This week the Ethiopian Sports Federation in North America (ESFNA) marks its 25th anniversary. It should have been a joyous occasion, if it were not marred by the latest scandal — receiving $300,000 in donation from Al Amoudi, a vampire businessman and a key financier of the Woyanne terrorist regime in Ethiopia. The ESFNA many Ethiopians in the Diaspora labored hard to build and make a large Ethiopian sport and cultural institution has now become a tool for the Woyanne dictatorship with the help of Al Amoudi and his henchmen who managed to have a stranglehold on the Federation.
Wholesale condemnation of the Federation will not save the institution, and will also not do justice to some of the innocent, patriotic Ethiopians who are part of the Federation. So it is important to identify the culprits who are trying to turn the federation into a Woyanne tool. Interestingly, the bad guys are very few, but their ugly deeds are terribly harmful. Their power is Al Amoudi’s money.
We will come back to them. But first, let’s briefly review the good deeds the Federation had done since its inception.
ESFNA’s biggest accomplishment and its most important service to Ethiopians in north America is that it has been able to organize the largest annual Ethiopian gathering outside of Ethiopia. Every year, in the fist week of July, thousands of Ethiopians from all walks of life come together to celebrate Ethiopian culture, entertain themselves, reunite with old friends, hold various meetings, do business, build professional networking, and start relationships that lead to marriages.
For a long time, ESFNA has been accused of financial corruption. Most of the money it generates from the annual event disappear into the pockets of few individuals. At this year’s event in Washington DC, for example, the Federation charges $15 per person to enter the stadium every day, and $10 for parking. The over one hundred vendors have each paid $3,000 in advance for concession stands. Corporate sponsors such Western Union and AT&T have paid huge amounts of money (undisclosed to the public) to display their advertisement banners at the stadium. A significant portion of the revenue from these sources disappears.
As a result, ESFNA has not been able to expand in its 25 years existence and come out of its perennial financial difficulties. The annual event grew despite the Federation, not because of it, as over 90 per cent of the activities during the one-week event are organized by independent groups and organizations. Once the Federation announces the city where the annual event would be held, the various groups, including concert promoters, conference organizers, businessmen, and others start their own preparations totally independent of the Federation.
Repeated efforts to clean up the Federation from corruption have had little success. The public and the media have been tolerant of corruption in the ESFNA so far as long as its good deeds outweigh the bad ones.
In recent years, under a restructured leadership, the Federation, has been trying to repair its image by making donations to various causes, such as $20,000 for flood relief in southern Ethiopia, $15,000 for HIV/AIDS prevention programs, and $120,000 for drought victims a few years ago. The Federation also gives free concession stands for non-profit and religious groups to raise funds at the stadium during the one-week soccer tournament.
However, ESFNA as a sports association is not expected to engage in relief efforts. It would serve the community much better by sticking to it mission, doing it professionally, and rooting out the gross corruption in its midst.
But as if the corruption is not bad enough, this year, ESFNA has lend itself to Woyanne’s ugly politics by accepting a large donation from Woyanne money man Al Amoudi.
Al Amoudi’s role in the Tigrean People Liberation Front (Woyanne) is well-known. He is a self-declared Woyanne who has recently said that TPLF is like his mother. Al Amoudi has been a key player in helping solidify Woyanne’s evil grip on Ethiopia. When he is unable to buy critics of the Woyanne regime, Al Amoudi puts them of out business. He has also been trying to silence Ethiopian media abroad. Many Ethiopian web sites and radio program are afraid to criticize him. This web site, whose publisher is sentenced to life in prision in Ethiopia, has recently been threatened with a lawsuit by Al Amoudi’s powerful U.S. lawyers.
For the ESFNA to accept donation from Al Amoudi, a member of the Woyanne crime family that is terrorizing and brutalizing the people of Ethiopia and Somalia, is a cruel betrayal. The following is a sickening message that is posted on ESFNA’s web site:
The entire family of ESFNA, players, coaches, board members and Executive Committee members, would like to say “Thank You” to Dr. Sheikh Mohammed Hussien Alamudi for his generous gift of $300,000 to our organization… Again, thank you and we wish you good health and long life.
