Zambia and Ethiopia teams will face each other at Nyayo Stadium in Nairobi today. The winner will move one step closer to the Orange CECAFA Senior Challenge Cup quarterfinals.
Victory for second-placed Chipolopolo over Group A leaders Ethiopia will see Herve Renard’s side through to the quarterfinals to be played on December 7 with a game to spare.
Both Chipolopolo and Ethiopia are level on three points from their opening Group A matches following their 2-0 and 5-0 wins over Kenya and Djibouti on Saturday and Monday respectively.
The meeting will be the two side’s first clash since the 2006 edition of the event when Chipolopolo beat Ethiopia 1-0 in the quarterfinals in Addis Ababa.
Assistant coach George Lwandamina has said his charges are ready but wary of Ethiopia who are aiming to qualify to the last eight this year following their first round elimination in the last edition held in Uganda in January.
“It will not be an easy game but we have to fight and sail to the next round,” Lwandamina said.
Striker James Chamanga who scored a brace against hosts Kenya on Saturday is yet again expected to lead Chipolopolo’s charge for a quarterfinal place.
Another inspiring display from Chamanga will help exorcise Chipolopolo’s dismal show in the 2008 tournament held in Uganda, when like Ethiopia, Zambia too were eliminated in the preliminaries.
However, Renard has decided to take a gamble with preference of defence over offence after leaving Zanaco winger Allan Mukuka at home.
In Mukuka’s place is his Zanaco teammate and former Under-23 defender Eugene Shamakamba.
The unavailability of injured midfielder Stopilla Sunzu will mean Kebby Hachipuka should play a more prominent role in the holding role after being a peripheral figure in the Chipolopolo team over the last year.
Renard meanwhile is set to keep faith in the backline of Thomas Nyirenda, Denis Banda, and Emmanuel Mbola with either Charles Siyingwa or Shamakamba to complete Renard’s defence this afternoon.
Sebastian Mwansa and Henry Banda should again be favourites to start in midfield while Jacob Banda keeps his place in goals. And Chipolopolo will face Djibouti in their final match on Friday at the same venue.
The Russians and East Europeans have definitely made their opinions known. They would rather forget about it. The Cubans have always experimented with it and continue to craft their own version. The Chinese are fine tuning it or trying to bend it to their will. You can feel the Chairman shaking in his grave. The Vietnamese do not want to talk about it. Only the North Koreans are forging full steam ahead. What I am talking about is dictatorship and the absence of the rule of law. The questions for us is why is poor Ethiopia flirting for the umpteenth time that one-man rule is the way forward?
All indications are our country is withering away as we speak. How could a country with over three thousand years of history decay and shrivel? Well, it is not unheard of. It has happened before. We have no idea where the early Egyptians went nor do we know what happened to the Mayan civilization. The Roman Empire is no more and the Greeks are a shadow of their former self. Ethiopia as we know it is on its way out if this trend continues.
It is not good to dwell so much on the negative is a good saying. On the other hand pretending life is good and everything is dandy is postponing the inevitable clash with reality. Speaking from experience, if I might be presumptuous enough to generalize about us in the Diaspora we have learnt that reality is unforgiving. No amount of pretension, glossing over problems or side steeping over issues will make it go away. Life forces each one of us to grow and accept responsibility. We learn not to panic when faced with failure or shortcoming. Our strength comes from getting up and forging a new path. There is no recipe for success as failure.
The problem is our current Ethiopia does not seem to have the capacity to learn from the past. We are the poster country for repeating failure. We change the language but not the action. We think renaming the problem is like coming up with a new solution. We have a saying ‘gulechawen bekeyayerut wotun ayattafetem.’ How true, the secret is in changing the recipe or the cook.
We are at it again. I mean repeating what does not work. Suffice to say we brave Ethiopians expect a different result. We seem to say ‘why not it did not work last time, we will just pray and leave it to fate and it will work this time.’ After over thirty years of the same solution to the same problem we find ourselves where we started. The problem is getting bigger while our solution stays constant.
