In the Time of Deceit Telling the Truth is a Revolutionary Act” – George Orwell
As a former Woyanne Diplomat I am writing this piece to call upon all Ethiopian diplomats and civil servants to stand for truth and abandon the regime that lives on deceit.
The year 2011 is a unique and crucial year for many oppressed and marginalized people of a number of Africa and Middle Eastern countries. The year has so far witnessed the freedom of people through out the Arab world where dictatorship prevailed for decades. Tunisia and Egypt have completed the removal process of their respective dictators through popular uprising, where as Libya, Bahrain, Djibouti, Yemen, Algeria, Saudi Arabia are fighting hard to topple their decayed and undemocratic regimes. The basic underpinning of these revolutions is tied to the inability of the regimes to bring about economic development, establishing the rule of law and adopting democratic system that includes freedom of speech, expression and women rights.
The underpinning factors that initiated the uprising in the Arab world that include poverty and undemocratic practices are extensively witnessed in Ethiopia in a greater level for decades. Each and every rational Ethiopian can easily understand the prevalence of these sorry realities in Ethiopia. Just taking the recent realities it is enough to mention that up to 3 million Ethiopians are in need of food aid from other donors. On the other side it is also important to point out the ridiculous EPRDF’s “99.66%” election victory, which, according to Human Rights Watch and European Union Election Observation Mission, was conducted under the environment of coercion and harassment. Ethiopian have the obligation to use the time to voice their discontent in a peaceful and legal ways so as to bring about a better and promising future to themselves and they children. It should be time Ethiopians stop going to bed empty stomach and it should be time Ethiopians feel free to express their opinions with out fear of the government intelligence apparatus. Our future is now and it is in our hands.
When people are faced with the issue of bringing about change in Ethiopia through peaceful popular uprising they seem to interpret it in terms of going out in the streets to for demonestration. Although that is part of the whole process it is not the only action.
As the British famous author and journalist George Orwell, whom we know by his controversial novel, “Animal Farm,” and the well known quote, “All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others,” has suggested the most important idea as to what constitutes a revolutionary act. Not only throwing stones, shouting anti-government words, posting resentment on facebook is revolutionary, but standing for truth in the face of deceit and naked propaganda is also by far the most revolutionary of all.
We all know the white lies and dry fabrication Meles Zenawi’s regime in Ethiopia feeds the public day in and day out about economic development and democracy. But it is not secret to understand the reality prevailing in Ethiopia. After two decades of Woyanne-led EPRDF rule, Ethiopia is at the bottom of the global economic ladder and its so-called “democracy” is resulting in the triumph of a one-party state where oppositions are weakened and coerced by the incumbent party and its coercive arm of the government.
In the face of these realities, Ethiopians from all walks of life have to be true to the truth rather than be filled with the garbage information disseminated by the regime to deceive Ethiopians. Therefore, amid these limitless Woyanne/EPRDF lies we got to stand for the truth. In so doing we are executing what is needed from each of us in making the revolution our country deeply needs a reality.
As a former diplomat of the Woyanne led EPRDF government, I know that the diplomats in different countries are instructed to execute so much fabrication that does not match the reality in Ethiopia. Among others, they are expected to promote the 10% economic growth, where as millions are in need of food and the government is begging other countries for help. They are supposed to promote respect for human rights in Ethiopia while the reality is that people have no right to organize freely. They are expected to inform other countries that elections in Ethiopia are free and fair, where as the institutions necessary to conduct elections are totally controlled by the Woyanne regime.
Ethiopian diplomats and other civil servants residing in Ethiopia and through out the world have to remain true to the truth and contribute their share of revolutionary act. They must assist the revolution by giving information necessary to inform the international community about the human rights violations and the corrupt nature of the regime. It is a call for your conscience in the name of millions of Ethiopians who go to bed every night with empty stomach, walking with bare feet and afraid to express their views.
Let’s come together and stick to one of the acts of revolutionary measure. Let’s fight deceit with the truth by exposing Woyanne’s horrible crimes and by supporting the forces fighting for the new Ethiopia where all people are equal no matter what their ethnic origin or political persuasion.
I am envious of the achievement of the people of northern Africa and it is my hope that Ethiopia shall join the Tunisia and Egypt in saying “no more” to dictatorship.
