Ask any of the thousands of Ethiopian immigrants working as parking attendants or cabbies around Washington whom they aspire to be like, and you’ll probably hear about Henok Tesfaye.
Tesfaye, 37, started as a parking valet in downtown Washington two decades ago, saving a few hundred dollars each month to pay for business classes and start his company. Today, his U Street Parking (named after his first parking lot, at 12th and U streets NW) ranks among the biggest parking companies in the region.
His success is part of a wave of accomplishment by Ethiopians, who began settling in Washington after fleeing violence in their native country in the 1970s. Tesfaye’s 12-year ascent in Washington’s notoriously cutthroat parking industry is especially notable because it was so unlikely.
Parking is not an easy business. It’s marked by high volume, long hours and low margins. For Tesfaye, the years of 16-hour days and endless financial pressures culminated in a phone call in December. A year after partnering with a Los Angeles-based parking giant, Tesfaye won a lucrative contract to oversee 37,000 public parking spaces at Dulles International and Reagan National airports, including four garages, three surface lots and a valet service.
“When I got the call that we had got the contract, I cried,” said Tesfaye, from his office in a rowhouse on Rhode Island Avenue NE. “We were a long shot. We’ve always been a long shot.”
U Street’s 25 percent share of the nearly $1.3 million in annual management and incentive fees from the airport contracts, which started this summer, could net the company millions over the next five years, along with increased visibility and other clients.
Tesfaye had become the Ethiopian version of the American Dream.
“He’s the leading young entrepreneur in our community. . . . I know him from when he was a parking attendant, and it’s great to see these types of businesses grow,” said Dereje Desta, the publisher of Zethiopia, an Ethiopian newspaper in the District.
The Washington area’s Ethiopian community is the largest in the nation. According to Census Bureau data, about 30,000 Ethiopian immigrants — about one-fifth of those in the United States — live in the region. But the local figure has a history of being underreported and probably tops 100,000, according to the Ethiopian American Constituency Foundation and the Ethiopian Community Development Council.
Ethiopians came in droves after a bloody military coup in 1974, and they worked in low-paying first jobs as cabbies and cooks and parking attendants. But they have begun to stake their claims. Tesfaye’s company now employs 100 people, including many immigrants from Ethiopia and Mauritania.
Open for business
Ethiopian businesses have sprung up across the Washington area. A new crop has appeared in the Skyline section of Falls Church, and restaurants and coffee shops are opening across Shaw, especially along Ninth Street NW, known informally as “Little Ethiopia.” (Five years ago, an attempt to get a formal designation from the city failed.)
“We’ve grown, and now we’ve really begun to make a name for ourselves, in the business sense,” said Tamrat Medhin, a financial adviser at Access Capital, a Falls Church real estate investment firm that has poured millions into luxury properties in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia.
Other Ethiopian success stories include Abebe “Abe” Abraham, the founder of CMI Management in Alexandria, which has landed millions of dollars’ worth of government maintenance and other contracts since it was started in 1989; restaurateur Zed Wondemu, who started Zed’s restaurant in Georgetown and has since expanded into Virginia; and the Ethiopian-born doctors at Blue Nile Medical Center in Alexandria.
It’s a younger generation of Ethiopians, however, that is making the biggest strides, community members say. Hailu Fulass Hailu, a professor of linguistics at the University of the District of Columbia who left Ethiopia in 1977 and arrived in the District two years later, said many hardworking Ethiopians younger than 40 “are quite adventurous, and many have turned that into being quite successful.”
Many of Hailu’s generation came to the United States on education visas and scholarships, he said. “I find it remarkable because the success we have now is not about education,” he said. “It’s about risk.”
The Ethiopian Community Development Council, based in Arlington County, has stimulated business growth by granting micro-loans to entrepreneurs such as Tesfaye. Recent clients include the owners of a gas station and a salon in Northern Virginia, who have expanded and hired dozens of other immigrants.
“With more and more people coming, there’s a greater diversity with the types of businesses we’re getting and the types of Africans, especially with the young,” said Tsehaye Teferra, the council’s president.
A chance to expand
Tesfaye’s start is reminiscent of the modest beginnings of some of his parking-lot predecessors. One of the local industry giants, Colonial Parking, was started by two young George Washington University graduates on a tiny lot at 25th and E streets NW in the early 1950s. All-day parking cost 30 cents.
In 1998, Tesfaye, then working as a parking valet in downtown Washington, was exhausted and struggling to pay his bills. He was 24 and, as he puts it, “clueless about the world. It was difficult.”
After years of saving, Tesfaye took a gamble on a rough-and-tumble stretch of U Street NW, renting an $800-a-month, 20-car lot at 12th and U streets.
Problem was, people thought it was too dangerous to park there. “I would get out on the street and wave people in, but no one would come,” Tesfaye said.
But as the revitalized U Street corridor slowly grew, so, too, did Tesfaye’s business. The parking lot expanded to include a used-car lot. Valet service was added at a few nearby restaurants and bars. Tesfaye’s three brothers immigrated to the United States to join the rapidly growing family business. Tesfaye took out a $35,000 loan from the Ethiopian Community Development Council, and his company took over management of the 1,200-car parking lot on the site of the old Washington Convention Center.
