(BBC) – Some 70,000 people have fled their homes in a remote part of southern Ethiopia, after a deadly conflict broke out between rival groups – apparently triggered by the construction of a new borehole. The BBC’s Elizabeth Blunt has been to visit the affected areas.

Wamo Boru and his family used to live in Kafa, one of the many small ethnic Borana communities scattered across the arid borderlands of southern Ethiopia and northern Kenya.

The hard red earth shows through the thin grass of the sun-baked landscape, a wide expanse of thorny scrub, flat-topped thorn-trees and tall red anthills.

The Borana lead a hard life, especially in the past year or two, when rains have been poor.

But the community had its livestock – cattle and camels and goats – and was expecting to have a better water supply when the Oromia regional government finished work on a new borehole in the area.

But at the beginning of February they had – quite literally – a rude awakening.

“It was nine o’clock at night, we were sleeping when we were fired at,” said Wamo.

“We just had to jump from our sleep and protect ourselves. Because it was night, we didn’t see who was attacking us, but we think they were the people called Gherri from Somali regional state.

“They came on foot, without vehicles, but they had bombs and missile launchers, and at that time we didn’t have guns, only sticks to defend ourselves.”

Wamo, his family and neighbours fled with just the clothes they stood up in.

They managed to bring some of their stronger livestock with them, but they had to leave the weaker ones behind to be taken by the raiders.

Now they are camped close to the dirt road that runs east from Yabelo, the administrative headquarters of Ethiopia’s Borana zone.

Wareba, the village teacher, is there too; he lost one of his in-laws in the raid.

“This was a war no-one was prepared for,” he says.

“That was how the Somalis could come and destroy so much.”

The children he used to teach are scattered across the area, and, he says, “not in good condition”.

Wamo says three members of their community died during the attack, another seven were badly injured.

Their community is now just another group of displaced people – 2,000 of them among nearly 70,000 estimated to have been driven from their homes by the fighting.

Jealousy

This part of Ethiopia has a long history of conflict, cattle raiding and fights over water and grazing among its various pastoral communities.

But this, says Wamo, was different from other wars.

“They came and fought us at night,” he says. “It was not a warrior-like war.”

He attributes the attack to jealousy over the scheme to dig a new borehole.

“They didn’t want us to live well, and water is very important to us, so they attacked our water source.”

The emergency-response officer from the local administration, Mohamed Nur, agrees that it was an unusual conflict.

“This went to a very large scale,” he said.

“It affected a huge number of people from both sides. In past conflicts, communities would fight, but they wouldn’t destroy government property, like the drilling rig.”

An attack on the new borehole may have started the fighting, but the causes are deep rooted.

The water scheme was close to the dividing line between two of Ethiopia’s ethnically-based regional states – Oromia and Somali regions – a boundary which has never been properly demarcated.

The Oromo regional government thought it was drilling the borehole on its own territory; people in Somali region thought it was on their side of the boundary.

When Somalis destroyed the rig, the Borana mobilised to take revenge, angry at what they saw as years of Somali encroachment.

“The Somalis are problematic people,” said one Borana politician from the Moyale area, Guyo Halake Liban.

“They are always pushing us. It’s as if I give you a place to pitch your tent and the following morning you are telling me to leave; the Borana are not accepting that.

“These people have pushed the Borana from very, very far places. I don’t think the Borana are willing to move an inch from where they are any more.”

Stockpiling weapons

Like all pastoralists in this part of the world, Borana men habitually go armed to defend their flocks.

When they fought back, there were pitched battles in the area. More than 300 people are thought to have died.

Humanitarian workers like Mohamed Nur are now dealing with the consequences.

By KARL ROVE

Presidents throughout history have kept lists of political foes. But the Obama White House is the first I am aware of to pick targets based on polls. Even Richard Nixon didn’t focus-group his enemies list.

Team Obama — aided by Clintonistas Paul Begala, James Carville and Stanley Greenberg — decided to attack Rush Limbaugh after poring over opinion research. White House senior adviser David Axelrod explicitly authorized the assault. Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel assigned a White House official to coordinate the push. And Press Secretary Robert Gibbs gleefully punched the launch button at his podium, suckering the White House press corps into dropping what they were doing to get Mr. Limbaugh.