Creeping Youthbellion and Youthvolution in Africa and the Middle East
“When the sun rises, it rises for everyone,” goes the old saying. The sun that rose over tyranny in North Africa will not set at the edge of the Sahel; it will shine southward on the African savannah and rainforest. The wind of change blowing across the Middle East will soon cut a wide swath clear to the Atlantic Coast of West Africa from the Red Sea. The sun that lifted the darkness that had enveloped Tunisia, Egypt and Libya for decades can now be seen rising just over the Ethiopian horizon. The sun rises to greet a new generation of Ethiopians.
Today we are witnessing a second African independence, an independence from thugtatorship no less dramatic or volcanic than the upheavals of oppressed peoples that overthrew the yoke of colonialism one-half century ago. In 1960, British PM Harold McMillan warned his fraternity of European imperial powers: “The wind of change is blowing through this [African] continent, and whether we like it or not, this growth of national consciousness is a political fact. We must all accept it as a fact, and our national policies must take account of it.”
The wind of change that has kicked up a sandstorm of youth rebellion and revolt in North Africa has laid bare the ghastly facts of oppression and youth despair to global consciousness. Arab and African youths are crying out for freedom, democracy, human rights and equal economic opportunity. The vast majority of the uneducated, under-educated and mis-educated African youths have no hope for the future. Legions of Arab youths with college degrees, advanced professional and technical training waste away the best years of their lives because they have few economic opportunities. They too see a void in their future. African and Arab youths have had enough, and they are rising up like the sun to liberate themselves and their societies from the clutches of thugs. The outcome of the youth uprisings is foreordained. As Sam Cooke, the great pioneer of soul music sang, “It’s been a long, a long time coming/ But I know a change is gonna come, oh yes it will…”
But there are some who cynically argue that the type of volcanic popular uprisings sweeping North Africa cannot happen in Ethiopia. They offer many reasons. They say the thugtators in Ethiopia have used every means at their disposal to keep the people benighted, divided and antagonized. They point to the primitive state of information technology in Ethiopia as proof of a deliberate official strategy to prevent Ethiopian youth from accessing the Internet freely to learn new ideas and create cyber civic societies. (Ethiopia has the second lowest (after Sierra Leone) internet penetration rate in Africa.) They say Zenawi has bought off the best and the brightest of Ethiopia’s youth with cash, jobs, special educational opportunities and privileges just to keep them off the streets and happy as a clam. (It seems Ethiopia’s youth are a pressurized powder keg.) They say Ethiopia’s young people (who comprise the majority of the population) have no frame of historical reference and that Zenawi has brainwashed them into believing that he is their demi-god and savior. (It is possible to fool some of the youths all of the time, but it is impossible to fool all of the youths all of the time.) They say Zenawi’s vast security network of informants, spies and thugs will suppress any youth or other uprising before it could gather momentum. They say Zenawi has permeated the society with so much fear and loathing that it is nearly impossible for individuals or groups to come together, build consensus and articulate a unified demand for change. They say Zenawi has created so much ethnic antagonism in the society that he can cling to power indefinitely by playing his divide-and-rule game and raising the specter of genocide and civil war. Regardless of what anyone says, Zenawi has made it crystal clear what he will do to cling to power. He will “crush with full force” anyone who opposes him electorally or otherwise.
The Survival Principle of Thugtatorships
African thugtators will do anything to cling to power. Hosni Mubarak used a state of emergency decree to cling to power for three decades. When he was deposed from his Pharaonic throne, there were 30,000 political prisoners rotting in his dungeons. Ben Ali in Tunisia did as he pleased for nearly a quarter of a century. Gadhafi’s actions in Libya today offer a hard object lesson on what thugtators will do to cling to power. He continues to use helicopter gunships and MiG fighter planes to bomb and strafe civilians. He is using his private army of thugs and mercenaries to commit unspeakable violence on Libyan citizens. He has offered to buy off Libyans for $400 per household and pledged a 150 percent increase in government workers’ wages if they stop the uprising. They told him “to immerse it in water and drink it” (or “to stuff it…” in the English vernacular.) Gadhafi’s son, Saif al-Islam, has threatened to dismember Libya and plunge it into a civil war and “fight to the last minute, until the last bullet, until the last drop of my blood.” Gadhafi is doing everything in his power to cling to power. The only unanswered question is whether he will resort to the “chemical option”. On March 16, 1988, toward the end of the Iraq-Iran war, Saddam Hussien used chemical weapons against the Kurds in Halabja killing thousands. Will Gadhafi use chemical weapons against Libyans in March 2011 as his regime comes to its long overdue end? Whether Zenawi will follow Gadhafi’s scorched earth policy to cling to power remains to be seen, but careful analysis of his actions, public statements, interviews, speeches, writings, ideological perspective and the irrepressible and self-consuming hatred he has publicly displayed against those who have opposed him over the past 20 years suggests that he will likely follow the tragic wisdom of the old aphorism, “Apre moi, le deluge” (After me, the flood).