The ESFNA officials have shown themselves to be nothing but pigs by wishing good health and long life to one of the biggest Woyanne parasites that are sucking the life blood of our country.
Having said that, EthiopianReview.com has been able to find out that not all ESFNA officials are in the same boat. According to ER’s investigation, the donation by Al Amoudi has been orchestrated by a few individuals inside the ESFNA executive committee and the board of directors, over the strong objection of the majority. Through these few individuals, and using his vast financial resources, Al Amoudi has been able to infiltrate and hijack the ESFNA.
The names that come often during ER’s investigation into the matter are Vice President of ESFN Eyaya Arega, Secretary Samuel Abate, and board member Sebsebe Assefa.
These individuals, along with several of their collaborators, have been wined and dined by Al Amoudi in Sheraton Hotel when they traveled to Addis Ababa. They are using their official positions in ESFNA not to serve the community and the soccer players, but their own business interests. The other members of the executive committee and the board should not escape from being held accountable, even though they are thought to be innocent, since silence is a crime by omission. The rationale for their silence or for no taking strong stand, i.e, the survival of the federation, is not convincing. If they take strong stand and expose the pigs, the community will rally behind them and help them clean up the Federation.
EthiopianReview.com will continue its investigation of ESFNA and will make its findings available to the public. In the mean time, we urge all the soccer players to take a stand. Don’t let yourself be used by Woyanne and its hodam servants.
About 200 people went to the RFK Stadium in Washington DC on Monday to watch the soccer tournament that is organized by the Ethiopian Sports Federation in North America (ESFNA).
The Stadium, that has a capacity to accommodate 26,000 spectators, looked empty through out the day.
Less than 10,000 people attended the ESFNA opening event
in RFK Stadium on June 29, 2008
Even at the opening ceremony yesterday, according to various reports, less than 1/3 of the stadium was filled. That is less than 10,000 people in a city where over 150,000 Ethiopians reside. In previous years, those who come form other cities alone exceed that number.
The extremely law turn out is no doubt the result of the anger caused by the ESFNA official to associate the sporting event with the notorious Woyanne businessman, Ato Al Amoudi.
The Ethiopian community is boycotting the events, such as the soccer matches at the stadium, that are spondered by the Federation. On the other hand, Ethiopian restaurants in the Washington DC are doing well as the thousands of visitors and their local hosts are going out to dine and enjoy themselves.
Tegbar will give 1 point for each of the Kinjit’s 8 points peace proposal that UDJ successfully accomplishes, and 0 point for those that it fails to deliver. We will publish the Score Card every month.
For the of Month June 2008 the Score is 0 out of 8
Tegbar hopes that UDJ will perform better next month. Below is the result.
Kinjit’s 8 Points Score 0 or 1
1. The Restructuring of the Election Board into an Independent body;
Score: 0
2. Freedom of and access to All Media;
Score: 0
3. Independent legal system (free from Woyanne party control);
Score: 0
4. An Independent Commission to investigate the killings of innocent Ethiopians;
Score: 0
5. Non-involvement of armed forces or police in political affairs;
Score: 0
6. Reinstatement of Parliamentary procedures and Governance of Addis Ababa in accordance with the verdict of the people;
Score: 0
7. Release of all political prisoners;
Score: 0
8. Independent commission or body to adjudicate the above.
Lundin and Range Resources in Way Over Their Heads
Among its areas of operation, Lundin Petroleum counts Sudan, Ethiopia, and Somalia, countries whose displaced populations total some 7,200,000 persons, according to 2007 figures of the Internal Displacement Monitoring Center. These displaced populations face some of the greatest civilian-directed violence and food insecurity in the world (see food security maps for Darfur and Somalia). This is neither incidental nor accidental. Conflict over areas of oil discovery are a proximate cause in further fueling many conflicts in the Horn.
While Lundin Petroleum has a well-articulated code of conduct committing itself to values of human rights and to principles including “minimising disturbances that may be caused by our operations,” Lundin has directly contributed to mass displacement, whether knowingly or not, and has largely failed to consider the larger and darker military-industrial implications of their exploration and drilling.