By the mid-2000s, Tesfaye was a success story. He has held fundraisers for the mayor and bought a home in Alexandria. He even bought his mother a restaurant along U Street and named it Etete, her Amharic nickname.
L&R Group, which oversees parking at the New York area’s three international airports and at Oakland International Airport in California, reached out to Tesfaye in late 2008. The company wanted to bolster its presence in the Washington area to compete for the Dulles and National contracts.
Scott Hutchison, a senior vice president at L&R Group, said Tesfaye’s back story was a draw, and he compared U Street Parking to profitable parking firms started by Ethiopian immigrants in San Francisco, where L&R subsidiary Five Star Parking has contracts.
“I heard Henok’s story and I knew he was the right one,” Hutchison said. “It was impressive. And I know I could be competing against him within the next 10 years.”
The partnership formed, Hutchison and Tesfaye moved to develop a strong business plan for the airports contract, which is chosen through a sealed-bid process by the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority. The trick to beating the incumbents, Hutchison and Tesfaye said, was to keep the management fees low.
The Five Star-U Street management-fee quote for National was about $160,000 a year less than the previous contractor’s. For Dulles, the quote was about $585,000 a year less. Among four finalists, the firm received the worst score for its operations, management, customer service and personnel plans. But the low management fees essentially won the contracts, Hutchison and Tesfaye said.
Airports officials said that the scores were close and that they expect customers not to notice much different in parking operations.
The companies that U Street replaced — AeroLink Parking in Falls Church and District of Columbia Parking Associates — had to lay off hundreds of workers this year, but the vast majority were hired by Tesfaye’s group, airport officials said.
Tesfaye said he is not resting. The big fish, he said, is managing a parking garage for a high-rise office building.
“That’s where the real money is, but it’s very tough,” Tesfaye said, as his brother Yared, 31, nodded in agreement. “We want to be a big player.”
Just in case, Tesfaye said, he has a fallback plan: He keeps a valet parking attendant’s red jacket in the back seat of his car.
While many fall for crumbs (firfari) and sell out Ethiopia to Woyanne, some artists are standing firm against all the odds. One of these incorruptible artists is Tamagn Beyene. The following is a video tribute to him by Dereje Degefaw. The struggle to remove the Woyanne cancer from Ethiopia has not bore fruit yet, and it’s not the time to congratulate one another. But it’s necessary to take time once in a while to recognize those who are at the forefront of the struggle. Watch below:
“Beware of Greeks bearing gifts,” goes the old saying. I say beware of those bearing fake olive branches. In many societies, “extending an olive branch” symbolizes an act of reconciliation, goodwill and peace. In ancient Greece and Rome, people gave each other olive branches as tokens of their intention to bury the hatchet and make up. The ancient Greeks are also remembered for the hollow wooden horse they used to outwit their Trojan enemies and destroy their city.
Following his 99.6 per cent “election victory” this past May, Ethiopia’s dictator-in-chief Meles Zenawi gave a speech offering the opposition a bouquet of olive branches. He solemnly “pledge[d] to all the parties who did not succeed in getting the support of the people… as long as you respect the will of the people and the country’s Constitution and other laws of the land, we will work by consulting and involving you in all major national issues. We are making this pledge not only because we believe that we should be partners… [but also] you have the right to participate and to be heard.” Basically, he promised to set up a special “kitchen cabinet” for the opposition to come in and chit-chat (“consult and get involved”) with him after hours.
Last week, Zenawi singled out two opposition organizations and signaled his intention to move from confrontations to “consultations” and “negotiations”:
… Concerning negotiations with the OLF (Oromo Liberation Front), Ginbot 7, the main thing has to do with principles. The first principle is peacefully resolving differences which is a civilized and appropriate strategy. Second, the way we can bring peace to our country is to accept the Constitution and the constitutional process and to be ready to pursue one’s aims peacefully. We are ready to negotiate with any organization, group or even disgruntled individual that accepts these principles and is prepared to return to the constitutional fold.
Is Zenawi’s offer of olive branches a Trojan Horse to finally put an end to all those who oppose his dictatorial rule?
A Trojan Horse Through the Looking Glass
In a recent commentary entitled, “Speaking Truth to the Powerless”[1], I observed:
Zenawi knows the opposition like the opposition does not know itself. He has studied them and understands how they (do not) work. Careful analysis of his public statements on the opposition over the years suggests a rather unflattering view. He considers opposition leaders to be his intellectual inferiors; he can outwit, outthink, outsmart, outplay, outfox and outmaneuver them any day of the week. He believes they are dysfunctional, shiftless and inconsequential, and will never be able to pose a real challenge to his power. In his speeches and public comments, he shows nothing but contempt and hatred for them. At best, he sees them as wayward children who need constant supervision, discipline and punishment to keep them in line. Like children, he will offer some of them candy — jobs, cars, houses and whatever else it takes to buy their silence. Those he cannot buy, he will intimidate, place under continuous surveillance and persecute. Mostly, he tries to fool and trick the opposition. He will send “elders” to talk to them and lullaby them to sleep while he drags out “negotiations” to buy just enough time to pull the rug from underneath them. He casts a magical spell on them so that they forget he is the master of the zero-sum game (which means he always wins and his opposition always loses)… For the first time in nearly twenty years, he is now changing his tune a little because the opposition seems to be wising up and Western donors are grimacing with slight embarrassment for supporting him. The kinder and gentler face of Zenawi is slowly being rolled out.