But thugtators, trapped in their bubbles and echo chambers, often overestimate their prowess and abilities. “Brotherly Leader” Gadhafi thought he was so powerful and the Libyan people so cowardly that he did not expect in his wildest imagination they would dare rise up and challenge him. He was proven wrong when Libyans broke the chains of crippling fear Gadhafi had put on them for 42 years. Gadhafi thought he could prevent Libyan youths from communicating and coordinating with each other by shutting down social media such as Facebook. Libya’s young revolutionaries proved to be more creative; they used Muslim dating websites to coordinate their activities. Now Gadhafi has completely shut down Internet service in the country believing he can control and distort the flow of information coming out of Libya. Gadhafi’s murderous thugs and mercenaries have been repelled time and again by a ragtag army of Libyan shopkeepers, waiters, welders, engineers, students and the unemployed. Despite Gadhafi’s talk of tribal war, Libyans have closed ranks to wage war on thugtatorship. After 42 years of ignorant ramblings in the Green Book, Gadhafi and his Jamahiriya (“republic ruled by the masses”) are in their death throes.
The Bouzazi Factor
Mohamed Bouzazi was the young Tunisian who burned himself to protest Ben Ali’s thugtatorship. Bouzazi’s desperate act became the spark that created the critical mass of popular uprising which has caused a chain reaction throughout North Africa and the Middle East. The tipping point for change in any country cannot be predicted with certainty. In Tunisia, Bouzazi was literally the “fissile material” that catalyzed the popular uprising. In Egypt, a number of factors worked together to get rid of Mubarak’s thugtatorship. The young Egyptians who led the revolt were well educated and tech savvy and used their knowledge to organize effectively. The Egyptian military maintained neutrality and opposition elements were able to build consensus on the need to remove Mubarak and his henchmen from power after three decades. In Libya, the people just had enough of a raving lunatic running their lives.
Change is a universal imperative and it will come to Ethiopia as it has for its northern neighbors. The coming change in Ethiopia may not necessarily follow any existing template. It will originate from an unexpected source and spread in unexpected ways. The tipping point in Ethiopia will likely revolve around three factors: 1) the clarity, truthfulness and persuasiveness of the message of change delivered to the people, 2) the unity in the voices of the messengers who deliver the message, and 3) the context in which the message of change is communicated to the people. Simply stated, a convergence of democratic forces and a consensus on a clear message of change is necessary to create a critical mass for change in Ethiopia.
Overcoming the Fear Factor
The one common thread in all of the uprisings in North Africa and the Middle East is that the people overcame their fears. The thugtators waged decades long campaigns of psychological warfare to instill fear and loathing in the hearts and minds of their peoples. For decades, the people believed the thugtators to be strong and invincible, untouchable and unaccountable. Recent evidence shows that all thugtatorships have feet of clay. The moment the Libyan people unshackled themselves from 42 years of crippling fear — the kind of fear President Roosevelt described as “nameless, unreasoning, unjustified, terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance ” — they were able to see Gadhafi for what he truly is — a thug. Ditto for Ben Ali and Hosni Mubarak. Change came to Tunisia, Egypt and Libya not because the thugtators had changed but because the people had changed. They were no longer afraid! They found out the true meaning of the old saying, “Fear makes the wolf bigger than he is.”
The Hubris of Thugtators
Thugtators believe they can cling to power by eliminating their opposition, and particularly those who helped them get into power. They ward off potential challengers by keeping their military weak and appointing their cronies and henchmen to leadership positions. They believe they are loved, respected and admired by their people. Gadhafi said, “All my people love me!” They don’t. They hate him. Gadhafi convinced himself that all Libyans are happy under his rule.” They are not. Libya has a Sovereign Wealth Fund of $70 billion and nearly as much has been frozen by the American, British and Swiss governments. Yet the vast majority of the 6 million Libyans have difficulty making ends meet. Gadhafi has squandered much of the oil money buying arms, financing terrorists, seeking to develop weapons of mass destruction, giving it away to other countries to increase his prestige and paying blood money for acts of terrorism he personally ordered. He paid $3 billion to the survivors of the bombing of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland in which 270 people died. Zenawi said he won the last election by 99.6 percent because the people love his party. They “consider themselves and the EPRDF as two sides of a coin” and “nothing can ever shake their unwavering support for our organization,” he said in his victory speech last May. He congratulated the people for “giv[ing] us the mandate through your votes” and patronized them for their “high sense of judgment and fairness” in voting for his party.
