First, Columbia University moved the speech venue from the grand Low Library to a campus {www:auditorium}. Then the university president avoided being seen with Ethiopian {www:despot} Meles Zenawi, and sent his deputy. Just to make sure there is no World Leaders Forum association with Meles, they put him on a stage with a blank dark background. Every leader who has appeared on the WLF has had the script of the forum in the background behind the {www:podium} except for Meles. See for yourself below and judge.
Meles Zenawi and other leaders at World Leaders Forum
Member of European Parliament Ana Gomes asks President Zuma of South Africa to help release Ethiopian Birtukan Mideksa
(Brussels) MEP Ana GOMES (S&D, PT) asked President Jacob Zuma of South Africa today, during a meeting of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the European Parliament, to help liberate Birtukan Mideksa, a young woman leader of the main opposition party in her country, Ethiopia, who has been jailed for life and whom Amnesty International considers to be a “prisoner of conscience”.
The South African Head of State admitted to not knowing the case in particular, but assured the European Parliament that “if she was jailed unfairly, South Africa would certainly be willing to use its influence” and press for her release.
Ana Gomes asked President Zuma and South Africa to show solidarity towards Ms. Mideksa, who the people of Ethiopia consider the “Ethiopian Nelson Mandela”. The Portuguese Socialist MEP evoked Nelson Mandela and his inspiring fight for freedom, stating that “he is not just a hero of South Africans, he is a hero for Mankind”, and recalled how world solidarity was important to return Nelson Mandela to freedom. “Will South Africa now show solidarity to get the release of this brave, young African woman imprisoned for life in Ethiopia, the country that hosts the headquarters of the African Union?”, directed Ana Gomes to President Zuma.
Together with MEP Marita ULVSKOG (S&D, SE), Ana Gomes proposed Birtukan Mideksa for the Sakharov Prize 2010. During the last plenary session in Strasbourg, the nomination of the Ethiopian political prisoner won the endorsement of the Socialists & Democrats Group for the European Parliament’s prestigious Human Rights annual award.
OK, back to Ethiopia week. On leaving Addis, we head off to the Rift Valley on one of Ethiopia’s many excellent roads (shame about the driving…) to an enormous flower farm owned by a company called Sher, which rents them out to three large Dutch flower companies, including Herburg Roses Ethiopia plc, who we are meeting. And I mean {www:enormous} – rows of identical green plastic greenhouses, each one a kilometre in length, covering a total of 325 hectares so far, and aiming to reach 450. What follows is a classic flying NGO visit – a hurried conversation with the managers, a quick chat to some workers, and then we have to leave with a steadily accumulating series of unasked or unanswered questions, what the French call pensées d’escalier (‘thoughts on the stairs’).
So what is (more or less) certain? Roses have boomed in Ethiopia, overtaking Kenya this year. According to Alemayehu Geda, an {www:economist} from Addis Ababa University, about 100 firms are involved, 2/3 of them foreign-owned. Cut flower exports have risen tenfold over the last 3-4 years and now bring in an annual $170m in 2008 – that’s 11% of national exports. Peter van Heukelom and Jos Kliks, respectively Herburg’s Managing Director and Farm Manager, think Geda’s figure may even be too low. 90% of Ethiopia’s roses go to Holland.
Flowers create jobs: Herburg needs 26 people per hectare to grow its flowers, which is a lot more than can make a living from a hectare of any other crop I’ve come across. And Ethiopians want to work there, as the long lines outside the farm gates demonstrate.
Flowers bring in vital foreign exchange. The deal between the Ethiopian government and the foreign investors specifies a minimum of €0.08 must enter Ethiopia per flower. Herburg alone exports 80 million roses a year to Holland – that’s a guaranteed €6.4 million entering the country.
But only a tiny proportion of the sales price reaches Ethiopia: Peter says he would be happy to earn €0.13 a stem, (i.e. above the minimum set by the government), but a 12 rose bouquet on a UK supermarket website costs £40, or €3.91 per rose. That means 97% of the final value of the rose you buy in the shop never reaches Ethiopia!
The companies spend a fair amount on social responsibility, including a gleaming hospital, free to all employees, and a nursery and primary school. Herburg is regularly audited and certified on both its environmental and social {www:performance} by MPS, a quality assurance company.
Herburg pays no corporation tax, because of a five year tax holiday that runs out next year. But even after that, as long as Ethiopia prevents companies from repatriating profits, they will probably make sure their pricing policy ensures that profits accrue in Holland, so little corporation tax will be paid in Ethiopia.
Beyond that, a one hour visit leaves a large cloud of uncertainty. Wages are low (about $28 a month for a packing worker, $50 for her supervisor), but that is reportedly a good deal more than the minimum wage and the few workers we speak to see it as a good, secure job.
