the country. I think that’s what people here are concerned about.”
———————–
Associated Press writers Bob Moen in Casper, Matt Joyce and Ben Neary in Cheyenne contributed to this report.
First Lieutenant Abraha, the commander of the army in Ogaden, was in no mood for mercy or compromise. If they had to celebrate their ‘silly Eid’ of the end of Ramadan, it is not my business, he thought. Indeed, if he has to teach them a lesson on how hard losing a comrade is, it couldn’t have come at a better time. Last night, as he oversaw the burial ceremony of the fallen Tigrayan compatriots, his heart bled. Someone will have to pay dearly!
He is not a judge or a priest to take the time to ascertain who is innocent or guilty! He is a soldier. And, a ‘fine’ one for that! He always believed they are all the same — ‘yaw nachaw’; his catch word. All the Somali’s! Leboch (thieves)!
Until now, Abdi, who is a lame man, has escaped the suspicion of the Tigrayan military. However, the killing of six senior army intelligence officers by unidentified gunmen last night in front of the plot of land where he sells imported second-hand clothes muddied the waters.
A week ago, when two soldiers were ambushed and killed near the main motorized water well in the center of the town, the army commander responded by heading straight to the house of the district chairman, Omar-Dahir, and putting ten bullets in his skull in front of his children. He later justified his soldier’s actions in the joint security meeting with the ‘civilian’ administrators; stating that he had ‘evidence’ of the chairman’s involvement in the ambush. No one dared to question his ‘evidences.’
In the mud house of Amran, apart from the Eid (holiday), the jubilation was for one more reason. It was at the dawn of the same day that she finally delivered a health baby girl after long hours of labouring. Nim’o was born on that Thursday, a day of feast and happiness.
Hours later, Abraha was addressing the over two hundred men who were praying in garoonka, a vast area enclosed for Eid prayers. These men were the last ones leaving the scene, having done their Salat (prayers), when they were surrounded by three land cruiser pick-up trucks full of soldiers. Stay put where you are; one soldier ordered-before Abraha majestically jumped out of the cabin of one of the cars. He made a speech.
“Listen! Ye Somale shimagilewooch (Somali elders!). Last night, six of our bravest fighters — flag-bearers — of the “generation that rocked mountains,” who played pivotal role in defeating the ‘cannibal’ Derg army, were killed by your sons. I don’t care if they are called URLF, or GST, or Al-Itahaad or Al-Mubaarakat! I am in no mood to indulge in etymology of weird acronyms and Arabic nouns. They are all Somali’s. You know them and you supply information, money and moral support to them. Now, I give you an ultimatum: produce the killers right here, or no one is walking from this sun alive.”
He was not finished. “When one of your own is killed by another, you find out and take revenge or settle the issue through reparations. When one of our men is killed, all of a sudden you play deaf and dumb. That is not going to work anymore.”
After ‘soaking up’ the sun for nearly three hours, with Abraha taking shade under one of the vehicles, one frail old man stood and spoke, trembling. “I think we have seen many governments before. We have also witnessed similar incidents. But this is the first time that, on a day of mammoth significance to us, we are forced to sit under the sun and confess ‘crimes’ which a) we don’t know who did, b) we haven’t done, and c) even if we knew, we could have done nothing to stop it.”
The old man was agitated. “Is this fair? What kind of justice is this? What kind of humans are you when you don’t respect men in their seventies and eighties who just concluded a tough holly month; and for your information, haven’t eaten since this morning? It is already 3 in the afternoon and our children are waiting to share the Eid with us. Order your ‘intelligence folks’ to investigate and let us go to our homes.”
First, Lt. Abraha stepped forward and caught the left ear of the old man with a vicious slap. “Quch bel (sit down)” he ordered him. The old man fell to the ground well before the order. As he walked back to his car, he told the ‘hostages,’: “Fine. I see you have decided to protect your darlings. You can go now. I know what to do. Tayalaachu (you will see it).” The dust of his speeding vehicles dirtied some white dresses close by as he dashed to the military camp.
