Video: Ethiopian woman arrested in Atlanta shooting
Month: February 2009
Ethiopian suspect arrested in Atlanta beauty shop shooting
By Aungelique Proctor | My Fox Atlanta
DEKALB COUNTY, GEORGIA – A suspect is in police custody following a fatal shooting at a DeKalb County beauty shop. The 23-year-old owner of the beauty shop was shot and killed at Ermy’s Hair Salon on Buford Highway Thursday night, February 5.
Authorities arrested Roda Teklu in connection with the shooting and said Teklu is an acquaintance of the victim, Gebeyehu Erimias Awoke.
Awoke’s family said he will be buried in his native country, Ethiopia.
Zimbabwe opposition party doubts Mengistu extradition
HARARE (Reuters) – Zimbabwe’s opposition party said on Friday it doubted its unity government with President Robert Mugabe would extradite Ethiopia’s former Marxist ruler Mengistu Haile Mariam, who has asylum there.
Mengistu, called the “Butcher of Addis Ababa” by his enemies, was driven from power in 1991. He was sentenced to death in absentia last year. [The current ruler, Meles Zenawi, is as well known as the butcher of Addis Ababa and Mogadishu.]
Zimbabwe’s opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), which has agreed to join a government with Mugabe, said it would seriously consider extraditing Mengistu if it were forming a government by itself.
“But what we are going to have is a government of national unity, and decisions there will have to be reached through some consensus and I don’t know whether that’s going to be possible,” said MDC spokesman Nelson Chamisa.
The extent of the MDC’s influence in the new administration remains unclear.
The Ethiopian government has long called for Mengistu’s extradition, but Mugabe’s government has refused that.
He was sentenced to death in absentia in May 2008 by Ethiopia’s Supreme Court. It found him guilty of genocide arising from the thousands of killings during his 17-year rule that included famine, war and the “Red Terror” purges of his suspected opponents.
Yoseph Kiros, the special prosecutor during the trial of Mengistu and other senior officers, welcomed any chance that prospects for extraditing Mengistu could have improved. He said any such decision by Zimbabwe “would bestow great honour on that country.”
U.S. diplomat’s death in Ethiopia being investigated as homicide
By Carly Lagrotteria and Sarah Scire | The GW Hatchet
A George Washington University alumnus working for the State Department was found dead in Ethiopia this week and U.S. government officials say his death is being investigated as a homicide.
Brian Adkins, who graduated in 2007, worked for the State Department as a Foreign Service officer stationed in Ethiopia’s capital city, Addis Ababa. Representatives from the State Department said Wednesday that Adkins died on Saturday, but would not give further details because it was an ongoing homicide investigation.
Adkins, who would have turned 26 on Feb. 2, completed both his undergraduate and graduate studies at GW, graduating summa cum laude as an international affairs major from the Elliott School of International Affairs in 2005. He joined the State Department after receiving his master’s degree in 2007 and was assigned to Ethiopia.
After studying the indigenous language and culture for nearly a year, Adkins moved to Ethiopia as part of a Thomas R. Pickering Foreign Affairs Fellowship.
John Wysham, head of the Ethiopia desk at the State Department, said he was unable to provide details about Adkins’ death or the homicide investigation.
“The trouble here is that it is a crime scene we are talking about,” Wysham said. “It wasn’t like he fell off a rock and hit his head.”
He added, “We’d love to talk about it and stop some of these rumors but we cannot.”
Wysham said that he has been in contact with the Ethiopian embassy and Ethopian police forces about the ongoing investigation.
A Foreign Service officer also stationed in Africa is planning to accompany Adkins’ body from Ethiopia to the United States, Wysham said. The casket will be transported by military aircraft.
Ginny Boncy, a member of the State Department’s casualty assistance department, said Adkins was in the first year of his assignment and performing consular work for the State Department.
Consular work typically includes providing services like assisting Americans in distress and handling visas and passports.
Though Adkins’ father could not be reached for comment, senior Michael Geremia, one of Adkins’ best friends, described the Ohio native as “selfless, hardworking, confident, funny, charming, articulate, a scholar and a gentleman.”
“The world has lost someone who had so much to offer. I miss him tremendously,” Geremia said. “When I received word of his death on Monday, which would have been his 26th birthday, a piece of me died in Ethiopia.”
Geremia said that he last spoke to Adkins on Sunday, Jan. 25, when the two friends started to plan Adkins’ summer vacation in D.C.
“He was so excited to be in Africa serving his country as a diplomat, promoting American values,” Geremia said. “As much as he loved his career, he missed the U.S.”
Geremia said that despite the trials of living abroad, Adkins was optimistic about his future as a diplomat.
“Whenever I would urge him to be safe, he would reassure me that Ethiopia was safer than D.C.,” Geremia said.
As a student in Foggy Bottom, Adkins was a leader at the Knights of Columbus and the Newman Center, two organizations devoted to the Catholic faith.
He served as a trustee and held several officer positions with the Knights, including chancellor in charge of membership. After graduating, Adkins served as state ceremonial chairman and district warren for the Knights. In 2007, he was named Knight of the Year in D.C.
