ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA – Millions of Africans are exhausted after staying up all night watching expectantly to see whether a man of African descent will elected to the America’s highest office. VOA’s Peter Heinlein attended an all-night party of journalists and political enthusiasts in Addis Ababa where everybody was talking about being American for a day to share in this historic election.
It’s a long night here in front of the television at this upscale Ethiopian home. Half a dozen anxious viewers drift in and out, trying to control the nervous energy. It’s well after midnight, but the TV screen shows long lines of voters standing in the rain waiting for their turn in the voting booth. TV commentators kill time until the first polls close.
“There is a good deal of confidence in the Obama campaign that he’s going to win this evening,” they said. “So far, there’s also the unknown. As one strategist put it, ‘I’m a nervous wreck.”
That comment sends a thrill through this audience. This is Africa and there are no McCain supporters in the room.
Deresse Kassa, a professor at Addis Ababa University, says he has never stayed up late for any elections results. But this is a moment he says he doesn’t want to miss.
“America has history whereby the African-American community has to struggle to be considered citizens themselves and be a franchise in order to cast their votes,” said Kassa. “Coming from this segregation and inequality, to be able to see Democratic candidates running for the presidency, the highest office, by itself is big achievement.”
The televisions are on as the first results come in during the wee hours of the morning. The news is encouraging for viewers here.
Journalist Lulit Amdamariam says she is energized by the possibility of witnessing, what she calls, a great moment. “We’re going to be here all night,” she said. “Thirty-two hours, if we have to.”
Lulit is not an American, but she lived in the States for several years and attended Howard University in Washington.
“I attended a black college, so I understand what this means to the black community in the United States,” said Lulit. “This is a candidate the entire world can relate to.”
Lulit’s colleague Tamrat Negera, editor of at the Amharic-language newspaper Addis Neger, has not been to the United States, but he says he can understand what this election must mean to African-Americans.
“Africa shared the pain of being black, or the pain of status, or colonization, which you understand there was a limitation for a black in this world,” he said. “But Obama is breaking that through.”
Journalist Lulit Amdamariam calls it an American moment.
“I think this is the only time the entire world wishes they were American,” she said. “So they could vote. Seriously, I think the entire world would go out and vote if they had the opportunity tonight.”
This is a moment to remember. Although some Africans may have a hangover on Wednesday, the prospect of the first black U.S. president has enthralled a continent.
SODO, Ethiopia – With a slight reeling in his gait, Ashenafi Chote ventures into his small plot of land and shakes his head, his eyes full of regret: “I made a mistake”.
For the last 10 years, his plot in southern Ethiopia had kept his family of four alive by supplying enough food to eat and even surplus to sell, in a region often ravaged by drought and food shortages.
But since swapping from a subsistence to a biofuel crop several months ago, his once treasured source of income has dried up and, worse still, he and his family are now dependent on relief from aid agencies.
“I used to get four quintals (100 kilograms, 220 pounds) of maize from my land from every harvest and earn more than 2,400 birr ($240). But now, I have lost my precious source,” the 25-year-old father of two said.
“I shouldn’t have accepted their offer,” he added.
In the sprawling farmlands surrounding Wolaytta district, 350 kilometres south of the capital Addis Ababa, the thorny foliage of castor bean stalks is slowly replacing the swaying maize fields most locals depended on.
As impoverished and landlocked Ethiopia was choked by high oil prices, the government allocated more than 400,000 hectares for biofuel crops development as part of a national strategy enacted last year.
Its development was, and still is, highly encouraged, with foreign companies given incentives and a relatively easy process to start up production ventures.
The Horn of Africa nation’s vast land expanse of more than a million square kilometres, of which only 18 percent has been cultivated, is attracting an increasing amount of foreign suitors involved in the industry.
“It is considered a very important area to develop. The balance of payment (spent on petrol) is very high and we want to decrease this burden by encouraging private investment,” Melis Teka, deputy head of energy regulation and biofuel development at the ministry of mines, told AFP.
“There is no possibility that arable farmland will be allocated for its purpose,” he insisted.
But in Wolaytta, where nearly half of the two-million population do not have enough to eat, several thousand farmers like Ashenafi are complaining that they have been duped into growing biofuel crops on fertile land at the expense of maize, cassava and sweet potato, the region’s staples.
Farmers say Global Energy Ethiopia, an American-Israeli subsidiary which initially acquired 2,700 hectares to grow castor beans – a toxic plant whose seed provides castor oil – lured them with false claims of continuous harvests and financial incentives.