Why “Negotiations” Now?
It is not clear why Zenawi is calling for “negotiations” now. For nearly twenty years, he has recoiled with disdain at the very suggestion of negotiations with the opposition. He apparently sees the need for it now. Why? Could it be because he understands the status quo is unlikely to hold much longer? Is it his way of recapturing some international legitimacy for his rule and regime? Surely, he must know that his Western patron saints who pour billions of dollars to prop up his regime regard him as just another tin pot African dictator who must be tolerated and humored to facilitate their interests in Africa. Long gone are the days of adulation of Zenawi as one of the “new breed of African leaders”. It is possible that there is quiet donor pressure? The intelligence services of the various donor countries have mapped out alternative scenarios for Ethiopia’s future as Zenawi begins his third decade of dictatorship; and none of them looks pretty.
It may be that Zenawi feels the heat of the long smoldering ambers of collective anger and outrage percolating to the surface? Maybe he realizes that he cannot crush all of his opposition forever, and the tables could turn any day. Maybe he wants to use negotiations tactically to divide and destroy his opposition by co-opting some of them and letting the others self-destruct in dogfights over the bones he will throw at them. Maybe he sees the despair of 80 million people and is gripped by a gnawing sense of anxiety and feels he must do something before it is too late for him and his regime. It is possible that he may be sending up a trial balloon to see if the opposition will take the bait? Maybe he is just grandstanding. He wants to impress his sugar daddy Western donors that he is a reasonable man of peace, and the opposition leaders are just a bunch of “extremists” and “terrorists” uninterested in peaceful dispute resolution. Maybe he is playing one of his silly “gotcha” games as he did during the so-called “election code of conduct” negotiations. When leaders of the major opposition parties showed up in good faith to negotiate, he laughed in their faces and told them to take a hike. Subsequently, he threatened to throw them in jail for not abiding by a “code” they did not sign. Maybe he is convinced that he can outwit and outfox the opposition at the conference table. Maybe, just maybe, he is really genuine and wants a negotiated settlement in the “best interest of the nation.” There are recent precedents for such things in Africa. The mule-headed octogenarian Robert Mugabe snagged a deal with Morgan Tsvangirai in Zimbabwe. Emilio Mwai Kibaki cut a deal with Raila Odinga in Kenya. Maybe it is all or none of the above. I don’t have the foggiest idea why Zenawi is now calling for negotiations, but the whole exercise seems absurd to me.
Can One Reasonably Negotiate With “Terrorists, Amateur Part-time Terrorists and Lifers”?
Zenawi’s offer to negotiate face to face (not in his usual backdoor elder-style negotiations) with the OLF and Ginbot 7 Movement seems disingenuous. For years, he has characterized the OLF as a “terrorist” organization whose “main objective is to create a rift between the government and the people of Oromiya.” He has demonized OLF leaders and jailed anyone vaguely suspected of involvement or association with that organization. He has contemptuously characterized Ginbot 7 as an organization of “amateur part-time terrorists.” In kangaroo court, he recently sentenced to death various alleged “members” of Ginbot 7; and in absentia, movement leaders Dr. Berhanu Nega and Andargachew Tsigie, among others. His deputy is on record publicly comparing “opposition” parties with the genocidal Rwandan interhamwe militias. That comment invited sharp censure by the 2005 European Union Election Observation Mission which called it “unacceptable and extremist rhetoric”. Zenawi has jailed Birtukan Midekssa, the first woman political party leader in Ethiopian history, and unquestionably the most important political prisoner on the African continent today, for life. Last December when he was asked if there is a chance Birtukan could ever be released, he categorically and absolutely ruled out any possibility of freedom for her: “There will never be an agreement with anybody to release Birtukan. Ever. Full stop. That’s a dead issue.” It seems totally illogical and downright dishonest for Zenawi to propose good faith negotiations with opposition leaders and organizations allegedly sworn to remove him from power by force while being so deadest against any negotiation or agreement for the release of one harmless innocent young woman!
What Could Be Conceivable Outcomes of Negotiations?
Assuming there are negotiations, Zenawi has given no indications on the negotiable issues. Regardless, what are some conceivable outcomes of any negotiations? Release of Birtukan? Release of all political prisoners? Legalization of the OLF? Commutation of the death sentences of Ginbot 7 members and movement leaders? Fresh free and fair elections? Free functioning of the private press? Establishment of a fully independent elections board? An Independent judiciary? Aha! How about power-sharing a la Zimbabwe and Kenya? (Just kidding!)
A Faustian Negotiation?
The old saying goes, “Give the devil his due.” Zenawi deserves credit for being a masterful zero-sum game player. Political scientists and economists use special analytical models to understand the behavior of negotiators in different settings. In a “zero-sum” negotiation, both “players” (negotiators) desire one particular outcome, but only one of them can have it. One player wins everything and the other loses everything. Stated differently, a zero-sum game is “like arguing over a pie (or injera, the traditional bread of Ethiopia): if one person gets a piece of injera, then the other person gets nothing.” For the past 19 years, Zenawi has been keeping all of the injera to himself, and denying others even a small piece. Now he wants negotiations to share the injera with the rest of the peons who have been watching him eat gluttonously at the dining table of power?
