ADDIS ABABA (Bloomberg) — Ethiopia’s ruling party said the country’s largest opposition grouping, the Forum for Democratic Dialogue (Medrek), would try to foment violence after elections scheduled for May in an effort to spur foreign governments to intervene.
“They are ready to create violence after the elections,” Hailemariam Desalegn, the parliamentary whip for the ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front [a cover for Tigrean People’s Liberation Front (Woyanne)], said in a phone interview this week. “Their ultimate objection is not free and fair elections but to get power-sharing like in Zimbabwe and Kenya. I think this is very dangerous and they should be properly told this.”
He said opposition allegations that elections scheduled for May 23 would not be free and fair were designed to fuel popular discontent that would lead to street clashes as happened following the country’s disputed 2005 poll.
The warning came as the opposition Unity for Democracy and Justice (UDJ), the largest political party in the Forum, accused the U.S., Britain and other Western aid donors of silence over the jailing of UDJ leader Birtukan Mideksa and other human rights abuses.
The U.S. and U.K. “are following the old way of doing business,” said Andualem Aragie, UDJ’s secretary general. “They are partners in development with the Ethiopian government but I don’t think they are partners in freedom and democracy.”
Following disputed presidential elections in Zimbabwe in 2008 and Kenya in 2007, international mediators brokered agreements that allowed opposition parties to share power with Presidents Robert Mugabe and Mwai Kibaki.
The opposition has sought to raise pressure on the U.S., U.K., and other donors who supply more than $2 billion in aid annually to Ethiopia, saying their silence is tantamount to political support for Prime Minister Meles Zenawi.
The U.K. government has a “frank and full dialogue with the government of Ethiopia on human rights and democracy including Birtukan,” said Gavin Cook, a spokesman for the British embassy in Addis Ababa. “Our development assistance, regardless to who is in power, has helped benefit millions of Ethiopians.”
Michael Gonzales, a spokesman for the U.S. embassy in Addis Ababa, declined comment.
ADDIS ABABA (APA) — The 14th African Union Summit on Tuesday unanimously re-elected Ethiopian Prime Minister genocidal dictator Meles Zenawi to represent Africa in future consecutive global climate conferences. [In Africa, failure and betrayal are rewarded. That is why the continent is a land of misery.]
The Summit commended the leading and coordinating role of Meles at the tough negotiations at the Copenhagen Climate Conference. [The fact of the matter is that Meles betrayed Africa in Copenhagen, as reported here.]
The leaders expressed their satisfaction with Meles “who strives to secure the benefits and interest of Africa.” [Thieves standing up for each other at the expense of Africa they claim to represent. Read about Meles Zenawi’s role in Copenhagen here.]
Meles was elected last year to lead the African Union delegation of thieves to the world climate conference at the AU assembly in Libya .
Tanzanian president, Jakaya Kikwete lauded Meles’s efforts at the Copenhagen climate conference where he took into consideration Africa’s interest. [Liar]
The world climate conference in Copenhagen was a forum where the international community, including the developed countries promised to give Africa tens of billion dollars in the coming three years and another $ 100 billion by 2010.
The money will be utilized for climate change adaptation and mitigation programs in Africa , which severely affected by the climate change. [The money goes into the pockets of these looters who are being propped up by neo-colonialists.]
Hany Gebre was killed in the crash of an Ethiopian Airlines flight on January 25
Sunday morning, I went with the photojournalist Matthew Cassel (Just Image) to the Ethiopian Full Gospel Church, in Sebtiyeh, just outside of Beirut, for Sunday services and the funeral of one of the congregants, Hany Gebre, who died in the crash of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 409 last Monday.
If you are looking to understand the plight of Ethiopian domestic workers in Lebanon, look no further than the fact that this service — six days after the incident — was the first time the Ethiopian community could reliably get time off from work to gather. About 150 women — and they were ALL women — were there, and many cried for the entire three hour service, which was conducted through song and spoken word, wholly in Amharic. Representatives from the Ethiopian Consulate stopped by to pay their respects and distribute their personal mobile numbers, which everyone in attendance dutifully wrote down. They, too, left in tears.
