I am one of the thousands of Ethiopian Americans who toiled to get you elected. For two years, I was a volunteer for your presidential campaign. I made thousands of phone calls, organized precinct walks, recruited volunteers, and contributed funds to send volunteers to Nevada, Colorado and Pennsylvania. I published letters to the editor in my local newspaper in support of your candidacy. I did it all while looking after my then 18 months old son.
I promised my boy that you will be the next President of the United States. I was enthusiastic about my engagement in your campaign because I believed so strongly that your administration would be fundamentally different from your predecessors in dealing with African dictators like Meles Zenawi.
Now you are the President, I am sad to say that your administration is yet to make any meaningful policy changes toward Ethiopia. Of course, Mr. President, you have so much on your plate—two wars, an economic crisis and the ongoing policy debates in Congress.
However, at the expense of sounding alarmist, I want to bring to your attention that if the current dismal political situations in Ethiopia continue unabated, Ethiopia will be a failed-state. Such a real prospect should alarm your administration.
Mr. President, due to its repressive nature, the Zenawi’s regime is widely despised and rejected by the vast majority of Ethiopians. And the United States’ unconditional support to this murderous regime has been greatly resented by Ethiopians. That should be a concern to the United States, because the enormous public opposition to the Zenawi’s regime can make millions of Ethiopians potentially susceptible to recruitment and radicalization by internal and external radical groups.
To avert a colossal failure, Mr. President, now is the time to formulate a new policy toward Ethiopia. Mr. Michael Posner, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, has been surprisingly intimidated to condemn the abhorrent human rights record of the Zenawi’s regime. The U.S. State Department should not have double-standards on human rights in Darfur, Sudan, and Gambella, Gondar and Ogaden, Ethiopia.
You set a high bar for yourself during your presidential campaign to be tough on corrupted dictators and to honor human rights—don’t lower the bar now, Mr. President. Don’t be hoodwinked or deceived by a vicious and notorious dictator like Meles Zenawi. You cannot count on a person like Mr. Zenawi, who has no principles and credibility, to advance U.S. interests in East Africa—it simply cannot be done.
Please advise your State Department to take the issues of human rights violations in Ethiopia seriously, and to set up a Committee to examine political conditions on the ground. A democratic and stable Ethiopia will be a strategic and reliable ally to the United States.
TRIPOLI — The International Organisation for Migration repatriated on Tuesday 160 Ethiopian migrants who had been stranded in Libya without travel documents.
“The 160 migrants boarded a chartered aircraft in the southern Libyan town of Sebha on Tuesday for a five-hour flight to Addis Abeba,” where they were met and assisted by IOM staff, the organisation said.
“This group of stranded migrants, like so many others, realised they had no future in Libya and wanted to return home but couldn’t because they had no money or documentation,” said the IOM’s Tripoli chief of mission Laurence Hart.
The IOM gave each migrant 400 euros (around 585 dollars) when they landed in Addis Abeba to help them “start income-generating activities” as part of its voluntary repatriation programme, the organisation said.
“The programme, set up in July 2006, has so far helped over 3,800 stranded and often destitute migrants from Africa and Asia to return home in dignity,” the statement said.
Libya, with its porous land and sea borders, is a major starting point for sub-Saharan Africans risking their lives in rickety boats with the hope of asylum or simply a better life in Europe.
The IOM said that many of the Ethiopians it repatriated on Tuesday said they had been in Libya “for years, trying to seek out a living as undocumented migrants, or to save up” money to travel on to Europe.
Some of them said they reached Libya after dangerous treks across the Sahara.
More than one million illegal migrants are in Libya to try to cross the Mediterranean towards Europe, according to the IOM.
Ethiopia’s tyrant Meles Zenawi has called U.S. Ambassador Douglas Griffiths an ‘idiot’ for claiming that there is no equal representation of all ethnic groups in the government.
Mr Griffith represents the U.S. at the United Nations Human Rights Commission in Geneva.
Speaking at a council meeting last week, Ambassador Griffiths questioned Ethiopian regime’s contention that there is a fair representation of nationalities in government institutions. He said independent observers note that most senior government positions are represented by one ethnicity.