Lundin’s plans for expansion of its operations in the 5A concession in South Sudan in 2000 were coordinated with a government offensive that year, pitting government-armed Nuer militias against SPLA Nuer forces, as villages were cleared and tens of thousands displaced. In an interview at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Diane de Guzman, who served as a UNICEF coordinator in South Sudan, spoke of the displacements from the Lundin oil concession, stating that none of the displaced ever received humanitarian assistance. During government bombing of villages, elderly and children were left behind. These persons died when their villages were bombed and then razed by troops: “What we’ve found is happening now is that the government troops are actually coming in and burning down the entire village. We heard reports of this in the northern areas of Ruweng county when Talisman Oil began their exploration, but now we’re also getting the same reports further south in Leech state in Western Upper Nile, closer to the Lundin oil exploration.”
An admission of Lundin security officer Richard Ramsey in 2000 confirmed that Lundin was in over its head, unable to assure adherence to its ethical standards or obtain information on how their operations were affecting the security situation of the local populations. In the midst of the government’s dry season offensive, Ramsey admitted that Lundin “was not allowed to talk to SSIM [government militias], for some reason I do not know. As a result we can not know exactly when they are going to attack somewhere, and most often we don’t find out the reason until afterwards.”
Today, Lundin still holds a 24.5% interest in the block 5B concession in Sudan, and moreover operates in another area suffering from repressive counter-insurgency, a Somali region of Ethiopia known as the Ogaden. As if Lundin’s aggravation of the Ogaden crisis and the related Ethiopian-Mogadishu Group war weren’t enough to dissuade investors, Somali Ogaden National Liberation Front forces killed 74 people at a Chinese-run oil field in April 2007.
Lundin is now a major shareholder in Africa Oil, which bought an 80% interest in Range Resources’ exploration project in Puntland, Somalia. Africa Oil has invested $20 million in the Puntland project, and will invest another $25 more over the next six months.
In a 2006 video, a delegation from Range Resources is shown meeting with the regional Puntland government, which it presents with a $250,000 check for airport improvement. Last Friday, June 27, Executive Director of Range Resources Peter Landau attempted to assure a crowd of investors in Australia of the semi-autonomous status of Puntland, distinguishing it from southern zones now in a state of complex emergency.
But Range Resources’s own 2006 video holds a clue to why this is not exactly true: present at the meeting is the former president of Puntland, Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, whose Ethiopian-backed Transitional Federal Government is involved in a violent power struggle with the Eritrean-backed Mogadishu group of business militias, clans, and courts, a struggle that left millions presently displaced and in threat of mass starvation.
As badly as Somalia needs economic development, oil exploration at this time could worsen what is now perhaps the worst humanitarian crisis on the globe. The Australians of Range Resources are seriously misguided, and will be outmaneuvered in the Somali political landscape. Range Resources is now involved in assisting Puntland in “security programs.” By setting up their own local militia (which has only recently come under fatal attack in Puntland itself, as surveyors were on a sampling mission), Range Resources raises the stakes in an already high-stakes game of Somali Roulette, one that already is being played out to disastrous effect elsewhere.
AWASSA, SOUTHERN ETHIOPIA –“She is seven years old”, said Matiwos Kambata to this reporter. Incredulity would be the most apt response, were it not for the fact that his little sister Regisa, who looks no more than three years of age, is among the hundreds of thousands whose lives are in jeopardy as Ethiopia suffers another life-destroying drought.
The darkening clouds – the wrong ones – of drought and hunger again stalk the countryside, while the much-needed rainbearers remain elusive, aloof as some capricious deity in the sky and oblivious to Regisa and the hundreds of thousands of severely-malnourished children below. When drought and food shortages hit, it is the very young who suffer first, and most.
The stabilisation clinic at Galla Wacho, about 40 kilometers from the regional capital Awassa, where Matiwos and Regisa have stayed for a week, to allow the medics there carefully oversee what all hope to be the first step in her recovery, usually caters for under-fives, rather than older children.