Was it smart politics and good policy? No. For one thing, it gave the lie to Barack Obama’s talk about ending “the political strategy that’s been all about division” and “the score-keeping and the name-calling.” The West Wing looked populated by petulant teenagers intent on taking down a popular rival. Such talk also shortens the president’s honeymoon by making him look like a street-fighting Chicago pol instead of an inspirational, unifying figure. The upward spike in ratings for Rush and other conservative radio commentators shows how the White House’s attempt at a smackdown instead energized the opposition.

Did it do any good with voters not strongly tied to either party? I suspect not. With stock markets down, unemployment growing, banks tottering, consumers anxious, business leaders nervous, and the economy shrinking, the Obama administration’s attacks on a radio talk show host made it seem concerned with the trivial.

Why did the White House do it? It was a diversionary tactic. Clues might be found in the revelation that senior White House staff meet for two hours each Wednesday evening to digest their latest polling and focus-group research. I would bet a steak dinner at Morton’s in Chicago these Wednesday Night Meetings discussed growing public opposition to spending, omnibus pork, more bailout money for banks and car companies, and new taxes on energy, work and capital.

What better way to divert public attention from these more consequential if problematic issues than to start a fight with a celebrity conservative? Cable TV, newspapers and newsweeklies would find the conflict irresistible. Something has to be set aside to provide more space and time to the War on Rush; why not the bad economic news?

Here’s the problem: Misdirection never lasts long. Team Obama can at best only temporarily distract the public; within days, attention will return to issues that clearly should worry the White House.

Not even Team Obama can forestall unpleasant reality. And among those America now faces is Mr. Obama adding $3.2 trillion to the national debt in his first 20 months and 11 days in office, eclipsing the $2.9 trillion added during the Bush presidency’s entire eight years.

Another reality is that Mr. Obama’s fiscal house is built on gimmicks. For example, it assumes the cost of the surge in Iraq will extend for a decade. This brazenly dishonest trick was done to create phony savings down the line.

Mr. Obama’s budget downplays some programs’ true cost. For example, his vaunted new college access program is funded for five years and then disappears (on paper); the children’s health insurance program drops (on paper) from $12.4 billion in 2013 to $700 million the next year. Neither will happen; the costs of both will be much higher and so will the deficits.

Mr. Obama’s budget also assumes the economy declines 41% less this year and grows 52% more next year and 38% more the year after than is estimated by the Blue Chip consensus (a collection of estimates by leading economists traditionally used by federal budget crunchers). If Mr. Obama used the consensus forecasts for growth rather than his own rosy scenarios, his budget would be $758 billion more in the red over the next five years.

Then there’s discretionary domestic spending, which grows over the next two years by $238 billion, the fastest increase ever recorded. Mr. Obama pledges it will then be cut in real terms for the next nine years. That’s simply not credible.

Then there’s his omnibus spending bill to fund the government for the next six months, laden with 8,500 earmarks and tens of billions in additional spending above the current budget. What happened to pledges for earmark reform and making “meaningful cuts?”

In the face of our enormous economic challenges, top White House aides decided to pee on Mr. Limbaugh’s leg. This is a political luxury the country cannot afford, and which Mr. Obama would be wise to forbid. Or did he not mean it when he ran promising to “turn the page” on the “old” politics?

(Mr. Rove is the former senior adviser and deputy chief of staff to President George W. Bush.)

MANCHESTER, England (AP) — World record-holder Haile Gebrselassie of Ethiopia will compete in the 10-kilometer Great Manchester Run in May.

“I like Manchester, it is a good fast course and I’m looking forward to returning,” Gebrselassie said. “It fits perfectly into my program.”

The 35-year-old Ethiopian will attempt to break the course record of 27 minutes, 25 seconds set by Kenya’s Micah Kongo in 2007, which beat Gebrselassie’s old mark by four seconds.