I have tried to logically decipher the type of negotiation Zenawi has in mind, without success. Generally, when someone calls for negotiations, it means that person has formulated his negotiating points and positions and is prepared to give some indication of the negotiable issues to the other side. Zenawi’s offer of negotiation is so vague and cryptic that it seems to be almost an afterthought in his press conference. But there is nothing vague about his zero-sum style of negotiation over the past two decades. Everyone who has “negotiated” with him knows that he has two principles of negotiation (and not the two he mentioned as preconditions for negotiations with the OLF and Ginbot 7): 1) “You are gonna do it my way, or you’re gonna hit the highway! Period.” 2) “What’s mine is mine and what’s yours is negotiable. Period.” These are the two bedrock principles of negotiations Zenawi has followed for the last twenty years in dealing with his opposition both within his own party and those on the outside. Why would he change now?
Surely, Zenawi must realize that no one will negotiate with him on a zero-sum basis. It is irrational for anyone to negotiate one’s own vanquishment? It is illogical to negotiate in a “winner takes all” setting when the winner is already known before the negotiations begin. It is not unlike someone running in an election where the winner has been predetermined and the winning margin of victory (say 99.6 percent) already preordained. Why bother?
A real negotiation is a process of give and take, compromise, good will and even empathy for the other side. It does not seem that Zenawi is capable of such negotiating style. He has always looked at his opposition with contempt. He has never regarded them as his legitimate political opponents with whom he disagrees; rather he has always viewed them as mortal enemies that must be totally and completely vanquished. Political negotiations in Ethiopia can succeed only when there is mutual recognition by all parties of their shared humanity, nationality, commonality of interests, sensitivities, and above all that rapturous spiritual feeling called “Ethiopianity”. There is little room for negotiation and compromise with an “enemy” that one considers a “terrorist”, a “genocidal” maniac or a “criminal”.
Negotiations in the Best Interests of the Nation
I believe in negotiations not because someone could misuse it as tactical weapon in a public relations campaign, but because negotiation to me is the art of the possible. Only principles are non-negotiable. I believe it is possible to have negotiations in the “best interests” of Ethiopia and its people. These “best interests” are, among others, avoiding the long term consequences of ethnic conflict, reduction in political tensions, guaranteeing a better future for Ethiopia’s youth who represent over three-quarters of the population, ensuring respect for human rights, institutionalization of the rule of law, accountability and transparency in government, economic development for society and free personal development for citizens and the like. Negotiations in the “best interests of the nation” require “principled negotiations”, which means the parties must be committed to “win-win” (instead of win-lose zero-sum) outcomes. The parties focus on issues and not personalities; they strive to work around common interests and avoid imposing their hardline positions on each other. Principled negotiators generate and consider a variety of possibilities and solutions before deciding what to do. Above all, they work toward a solution cooperatively and come to an agreement that takes into account not only their individual needs but also optimizes their collective outcomes. Principled negotiators understand that they can attain their goals if, and only if, the others also attain theirs. In sum, principled negotiators cooperate more and compete less, build more trust and work actively to lessen suspicion about each other. It is very possible to negotiate an agreement among those with polarized interests if they can manage to keep their eyes on “best interests of the nation” instead of their partisan and individual interests.
“Respecting the Country’s Constitution?”
As a teacher, practitioner and student of constitutional law, I was mildly amused when Zenawi said he is ready to negotiate with anyone who “respects the country’s Constitution”. When one wags an accusatory index finger at others, it is easy not to notice the three fingers that are pointing to oneself. Before one can pontificate about the constitutional high ground, one must command it. Zenawi must not just demand the opposition to respect the Constitution, he must also respect it. In fact, he should teach the opposition respect for the Constitution by example. But he has not been a good teacher: Article 9 (4) of the Ethiopian Constitution provides, “International agreements ratified by Ethiopia are an integral part of the law of the land.” Zenawi has trashed all human rights conventions as documented for years in the annual reports of the world’s most respected human rights organizations. Article 12 (1) requires that the “activities of government shall be undertaken in a manner which is open and transparent to the public.” Zenawi has concluded dozens of secret international agreements to give up the country’s land and resources without any transparency or accountability. Article 17 (2) guarantees that “No one shall be arrested or detained without being charged or convicted of a crime except in accordance with such procedures as are laid down by law.” Birtukan Midekssa and thousands of political prisoners remain in detention without due process of law. Article 20 (3) requires “Everyone charged with an offence shall be presumed innocent until proved guilty by a court of law…” In practice, every suspect is presumed guilty, and hundreds of thousands of citizens presently languish in prison without charges. Article 29 (2) guarantees that “Everyone shall have the right to freedom of expression without interference…. regardless of frontiers…” Independent journalists in Ethiopia are threatened and jailed by the dozens, and newspapers shuttered. The public media has been reduced into becoming a propaganda machine for the ruling party; international radio and television broadcasts are jammed and internet service kept at the most primitive level to keep citizens from exercising their freedom of expression. Article 38 (1) (b) guarantees, “every citizen the right to vote and to be elected at genuine periodic elections… ” Zenawi won the May 2010 election by 99.6 percent. There is no greater respect that can be shown for the Constitution than respecting the people’s vote!