A crisis spreading? Perhaps. Sitting alongside Regisa is Benetu: listless, emaciated, unable to walk due to a combination of hunger and illness, but at twelve years old a fearful indication that as the drought takes its toll, the crisis threatens to spread to older and stronger age groups. In this southwestern Sidama region, one of a number of zones hardest-hit, maize and enset (also known as false banana) crops have failed, or are in the death-throes, as the rains around which the planting seasons are arranged fail to fall, one after another, leading one aidworker, requesting anonymity, to suggest that “with this next harvest almost certain to fail, the food shortages will run into late this year or even early 2009.
The people here have no food. Even if it rains now, it could be too late, and of the rain is too heavy, it could spoil any maize that has only been planted in the past few weeks”
This is a vast and ancient land, where Christianity prevailed at least century before St. Patrick faced down the Irish druids, and where in 1896, the Ethiopians inflicted the first military loss on a European power by an African army, when the invading Italians were rebuffed at Adwa. But now Ethiopia’s history is, at first glance, repeating itself. Historian Richard Pankhurst once wrote that famine hit this country at least every decade between the fifteenth and nineteenth centuries.
It is now almost a cliché to remind readers of Michael Buerk’s quasi-iconic seven minute BBC voiceover from the dying fields at Korem, in the north of Ethiopia, at the height of the 1984v famine, which triggered an unparalleled outpouring of western sympathy and Live Aid. For those unable to digest yet another skeletal child and “give what you can” story from Ethiopia, it is worth noting that there is more to these latest woes than just localised drought and crop failures. To paraphrase, its partly the economy, stupid.
Rising world food and energy prices mean that not only people across the country being squeezed, aid agencies are struggling to meet needs. All in all 73 million people across 78 countries need food assistance, while traditional food-exporter countries such as Zimbabwe and Burma [and Ethiopia] have been turned into economic basket-cases by their tyrant rulers, narrowing the global food supply.
In Ethiopia itself, food prices have risen by 40 percent in the past year, according to the country’s Central Statistical Agency, but some staples have risen much faster. A kilogramme of wheat that cost 2.25 birr ($0.23) has reached 6.50 birr ($0.68). The urban poor in Addis Ababa and elsewhere are feeling the pinch, reflecting what World Bank President Robert Zoellick told reporters back in March: “In some countries, hard-won gains in overcoming poverty may now be reversed.”
All told, this drought has affected 4.6 million people, in various regions across Ethiopia, and also means that aid agencies cannot buy food on local markets, while rocketing global food prices have stretched and pinched budgets.
Paulette Jones is the Public Information Officer at the UN World Food Programme in Addis Ababa. She told this newspaper that “we cannot procure food locally anymore as in-country food stocks are low, as are UN emergency stocks” Policy options are further narrowed by the falling dollar and rising oil prices “we can procure abroad, but we get much less bang for our buck given hat oil is so expensive, making shipping costs a greater part of our overheads.”
Looming in the background are some thorny regional politics. A recent Eritrea-Djibouti border skirmish raised hairs on the back of local necks, as an all-out conflict between the two would almost close the door on imports into Ethiopia, which relies on Djibouti for access to the sea.
Given that Ethiopia’s other neighbours are conflict — wracked Somalia and Sudan — with Ethiopian Woyanne (the Ethiopian ruling party) troops in Mogadishu, aiming to keep Islamist militants Somali freedom fighters from retaking control of that city -– it is clear that the regional political context is as unfavourable as the global economic squeeze.
But it is Regisa, Benetu and the hundreds of thousands of other young children whose lives are most at risk. “Benetu needs food, but she is so sick now that she cannot take any”, says her distraught father, Cheru. Time is so short for so many, the WFP might not be able to get sufficient replacement foodstocks in before August, and as spokeswoman Jones says, appealing to donor nations, “this problem needs resources, and now.”
Haregewine Messert, owner of Chez Hareg, has hired 20 extra
workers to help bake the hundreds of cakes and pastries that
have been ordered for the week.
(By Nikki Kahn, The Washington Post)
(The Washington Post) — Since opening her European-style Chez Hareg bakery in the District’s Shaw neighborhood last year, Haregewine Messert, an immigrant from Ethiopia, had neglected the little lot behind her shop, allowing it to become overrun with weeds.
