Thousands of Ethiopians took part in the 2007 Great Ethiopian Run in Addis Ababa today. As soon as the race started, it turned into a protest rally against the Woyanne regime.
The runners chanted slogans that are anti-Woyanne and that condemn the invasion of Somalia.
The runners also chanted:
“Kinijit Yegna!” (Kinijit is ours)
“Bertukan Yegna!” (Bertukan is ours).
“Gifa belew Eritrea Gifa belew! Betemingistun dem be dem adirgew!” (when they reached Arat Kilo)
“H.R. 2003 Endegfalen” (We support H.R. 2003)
The United States says it is more than doubling humanitarian aid to Ethiopia’s troubled Ogaden region. The announcement was made Saturday following talks beween top U.S. foreign aid officials and Ethiopia’s prime minister on the importance of stability in the Horn of Africa region. From Addis Ababa, VOA’s Peter Heinlein reports the meeting came days before a deadline in the simmering border dispute between Ethiopia and neighboring Eritrea.
U.S. Agency for International Development Administrator Henrietta Fore’s talks with Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi touched on tensions along the Ethiopia-Eritrea border and on efforts to rush emergency food aid to the insurgency-wracked Ogaden region.
Ethiopia is again allowing several humanitarian agencies into the Ogaden after expelling a number of groups last July, including the International Committee of the Red Cross. Fore said she told Mr. Meles of Washington’s concern that many people in the conflict zone do not have access to basic necessities.
“We spoke about our shared concern to be sure we are looking out for the food security of the people in Ogaden and the work of our many partners who are working in the Ogaden,” said Fore. “We have a good deal of assistance that is going into the Ogaden.”
Fore said the United States is more than doubling this year’s assistance program for Ogaden from $19 million to about $45 million. With the United Nations estimating nearly a million Ogadeni people in need of food, USAID mission director for Ethiopia Glenn Anders termed the assistance an emergency.
“Our office of food for peace has committed to $25 million more in predominantly food grains, but that includes oil and corn; soybean as well, and that’s already purchased and on its way,” said Anders.
USAID administrator Fore acknowledged that she had discussed with Ethiopia’s leader Washington’s concerns about the possibility of renewed outbreak of war along the disputed border with neighboring Eritrea. An estimated 70,000 people died when the Horn of Africa rivals fought in the late 90s, and tensions are again high as a border commission named to adjudicate the dispute prepares to close down late this month.
Fore says she mentioned to Prime Minister Meles that providing aid is easier when countries are stable and peaceful.
“It is always easier to help a country at peace. It is because you can move around the country. People have more hope and more chance of having a little business, going to school, building a clinic,” she added. “People always have more hope if there is stability and security in a country.”
Sitting alongside the USAID administrator, Washington’s ambassador to Ethiopia Donald Yamamoto played down the fact that an independent commission charged with the demarkation of the 1000-kilometer border between Ethiopia and Eritrea is to dissolve later this month. He says Washington believes the two countries must settle their differences themselves, as stated in the Algiers Accord that ended their last war.
“The only way resolution can be achieved is from the parties themselves addressing the issues directly with each other and implementing decisions on resolution of the border issues, and also their own differences,” said Yamamoto.
With border tensions high, a number of high-ranking officials will be visiting the Horn of Africa region in the next weeks to impress on officials the importance of preventing another outbreak of war.
U.N. Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs John Holmes is due in Addis Ababa Monday, and will visit the Ogaden region Tuesday. Several U.S. lawmakers and officials are said to be planning trips to Ethiopia soon, including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
The rift in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church widened on Friday after a group representing one fraction of the church went to its headquarters at 89 Maxfield Avenue in Kingston and, with the help of bailiffs, took control of the premises.
The group — which is loyal to [Aba Gebremedhin (formerly Aba Paulos)] in Addis Ababa in Ethiopia and which recently won a law suit to claim the Maxfield Avenue headquarters — turned up with new locks and keys to reclaim the premises, and was met with hostility by the other members currently occupying the premises.