What brought about this rumination is the constant unceasing jabber regarding the so-called general elections scheduled in our country. Even the term ‘election is a misnomer; it should be referred to as a ‘coronation’. I have no idea where everyone has been the last four years but the preparations by the ruling TPLF party not to repeat the ‘calculated risk’ taken in 2005 started the same day as the voting ended. The following laws were enacted to unlevel the playing field of free and democratic elections.
1. The free independent media was crushed. Methods used were killing of editors, jailing and intimidation of journalists, forced exile, increase the price of paper and ink and using the judiciary to bankrupt news organizations by forceful seizure of property.
2. Enact new ‘laws’ to make the news business expensive and the process lengthy to start a newspaper or any independent journal.
3. Enact new laws to restrict the role of NGO’s.
4. Jail and intimidate the opposition. Use all government resources to create disarray in the opposition by means of blackmail, bribery and character assassination.
5. Enact new laws under the cover of fighting ‘terrorism’ to restrict political activity.
6. Come up with a so-called ‘code of conduct’ to further confuse intimidate the opposition.
7. Use the judiciary to imprison opposition leaders and party members.
8. Use foreign diplomats to meddle in our internal affairs and water down our demands while keeping our country in a state of perpetual poverty and welfare.
For those who are willing to listen, brave enough to accept reality the TPLF regime has made it abundantly clear that the idea of free and democratic election in Ethiopia is not acceptable. The Prime Minister has made it crystal clear that the only way he will vacate the palace is by force and on several occasions he has invited his countrymen to go ahead and try it. So much for participatory democracy.
The current TPLF regime in power has shown that it is not capable of solving the many problems facing our country. It is not for lack of trying; rather it is about lack of basic practical knowledge and know-how. It was not long ago when the regime declared ‘agriculture will drive modernization’. You would think that they will revisit the infantile idea of the state ownership of land and change the policy. No they were referring to ‘leasing land’ to grow flowers for the European market. Poor farmers were evicted from their ancestral land and a generous tax benefit was given to the foreign investors and their local agents. The theory was the income in foreign currency would be used to buy food items to feed the country or something like that.
What was the net effect of this adventure? The poor peasant farmers joined the unemployed migration to the city, the use of banned chemicals was a disaster on the eco system and the few young women workers in this hazardous environment were poisoned for life. The melt down of the European economy rendered the project useless while the long-term negative effect on our country and people is immeasurable. Future generations will pay the price. You don’t hear the regime-touting flower as a savior anymore.
Now the talk is all about ‘leasing’ agricultural land to foreigners. We are in the process of clear-cutting our national resource so the Saudis can harvest wheat and barley. A Reuters report said:
‘The three investors met Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi late last month, Mohamed al-Musallam, who chairs Dar Misc Economic and Administrative Consultancy firm, “They approved to lease us the farm land. They will exempt us from paying taxes and lease fees in the first years of production and they will allow us to export all our production,” Musallam told Reuters.
Our ancestors escaped the scrooge of colonialism our generations is selling our land to the new breed of colonialists. What they could not do with weapons they are doing it with dollars and Euros.
Both solutions prescribed by the regime have something in common. The need for dollars is what drives the TPLF machine. The Ethiopian government is a very expensive venture. Remember the regime is the number one employer in the country. Loyalty is paid for. Like a drug addict needs his fix and will do anything to acquire drug, so will the TPLF regime sell land, sell children, sell sovereignty to acquire dollars and Euros.
Do we have to sell our land and our children to build a better Ethiopia? There is no precedent where countries have traded sovereignty to improve the life of their people. The lesson for us is to follow the example of India where investment was made in education and the Diaspora was encouraged to invest in knowledge based ventures. The example by South Korea where the government systematically nurtured the big conglomerates (Chaebols) like Hyundai-Kia, Samsung, LG and others to grow big and strong to be able to compete in the international scene. Both India and South Korea are ancient country like us. Both value nationalism and sovereignty very much. Unlike us, both are blessed with forward looking, people and culture loving leaders.
