It is true lots of illegal things were done. That is why I apologized ahead. I want to admit that the executive committee did not carry its duties in a proper manner. The issue should not have been brought for voting at all on the other hand it is the board’s prerogative to bring the issue back for further discussion. There is no such thing (in the bylaws) as revising the issue at a later date using petition. It was an emotional meeting as I have indicated. Harsh words were exchanged. On the other hand no one was armed with guns. It is not such type of meeting. I want all to understand and you (VOA) to be aware that those who voted for the motion withdrew their support without coercion and it was their decision.
The above is part of the interview granted by Ato Fasil Abebe, the public relations head of ESFNA, to Ato Adissu Abebe and Ato Alula Kebede of Voice of America (VOA). The VOA reporters were patient with Ato Fasil. They asked him probing questions laced with facts from the organization’s past. I am afraid Ato Fasil was not able to answer their questions to the listeners satisfaction. It was a lesson in good journalism when they allowed their guest to escape bloodied but not down so he can contemplate the gravity of the situation. I presume Ato Addisu and Ato Alula felt further probe will not serve the communities interest.
I found Ato Fasil’s answers to be a reflection of our attitude towards the law, rules and regulations and general civility in our community. At the bat he admitted rules were broken, chaos reigned, and the meeting was reduced to a shouting and insulting match, but at the same time he is willing to argue and defend decisions taken under these circumstances as valid and binding. This situation is familiar to us Ethiopians. Might makes right. Rules are inconveniences that can be ignored or redefined after the event to justify what was done.
I am sure ESFNA folks have figured out ‘these Abeshas will complain, really get exited and move on to the next drama and life will go on as usual.’
I am afraid they might be right. If I have to bet I will go with them. Although our country is known for its marathon runners, we in the Diaspora are sprinters. We accelerate and tire easy. We overheat quickly and cool down fast. It is obvious we have created ESFNA in our own image. It is easy to ignore individual madness but when an an organization goes rogue, it sort of exhibits our collective fault for the world to see. We witness this shameful act of betrayal of trust and general hooliganism and we feign surprise. We know it is wrong but somehow we step back and refuse to correct and remedy the situation.
Why? When did we develop this habit of not standing for what is right? Why do we let the criminal elements amongst us to run amok and make our exile existence miserable? How come we always start with good intentions, lofty principles but end up holding a broken organization with members at each others throat? Of all immigrants we are the ones always congregating together, forming little enclaves, running small businesses, worshiping together and generally hanging out like a family. Why are we unable to build on this tremendous reserve of love for country and culture into a formidable organization that reflects the new us? The ‘us’ that left our home land due to civil war, strife, lack of opportunity and dictatorship and settled in a new land and thrive like no one. We work hard, we are an asset to the organizations we work for, the community we live in, but are totally useless when it comes to associating on a new and higher level as Ethiopians.
ESFNA is our challenge. This should be where we draw the line. It is not about what happened yesterday. It is all about what we can build for tomorrow. This is the best opportunity to create an organization built on solid foundation of transparency, accountability and a promise of serving the community and our country. All the parts are there, it is just a matter of having the will and the stamina to put it together for future generations to enjoy and grow.
We are thankful to those that started the organization. We pay our respects to those that kept it going. Today we are focused on improving on it and making it the power house of good will that it should be. We want it to be an organization that will usher a new model of work based on respect for each other, love for each other and hope for all that look up to us. Obviously we can not do that in Ethiopia. We can start the process here. ESFENA should be our prototype of a superior style of organization building.
The current leadership of the organization should admit that the existing format is not sustainable. It was fine when the outfit was operating in the dark. Well the bright light of public awareness and scrutiny is shining on ESFNA. There are two avenues open to the current leadership. Accept the fact that change is coming and help implement the reforms necessary or continue on the path of denial and see the organization implode from inside. That does not serve anybody’s interest. That only confirms the suspicion some have regarding the lawlessness and bad intentions of the leadership. I don’t want to believe that. I am sure there are plenty that mean well but go along with the culture of thuggery that has been practiced for so long. Let us encourage those that want real change and build on that.
The current crisis is not just about whether Birtukan should be invited or not. That just happened to magnify the ‘bad style’ of work that used to be acceptable. It magnified the festering problem inside the organization. I am sure there are plenty of association that would love to see the Birtukan. No, the issue is how the organization dealt with the question. First of all, this argument of ‘non-profit’ and ‘politics’ has been debunked. Our esteemed lawyers have answered that question. There are no attorneys in the executive body, nor have they brought a written opinion from a law firm to support their mistaken take on the issue. Let us put that view to rest.
Second, ESFNA was unable to show what parliamentary procedure it used to overturn the binding vote taken regarding the invitation. Thus the original decision still stands. As far as we are concerned, the invitation is still on the table and it is up to Birtukan to accept or differ for later time. Our concern is how to reform this organization to serve the interest of the community instead of a few individuals that are focused on running it to line up their pockets and protect outside forces that do not reflect the hopes and aspirations of our people and country.