The ceremony itself was spectacular — haunting in its beauty and sorrow.
Ethiopians mourn in Beirut (Photo: Matthew Cassel)
I went with a friend and journalist today to cover a service at an Ethiopian church outside Beirut to remember one its members, Hany Gebre, along with 89 other people, mostly Lebanese and Ethiopians, killed on an Ethiopian Airlines flight that crashed into the Mediterranean Sea shortly after takeoff last Monday. Hany was employed as a domestic worker in Lebanon and was on the way to visit her family for the first time since she came to Lebanon three years ago when the plane went down. The community of Ethiopian women at the church is tightly knit, and most women said they knew Hany well. We entered to a roomful of sobbing women listening to the animated preacher singing prayers in Amharic.
It was an awkward experience for me to again take pictures of a room full of people letting their tears flow, and like I told my friend in the church, I hate taking pictures in these situations but I know that I should so others can see. As he sat there with his notebook I thought of a quote by Lewis Wickes Hine, one of my favorite photographers who once said, “If I could tell the story in words, I wouldn’t need to lug around a camera.” Even though my Canon isn’t quite as obtrusive as the cameras were in Hine’s day, the act itself will always be obtrusive in a situation like this and make me wish that I could remain unseen in a corner capturing the scene by jotting down notes in a small notebook.
At one point I had to leave the emotional scene in the church and get some “fresh air” by smoking a cigarette across the street. Outside, I sat staring at the Lebanese passersby. I wondered what a society that many have increasingly called “racist” thinks of the hundreds of black women who gather in their neighborhood each Sunday.
I noticed an older Lebanese woman walk past with her Ethiopian “helper.” In the standard contract that all employers must sign, migrant domestic workers in Lebanon are allowed to take at least one day off per week (usually Sunday), but many employers prevent them from doing so. I assume this was an example of that. The Ethiopian worker, arm-in-arm with her employer, glanced inside the church as they walked past and immediately started crying on the street. The Lebanese woman seemed not to notice (or not to care) as she asked the worker for help while she rummaged through her oversized handbag.
Since the death of Theresa Seda across the street from my home, I’ve been increasingly involved in the plight of foreign workers in Lebanon. Previously, I hadn’t focused on this issue because my reason for being in the Middle East is to combat a highly inaccurate image of this region and its people being portrayed in much of the Western media. If I was going to cover the exploitation of workers, I wouldn’t need to travel half the globe to do so. And I distrust many Western journalists who come here critical of everything Arab while ignoring their own government’s role in shaping this war-torn and unstable part of the world. But the abuse of workers in this country is unavoidable. Every time I leave the house I see a foreign woman carrying a bratty child, picking up dog shit or staring out the window of her “madame’s” car in envy at those of us walking around with relatively few cares in the world. There is a common expression shared by oppressed peoples. Its one that screams of a yearning to spend time with family, swim in the sea, relax on a nice chair, meet friends, have money to purchase goods, travel, be free. And as someone concerned with social justice, it’s impossible to turn a blind eye to the abuse in Lebanon that is happening all around me.
Now, the big question: are Lebanese racists? Some Western journalists feel they’re in a position to say yes, but not this one. Surely there are many racist Lebanese, and it is a serious problem affecting the whole of society — nearly everyone refers to migrant domestic workers as “Sirlankiin” (Sri Lankans) regardless of what country they actually come from. But, for example, is the Ethiopian worker and her Lebanese employer an example of this racism? It’s hard to say. Before making generalizations and pointing the finger solely at Lebanese, I would take a step back and look at the question on a global scale — how many societies existing today don’t contain elements of racism? If these Ethiopian and other workers were to travel elsewhere (or stay in Ethiopia), would that solve the problem?
I thought about all of this before I heard the music sounding (seen in the video below) through the church doors and out into the street. I quickly put out my cigarette and ran back inside lugging my camera along to help me tell a story we don’t often hear.