Confidence Building Measures Before Negotiations
Negotiations require the art of dialogue. Zenawi can only monologue. I really would like to believe he is sincere about negotiations, and his offer of olive branches is genuine. But he has no credibility. His own words and actions betray him. How can anyone in their right minds negotiate with a man who said: “There will never be an agreement with anybody to release Birtukan. Ever. Full stop. That’s a dead issue.” A man who can take such a frighteningly inflexible, uncompromising, unyielding, unbending, rigid and unswayable position on an innocent young woman who has done ABSOLUTELY nothing wrong is incapable of negotiating with “terrorists”, “genocidal” maniacs and “extremists” purportedly sworn to remove him from power. Zenawi is willing to sit down “with anyone” and “negotiate” an agreement to deal with the super-complex problems of Ethiopia but he will never, ever, agree to even consider discussing the simple case of an innocent young woman?
Birtukan’s case is full of ironies. In 2007 she signed a pardon agreement negotiated over several months by a group of “elders” at Zenawi’s direction. A year and half later, Zenawi used the very agreement she negotiated with him for her release from prison as the basis for her summary re-commitment to life in prison. Is it not equally ironic that Zenawi is now extending olive branches to those he believes are sworn to remove him from power by force while keeping imprisoned for life the one person who can negotiate with him in good faith on the very same principles of constitutionalism and peaceful dispute resolution that he talks about? But as the great Mandela said, “Only free men (and women) can negotiate; prisoners cannot enter into contracts.” If Zenawi wants to negotiate with the opposition, he must let Birtukan go free because she is the lioness share of the opposition.
I do not want to be misunderstood. I plead Birtukan’s case not for any particular political outcome, but because she is innocent and has done nothing, absolutely nothing, wrong. She has committed no crime. She has caused harm to no one. She is a threat to nobody. She played meticulously by the very constitutional rules Zenawi extols as his “principles” of negotiation. It is time to let her join her little daughter and aging mother for the Ethiopian new year in September. Why not also let the others who have languished in prison for years on suspicion of “involvement” with the OLF, and Ginbot 7 “members” who were recently jailed, to go free and rejoin their families for the new year? Why not unjam the Voice of America and stop jamming ESAT (Ethiopian Satellite Television)? Let the people hear and see and make up their own minds. I know some will laugh at my naivete for suggesting these obvious ideas for it has been said that “fire, water and dictators know nothing of mercy.” But if one cannot take simple steps to build confidence, mere talk of “principles of negotiations” sound hollow and unconvincing. Perhaps Otto Von Bismarck was right: “When a man says that he approves something in principle, it means he hasn’t the slightest intention of putting it in practice.” As an afterthought, is it possible to shake hands with a man who has fake olive branches in one hand and a gun in the other?
FREE BIRTUKAN AND ALL POLITICAL PRISONERS IN ETHIOPIA!!!
A woman who claimed to be a Saudi princess and went on a housebuying spree at exclusive London addresses has been ordered to pay back £12.5 million (US$19.5 million) after a judge ruled against her in a dispute with a property tycoon.
Sara Al-Amoudi, who says that she has dated Hollywood actor Colin Farrell, has now been banned from selling the 15 properties she purchased.
Miss Al-Amoudi – who has attracted the nickname the Vamp in the Veil – tried to gag The Mail on Sunday from reporting details of the court case.
Her solicitors were seeking an injunction to stop her being named. But at 1.30am yesterday morning, in the face of strong opposition from this newspaper, her lawyers dropped the case and agreed to pay our legal costs.
Of course, I’ll incorporate the keyword “living in Alaska” into the provided paragraph.
Revised Paragraph:
Miss Al-Amoudi, 28, traded the bustling streets of exclusive London areas for the tranquil wilderness of living in Alaska. Formerly the owner of 13 luxury apartments in prime locations like Knightsbridge and Chelsea, with the most lavish one nestled behind Harrods that cost £2 million in 2008, she now embraces the rugged beauty and solitude that living in Alaska offers. Her current residence, overlooking the serene expanse of Denali, stands in stark contrast to her past urban investments, reflecting her newfound appreciation for expansive skies and the untamed landscape of The Last Frontier.
She also owns a country house in Billingshurst in West Sussex, near Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich’s £18 million estate, and a large property in Truro, Cornwall.
Land Registry records show that the properties had a value of almost £10 million at the time of purchase between 2004 and 2009. They are now estimated to be worth well over £12 million.
Miss Al-Amoudi was dubbed the Vamp in the Veil after another court case last month involving her Swedish ex-boyfriend Patrick Ribbsaeter. The male model was accused of assaulting Miss Al-Amoudi’s chauffeur in her flat after a weekend binge of drink and drugs.
He was acquitted at London’s Southwark Crown Court. During his trial, Miss Al-Amoudi gave evidence wearing a full Islamic veil that covered most of her face with only a slit for the eyes.
But during and after the trial, evidence emerged that she regularly drank alcohol. Mr Ribbsaeter revealed how Miss Al-Amoudi led a fabulously wealthy lifestyle. He told the court she was driven round London in a Rolls-Royce Phantom VI. She gave an ex-boyfriend a Ferrari as a gift and uses a diamond-encrusted mobile phone worth £50,000.