The dominant role of ethnic Tigrayans in the government, especially in the military, has often been a contentious political issue in Ethiopia. Tigrayans make up about six percent of the population.
Listen below:
[podcast]http://www.ethiopianreview.info/audio/12142009amha1800aMON.mp3[/podcast]
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VOA reports: Prime Minister Dictator Meles flatly rejected Ambassador Griffiths’ assertions. “I have not heard of such idiocy. But if it has occurred, it proves the idiocy of the person in Geneva,” he said.
Speaking to reporters before traveling to the climate conference in Copenhagen, Meles also dismissed a U.S. critique of Ethiopia’s restrictions on human rights and press freedom.
The U.S. embassy in Addis Ababa last week took the unusual step of urging Ethiopia to review a recently passed law restricting the activities of non-governmental organizations receiving foreign funding. The law goes into effect next month.
The Center for International Human Rights at Chicago’s Northwestern University issued a report last month saying the measure effectively silences human rights defenders and advocates of democratic governance. The center described the Charities and Societies Proclamation, or CSO, as “the most restrictive of its kind in sub-Saharan Africa” and compared it to similarly repressive laws in Zimbabwe and Russia.
But Prime Minister Dictator Meles defended the measure, saying it is in line with democratic norms. “There is no possibility of us changing the CSO law because we believe it is a perfectly legitimate law and consistent, if not with the theory, consistent with the practice in the advanced democracies,” he said.
Meles also rejected U.S. concerns about the closure of a newspaper that had criticized government policies. The U.S. embassy said the closure of the Addis Neger newspaper and charges against other private journalists and publishers might contribute to a perception that space for independent media in Ethiopia is constrained.
The media rights group Reporters Without Borders said the decision of Addis Neger’s editors to close the paper and flee the country was evidence of a climate of fear.
Meles said such criticisms are not based on facts. “We don’t take this institution seriously. Because they have proven to us over again, they take any allegation against the government as the last word in the Bible and they do not try to verify the facts,” he said.
At the same time, Prime Minister Dictator Meles scoffed at reports that suggest Ethiopia’s relationship with the United States is strained. He called bilateral ties “mature.” “It was never off track. People assumed it was off track because of some idiot comment made by this or that particular person in this or that particular place. But the relationship is quite solid, has always been based on things other than passing emotions,” he said.
Meles said he had not seen the U.S. embassy statement or the comments by the U.S. representative at the U.N. Human Rights Council. But he said, “I respect the rights of the United States to express its opinion on any matter under the sun, or if they want to, even on any matter over the sun.”
The net worth of Ethiopia’s dictator Meles Zenawi is listed as $1.2 billion in Wikipedia.org, the most referenced encyclopedia in the world. Meles is also listed as the 11th richest head of government in the world. (See here.) This has caused the Adwa Mafia (a clique within the ruling Woyanne junta that is mostly composed of close family members and friends of Meles) to scramble and remove their boss from the list. After several back and forth between those who wanted to keep Meles in the list and members of the Adwa Mafia who are terrified of the exposure, Wikipedia editors stepped in yesterday and “called off” the war until December 20.
One may wonder why Meles Zenawi’s clique is scrambling to suppress such information. First of all, the information is correct. Secondly, the Adwa Mafia has amassed such incredible wealth during the past 18 years while most Woyanne cadres and fighters, particularly those who are not from Adwa Awraja, have gotten only frifari (crumbs). Such disparity in wealth is causing friction within the Woyanne hierarchy.
Currently, the Adwa Mafia (a.k.a. the Meles Crime Family) controls 60 mega corporations through an organization named EFFORT (Endowment Fund For Rehabilitation of Tigray). These companies — doing businesses ranging from mining to transportiaon — are estimated to worth over $15 billion. EFFORT, which is currently headed by Meles Zenawi’s wife Azeb Mesfin, has never been audited, pays no tax, and is shielded from inspection of its books. All the profits from EFFORT go into offshore private bank accounts of Meles, Azeb, Sebhat and the other members of the Adwa Mafia.
Use a sledgehammer to smash a butterfly! That is the exquisite art of war unleashed on Ethiopia’s independent press by the dictatorship of Meles Zenawi today.
