In March 2012, I posted the report below about the trafficking of Ethiopian women to the Middle East and identified one of the major players behind it. The report was a result of thorough investigations, corroborated by multiple witnesses who are residing in Addis Ababa. Several months after the report was published, the TPLF regime banned the trafficking of Ethiopian women to UAE, but not to Saudi Arabia and other countries. Meanwhile, Jemal Ahmed, Al Amoudi’s business partner who is identified in my report, has filed a defamation lawsuit against me in the United States District Court, Northern District of Georgia. The notorious law firm, DLA Piper, is representing Jemal in the lawsuit. DLA Piper has hired a $250-per hour private investigator, a former FBI agent, to follow me all over the Untied States. In a court document, the private investigator, Harold Corpus, testified that he has observed me at the balcony of my parents’ residence, among other places. Since the apartment has a security gate, he must have committed trespassing to enter inside. Human trafficking is just the tip of the iceberg of the predatory business practices that Jemal Ahmed and his partner, Mohammed Al Amoudi, are involved in with the backing of the TPLF regime in Ethiopia. In just recent months, they have forcibly removed tens of thousands of people in western Ethiopia after confiscating their land which they are using to grow flower and vegetable to be exported to Saudi Arabia and UAE. If Al Amoudi, Jemal and their allies in the TPLF junta think that they can intimidate and silence me by hiring former FBI agents and a mercenary law firm, they chose a wrong target. I will continue to expose them until they stop plundering my country and robbing my people. I am confident that the U.S. justice system will not allow them to trample upon the freedom of exiled Ethiopian journalists.
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Al Amoudi’s human trafficker in Ethiopia identified
By Elias Kifle
It’s been suspected that Sheik Saudi agent Mohammed Al Amoudi is behind the planned “export” of 45,000 Ethiopian women per month from the Amhara and Oromo regions of Ethiopia to Saudi Arabia. The women, most of whom are teenage girls, will be working in slave-like conditions, often subjected to beatings and other kinds of abuses. Ethiopian Review Intelligence Unit has now confirmed Al Amoudi’s involvement in this massive human trafficking, and also we have been able to identified the person whom he has put in charge of the operation.
His name is Jemal Ahmed. He is an Ethiopian, resides in Addis Ababa, and frequently travels to Saudi Arabia and other Arab counties as an employee of Al Amoudi.
Jemal’s responsibilities extend beyond human trafficking. He is also in charge of Horizon Plantations, one of Al Amoudi’s companies that is engaged in destructive commercial farms that are used for growing and exporting cash crops. In 2009, the Woyanne gave Al Amoudi 250,000 hectares of land in southern and western Ethiopia, in many cases forcibly removing local farmers from their lands. Because of excessive use of chemical fertilizers, the land will be totally useless in just a few years. The ground water will also be unusable
Jemal and other partners of Al Amoudi who are pillaging and plundering Ethiopia, and selling our women as slaves to Arab countries, must be stopped. Share this information and take the necessary action.
We Ethiopians currently have no government to protect us. So let’s protect each other and fight to save our country.
Debretsion Gebremichael, TPLF spy chief who also doubles as Minister of Communication and Information Technology, appears to suggest that the ruling party has mobilized to crush peaceful Muslim protests. Debretsion used Addis Ababa University as a platform to declare war on what he called “religious radicalism” and “terrorism.”
Eskedar Kifle | Capital Ethiopia
October 8, 2012
The Addis Ababa University, the longest serving higher institution in Ethiopia, gave a three day seminar to its teachers in all campuses, Capital learned. The meeting was originally intended to take place at one location from October 3 to 5, but they later decided to carry it out separately on different campuses.
The notorious Debretsion who intercepts email, other electronic communications
When the seminar came to a close at the Sidist Kilo Main campus on Friday, October 5, DebretsionGebremichael (PhD), Minister of Information and Communication Technology gave guidance to the participants saying that in the coming years the university must focus on the problems of religious radicalism and the dangers of terrorism.
“We don’t want to have a destabilization movement under the guise of religion. In every religion we trace fundamentalism which is contrary to the basic principle of religion that teaches coexistence with each other,” Debretstion was quoted as saying. This movement has to be stopped, he strongly warned.