An animated Kes Wolde Dawitt (right) who led
the operation to repossess the Maxfield Avenue
headquarters of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church,
caught vigorously objecting to the presence of
the Sunday Observer. Looking on are members
of his flock including its trustee and financial
secretary Sarapheal Hemmings, at left.
(Photo: Joseph Wellington)
Since 1992 there has been a split in the church when the mother church appointed a new patriarch and Archbishop Paulos [Aba Gebremedhin] to replace the incumbent Mekrios, who was ill. A section of the church, led by the late Abuna Yesehaq Mandefro who was in charge of the Western Hemisphere branches of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, contended that the decision by the mother church was a violation of its cannon, which stipulates that an incumbent Archbishop cannot be replaced once he is still alive.
That led to a schism in the first ancient African Christian Church, and separation of its members, with those following the late Abuna Yesehaq declaring their independence of the mother church.
Here in Jamaica, those members loyal to the mother church stopped from fellowship at the Maxfield Avenue headquarters. They began meeting instead at the St Mary Anglican Church on Molynes Road — still observing the ancient rituals of the Orthodox Church. But some of these members, sources say, were automatically excommunicated from the Abuna Yesehaq’s-influenced Maxfield Avenue congregation.
The Molynes Road fraction eventually filed a law suit to claim possession of the headquarters, and on June 15 the court ruled in their favour.
The administrators of the Maxfield Avenue headquarters have since appealed, and a hearing has been set for next Tuesday.
“I’m not really happy about what is happening,” resident priest at the Maxfield Avenue HQ, Kes Gabre Selessie (Fitzgerald), told the Sunday Observer.
“It is a matter that have to go back to the court. they came here while an appeal is pending for the 27th of this month. We will have to wait until the court resettle this matter,” Fitzgerald added.
But Sarapheal Hemmings, a trustee and financial secretary of the Molynes Road fraction told the Sunday Observer that “the rite of possession has been issued by the court for us to come and picket. for the past two weeks they have been issued, and it’s just today we decided to come and takeover. So, we come this morning with the bailiff to just take possession of the place; we’re not here to run the people or anything. We’ve locked up the place now and we’re going to try to arrange a meeting with the administrators to see how we still can workout this thing peacefully,” Hemmings said.
However, Theophilus Dawkins, a member of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church for over 30 years, accused the Molynes Road group of using “brute force.
“I am one of the foundation members here in Jamaica. Now, what they come and done this morning, is to try to dig off the locks and put on new locks, and try to force people to give up the keys for them to put on their locks. And we, the people, were telling them that we don’t want them.”.
“Dem come wid brute force, dem come wid di belly a di beast come tek ova di church,” he added.
The other members of the Maxfield Avenue fraction echoed similar sentiments.
One church sister also complained that a funeral service was about be prevented because the Molynes Road fraction had stated that they (from Maxfield Avenue) should no longer use that building.
“We have a funeral here for a member that passed off. She is supposed to be buried on the 25th; dem lick off the lock, put on dem lock and sey we can have no more service here. And she is a member here from she was young. Her name is Sistah Dotti and her baptism name is Amarian. She is from Trench Town,” the church sister said.
However, Fitzgerald told the Sunday Observer that the Molynes Road fraction had made a concession for the funeral to go ahead today, adding that this was the last service he would be allowed to conduct there.
PRESS RELEASE Exiled Ethiopian Trade Union Leaders
Release Anti-poverty Campaigners
Once again the verdict in the case of Ethiopian anti-poverty campaigners Daniel Bekele and Netsanet Demissie, which was expected on Thursday, November 22, 2007, has been postponed because one of the judges all in a sudden became ill. Not only the Kangaroo court judge, but the whole system is also sick as the country is in a crisis after the May 2005 national election. By terrorizing its citizens, the state and the system run by world class criminal gangs is sick and beyond recovery.