How come our solutions do not require our involvement? Why are we relying on foreign benefactors to develop our country? Why are we allergic to crafting our own solution to our problem? Again we in the Diaspora are familiar with such mentality. There are those who work hard and build a prosperous business a successful carrier and energize their people. We are also aware of the welfare bums, the short cut artists, the fast talkers and flimflam swindlers. The Ethiopian regime falls in the second category. Intoxicated by its own lies and always stretching its hands for a spare change from the foreigners.
All we need is one example to show the bankruptcy of the TPLF regime and the hopelessness of counting on the clueless regime to get us out of the hole we are in. Let us take the Internet. It is only twenty years old. The new technology is what is driving the economies of the advanced countries.
Here in California the new technology of computer hardware, World Wide Web and its many application software with the venture capitalists have been driving the economy at a very fast pace. Is this something our Ethiopia can emulate? The answer is a resounding YES we can! The proof is the many Diaspora Web sites populating cyber space. They are the result of our people’s capacity to master the new technology and the fertile ground of freedom that allows us to soar like an eagle. You open any one of our Web sites and you are bound to find hundreds of destinations to go to.
How does this compare with Woyane land? Like day and night. We got Walta for the cadres and Aiga for their children in the Diaspora, nothing else! They are not willing to innovate and they block our people from learning.
If the Ethiopian people are free to learn and experiment with the new technology where would our country be? How many jobs will be created? All this can be accomplished with no cost to the regime. But that is not what they want. Information and knowledge is the number one enemy of a totalitarian system. They would rather invest in purchasing Internet traffic filtering technology to block knowledge.
Our fearless leader is going to Copenhagen representing African dictators. He is going to blame the world for the impoverished state the Africans are in. He is going to demand reparations to be paid over many years. The people of Africa will not see a cent. The money will be used to buy weapons and useless trinkets. What is left will be deposited in the West. The developed countries will laugh all the way to the bank while the poor impoverished Africans will cry all the way to the grave.
I couldn’t sleep all night. I kept turning and tossing to no avail. What was bothering me was what I heard on VOA yesterday afternoon. VOA is Voice of America for those of you not in the know. I found out I can listen to VOA on my smart phone and things haven’t been the same. My phone has become my best friend. I can surf the web, send email, watch You Tube, shoot a video, listen to the radio and oh yes talk too. My phone has become indispensable. Back to my story.
Dispersed among the many important stories of the day I heard the announcer discussing food, rather the lack of food in East Africa. Looks like the FAO (Food and Agricultural Organization) was passing out the plate to collect donations to feed poor Africans and the pledge from the Europeans fell short and the director and African delegates were crying about the indifference of the rich countries. This is what you call aggressive begging. It takes balls to sit on such virgin land and blame others for your own stupidity so I didn’t pay that much attention to the story.
What came next was what piqued my interest. UNFPA (UN population fund) was discussing the state of human population growth. According to them there are eighty-two and half million Ethiopians. Plenty of us if you ask me. On the other hand the Ethiopian government count shows seventy-three point nine million Ethiopians. Quiet a discrepancy wouldn’t you say. We are talking about eight point six million Abeshas an accounted for. Now you know why I couldn’t sleep.
I don’t mind if we are missing a few thousand of us. You know how African borders are. It is possible the day or week of the count some have ventured far following rich grazing grounds or even gone to the market in a neighboring country. It is also possible so many are escaping and temporarily situated in Sudan, Kenya, Somalia, Eritrea or Djibouti. I doubt if they will stop for the census bureau to be counted. Believe me eight point six million is not a small number. For crying out loud it is larger than a whole bunch of countries entire population.
Staying up all night has its rewards. As the sun was rising over the rolling hills of East bay, the birds chirping signaling a new day the answer came to me, we Ethiopians have a problem with numbers! We just don’t know how to count. That is not idle talk my friend, I got proof.
Let us just start with famine. According to the UN, US Aid, Oxfam and other professionals who do this sort of stuff for a living there are over ten million Ethiopians in need of food. According to the Meles regime the number is less than four million. It sort of bizarre to haggle over the number of your own people condemned to die of hunger but that is what has become of our country. Why this obsession with numbers you might ask. It is because the TPLF regime is always interested in the degrees of suffering of our people.