I believe we should concentrate on two fronts. Number one is the issue of ‘empowering’ the clubs to assume responsibility of representing their supporters in a meaningful manner. The ‘clubs’ are the owners of the organization. The executive body is there to implement the decision made by the clubs. As it stands now, the roles have been reversed. The executive committee is a runaway train with the public and the clubs reduced to shoveling more fuel. This train should be derailed in a controlled fashion. We ask the clubs to take over their rightful place and demand accountability.
The second front is to demand release of all financial statement for the last seven years. Our public accountants should be allowed to comb through the income tax returns and draw up a yearly budget based on past records. This is not a witch hunt, but a sincere attempt to build a successful and proud organization. We hope the current executive body will read the writing on the wall and cooperate in a meaningful manner. The aim should be to build, not destroy; to teach, not punish and forgive but not forget. It is up to the executive body to choose. It is up to the ‘sane and reasonable’ among them to curb the misguided enthusiasm and anger of their comrades.
ESFNA is considered and holds the license to operate as a not-for profit outfit. That designation entitles it to lots of tax benefits so it will fulfill the vision it enumerated in its application. The license demands of it to operate in an open and transparent manner. Holding the not-profit license is a privilege not a right.
Atlanta is going to happen. We should make it clear that we are not going anywhere. Atlanta is where we make our stand. We do not boycott our own wedding. We do not split and form another organization. ‘Teletafi’ is not our cup of tea. We should just insist that democratic, transparent and accountable style of work is the only thing acceptable to the majority. Each and everyone of us should work with the clubs to help them achieve the fruits of their labor. Their success is our success. As you know the vast majority of those that attend the yearly festival are the young ones. We should find a way to involve them in this building process so they will experience the value of a democratic style of association and work habit. It is not going to happen in one session. It is not take roots in one season. Growing a strong organization is hard work. We can vow to start it today.
Bangalore-based Indian company, Karuturi Global, the world’s largest flower producer, couldn’t get enough land in India to compete with rivals. So the company went to Ethiopia early this year and leased 1,200 square miles of land—larger than the State of Rhode Island—to grow flowers. After a few years, the land will become useless due to heavy use of fertilizers. Millions of Ethiopians are facing food shortage and yet the World Bank-financed dictatorship leases huge tracts of land to foreign agribusiness to grow and export flower.
Read the whole story below.
Corporate India Finds Greener Pastures—in Africa
By Mehul Srivastava and Subramaniam Sharma | BusinessWeek
Indian billionaire Ravi Ruia has flown to Africa at least once a month for the past year and a half. He’s invested in coal mines in Mozambique, an oil refinery in Kenya, and a call center in South Africa. Soon, he may also have a power plant in Nigeria. “Africa looks remarkably similar to what India was 15 years ago,” says Firdhose Coovadia, director of African operations at Essar Group, the $15 billion conglomerate headed by Ruia and his brother, Shashi. “We can’t lose this opportunity.”
Faced with increasing competition and a welter of bureaucratic obstacles at home, Indian companies are looking to Africa for growth. Since 2005 they have spent some $16 billion on the continent, vs. at least $31 billion for the Chinese, according to data compiled by Bloomberg and the Heritage Foundation, respectively. Bharti Airtel, India’s largest mobile-phone provider, in June paid $9 billion for the African cellular operations of Kuwait’s Zain. In 2008, India’s Videocon Industries paid $330 million for two coal mines in Mozambique, and India’s state-run fertilizer maker bought an idled Senegalase phosphorus producer for $721 million.
Beyond those big deals are dozens of smaller acquisitions and investments by Indian companies. “Compared to India, valuations [in Africa] are quite attractive,” says Anuj Chande, who heads the South Asia Group at accounting firm Grant Thornton in London. “We’re expecting to see a lot of midsize deals across a variety of sectors.”
The Indians view Africa as a place where they can replicate the low-cost, high-efficiency business model they have honed at home. Like India, Africa has hundreds of millions of underserved consumers eager to buy products tailored to their needs. Consumer spending in Africa may double, to as much as $1.8 trillion, by 2020, McKinsey & Co. predicts, an increase that would be the equivalent of adding a consumer market the size of Brazil. As a pioneer in sales of single-use sachets of soap and shampoo (along with Unilever (UL) and Procter & Gamble) for lower-income Indians, Mumbai-based Godrej Consumer Products understands “low-cost, value-for-money products,” Chairman Adi Godrej said in a May interview. In June his company acquired Nigerian cosmetics maker Tura, and in 2008 it bought South African hair-care company Kinky. “We want growth. Whether it’s from inside or outside India, we are agnostic,” Godrej said.