It is very sad and disturbing to hear again and again the lame excuses given by the failed legal system to postpone the verdict, to Friday November 30, 2007 which was long overdue. It is also an irresponsible act and disregard for the rule of law and the suffering of the two innocent young men, working for their country. The failed system has once again demonstrated its disregard for the rule of law and human rights as the fiasco prime minister is still clinging to power by intimidating and killing its citizens.
It has been repeatedly documented by various human rights organizations that the regime of the self crowned Prime Minster, Meles Zenawi, is synonymous sheer lack of justice or absence of semblance of due process. The courts are private chambers of Meles, prosecutors as his mouth pieces and the judges serving as his loyal butlers. Once again we witness and prove to the Democratic world, what has been said and happening continuously in the country.
Currently in our country Ethiopia, it is not the rule of law being upheld, but instead the gun culture is ruling over reason and logic as secret executions and detentions are common. Due process is never to be seen and framed up charges are order of the day through out the country.
In the mean time, the Addis Ababa criminal regime security forces and their hired armed thugs are attacking human rights activists, journalists, opposition party members and prominent citizens. They continue to deny the public to any independent information, except to their monopolized one sided false propaganda to enforce their act of evil. This refusal to allow the public to the basic freedom of expression and information is aimed at drawing an impregnable veil over human rights abuses and the disregard of the rule of law in the country and the crime they are committing by the hour.
It is long over due for the regime in Addis Ababa to account for its crimes, return to the rule of law and demand all those supporting and giving aid to the regime to halt their actions until it ceases its human right violations and respects the rule of law. To remain silent is to allow the forces of evil to flourish by every minute where millions are denied their rights by very few.
As a result, we appeal and call on world leaders and human rights organization as well as peace loving people of the democratic world to demand the release of the anti-poverty campaigners Daniel Bekele and Natsanet Demissie, which is long over due. The anti-poverty campaigners are hostages of the failed system, while the regime is the hostage of its false and failed system and propaganda. The democratic world has a moral and international responsibility to exert pressure for the release of the anti-poverty campaigners who continue to be under unbearable conditions for almost two years.
Thank you for supporting those whose rights are denied.
__________________
Exiled Ethiopian Trade Union Leaders
Email: [email protected]
Violence and sexual abuse within the home are among the main reasons children run away to live on the streets, according to a report, the State of the World’s Street Children, published by a coalition of charities.
In Ethiopia, an estimated 150,000 children live on the streets. The story of Genet, now living in a safehouse in Addis Ababa, is similar to those of many such children, especially girls.
No images of Genet are included to protect her identity.
My troubles began when I was 14 years old and my mother became too ill to care for my younger sister and me.
We were sent to live with a family as their domestic labourers.
We were both subject to frequent beatings and were not allowed to go to school.
A year later we were taken by our grandmother to live with a distant male relative elsewhere in Addis.
We were told our mother had died and this would now be our home.
It had been horrible with the family we had been living with before and I hoped the new family would be kinder to us now that our mother was gone.
But I was forced to go to bed with the male relative who we had been sent to live with and a woman in the household frequently beat us both.
I was pretty sure that the man was also sexually abusing my 11-year-old sister too. After two months I ran away but my younger sister was too frightened to come with me.
I ended up in the house of a family friend who took me in but they demanded that I pay my way by working as their domestic servant.
After being beaten and verbally abused, I decided to take my chances on the streets.
I find it very difficult to talk about my time on the streets of Addis. I survived there as best I could for over two months. I was often very hungry.
Other girls I met living and working on the street told me about the Drop-in Centre for street children operated by the Forum for Street Children.
It took a lot of courage to go there for help as I found it very difficult to trust adults.
But when I told the community workers there what had happened to me they immediately gave me a place in their safe home for girls.