They start with the great famine of 1973 and compare that with the famine of 1983 and arrive at the startling conclusion that says less are dying thus we are doing better. With TPLF the question is not how to avoid famine but how to manage famine. Thus they spend time, energy and try our patience playing with numbers.
How about the much heralded 12% growth. Again it is a number TPLF throws with abandon gets quoted by Reuter or Bloomberg ergo it becomes a fact. The question is does reality on the ground jive with fantasy in the collective brain of TPLF cadres? I am afraid not. Putting up some concrete structures using Diaspora money, paving roads with IMF and Chinese loans is not an example of sustainable growth. It is just feel good economics or voodoo economics. The numbers are repeated again and again purposely to etch them in our mind.
Even the so-called Federal budget is not immune to this number challenge we face. After the 2005 elections the TPLF regime was printing money as if it was going out of style. The money was used to bribe the different EPDRF minions and buy their temporary loyalty. When the Federal Audit Report showed the truth about the minority regimes borrowing of billions of Bir the Prime Minster was not amused. Our fearless leader called the report a ‘junior accountants error’ and rejected the findings. His handpicked teams of investigators were able to shift a few zeros and bring the report in line with his wishes.
The mother of all ‘number challenged’ problems was the 2005 general elections. It was a situation where electorate and the ballot were in complete and total dis-harmony. It took more than six months of the best TPLF cadre’s brain to reconcile what really happened with what was supposed to happen. Even our favorite Woyane Bereket Semeon’s Wollo constituency was in disarray. The second balloting ordered by TPLF showed more people than what turned out to vote during the first free and euphoric election. Go figure that out!
Numbers and facts came to clash during the recent ‘Tekeze dam’ inaugaration. The prime Minster was proud and precise when he said Tekeze was built by “berasachin genzeb” Again does this jive with reality or does it leave many un answered questions. According to some knowledgeable sources ‘The Tekeze Dam Project financing is by China National Water Resources and Hydropower Engineering Company (CWHEC), 49pc, and China Gezhouba Water and Power (group) Ltd, 30pc, and Sur Construction, subsidiary company of EFFORT, 21pc. (TPLF) So what is it? Does it belong to us or the bond holders? Is this a new formula of financing? Questions, questions.
I will leave you with one number problem we encountered a while back as told by our own Tamagne Beyene. He tells it a whole lot better but I will do my best. The TPLF radio, yes they used to have a radio station during their armed struggle for the liberation of Tigrai, in its reports of their heroism was throwing increasable numbers regarding the number of Derg solders they have killed. Unfortunately when the numbers were added up at the end of the day they showed that they have killed more solders than all the Derg military combined.
The question for us is shall we get out of this numbers business? Shall we bring in outsiders to do any and all counting business in our country? Can Ethiopians be trusted with numbers or is it a localized TPLF problem? No matter it still leaves us with eight point six million Ethiopians out there with no one to claim them. Misplacing that many Abeshas is nothing to sniff at, I want my people accounted for.
Freweini Hadera, a construction management graduate student from Ethiopia, is crowned as Miss International at the Oklahoma State University International Student Organization’s annual Mr. and Miss International pageant.
By Danielle Davis
Oklahoma, USA (OSU) — It was a full house for the International Student Organization’s annual Mr. and Miss International pageant Wednesday night.
Students, families and friends gathered in the OSU Student Union Little Theater to support the contestants of this year’s pageant.
With charismatic hosts, Brittnee Cooks and Joseph Jones, the atmosphere was thick with excitement and eagerness to see who would be crowned OSU’s Mr. and Miss International.
The hosts introduced the four judges before the contestants took the stage for their opening dance.
The opening dance, which Nash McQuarters choreographed, was a montage of three Michael Jackson songs; “The Way You Make Me Feel,” “Remember the Time” and “Black or White.”
On an overhead above the stage, the video for “Black or White” played as each contestant performed a brief dance symbolizing his or her culture.