The latest near-casualties in Zenawi’s war on Truth have just escaped by the skin of their teeth. Their distress signal ricocheted across cyberspace last week. In a press release they announced: “Following legal and political harassment and intimidation by the Ethiopian government, Addis Neger Publishing announced that its major publication, Addis Neger Newspaper, ceased circulation. Saturday November 28, 2009 saw the final edition of the paper.” Joining the exodus into exile were Tamrat Negera, editor-in-chief; executive editor, Abiye Teklemariam; deputy editor-in-chief, Girma Tesfa; editor, Masresha Mammo; managing editor, Mesfin Negash; senior reporter, Zerihun Tesfay; and news reporter Abrham Begizew.
Mesfin Negash resonated his colleagues’ deep disappointment and regret over the paper’s closure, but was proudly defiant:
Our newspaper was one of the country’s best examples of what independent journalists with an internal capacity to act free of constraints can accomplish in being the platform for intake and synthesis of public opinion. Unfortunately, a government which had a habit of wantonly and aggressively stepping into the locus and crystallization of public opinion as both a platform controller and dictator had made our task impossible.
The assault on the independent press in Ethiopia is nothing new. Addis Neger is merely the latest victim of an ongoing war waged against independent newspaper editors, publishers and reporters since the end of the May, 2005 elections. Numerous newspapers have been shutdown, and scores of journalists have been arrested and jailed by the dictatorship. It is routine for journalists to be routinely and repeatedly interrogated by the police for days without probable cause, fingerprinted, ordered to apologize, given stern warnings and released without charge. In the recent past, Addis Neger reporters were charged with “defamation” for reporting on the Byzantine politics of the patriarchate of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. A journalist was imprisoned for reporting ethnically-motivated human rights violations. Erroneously reporting the name of a judge in a case landed one journalist in prison. Opposition Diaspora websites are blocked wholesale. Ethiopia, which by official account has experienced a phenomenal “11 per cent economic growth over the last six years” has the second lowest internet penetration rate in all of sub-Saharan Africa.
The highly respected Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has repeatedly condemned the abuse and mistreatment of the independent press in Ethiopia. In 2006, CPJ named Ethiopia the world’s “worst backslider on press freedom over the previous five years”. In its 2008 human rights report, the U.S. State Department stated, “The government continued to arrest, harass, and prosecute journalists, publishers, and editors. The government continued to control all broadcast media except three private FM radio stations. Private sector and government journalists routinely practiced self censorship.” In 2009, Reporters Without Borders ranked Ethiopia 140/175 on its Press Freedom Index. (Zimbabwe ranked 136/175.)
The dictatorship in Ethiopia is in a state of willful denial. The official position is “press freedom in Ethiopia is getting stronger and stronger,” and CPJ’s reports do not reflect the “reality.” Zenawi says everything is hunky-dory and anyone can criticize the government; the CPJ and the various international human rights and press organizations are making up stuff. He explained, “I don’t think people have any qualms about criticizing the government or rejecting its policies, or expressing dissenting views in any way…. Have you read the local newspapers? Do they mince their words about government?…”
Last year a Pronunciamento (dictatorial decree) masquerading as a press law was enacted criminalizing the independent press: “Whosoever writes, edits, prints, publishes, publicises, disseminates, shows, makes to be heard any promotional statements encouraging… terrorist acts is punishable with rigorous imprisonment from 10 to 20 years.” Imagine what “terrorists acts” could mean for journalists charged in the exalted kangaroo kourts. Human Rights Watch protested the decree in its draft form: “Ethiopia’s counter-terrorism law could punish political speech and peaceful protest as terrorist acts and encourage unfair trials if enacted.” Ato Bulcha Demeksa, leader of the opposition Oromo Federalist Democratic Movement, said that the date of enactment of the abominable decree will live in infamy: “I consider the day on which this law was enacted as a dark day in the annals of Ethiopian history.”