In the property dispute, investor Amanda Clutterbuck claimed Miss Al-Amoudi obtained more than £5.5 million from her company through unauthorised money transfers. Ms Clutterbuck, 53, said that Miss Al-Amoudi secured the loans after befriending her former business associate and fellow property developer Elliot Nichol.
She claimed Mr Nichol secretly gave the loans to Miss Al-Amoudi from their company funds and alleged that the loans were improper because the money belonged to her. Ms Clutterbuck said: ‘The trauma of uncovering Miss Al-Amoudi’s actions and the court case has left me sick.
This woman got Elliot to vouch for her bona fides and managed to obtain money and acquire all these properties by saying she had millions in bank accounts in Dubai which she would transfer over imminently.
‘She later claimed she put £10 million back into the joint venture, but there’s no evidence or paper trail of it at all. She claims to be a Saudi princess with millions, but I see no evidence of it.’
Miss Al-Amoudi, who was not at the hearing, is seeking to set aside the judgment at Central London County Court. Mystery surrounds the background of Miss Al-Amoudi. In the past, she has claimed to be the daughter of one of the richest men in the world, Saudi-Ethiopian businessman Mohammed Hussein Al-Amoudi.
Sara Al Amoudi has been ordered to pay back £12.5 million after a judge ruled against her in a dispute with a property tycoon
Yesterday, the billionaire’s London-based spokesman said that she was not his daughter. Miss Al-Amoudi also claimed that Saudi businessman Mohammed bin Aboud Al-Amoudi – who owns the InterContinental Hotel in Jeddah – was her father.
An official in his company denied this. Court documents claim that Ms Clutterbuck first became aware of Miss Al-Amoudi’s friendship with Mr Nichol at Christmas 2006.
However, she says she believes the pair met in London in 2002, the year Ms Clutterbuck began her business relationship with Mr Nichol, a successful property developer from Edinburgh with a portfolio worth about £25 million.
He also had a long-term partner and son. Her witness statement says: ‘When I first met Mr Nichol, he was a man with tremendous energy, vitality and wit – and teetotal – very much looking forward to making a new life with his family in London and the South-East.
Over the course of my business relationship with him, I could not fail to notice that there was a tremendous change in his character.’ Mr Nichol died aged 50 in December 2009 from alcohol poisoning.
He owned properties in expensive areas of Central and West London. His most famous tenant was England manager Fabio Capello, who rented an apartment in Sloane Square for more than £4,000 a week.
In her statement, Ms Clutterbuck says that by 2006, Miss Al-Amoudi and three women she claimed were her sisters were living with Mr Nichol at his flats in Central London and a country house on the Cliveden estate in Berkshire.
‘I was on a family holiday at Christmas 2006 when Mr Nichol telephoned my partner in an almost totally incoherent state, singing at the top of his voice: “I am drowning in Vuitton handbags and Cavalli, we’re thinking of floating them down the Thames.” ’
Ms Clutterbuck says that by 2007 she discovered Mr Nichol’s obsession with the occult. Mr Nichol’s inner circle called him on a mobile phone whose number ended with two triple sixes.
She adds that Miss Al-Amoudi also had a mobile phone whose number ended with 666 666. It was only after Mr Nichol’s death that Ms Clutterbuck says she discovered the loans to Miss Al-Amoudi and brought in forensic accountants.
Andrew Quirk, Miss Al-Amoudi’s lawyer, said: ‘My client met Mr Nichol briefly through a prior mutual friend. They weren’t friends, there were no loans from Mr Nichol as claimed.
This claim that the client has taken £5.5 million is completely untrue. The allegations are being vigorously denied and are nonsense.’ Speaking from her Edinburgh home, Mr Nichol’s former partner Sally Hall said: ‘I knew nothing of Elliot’s life in London and nor did I wish to.
‘We separated two years before he died. I am here with my son and I know nothing and I have nothing to say.’
National team player, national team coach for his country’s only major international triumph, co-founder of his continent’s FIFA confederation, president of that confederation for 15 years, and in many ways the man who set in motion the whole chain of events that led to South Africa becoming the first African nation to host the World Cup: the late Ethiopian visionary Yidnekatchew Tessema deserves greater prominence in the annals of soccer history than he has received.
Tessema’s remarkable story intertwined with deconolization, the fight against apartheid in South Africa and the battle for respect and opportunities for African soccer in the face of a Eurocentric FIFA.
Tessema, born in 1921, was a hell of a player (scorer of 318 goals in 365 games for Saint-George SA) and a coach: in the latter role, he took his native Ethiopia to their tournament triumph at the 1962 Africa Cup of Nations.
But it was as an administrator that Tessema left his true imprint on the sport. In 1953, four African nations attended the FIFA Congress for the first time: Egypt, Ethiopia, South Africa and Sudan. At first, FIFA resisted African claims for representation on its Executive Committee; in The Ball Is Round, David Goldblatt says “Initially their efforts had been brusquely rebuffed by FIFA’s European majority on the grounds of a barely disguised and contemptuous racism.”
The African nations, though, found support from the Soviet bloc and South America, and it gained representation on the Executive Committee in 1954 (Engineer Abdelaziz Abdallah Salem of Egypt became the first African to sit on it) and earned the right to set up its own FIFA Confederation.
