Skip to content

Month: May 2010

Shambel Fikreyesus Seyoum passed away

Shambel (Captain) Fikreyesus Seyoum, a distinguished Ethiopian elder in Atlanta and a great friend of Ethiopian Review, passed away on Tuesday, May 25, 2010.

A graduate of Harar Military Academy, Shambel Fikreyesus served Ethiopian armed forces in several capacities until 1979. After retiring from the army, he completed his BA from Addis Ababa University and served in several government agencies in Ethiopia until he moved to Atlanta in 1993.

For the past seventeen years, he had been residing in Atlanta where he was instrumental in establishing Mahdre Andnet Ethiopian Association, and Tegbar civic group. He also served as a board member of St. Mary’s Ethiopian Church.

Shambel Fikreyesus’ passing away is a big loss to the Ethiopian community in Atlanta. He is survived by his wife, five children and one grandchild.

His funeral service will be conducted on Saturday, May 29, 2010, at St. Mary’s Ethiopian Orthodox Cathedral in Stone Mountain GA at 12:00 Noon.

Messages of condolences can be sent to his family at [email protected]

Medrek expresses outrage and calls for new election – statement

Medrek, the eight-party opposition coalition in Ethiopia, has issued a 7-page strongly worded statement expressing its outrage at the ruling party, Woyanne, for the way it has conducted the May 2010 elections. In the statement, Medrek thanked European Union observers for exposing the election for what it is — unfair — and demanded a re-vote. Click here to read the statement (pdf, Amharic).

Woyanne accuses the West of orchestrating violence in Ethiopia

The following articles, which is posted on WaltaInfo.com, a web site run by the propaganda chief of Ethiopia’s ruling junta, Bereket Simon, accuses Western countries of orchestrating violence in Ethiopia. What these professional beggars seem to forget is that without the billions of dollars they receive from the West, they are as good as dead.

HRW the global bandit and the EU-EOM symphony orchestra

On Tuesday, the Ethiopian people came out in masses around the country angered, irritated by foreign interest groups and their mercenaries such as HRW. So many of the western correspondents who were in Ethiopia exited ready to cover havoc and a rock throwing sports were disappointed because the rocks and the fire bombs were directed to their respective governments and the global bandit hiding in America. They were in no mood to cover this display of unity by Ethiopians, but were at the Hilton waiting for their man with his Symphony orchestra to spit poison on the election process.

The good thing, Ethiopians have been watching and learning the violence orchestrated by western governments and their proxy global NGO bandits all over the world, from Kenya to Georgia, and in almost all African elections. They have rejected election meddling by western powers under the guise of human rights. With life-sized placards, Ethiopians have said, “we know who we voted for, Stupid.”

While I am elated and happy by the peaceful conclusion of the election, I am bothered by the similarity of HRW statements and the EU-EOM preliminary statements. For example, the jamming of the Interahamw radio station a.k.a. Voice of America was declared as test for Ethiopian election fairness.

The EU mission said, since Ethiopians were not able to listen the perspectives of VOA Ethiopians were denied to receive information from America. We all know that we are not voting for the American presidency but Ethiopian parliamentary election, so what kind of election information or instructions were we expected to receive from America. The other funny statement by the EU Orchestra in regards to the media was “The filming of opposition rallies by film crews from Ethiopian TV was directly observed by the EU EOM observers and is considered and is considered tantamount to intimidation in local context.” says the statement. This is laughable, the EU-EOM appears to come with expert anthropologist too, but the anthropologist failed to ask if VOA’s coverage from Washington is offensive and blasphemous for Ethiopians.

Another old beat up tired issue that has appeared in statement by Human rights watch, the state department was repeated by the EU Symphony orchestra was the Ethiopian NGO law that restricted mercenary NGOs such as the Human Rights Watch from meddling in our election. God forbid what will happen if these guys were in town for our election. In its statement, EU-EOM said the law has limited what NGO’s could have played in the electoral process.

He declared the 40,000 strong Ethiopian CSO observers did not have the capacity to observe the election. When asked by reporters why EU- report differs so much from Ethiopian CSO observers and AU, The little Dutch man said we happen to be professionals and 170 of us. How arrogant and patronizing can you get! I wanted to say you are not in Rhodesia or the old South Africa, but Ethiopia. What we letter learned from a local radio interview with the President of Ethiopia CSO’s who fielded 40,000 observers were amusing.

In his interview, the President told the local radio how offended he was by the condescending statement and further said that his group has also rejected an offer of large sum of money from EU-EOM and said the Ethiopian observers were out there observing with a clear conscious to insure the rights of the electorate is respected, and that the offer made by the EU mission was illegal and against the law of our country. He said this is our election and our country and that we are so proud with what we were able to do. I personally think and view the New NGO law to be my own personal anti -terrorist law. Other foolish, silly statements made by the EU Symphony, in line with HRW statements were.