Indian companies also see Africa as a hedge against a possible slowdown at home. “If tomorrow the Indian economy was to take a U-turn, then at least you have other markets which are growing,” says Neeraj Kanwar, managing director of Apollo Tyres, India’s No. 2 tiremaker. His company bought South Africa’s Dunlop Tyres for $62 million in 2006, giving Apollo two manufacturing plants on the continent and brand rights in 32 African countries. Apollo aims to triple sales, to $6 billion, by 2015, with 60 percent of revenue from abroad, vs. 38 percent today. “Africa is going to give me growth,” says Kanwar.
Essar has endured endless squabbles with Indian landowners who refuse to make way for steel mills. Like other Indian companies tired of regulatory headaches at home, it moved into Africa and now has 2,000 employees there. Bangalore-based Karuturi Global, the world’s largest rose producer, couldn’t get enough land in India to compete with European and African rivals. Many times flowers wilted on the tarmac as cargo flights were delayed or canceled, including a big Valentine’s Day shipment. So in 2004, Karuturi bought a small plot in Ethiopia, and sales have since grown elevenfold, to $113 million in the year ended Mar. 31. Karuturi now leases 1,200 square miles of land—larger than the state of Rhode Island—in Ethiopia and sells more than half a billion roses a year. “Africa offered us a scale we could never reach in India,” says Managing Director Sai Ramakrishna Karuturi. “I’d love to do more in India, but getting even 1,000 acres near Bangalore took years.”
Friends and family of Ali Ahmed Mohammed gathered outside the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District on Monday to protest prosecutors’ decision to drop charges against the five men accused of beating Mohammed outside DC9, a popular nightclub.
Mohammed, 27, of Silver Spring, died later at a hospital. Authorities say the District’s medical examiner’s office has not found injuries consistent with a brutal beating.
The men, initially charged with murder, had been scheduled to appear in court today for a preliminary hearing on aggravated assault charges.
Mohammed’s mother, Sashie Bule, carried a sign that read “We want justice now” The sign also had Mohammed’s picture on it. Bule said her son “deserved justice.”
“I need answers,” she said. “I want to know what happened to my son. He didn’t deserve this.”
Police say Mohammed had been denied admission to the club and later came back after closing and threw bricks through the window. Authorities said the five men, who were employees of the club, chased Mohammed, held him down and punched and kicked him.
Mohammed, an Ethiopian immigrant, had worked as a security guard and sandwich maker at a local deli.
Protesters also chanted “Where is the justice America?”
Nunu Waco, Mohammed’s cousin, said her family was “appalled” by the decision by prosecutors to drop the charges.
“Our family deserves better. American citizens deserve better,” she said.
On Friday, when the charges were dropped, U.S. Attorney Ronald C. Machen Jr. said in a statement that his office needed more information, including a final conclusion by the medical examiner, before moving forward. He said the investigation would continue.
“Our work is not done,” Machen said. “The tragic death of Ali Ahmed Mohammed demands that we undertake a careful and comprehensive investigation to determine precisely how he died. . . . The search for justice cannot be rushed, and we will continue to pursue an active and vigorous inquiry.”
Inside the office of 555 4th St. NW, employees were seen gathered at the windows of their offices looking out at the protesters. Some employees, lowered the blinds. After the 45-minute demonstration, the protesters marched to the Justice Department to hold a similar protest.
Dr. Gregory Stanton, President of Genocide Watch, gave an impassioned speech about the atrocities of the Meles regime in Ethiopia during a public meeting in Washington DC that was held to commemorate the 5th anniversary of the Ethiopian Election Massacre. Dr. Stanton urged Ethiopians around the world to get organized and work to bring change in Ethiopia. He discussed the experiences of the Ukraine and Ghana communities abroad who helped brought change in their countries and that Ethiopians can do the same. He also sent an unequivocal message to Ethiopians of Tigrean ethnic group in whose name the Meles regime is brutalizing Ethiopians and committing genocides in some regions of the country, such as Ogaden and Gambella. Dr Stanton said he is worried that eventually it will be the Tigreans who will pay the price for Meles Zenawi’s crimes. Watch the speech below:
The EU mission released a 41-page report today in which it stated that the May 2010 elections in Ethiopia did not meet international standards. The report is an impeachment of the Meles regime as illegitimate that has no mandate to govern. Members of the mission were denied visa by Meles to enter Ethiopia this week where they had planned to present report. Read the report below:
The European Union Election Observation Mission (EU EOM) was present in Ethiopia from 14 April to 21 June 2010, following invitations from the Ethiopian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the National Electoral Board of Ethiopia (NEBE). The EU EOM was led by Mr. Thijs Berman, Member of the European Parliament. The Mission deployed 170 observers from 25 European Union Member States, as well as Norway, Switzerland and Canada to all the country’s regions to assess the electoral process against international and regional commitments for elections as well as the laws of Ethiopia. The EU EOM is independent in its findings and conclusions and adheres to the Declaration of Principles for International Election Observation commemorated at the United Nations in October 2005. On Election Day, EU EOM observers visited 815 polling stations in every region of Ethiopia to observe voting and counting… [read the full text here]
Statement by The Alliance for Liberty, Equality and Justice in Ethiopia
November 7, 2010 is the 5th anniversary of the November Massacre, a massacre in which over 200 innocent Ethiopians were brutally killed and thousands more were wounded. We are a forward- looking nation of hope, but as much as we want to be a forward-looking people, in the month of November, Alliance for Liberty, Equality & Justice in Ethiopia (ALEJE), urges all Ethiopians to look back and reflect on the sacrifice of men and women who gave their life for the freedom of our people and great nation. ALEJE also emphasizes that as we remember our heroes; let us not think of them as everyday people who once lived and died. Let us remember that each one of the victims was an individual with a sense of prosperity and a dream of living a fulfilled life, but chose to make great sacrifice so that Ethiopians can live with freedom and democracy.