He also attended the meeting at the Arat Kilo Science Faculty on Thursday, October 3. Sources told Capital that at Science Faculty like in other faculties raised questions about the teachers’ salary increase. Dr. Debretsion discouraged the issue out of hand by saying:
“This time don’t expect a pay raise. You have the capacity to generate additional income by having additional work elsewhere. We don’t like that option. But on the government side there is no plan to increase the salary of teachers at this time,” he said.
A teacher who preferred anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue told Capital that he is not happy with the response of Debretsion. “Inflation is extremely high. So life is difficult to manage with the salary we are receiving now. House rent is increasing literally every month. The government wants us to provide a quality education. With this small pay it is impossible to have first class teachers. So the fall of the standard of education, due to mediocre teachers, is an avoidable fact,” he said.
But Dr. Debretsion was positive about the housing question. “I know that the late Prime Minister wanted the housing problem of the university teachers to be tackled. Accordingly something has been done in that direction all through. So we will exert every effort to resolve the housing problem that the teachers face,” Dr. Debretsion said.
The other major discussion point was about the quality of education. There was a consensus that the quality of education has tremendously gone down. Though all of them agreed to improve the quality of education, no viable future plan was put in place. “We all said that we will improve the quality of education. This is a cliché like saying we shall realize the dreams of the visionary leader,” remarked one disgruntled teacher. But making change requires a backbreaking job, he concluded.
I dreamt about my uncle. He has been dead for over ten years so I was wondering what brought him to my conscious now. It was a vivid dream and I awoke both sad and happy. So all day long I kept wondering what is it that made me dream about him. I really think I was able to come up with a reasonable explanation why this memory was triggered in my brain. I believe it is due to what I have been reading lately that awaken this memory about service, integrity and today’s Ethiopia.
The night before the dream I read a very revealing article on goolgule.com about the land grab in Oromia region. It is a depressing tale of what those in position of power and authority do to our people. The story was told to give us perspective about Ato Junedin Sado, who seems to find himself in a very precarious position lately. His problem that started before the death of the tyrant has escalated to his being dismissed from that TPLF satellite organization OPDO. It looks like this puppet who has been serving his TPLF masters faithfully betraying the Oromo people is now paying the price for his sins.
I also have been reading about the Deputy Mayor of Addis Abeba Ato Kefyale Azeze defecting and moving to the US as a fellow refugee. I have also been informed about Ato Getachew Belay, a high ranking TPLF official, who decided to stay in the US abandoning his post. Ato Getachew has served his party as head of the Privatization Agency and head of EFFORT. Both are posts normally reserved for party loyalists.
The defections must have been what got me to think about service to people and country. That must be what triggered this deeply held memory to surface in the middle of the night. My uncle is one of the few people that have left a mark in my brain. I always think of him in a very pleasant manner. The earliest I remember of him from is the picture hanging on our living room wall. It was taken before he left for Korea as part of the United Nations peace keeping force. He was dresses in a greenish uniform sitting on a chair with medals on his chest. It was a serious picture but his boyish face betrayed the stern garish looking uniform and made him look like a kind solder unlike a warrior he was supposed to be. No question that picture impressed all of us growing children.
Upon his return from Korea he was recruited to work at our embassy in Egypt. He must have stayed there a long time because when we met next I was already in high school. He was working as administrator at Paulos Hospital in Addis Abeba. He got married and built a beautiful bungalow in Gulele. My brother and I used to love going over to visit him in the weekends and spend the day listening to him talk and observe the disciplined and meticulous way he lived.
He built the house himself and for us it was like a Ferenji place. It has a beautiful bathroom with toilet, bathtub and bidet with working plumbing system including hot water. The house has a beautiful dining area and a living room for entertainment with couches and a radio. His flower garden was a marvel to look at. We sat and ate in the dining room and washed our hands in the bathroom without a maid fetching water and towel to our table.
A few years later he built an addition on his land to rent for income and help raise his three beautiful daughters. He was making an honest living and looking forward to enjoying his retirement. I finished High school and came to America.