Regardless of what thugtators say or do, they will always remain weak and anxiety-ridden because they are in it for the money and not to serve the people. State power is the means by which they pick clean the economic bones of their countries. Thugtators are incapable of anticipating or understanding the need for change. Because they lack a vision for the future and the courage to do what needs to be done in the present, they are always swept away in a flash flood of popular uprising as Ben Ali, Mubarak and Gadhafi have found out lately.
Foolishly Riding the Tiger
President Obama needs to realize that it is not enough to talk about being “on the right side of history”. The U.S. must first do the right thing. For the Obama Administration to talk about “regime alteration” instead of regime change in the Middle East and North Africa today is not being on the right side of history. It is just being plain wrong! President John F. Kennedy said that being on the right side of history is being on the side of the “people in the huts and villages of half the globe struggling to break the bonds of mass misery and helping them help themselves.” In his inaugural speech President Kennedy said:
To those new states whom we welcome to the ranks of the free, we pledge our word that one form of colonial control shall not have passed away merely to be replaced by a far more iron tyranny. We shall not always expect to find them supporting our view. But we shall always hope to find them strongly supporting their own freedom– and to remember that, in the past, those who foolishly sought power by riding the back of the tiger ended up inside.
To those people in the huts and villages of half the globe struggling to break the bonds of mass misery, we pledge our best efforts to help them help themselves, for whatever period is required–not because the Communists may be doing it, not because we seek their votes, but because it is right. If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.
The lesson of the spreading uprisings for African and Middle Eastern thugtators is a simple one best paraphrased in Gandhi’s immortal words: “There have been thugtators and murderers who have foolishly sought power by riding the back of the tiger. But in the end, they found themselves inside the tiger’s belly. Think of it, always.”
The weekly commentaries of the author are available at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alemayehu-g-mariam/
Last Saturday, Azeb Mesfin, the wife of Ethiopia’s blood thirsty dictator Meles Zenawi, flew to Dubai on another shopping spree, according to Ethiopian Review sources.
Azeb arrived at the airport around 11 AM local time accompanied by a few close friends and bodyguards. She then proceeded directly to a small private plane.
Upon arrival in Dubai, she was greeted by Woyanne embassy employees who took her shopping. After she finished her shopping, the goods she purchased were handed over to Ethiopian Airlines employees to be flown to the U.K.
As instructed, the Ethiopian Airlines employees delivered all the items at a house owned by Azeb in London which is currently occupied by Semhal Meles, the dictator’s daughter.
On Monday morning, Azeb returned to Ethiopia.
Azeb Mesfin, who is called “the mother of corruption,” reportedly owns several homes in the U.S. and Europe. She is known for her shopping trips to European and Middle Eastern cities spending hundreds of thousands of dollars at a time.
U.K.’s High Court of Justice has issued an order in favor of Saudi billionaire Mohammed Al Amoudi in his libel lawsuit against Ethiopian Review editor Elias Kifle. (click here to read the order)
Bloomberg’s Kristen Schweizer wrote this about the case:
Saudi sheikh Al Amoudi, who owns several properties in the U.K., said a story in the U.S.-based Ethiopian Review website has subjected him to “serious libel centered around one of his young, unmarried daughters.”
“The Al Amoudi case is definitely libel tourism because Sheikh Al Amoudi lives for the most part outside the U.K. and is not a British citizen and the majority of readers of the Ethiopian Review are outside the U.K.,” Libel Reform’s Harris said. He said the draft bill is expected in late March.
General Manager of Al Amoudi’s Sheraton Addis told department managers last week that the hotel will be closed down soon and will stop taking reservations starting February 15 unless the management is unable to reach an agreement with the union, according to The Reporter. Sheraton Addis, built 13 years ago, is the largest hotel in Ethiopia. Read more in Amharic here.
This is a good news. Sheraton Addis is a whorehouse for Al Amoudi and his Saudi millionaire friends as well as the ruling party elite. Other Woyanne-affiliated businesses will soon follow suit.
