As I sit here reading EthiopianReview.com report that China may be investing in and unfairly influencing Ethiopia, even too much for Ethiopia’s own good, I reflect on my research of 20 years into the ancient Ethiopian investment and importation of goods and technology into ancient Gebts that led to my recent book. Like cheap Chinese-made goods available today in Ethiopia, 5100 years ago it was Ethiopia food crops and goods that were exported to and sold in Gebts by ancient Ethiopian businessmen and women. Not only were crops and goods sold in ancient Gebts markets, but as Chinese are doing in Ethiopia today, 5100 years ago it was Ethiopians investing technology into Gebtsawian infrastructure that led to the very large-scale farming and production, first ever of it’s kind, that called for record keeping that finally became writing — the first written language of business and commerce.
Egyptologists will claim it was Ethiopians who “colonized” ancient Gebts, but far from it was Gebts “colonized” by Ethiopians. As just like with China being handed local Ethiopian commercial opportunities, some might say on a silver platter, it was the Ethiopians 5100 years ago who were handed administration of the ancient Gebts land by whoever controlled that region 5100 years ago, because it was Ethiopians who were providing the food to the Gebts population and that food was increasingly depended on. And with farming and production exported to Gebts shortly after the handover of administration, ancient Ethiopian technology provided the local Gebts people with farming and manufacturing jobs in the ruling Ethiopian farms and factories.
Though I do not get involved in Ethiopian politics, having been born in the USA and never yet having lived in Ethiopia (the land of my grandfather), I find it so interesting how many fear investment in Ethiopia by foreign societies like the Chinese. Especially when 5100 and for the nearly 3000 years that followed, it was Ethiopia that was investing in and influencing the societies of others not only in Gebts, but around the world. It makes me wonder if those foreign ancient societies expressed the same fears of takeover that Ethiopians might really have of the Chinese taking over influence of Ethiopia today.
After I published my book on the ancient Ethiopian involvement in ancient Gebts this past August of 2009, entitled “Amarigna & Tigrigna Qal Hieroglyphs for Beginners” (http://books.ancientgebts.org), now being kicked around like a soccer ball in some Ethiopian circles, Ethiopians regularly ask me what influence the ancient past could ever have on Ethiopian society today. I often answer to beware of the past, because one who forgets the past is doomed to repeat it. And in this case with the Chinese, it looks like the past is repeating itself in reverse, with Ethiopia the one being influenced. Back 5100 years ago when Ethiopia was influencing the world, it was Amarigna that was learned in ancient Gebts and other far away lands, just as Mandarin is said be to taught as part of the curriculum in a Chinese-financed school in Ethiopia, this according to an EthiopianReview.com article entitled “China’s Massive Investment in Ethiopia at What Cost?”
So, while those complain that what my book reports is unbelievable, the Chinese are not sitting on their haunches, but are repeating the very history begun by Ethiopians thousands of years ago in ancient Gebts and spread throughout ancient Europe, India, Asia, and the Middle East. Now the inventors of foreign investment, Ethiopians, whose society and culture is in fear of being unduly influenced this time. Like my book or not, it is our past that we have forgotten and now we might be suffering from, now paying the price according to those who complain about the Chinese investment into Ethiopia. It seems to me I would say to those with such fears to look to the past to capture your future and my book merely is the messenger of what we forgot to remember. After nearly 3000 years of Ethiopians influencing foreign politics, economies, languages, religion, and culture of foreign countries around the world, why are we now not the leaders — at the very least participants — in this very animal that we ourselves invented?
But even if we believe that Ethiopians actually “colonized” ancient Gebts as Egyptologists say instead of it being handed to Ethiopians, as ancient Gebts inscriptions state, it is at least something to think about. This is because if my research reported in my book is true, it is Ethiopians who today have the most to lose, having forgotten itself and its powerful past on its own. With some refusing to believe my account of Ethiopia’s past is true, even willing to try to block my book from ever being read and allowing others to decide for themselves by saying it is garbage or fantasy. But as I posted as a reply to one of these trashing my book and research on a message board thread about my book somewhere in Internetland, “There’s my truth, your truth, and THE truth.” Make sure that ignoring THE truth does not come back to bite you one day.