The appearance of the Derg changed everything. The turmoil that followed affected my uncle and his contemporaries in a negative manner. The Derg expropriated all wealth created regardless of how it was achieved. My uncle became the victim of this haphazard and meaningless policy. The Derg became the landlord of his property and his tenant started paying rent to the government. My uncle was forced to retire due to the turmoil in the country.
When I visited him next I couldn’t help but notice how fast he has aged. He was still living in his house but there was no incentive to do any repair or make his house into his own castle. It was shocking to see the deterioration of both man and property. Such a vibrant and go getter of a person was reduced to spending his days on trifle affairs and mundane subjects. It was odd to see his previous tenant subleasing the house and making money. The coming of Woyane did not make things any better. They took over where the Derg left off. That is how much things have turned topsy turvy.
May be I am grasping for straws, maybe I am letting my imagination go wild but the truth is I saw a connection between my dreaming of yester year and the current news coming out of Ethiopia. My uncle’s life was a simple straight line of service and hard work with rewards of stable and fulfilling end until it was rudely interrupted. His achievement was on merit and his honest service is what makes the wheels of society turn in predictable manner. His honorable way of life was an example to all our family. We all learn by example and he was a proud mentor.
Why am I writing about my uncle is a good question. I wanted to tell you we have not always been the way we are now. Lawless, corrupt, shifty, no roots and void of faith, this is what has become of us. I believe this describes the new Ethiopia. Not long ago our country and people were different. Yes there was inequality, there was injustice and we were definitely backward. But we were not degraded, self-loathing and hopeless.
What do we have today? There is no sense of public service but public robbery, there is no sense of do the right thing but a sense of what can I get away with, there is no sense of pride in workmanship but cheap labor for fast money, there is no sense of us but it is all about me. That is what the TPLF regime cultivates. That is why they could do all kinds of damage to our people and at the end of the day abandon all and move out of the country.
When I read about the likes of Junedin, Kefyalew and Getachew I start to wonder about the future of my country and people. What do our people learn from such disgraceful action? What kind of society produces such individuals? How did our country find itself putting such people in charge?
Let us take Ato Junedin. Let us also remember the entire OPDO leadership was rejected by the Oromo people during the 2005 elections. They were restored to their position after Ato Meles ordered recount of the ballots. It was in the aftermath of this event that the OPDO leadership decided to teach the people a lesson. Land is the only wealth the Ethiopian peasant owns. He has no bank account, no capital in machinery and no stocks and bonds. People like Junedin robed the land from the simple peasant. The stolen land was leased to grow flower for the export market while some was used to build condominiums and town houses.
The same peasant that lost his land was recruited to work as a day laborer while his children were let loose in the green houses where they grew flowers. Fifteen and sixteen year old Oromo girls were exposed to chemicals and fertilizers without adequate or no protection. The land given to the developers with fancy names puts the children’s fable Alice in wonderland to shame. In a country where the per capita income is less than $700 a year our developers are constructing housing that costs five million to twenty million. That is what a company called Country Club Developers is building in Legetafo, Oromia. It is also true that over 95% of the residents of Oromia cannot afford to purchase their dream house in Legetafo. Ato Junedin made all this possible.
Folks like Kefyalew and Getachew are the engines that facilitated the working of the TPLF anti Ethiopian machine. Today they come to America as victims. They followed high officials of the Derg regime that left before the fall of Mengistu. Derg era criminals today are respected members of our community. I assure you in a few years Kefyalew and Getachew will join our Church, Mosque and Eder as ordinary fellows in exile. How could a lesson be learnt if yesterday’s criminals are today’s freedom fighters?
Do you think the problem is with them or with us? Do you think people like Junedin, Kefyalew and Getachew can exist with us? There is no ying without yang, there is no smoke without fire and there is no criminal without a victim. Our indifference, our apathy makes people like the above flourish. When we keep quiet while observing injustice we encourage such evil act to continue. When we participate in buying stolen land, building on stolen land we facilitate the coming to death of our homeland. We mock our people’s plight because we ventured out and collected a fist full of dollars.
