ADDIS ABABA – UNICEF today called on the Ethiopian public to join efforts to realize the dreams of thousands of orphans and vulnerable children by taking part in this year’s Dream Team Campaign for the 2007 Toyota Millennium Great Ethiopian Run.
“There is nothing more tragic than to see children losing their chance for a decent and fulfilling life because of lack of a caring, protective environment and resources to get a basic education,” said UNICEF Representative Bjorn Ljungqvist. “The Dream Team Campaign is a great way to support some of the most disadvantaged members of Ethiopian society.”
There are an estimated six million orphans in Ethiopia today. Nearly 900 000 of them have been orphaned by HIV/AIDS virus. To provide support and protection for these children, more than $250 million is needed each year.
“We call upon concerned individuals and organizations, particularly the private sector, to come on board this campaign and do something meaningful for Ethiopia’s most vulnerable children. The money raised will help break the cycle of poverty and vulnerability for many of Ethiopia’s children, particularly those living with HIV and AIDS. As the Campaign slogan says – ‘Run for Fun, Run for Funds!’”
Convened by UNICEF and the Ethiopian Scouting Association, the 2007 Dream Team is a national advocacy campaign asking Ethiopians to support their country’s children by running for charity in the 2007 Millennium Toyota Great Ethiopian Run.
Participants are asked to sign up for the dream team by buying a race pack for 250 birr. Runners are encouraged to put a team together out of friends, families and colleagues to increase the amounts raised and compete against other teams participating in the campaign. Individual runners and teams can raise additional funds by soliciting sponsorship from individuals and organizations for completing the ten kilometer race. Runners can then take part in the run, with T-Shirts and Medals for everyone who crosses the finish line in Addis Ababa’s Meskel Square on 25 November.
Through UNICEF, the money will fund skills and vocational training initiatives across Ethiopia, creating vital financial lifelines for the most vulnerable of children including those living with HIV AIDS.
For Further Information Please Contact:
Dr. Kerida Mcdonald, Chief, Communication Cluster, +0115 18 40 18, 0911 50 20 22, [email protected]
Indrias Getachew, Communication Officer, Media and External Relations, +0115 18 40 26, 0911 25 40 18, [email protected]
By Prof. Alemayehu G. Mariam
Note to the reader: It was a year ago today, November 16, 2007, that Frehiwot Samuel, Woldemichael Meshesha and Mitiku Teshome briefed the United States Congress on the findings of their Inquiry Commission. Because of their extraordinary courage in revealing the truth to the world, we are here today to commemorate the victims of the 2005 massacre in Ethiopia. To these three brave sons of Ethiopia, we can only express our eternal debt of gratitude: “Never have so many owed so much to so few. Thank you!”
“For the survivor who chooses to testify, it is clear: his duty is to bear witness for the dead and the living. He has no right to deprive future generations of a past that belongs to our collective memory. To forget would be not only dangerous but offensive; to forget the dead would be akin to killing them a second time. The witness has forced himself to testify. For the youth of today, for the children who will be born tomorrow. He does not want his past to become their future.” Elie Wiesel (Nobel laureate and Holocaust survivor), Night (2006).
Do You Remember the Patriots of June and November?
On March 21, 1960, apartheid security forces in the township of Sharpeville, South Africa fired 705 bullets in two minutes to disperse a crowd of protesting Africans. When the shooting spree stopped, 69 black Africans lay dead, shot in the back; and 186 were severely wounded. The Sharpeville Massacre drew international attention to the plight of Africans in South Africa; and annually, it is commemorated as a watershed event, a turning point in the modern history of South Africa.
In November, 1938, the Nazis burned thousands of Jewish synagogues and businesses throughout Germany, killing nearly 100 and arresting and deporting over 30,000 to concentration camps. That was Krystallnacht (Night of Broken Glass). It was the forerunner to the Jewish Holocaust. Every November, Jews commemorate Krytallnacht.
In June and November, 2005, 193 unarmed men, women and children were massacred by paramilitary police units in Ethiopia as they engaged in ordinary civil protest.[1] Many thousands before them had suffered the same fate. The massacre of these unarmed protesters seared the consciences of Ethiopians, and laid bare to a candid but silent world the utter moral depravity of the ruling regime.