In May, 2009, the Ethiopian Free Press Journalists Association (EFPJA) reported, “Over 101 journalists are forced into exile, 11 are still facing serious plight in Kenya, Uganda, Yemen, Japan and India.” The association insightfully and accurately anticipated recent events when it reported, “Journalists Serkalem Fasil, Eskindir Nega and Sisay Agena are still denied press license. Editors of weeklies: Awramba Times, Harambe, Enku and Addis Neger suffering under frequent harassments under the new punitive press Law, which has become the tool of silencing any criticisms against the ruling party.”
The war on the free press in Ethiopia is a mismatch of monumental proportions. The dictatorship has at its disposal a formidable arsenal of weapons of independent press destruction (WIPD): force journalists, publishers and editors to flee into exile; financially and economically ruin the defiant ones; delay, deny and discourage anyone who seeks a legal license to engage in independent journalism; use the police and security forces to relentlessly hound, harass, interrogate and intimidate journalists; undertake smear and vilification campaigns against independent newspapers and editors on television and radio in a futile attempt to demonize them; dredge up old bogus charges and fabricate new ones to criminally prosekute and konvict in kangaroo kourt journalists who refuse to give in and boldly defend the people’s constitutional and human right to be informed by an independent and free press; and even jail its own reporters and journalists who refuse to tow the party line and report honestly.
Against the onslaught of this crushing juggernaut stand a few dedicated and heroic journalists with nothing in their hands but pencils, pens and computer keyboards, and hearts full of faith and hope in freedom and human rights. The dictatorship is winning the war on the independent press, hands down. Young, dynamic journalists are going into exile in droves, and others are waiting for the other shoe to drop on them. The systematic campaign to decimate and silence the free press in Ethiopia is a total success. One by one, the dictatorship has shuttered independent papers and banished or jailed their editors and journalists. The campaign is now in full swing to shut down Awramba Times. The dictatorship’s newspapers are frothing ink in a calculated move to smear and tarnish the reputation of Awramba Times and its editors and journalists. For the past couple of years, Awramba Times staffers have been targets of sustained intimidation, detentions and warnings.
The dictatorship has also waged a victorious war over Serkalem Fasil and her husband Eskinder Nega. Serkalem was forced to have her baby in the dictatorship’s prison in 2007; and the following year she received the prestigious Courage in Journalism Award given by the International Women’s Media Foundation. In the official announcement, the Foundation stated, “Serkalem Fasil’s arrest came after her newspapers published articles critical of the Ethiopian government’s conduct in the May 2005 parliamentary elections. On the day of her arrest, Fasil, who was pregnant, was severely beaten by police.” Though Serkalem and Eskinder were acquitted of the charges and received a “pardon”, the dictatorship in its “appeal” last week made clear its intention to ruin and completely vanquish them financially by freezing and confiscating their assets.
Addis Neger editors were driven over the edge to make the “very difficult and heart breaking decision” to leave their country to “ensure their physical safety.” They had to run to save their lives: “This is the culmination of months of persecution, harassment and black propaganda by the Ethiopian government on Addis Neger” they said. They were tipped off that criminal charges, including “promotion of terrorist organizations and ideals” were soon to be filed under the new Pronunciamento. For whom the bell tolls next, Awramba Times?
Addis Neger (which means New Thing) editors and reporters waged an honorable and heroic struggle for the truth since they established the weekly in 2007 with the aim of nurturing informed and reasoned political discourse and exchange in Ethiopia. They are the vanguard of a new breed of Ethiopian free press defenders. They are among the few, the defiant, the proud Ethiopian journalists who have lost the war on the free press but have managed to win effortlessly every battle for the hearts and minds of the Ethiopian people. In a matter of two years, and under the most extremely unfavorable conditions, Addis Neger thrived and expanded. It gained “phenomenal growth in its circulation, influence and investment” with a circulation of 30,000, an extraordinary accomplishment for an independent weekly operating in the total darkness of dictatorship. Addis Neger received much praise for its objectivity, journalistic courage and breadth of topical coverage.
In their public statements on the end of this chapter of Addis Neger, its editors plaintively asked a question which many had asked before: Why does the dictatorship go through hell and high water to crush the few struggling independent newspapers in the country? The answer is simple. Dictators fear the Truth more than anything else. The independent press is a magnifying mirror that reflects the evils they do and crimes they commit everyday. Dictators fear criticism and genuine expression of public opinion because every day they live a guilty mind. They remain awake at night fearing accountability for their criminality. Dictatorships are like castles built on sand which readily dissolves when struck by a single sweep of the ocean’s wave. Dictators must keep cracking down on the independent press and terrorize the people because they are afraid of being vacuumed into the dust bin of history by the tornadic force of the people’s fury.
