The Red Cross is wasting its time and money. Woyanne gunmen are not interested in the rule of law. They don’t even abide by their own constitution that they swore to uphold. They follow the law of the jungle.
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Source: International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) – Switzerland
Addis Ababa (ICRC) – On 15 and 16 April, 100 legal advisers of the Ethiopian National Defence Forces (ENDF) Woyanne gunmen and mercenaries took part in a workshop on international humanitarian law (IHL) organized by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Addis Ababa.
The participants came from several ENDF units in Addis Ababa, regional commands and training centres, and from all divisions around the country.
“Under IHL, legal advisers of the armed forces should be available to guide military commanders on the correct application of the provisions of the law,” said Jürg Eglin, deputy head of the ICRC’s delegation in Ethiopia.
“They should also advise them on how to ensure that the forces under their command receive appropriate instruction in these provisions.” IHL is a body of law comprising the four Geneva Conventions of 1949 and their Additional Protocols of 1977, to which Ethiopia is a party, and various other international treaties.
It regulates the means and methods of warfare, with the aim of striking a balance between military necessity and the principles of humanity.
Under the provisions of IHL, persons who are not or are no longer taking part in a conflict must be spared and treated humanely.
The ICRC is responsible for promoting IHL throughout the world.
It endeavours to make the basic principles of the law known to all bearers of weapons.
In Ethiopia as elsewhere, the ICRC conducts exclusively impartial, independent and neutral humanitarian activities.
For further information, please contact:
Patrick Mégevand, ICRC Addis Ababa, tel. +251 116 478 300 or +251 911 480 921
Anna Schaaf, ICRC Geneva, tel. +41 22 730 2271 or +41 79 217 3217
Sad story, but a happy ending for the two kids. How could we Ethiopians as a society fail to provide for the most basic needs of our children? It’s shame on us all.
A brother and sister from Ethiopia found a home with Canadian parents desperate for their own family
By Dave Deibert, Leader-Post
SASKATCHEWAN, CANADA – Tears were nothing new for Tseganesh and her baby brother Misgana.
Born in Kambatta, Ethiopia – a region of nearly one million people that is remarkably difficult to find on a map – they were two of the nameless, faceless Africans born into unfathomable poverty; the dream of even a middle-class existence as achievable as flying like Superman.
Tseganesh remembers when she was not yet four years old, carrying Misgana on her back, walking an hour each way to get a precious little amount of fresh water.
Tapeworms and other illnesses were a too-familiar part of everyday life.
When Misgana was approaching age two, he was so tiny and malnourished he fit clothes made for an infant half his age.
The last memory Tseganesh has of her birth mother is seeing her covered in her own blood.
Tears were nothing new for Treena Constantinoff and Ryan Killoh.
For years, the Saskatoon married couple had dreamed of starting a family, of seeing their baby’s first step; hearing that first word; waving goodbye on the first day of Kindergarten. But, like one in six couples, they were unable to have children of their own.
They tried the old-fashioned way. They spent tens of thousands of dollars on fertility treatments and in vitro. They went through an adoption agency but had no luck in Brazil or Bulgaria. For more than five years, their hearts were broken time and again.
Then, on Sept. 28, 2006, their phone rang.
Killoh’s mind was racing as he immediately relayed the content of the call to Constantinoff at work, although he was having a hard time wrapping his head around what he had heard. Between his mouth moving a mile a minute and his heart pounding even faster, Constantinoff’s husband could barely be understood.
For a majority of the 75 million people living in Ethiopia, hope is a foreign word.
One of the oldest countries in the world – Ethiopian dynastic history is traced back to 1,000 BC – it’s also one of the most destitute. More than 80 per cent of the population lives on less than $2 US a day. Nearly two million people have either HIV or AIDS. The life expectancy is just 49.23 years, 194th out of 217 countries and barely ahead of Afghanistan, Rwanda and Sierra Leone.
Tseganesh remembers vividly the constant pain she felt from being hungry all the time. It was an agony that never went away yet she could never get used to it.
She remembers cooking a meager supper for the family at the age of three, using an open fire, the flame burning her right leg.
She tells the story of the day she and her older brother went for water and found themselves running for their lives from a lion or a tiger. “My heart was beating so fast,” says Tseganesh. (She has some memories of her older brother, but nobody knows what happened to him; Constantinoff and Killoh assume the worst.)