On the environmental questions that always surround flower farms, Peter and Jos point to their MPS certification and say that the firm uses only organic chemicals, and takes great pains to clean up its effluents. A local environmentalist claims the fish are dying in the lake, but the lake looked luxuriant and was full of birdlife (including fish eaters), so who knows? Certainly not me. And I have no way of knowing the health impacts on the workers, if any, of chemical use, although Peter stresses that they are required to wear safety gear and fined if they fail to do so. And I have no information on the views of the small farmers evicted (with compensation) by the government to make way for the farms.
So on the basis of this sketchy information, do I think we should continue to buy Ethiopian roses? Yes. Does Ethiopia earn a fair proportion of the final price for its roses? No. Should we keep up pressure on the companies involved to improve wages, conditions and environmental management? Definitely. I suspect not all readers will agree, though. . .
It was a beautiful weekend in Oakland. It was sunny, warm and clear blue skies. We celebrated Meskel like never before. Every year you see more young ones scurrying around between your legs and all over the place. It is a population explosion with the new arrivals and the newly born. As usual it was both serene and lavish. The folks of Medhanealem cathedral know how to give a feast fit for Ethiopians.
We are both proud and happy to have a caring church that knows its responsibility to people and country. To watch so many Ethiopians having fun and rejoicing in celebrating their heritage is heart warming. You can take the Ethiopian out of Ethiopia but you cannot take being Ethiopian out of him/her. The fact we were treated to such a holiday spirit is not an accident. Here in Oakland we have a little advantage. We are blessed to have a caring and humble father that has managed to keep has flock together and avoid the bad and terrible things that are happening all around us. Our church is under constant attack and church leaders like Abatachen have shown us how to be to be resilient. We might bend but we will never snap and break.
I am sure it took a lot of planning to organize such an event. Since there is the issue of setting fire (Demera) both the City and the fire department have to be notified. There were tents to be pitched, table and chairs to be set. There was food and water to be brought and special playing pen for the young ones to be set. Traffic control is always an issue and setting up the sound system takes knowledge. It all went well due to excellent planning by the Church Board and their helpers. A lot of Ethiopians went home happy.
It is such a joy to see Ethiopians coming together. United and working for the same purpose and goal. Priceless!
Another important event took place on the other side of this continent. The location was Uptown Manhattan and the name of the place is Columbia University. Here on Wednesday September 22nd. another set of Ethiopians defended our honor and hoisted our flag sky high for all to see with the lettering ‘Do not thread on me!’ embossed on good old green yellow and red. Our people chartered buses, drove in their private cars, took the train and flew to be present at this important event. They came as far away as Carolina, as close as Boston as next door as New Jersey or a tad far as Connecticut. They came to speak for the voiceless. They were a few hundred in real numbers but they were hundreds of thousands in spirit. They were not alone. All Ethiopia was with them. They showed the tyrant ferenji respect is not a substitute to our love and respect.
Columbia University got more than what it bargained for. The hired TPLF lobbyists and the Professors for ‘sale’ were exposed for what they are, tyrant coddlers! Columbia heard the cry of the Ethiopian people loud and clear. They were seen going around like a chicken with is head cut off. First they removed the crappy flattering autobiography, then their Professors rebelled and called foul, and were forced to move the venue to a lower setting and crowned their debacle by canceling President Bollinger’s appearance.
Ethiopians in the Diaspora worked together and waged a successful campaign to turn this unjust invitation into a teachable moment. Students and faculty of Columbia University were made aware of the plight of our people. We emailed, faxed, called and made a lot of noise. Our independent websites were relentless and our airwaves were filled with somber discussions. We were at our best. We did it not out of hate but out of love for our homeland.
I wrote an article regarding the individual’s visit. I gave the examples of Fascist Italy’s aggression of 1935 and Jimmy Carters blunder in the aftermath of the 2005 elections to lament on Ferenjis disrespect for our sensibilities. I mis-spoke. I apologize. Both examples are off target. When Italy invaded our motherland our people did not fold their hands and sit around waiting for the bombs to fall. No they marched north to confront the enemy. The fact that Italy possessed airplanes loaded with poison gas and heavy guns capable of doing great damage was not a deterrent to the sons and daughters of Tewodros, Menelik, Tona, Abajifar and Yohanes.
When our honorable guest lost the election in 2005 and decided to win by any means necessary our people did not throw their hands in the air and went back home. They rose up to confront a highly trained and lethal Agazi force of the Prime Minster and engaged the enemy in Merkato and around the nation. Merkato is our sacred ground. Our ‘ground zero.’ Let us just say we lacked the resolve to take the game to its natural conclusion. (Our Kenyan neighbors took note and called Mr. Kibabki’s bluff. Today, Kenya with a democratically drawn constitution will surpass our country in a short time and take the leadership position in African Affairs.) We lost over two hundred sons and daughters of Ethiopia. I did not mean to dishonor the memory of our brave people that stood up against all odds.