There is another reason why dictatorships are terrified of the independent free press. Dictatorship fear the Youth just as much as they fear the Truth. The free press appeals to the youth and opens their eyes and keeps their minds sharp and critical. It is no secret that Addis Neger had wide youth following. It provided a forum for the discussion of ideas passionately cherished by youth– freedom, democracy and human rights. It is impossible to keep the youth in a state of darkness with a fully functioning independent press. Look at the people who ran Addis Neger, and Serkalem and Eskinder and the others journalists facing persecution in Ethiopia today. They are all young men and women who believe in their country, their people and freedom. That is bloodcurdlingly scary to dictators!
The war on the independent press is not entirely lost. There is the foreign press corps in Ethiopia to keep the flashlight trained on the darkness that is enveloping Ethiopia. Reuters, Associated Press, New York Times, Bloomberg, BBC, VOA and others are now the Witnesses for the People of Ethiopia. It is not easy being a foreign correspondent there. They too face subtle harassment, provocation and intimidation. In 2006, an Associated Press reporter was tossed out of the country for allegedly “tarnishing the image of the country”. In 2007, a number of journalists, including Nairobi Bureau Chief Jeffrey Gettleman were subjected to threats, questioning at gunpoint and confiscation of their equipment while covering the Ogaden genocide. We must appreciate these foreign correspondents for their objectivity, balance and accuracy in reporting. They report it as they see it because that is a core part of their professionalism and ethical make-up as journalists. We may agree or disagree with their reports. But for now, they are all we got!
This is the unfinished story of the art of war on the independent free press in Ethiopia, and the victors and the victims in that war. In the end, the war between dictators who wield swords and journalists who hold pens will be decided in the hearts and minds of the Ethiopian people. If Edward Bulwer-Lytton is right in his verse, there is no doubt ultimate victory will belong to the penholders:
True, This! —
Beneath the rule of men entirely great,
The pen is mightier than the sword. Behold
The arch-enchanters wand! — itself a nothing! —
But taking sorcery from the master-hand
To paralyse the Cæsars, and to strike
The loud earth breathless! — Take away the sword —
States can be saved without it!
If the paramount question is to save the state or to save the free press, I would, as Thomas Jefferson said, save the latter:
The basis of our government being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.
Tamrat Negera, Abiye Teklemariam, Girma Tesfa, Masresha Mammo, Mesfin Negash, Zerihun Tesfay, Abrham Begizew, Serkalem Fasil, Eskinder Negar and the rest of the young Ethiopian press freedom defenders, WE OWE YOU A DEBT OF ETERNAL GRATITUDE!
Azeb Mesfin, the wife of Ethiopia’s tyrant Meles Zenawi, had captured the attention of U.S. media last September when she gave her husband an angry stare in Pittsburgh (read here). While in the plane flying from New York and after leaving Pittsburgh, Azeb’s anger did not let up. She was heard calling Meles “shermuta,” and hurling other insults.
The Ethiopian Review Intelligence Unit (IU) has now learned from sources inside Woyanne that Azeb was angry after she heard about a meeting between Meles and Ethiopian supermodel Liya Kebede in New York.
Meles met Liya Kebede through her husband, Kassy Kebede, who is a hedge-fund manager and investment consultant in New York. Kassy reportedly manages multimillion-dollar investment portfolios for Meles, Azeb and other members of the Woyanne junta. Meles is currently 11th richest head of government in the world with an estimated networth of $1.2 billion.
The net worth of Ethiopia’s dictator Meles Zenawi is listed as $1.2 billion in Wikipedia.org, the most referenced encyclopedia in the world. Meles is also listed as the 11th richest head of government in the world. (See 
Azeb Mesfin, the wife of Ethiopia’s tyrant Meles Zenawi, had captured the attention of U.S. media last September when she gave her husband an angry stare in Pittsburgh (read