Last night several Addis Ababa University (AAU) students were severely injured after supporters of Woyanne and Medrek clashed with each other following a televised debate. Federal Police entered the AAU’s 6 Kilocampus to stop the disturbance. More at Awramba.com
By Jason McLure | Bloomberg
The Ethiopian Human Rights Commission started a probe into a grenade attack on an opposition candidate’s home in a remote village in the north of the country, an investigator said.
The state-run body will release a report on the April 27 incident after about a week, investigator Mulugeta Netta said late yesterday by phone from the northern town of Axum.
No one was killed in the attack, said Ayale Beyene, a candidate for parliament for the Medrek opposition alliance, at his home in the nearby village of Wukro Oumaray.
Four members of the commission visited Ayale yesterday at his home in the country’s Tigray region, a hotbed of support for Prime Minister Meles Zenawi’s ruling party.
The probe comes amid rising tension ahead of Ethiopia’s May 23 election. Medrek leaders claim they are the victims of a widespread campaign of intimidation and harassment by government officials, police, and militia loyal to Meles.
Ayale, 28, said he was awoken during the night by the sound of something clattering off his stone hut’s tin roof, followed by a “devastating noise.” Ayale pointed to pieces of chipped stone and a damaged tree as evidence of the blast. He said a second grenade was left unexploded outside his hut.
Shimeles Kemal, a spokesman for the Ethiopian government, said he was unaware of the incident when contacted on his mobile phone. Government and ruling party officials have in the past accused opposition leaders of fabricating human rights abuses so as to tarnish Ethiopia’s image.
At least 193 demonstrators were killed by security forces loyal to Meles in unrest following Ethiopia’s 2005 elections.
New York (CPJ) — In light of the Ethiopian regimet’s longstanding practice of jailing journalists on trumped-up criminal charges, the Committee to Protect Journalists is concerned about the detentions last week of two government TV journalists on allegations of misusing state property. CPJ is monitoring the legal proceedings closely.
Editor Haileyesus Worku and reporter Abdulsemed Mohammed of Ethiopian Radio and Television Agency (ERTA) have not been formally charged since their arrests, according to local journalists. Today, a magistrate extended their detentions at Makelawi Prison in the capital, Addis Ababa, for another week, pending further investigations by the Ethiopian Ethics and Anti-corruption Commission, according to local journalists. The commission, which ordered their arrests, had requested an extension of 40 days.
Speaking to CPJ on Thursday, Ethiopian government spokesman Bereket Simon said the journalists had been “caught ‘red-handed’ smuggling property belonging to the institution, and tried to sell them to bodies of interest.” Simon declined to detail the accusations, saying the case was ongoing. “It is not a press freedom issue, but a criminal issue,” he said.
At least one of the two detainees, Abdulsemed Mohammed, has said he is innocent of the allegation, a local journalist told CPJ. Mohammed had been recently demoted under civil service policies designed to put government loyalists in senior editorial positions, sources told CPJ.
Ethiopian authorities have imprisoned a number of journalists in recent years under politically motivated criminal charges, according to CPJ research. Last month, a court sentenced Lelise Wodajo, an ERTA staffer imprisoned since October 2008 to ten years in prison without parole for alleged links with the rebel Oromo Liberation Front. Her husband, Dhabessa Wakjira, a former state TV news director, and reporter Shiferaw Insermu were arrested in May 2004 and imprisoned for nearly three years on similar charges.
In May 2009, Meleskachew Amaha, a correspondent with U.S. international broadcaster Voice of America spent three weeks in prison in connection with old tax charges that were later dismissed. Three months earlier, ERTA presenter Dawit Alemu was detained at Addis Ababa police commission for two weeks on false accusations of authoring a controversial religious book under a pseudonym, according to news reports and local journalists.
“Ethiopian authorities have a long history of imprisoning journalists on spurious criminal charges,” said CPJ Africa Program Coordinator Tom Rhodes. “For this reason, we are skeptical of the charges against Haileyesus Worku and Abdulsemed Mohammed. We call for due process and transparency.”