My rant against Columbia University is a misplaced anger and a feeble attempt to shift responsibility to others. The confrontation should have been against myself. Don’t you think it is about time we as a nation do some deep agonizing introspection? Self-examination is long over due. Columbia University, for whatever reason have decided to bestow such honor on an abuser of human right and that is their prerogative. It makes us sad and loose respect to an institution that is supposed to be a center of advanced learning and higher moral expectations. After everything has been said and done the problem is ours to solve or live with.
So the question that is keeping me awake at night is how come the people that go out of their way to keep our heritage intact even in exile are the same people that enable Woyane’s atrocity on our people. How come these sons and daughters of Ethiopia are helping a single ethnic based Junta that exiled them out of their homeland by investing their hard earned money in his ponzi scheme? How could you claim to love Ethiopia and give money to those that are destroying Ethiopia?
My question to my brethren and myself is how did we get here? At what point did our character get devalued like our useless currency the Bir? Despite the on going attempt to rewrite our history Ethiopia has existed for centuries as a Nation State. Believe me there aren’t that many countries that can claim that. Today in 2010 how come we have become the poster country for an example of a failed state? Is there a historian, a sociologist or political scientist that can pin point the date of our collective rush to disintegrate?
It has been forty years now since we started this down ward spiral. We have managed to pick a few nasty habits in this difficult journey we embarked upon. The sons and daughter of those proud and brave souls that defined Ethiopia have been bullied to submission at home or reduced to a bunch of destitute nomads roaming the planet in search of a peaceful corner to lie down and die in peace.
There are two psychological terms that come to mind when we think of the predicament we find our selves in. I am speaking about the concepts of ‘intervention’ and a term known as ‘the Stockholm syndrome.’ In part two this search for explanation I will put my two cents worth to elaborate our dysfunctional behavior that is feeding the monster we have created. In the mean time we thank both groups in Oakland and New York for keeping hope alive. Melkam Meskel sons and daughters of brave Abeshas.
The politburo member of Eritrea’s ruling party, PFDJ, Ato Yemane Gebreab, visits Washington DC. Ato Yemane, who also serves as political adviser to President Isaias Afwerki, met with Eritrean community leaders and youth association members on Saturday.
Contrary to reports by the Woyanne propaganda machine, the ill-advised U.N. sanction against Eritrea did not interfere with Ato Yemane’s visit to Washington.
His colleague and Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ato Osman Saleh, is currently in New York. Ato Osman has been holding meetings with U.S. and other governments’ officials.
Both Eritrean officials are also holding town hall meetings with the Eritrean community.
In a recently published book, World Bank economist Dr Aklog Birara explains that Ethiopia’s largest export has become educated citizens. Ethiopia’s highly educated people are leaving the country in staggering numbers, depriving the country the social capital that is required for development.
The estimated annual income of Ethiopians in the Diaspora has reached $20 billion and they remit over a billion dollars in hard currency. The ruling junta in Ethiopia is happy with that since the hard currency is its life blood. Dr Aklog writes:
Officials of the ruling-party find Ethiopia’s largest export defensible. Remittances exceed foreign aid and FDI combined. The government is happy as long as immigrants send money and stay out of the political process. Ironically, the donor community continues to identify institutional and technical capacity constraints as bottlenecks in advancing the national economy. The cadres of people who have left the country are among the most experienced and integrative. The ruling-party has been deliberate in uprooting the country’s integrative and nationally-oriented elites on which the donor community is silent. Instead, it has instituted an educational system that puts a premium on quantity, mediocrity and loyalty.
Dr Aklog’s 512-page book titled Ethiopia’s Endemic Poverty that Globalization Will not Tackle, but Ethiopians can is rich with hard facts and analysis about the current economic, social and political conditions facing Ethiopia. It also offers a wealth of ideas and solutions on how to develop Ethiopia. To obtain a copy of the book, write to [email protected].
First, Columbia University moved the speech venue from the grand Low Library to a campus {www:auditorium}. Then the university president avoided being seen with Ethiopian {www:despot} Meles Zenawi, and sent his deputy. Just to make sure there is no World Leaders Forum association with Meles, they put him on a stage with a blank dark background. Every leader who has appeared on the WLF has had the script of the forum in the background behind the {www:podium} except for Meles. See for yourself below and judge.
So what is (more or less) certain? Roses have boomed in Ethiopia, overtaking Kenya this year. According to 