That afternoon, Abraha took out a piece of paper and asked all the members of the district executive committee to name the most influential personalities in their sub-clans. When the list reached forty-eight, he was satisfied. For each of the Tigrayan ‘hero’ murdered, he will kill eight Somalis. Of course, some might spoil his plan if they ‘buy themselves out’ of the death sentences. That is, if they pay ten thousand Birr each. If that happens, the monetary gain will offset some of his disappointment, as long as a minimum of twenty are killed.
In retrospect, it is still unbelievable how Amran’s husband, Abdi, hadn’t heard of what virtually everyone in town knew about. That the army commander, Lt. Abraha, mentioned his name in a recent meeting as the ‘number one’ conduit and supplier of information to the rebels. Almost everyone in town who heard of this news rushed to warn him.
The first was his elder brother, who whispered to him, “Wait for me till I finish my prayers, I have a piece of information for you.” But Abdi completely forgot this message as he limped off hurriedly to the main market to get supplies to the new mother and her baby. When his brother was done with prayers, and saw that he is not around, he dashed to the only market where he knew he would find him. He wasn’t there. Instead, he opted to spend time with few Eid revelers.
Abdi’s friend, who knew that his friend is in danger, thought he can wait until next day. He was of the opinion that he shouldn’t dampen his sprits on this important day.
Even Halima, Abdi’s younger sister, who was sent by a member of the district administration, a sympathetic fellow clans-man, to warn her brother, couldn’t deliver the message. She had a bad week with her fiancée, and when he insisted that she must see him, she never thought it would take her that long. By the time she was done and came out of her lover’s tiny house, Abdi had already been picked up.
They got him near his house just after sun set, as he walked to his house to deliver clothes and food stuffs he bought for his wife and the new baby. He must have been coming, most likely, from Habiib’s house — his neighbour — where he was watching latest news from the lonely satellite dish in the town. Half-a-dozen soldiers suddenly stopped him. They didn’t produce any warrant, nor did they say a word. They pushed and shoved him, and took him away. He begged them to let him see his new baby; but quickly gave up as one of the soldiers hit his groin with the butt of the gun he was carrying.
Amran is not mystic and doesn’t believe in presentiments and ominous auguries. If she did, the falling of Abdi’s shirt three times from the nail on the wall of her room could have given her a critical hint. She was surprised, but she took it as one of many ‘inexplicable experiences’ she encountered all her life.
The Commander, Abraha, knows he had ordered the execution of twenty-six of the men arrested that night. And had it not been for the wicked ‘ingenuity’ of his deputy, the diminutive Takle, he would have displayed all of the dead bodies. Takle suggested that fourteen of them be strangled to death and their bodies buried inside the camp. Unlike his bullish boss, Takle is more calculative and cunning. But his meanness and barbarism is unmatched by any in his regiment. His undisguised hypertrophic sense of ‘gallantry’ is annoying to most of his subordinates, as well.
Displaying the dead will satisfy his burning desire for revenge, in addition to the ‘terror’ that it will send down the spine of the ‘coward’ Somali’s. Hiding the rest of the dead will quell the feeling of desperation that could result in an outburst of violence, and will serve the purpose of extorting extra ‘income’ from anxious family members.
Three months after the Eid, the fortunate ones who cheated death by the grace of God, came out one after another to the hug and cries of their beloved families. Amran and Abdi’s family stood there for hours waiting patiently. All in all, the numbers of men who walked out of the military camp were fourteen. If all twenty-six ordered executions were carried out that Ciid night, there will still be eight more men an accounted for. To date, no one can tell where they are. The army that took them didn’t offer any explanation, not only about them, but also about those buried en mass in undisclosed location.
Dr. Roble is not a psychiatrist, but a general practitioner. Yet, the enormity and diversity of health problems in this small town turned him into ‘a doctor for all.’ He just can’t sit back and protest it is not his area of specialization whenever desperate villagers bring all kinds of patients into his two-room pharmacy/clinic. He does his best, and the community is grateful. When they brought Amran to him, nearly a year after that eventful Thursday, she had already lost her sanity. They told him that she looked for her husband in all the jails of the country, in vain.