Local journalists told CPJ police picked up Mohammed at his office and Worku at his home on April 22. Mohammed is a 10-year veteran of the station and was once a senior radio news editor. Worku produced several educational programs.
By Yilma Bekele
What do you do when you first wake up in the morning? Some of us cannot move without our first cup of coffee while others require a good breakfast. How about if you went to bed without dinner? I am sure you woke up a few times hungry, you did not have a good restful sleep and it is possible your rest was disturbed by all sorts of dream and nightmare due to an empty stomach.
Food is primary. Food comes first. Without food there is no you. Without food there is no life.
Food is what is lacking in our country. Food has been lacking in our country for eternity. We are famous for not having enough food. Our name has become synonymous with hunger. When you say famine the word that comes to mind is Ethiopia.
Why is there not enough food in Ethiopia? We are lazy? No. Our people are known to farm from sunup to sundown. Farming is a family business. Our land is dry? No. We have plenty of rivers flowing out of our highlands north into Egypt, East to Somalia and west to Sudan. We don’t have enough land. No. We have plenty of virgin land waiting to be developed. We are over populated. No. We have enough land to sustain twice our current population. We are stupid? No. Our dispersed citizens all over the world are proof that we are one clever people that will settle anywhere and thrive.
Thus we are not lazy, we have a beautiful fertile land, we are not over populated and we are not mentally challenged people but we are still hungry and cannot survive without a handout. Why?
There is not enough food because we are not using our resources intelligently. Did I just say resources? As soon as I said resource you automatically thought of mineral or oil or such commodity. No, we have resources more precious than that. The people are the most important resource of a country. We have not figured out a way to harness the abundant resource of eighty million souls in front of our eyes. That, in a nutshell is our problem.
It is nice to have minerals and oil. It is good to be blessed with a vast population. But by themselves they don’t mean much. There is a third important factor that makes the two work in harmony. It is a vital part of the equation. It is what we have been lacking for a long time. That is what we don’t have.
I am glad you asked. What is lacking is good governance. It is enlightened leadership. That is what is missing in our country. Our country goes back thousands of years. Our Ethiopia is not a recent phenomenon. We have such visionaries as Tewodros, Yohanes and Menelik. They have been gone a long time but their legacy still lives.
Today we are lost. We are like a vessel without a pilot but driven by the wind. We stumble from port to port. We travel without knowing our destination, we plan without knowing what we want to achieve and we fail time and time again. We are accustomed to leaders that avoid responsibility. They excel at blaming others for their mistakes and lack of vision but they have this remarkable ability to shake accountability.
Here is a quote from a classic Chinese text (Tao TeChing) written around the 6th. Century BC about leadership:
The best rulers are scarcely known by their subjects;
The next best are loved and praised;
The next are feared;
The next despised:
They have no faith in their people,
And their people become unfaithful to them.
When the best rulers achieve their purpose
Their subjects claim the achievement as their own.
We don’t have that do we? Thus we go hungry. We roam the earth looking for a place to settle. We despair for our country and we fight each other. Whether at home or in a foreign land we have no harmony. There is no peace among the children of Ethiopia. We celebrate our differences and magnify our contradictions. We are one sorry nation.
The way we are going about building our country is not a wining formula. We all know it is not going to happen. You cannot fit a square inside a circle. You can try, but it won’t fit. My son used to try that when he was two. One week with that toy and he figured it is not going to happen. He did not force the issue. He learnt. Here we are responsible adults and we are still trying to fit a square inside a circle.
We are at it again. The current farce billed as an election is bringing out the worst in us. We are stuck with a Party that is unable to let go. It survives from day today. It survives by creating contradiction among its people. It stumbled into power without a clue of what to do with it. It has been improvising for the last seventeen years. It lacks what the American refer to as ‘Exit strategy’. I am sure the TPLF leaders would love to go into the sunset peacefully. Sit back and enjoy their ill-gotten wealth. How is the burning question keeping Ato Meles and company awake at night. Their belly is full but their mind wonders.