Then, as if the two hadn’t been dealt a miserable enough hand, the pair lost their mother. Tseganesh last saw her mom covered in blood due to a fall from a tree; that’s the explanation Tseganesh heard, anyway. Soon after, a woman – no one seems to know who she was – brought the pair to an orphanage Killoh says wasn’t much better than the streets.
“It’s a toilet,” he says.
The smell was unbearable. The food was barely edible. The two were so skinny, their eyes looked like they were caved in to their foreheads.
Misgana, 18 months old, wasn’t toilet-trained. There were no diapers and when he had an accident he was beaten.
In the first picture Constantinoff and Killoh saw of the kids, Misgana was wearing a pair of girls’ pink sweatpants; it was all they had for him.
There was never any reason for the two to think it would get better, either. Odds were, the pair would just be another statistic.
What they didn’t know was the filthy orphanage would serve as a life-preserver. Within 10 days of them being placed there, a phone call was made to a couple on the other side of the world.
More than 12,000 kilometres from Saskatoon, Constantinoff and Killoh found themselves at a Canadian foster home in Ethiopia, side-by-side with dozens of other soon-to-be parents just like them.
It had been six months since Killoh answered a fateful phone call from the Canadian Advocates for the Adoption of Children (CAFAC), letting him and Constantinoff know there was an 18-month-old boy and soon-to-be four-year-old sister available. When they first looked into Ethiopian adoptions, the two had been expecting a wait of up to a year-and-a-half; this call came after one month. Could they be ready so soon? Constantinoff had just opened her own hair salon so money was tight. Could they get all the clothes and furniture and toys kids need? It was going to be a whirlwind, they knew, but there was no hesitation: These were their kids.
A day after arriving in Ethiopia, Constantinoff and Killoh were looking at the door from which the first family’s children were brought through. Out of the corner of his eye, Killoh saw another door on the other side of the room open. He had a hard time catching his breath when he saw who was coming from that direction.
“That’s them,” he said, nudging Constantinoff.
The two children recognized Constantinoff and Killoh from the pictures sent a few months earlier. Tseganesh remembers being nervous but excited. The kids knew virtually no English – just a couple very important words.
“Daddy?” She hugged Killoh. “Mommy?” She hugged Constantinoff.
Killoh had never experienced anything like it. “It was the warmest hug I’ve ever had,” he said.
The new parents sobbed. They still get misty retelling the story. But these, finally, were tears of joy.
Constantinoff and Killoh were able to offer a better life to two kids but were also overwhelmed by how many more need help.
“I was thinking, preparing for, the worst when we went there and it was way worse than the worst,” said Constantinoff.
“I had no idea there was that kind of extreme poverty. I can’t describe the smells, the desperation.”
Everywhere they looked, entire families lived in alleys and on the streets. Wherever those people stood at any given time could double as a kitchen, a bedroom or a bathroom.
During the rainy season, the sky fills with smoke from raindrops landing on the street fires throughout the region.
Killoh befriended a homeless family behind their hotel, buying them water and food each day they were there. Constantinoff’s heart broke when she saw a young mother walking the streets with a newborn baby. They hear stories from Tseganesh and wouldn’t wish such things on anyone.
That’s why Constantinoff is taking part in the nationwide Walk for Water this week; she’s trying to raise $10,000 by April 22 to provide clean drinking water for people in Africa.
The numbers are staggering. Every 15 seconds, a child dies from water-related diseases, amounting to nearly 6,000 deaths each day. A big reason? The average distance that African women walk to find clean water is six kilometres. It is 12 per cent more likely a child will attend school if water is available within a 15-minute walk rather than a one-hour walk. A mere $25 – that’s one date night at the movies; a daily coffee at Starbucks for a week; a pair of shorts on the 50-per-cent off rack at your favourite clothing store – provides one person in Eastern Africa with clean water, sanitation and better health for life.
“I would really like to make a difference in these people’s lives,” says Constantinoff. “Even just to make a small difference.”
Tseganesh already knows what she wants to do when she grows up.
“I want to save Africa. I want to save the people there,” she said.
She already has the mindset to do it. At the dinner table one day, Misgana didn’t finish his chicken wings. When Killoh put them back in front of him, the three-year-old pushed them away again. Killoh explained that there are plenty of people, including friends and maybe even family of Misgana’s in Ethiopia, that would give anything for just one of those wings.
Tseganesh scolded her brother. “That used to be me hungry. I was one of them.”
The happy new family touched down in Canada on April 2, 2007. In the year since, a far-away place called Warman has become home for Tsegu and Misu, as everyone calls them now.
