As you all know Ethiopia held what is referred to as ‘elections’ last May. The ruling TPLF party won 545 of the 547 seats in Parliament. One can tell from the results that either the TPLF party is the most popular association in the country or the election was rigged and the outcome was tainted.
Ethiopians were resigned to the fact that the Prime Minster’s Party will be declared the winner. It was also assumed the regime will allow the so-called opposition to win some seats to save face and appease the Ferenji donors. Those aligned with Medrek actually were willing to look the other way when Ato Meles jailed their leader, murdered their candidates, denied them gathering places and threatened them with criminal charges if they criticized the regime’s polices in the heat of the moment. It did not save them from extinction.
Ato Meles did not stop there. He picked and choose the international observers and trained his own cadres to be election observers. He tried but was unable to deny the European Union from sending independent observers. Welfare recipients sometimes have limited choices. He did mange to curtail their activities to show his people that he will not be pushed around.
Well the report by European Union election observers was made official last week. For us Ethiopians there was nothing new there. We live the nightmare thus there is no need to read about it. Our collective response was a loud duh!
On the other hand our ‘fearless leader’ for life has a different response to this carefully written report. According to Barry Malone of Reuters, the PM chosen words were ‘”trash that deserves to be thrown in the garbage.” He did not stop there, elucidating further, he went on to say “The report is not about our election. It is just the view of some Western neo-liberals who are unhappy about the strength of the ruling party… anybody who has paper and ink can scribble whatever they want.”
Charming isn’t he. You would not expect such ‘trash talk’ from a leader of a country do you? One would think when you ascend to be a leader there are certain diplomatic norms to be maintained and style of talk to abide. One can disagree without being crass. The office one holds dictates one’s behavior and choice of words. Well, it is Ethiopia and international norms, rules and regulations are suggestions left to the individual’s discretion.
It took the EU Election Observation Mission (EOM) six months to issue the official report. EU EOM was headed by Thijs Berman, a Dutch member of European Parliament and 10 Core Team members (analysts) 90 Long Term Observers and more than 60 Short Term Observers from 22 EU member states, as well as Norway, Switzerland, and Canada. The report is a carefully written document giving credit where credit is due and pointing out some discrepancies where improvement is needed to make the system work better. None of the observers hold any bias against our country and people that we know of. Their stated mission was to observe and report so what ever happened will be well documented and help future decision makers to see where to put their resources to help Democracy take root in our country.
When it comes to our country things just don’t move in a reasonable and rational way. You can sense the crudeness of the TPLF regime when it denied the team access to Ethiopia to present their findings. According to Mr. Berman ‘”This is the first time that a host country has denied the EU observation mission access to return to present its report,”
The regime chose to impeach the character of the EU mission instead of responding to the detailed findings by the observers. First to comment was our good friend Shimeles Kemal (yes he is still around), the mentally unstable paranoid Communication Affairs Minster who said ‘the report is nothing but a biased political analysis of Ethiopia and was made under pressure from Human Rights Watch (HRW) which led the government to reject the report.” He was not satisfied with one enemy thus he threw in HRW for added effect.
The PM decided to lower bar further down. He was not about to be outdone by a junior miscommunication chief. He decided to leave the insulting and name calling to me. Twenty years at the helm has given him the license to dispense insults, demeaning words and bully his people with immunity. That is what he did five years ago in response to EU’s report regarding the 2005 elections. In fact he was so proud of his penmanship he published his response on his newspaper ‘The Ethiopian Herald.’ This is what he wrote:
The statement has come as a great surprise to me. I had expected that the statement would have very few if any nuggets of truth, and, if any, that these would be buried under so much garbage that it would be virtually impossible to excavate them. As it turned out, the statement has some big, really big, lumps of truth in it, and it is relatively easy to remove the garbage that has covered those lumps of truth. While I was expecting a huge garbage dump all I got was newly started garbage dump that was unable to bury the truth. The letter cannot but therefore start by identifying and highlighting the lumps of truth in the statement.
There you have it a head of state calling the Honorable Ana Gomez and her team’s report ‘garbage’.
Looks like time has not mellowed the PM. Why do you think he is stuck in this funky mode? Do you think just may be we have something to do with it? Is it possible we encourage this dysfunctional behavior? Are we part of the problem?
These are good points to ponder while we look at the PM and his isolated existence in a bubble. You see the truth is verbal abuse, demeaning of fellow citizens is nothing but the first step leading towards higher forms of criminal behavior. Ato Meles has made it a habit of knocking down our flag, country and culture. We are so enamored by his crass behavior that we ascribe such adjectives as ‘wend new’ ‘jegna new’, etc. that only emboldens his crudeness. He of course thinking it is cute goes on to apply it in his relationship with foreign dignitaries. It is true children repeat what they hear. Thus one is always careful about language around two-year-olds. They blurt out that ‘new’ word they just heard in a public setting.