Event manager Andy Caine expects Gebrselassie to challenge his own road race world record for the distance of 27.02 and become the first man to break the 27-minute barrier.

“When Haile competes anything is possible and we’re doing everything we can to help him to do so,” he said. “Course changes have removed six testing turns which in the past have slowed the runners and this will definitely make it a much faster terrain. Also, if he wants pacemakers I’m sure we can provide good ones.”

Forwarded message
From: Abraha Belai
To: xx

Dear Ebin Nat and friends:

Thank you for your kind words, and I truly feel humbled when you refered to me as “the true son of {www:Ethiopia}.” In these trying moments of our country, I work and live as an ordinary journalist trying to serve in my modest capacity the news and information needs of our people.

About Tesfaye Gebreab’s Yegazetegnaw Mastawesha? I’d be a liar if I didn’t tell you how I enjoyed reading it. I know Tesfaye was a gifted writer, but I never knew he would rise to the degree of comparing him with the great writers of our country, like Sibhat Gebre-Egziabher. The late Ba’alu Girma used to revere Sebhat so much his book, Deraseew, was all about the life history of Sebhat.Tesfaye was lucky to have Sebhat as his editor for his Efoita magazine, as I was lucky that Sebhat was also my editor at Ethiopian Herald. Sebhat is gifted in both English and Amharic editing. He is infact admired as the father of writing short essays. I remember in his book, amist-sidist-sebat, there is one short, memorable story covers only half of the page.While reading Yegazetegnaw Mastawesha, I felt I was reading the works of Sebhat. He has this tremendous ability to describe situations in very short and yet powerful words and sentences. Impressive among Tesfaye’s chapters, for instance, is Ye-quindedo Feresoch. It was phenomenal. I found it full of action, and the description was almost like watching a video clip. Congratulations, Tesfaye!

So far I haven’t responded to Tesfaye’s accusations. As a matter of principle, I don’t use a pen name; therefore, trust me friends that I haven’t said a word about the book. A few guys wrongly thought the article written by Ethiopia Yingalish was mine.But trust me, when the writer’s mood sets in, I will write comment on Tesfaye’s memoir. This is only to clarify things, to add to the literary dialogue, and not to accuse Tesfaye of doing this or that. That is not my concern. I’m a journalist interested in promoting factual information, and not a politician with a vested interest of a certain group.But for the sake of honoring the few friends I see here, like my dear friends Fekade Shewakena, Ephrem Madebo and of course Obang Metho, I’d like to clear a few things that made me really sad:

1. In his book, Tesfaye labelled me a “{www:Woyanne} informant” who jumped onto the TPLF bandwagon when he was chief of the Press Department. When the brutal 17 years of the {www:Derg} regime came to an end, I never thought a regime worse than the Derg would come. Never. The end of the Derg for me was the beginning of a new era of peace, democracy, and justice. As a young man, I was overjoyed, and expressed my support for the “new government in public” at a meeting held on the premises of Berhanena Selam Printing Press (which used to house offices of The Herald and Addis Zemen). There is no secret about it. After TPLF took control of power, Ethiopian Press Department manager was Mezmoor Fente, member of the Central Committee of Tamrat Layne’s Party of the time (Edin?). Then after a while, Mezmoor was transfered to ENA, and Tesfaye Gebreab came in as replacement. Since those Esepa members were expelled, Tesfaye, the new manager, was counting on us the young employees of the press for any information toward getting the job done. Since I clearly expressed my support for the “new government,” I was one of those individuals Tesfaye would ask for information on who is better for the Herald (may be a staff of eight). This is about who is better qualified for being a news editor, sports editor, culture editor etc. I genuinely gave my advice since I’ve lived and worked with the Herald for 7 years. When I was sent to Lake Tana along with a high-ranking delegation led by then Prime Minister Tamrat Layne, I wrote what one farmer said, among other things, about Tamrat Layne: “The prime minister is young, tall and handsome.”I didn’t do this to be favored and get promotion. Never; it is not my nature. In fact, I’m very defiant to bosses and governments. Tesfaye pulled this line out of context and projected me as if I were an “Adir Bai” gazetegna. Even if the words were mine, it was no big deal to describe the prime minister in nice words. After all, the medium is English. It may sound odd in Amharic but it was pretty fine in English. In the meantime, what was in my mind at that time was the “era of writing with fear, the era of self-censorship” was over, and I’m a free man who can write without the fear of government retribution. I was wrong.The problem with EPRDF started early on as the Editor in Chief of the time, Ato Kiflom Adgoi, called me to his office and handed me the phone: The call was from the palace. It was in 1992, and Derartu Tulu had won the Barcelona Olympics: I wrote the story whose headline was something to the tune of: Derartu crowned as the queen of women’s Olympic marathon. Since Derartu was the first African woman to win an Olympic gold medal (Abebe Bikila was the first African to win an Olympic gold medal, 1960 Rome Olympics), it was a fitting headline for the news. But a top EPRDF official scolded me like a kid saying,”Do you know Derartu is the daughter of a poor peasant?” Yes, I do.Why do you then refer to her as a “Queen”? Are you an admirer of the feudal monarchy? No, sir. It is because you don’t want to give credit to EPRDF, which is the guardian of the poor peasants? No, Sir. Then why did you portray her as if she was member of the royal family of Haile-Selassie? It is an English expression that doesn’t have any connection with Derartu’s royalty. Are you trying to teach me English? (The tone this time was threatening). (And honest to God), I shot back, “Are you threatening me for what I wrote?”The call ended there.Shortly, I didnt stay long with the Press, I was sent to ENA, where Amare Aregawi was the manager. If I were an Adir bai gazetegna, how is that I will ran into conflict with Tesfaye, then Amare, and others before I left for the US on my own?

SECONDTesfaye said the cause of his conflict with me was when a certain Mulugetta Ashenafi wrote story on Ethiomedia alleging that Tesfaye had made away with half a million Birr when he fled the country about eight years ago. The normal practice of a journalist is to send a rebuttal, or even ask the editor to post a correction, or remove the material altogether. Tesfaye didn’t do this. He rather waited several years until he wrote his memoir that included a few pages he thought would destroy my reputation. In fact, when Tesfaye called one close friend of mine and asked him if he has read his book, the question from the friend to Tesfaye was: “How come you were more bitter about Abraha than Bereket Simon, the man who you said forced you to flee Ethiopia?” Well, Tesfaye knows what he answered.

THIRD AND THE LAST: When Tesfaye’s interview appeared on EMF, he accused me of disseminating copies of his book to sabotage the sale. This is truly sad. For any journalist worthy of his profession, this is not only ethically shameful but also criminal.I read about the existence of the book like everyone of you – when Elias Kifle posted a few excerpted pages of the memoir on Ethiopian Review. Period. Later in the interview with EMF, Tesfaye added another accusation and said I had asked him to pull out the negative pages about me before he got the book published. He said he ignored my request, and as a revenge, “Abraha disseminated copies of the book to sabotage sales.” Oh, Lord! Can Tesfaye share the email message that he said I begged him to pull out the pages written against me? Can he post it for the public that I begged him? I had no idea he was writing a book, and how is it possible for me to do that?

Tesfaye should answer this. Do I’ve any more to say about the book? Oh, yes, at least on two serious issues: the political murders linked to Hayelom Araya and Kinfe Gebremedhin.Given that Tesfaye had access to top EPRDF officials, I don’t think Tesfaye has been honest, and telling the truth about the killings which for me remained as political murders. Tesfaye dismissed Hayelom’s assassination as the work of a “silly Eritrean” who had smoked hashish, and went to bed directly. That was a slap in the face, Tesfaye. But all said, again, thank you for a wonderful reading.

Abraha Belai, Editor of Ethiomedia.com

From: Ebin Nat
To: xxx

Dear Ethiopia Yingalish,

I read your 6 pages reaction on Tesfaye Gebreab’s book. I have the following observation:

1. First and foremost I liked your pen name, Ethiopia Yingalish. It reflects the reality that Ethiopia is still in the dark and your wish is very good. Amen! Ethiopia Yingalat!