“He was friendly to everyone, incredibly devoted to his faith, and always willing to volunteer and give of himself,” said senior Conrad Murphy, a former grand knight. “When he left for Ethiopia, we found that it took at least three of us just to fill his shoes.”
Friends and fellow members of the Knights of Columbus, including Murphy, said Adkins will be remembered as incredibly intelligent and always working to master a new language. He spoke French, Arabic and Amharic, the official working language of Ethiopia.
Tom Saccoccia, a fellow 2007 alumnus and close friend, said Adkins will also be remembered for his humility.
“He just wasn’t a credit grabber, even though he did everything,” Saccoccia said. “He was just an all-around good guy.”
Adkins was a native of Columbus, Ohio. A Rite of Christian Burial is planned in his honor at St. Mary’s Church in his hometown.
African Union summit dominated by Gadhafi
By Peter Heinlein | VOA
ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA – The just completed African Union summit in Addis Ababa was partly a celebration of the continent’s achievements, and partly a reminder of how deeply it remains troubled by wars, poverty and flawed leadership.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon attended the African Union summit, as did the heads of international financial institutions and as many as 25 other heads of state and government. But they were all upstaged by the golden-robed Libyan leader Moamar Gadhafi, hailed by supporters as ‘the king of kings’ as he was sworn in as AU chairman for the coming year.
The opening sessions were all business, presided over by the outgoing chairman, Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete in his finely tailored suit. He was the third consecutive AU leader from a country where the government is chosen through elections.
Lukewarm reception for Colonel Gadhafi
The tone changed half way through the second day, when President Kikwete gave way to Libya’s ruler. In contrast to the packed hall during the earlier business sessions, the room was half empty, with only a handful of heads of state on hand as Mr. Gadhafi turned the floor over to the tribal kings in native dress he had brought with him.
Delegates at this summit reacted cautiously to Mr. Gadhafi’s election. When asked for her reaction, Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf said , ‘I have accepted it”. Other leaders made a silent statement by staying home, making this one of the most poorly attended summits since the organization began.
In his acceptance speech, Mr. Gadhafi sharply criticized racism in the United States, America’s role in creating the world financial crisis, the plight of Palestinians in Gaza and the failure of democracy in Africa, which he blamed for the recent rise in military coups.
Speaking in Arabic through an interpreter, Mr. Gadhafi said in his Green Book, a collection of thoughts published in 1988, he had predicted the election of a black president in the United States.
“But the Green Book says after analysis, after all various conditions that black people will prevail over the world, and today Obama, the Kenyan son has imposed himself in the United States of America, defying openly. It was a kind of challenge against this despicable attitude toward the black population, the looting of African wealth and the looting and pillaging of the continent,” he said.
Later, in answer to a reporter’s question, the Libyan leader railed against multi-party democracy, calling it an imported system that has brought nothing but chaos to Africa.
“Finally there was multi-partyism, but this new method, which is imported, is now faced with many challenges. Unfortunately we have seen coup d’etats and rebellions are showing back their ugly heads. After elections, there are massacres as it happened in Kenya. Also results of elections are made public then followed by rebellion, a president is elected and a revolt follows and a coup d’etat takes place, a rebellion and so on,” said the Libyan leader.
AU cautious on continental government
There were few heads of state in the room to hear Mr. Gadhafi’s speech. The summit had been extended an extra day because of a standoff between the Libyan leader and most other delegations over his plan to create a union government, and most presidents and prime ministers had gone home by the time the closing ceremonies were held.
In the end, this was Mr. Gadhafi’s summit, and he insisted he is pushing ahead with his plans. It was left to Africa’s chief diplomat, AU Commission Chairman Jean Ping to explain to reporters that, despite what Mr. Gadhafi may say, his dream of a continent-wide government will not be coming true any time soon.
Berekt Simon is outraged by Tesfaye Gebreab’s book
The following is a letter from Bereket Simon, the propaganda chief of Meles Zenawi’s brutal dictatorship in Ethiopia, to the author of “Journalist’s Memoir,” Tesfaye Gebreab. Seiko Toure is Bereket’s nom de guerre.
From: [email protected]
Date: 2009/2/2
Subject: testimony of betrayal
To: [email protected]
Hi! I have read your recent book. I don’t want to comment on what you have written about me. What I want to tell you is that I was consistent on my belief regarding you. Finally you have admitted that you were not in our domain, starting the first day!
This country had given you more than you have contributed. The EPRDF was so generous to accommodate you and give you the authority and wealth you abused it. Hiwot, Tsigereda, Zufan… loved you, though you were pretending that you loved them. Finally you lost everyone! You betrayed all!
Now you are coming back with a story to resurrect desperately your fatally damaged identity. You are opting for a struggle for which you are not created. I tell you, for the rest of your life, you will fight to abandon the pursuit of your guilt. But you will not be able to escape. You will remain unsatisfied and in a continuous and desperate act of insulting those who are making history, at least to satisfy your ill fated mind.
For us, regardless our weaknesses, we have got an objective which is changing the whole of Ethiopia, including the Yerer and Kereyu Oromo peasants you pretend loving them. We are writing history which can’t be destroyed by any kind of force; forget your testimony of betrayal. Though we don’t have the right to be remembered positively in history, I think, we may have a dignified share of appreciation for our heroic struggle for the betterment of this great nation.
Seiko