It does not require a fortune teller to predict sooner or later the injustice, the famine; the hopelessness will force our people to resort to force as they have done before. Today’s Ethiopia is reaching that boiling point. This is not because it is written but it is so because her children failed her, because her children refused to act because her children looked the other way. The solution lies in each one of us. We all know what is right and what is wrong. We all know we cannot judge the Junedins and the Kefyalews and the Getachews if we would act like them given the chance. The question to ask ourselves is would I be different? Am I a better human being aware, conscious, and keeper of my brother?
A pride of captive lions descended from the private menagerie of Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia is genetically distinct from all other lions of Africa, a study has found.
The Ethiopian lion has a distinctive dark mane and is slightly smaller and more compact than other African lions. Now an analysis of its DNA has revealed the Ethiopian lion is also a distinct breed.
It is thought that there may be less than a few hundred Ethiopian lions living in the wild and scientists are urging that their unique genetic makeup should be preserved by a captive-breeding programme.
DNA tests on 15 of the 20 Ethiopian lions kept in Addis Ababa Zoo have revealed that they form a separate genetic group from the lions of east Africa and southern Africa, said Michael Hofreiter of the University of York.
The male lions are the last lions in the world to possess the distinctive dark brown mane. They are the direct descendants of a group of seven males and two females taken from the wild in 1948 for Haile Sellassie’s own zoo, Dr Hofreiter said.
A comparison with other populations of wild lions living in the Serengeti of Tanzania in east Africa and the lions of the Kalahari desert of south-west Africa found that the Addis Ababa lions are quite separate genetically, he said.
“We therefore believe the Addis Ababa lions should be treated as a distinct conservation management unit and are urging immediate conservation actions, including a captive breeding programme, to preserve this unique lion population,” Dr Hofreiter said.
As a species, lions are under threat and their numbers have dwindled over the decades, with the biggest populations centred on east Africa and southern Africa, with a tiny population of Asiatic lions existing in the Gir Forest of India.
Two lion populations that shared the dark brown mane of the Ethiopian lion – the North African Barbary lions and the South African Cape lions – have already gone extinct in the wild.
Susann Bruche of Imperial College London, the lead author of the study published in European Journal of Wildlife Research, said that it is important to preserve the genetic diversity of the Ethiopian lions to help the species as a whole.
“A great amount of genetic diversity in lions has most likely already been lost, largely due to human influences. Every effort should be made to preserve as much of the lion’s genetic heritage as possible,” Dr Bruche said.
“We hope field surveys will identify wild relatives of the unique Addis Ababa Zoo lions in the future, but conserving the captive population is a crucial first step,” she said.
(CPJ) Ethiopian authorities should halt their harassment of journalists covering the country’s Muslim community and their intimidation of citizens who have tried to speak to reporters about sensitive religious, ethnic, and political issues, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.
Police in the capital, Addis Ababa, briefly detained Marthe Van Der Wolf, a reporter with the U.S. government-funded broadcaster Voice of America as she was covering a protest by members of Ethiopia’s Muslim community at the Anwar Mosque, local journalists said. The protesters were demonstrating against alleged government interference in Islamic Council elections scheduled for Sunday, according to VOA and local journalists.
Wolf was taken to a police station and told to erase her recorded interviews, and then released without charge, local journalists said… [read more]
It’s been 2 weeks now since the widow of Ethiopia’s dictator Meles Zenawi has been refusing to leave the prime minister’s residence in the National Palace. Azeb Mesfin, aka the mother of corruption, is causing a major embarrassment for the new prime minister, Hailemariam Desalegn, and his government by refusing to vacate the official residence of the prime minister as the law requires. He is also exposed to security threats by having to travel to the National Palace every morning from his home in the Bole neighborhood of Addis Ababa. Hailemariam was sworn in two weeks ago, Friday, September 21.
His name is Jemal Ahmed. He is an Ethiopian, resides in Addis Ababa, and frequently travels to Saudi Arabia and other Arab counties as an employee of Al Amoudi.
(CPJ) Ethiopian authorities should halt their harassment of journalists covering the country’s Muslim community and their intimidation of citizens who have tried to speak to reporters about sensitive religious, ethnic, and political issues, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.