2. You are absolutely right TPLF and Shabia have used Derg to eliminate their enemies. Derg was so useless and did kill many honest Ethiopians on the basis of deliberately disseminated wrong info about individuals. Thank you for bringing this issue. It is quite interesting. Our historians are not writing anything about such diabolic acts so far. Let us hope they will write in the future.

3. I beg you to differ from your cautious reaction on Tesfaye’s book. I wish you could explain to me why you think Meles and Bereket may produce such a book? For “tactical” reasons??? It is very unlikely. I remember each and every details of Tesfaye’s comment about Bereket, Abadula etc? I remember how he characterized Walwa’s teletafi so called “biaden”? What to benefit Meles and Bereket may write such a book. Your suspicion that Tesfay’s book could be Weyane’s tactic to divide the opposition is far fetched, to say the least.

4. Let me tell you a true story. Fascist Italia was surprised by the fighting capability of our Patriots and tried to know about the leaders. Graziani heard about the shumet i.e fitawrari, dejazmach etc. Graziani asked the bandas how much he would pay if he appoints them {the bandas} as dejazmach, fitawrari etc.. The Bandas told him nothing. They told him those shumets are just titles of honor. Graziani ordered people to gather at janmeda and made everybody dejazmach, fitawrari, balambaras etc. Five solid years after Italy was defeated and the Emperor came back to power. The Emperor shamelessly acknowledged the Shumet by fascist Italy and even made those bandas his close aide with their unearned title intact. Our historians kept quiet in fear of retribution from the Emperor. They said, Yewushon neger yanesa wusho yihun and buried it under the rubble. This stupid move of the Emperor made pro Ethiopia forces anti Ethiopia and Jebha and shabia of ertrea came into the picture. Many Pro Ethiopia individuals committed sucide not to see themselves as subordinates of the fascist bandas. I recommend you read Zewde Reta’s ‘Ye-Eritrea Guday”. 30 years after i.e in 1974 during the revolution many patriots expressed their opposition about what the emperor did. I don’t know if you know some of those in power now are sons and daughters of those bandas. If their fathers were rebuked promptly for their treason, those bandas would have drilled Ethiopian nationalism into their off springs and the present anti Ethiopia forces ruling clique would not have had such chance to destroy Ethiopia to the extent of making our beloved country with 80 million people the only landlocked with huge population while leaving (“donating”) the entire red sea to the shabia horses according Meles Zenawi’s explanation on the national TV. Those bandas raised their children in their own image as bandas with banda mentality and another banda generation could be left behind. Please read Prof Mesfin’s Yekihdet Qulqulet in which he blames the parents of the traitors for making them so much anti Ethiopia.

The Emperor had to call a spade spade immediately after victory. His courage failed him to do that and moreover took it as an opportunity to counter balance the challenge from the patriots. He could have accommodated the bandas as a result of national reconciliation, while their crime being documented for posterity. Our society is very secretive and strongly believes THAT IT IS BETTER IF SOME TRUTHS ARE LEFT UNSAID. I say all truths have to be told. I appreciate Tesfaye for telling us ALL HE KNOWS. I encourage him to tell ALL THE REMAINING HE KNOWS in his volume II, the journalist memoir.

5. I have not read what Tesfaye said about Abraha Belai. I got the 400 pages copy, not the 412 pages. I cannot comment until I get those 12 pages. My respect and admiration to Abraha Belai is very great. Leave alone in a situation when Abraha is saying it is not true, even if he says it is true my respect and admiration to Abraha Belai remains undiminished. I believe his ineffable service as ethiomedia editor offsets any real or perceived foul play some years back in the past. I hope either you or Tesfaye will send me the 12 pages missing to make my record complete.5. In your article you have not come up with anything concrete and convincing that disproves any one of the things what Tesfaye said. You only want to cast doubt as to his motive. You want to cast doubt by two ways: (i) his parents happened to be from Eritrea (ii) he was weyane. He knew this would happen and mentioned it in his book. . He told us his parents are from eritrea. he told us too he was weyane. He asked us to evaluate the book just as a memoir i.e an honest narration of a one time event and independent of his parents ethnic affiliation and his own political background. I did that and liked the book very much.