We are ashamed that the PM did not find a grown up method of disagreeing in a civilized manner. Language is very important in diplomatic circles. Words carry great weight.
LetsRun.com has the following story on the Haile Gebreselassie retirement controversy that is evolving into a 3-way battle between Haile vs. the New York Times vs. the Ethiopian despot in the Battle for credibility.
The Haile Gebrselassie retirement story continues to make news and it’s only getting stranger and stranger. Two days after a story appeared in the New York Times on Gebselassie’s un-retirement in which it was said that Gebrselassie was under intense political pressure in his native Ethiopia and his phones had been tapped, Gebrselassie and his manager Jos Hermens appeared on national television in Ethiopia and ripped the veracity of the story that appeared in the New York Times… LetsRun.com contacted the New York Times around 10:30 pm EST on Thursday night to try to get Jeré Longman’s response to the Hermens statement. Longman wasn’t in the office and the unidentified employee in the Sports Department who answered the phone told us to call back in the morning as he wasn’t going to call him this late at home on this matter. On an aside, we imagine if this story was about a US sports star, the reaction would be different. To us, this is a huge story as it involves possible political intimidation of a world record holder. If Hermens did tell the New York Times Haile’s phones were tapped, then it appears he has quickly been forced to deny it on national televsion in Ethiopia. If he didn’t say it, then it’s pretty bad reporting by arguably the US’s most famous newspaper… [read the whole story here]
Boston area TV, WCVB, reports that an unidentified passenger died on Ethiopian Airlines Flight 500 that headed to Washington DC. The flight was diverted to Boston.
BOSTON (WCVB) — A flight headed to Washington DC, was diverted to Boston on Wednesday after a 64-year-old man died on board, CNN reported.
The man died on Ethiopian Air Flight 500, CNN reported. The man’s name, nationality and cause of death were not immediately available.
The flight was headed to Dulles Airport in Washington, D.C., from Rome when it was diverted to Boston.
The plane landed at Logan Airport at 7:15 a.m. and continued to Washington at 9 a.m.
As expected, Woyanne propaganda chief Bereket Simon wasted no time to respond to New York Times report about Haile Gebreselassie’s reason for retiring. Within a few minutes after the New York Times report appeared online, we can guess that Bereket have summoned to his office both Haile and his manager Jos, and given them a tongue lashing, followed by threats of serious consequences unless both refute the report in a convincing way. Watch the drama below. Haile had a choice — to be a freeman and accept the consequences, or to be a slave to Woyanne. He chose to be a slave.
Addis Ababa-based business journal Capital Ethiopia reports that the recent confiscation of lands from investors by Meles Zenawi’s puppet mayor of Addis Ababa, Kuma Demeksa, is causing private banks to lose over 400 million birr. Many of the investors are Woyanne members and supporters who have already taken their money out of the country in hard currency. While Woyannes take their money out, some fools in the Diaspora continue to take their money to Ethiopia to lease land, not realizing that it can be confiscated any time at the whim of the regime without due process. That is one of the costs of keeping oneself politically ignorant and becoming unaware of developments in Ethiopia. It is inevitable that the financial system will collapse due to the massive corruption and all those who are depositing their money in Ethiopian banks will be left empty-handed. — Elias Kifle
(Capital Ethiopia) — Several private banks will lose more than 400 million birr in loans to four real estate developers after the Addis Ababa City Administration under Kuma Demeksa’s order reclaimed their plots. The real estate developers allegedly used the land illegally as collateral to obtain bank loans and subsequently transferred them to third parties.
The city administration says it considers suing the real estate developers, [including construction mogul Samuel Tafesse who has recently built a $5 million mansion in a suburb of Washington DC].
An official told Capital that the City Administration reclaimed over 200,000 square meters of idle plots from the four real estate developers. He says the state owns the plots and no one has the authority to sell or transfer them, except the city administration.
Without mentioning the exact amount of money, the official claims the hundred millions of birr that has been disbursed by commercial banks will automatically be lost as per the national law. He says every real estate developer has borrowed more than hundred million birr from the banks.
Banks will also lose the money they gave out for the construction of real estate developers. Construction built on some of the sites reclaimed, will be removed or will be used by the administration after it pays a compensation for the work done at the site. The banks will lose the rest of the money they disbursed to the real estate developers.
According to the Ethiopian law, it’s prohibited to offer vacant plots without any construction on it as collateral, since the land is state-owned. The official further notes that the four real estate developers did in fact construct something on their land: a tiny hovel at one side of the plot, simply to secure the loan from the banks.
A bank president says the policy of most banks on construction loans is to approve the loan request when the client is able to provide a title deed from the city administration and an approved construction plan. If they fulfill these conditions, the banks, who also visit the plots, usually provide them with a loan.
Addis Ababa Mayor Kuma Demeksa said last week that only 18 percent of a total of 5.9 million square meter of land slated for real estate is used properly. He further said that the rest of the plots is transferred to third parties or used as collateral for loans without any construction being built.