But two years later, the silence of the lambs from their mass graves echoes faintly among us, the living. But our own silence in the Diaspora is deafening. And we have turned mute and deaf. Why aren’t we commemorating the sacrifices of these martyrs? In our churches and mosques? In our homes among our families? At our social gatherings with our friends? Shouldn’t we remember the martyrs of June and November, 2005?
The Silence of the Lambs
On November 16, 2006, three courageous Ethiopians appointed to an Inquiry Commission by the ruling regime to investigate the post-2005 election massacre of innocent protesters delivered their report in exile in a briefing to the United States Congress. Commission Chairman Frehiwot Samuel, Vice Chairman, Woldemichael Meshsha and member Mitiku Teshome did something that no one with authority and power has ever done in Ethiopia before them: They refused to whitewash government-sponsored crimes and atrocities committed against innocent citizens.
The documented facts of the June and November, 2005 massacres are shocking to the conscience as they are incontrovertible.[1] The Commission examined 16,990 documents, and received testimony form 1,300 witnesses. After analyzing this mountain of evidence, the Commission concluded that none of the protesters possessed, used or attempted to use firearms against the paramilitary forces. None of them possessed, used or attempted to use any type of explosives. No protester was observed carrying a stick or a club to use as a weapon. No protester set or attempted to set fire to public or private property. No protester robbed or attempted to rob a bank.
The paramilitary government forces used firearms, batons and tear gas. Their sharpshooters massacred 193 protestors in cold blood. Almost all of the victims were shot in the head or upper torso. Another 763 protesters suffered severe gunshot wounds. Over 30,000 civilians were arrested without warrant, and held in detention without due process of law. On November 3, 2005, during an alleged disturbance in Kality prison that lasted 15 minutes, prison guards fired more than 1500 bullets. The body count from this shooting spree left 17 detainees dead, and 53 others severely wounded.
Do you Know the Martyrs of June and November?
Who are the martyrs of June and November? Thanks to the Inquiry Commission, they are well known to us, and to the world. There was ShiBire Desalegn, a beautiful young high school graduate shot in the neck and killed as she and her friends tried desperately to block passage to a torture camp in Sendafa. Then there was Tensae Zegeye, age 14. And Debela Guta, age 15. And Habtamu Tola, age 16. Binyam Degefa, age 18. Behailu Tesfaye, age 20. Kasim Ali Rashid, age 21. Teodros Giday Hailu, age 23. Adissu Belachew, age 25; Milion Kebede Robi, age 32; Desta Umma Birru, age 37; Tiruwork G. Tsadik, age 41. Admasu Abebe, age 45. Elfnesh Tekle, age 45. Abebeth Huletu, age 50. Etenesh Yimam, age 50; Regassa Feyessa, age 55. Teshome Addis Kidane, age 65; Victim No. 21762, age 75, female. And there was Victim No.21760, male, age unknown. And there is a complete list of innocent citizens murdered by paramilitary troops.[2] [3]
We will never know for sure why ShiBire, Tensae, Debela, Habtamu, Kasim, Tiruwork, Etenesh, Victim No.21760 and the others went out to protest. Perhaps they felt they had a right to protest, to have their grievances heard. Perhaps they were driven out into the streets by an overpowering passion for liberty. May be they were surfing the tidal wave of the spirit of freedom that swept out the EPDRF and floated in Kinijit. May be they went out to protest as a gesture of defiance, to show the world that they can and will stand by to tyranny. May be it was all of the above and more. Certainly, before they went out to protest, all of them must have felt that they could never live down the shame of standing by idly as the first democratic election in Ethiopia’s history is stolen in a barefaced daylight robbery.
But we know other things for darn sure about these martyrs. They were ordinary people of humble origins and modest means. They did not have political connections. We know they set out to protest because they felt and believed that they owed their country a duty of citizenship to stand up to those who flex their muscles to crush the democratic aspirations of the people and trample upon the people’s civil liberties and human rights. We also know for sure that their motive for protesting was not personal gain or ambition. We know for sure that in their sacrifices, these martyrs scattered the seeds of freedom and democracy in Ethiopia, and the Ethiopian Diaspora. We can testify today that the sacrifices of these champions of liberty and human rights burns like an eternal candle in the hearts of all who believe and struggle for human rights and the rule of law not only in Ethiopia, but also throughout the world where the darkness of tyranny reigns.