6. Andargachew Tsige was a weyane. He left them and joined the opposition. Nobody questioned his motive. He wrote two books and then accepted by the opposition with open arms. The same logic should apply to tesfaye’s case. He is an out and out Ethiopian. I hope his dream will come true and will live in Busheftu in liberated Ethiopia for the rest of his life.

7. The person severely attacked/exposed in Tesfaye’s book is Bereket Simon. Funny enough you accuse him of being soft on Bereket. You remember what Alemseged said to Tesfaye about his conflict with bereket? Alemseged said, “when it comes to ertrawinet, both of u r from there. it can’t be a bone of contention”.

8. Unlike many of us, Tesfaye confessed all his wrong acts against individuals. He regrtetted. We have to appreciate this also.

9. Above all, he gave us a fantastic book. I kindly urge Tesfaye not to be discouraged by such comments coming from different corners.

10. I read a 25 pages response from weyane to Tesfaye. In that response, weyane wants to widen the rift between Tesfaye and Abraha Belai. My observation is that both are forces of unity. Tesfaye has to play it down and try to reduce distance, rather establish contact with Abraha Belai. Abraha Belai is a true son of Ethiopia and did a great job as ethiomedia editor. We expect a lot more from him. We don’t want him to be discouraged when the neaty greatys of the past resurface in any form. Whatever might have happened some 15 or more years before we have to bear in mind that no human being has a clean, flawless, spotless record. After all we are human beings. We see something, we think it works. We try it, it doesn’t work. We accept mistakes and change our position.

I urge all concerned Ethiopians to intervene and bring these two persons together. One tactic of weyane is to create, widen etc silly antagonisms between individuals, ethnic groups, intellectuals, students etc. When a man joins weyane, they make sure he comes into conflict with different sectors of the population. They order you to say in public that will let you go into conflict with the people or a specific group. Dawit yohannes was once ordered by Meles Zenawi himself to make on a national TV and radio a silly statement. Dawit said, ” ethiopia in her entire history has never won a war. Now under EPRDF leadership won a war for the first time in her history; be it 100 or 3000 years”. Many got angry. Dawit himself was shocked by the reaction. Meles was laughing out loud.

Yours, Sincerely,
Ebin Nat

By ROSS COURTNEY | Yakima Herald-Republiconline casino

SUNNYSIDE, WASHINGTON — Mawi Asgedom urged Sunnyside teenagers to set goals, work hard and focus on battles greater than their latest schoolyard spats.

“No matter what happens to you in life, don’t complain,” he told about 200 Sunnyside High School English and history students Wednesday in the school’s auditorium.

Asgedom, 32, was born in northern, rural Ethiopia during a civil war that lasted nearly 30 years. Rebel groups often conscripted boys as young as 12 and men as old as 65, he said, into battle against a socialist military junta.

“They don’t play over there when it comes to war,” he said.

Asgedom’s family of five fled to Sudan when he was 3 and lived three years in a refugee camp with no running water, electricity or paved roads. They were selected in a lottery by World Relief to come to the United States.

The married father of a 4-month-old baby boy considers himself lucky his family stayed together. He knows many that didn’t.

His ordeal wasn’t over. He was thrust into a Chicago-area school speaking only his native language of Tigrigna and bullied by other boys for his ethnic background.

Encouraged by his parents to persevere, Asgedom played sports and excelled in school. He later graduated from Harvard University and delivered the commencement address, with then-Vice President Al Gore sitting next to his mother, Tseg Asgedom, in the front row, he said.

On Wednesday, Sunnyside students alternately laughed at his jokes and fell silent during sad moments of the story, such as when he described how his mother had to chew food and spit it out so his baby sister could eat during their flight from Ethiopia.

Students left inspired to work harder and express more thanks, they said.