Following a performance of a three-man team of Malaysian drummers, each contestant shared a traditional outfit with a brief explanation of its symbolism.
Contestants performed with traditional and contemporary music.
Miss India Neetha Sindhu started the talent portion with a dance called Dashavatar, which displayed India’s elegant traditions. Mr. India Bharathwaj Gopalakrishnan played a fusion of classical Indian and Western music on an Indian bamboo flute.
Mr. China Zongkai Tian displayed his Chinese calligraphy and the delicate and powerful art of Kung Fu.
Mr. Nepal Bigyan Koirala and Miss Nepal Preety Mathema gave separate energetic customary and modern dances.
Mr. Vietnam Danh Pham Phan ended the talent section with an acoustic guitar and vocal performance of “Winter Lady.”
The last round before crowning Mr. and Miss International required each contestant to answer questions such as, “How can you help incoming students with culture shock?” or “How would you showcase your culture among the vast international population at OSU?”
Mr. and Miss India were second runners-up. First runners-up Miss Nepal and Mr. Vietnam were each rewarded with a scholarship check for $150 and a glass plaque for their achievements.
Crowned as Mr. and Miss International were Miss Africa Freweini Hadera, a construction management graduate student, and Mr. Nepal, a media management graduate student.
Hadera and Koirala each received a scholarship check for $350 and a glass plaque for their new titles as Mr. and Miss International.
Hadera said she was exceedingly happy with her win, proud to represent her country and looks forward to putting her new title to good use.
“I am so happy,” Hadera said. “I look forward to being on ISO’s side to help international students achieve whatever they want and also help international students battle their challenges.”
Koirala had some of the same aspirations but with a slightly broader view.
“What I see here at Oklahoma State is that we need to gather up more people to come to events like this,” Koirala said. “I saw a few empty seats. We need to reach out to more professors, more students. We’ve got 32,000 people all across the state that are apart of OSU. We can bring them all together.”
This posting has two concerns that if taken together can be construed as being interdependent. First of All Lets Discuss One of the Most Serious Problems currently occurring in Africa. That is the Rampant Use of Sexual Assaults by Insurgents and Government Forces in Several Countries.
The List of such occurrences is lengthy and troubling.
In Recent Days a UN Fact-finding Mission Sent to Zimbabwe found that Groups such as WOZA (Women of Zimbabwe Arise) Members of the MDC (Movement for Democratic Change) and Other Members of Civil Society have been attacked. The Allegations have been around since 2002 when the Political Crisis Began. So will the perpetrators be brought to justice?
Second is the Democratic Republic of the Congo. We all have Heard the reports regarding the use of Rape as a weapon in the Kivu Provinces. Also MONUC is suspending contacts with One Unit Operating in the East. The United States has announced that it will assist Kinshasa with this large problem. What Happens if the UN Pull out its Peacekeepers are reports over the weekend are suggesting?
Its nice to see that the crises in Zimbabwe and Congo are being noticed. But what about Darfur? Khartoum has announced that It will close some IDP camps early next year. So what happens to those being treated for their attacks? And who will protect them?
Or will Impunity be the rule of the day such as what has occured in Guniea after the Massacre after the Opposition Rally?
PART II
There are Two New Areas to be concerned with:
First Reports indicate that Militants from the Niger Delta have travelled to the Oil Producing Western Region of Ghana. Links have been established and lessons have been learned. Already Land Grabs have occured and there are reports of Arms being moved into the Region. Now the question is will ExxonMobil make the same mistakes that Chevron and Shell made in the Niger Delta?
Second area of concern is the Dar Tama Region of T’Chad. According to reports over the weekend the Chadian Security Forces have launched an Operation near the town of Tchowtchow. At least 6 People have been killed, 10 other Tortured or Castrated and one person remains missing. Now the Chadian Islamic Front has called for Jihad and the Sudanese Government would like a change in the Government of Chad. All we can say is that the devil is in the details in this situation. More to follow on this topic and check out ramadji.com for more information regarding Chad.