Those brave men and woman knew very well that a demonstration against Zenawi’s brutal regime could cost them their life, but without freedom, they believed that their life was worth giving for the freedom of the rest of the Ethiopian people. The November Heroes were true givers who sacrificed their life for others in a country where political sycophants always sacrifice principle to hold on to their ill gotten position of power. This November, our thoughts and prayers should go out for these heroes and to all past victims of Zenawi’s brutal regime as we continue to commemorate November 2005’s memories. Those brave men and women were robbed of their futures, but they gave us love, peace, and the hope of a better tomorrow.
On that “Cold” November day, death rate on the streets of our nation’s capital and elsewhere in Ethiopia soared as the fearless torches of democracy stood face to face with a the blazing guns of a brute force unleashed by the fascistic and ethnocentric regime of Meles Zenawi. We must raise the torch of these fallen heroes and carry it all the way to victory. While we grieve for the fallen and as we start the month long commemoration events worldwide, we must never forget the urgency and the magnitude of the tasks ahead of us.
As we pay homage to those who paid the ultimate sacrifice in lives and limbs for our freedom, there is a debt that must also be paid; and there is only one choice and one path ahead to pay this debt. Our choice is freedom and the path to freedom knows no surrender or submission. So, as we take few minutes during this busy month and solemnly remember and thank our patriots, here are few things that they want us to do from now onwards:
* The victims of the November massacre lived and died to ensure freedom and democracy for the people of Ethiopia. Let’s honor their sacrifices by living a life worthy of the ultimate price that they paid and worthy of us Ethiopians, to make a resolution to ourselves to live a life of liberty and justice;
* To be part of the struggle for freedom and equality, it is imperative that every person joins ALEJE, any of the ALEJE member organizations, or any other democratic organization of his/her choosing. Liberty Equality and justice in Ethiopia could only be attained through organized struggle. Therefore, let us all be organized in the various organizations of our choice;
* Let us resolve to ensure that everything we do [our actions] and everything we don’t do [our in-actions] must help the struggle in Ethiopia;
* The media—Local radios, shortwave radios, and ESAT- has the power to influence the lives of millions of ordinary people who are fighting tooth and nail against the brutal dictatorial regime of Meles Zenawi. Therefore, helping all pro-democracy media outlets constantly is an integral part of the struggle for freedom and justice to prevail in Ethiopia;
* Every member of the Ethiopian Diaspora must join the diplomatic part of the struggle and influence their elected representatives not to use the tax payers’ money to support and prop a brutal and corrupt dictatorship in Ethiopia;
* We usually condemn donor nations for financing dictatorship in Ethiopia, but we ourselves are party to financing the TPLF dictatorship by using their companies and formal channels when transferring funds to our relatives and friends in Ethiopia. The Ethiopian Diaspora transfers more than $3.2 billion annually to Ethiopia through both formal and informal channels such as banks and money transfer institutions. Through formal channels–money transfer and banks– the regime gets more than 1.2 billion annually in foreign currency. It is our moral duty to help our relatives who are neglected by the regime, but let’s never and ever use the TPLF companies and formal channels such as banks and money transfer institutions around the world so that the foreign exchange does not get into the TPLF coffers to further strengthen its repressive state apparatus and used to prop the instruments of repression by and corruption of the dictatorial regime in Ethiopia. We therefore call on all Ethiopians in Diaspora to find creative ways and means of sending remittance to friends and families in Ethiopia;
* The Ethiopian Diaspora must stand as one person and speak in one voice to foil TPLF’s design and campaign to control Churches, Mosques, and civil society organizations in the Diaspora.
The struggle of the Ethiopian people for Liberty, Equality and Justice shall triumph!