At noon every Sunday an old Toyota sedan donated by supporters of Ethiopia’s most famous prisoner pulls up near a jail on the outskirts of the capital.
A 74-year-old woman in a white shawl and her four-year-old granddaughter — the only outsiders the prisoner is allowed to see — step out for a 30-minute visit.
Most inmates at Kaliti prison want their relatives to buy them food. But Birtukan Mideksa, the 35-year-old leader of the country’s main opposition party, always asks her mother and daughter to bring books: an anthology titled The Power of Non-Violence, Bertrand Russell’s Best, and the memoirs of Gandhi, Barack Obama and Aung San Suu Kyi, the Burmese political prisoner to whom she has been compared.
Birtukan, a single mother and former judge, was among dozens of opposition leaders, journalists and civil society workers arrested following anti-government demonstrations after the disputed 2005 elections.
Charged with treason for allegedly planning to overthrow the government — accusations rejected by independent groups such as Amnesty International — the political leaders were sentenced to life imprisonment. After spending nearly two years in jail they were pardoned, but Birtukan was rearrested in December 2008 for challenging the official version of circumstances that led to her release. Her pardon was revoked, her life sentence reinstated.
“My child did not do anything wrong — she had no weapon, she committed no crime,” said Almaz Gebregziabher, Birtukan’s mother, in her house on a hillside in Addis Ababa after visiting her daughter one recent Sunday. “I want the world to know that this is unjust.”
Many Ethiopians agree. Birtukan’s treatment has cast a shadow over elections due in May. Opposition parties and international human rights groups said the case is proof of the authoritarian government’s stalled progress towards democracy.
It is also evidence, they said, of the double standards of Western donors when dealing with Meles Zenawi, the prime minister, a major aid recipient and ally in the “war against terror”. Although Zenawi makes no attempt to hide his disdain for Birtukan — talk of her release is a “dead issue”, he said in December — he denies the case is political.
But a look at her history with his regime shows why few people outside his party believe him.
Birtukan excelled at university and was appointed a federal judge in Addis Ababa. In 2002 she was assigned a case involving Siye Abraha, a former defence minister who had fallen out with Zenawi and was accused of corruption. Birtukan released him on bail — a rare show of judicial independence in Ethiopia — but when Abraha left court he was immediately rearrested and jailed.
Birtukan’s relatives said she joined opposition forces before the 2005 elections and was arrested and released in 2007.
Upon her release she set about bringing together the various opposition groups from 2005 and helped found the Unity for Democracy and Justice, of which she was elected chairperson. Her age and gender made this extraordinary.
In November 2008 Birtukan told an audience of Ethiopians in Sweden that her pardon had come as a result of negotiations rather than an official request made through legal channels. Although people who were in jail with her said this reflected the truth, the government said it equated to denying asking for a pardon, and sent her back to jail.
And there is no sympathy from the government. “She was advised to obey the rule of law,” said Teferi Melese, head of public diplomacy at the foreign affairs ministry in Addis Ababa. “But she broke the conditions of her pardon, thinking her friends in the European Union could get her released.”
That foreign embassies, including Britain’s, which have been refused permission to visit Birtukan, have barely made a public complaint about the case appears to back opposition complaints that when it comes to Ethiopia, donors favour stability over democratic reforms or human rights.
“The government says the more we make noise the more difficult it will be to get her [Birtukan] out,” said one Western diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity. “Are we going to risk our entire aid budget for one person? No.”
African leaders gangsters have come in great numbers with great enthusiasm to Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa to get some more training in the art of robbery from the master of swindle, Meles Zenawi and his wife Jezebel.
Each one of these plunderers will introduce himself/herself to the chief thief, Meles Seitanawi, with pride and self confidence that they are all from Africa and that they have come to Addis Ababa to accomplish some pressing issues that their country, Africa, is facing today, and after the chief thief has recognized all of his guests and welcomed them to this beautiful city of Addis Ababa, whose old name, to some Oromos, is Finfinne, they will go quietly to their proper seats.