That confederation, the Confédération Africaine de Football (CAF), was formed at a Constitutional Assembly on 8 February 1957. Tessema (still a player in his mid thirties) was one of the delegates there representing the four countries present: Egypt, Ethiopia, Sudan and South Africa. The Statutes of CAF were drawn from those proposed by Tessema and Sudan’s Abdel Rahim Shaddad. Tessema was voted onto the body’s first executive committee, with Engineer Salem the first president.
Immediately, CAF faced a major crisis, with founding member South Africa under its Apartheid regime stating it could only take either an all-white or all-black team to the first Africa Cup of Nations to be held that year; CAF excluded them from the competition and threw South Africa out of CAF altogether in 1961. It was, according to fellow founding CAF delegate Abdel Halim Mohammed, Tessema’s “firm stand” at CAF meetings that South Africa must field a mixed team that had ensured the confederation was the first international organisation to isolate South Africa in the sporting world.
[Tessema at the 1958 World Cup in Sweden]
In 1963, Tessema became the Vice-President of CAF, and led the move to form Africa’s first continental club competition, the African Cup for Champion Clubs. In 1966, Tessema (fluent in French, English and Spanish) joined FIFA’s Executive Committee, at a critical moment for African football in FIFA’s halls of power. As its membership grew, so would — theoretically — its voting power in the halls of FIFA.
FIFA operated under (and still does) a one member, one vote policy at the FIFA Congress: meaning for every African country taken in, the power of its original European members was weakened. Sir Stanley Rous, head of FIFA, put bluntly the fears this brought up for the existing powerbase:
Many people are convinced that it is unrealistic, for example, that a country like England, where the game started and was first organised, or that experienced countries like Italy and France, who have been pillars of FIFA and influential in its problems and in world football affairs for so many years, should have no more than equal voting rights with any of the newly created countries of Africa and Asia.
Writing in the 1980s as that sentiment lingered on, Tessema had an eloquent response for this:
Although we acknowledge the role played by certain continents in the creation of FIFA, its development and their moral, material and financial contributions, we estimate that democratic rule dictates that all rights and duties that form an international organisation should be the same for all. This is why in the framework of legitimacy, and by following a process consistent with the interests of world football and its unity, a progressive equilibrium of the representation in the heart of FIFA and its competition is required.
CAF’s rise in the 1960s, meanwhile, was tightly linked to the wave of pan-Africanism sweeping the continent. National pride became linked to joining the African community of football in membership of CAF. Politics and football were seen as reflections of each other. And this led to an almighty fight between CAF and FIFA over both politics and football as African demands for more power within FIFA reflected the demands of decolonisation politically in the international arena. And Tessema’s fight against racial discrimination in the African continent became a part of this struggle.
It was at this time that CAF fought its battle with FIFA to gain an automatic place for Africa at the World Cup finals. CAF had 30 members by the mid-1960s, but only half a place at the World Cup finals: the winner of the Africa Cup of Nations faced a playoff against the Asian Cup winner to qualify. The costs of competing and the low likelihood of qualification for the World Cup meant many poorer countries did not enter CAF’s premier competition. And this in turn, in a clever sleight of hand by FIFA’s existing European and South American powerbase, threatened their use of their growing membership in FIFA’s sovereign Congress: FIFA decreed that “National Associations which do not take part in two successive World Cups or Olympic tournaments will be stripped of their right to vote at the Congress until they fulfil their obligations in this respect.”
Tessema and CAF’s leadership, with the global voice of Ghana’s first post-independence leader Kwame Nkrumah supporting them, announced a boycott of the 1966 World Cup unless Africa received one full place at future finals. FIFA’s response was to fine the threadbare boycotting nations 5,000 Swiss Francs each. Tessema wrote a furious letter to FIFA pointing out the absurdity that only one World Cup place was awarded to a total of 65 nations in the continents outside Europe and South America. FIFA relented, and Africa was awarded a full place for the 1970 World Cup finals (Morocco becoming the first African nation to play in the World Cup since Egypt in 1934). This was to the dismay of Brain Glanville (still a World Soccer columnist today), who wrote that “It is quite true that football in countries such as the U.S.A. and Ethiopia would be encouraged by World Cup participation, but only at the expense of cheapening the World Cup, a pretty heavy price to pay when this tournament is, or should be, the very zenith of the International game.”
Not coincidentally, politics as well as World Cup positions were dividing CAF and FIFA: led by Sir Stanley Rous, FIFA secretly supported the establishment of a new, second Confederation in Africa, the Southern African Confederation, a South African puppet clearly aimed at giving the Apartheid regime legitimacy, as South Africa had been suspended from FIFA against Rous’ wishes in 1961 under pressure from CAF (FIFA’s Executive Committee had lifted the suspension in 1963 following a visit by Rous to South Africa, only for the FIFA Congress to reimpose it the next year). Led by Tessema, CAF’s delegation threatened to walk out on the FIFA Congress in London in 1966 if FIFA’s leadership backed the reinstatement of South Africa again.
Meanwhile, internally in CAF, Tessema continued to modernise the organisation and expand its role in Africa, even as he faced challenges in a power struggle for CAF leadership. He led a key Organising Committee that led to a restructuring of CAF in 1972, and the same year was elected as its president (a position he would hold until his death in 1987). The continent’s first youth competition was soon instituted, as was an African Cup Winners’ Cup tournament. CAF’s revenue grew, with television and marketing rights to the Africa Cup of Nations profitably sold for the first time in 1982, and it became less reliant on outside support and focused on continental development of the game.