Sophomore Maria Cervantes said she sometimes grumbles about how hard high school is socially and academically.

“If I was to put myself in his position, it would be even harder,” she said.

Classmate Ana Guerrero vowed to study more.

“I’m a person that slacks off a lot,” she said with a laugh.

Asgedom chronicled his life saga in his book “Of Beetles and Angels: A Boy’s Remarkable Journey from a Refugee Camp to Harvard.” It’s publication in 2002 earned him a spot on “The Oprah Winfrey Show.”

The Sunnyside School District purchased 500, giving away signed copies to about 350 to 400 to students and community members, said Dave Rodriguez, a graduation specialist at the high school. The rest will stay at the school for English and history classes.

Rodriguez said about 30 students each from the high school and the middle schools have been studying some of Asgedom’s motivational teachings for several weeks. The speaker met with them for a private workshop earlier in the day.

That’s when he really struck a chord with students, Rodriguez said. For example, many of them also struggle with poverty and displacement.

“That doesn’t have to be an excuse for you not to succeed,” he taught them, Rodriguez said.

The Sunnyside School District spent $12,500 to hire Asgedom, including the cost of 500 of his books. The district spent federal grant money designed to aid students with limited English skills.

By WILLIAM YARDLEY | The New York Times

SEATTLE, WASHINGTON – It was not the expansive new mural depicting evolutionary history that brought Sandy McKean down to the Pacific Science Center on a rainy winter weekday. Nor had he come to linger over the elegant displays about Ethiopian culture.

The reason Mr. McKean paid the $20.75 admission fee for “Lucy’s Legacy: The Hidden Treasures of Ethiopia” was because he wanted to see the bones. They are 3.2 million years old but, for him, electric with urgency. This was the first American exhibition tour of the famous Lucy fossils, 47 skeletal fragments of a female hominid whose discovery one day in 1974 altered the study of human history.

“This is like a dream come true for me, to see the actual skeleton,” said Mr. McKean, 64, who is retired from a job in computers. “I can’t think of a more amazing and interesting thing than to study human beings and our ancestors.” He added, “I would think people would be lining up and down the block.”

Yet as the exhibition prepared to close on March 8, six months after it opened amid the freefalling economy, lines had been rare. Attendance had been less than half of what was projected.

Instead of being a boon for the Pacific Science Center, the kind of premium-priced blockbuster that would help cover its losses in other areas, the show stands to lose about $1.25 million, according to officials at the science center.

But the sour economy does not seem to explain all of Lucy’s troubles. A rare December snowstorm played a role, and Bryce Seidl, the center’s president and chief executive, has suggested less intuitive reasons like the feverish focus this liberal city had on the election of President Obama and his transition to office.

In addition, an Ethiopian organizer of the show has raised questions about how effectively the science center presented and marketed the show. Ethiopian leaders have long viewed Lucy, and the American exhibition tour in particular, as a way to improve perceptions about their country, and to make money. [The money goes to the dictators’ pocket.]

“Ethiopia has an image problem,” said Gezahgen Kebede, the honorary consul general [{www:Woyanne} cadre] at the Ethiopian Consulate in Houston and one of the leading proponents of bringing Lucy to the United States. He said his country was still defined by the famine of the 1970s, and this exhibition offered a broader view. “The bigger thing in my opinion is to teach people about Ethiopia,” he said.

Although many museums nationwide are struggling, laying off employees and scaling back exhibition plans, the recession has not hurt every blockbuster that has opened over the last year. Since it opened in October at the Dallas Museum of Art, the show “Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs” has broken all of the museum’s attendance records. At the Field Museum in Chicago, an exhibition called “The Aztec World,” which opened in October, has also been a success. The general adult entrance fees on those shows are higher than admission was to Lucy.

Yet at the end of its six-month run in Seattle, the second stop on what is supposed to be a multicity, multiyear tour of the United States, Lucy had drawn only about 100,000 people. The exhibition has no confirmed next destination, and at least one museum that had considered hosting the show in the future, the Field, has decided against it. But Mr. Kebede said negotiations were under way for the show to open in New York this summer.