In Memoriam of Fallen Patriots
Elie Weisel has taught us that it is our duty to bear witness for the dead and the living so that our past will not be the future of our children. To this end, it is our duty to commemorate formally and solemnly the sacrifices of those men, women and children who gave up their lives in the cause of democracy and liberty in 2005. Though they were massacred in the streets, we must believe in our hearts that they sacrificed their lives at the holy altar of democracy and liberty. They sacrificed their lives out of a sense of duty to country, honor to their countrymen and women, and righteous obligation to God. They died as patriots, heroes and heroines fighting peacefully and nonviolently in the cause of freedom and democracy. We must remember them and honor them, not in sorrow, but with grateful pride and joy.
For future generations, the sacrifices of these martyrs will tell not only a story of personal bravery and courage, it also exemplifies the abiding and unflinching faith they had in democracy and the rule of law. Through their ultimate sacrifices, children yet to be born will gain a deeper understanding of their history, our times and what it means to be Ethiopian.
In commemorating these great martyrs, we must also think of the widowed heart, the father who lost his son or daughter, or the daughter or son who lost a father or mother. We must think of the families of those nameless victims who are known to Man by their numbers, and to God as his own children. We should thank their families. We should HELP them materially, and uplift their spirits. We should tell them we know. We know that when Ethiopia sweltered under the yoke of tyranny, it was your son, your daughter, your husband, father, mother, brother, sister, aunt, uncle who stood up and sacrificed their lives. We should comfort them that their loved ones did not die in vain, and shall forever live in our hearts. We should assure them that they will be immortalized in our collective conscience as Ethiopia’s most honored and virtuous children.
The Stuff of Ethiopian Patriots
There is a tie that binds all patriots and champions of liberty across the ages and cultures. That tie is moral courage. It is courage armored with righteous audacity which sustain them to stand unafraid in the face of oppressive tyranny. The true patriot challenges injustice, despotism, dictatorship, brutality, cruelty and subjugation. We have many great patriots who resisted oppression, occupation and subjugation by force of arms. Alula Aba Nega, Balcha Aba Nefso, Belay Zeleke, Hailemariam Mamo, Abreha Deboch and Moges Asgadom, Takele Welde Hawariat, Abebe Aregai, to name just a few.
But resistance to tyranny and oppression need not be violent or require the use of arms. Civil disobedience is a mighty weapon of patriots everywhere as they confront the repressive state, be it foreign or domestic. Gandhi defeated the mighty British army not by swords or guns, but through peaceful resistance, civil disobedience and non-cooperation. His “Quit India Movement” was the greatest challenge to British colonial rule. Martin King helped America realize the true meaning of its creed that all men are created equal through mass nonviolent civil disobedience.
And if we look back into our own history, we will find a contemporary of Mahatma Gandhi, and Great Soul in his own right, Abuna Petros, who practiced nonviolent resistance and civil disobedience. He was executed for no other reason but preaching mass civil disobedience and non-cooperation with the fascist army that had occupied and terrorized Ethiopia. Before his execution in 1936, Abuna Petros exhorted his countrymen to resist the fascists by engaging in the tactic of non-cooperation, and counseled them “never to accept the bandit soldiers who come from far away and violently occupy a weak and peaceful country: our Ethiopia.” His last words were, “May God give the people of Ethiopia the strength to resist and never bow down to the Fascist army and its violence.”
In June and November, 2005, ShiBre, Tensae, Debela, Habtamu, Kasim, Tiruwork, Etenesh, Victim No.21760 and the rest them walked in the footsteps of Abuna Petors. They chose peaceful protest over violent confrontation. They refused to cooperate in the theft of an election. They confronted the agents of tyranny armed with rifles and bayonets, barehanded. Imagine that! Abuna Petors would have been so proud!
In the horrific deaths of the martyrs, we draw some timeless lessons about sacrifices and remembrance. If we had forgotten Abuna Petros, we would also have forgotten about the odious crimes of fascist Italy. If we forget these martyrs, we will not only forget the monstrous crimes that were committed against them, we would have killed them a second time, as Elie Weisel said. By honoring the martyrs, we declare to the world, and to their killers who sneer at justice, that they did not die in vain; and we have not forgotten. We will never forget. Never! Never! Never again will we stand idle in the face of such barbarous crimes.