“Experts who told us we could have up to three harvests a year and they would pay 500 birr ($50) in labour costs,” 45-year-old Borja Abusha, a father of eight, said.
“But it has now been six months without a harvest and they haven’t respected their promise to cover costs. We are left with nothing.”
Borja said even if he changes his mind, he will have to wait for several months to reap yields from food harvests.
The rising demand for biofuels in Western countries with dwindling oil resources and a new environmental conscience has been blamed as a key factor in the food crisis that sparked riots this year in several poor nations.
Over 9 500 farmers are now growing the crop in Wolaytta, of which a significant amount are using very arable plots.
“It is unbelievable. Castor plots have so rapidly expanded that they are even depriving us of space for graveyards,” environmentalist Gebremedhine Birega said.
Yanai Man, CEO of Global Energy, disputed such allegations, however.
“We don’t even allow farmers to grow the beans on more than a third of their land. So we are not lowering food production,” he said in a phone interview.
Man said the company had so far invested nearly $2-million for its projects in the region, and planned to provide education and medical services to impoverished locals as well as take steps to protect the environment.
However, he admitted that none of the farmers had received payments, saying it was due to a delay in receiving bank loans his company applied for.
So far, the authorities in the region are giving companies the benefit of the doubt, assessing potential benefits if they ever come.
But experts are urging farmers not to use the crops.
“We are campaigning for farmers who have planted castor seeds to uproot. It’s not acceptable to undertake such practices in food insecure areas,” Gebremedhine said.
A small number have already been convinced.
“I asked myself about the long-term benefits and then decided not to grow castor. I would rather not dare to risk losing food to eat for myself and my family,” said Abraham Tona.
TORONTO — Rick Hodes’s, left, first contract with the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (the Joint) was to last only six weeks. That was more than 20 years ago but the American-born doctor is still at his post, ministering to the sick and frail in Ethiopia.
For years, Hodes’ patient base consisted of Beta Israel and in more recent times, the Falash Mora, descendents of Beta Israel who converted to Christianity generations ago.
The Beta Israel have left Ethiopia, mostly for Israel, and the Jewish state has cut off the Falash Mora immigration.
Nevertheless, the Joint, which closed its clinic in Addis Ababa serving the Falash Mora, will continue to operate in Ethiopia, though it will shift its focus to the wider population, Hodes said.
Hodes was in Toronto last week to meet select groups of UJA supporters and Birthright alumni, update them on the Falash Mora immigration and raise money to support the Joint’s works. He also visited Jewish communities in Washington, D.C., Columbus, Ohio, Memphis, Tenn., Houston, Tex. and Cleveland, Ohio.
Hodes said he’ll continue to minister to the sick and frail in Ethiopia despite the Joint’s shift in emphasis. The Joint still operates a clinic for the Falash Mora in Gondar, in northern Ethiopia, where the Beta Israel lived for centuries. The Joint clinic there is staffed by a local doctor and nurses and provides medical services for a few thousand Falash Mora. “It’s not clear whether all will end up in Israel or not,” said Hodes, who travels to Gondar every few weeks.
In the meantime, Hodes will focus on providing medical services to Ethiopians of all religions – whether Christian or Muslim. While that has been part of Hodes’ mandate for years, with the end of aliyah, it has become the predominant part of his practice.
“The Joint is staying in Ethiopia and working in the non-sectarian development field, as am I,” he said.
Among its projects, the Joint sends Israeli doctors to Ethiopia to teach and brings Ethiopian doctors to Israel for training. It builds schools, educates girls and digs wells.
Hodes works part of the week in the Mother Teresa Mission in Addis Ababa, focusing on spinal conditions, cancer and heart disease. He recently arranged for eight Ethiopian youngsters to travel to Ghana for spinal surgery.
Hodes said “I need at least $250,000 per year just to maintain things as they are.” The Joint, which is funded by Jewish communities around the world, only supports the office and staff in Ethiopia. Hodes is looking for other sources of funds to operate the medical scholarships, the Ghanian operations and other activities.
“We’re funding this from outside the [Jewish] federation system,” he said. Federation supporters would have to designate funds specifically for the Joint’s Ethiopian projects. North American Jewish federations provide the Joint with its core budget, though federation funds do not go to the agency’s non-sectarian programs.
That makes Hodes a part-time fund raiser, applying for grants, soliciting assistance from contacts abroad and by efforts like last week’s meet and greet.
“A lot of Jews are interested in helping more than just the Jewish community,” he said. “A lot are not interested in helping Jews but would help Africans.”
The upside from that approach is that “it can actually bring them into the community and into the Jewish system.”