Amran’s account of that ‘epoch of lunacy’ is different, as she told her brother-in-law when she brought Nim’o for medical treatment thirteen years later. She says she saw her husband walking in the street and run after him to tell him how much pain she has gone through while he was away. She says, she is sure that it was him. Those that witnessed the incident in which she threw away her toddler and run bare-footed into the traffic in Harar say they saw no one in the direction she ran to.
She still claims that every night, analogues to the character in James Joyce’s Finnegan’s wake, her sub-conscious “breaks open” as she sleeps, Abdi walks in silently, and then they would have a fabulous time together. That is why she dislikes the crow of cocks in the early morning, which “puts back together” her skull in the morning.
In Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s acclaimed novel, Love in the time of Cholera, the lovesick Florentino Ariza, at one point conflated his physical agony with his amorous agony; when he vomits after eating flowers in order to imbibe Farmina’s scent — his love who is happily married to the respectable medical doctor, Dr. Urbino. The novel is a tale of unrequited love that explores the idea that suffering for love is a kind of nobility.
In a bizarre analogy, Amran, in this desolate town in Hawd, finds similar solace from knowing all her misery is for her lost husband. Florentino Ariza lived long enough in that fifty-year love triangle, to share moments of happiness with the widow Farmina after the tragic death of her beloved husband. The societal view that love is a young person’s prerogative, when indeed they were now ebbing to their last days, was the only drawback to their enthralling tale.
Amran finds happiness in the fantasy realm of her own imagination. Only in that mystical world does her passionate heart overwhelm her passionless mind. For her, “in the beginning was the love-not the thought.” All the real word offers to her is the glaring tragedy of her “loss”, of the promising days that never materialized, of the deprived joy of lifetime with the irreplaceable Abdi; and that awakes her to the odour of putrefaction inside her.
She views accepting the endless “you can’t kill yourself like this,” and “keep up your spirits, life goes on” advices of well-wishers as being tantamount to profanation of the purity of her love to her late husband. Cruelly, that augurs an uncertain future to her. So, she neither listens nor adheres to it. Long ago, she has forfeited the temptations of carnality, and opted to live in the ‘spiritually rewarding’ world of madness.
It doesn’t matter what she argues, and in the definition of this society, she is a ‘mentally unfit’ women. Sadly for her, that is also the judgment of the last psychiatrist who saw her. He said, if she follows medication properly and lowers her stress, the frequency of the lapses she encounters would reduce.
It is only Amran who still buys into that story of the unaccounted ‘eight’. She believes her man is alive somewhere. “I know he is,” she murmurs indignantly whenever they tell her to “move on.” Poor pitiful woman! Her daughter also doesn’t refer to her father as “the late.” When she has to talk about him, it is “my missing” father. Since the day she started identifying the good from the evil, she vowed not to celebrate any Eid. When her peers ask her when she shall dance with them, she replies, when my father comes back!
Amran’s misery is not something that was done purposely to spoil her life. She is too insignificant to have been targeted. Her crime is more like the young princes who had to be butchered trying to get through the thorn-hedge that surrounded the proverbial sleeping beauty, just because they had the bad luck to be born before her hundred-year curse expired.
Amran had the bad luck to have been born to the arid land of acacia and camels of Hawd (Ogaden) where a militia of an ‘angry’ tribe descended on and decided to ‘rule’ — or rather misrule — by the barrel of the gun. She is even more wretched, as ‘her curse’ — unlike that of the sleeping beauty — is indefinite. Neither the ‘good fairy’, which made the princess sleep, nor the prince’s son who would kiss and awaken her, are guaranteed to come for her emancipation.
That grisly Eid-day, when women’s wailing and ear-piercing cries replaced the customary cheers and rhymes of hope and ecstasy, left a panoptic memory of pain in the minds of all those who had the misfortune to witness it. It left a picture of the savagery of the ‘devil’ in the skin of a human, and of an endless suffering of the ‘cursed people’.
That day’s ordeal was too horrific even by the standards of the land of widows, and orphans!! The land of Ogaden.
————————
The writer can be reached at [email protected]