That the political space has narrowed because of the departure of important opposition figures after the 2005 election. Without exaggeration, we can count these important people and they have stopped to be a legal opposition and have declared war on Ethiopia from Asmara, Europe, and America. For us they are as bad as Osama Binlanden is a bad guy for Americans and Europeans who are still chasing him. We are waiting for them from the north of our border.

After applauding the Election Code of Conduct for Political Parties a few month ago seating next to all opposition parties and taking pictures of themselves. The EU mission now says in its statement that the enactment of the Code as law makes it compulsory even for parties who did not signed it. The statement appears to inadvertently spilled the failed strategy by the color revolutionaries and their TLELAKI party Medrek. Since Medrek is the only party that did not signed the Code of Conduct with a possible advice of western Embassies in Addis, the color revolutionaries effectively lost their hoodlums, and were forced to be peaceful or join Ginbot 7 and Nega in Asmara. However, I do not understand why the Symphony orchestra considered this peaceful mechanism as bad or undesirable. In line with this, there was a news report in Addis where their masters at the Netherland Embassy summoned Medrek and some other groups were told not to singe on the final Election results. I wonder why the government keeps quite about this cheese-heads.

On a final note, the Ethiopian people have voted and said We Know who we voted for. On Meskel Square on Tuesday, They have said the Election is for Ethiopians not HRW! Our Sovereignty is never negotiable for Donations! Stop meddling in our affairs! We will not let you repeats the shameful 2005 incident! For most of this was this was a non-violent war on our country by a smiling straight-faced lying and deceitful white man.

EU Chief Election Observer scolds ENA

In a Letter to the Editor, European Union Chief Election Observer takes to task the Woyanne-controlled Ethiopian News Agency (ENA) for publishing a distorted report about a statement released by the Election Observation Mission. Read the letter below:

Letter to the Editor
To: ENA, Ethiopian News Agency
From: Thijs Berman, EU EOM Chief Observer
Addis Ababa, May 26, 2010

Dear Sir,

With more than great interest I have read your article this morning (“EU EOM says NEBE competent, professional to administer national election”, as published in the Ethiopian Herald) on our findings regarding the May 23 elections in Ethiopia. You may imagine that I, as the Chief Observer, find it highly important that the Ethiopian citizens have full access to accurate public information on these findings.

Being a former journalist myself, I understand that you cannot possibly highlight everything present in a report of 11 pages, in an article that is necessarily much shorter. However, in this article, you exclusively show the positive points we have mentioned on these elections. Not the smallest point of our regrettably important list of factual criticism found room in your text.

We drew a nuanced, albeit critical picture of these elections. One the one hand, these elections were well organized, orderly, peaceful and calm until the day after election day. On the other hand, there was no level playing field between the ruling party and the opposition. The ruling party has used state resources in its campaign. Many opposition leaders are in exile or in prison. Furthermore, the issue of transparency raises serious concerns, and fundamental freedoms, such as the freedom of information, are not fully respected. These findings are documented by facts, observed by our 170 highly professional observers.

I would hope that your newspaper attaches just as much importance as I do to balanced information, and that you would wish to inform the Ethiopian citizens about these facts. This requires that you allow your readers to form their opinion on all our findings in a balanced way, in respect of the binding Ethiopian Media Code of Conduct for the elections (Art. 2.1, 2.2 and 2.12b; Art.3.1, 3.5 in the draft version) of which, regrettably, your article is in clear violation.

Perhaps it would ask too much space in your newspaper to publish the executive summary of our Statement fully. Instead, I would urge you to publish this letter as a right to reply, with our short press release on our Preliminary Statement, and the link to the EU EOM website (www.eueom-ethiopia.org) where your readers can download all our texts freely.

Best regards,
Thijs Berman
EU EOM Chief Observer
www.eueom-ethiopia.org

Shabait.com’s editorial on the election in Ethiopia

Eritrean Ministry of Information’s Shabait.com has posted the following editorial today regarding the May 23, 2010 elections in Ethiopia:

The Ethiopian people had in 2005 once and for all made their choice clear in no uncertain terms, voting for the TPLF regime to rescind from power. Still, the so-called ‘advocates of democracy’, were once again compelled to stage another elections drama so as to buy another five-year ticket for their agent regime. Unfortunately, the TPLF regime turned out to be a bad performer and the ‘directors’ of the drama were left unimpressed. Consequently these ‘directors’ were forced to add additional scenes into the drama in which the ‘guest stars’ mumble something about the election not being ” up to international standards”.

However, realizing that they cannot find a more debase agent than the TPLF regime, these quarters swallowed their disappointment and kept on cheering for the drama that flopped even before it premiered. A theatrical presentation attended only by the ‘directors’ and ‘performers’ themselves!