The source at the city administration says they are looking into suing those who abused the land rules. Those who transferred their plots to a third party, and those who bought plots, irrespective of whether they have constructed or not, will be taken to court. The court will handle the case and give them a final verdict, he says.
The city administration will continue its recent massive plot reclaiming, which is in its second phase. Over two million square meters of plot from different real estate developers has already been taken back. This accounts for over 33 percent of the total amount of land given for real estate development.
According to Addis Ababa officials, the administration reclaimed over 1.5 million square meters from real estate developers that failed or refused to start construction within eighteen months since the operation started two weeks back. Furthermore, the city reclaimed more than 500,000 square meters of plot that has been held illegally by real estate developers. If the city would have leased the 2 million square meters against an average price of 3,000 birr per square meter it would have gained over 6 billion birr.
The reclaiming operation is part of the city’s measures against 120 real estate developers who it said have violated rules and regulations of the city. Since 1997, the city has slated out over 5.9 million square meters of plots to 125 real estate developers in different parts of the city.
Most lease agreements require developers to deliver their housing units within 24 months from signing the contract and should at least start construction within eighteen months. However, this has been a difficult condition to meet for developers. According to some of them, the primary reasons for the delay include poor infrastructure, escalation of construction material costs and financial problems.
The cost of construction in the city is about 8,000 birr per square meter according to engineering estimates. The real estate developers are also lodging complaints against the city, saying that the administration has triggered the delay itself by creating obstacles in relation to the clearing of plots.
More problems loom ahead for some of the real estate developers. Their clients, who have fully paid for their still-to-be-build homes and who are awaiting the completion of the construction, are expected to officially lodge complaints soon.
A major Kenyan newspaper picked up the story about the plight of Haile Gebreselassie who abruptly ended his athletic career last week after competing in the New York City Marathon. Yesterday, the New York Times, quoting Haile’s own manager Jos Hermens, reported that the star athlete is facing blackmail and that his phone is tapped by the Meles regime. Will Haile, under pressure from Woyanne propaganda chief Bereket Simon, deny his manager’s claims, or will he have the moral fortitude to stand up for himself and for the people of Ethiopia by telling the truth? — Elias Kifle
Haile Gebrselassie allegedly ended career amid huge pressure from Ethiopian regime
(The Standard) — Claims surfaced in international media alleging that undue political pressure from the Ethiopian government may have compelled Haile Gebrselassie to announce his stunning retirement from athletics after November 7’s New York Marathon.
On Monday, reports from Addis Ababa said much to the relief of distance running enthusiasts worldwide that the world marathon record holder had rescinded his decision to quit the sport that has brought him fame and enviable fortune while elevating him as an inspirational figure among Ethiopian youth.
According to the New York Times, “His agent, Jos Hermens, said from Addis Ababa Gebrselassie had reacted emotionally after leaving the New York course at 16 miles of the 26.2-mile race. He also felt guilty for having dropped out of a half-marathon in New York earlier this year.”
‘Emotional decision’
However, he controversially “suggested that Haile’s emotional decision to retire might have stemmed in part from political pressure he was feeling in Ethiopia. His phone has been tapped by government officials and he has faced some sort of blackmail attempt,” the paper quoted Hermens as having said of his client.”
The report quotes the agent saying, “There is a lot of pressure on him in Ethiopia. I don’t know all the details.”
The Ethiopian Review, an opposition online journal based in Washington, reported this month that Ethiopia’s Prime Minister, Meles Zenawi’s wife and her associates were attempting to force partnerships with Haile on a new hotel that he had built and on other real estate ventures.
The mayor of Addis Ababa, an ally of the prime minister and his wife, had also recently ordered the confiscation of land that had been leased to the twice Olympics 10,000m champion, the journal reported, citing sources in Addis Ababa.
‘Mother of corruption’
“Zenawi’s wife Azeb Mesfin (commonly known as the “Mother of Corruption”) and her business partners are going after Haile’s enterprises with demands for partnership,” Ethiopian Review stated.
“For a long time, Haile has been heavily investing in real estate development and this year, his new five-star hotel in the town of Awassa was inaugurated. The four-story, 150-room hotel was built at the cost of 200 million birr (Sh2b). Haile is also preparing to build 200 condos in Addis Ababa on 40,000 square meters of land.”
It added: “Recently, Zenawi’s puppet mayor of Addis Ababa, Kuma Demeksa, a close ally and business partner of Azeb, has ordered the confiscation of the land leased to Haile. Apparently, his company, Haile & Alem Real Estate, is competing with other companies who have Azeb as partner.”
“All this pressure came out; he was emptying his heart,” Hermens said.
Haile, who has held 27 world records in a two-decade career, is expected to mark his return at February’s Tokyo Marathon, with the London 2012 Marathon and Olympic gold also in his sights.
