Mugabe, like Meles, is just another ravenous African vampire who is sucking the life blood of his country. At the same time, the comment by U.S. State Department’s spokesman regarding Mugabe’s action is steep in obscene hypocrisy and double-standard. While condemning Mugabe, the State Department is creating havoc in eastern African by supporting Meles Zenawi’s murderous regime that had lost the 2005 elections in Ethiopia.
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(New York Times) JOHANNESBURG — A day before southern Africa’s leaders hold an emergency session on Zimbabwe’s disputed election, the government of the beleaguered nation appeared to tighten its control on Friday, banning political rallies, continuing its crackdown on the opposition and arresting the lawyer of its chief rival, Morgan Tsvangirai. The Movement for Democratic Change, Mr. Tsvangirai’s party, said Friday that more than 1,000 of its supporters had been attacked or arrested since the voting took place on March 29, fueling a growing chorus of international criticism of President Robert Mugabe’s handling of the elections… Continue reading >>
ER had predicted at the start of the Somalia invasion in December 2006 that Mogadishu will be Woyanne’s grave yard. It is happening. The following is a Newsweek interview with Woyanne chief Meles Zenawi, the butcher of East Africa.
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Ethiopia’s prime minister discusses how the U.S. helped his country oust the Islamists from Mogadishu.
Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi is easily Washington’s most important African ally in its war on terrorism. In 2006, the United States quietly helped Zenawi’s forces invade neighboring Somalia after a U.S.-financed coalition of warlords lost the capital of Mogadishu to an Islamist alliance known as the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC). The Ethiopian forces ousted the UIC but have been bogged down since then fighting an Iraq-style insurgency by Somali Islamist and clan militias. The current round of violence has driven 750,000 from their homes, and Ethiopia’s allies in the United Nations-backed transitional federal government [TFG] have been unable to control Mogadishu, much less the rest of the country.
Only a quarter of the 8,000 peacekeeping troops promised by the African Union last year have shown up to relieve the Ethiopians. Meanwhile Zenawi has resuscitated Ethiopia’s economy, but he faces criticism over his government’s record on democracy and human rights. Following disputed elections in 2005, security forces killed at least 193 civilians and jailed most of the major opposition leaders (though they were later pardoned). This week the Ethiopian prime minister spoke to NEWSWEEK’s Jason McLure about Ethiopia’s archenemy, Eritrea; its exit plan from Somalia, and its alliance with the United States. Excerpts:
NEWSWEEK: What is Ethiopia’s plan to withdraw from Somalia?
Meles Zenawi: There are two issues here. First is the threat that was posed by the Shabaab [the radical wing of the Union of Islamic Courts] to Ethiopia, when they threatened to take control of the whole of Somalia and at the same time declared jihad against Ethiopia. That threat had to be neutralized and we believe we did that the first weeks of our intervention … We were told by the African Union [AU] and others that in our withdrawal we shouldn’t create a vacuum, at which point we indicated we could wait a bit longer so long as the African Union was in a position to replace our troops. That has taken an inordinate amount of time.
So withdrawing unilaterally without AU peacekeepers is an option that you’re looking at now?
Well that’s an option. It’s an option we will not take lightly. But it’s an option.
How long will you wait for the African Union or the United Nations or outside peacekeepers to intervene?
We are most certainly not going to wait another year. It’s my hope that a number of things will happen that will make it possible for us to withdraw. First is the full deployment of African Union troops. Second is the continued consolidation of the TFG security forces. Thirdly we hope that the local process of reconciliation that is going on, particularly in Mogadishu but also some other places in Somalia, will make progress.
Does Ethiopia have a contingency plan should the TFG collapse or be unable to extend its power over Mogadishu?
As I said earlier on, we could have withdrawn weeks after our intervention. But that would not create a stable situation in Somalia. And creating a stable situation in Somalia is in the long-term interest of everybody. I have no reason to believe the TFG will fail. It may not make spectacular progress, but I have no reason to believe that it will simply collapse.
A number of analysts believe Ethiopian troops have had a positive effect short term on the TFG by providing security assistance, but in the long term are undermining the TFG by fomenting nationalist and Islamist sentiments in Somalia.
An oversupply of national sentiment is not the problem in Somalia. The problem in Somalia is a lack of it. The problem in Somalia is an oversupply of sub-sub-clannish attitude. Our efforts together with the TFG have been focused on bridging the gaps of the sub-sub-sub-clans of Somalia. As far as Islamist fervor is concerned. Ethiopia was not in Somalia when the Shabaab took control of Mogadishu and threatened to take control of the whole of Somalia. Ethiopia was not in Somalia when the Shabaab declared jihad on Ethiopia. What Ethiopia did through its intervention is take the bubble out of this Shabaab phenomenon.
How many Ethiopian troops have died in Somalia since December 2006? How many injured? Quite a few.
Do you have more precise numbers? Hundreds? Thousands?
In the hundreds.
How many troops are in Somalia right now?
A few thousand. Two, three thousand. [He is lying. At least 20,000.]
How much has the invasion cost Ethiopia in money terms?
Substantial amounts.
A hundred million dollars?
No. It’s a low-tech, low-cost intervention on the part of Ethiopia. That doesn’t mean that every cent we spent on Somalia couldn’t have been better spent in Ethiopia. But on the whole, we have managed without breaking our back economically, to sustain our presence in Somalia.
How much direct financial support has Ethiopia received from the United States to help pay for this intervention?