Misu proudly wore a Saskatchewan Roughriders’ Grey Cup T-shirt last fall. Tsegu can’t get enough of Hannah Montana.
Misu sings Johnny Cash word-for-word (Folsom Prison Blues is one of his favourites). Tsegu is pitch-perfect when she belts out Bob Marley’s Buffalo Soldier.
She loves pizza. “I like beans,” he says.
Misu had never had pants or shorts that fit him. He’s only recently gotten out of the habit of constantly holding onto the waistbands to keep them up.
Tsegu was so skinny at first – she weighed 23 pounds – Constantinoff thought something was wrong with her.
“When we were outside playing, her knees were buckling. I said to Ryan: ‘I think she’s going to need braces.’ She just had no muscle, no development.”
Now, Tsegu looks like a nine- or 10- year-old and talks like an 11- or 12-year-old.
They’ve been to the lake, gone bowling, taken swimming lessons, gone skating. They love grandma and grandpa, auntie and uncle, and, of course, mom and dad.
They celebrated Christmas and saw Santa Claus for the first time.
“He came in the backyard,” says Tsegu, eyes widening at the memory.
They each were thrown their first birthday parties: He turned three on March 15, she’ll turn seven on Sept. 10, although both dates are just educated guesses.
Dad’s the best tickler in the world, says Tsegu. Dad’s also taught them how to talk some smack. (“Do you know a good vet in town? ‘Cause my dogs are sick,” Misu says, flexing his biceps, AKA his dogs.)
It all feels so right, says Constantinoff. It was a long road for all four of them but things couldn’t be more perfect now.
“I don’t know what we did before we had them.”
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The writer can be reached at [email protected]
By Peter Heinlein, VOA
Listen (MP3) audio clip
Ethiopia’s electoral board and several opposition parties are trading accusations of illegal actions as the country prepares for the second phase of municipal council and parliamentary by-elections. VOA’s Peter Heinlein in Addis Ababa reports that as opposition groups battle election officials, Prime Minister dictator Meles Zenawi’s party is poised for a landslide.
Three members of Ethiopia’s National Election Board held an unusual news conference Wednesday amid increasing doubts about the credibility of the local elections being held nationwide.
National Election Board Chairman Merga Bekana Wednesday accused the leader one of the country’s largest regional parties of illegally ordering an election boycott, and suggested the party could lose its legal status. He said the boycott call by Oromo Federalist Democratic Movement, or OFDM, chief Bulcha Demeksa, violated Ethiopia’s election code.
“It is unhealthy, it is illegal, because in the middle of the game it is unfair to boycott the process of elections generally,” Merga Bekana said. “The board will take to the attention of …the issue, and the board will assess thoroughly within the legal frame and eventually declare the decision.”
In ordering his party to boycott, Bulcha accused the election board and ruling party officials of vote rigging, harassment and intimidation in the first phase. He said conditions were such that his party, a significant force in Ethiopia’s most populous Oromiya region, had failed to win a single seat.
“Our hopes and aspirations for democracy have been dashed, and at this moment we appeal to our members, supporters and the people of Ethiopia in general to support us in our peaceful struggle against this emerging absolutism and disregard for the supremacy of the law,” said Bulcha Demeksa.
Bulcha accused election board officials of creating conditions to ensure victory for Prime Minister Meles Zenawi’s party, which is expected to win control of local councils across the country, and to increase its parliamentary majority. He also alleged that voter turnout figures had been grossly inflated.
Speaking to reporters Wednesday, election board chief Merga stood by his estimate of a 90 percent first round turnout, despite eyewitness reports of empty polling stations in Addis Ababa. He also rejected opposition charges of ballot box stuffing.
“As far as the board is concerned, it is just a fabrication,” said Merga. “There is no evidence for that. We have thoroughly discussed about the issue together with his excellency, Ato [[Mr.] Bulcha. We have attempted to solve the problems, and we have solved many of the problems. But when there is no evidence, it is very difficult for the board to solve what they are claiming, so we consider as fabrication.”
A third political party announced Wednesday it will join the election boycott. Kedafo Aidahis, leader of the pro-government Afar Liberation Front told VOA his regional party would withdraw to protest alleged vote rigging.
Even before the boycott calls, independent observers said the election rules had created favorable conditions for a sweep by Prime Minister Meles’s Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front. In a statement issued before the first round, the U.S. based Human Rights Watch said Ethiopian government repression of the opposition had largely prevented political competition.