I am now 16, I have started school again and I am being trained at a local health centre as a janitor so I will be able to support myself when the time comes to leave the safe home.
I am desperate to see my sister again. They tell me she has managed to escape from the abusive household we were in and is now living with our grandmother in her home village.
When I grow older I want to help other children in the same situation as me.
Ethiopian community leaders and social action groups will step up their fight this week against a government decision to wind down Ethiopian aliya in the coming months, as arguments for bringing thousands more Falash Mura immigrants currently unrecognized by Israel are presented to the Knesset’s State Control Committee on Wednesday morning.
According to representatives from the newly-formed Public Council for Ethiopian Jews, which includes such public figures as former Supreme Court Judge Meir Shamgar, Prof. Irwin Kotler, Ethiopian Chief Rabbi Yosef Adaneh, Geulah Cohen, Naomi Hazan and Hanan Porat, the government is reneging on its original promise to bring in all remaining Falash Mura – Ethiopian Jews whose ancestors converted to Christianity under duress a century ago.
They claim that sources inside the Interior Ministry have indicated that the process of checking eligibility of those still in Ethiopia will be stopped by the end of this year. This past summer, Jewish Agency for Israel officials based in Addis Ababa told The Jerusalem Post that aliya from the African nation would be over by the end of 2008, a sentiment reiterated by the Interior Ministry.
“We are not stopping our activities in Ethiopia; we are simply winding down an operation that has reached a natural conclusion,” Interior Ministry spokeswoman Sabene Hadad said Tuesday. She confirmed that Interior Ministry operations in Gondar, where most of the Falash Mura are currently waiting to be processed for aliya, would be over sometime in the near future.
“What is important to highlight here is that the government is going back on its original commitment and is refusing entry to roughly 8,000 people who are eligible to make aliya according to criteria outlined in the past,” Avraham Neguise, director of Ethiopian advocacy group South Wing to Zion, told the Post. He was referring to a government decision from February 2003 permitting those Falash Mura willing to undergo an Orthodox Jewish conversion process to come to Israel under the Law of Entry.
“The government’s original decision did not talk about stopping the aliya on a certain date or at a certain point, but said rather that all those with a maternal link to Judaism were eligible to immigrate,” continued Neguise, adding that many of those who either were denied entry to Israel or had not yet been checked for eligibility had close family members already living here.
One such family is that of 24-year-old Telahun Tzegah, who made aliya with his mother seven years ago but left behind family members in Gondar, including half-siblings, cousins, aunts and uncles.
“Their bags are packed and they are ready to come, but they [the Interior Ministry] refuse to process them,” he said Tuesday, adding, “They were originally told that they could make aliya, so they left their villages and moved to Gondar. Now they are stuck there with no help. They can’t go back to their villages, and they aren’t allowed to move here.”
Tzegah said that he was regularly forced to send the family a portion of the meager salary he earns as a security guard, “just so they can afford to eat.”
The Interior Ministry explained previously that it was simply working in compliance with the specifications of the 1999 Efrati census, which lists those Falash Mura with familial ties to Jews and hence eligible to come here.
However, Neguise pointed out that the Efrati list originally included three volumes – Falash Mura in Addis Ababa, in Gondar and in the outlying villages.
“The ministry has decided to ignore those people from the villages,” he said. “How can the government make the decision to split up families like this?”
Rabbi Menahem Waldman, director of the Shvut Am Institute and an expert on the Falash Mura conversion process, has joined forces with Neguise and also sits on the Public Council for Ethiopian Jews.
“These people are recognized as Jews according to Halacha and the State of Israel,” said Waldman, who helped to compile the Efrati census. “It is our responsibility as a Zionist state to bring these people here and welcome them with an open heart.”
He said that along with the hearing in the Knesset on Wednesday, the forum was also supporting a legal petition to force the government to honor its original commitment, and added that it would not give up until those 8,000 people were brought to Israel.