The LRA launched an Attack in Southern Sudan which killed 4 Men. However 56 members reportedly surrendered to the Southern Sudan Military. A Report Last week stated that an Estimated 100 Fighters remained in the DRC and the majority of the rest were in either Southern Sudan or the Central African Republic. The US Senate will discuss the LRA Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act on November 17th. It is expected to be marked up.
Finally the Rebels in the Ogaden Region in Ethiopia launched an Offensive over the weekend reportedly capturing 7 towns. On Monday the Zenawi Regime Denied this. Resolving this conflict could be a viable part of resolving the Somalia Fiasco.
(Scott Morgan is a regular contributor for EthiopianReview.com and writes extensively about Africa on his own blog, Confused Eagle.)
ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA (Addis Fortune) — For a change, and after several months of political doldrums, the landscape has begun to churn. Not surprisingly, the recent deal signed at the Sheraton Addis in Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa between leaders of the four political parties, including the incumbent’s, has struck up the debate at the various gossip corridors across the city.
However, none of the political leaders is facing the sizzle of frying pan more so than Hailu Shawel. It is fast becoming a trying task just to find defenders of his, these days.
It seems apparent that the coming national election will hardly be harvest time for Hailu and party. The situation makes it painfully obvious that he will need to employ an abundance of damage control exercises in the few months ahead – all the while paying a huge price, much more so than any of the parties in the deal.
Negotiators from his party, the All Ethiopian Unity Party (AEUP), did not surrender easily after what was an exhaustive, two-month long inter-party dialogue.
Negotiators from the ruling party [in large part] and those from the other opposition parties [to a certain extent] have demonstrated unusual patience in keeping AEUP’s negotiators at the roundtable held inside Parliament. The latter were proven to be extremely wooly, with all the list of questions they would bring the following day, purportedly from Hailu.
The chief negotiator for AEUP was Yacob Leekie, brother of Senay Leekie, a Soviet trained Marxist. He was killed in the mid-1970s inside Menelik’s Palace, during a shoot-out between those who had supported Mengistu Hailemariam and others stood against him. Senay was a prominent personality in the early years of bloody political struggle within the junior military officers and the leftist politicians around them.
Yacob is also known to have been raised with the family of Kassa WoldeMariam, president of the Addis Abeba University, during the Emperor’s rule. His daughter, Yeshi, also a great granddaughter of the Emperor’s, is married to Hailu Shawel’s son, Shawel Hailu.
Nevertheless, none of the four negotiators of AEUP were as forceful and close to Hailu as Mamushet Amare. Once a captain in the Derg army, he was calling the shots during the negotiations.
Revealing the identities of those on the negotiating front on behalf of the ruling EPRDF is proved especially relevant: Bereket Simon, Hailemariam Desalegn, Sekuture Getachew and Muktar Kedir.
The Ethiopian Democratic Party (EDP) had been represented by its president, Lidetu Ayalew, as well as Mushie Semu and Mesfin.
There was a huge uncertainty, down to the very last day, as to whether or not Hailu’s party would actually sign the deal. They had threatened to drop out of the deal on several occasions. Reason being that they had wanted to talk about broader issues, they had felt would affect the coming election, and not simply the code of conduct. It came as a surprise to all when Yacob Leekie came around to agreeing to the signing at the end.
The final point of concern among negotiators was the supposed unpredictability of Hailu fearing he would go for a microphone in the presence of Meles Zenawi. Negotiators from the ruling party had gambled, too. They were not to be disappointed as they watched Hailu say what has earned him onslaught from his supporters and appreciation from his opponents across the aisle.
Praised, he was, at a dinner party which the ruling party, Woyanne, hosted. The party was hosted inside the Addis Top View Hotel, near Ras Amba Hotel at Arat Kilo. It was held to celebrate the deal on the electoral code of conduct the very night it was signed. Several political leaders from all the four parties were seated mingled at tables which looked designed to let them feel one another out.
Freweini Hadera, a construction management graduate student from Ethiopia, is crowned as Miss International at the Oklahoma State University International Student Organization’s annual Mr. and Miss International pageant.