The suffering of farmers in Ethiopia, especially in Oromia, Benishangul, Somali and Gambella regions is going from worse to the worst in Ethiopia as a result of inequitable land acquisitions, better called “neo-colonial land grabbing,” by foreign investors in the name of lease by the Ethiopian regime. This act is worsening the already broken food security situation in Ethiopia. The peasants are losing their farming and grazing land they owned for centuries in a matter of months. The draconian proclamations and the brutal police force behind the mess is a point to be noted. This new form of agrarian neo-colonialism is launched under the pretext of utilizing “Wastelands” while the reality and reason behind is completely different.
The Ethiopian regime officials already acknowledged that 8420 foreign investors have received licenses for commercial farms. Even if the problems started when contemporary Ethiopia assumed its current territorial definition at the end of the nineteenth century, the danger posed by this regime — even if it looks it is going under the pretext of law and the cover of investment — is extremely huge. The regime change in 1991 and the subsequent ratification of the Constitution (1995) failed to restore any tangible land ownership right. Articles of the new Constitution complicated the problems of alienation and powerlessness experienced by the people for so long. In the FDRE Constitution, the rights of citizens to possess farming land are maintained (Art.40.4). Proclamation no.89/1997 (Art.2.3) provides for the right to lease one’s holding. In line with the provisions of the decree, the Oromia State issued a Directive (no.3/1995) which states that any farmer may rent a maximum of half of his holding to anyone at any rate for a maximum of three years (Art.23.2). But contrary to all these pillars and precedents, proclamation 455/2005 gives authority to the Woreda and urban administration, not to defend and protect but to confiscate and expropriate land for any purpose the higher authorities believes are for ‘public purpose and/or investment.’ The farmers are expected to evacuate from their ancestral land with a short notice of 30 days, as per Article 4(4) of the same proclamation in discussion. Failure to comply with this short notice will entitle authorities to use police force to forcefully evict farmers from their land. This very proclamation clearly marked the end of land right of Ethiopian farmers and opened big door for land grabbers.
Looking at the controversial and self contradictory part of the constitution itself, the FDRE constitution Article 52(2) d that relate to the powers of Regional States are defective as they tie the latter’s power to administer land and the use of other natural resources to the provisions in the Federal Laws. Put it another way, the provisions give only nominal power to the Regional States, because the latter are not free to exercise full freedom to administer land and other natural resources in their respective regions. In effect it is the Federal State that decides how the land and other natural resources of Regional States should be administered and used. They maintain that the Federal State deliberately shaped the constitution in such a way that Regional States do not enjoy real autonomy, because if they did, the former could not manipulate the laws to fit its interests. The constitution and federal laws are designed to empower the Federal State to influence the decisions made at the level of the Regional States. This is particularly so when it comes to the use of land and other natural resources. State monopoly of land under the guise of ‘public ownership’ reduced land to a marketable commodity contrary to what had been the case before the state formation when land was seen not only as a vital source of life but also, if not more, as a symbol of identity since ‘people relate to land not just as individuals, but also as members of groups, networks, and categories’. What is more, even if the laws are perfect and states are autonomous on land issue, the regional state authorities are not there to protect the interest of the nation they claim to represent but that of the TPLF top decision makers. They are picked from their region just to show up and boost with empty federal structure. This can be well understood by looking at the formation and the last 20 years functioning of OPDO and others surrogate regional authorities.
Very recently, the Ethiopian government has offered a huge land for a long term lease to private and government backed investors such as Karuturi Global Ltd of India which has acquired 1.8 million hectares, Saudi Star Agricultural Development Plc of Sheikh Mohammed Al-Amoudi, Saudi Arabia 100,000 hectares, German company Flora EcoPower 13,000 hectare, Djibouti’s first lady and president about 10,000 hectares and a group of Egyptian investors who have acquired 500 hectares. Ethiopia has already committed to hand over 1.7 million of the 2.7 million hectares of arable land to foreign investors. Prime Minster Meles has offered the land grabbers a “tax holiday” in which he exempted them from paying taxes and lease fees up to the first five years of production and allowed them to export all their production.
The federal government of Ethiopia has taken over millions of hectares of farmland from the States of Benishangul, Gambella and Oromia to distribute it to the so-called investors. By his speech of December 1, 2009 on World Economic Forum, Meles Zenawi claimed that his government’s policy will bring new ‘technology’ and ‘development’ into Ethiopia. However, as witnessed in many places of Oromia and Gambella, the mega-farms use rudimentary methods of farming similar to the typical Ethiopian farming. The new thing is that, the farmers turned labourers and have lost their dignity, ownership right and become slaves in their own country and land. Shamelessly, Mr. Zenawi said that this land giving policy works only in the south, revealing its racist policy of governance. He said the northern part of the Country is out of discussion as far as land selling is concerned.