The Indomitable Spirit of Freedom
In 1982, Ronald Reagan told the following story about the ordinary people’s struggle for freedom in El Salvador. It is instructive in our situation. He said:
And then one day those silent, suffering people [of El Salvador] were offered a chance to vote, to choose the kind of government they wanted. Suddenly the freedom-fighters in the hills were exposed for what they really are — Cuban-backed guerrillas who want power for themselves, and their backers, not democracy for the people. They threatened death to any who voted, and destroyed hundreds of buses and trucks to keep the people from getting to the polling places. But on election day, the people of El Salvador, an unprecedented 1.4 million of them, braved ambush and gunfire, and trudged for miles to vote for freedom. They stood for hours in the hot sun waiting for their turn to vote. A woman who was wounded by rifle fire on the way to the polls, refused to leave the line to have her wound treated until after she had voted. A grandmother, who had been told by the guerrillas she would be killed when she returned from the polls, told the guerrillas, “You can kill me, you can kill my family, kill my neighbors, but you can’t kill us all.” The real freedom-fighters of El Salvador turned out to be the people of that country — the young, the old, the in-between.
In 1988, Reagan in a speech to the American People summed it all up:
In these last several years, there have been many such times when your support for assistance saved the day for democracy. The story of what has happened in that region is one of the most inspiring in the history of freedom. Today El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, as well as Costa Rica choose their governments in free and open democratic elections. Independent courts protect their human rights, and their people can hope for a better life for themselves and their children.
In 2005, the real freedom-fighters of Ethiopia “turned out to be the people of that country — the young, the old, the in-between.” There will also come a time for them soon “to choose their governments in free and open democratic elections, to have independent courts protect their human rights, and for the people to hope for a better life for themselves and their children.”
Remember, June and November, Forever!
November should be a month of remembrance for all Ethiopians. It should be a month when we take a moment to pause and contemplate, in silent prayer and meditation, the 193 individuals that were massacred in those few days, the thousands of others killed and lost forever without a trace and the hundreds of thousands that remain imprisoned to day. It should be a month when we should reflect on the impact of our actions and inactions today on generations yet to come. November should be our time to bear witness for the dead and the living. Unless we preserve this dark history for future generations and permanently store it in our collective memories and conscience, it will be repeated. It we do not bear witness today, our legacy “for the children who will be born tomorrow will be our past.”
Let Us Do a Few Simple Things in the Month of November to Remember …
Let us do a few simple things to honor the memory of the martyrs in the month of November. Let us have memorial services in every church and mosque. Let’s have candlelight vigils for them, and light a few candles in our homes in their honor. Let’s join Amnesty International, U.S.A. and Human Rights Watch, and make contribution to the extent of our financial abilities to these great organizations in the name of one or all of the martyrs. Let’s write a letter or an opinion piece on human rights abuses in Ethiopia in our local newspaper. Let’s make presentations on human rights abuses in Ethiopia in our local high schools, college and universities. Let’s give a talk at the local Rotary Club, Lions Club and women’s clubs. Let’s get on local radio and TV and talking about human rights in Ethiopia. Let’s send emails to our friends, relatives, co-workers and others and tell them about the martyrs and their sacrifices. Let’s visit the district office of our member of Congress, our Senator and tell them about the martyrs. Let the poets write inspirational poems about the martyrs. Let the artists depict the passion of the martyrs in their paintings. Let’s teach our children the meaning of sacrifice. Let’s think of simple and creative ways of honoring the memory of the martyrs.
How about installing a screensaver of 193 candles with the images of the martyrs blended in the background on our computers. That way we can remember them everyday, forever. [You will find it here.]
The Last Words of the Martyrs
We all know the last words of His Holiness Abuna Petors before his execution:
May God give the people of Ethiopia the strength to resist and never bow down to the Fascist army and its violence.” As to the 193 martyrs, I am sure their last words before they touched the Face of God were, “I only regret that I have but one life to lose to save my country from tyranny!
Will our last words be silence, once again? Will our past be the future of our children yet to be born?
_____________________________
[1] These victims were documented by the Inquiry Commission in its investigation of shootings of unarmed protesters in Addis Ababa on June 8, and November 1-10 and 14-16, 2005 in Oromia, SNNPR and Amhara regional states. For full report, click here,
[2] http://www.abbaymedia.com/Remembering_Victims_of_November_2005.htm
[3] http://www.mdhe.org/doc/personskilled%20.pdf
By Samuel Habtu Belay
The last few weeks have shed more light on the shady dealings that are going on between the TPLF government and the US Administration (primarily through the State Department and the nominally independent USAID) and the unprincipled stand of a few people in these two institutions. Here are examples.