Jennifer Kraft, director of community relations for the Joint, noted that even in its earliest work in Gondar in the early 1980s, the organization provided benefits not just to Jews but to the wider Ethiopian community. That raised the level of trust from the Ethiopian government, allowed the Joint to become entrenched in local society and helped a wide variety of people.
“The Joint builds bridges, performs mitzvot, fosters good will and helps rescue the Jewish community…Rick Hodes is the epitome of mitzvot,” she said.
For more information on the Joint, please go to their website
ADDIS ABABA (AFP) — Ethiopia The Woyanne regime on Tuesday warned of an “imminent” terrorist attack and urged its citizens to be vigilant but did not elaborate on the nature of the risk.
“There is proven evidence that a plot to undertake a terrorist attack in Ethiopia exists at this very moment,” the National Anti-terrorism Taskforce warned in a statement received by AFP here.
“We urge the public to remain vigilant and cooperate with security officials in foiling this imminent attack,” it added.
A series of bomb blasts have rocked the Ethiopian capital this year with authorities blaming neighbouring Eritrea, along with secessionist groups such as the Ogaden National Liberation Front and the Oromo Liberation Front.
In September, a bomb explosion inside a bar in Addis Ababa killed four people and injured 24 others, and in May, a bomb went off on a minibus near the foreign ministry, killing six people, including a US national.
Three people were also killed and 18 wounded in bomb blasts that simultaneously ripped through petrol stations in the capital earlier this year.
Relations between Asmara and Addis Ababa have been frosty since they fought a devastating 1998-2000 border war that claimed tens of thousands of lives on both sides. The dispute is yet to be resolved.
The purported terrorist threat came as Ethiopia’s main opposition party expressed concern over shrinking political freedom following the arrest of another opposition party’s leader.
New York – CPJ calls on Ethiopian authorities to conduct a thorough and transparent investigation into Friday’s beating of newspaper editor Amare Aregawi.
Aregawi, managing editor of the English- and Amharic-language newspaper Reporter, was released on Monday from a hospital in the capital, Addis Ababa, according to local journalists.
Journalists who visited Aregawi in the hospital told CPJ that he was badly injured when three men attacked him as he was walking near his office around 4:30 p.m. on Friday. Eyewitnesses told CPJ that the men approached Aregawi from behind, striking the editor in the head with a stone and repeatedly hitting him until he fell unconscious. The assailants jumped into a waiting car, driven by another man, but were impeded by a traffic jam, the witnesses said. Two men were apprehended at the scene, a third man was detained on Saturday, and a fourth remains at large.
Police have not publicly disclosed details of the arrests. Ethiopian federal police spokesman Demsash Hailu told CPJ that the Addis Ababa Police Commission was overseeing the investigation.
Reporter staffers, including Aregawi and editor Aseged Teffera, have received anonymous threats in recent weeks in connection with a series of investigative reports alleging that people close to Saudi-Ethiopian billionaire Sheikh Mohammed Hussein al-Amoudi had mismanaged his investments, local journalists said.
“We condemn the barbaric beating of Amare Aregawi,” said CPJ Africa Program Coordinator Tom Rhodes. “The Ethiopian police must do everything in their power to ensure the masterminds behind this brutal assault are also charged.”
It was the second time this year that Aregawi, one of Ethiopia’s best-known journalists, has faced reprisals over his paper’s critical coverage of influential business interests in the country. Aregawi was detained for 6 days without charge over a story reporting a labor dispute at a government-run brewery in northern Ethiopia.
ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA (APA) – Some 7,000 Ethiopian pilgrims will travel to Saudi Arabia for the 2008 Haji, Ethiopian Islamic Affairs Council said on Monday.
The council said that it has begun proving services for the largest number ever of pilgrims by introducing better working procedures to avoid congestion. Last year, around 5,000 pilgrims traveled to Saudi Arabia.
The council has established committees in Ethiopia and Saudi Arabia.
The council said the selection of the pilgrims would be carried out through all Islamic Affairs Offices. Pilgrims would get passport services from the Ethiopian Immigration and Civic Affairs offices in Mekelle, Bahirdar, Dessie, and Diredawa as well as in Addis Ababa.
Currently, the council is giving its services to 700 pilgrims per day.
The council has also opened 11 offices in Saudi Arabia to provide services to the pilgrims.
The deadline for the registration for the pilgrimage is November 15, 2008. The first batch of the pilgrims will leave Ethiopia on the 18 November.
About 40 percent of Ethiopia’s estimated population of 80 million is Muslim. Ethiopia is also home for Al-Negashi, the first mosque in Africa.