More information about “Amarigna & Tigrigna Qal Hieroglyphs for Beginners,” along with a sample page from the book, is available at ancientgebts.org, with copies of the book available from Barnes & Noble, Amazon, and many other booksellers.
Searchers located the black boxes of an Ethiopian Airlines plane that crashed in the sea off Lebanon last month killing 90 people, Transport Minister Ghazi Aridi said on Saturday.
“The boxes have been found under the rear part of the fuselage” which was found on Saturday morning, the Lebanese minister told AFP.
“Lebanese army divers have gone down to retrieve them, but this operation will take time,” said Aridi.
“We have to be cautious because we must preserve the data contained in the boxes,” he added.
Aridi stressed special measures would be taken to bring to the surface the flight recorders in a way to avoid any damage that could be detrimental to the information they contain.
The minister also said he had been informed by the Syrian authorities that debris from the plane had been found in the Mediterranean Sea off the western city of Lattakia.
He said earlier that the search vessel, Ocean Alert, had located the rear sections of the aircraft’s cabin.
The sections found were between 10 and 12 metres (33 and 40 feet) long, and at a depth of 45 metres (150 feet) off Naameh, 12 kilometres (seven miles) south of Beirut, Aridi said.
The Boeing 737-800 went down before dawn on January 25, just minutes after take-off during stormy weather from Beirut airport. It was bound for Addis Ababa with 83 passengers and seven crew on board.
No survivors were found from Flight 409, and only 15 bodies have so far been recovered.
Aridi said he hoped other sections of the plane would soon be found, along with bodies of the remaining victims still thought to be strapped to their seats.
Of the 15 bodies found, nine were Lebanese, five Ethiopian and one Iraqi. Fifty-four Lebanese were on board the aircraft.
The Lebanese military said on Saturday that “pictures are being taken” of the located section of fuselage with a view to raising it.
Flight recorders are usually placed in the rear of commercial airliners.
Lebanese officials have said the captain was instructed by the control tower to change to a certain heading, but that the aircraft then took a different course.
Experts have told AFP that the stormy weather may not have been the only reason for the crash, and that the aircraft may have had engine or hydraulics problems.
Hanatzeb Ethiopian Art Gallery in Atlanta has invited Adey Gulilat, an accomplished Ethiopian artist and designer, to present her paintings this coming weekend.
Date: Saturday Feb. 6 and Sunday Feb 7, 2010
Time: 4:00 PM on Saturday and 2:00 PM on Sunday
Address: 49-B Bennett Street, Atlanta GA 30309
More info: 404 352 4373 or 404 838 8433 hanatzeb.com
On Januar 13, Ethiopia’s Prime Minister [genocidal dictator] Meles Zenawi inaugurated the Gilgel Gibe 2 scheme, the country’s biggest hydropower project. “It is possible to speed up development without polluting the environment,” Zenawi proudly declared as he cut the ceremonial ribbon. Yet this was wishful thinking.
Due to shoddy preparation, the project had already been delayed by more than two years. And less than two weeks after the inauguration, the project’s core component, a 26 kilometer-long tunnel, collapsed partly. Power generation had to be stopped for several months. Ethiopia’s hydro sector demonstrates that there are not shortcuts to sound infrastructure development. Cutting corners does not “speed up development,” but produces costly mistakes.
Gilgel Gibe 2 has a price tag of 374 million Euros and a capacity of 420 megawatts. The project works without a reservoir, but channels the water discharged from the Gilgel Gibe 1 Dam through a long tunnel and a steep drop directly to the valley of the Omo River. The undertaking was plagued by shoddy management from the beginning. In violation of Ethiopian law, the government negotiated the project contract with the Italian construction company Salini without competitive bidding. No-bid contracts for public works projects are a big red flag of corruption. The Gilgel Gibe deal was awarded without a feasibility study, and construction started without the legally required environmental permit.
In violation of Italian law and against the recommendation of its own evaluators, Italy’s Ministry of Development Cooperation awarded 220 million Euros of aid money for Salini’s no-bid contract. Gilgel Gibe 2 was “the biggest development fund released to a single project in the history of the Italian Cooperation,” the Ministry says proudly. The European Investment Bank, which is notoriously weak in appraising power projects, contributed another 50 million Euros, and the Ethiopian government funded the remaining 104 million Euros.