Lucy opened in Seattle in early October, just as the breadth of the collapse in the financial markets was becoming clear. “We opened at a time when people were shutting their wallets,” Mr. Seidl said. “Then you add the weather to it.”

In a city that gets little snow, several days of significant snowfall paralyzed streets right in the middle of the holiday season. The weather also inspired parents to push their homebound children, a crucial target audience for the exhibition, out onto sleds rather than downtown to a museum.

Mr. Kebede acknowledged the economy and the weather as challenges but said he had been told by contacts in Seattle that the museum had done a poor job of planning for the show.

“The Seattle people, they just flunked it because they really didn’t do their homework in terms of solid advertising and how to penetrate the demographics,” said Mr. Kebede, who had not seen the exhibition in Seattle. “There are people in Seattle who didn’t know this exhibit was there.”

Mr. Seidl said the science center had spent more promoting Lucy than it had on previous large shows. He noted that an exhibit about the Dead Sea Scrolls in 2005, when the economy was stronger, drew twice as many people in half the time.

Disputes over exhibiting Lucy began long before Seattle. When the show’s organizers, the Houston Museum of Natural Science and the Ethiopian government, first agreed to bring Lucy to the United States, several museums and scientists said the fossils should not leave Ethiopia except for scientific purposes. Some accused the Ethiopian government of seeking profit at the risk of damaging Lucy.

“The one thing you heard a lot is that it was too fragile,” said Joel A. Bartsch, the president of the Houston Museum. “Is it important? Absolutely. Is it irreplaceable? Absolutely. But it is not too fragile.”

Lucy spent about a year on exhibit in Houston before going to Seattle. The show drew about 210,000 people over 12 months, Mr. Bartsch said, and was regarded as a success.

“My understanding is they had gone with a younger demographic, a lot of kids,” Mr. Bartsch said of the Seattle show, which he had not seen. “We kind of did a higher-end more adult demographic. You’re trying to explain an idea. Lucy the object and artifact is phenomenal, but really what she’s about is the idea she represents, that she’s an ancestral cousin to the human line.”

Yet Donald C. Johanson, the paleoanthropologist who plucked Lucy out of an Ethiopian ravine 35 years ago and is one of few people close to Lucy who has seen both exhibits, said, “I enjoyed the Seattle presentation much more than I did the Houston one, because I think Seattle put an enormous amount of effort into placing Lucy’s species, Australopithecus afarensis, in a broader framework.”

Mr. Johanson said he particularly liked the display of prehuman skulls that suggested a kind of evolutionary ascendance on the way to the exhibit’s focal point, the Lucy fossils. He also noted a lighter feature he liked, a display that used soda bottles, filled with varying amounts of fluid, to show the difference in brain capacity between humans and Lucy.

Those enhancements cost money. The Pacific Science Center paid a fee of about $500,000 to the show’s organizers, Mr. Seidl said, then spent almost $2 million more to renovate its exhibition spaces, add an audio tour and enlarge the exhibition’s section on Ethiopia, including the country’s role in farming coffee. Admission also included tickets to an Imax film about the Nile River.

“This is never a business that’s comfortable,” Mr. Seidl said. “Our job is not to build big bank accounts. It’s to serve underserved people, inspire kids, that sort of stuff.” The science center, in addition to several other museums nationwide, is not planning any exhibitions that charge premium ticket prices. Future shows — like “G.P.S. Adventures,” an exhibition about “geocaching” opening March 28; “Animal Grossology,” opening May 23; and “Animation,” opening Oct. 3 — are “real family-friendly, right for the economy,” Mr. Seidl said. Mr. Kebede, of the Ethiopian consulate, said he hoped Lucy would travel to New York this summer in an arrangement with Running Subway Productions, which has helped host huge shows like “Body: The Exhibition,” the controversial exhibit about human anatomy. A spokeswoman for Running Subway said it was too early to comment on any plans.

“This is going to be a big thing,” Mr. Kebede said. Next year, he said, he hopes Lucy will travel to China for an exposition in Shanghai.