After all, this is the same government that has closed down multi million hectares of mechanized state farms in few years after it seized a power in almost all part of Ethiopia, mainly in Wollega, Arsi and Bale. These farms used to employ high tech-machines including airplanes. The tractors, the combiners, and all the multibillion dollar investment of the farms properties were ignored as if it serves nothing and forced to collapse with its thousands of employees. In Wollega only, 65,000 head of families were thrown on the streets, exposing them and their extended families to starvation and humiliation. This will remain to be one of the dozens of crimes for which the EPRDF government headed by Meles Zenawi is going to answer sooner or later. The land and the property were neither privatized nor allowed to continue in corporation. Today these farms could have feed at least millions of Ethiopians looking for western hand outs, if not able to generate foreign currency. It looks as if this government is deliberately subjecting the people to a systematic impoverishment and shame.
Yet, in Gambella, the other fertile south-western region of Ethiopia, most of the land is forcibly taken from the indigenous subsistence farmers; not for the development of a needed infrastructure, but for lease to private foreign companies mostly from India, where neither the profits nor the majority of the produce will be shared with the communities. In all cases, the farmers and indigenous people receive little or no compensation for their land.
Currently millions are believed to be in need of food aid. But the government in Ethiopia is offering at least 3m hectares of its most fertile land to rich countries and some of the world’s most wealthy individuals to export food for their own populations. This fact clearly indicates that the minority PM Meles regime has neither a consideration nor accountability to the Ethiopian people but only to its corrupted will and interests.
A closer look at how this government handling of the land issue shows that the reason behind its decision to lease and sell fertile farm lands to foreign investors for an indefinite or century old contract. It is neither a quest for technology nor utilizing the excess land. The reality is, the TPLF dominated EPRDF officials are busy building their personal business empire for the last 20 years they are in power. TPLF officials own more than ¾ of the total business in the country, majority of them in decisive government positions and military ranks. As popular discontent grows, the TPLF leaders are getting worried about the future of their personal and group wealth and their Business Empire, which stretched to all corners of Ethiopia and dominates from small biscuits to large truck industry. The idea they came up with is that, to call up on foreign investors to cover them in this big scam they are involved. That is precisely the reason why land confiscation is so heated, foreign hands are lined up and the name of investors rather than native farmers is flown full over the air of Ethiopia.
Several governments have come and gone in Ethiopia. However, the land issue has never been addressed satisfactorily to redress the injustices committed. Neither the existing laws nor resources are utilized so as to serve the interest of its citizens. In a country where 85% of its population rely as a means of subsistence on what is obtained from agriculture, the relation of land to man is crucial in a manner similar to the need of air to breath, sunshine and water to live. To deprive anyone of any of these vital resources is equal to rendering a death sentence on him or her and to their extended family members. Consequently the current land grabbing will fuel conflict, create political instability, uproots the indigenous peoples and results in food insecurity.
The land question in Ethiopia is a potential time bombs waiting to explode. The land issue was the major factor for the demise of all Meles’s predecessor in the history and has also already consumed a government in Madagascar. However the impact on health, Soil, water, food security, ownership right and the environment will remain an expensive price for the next generation to pay.
Hence, it is very important for the international community to stand in unison against brutal regime of Ethiopia and uphold the right of the peoples to land ownership, which is exploited, left defenseless and currently are running out of means to protect their right. The land grabbers (investors) should also understand the complicated reality they are involving in and need to calculate their risk on time before it is too late. Any land deal that has not been agreed to by the Ethiopian nations and nationalities will not be honored and will bring neither lasting peace nor development in the country and for the investors too.
It is also a high time for the UN and its concerned stake holders to call special investigation on this serious matter and issues immediate resolution against the continued suffering of farmers due to eviction and the serious poverty that followed. It is also very important to exert the at most possible pressure to undo the unfair law with regards of land issues.
(The writer can be reached via [email protected] or visit http://jajjabee.wordpress.com)
General Manager of Al Amoudi’s Sheraton Addis told department managers last week that the hotel will be closed down soon and will stop taking reservations starting February 15 unless the management is unable to reach an agreement with the union, according to The Reporter. Sheraton Addis, built 13 years ago, is the largest hotel in Ethiopia. Read more in Amharic