But this week new gravel is on the ground. Patio tables have been arranged. And a fresh coat of paint covers a wooden fence that encloses the area. The reason for the renovation?
Twenty thousand soccer fans are expected in the Washington area this week to watch teams of Ethiopians from the United States and Canada compete. The annual tournament has become one of the largest gatherings of Ethiopians outside their homeland.
This year RFK Stadium is the venue, and hotel rooms throughout the region, including 600 at Prince George’s National Harbor, have been booked. Ethiopian-owned businesses have been making last-minute upgrades and hiring extra staff. Several in the District plan extended hours or have gotten temporary liquor licenses. A block party is planned Sunday along Ninth Street NW between U and T, an area that is home to many Ethiopian businesses, one day after the games end.
Washington is a city of visitors, and tourism is a key part of the local economy. Large events like presidential inaugurations and conventions result in packed hotel rooms and bustling restaurants, but also help publicize the city. Events such as this year’s Ethiopian soccer tournament demonstrate the diversity of the local tourism industry. Many Ethiopian business owners say they hope the event will bring a boost in business and that word about their establishments will spread well after the tournament ends.
“The main thing is to show the clientele coming here who we are and what we have,” said Henok Tesfaye, who owns the Etete restaurant on Ninth and U streets NW with his brother. “This is like advertising.”
Census figures show that about 31,000 Ethiopian immigrants — or about one-fifth of all those in the United States — live in the Washington area, though the Ethiopian Embassy says the local number is much higher.
“People take it as our second capital city, and people like to come and visit,” said Solomon Abdella, a longtime organizer of the event, now in its 25th year, and founder of the Ethio Maryland club, based in Silver Spring. “It is our city outside of Addis Ababa.”
The tournament has been hosted in the Washington area five times before, but it has grown since it last came to the region in 2002, when games were played on a high school football field in Hyattsville. Since then the tournament has been held in semiprofessional and professional venues, including the Georgia Dome in Atlanta in 2005, the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum in 2006 and the Homer B. Johnson Stadium outside Dallas last year.
Elias Fikru, the owner of Nahom Records, will set up a booth outside of RFK, where organizers are planning to recreate a large African village with vendors selling the latest Ethiopian fashions as well as traditional artifacts. Sales at Fikru’s Ninth Street NW shop have been dismal in the past year, he said, with the pirating of his Ethiopian hits becoming more prevalent and the struggling economy leading his customers to refrain from CD purchases.
“I hope this is going to be good. I am expecting a lot of people,” Fikru said. “I am expecting a lot of visitors.”
Fikru’s isn’t the only business struggling with the economy.
Yeshimebeth Belay publishes a phone book for the local Ethiopian population and said that many of the restaurants and small businesses are having trouble.
“We have a lot of new businesses in our book, and that shows us businesses are growing,” she said. “Everybody is struggling, but they are holding on, and hopefully everybody is excited” for the soccer tournament this week.
Also gearing up is the Expo Restaurant & Nightclub on Ninth Street NW, owned by Abraham Tekle. Tekle, 54, is from Eritrea, which fought two bitter wars with Ethiopia, including one for independence.
Despite that history, Amanuel Abraham, 28, Tekle’s eldest son, has been working feverishly with his 16-year-old brother Adam in past weeks to complete a downstairs renovation of the restaurant in time for the soccer fans. The brothers are refurbishing the restaurant floor and adding a bar. Gone will be the dining tables, replaced with couches and sofas, creating what Abraham hopes will be a hip atmosphere.
“I have not seen any of that political divide,” Abraham said. “It is a big event for us as well. . . . We are extremely excited as a business, and so are our clientele.”
For her part, Messert, the owner of the Chez Hareg bakery, has hired 20 extra workers to help bake the hundreds of cakes and pastries that have been ordered for the special gatherings and parties planned throughout the week. She hopes to use the money she clears from the week to put down concrete or bricks in her back yard, making her temporary patio expansion permanent.
She envisions a backyard patio where customers can spend sultry summer afternoons drinking coffee, eating baked sweets and discussing the latest events of the old country.