They have agreed that no camera is allowed while they are discussing certain and sensitive issues such as land dealing, export, import, investment, and one’s own assets. They all have agreed to talk about the pressing issue first, and they found out the urgent issue is how to protect their own personal assets.
Having mentioned some of the names of foreign banks where to put one’s own assets, they suggest that some African leaders with big assets – over a billion dollars – should put their assets in a safest foreign bank in the names of their own friends or families instead of their own names to avoid litigation from their own countries.
Next, they discuss about their personal safeties when there is a government change in their countries. They promise and swear in the name of God or Allah that they will keep their promises to grant a safe place to any African leader who flees his country for his safety and for the safeties of his own family, and whatever crime he may have committed and how much money he may have looted, he will be granted a safe haven in one of the African states.
Case in point, Mengistu Haile Mariam is still alive and enjoying life with his family in Harare, Zimbabwe; Al Bashir of Sudan, after he has been indicted by the International Tribunal Court for genocide against the Darfuri, is still in power and governing his country. Taking these two extraordinary examples and putting their prides on them, these Africans robbers feel more confidence on each other and are determined to loot their country and transfer their money to foreign banks. Again and again, they have promised to stick together to improve their own personal lives and the lives of their own friends and to isolate those who disagree with them and condemn them as advocates of terrorism in the Horn of Africa.
They claim they have the right to rent or give some of their fertile lands for foreign investors who can develop the land and hire more domestic workers and produce more food for the African hungry children and more revenues for their government, and this is one of the quickest ways to swindle money in the form of foreign investment, land development, and unfair taxation of the new companies.
The long term effect of land development is overshadowed by the short term of productivity from this rent-free land given to foreign developers. The long term effect is destroying the ecosystem of the land and changing the life styles of the inhabitants of the land and evicting them from their ancestral land without compensating them for the great lose of their land, their grazing pasture, their grave land, and their historical, cultural, religious, and recreational areas.
Engulfed with personal interests, avarice, lust, and power, these African robbers or leaders think less about their people and think more about themselves. They have come and gathered here in Addis Ababa to find some effective ways to hide their assets instead of sharing them with their own people, to protect their criminal friends rather than bringing them to justice, and to advocate democracy and the rule of law instead of continuing to run their countries in the same old and barbaric ways.
Winding up their unproductive discussions (of course the discussion is very fruitful for their personal interests) for the common people of Africa, and especially for Ethiopia, Somalia, and Eritrea, these daily and nightly robbers or leaders of African states have profusely expressed their deep gratitude to the unsparing hospitality of the Ethiopian people and especially the smiling faces, giggling, and kindness of the Addis Ababa beautiful damsels.
NDJAMENA (AFP) — An Ethiopian Airlines passenger jet which made an emergency landing in Chad due to a radar problem took off again today, but 120 of its 150 passengers refused to board, airport authorities said.
The plane, a Boeing 737 en route from Dakar in Senegal to Addis Ababa via Bamako in Mali, “left this morning at 5:00 am (0400 GMT),” said an airport official, as well as airport police.
The incident comes days after another Ethiopian Airlines 737 with 90 people on board crashed into the Mediterranean minutes after takeoff from Beirut during a raging thunderstorm on Monday. There were no survivors.
Of the 150 passengers on the African flight, “120 refused to leave on the Boeing,” an airport official said. “They have been put up in different hotels. A large plane will come to collect them.”
Contacted by AFP, an Ethiopian Airlines spokesman in Ndjemena declined to comment and said that an “information office” had been opened by the company in Addis Ababa.
On Thursday, the Boeing 737 “circled around N’Djamena for one hour before making an emergency call. There was a radar problem, so it landed,” an airport official said.
An airport source said the plane, which had made a stopover in Bamako, Mali, was dumping its fuel before landing.
The same plane had already experienced electrical troubles when leaving Dakar earlier Thursday, and had had to return, passengers said.