Think of it this way. Ato Meles his family a few of his friends can leave. How about their entourage. What is going to happen to the junior abusers that have been doing the actual dirty job? It is a very interesting situation. Lack of ‘exit strategy’ has been the Achilles heel of dictators since time immemorial. Shah of Iran, Ferdinand Marcos, Augusto Pinochet, Mobutu Sese Seko, Alberto Fujimori, Nicolae Ceausescu and so on have all been victims of that simple but vital concept. They always get caught with their pants down.
After all is said and done we are back to square one. Waking up hungry. Fourteen million Ethiopians are in a state of constant famine. Twice that number wake up hungry everyday. When it comes to our children it is said that those that are mal nourished (starved) during their developmental phase, the deficiencies are recognized to have the potential for permanent adverse effects on learning and behavior. A nation of mentally challenged is the outcome.
Everything is inter related. You cannot have food on the table without a good governance that requires a visionary leader. You cannot have a visionary leader without a democratic elections that weeds out the wheat from the chaff. You cannot weed out the chaff without an open transparent competition for the citizen to judge. So we go around this vicious circle we have created.
What do you think the current election is going to accomplish. Definitely it is not going to separate the chaff from the wheat. Why? Because it is all chaff. The wheat knows better. It is going to sit this one out. TPLF is going to win. Medrek will be allowed one hundred seats. The Europeans and the Americans will bless the outcome with ‘some’ reservation. Ato Meles and company will celebrate their emerging democracy.
The Ethiopian people will watch the drama somberly. The hunger will continue unabated. The migration of the young will be accelerated. The sale of our virgin territory will gain momentum.
All is not lost. It might look hopeless but every contradictions carries its own solution. Didn’t the divine Haile Sellasie regime crumble due to internal rot? Didn’t the mighty Derge wither away due its arrogance and abuse? The same fate awaits the criminal TPLF regime. I will leave you with what Tao TeChing said about rebellion:
When rulers take grain so that they may feast,
Their people become hungry;
When rulers take action to serve their own interests,
Their people become rebellious;
When rulers take lives so that their own lives are maintained,
Their people no longer fear death.
When people act without regard for their own lives
They overcome those who value only their own lives.
There will come a time when the people no longer fear death.
Alexandria, Virginia (ABC 7)– New York City police have arrested a Virginia resident who is accused of murdering his 3-year-old daughter and her mother, ABC 7 News has learned.
Investigators have been searching for 34-year-old Simon Asfeha, a native of Ethiopia, since April 11, when officers responded to a domestic disturbance complaint and found the woman, 27-year-old Seble Tessema, and her daughter, dead. Both had been stabbed to death.
Asfeha had previously been charged with assaulting Tessema.
The U.S. Marshals fugitive task force, which had been hunting Asfeha, described him as a “monster” to the Washington Examiner, saying he had slashed his own daughter’s throat.
(VOA) — Distinguished Eritrean scholar and economist, Dr. Tekie Fissehatsion, died last week of a brain tumor. He was receiving medical treatment at Johns Hopkins Medical Center. A memorial service was held on April 24.
Tekie was an economist and author or several books on Eritrea, regional economics and political conflicts. He also served on the commission that drafted a constitution for Eritrea when the nation declared its independent in 1991.The constitution was never enacted and Tekie became an advocate of its implementation. He became chairman of the department of economics at Morgan State University in 1991. He came to the United States in 1964.
Among books he wrote are “Prospects for Economic Cooperation Between Eritrea and Its Neighbors,” “Economic Cooperation in the Horn of Africa,” and “Shattered Illusion and Broken Promise: Essays on the Ethiopian-Eritrean Conflict,” published in 2003.
Three colleagues of Tekie spoke with Tewlede Tesfagabir abtu his life and career: Dr. Gebrehiwet Tesfagiorgis of the University of Iowa; Alemseged Tesfay, a writer and historian; and Kasshun Chekol, whose Red Sea Publishing Company in New Jersey published his books.