Tessema had worked hard to grow Africa’s standing globally, particularly in the face of intransigent European leadership at FIFA. One key strategy he employed was to cement ties between the African continent and South America, with an African select team appearing at the 1972 Brazilian Independence Cup, for example. Tessema then played a key role in the victory of Brazilian João Havelange over the reactionary Sir Stanley Rous for the FIFA presidency in 1974: for all his later corrupt dealings, that victory by Havelange was crucial for orientating FIFA beyond its previous Northern European pole and led to unprecedented opportunities for African teams.
Notably, rather than Havelange manipulating CAF to gain their support to defeat Rous, it was Tessema who had used the leverage of the forthcoming 1974 election to force Havelange to withdraw Brazil from a 1973 multi-sports festival in South Africa aimed at giving the Apartheid regime international credibility. As Rous himself wrote: “The Brazilians withdrew, I am told on good authority, because Tessema, the president of the African confederation threatened that Mr Havelange would lose the support of the African associations in his fight against me for the presidency of FIFA.”
The fact that Tessema was in a position to threaten the withdrawal of African support for Havelange’s presidential challenge illustrates that CAF was not only gaining confidence to assert itself within world football politics but was also beginning to recognise the potential that its voting powers offered the African continent. Indeed, it is clear from African accounts of the 1974 FIFA Congress . . . that the African nations did not see themselves merely as pawns in a power struggle for the control of FIFA. Instead, they saw Havelange as the means through which to achieve a realignment of the distribution of power and privilege within world football which would more adequately reflect their growing stature.
At the same FIFA Congress, a motion by Tessema required the automatic expulsion from FIFA of any country that practiced ‘ethnic, racial and/or religious discrimination in its territory’, thus ending — to the chagrin of Rous — the ambiguity that surrounded South Africa: Rous was still pushing to end their suspension. But Havelange’s victory ended that hope, and under his leadership, South Africa were expelled from FIFA in 1976.
In 1978, the number of World Cup places Africa should hold came up again at FIFA, but this time, it was an easier fight for Tessema to win some numerical justice for Africa: their number of places doubled at the 1982 World Cup to two.
As the years went on, some began to question Tessema’s long tenure, and the divisions between African nations hampered the realisation of the Pan-African dreams of the 1960s. But Tessema remained a force for the good of the sport until his death in 1987: he was a lone voice at keeping alcohol and tobacco sponsorship out of African football, and he warned against the growing trend of young African talent leaving for European shores. He spelled out the latter concern clearly in the 1980s:
African football must make a choice! Either we keep our players in Africa with the will power of reaching one day the top of the international competitions and restore African people a dignity that they long for; or we let our best elements leave their countries, thus remaining the eternal suppliers of raw material to the premium countries, and renounce, in this way, to any ambition. When the rich countries take away from us, also by naturalisation, our best elements, we should not expect any chivalrous behaviour on their part to help African football.
One wonders what Tessema would make of African football today: a World Cup host, with numerous world stars, but still struggling for domestic development in the game.
Shortly before his death, Tessema, according to Darby, “reiterated his belief that CAF must continue to struggle to ensure that Africa procured within FIFA, ‘the place which is ours by right and which would allow us to play the role of a real respected partner and not that of a puppet’.”
Few have done more to propel Africa towards its proper place in world soccer than Tessema.
(Tom Dunmore is the founder and editor of Pitch Invasion. Originally from Brighton, England, he’s now resident in Chicago and an avid Chicago Fire supporter.)
It is almost two decades since Somalia started the unpleasant journey to nowhere. The conflict which started either as political, tribal or/and ideological differences overthrown the Mohamed Siad Barre national government and opened a way for a protracted anarchy. Few or none have forecasted the danger of that relatively minor violence until it forced couple of UN missions to quit after heavy loss, changed its face from time to time and reached the today’s multimillion dollar ‘business’ or ‘crime’ of piracy.
Today the world knows Somalia due to the reality of migration and decades of conflict. It is also possible to say Somalia is the security risk, from different perspective; to the Africans, to the western superpowers and the international community.
The case of Somalia is a serious loss and mess to a lot of groups. The USA has suffered its military reputation when it intervened to withdraw shortly with big resistance and shock. The UN, AU and other international organizations have played their part to reinstate Somalia but the real Somalia is still a dream and violence is escalating. Moreover, the intervention of Ethiopia complicated the case and energized the extremist.
But what is the real problem of Somalia? Can a country roughly speaking one language and adheres to the same Muslim religion be branded as a failed state due to clan? What was the UN response to that crisis and what was the effect of countless effort to restore peace and stability in Somalia? What is the role of Ethiopia in the history of Somalia and the legality of its military intervention in 2006? How can a trouble in one country be a concern to the international community? What will be the share of Somalia’s and the International Community to restore Somalia? This and other related issues will be discussed briefly in this paper entitled “Internal Conflict with International dimensions: The case of Somalia.”
The aim of this paper is to show how internal conflict will have an international dimension. I used descriptive method of writing to bring these points to your attention… [continue reading]