Gilgel Gibe 2 was supposed to be completed in Dec. 2007. Yet the poor preparation soon took its toll. Deficient geological studies had overlooked sandy soils and aquifers in the rock. The tunnel boring equipment got stuck in the mud, and the engineers had to redesign the tunnel’s path. As we heard, the aqueduct collapsed only 12 days after its inauguration, nine kilometers inside the mountain.
Who pays the price for such development failures? The dubiously negotiated contract for Gilgel Gibe 2 exempts Salini from geological risks, so the Ethiopian electricity consumers and tax payers ended up paying for the cost-overruns. Salini will certainly try to shift the blame for the tunnel collapse to Ethiopia once again. In the meantime, the country’s poor remain without electricity, and the environment gets spoilt for nothing.
Italy’s Campagna per la Riforma della Banca Mondiale has documented the numerous legal problems and shortcuts of the Gilgel Gibe 2 project in detail. The Campagna’s Caterina Amicucci comments that aid projects like Gilgel Gibe 2 “not so much address a country’s urgent development needs, but subsidizes a major Italian company.” The Campagna and International Rivers have asked that the bill for the latest disaster be paid by Salini and not Ethiopia’s taxpayers.
Gilgel Gibe 2’s dodgy deal is the rule, not the exception in Ethiopia’s hydropower sector. The contract for the slightly smaller Tekeze Dam was awarded in 2002, and power generation was supposed to start in 2007. Yet in this case, the ground on which the dam was being built was too weak — a fact which a proper feasibility study would have found in advance. Landslides caused further delays, and the project was commissioned two years late in 2009.
The story doesn’t end with Gilgel Gibe 2 and Tekeze. In July 2006, the government awarded a $2.1 billion contract for the Gibe 3 Dam — its biggest infrastructure project ever — to Salini through direct negotiations. Again there was no competitive bidding. Again project construction started without an Environmental Impact Assessment and an Economic, Financial and Technical Assessment. If built, the Gibe 3 Dam will devastate the fragile ecosystems of the Lower Omo Valley and Lake Turkana, on which 500,000 poor farmers, herders and fisherfolk rely for their livelihoods. Even though the project violates Ethiopian law and their own safeguard policies, the African Development Bank and the World Bank are currently considering support for the project.
Will the collapse of the Gilgel Gibe 2 be a wake-up call for the World Bank and the African Development Bank? Latest news indicates that the financiers, who refused to get involved in Gilgel Gibe 2, may yet shy away from the dodgy Gibe 3 deal. They know that their credibility is on the line.
MEKELE, ETHIOPIA (VOA) — An estimated 400 Chinese employees on strike for the past two weeks at the Messebo Cement Factory in Mekele charge some have suffered physical injuries in clashes with company officials over wages.
[Messebo is one of the 60 mega-million-dollar companies in Ethiopia that is controlled by Meles Zenawi’s wife, Azeb Mesfin.]
Ethiopian Woyanne federal police have now placed tight security around Mesebo cement factory expansion being operated by Hafie Cement Research and Design Institute and the subcontractor, Jention.
The workers told VOA that 800 birr, a portion of their monthly wages, is paid to them but the rest of their salary which was to be deposited in their individual accounts is missing. Some of the workers said there was no money in their account for the last three months.
The contractor said they will be paid for their effort and that the two sides will meet to discuss the dispute soon.
It took an article on LA Times to help me gather my thoughts together. I knew there was some thing missing in the story unfolding in front of me. The article by Alexandra Sandels and Borzou Daragahi of Los Angles Times brought it all in focus.
ET409 is a tragic story. We all felt the pain. Although death is a natural occurrence, an accident like ET409 has unpleasant effect on all of us. It is death magnified. ET409 was death in the family. Sudden unexpected death.
Then the passenger manifest started to come out. There were eighty passengers and seven crewmembers. Twenty-two of the passengers were Ethiopians returning home from Lebanon. As far as the foreign press is concerned they were ordinary passengers. Business people or vacationers returning home. But we Ethiopians know better. It was no surprise to us that they were all women. No one has to tell us they will all be young. We have close relatives like that all over the Middle East. They are the surplus Ethiopians.