OFDM chief Bulcha warned Wednesday that Ethiopia is heading towards one-party rule. But election board officials scoffed at the idea. They noted there are still nearly 30 opposition parties participating in next Sunday’s vote.
Political observers here noted that unlike 2005, there are no indications of election related unrest. Post-election demonstrations against alleged vote rigging in 2005 erupted into violence that left 200 people dead and led to the arrest of 30,000 people, including many opposition political leaders.
The Patriarch of Egypt’s Orthodox Church, Pope Shenouda III, had visited Ethiopia over the weekend and told Ato Gebremedhin (formerly Aba Paulos) that he and other officials of the church are holding office to serve the people, to be responsible for their wellbeing, not to have authority over them.
The Pope, who is loved and respected by Ethiopian Christians, was received at the Bole Airport on Friday, April 11, by the fake pope, Aba Gebremedhin, who is a Woyanne cadre.
Ethiopia’s legitimate patriarch is currently in exile after being forced out of the country by the gun-totting former Aba Paulos.
On Sunday, Ato Gebremedhin took Pope Shenouda to Holy Trinity Cathedral Church in Addis Ababa. It was here that Egypt’s Pope chided Ato Gebremedhin by reminding him that he is a servant of the people, and that when people are abused, become hungry, and poor, “you religious leaders have the responsibility to act.”
Pope Shenouda also said church officials must always remember that they are holding office to serve the people, not for the sake of having authority over the people. The thousands of people who were at the church responded to the pope’s comment with laud cheers and gestures of appreciation. That might have been an uncomfortable moment for the Woyanne cadre and real estate developer posing as Ethiopia’s pope.
Pope Shenouda also said that Mengisu Hailemariam had disrupted the historical and close relationship between the Ethiopian and the Egyptian Orthodox churches, but, he added, “God bless him where he is.” The audience erupted in loud cheers and applause, it seems, just to let the current rulers know that they are worse than the Derg.
The pope spoke in English as Mulugeta Asrate-Kassa translated to Amharic. But most people understood what the Pope was saying and did not wait for the tongue-tied translator to react to his sermon.
The 84-year old Pope Shenouda is the spiritual leader of Egypt’s 9.5 million Orthodox Christians.
Addis Fortune reports that singer Teddy Afro was sent to Kaliti jail today. There is no doubt that the whole thing has been orchestrated by Woyanne to silence Teddy. Read the full report below:
(Addis Fortune) – Ethiopia’s sensational stage performer, Tewodros Kassahun – popularly known as Teddy-Afro – is sent today, April 16, 2008, to the Addis Abeba Central Prison Centre after the Federal High Court eighth criminal bench, adjourned to rule over his appeal for right of bail on charges of murder.
He was under custody inside the Federal High Court, Lideta area, for couple of hours before a white minibus from the Prison Administration took him to Kaliti early this afternoon, together with other inmates. Fans, family members and his agent, Addis Gessese, have gathered inside the court before the minibus drove out.
Yet to be confirmed, he is believed to have been taken to Kaliti Prison Centre, located in the outskirts of the city. Dressed with red T-shirt and black pant, he appeared nervous and seemed unable to focus when talking to reporters gathered inside the Court, but maintained his innocence of the crime he is alleged to have committed.
“I’ve yet to compose my thoughts,” Tewodros told reporters who showered him with series of questions. “Nevertheless, I haven’t hit anyone with a car.”
On November 3, 2006, investigators from the Addis Abeba Police Commission arrested Tewodros Kassahun, suspecting him of leaving a scene of a car accident that they alleged has caused the death of an 18-year old Degu Yibelte. Degu, a street dweller who came from Gojjam to reside with his uncle before he moved out to the streets, was killed on the night of November 2, 2006, after he was hit by a car. Police was tipped on phone a plate number of a BMW by a taxi driver whose identity they were trying to establish at the time.
Later that night, around after midnight, a BMW owned and driven by the singer was found collided with a concrete that blocked road under-construction around Gurd Sholla area, on the road to the CMC residential complex. Police claimed at the time, the plate number of this vehicle was identical to the number they were tipped of by the unidentified taxi driver as involved in the accident that killed Degu.
After he was put under custody for a day, Tewodros was released on a 50,000 Birr bail the following day, on November 4, 2006.
Prosecutors have now pressed charges against the popular singer: According to the Ethiopian Penal Code, a driver who hit a person to death and drives 15 metre away from the scene of an accident would be charged of homicide. The court is adjourned for Monday, April 21, to decide whether or not Tewodros be granted release on bail.