One of the interesting developments is a Request for Applications (RFA 663-A-08-002) that USAID advertised last Friday (9 November) to fund a programme called “Human Rights Technical Assistance in Ethiopia”. Under this programme, USAID intends to provide approx. $1,028,000 USAID funding to be allocated over a two-year period.
According to the RFA, the purpose of the programme is “improved independent monitoring, investigation, and reporting of human rights abuses and violations with the objective of deterring human rights violations. This will be achieved through a package of interventions primarily targeted at the EHRC [Ethiopian Human Rights Commission] and EHRCO [Ethiopian Human Rights Council]. In addition, other NGOs will have access to capacity building activities, primarily through training, as the occasion arises”.
By USAID’s own admission, the EHRC has done little since its establishment by Parliament in 2000. EHRCO is an organisation that the TPLF would love to see disappear from the face of the earth!
One may ask, so what is the problem if USAID decides to make funds available to support human rights in Ethiopia? Is it not good news? Would not most Ethiopians like to see human rights violations independently monitored, investigated and reported? Well, at face value, we should rejoice that the US Administration has finally come to its senses and it is going to support human rights in Ethiopia. But, hang on, is it not the case that HR 2003 (Ethiopia Democracy and Accountability Act of 2007) was prepared by Congressmen Payne and Smith to support human rights in Ethiopia? Is it not true that the HR 2003 Bill actually offers a lot more money to support human rights protection in Ethiopia, not just US$1 million? Did not the State Department publicly oppose that Bill? It does not take a genius to understand the plot behind this “gesture” – the US Administration is doing everything including provision of a Human Rights Technical Assistance fund to support human rights in Ethiopia in order to avoid a Bill which highlights the lack of progress Ethiopia is making in this area.
The RFA blames the opposition for the post-election violence and tries to appease the TPLF government by arguing that it inherited weak institutions from the Derg and it is “some governmental institutions [that] have been accused of compromising the spirit and letter of the constitution when faced with threats, either in the form of active insurgencies or the unwillingness of some opposition parties to accept election results”. Are they trying to tell us that the top leaders are angels and bear no responsibilities for the execution of hundreds of people on the streets of Addis Ababa and up and down the country? This is completely unacceptable.
Furthermore, according to the RFA, “The Ethiopian Government has made strong constitutional, legal and rhetorical commitments to improve the human rights situation”. Indeed, the TPLF government is full of hollow rhetoric and very clever in pulling the wool over the eyes of the international community in this way. The RFA does not stop there. It tells us that “In the post-May 2005 election environment, some opposition parties and leaders allegedly used inflammatory rhetoric and even called for the overthrow of the Government, willingly or unwillingly contributing to the street violence and human rights abuses that followed the national elections of May 2005”. Conspicuous by its omission from the RFA is whether the said violence and human rights abuses were independently investigated and what the conclusions of the inquiry commission were! Who was responsible for the violence and abuses? Who carried out the violent acts and abuses? May be Mr Michael Rossman (the Agreement Officer) and Ato Belay Teame (the Agreement Specialist) could enlighten us more.
Having said the above, the architects of the RFA could not have timed the announcement better. When the HR 2003 Bill goes to the Senate floor in the coming few weeks, we should not be surprised if the Oklahoma Senator (R) James Inhofe (despite latest denials from his office that he has not put a hold on the Bill) argues that the US Administration is already doing what the Bill sets out to achieve and there is no need for the Bill. The ideas of Senator Inhofe and Jendayi Frazer are nauseating not only to Ethiopians who would like to see human rights respected in Ethiopia but also to their own citizens. I was having a conversation with two American colleagues from Washington DC (originally from New Hampshire) and San Diego areas a few days ago. Our conversation led us to politics and the foreign policy of the current US Administration. Their conclusion that the current US Administration is the worst that they have seen in their lives (they are in their late 40s) says it all. They commented the Administration completely ignores the world reality and lives in its own “invented reality”. I hope this will help them to understand the Ethiopian reality, and that what they are doing is not based on the facts.
What next? May be another USAID programme to build the capacity of the media in Ethiopia announced a day or two before the HR 2003 goes to the Senate floor? It will not come as a surprise if the major beneficiaries of such a programme are going to be the state controlled Ethiopian TV and Ethiopian Radio and the “free press” Walta Information Centre!