This group of Ethiopians returned home in a body bag. Some will stay in the Mediterranean. All will have a special place in our hearts. On the other hand talk to any Ethiopian Airlines employee and they will tell you the horror stories of the returnees from the Middle East. The trip back home should be renamed the ‘horror express’. Some return with deep psychological scars, some with visible body scars and some in a casket. Some sit there like zombies unable to talk, afraid to move unsure of themselves. Some come back home to die. They will never recover from the deep humiliation and abuse.
They all go there to better themselves and their family. There used to be a long line stretching all the way to the street and sidewalk in front of the old courthouse in Ledeta. It was a line of girls registering a name change to go to the Middle East. Having a Muslim name was a plus. Then came Woyane and institutionalized the process. They called it employment opportunity and started to charge for the service. Woyane makes a lot of money selling citizens. It is a very lucrative business. It is true they started selling maids to the Middle East before they graduated to selling children to the West in the so-called ‘adoption’ scam.
So our sisters flock to the Middle East to make something of their life. In Lebanon, Dubai, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia etc. they join others like them from the Far East in perpetual servitude. They enter a region with no laws, minimal view of human right and total absence of justice. The plight of our people in the Middle East is an open secret. The suffering and humiliation have been told and retold plenty of times. They jump from high-rise building and kill themselves. They kill their tormentors in self-defense. Unable to understand their agony their brain shuts off.
So the ones that died in the accident are the carriers of this horror. Despite all this happening to them our sisters are on of the highest contributors to Woyane’s 10% growth that is told and retold again and again. Let us take Lebanon by itself. They say there are over twenty five thousand Ethiopians working there. Let us assume each one sends US $100.00 per month. That is US$ 2.5 Million per month and US $30 Million a year. In Ethiopia that will be $390 Million Bir. A lot of money if you ask me. That is what you would call a cash cow.
How does the Ethiopian government appreciate the contribution of these citizens that cling to their motherland despite the threat to their well-being. Silence and indifference is their response. So it was a surprise to see the Woyane Foreign Minster in Beirut after the accident. There he was sitting with the Lebanese Prime Minister. Why did he go there is a good question? Did he go there to gather his people around him and console them in this time of grief? Did he go to meet with friend and family of the victims and tell them their government’s commitment to help in the search and rescue effort? Did he go there to give them moral strength? Did he go there to hold their hands and be with them? I am afraid the answer is none of the above. In Woyane’s Ethiopia those who rule don’t mingle with those ordinary Ethiopians. His Excellency does not have time for uneducated simple maids.
Then why did he go? Well he went as his capacity as Board Chairman of Ethiopian Airlines. Yes he is the Chairman of the Board. Don’t ask what his qualifications are for such a high post. Does his resume shows his talent in managing a little kiosk? Does it show his education and capacity for such a demanding job? Does he have a track record of growing a business? The answer is none of the above. His qualification is his membership in TPLF. Thus he went there because some Lebanese officials used to degrading our Ethiopian sisters upgraded their contempt and questioned the skill of the pilots and crew. The Foreign Minster went there to calm the nerves of the Lebanese officials. He went there to protect the integrity of his cash cow called Ethiopian Airlines. Why they don’t change the name to ‘Woyane Airlines’ is a mystery. The only thing Ethiopian is the name. In America they call it truth in advertising.
Thus it was no surprise to see my Diaspora friends decrying the racism of the Lebanese in the ill treatment of those in grief. Despite the fact that the horrible condition of the Ethiopian guest workers is known to all of us some of us choose to vent our rage on the people of Lebanon. I agree with Fekade, it is totally ‘a misplaced rage’. Our rage should be directed at those that allow such conditions to exist. Our indignations should be directed at the root of the problem. We should be careful in our wholesale condemnation of the Lebanese people. We should be aware that there still are over twenty five thousand of our people working there. We don’t want to contribute for their further ill treatment. Our quarrel is with the TPLF regime that considers the rest of us as trespassers in our own land. We fix our house first and the world will shower us with respect and love. As Henry Thoreau said ‘there are thousands hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the roots…’ don’t tell me you are still hacking at the branches! That is so yesterday my friend. Rage against Lebanon is hacking the branch.