Jendayi Frazer, when she retires from public service, may tell why she blindly supported a dictator. Is it not that what Ambassador John Bolton (formerly US Ambassador to the UN) did in his new memoir, “Surrender is Not an Option: Defending America at the United Nations and Abroad”? He exposed Ms Frazer for informing him that she wanted him to “reopen” the 2002 Eritrea Ethiopia Boundary Commission (EEBC) decision, “which she had concluded was wrong, and award a major piece of disputed territory to Ethiopia”. Ms Frazer may also tell in her memoir pretty soon after the current Administration’s departure who instructed her to ask the Ambassador to consider “reopening” the EEBC decision.
As long as such blind diplomatic, political and financial support is maintained, Meles, Bereket and their comrades will continue abusing the human rights of Ethiopians: the right to life and personal security, to a fair trial, right to participate in the democratic process, and freedom of expression. As Bereket was quoted saying in a recent interview, the death of Ethiopian soldiers in Somalia is a sacrifice but “not that serious in our opinion”. Of course, the death of Ethiopian soldiers is not a matter for Bereket to lose sleep over!
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Samuel Habtu Belay can be reached at [email protected]
The following opinion piece by former American ambassadors Vicki Huddleston and Tibor Nagy is posted on the New York Times. While serving in Ethiopia, Ambassador Huddleston had earned a reputation as a Woyanne apologist instead of a true representatives of the U.S. Government and American values after she refused to speak out against the massacre of pro-democracy protesters and unarmed civilians by Meles Zenawi’s forces in June and Nov. 2005. It is callous diplomats like Vicky who advance the interest of dictators who are harming the image of the United States around the world. What Vicky and Tibor fail to point out is that for the 70 million people of Ethiopia there is no worse terrorist than Meles Zenawi and is gang of Woyanne thugs. That is why if Meles starts a war with Eritrea, most Ethiopians will stand with the Eritrean regime or boycott the war.
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Don’t Turn on Ethiopia Woyanne
By VICKI HUDDLESTON and TIBOR NAGY
NINE years ago, two nations began the first modern war in sub-Saharan Africa, leaving in two years more than 100,000 dead. Today Eritrea and Ethiopia Woyanne could reignite their old border conflict. Arms and money from radicals throughout the Middle East, as well as troops trained in Eritrea, have strengthened an insurgency in Ogaden Province, in southeastern Ethiopia.
A new war in the Horn of Africa would destabilize the region and bolster radical Islam’s push to build a Muslim caliphate.
Sadly, Congress is poised to fuel the march toward war by passing a bill that threatens to cut off technical assistance to Ethiopia Woyanne, one of our closest allies, if it does not, among other things, release political prisoners, ensure that the judiciary operates independently and permit the news media to operate freely. Ethiopia Woyanne has already freed opposition leaders, reformed parliamentary rules [not true] to give opposition parties greater legislative responsibility [not true] and approved a new media law that meets international standards [oh! what a lie]. By singling out Ethiopia Woyanne for public embarrassment, the bill puts Congress unwittingly on the side of Islamic jihadists and insurgents [to save Woyanne from embarrassment, the people of Ethiopia should continue to suffer, according to Vicky].
A far better approach would be to buttress Ethiopia against threats to its survival [the only threat Ethiopia faces to her survival is from Woyanne] — by helping it resolve its border conflict and ensuring that it reopens negotiations with insurgents and traditional leaders and permits international investigation of reported military abuses (including allegations of rape and murder [by Meles Zenawi’s soldiers]). Ethiopia Woyanne has begun this process by allowing the United Nations and humanitarian aid agencies to assist civilians in the Ogaden.
Eritrea demands that the border be marked exactly as determined five years ago. But this places some Muslim and Christian villages on what they consider to be the wrong side of the border, cuts through others and splices certain roads several times. The United States should press both governments to let people who live on the border help reach a mutual agreement on the final boundary.
Ethiopia is a nation where 77 million Orthodox Christians and Muslims live in peace, engaged in building a democracy while besieged from within and without by enemies of democracy. Congress should put aside its bill and instead use creative diplomacy to deal with the combined threat of insurgency and war.
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Vicki Huddleston, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution, and Tibor Nagy, a vice provost at Texas Tech University, are former chiefs of mission at the American Embassy in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