Zero.
Has Ethiopia been disappointed in the level of assistance by Western nations to the TFG and Ethiopia?
The response of the international community and the United Nations in general has been less than stellar. We understand why the U.N. could not send a peacekeeping mission. But we do not understand why the U.N., through the Security Council, could not provide some funding to the African Union to carry out the peacekeeping responsibilities. The United Nations insisted that the AU mission in Darfur should be taken over by the U.N. and funded by the U.N., [but] they refused to provide budgeted support to the AU peacekeeping operations in Somalia.
The U.S. has been a bit more forthcoming. They have provided support, for example, to the Ugandans [peacekeepers], to deploy their troops in Mogadishu. They have diplomatically been broadly supportive of the TFG and stabilization in Somalia. But that does not mean the Security Council–and the United States is an important part of the Security Council–has not delivered as many of us in the region would have expected.
Some say the U.S. government is working at cross purposes in that U.S. intelligence agencies are supporting elements nominally within the TFG but that aren’t helpful to the reconciliation process– particularly the mayor of Mogadishu, Mohammed Dheere, a former warlord.
Well before the Shabaab took over in Mogadishu [in 2006], some in the intelligence community in the United States were playing a very negative role through their support of all sorts of warlords who were brought together in the vain hope that they could stem the tide of the Shabaab. That policy failed miserably. I believe since then it has not been pursued in the manner it was pursued before. Since then the main efforts of the United States are through the African Union and the TFG. There is still the focus on individual terrorists harbored in Somalia, particularly among some intelligence entities and some of them tend to look at this issue in isolation. But the overall U.S. policy has changed since those days.
When you say that some in the U.S. government tend to look at the terrorism issue in isolation, what effect does that have on broader policy?
Not much. There have been operations to try to kill some of these terrorists. That’s OK, because neutralizing these terrorists has to be part of the solution. But when a disproportionate amount of resources and time is spent on hunting them down, as opposed to creating the right context [for nation-building], it can be counterproductive. So there is that risk. There are some institutions in the U.S. that put too much accent on that aspect of the operations.
Because in total there may be at most a dozen high-value targets there that the U.S. would really like to get.
Yes.
And so in pursuit of those dozen or so targets, maybe there are other things the U.S. could be giving resources or attention to.
Yes, there’s a question of balancing the deployment of your time and resources.
The U.S. State Department recently listed the Al-Shabaab militia as a terrorist group. What effect does that have on the reconciliation process?
I am at a loss to understand why it took the United States so long to put Al-Shabaab in the terrorist list. If one believes that one can reconcile with Al Qaeda-affiliated terrorists whose sole agenda is to establish a caliphate in the Horn of Africa centered on Somalia, then of course characterizing this institution as a terrorist organization hinders that type of reconciliation. If one however recognizes that that type of reconciliation is a code word for surrender, then characterizing this organization as a terrorist organization doesn’t make any difference. There are many in the opposition in the so-called Islamic Courts movement who are not Al-Shabaab. Al-Shabaab is a very small kernel of hard-core terrorists. Apart from that small kernel, everybody else could be talked to, and even individuals within the Al-Shabaab core movement could be won over.
With regard to the counterinsurgency in the Ogaden, what’s the status of the fight against rebels in eastern Ethiopia and what sort of links are there between the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) and the insurgency in Somalia?
There was a broad front organized by the Eritreans involving all sorts of Ethiopian rebels and the Islamic Courts movement in Somalia. The ONLF constituted a very important part of that broad front. We believe the back of the ONLF insurgency in the region has now been broken.
Ethiopia Woyanne has faced a number of accusations of atrocities in the Ogaden during the counterinsurgency. U.S. satellites have identified some burned villages in the region. Are there atrocities happening now?
No. There are no atrocities happening in the Ogaden. Naturally, when there is fighting, there is death, and sometimes death of civilians. But in this case because it was low-tech, labor-based type of fighting, collateral damage was minimal. I am not aware of any U.S. intelligence assessment that shows there was widespread violation of human rights or killing of civilians or burning of villages.
With regard to Eritrea, the U.N. peacekeepers are mostly gone from the border area. What’s keeping the two countries from going to war again?
We’re not going to war with Eritrea because we don’t want to. One stupid war is enough. On the Eritrean side, I think what’s keeping them from going to war is the recognition that if they were to do so they would not profit from it. [Yes, a stupid war that resulted in the death of 150,000 young Ethiopians who were made cannon fodders. You and Seye Abraha will be brought to justice for waging this ‘stupid’ war.]
Will you stay as prime minister after your term expires in 2010?
This is likely to be my last term.
Local elections are approaching and a number of major leaders of the opposition who were jailed after 2005 aren’t participating. Some of the remaining opposition parties say they’ve faced intimidation, harassment. What can you tell us about the status of Ethiopia’s democracy efforts?
We are consolidating democracy with every step. After 2005 we discussed with the opposition who were in Parliament to address some of their concerns. We changed the way the national election board was organized. We have changed the bylaws of Parliament to make it possible for the minority to set the agenda for debate on specific dates. We are now processing a new press law that we very much hope will put our legislation on par with the best in the world. So we have continuously been addressing any shortcomings with the institutions in our country. Now, every time there is an election here, somebody cries foul. That unfortunately appears to be the normal practice in the continent, whether there is substantial evidence to back it or not. That we all have to live with.
Ethiopia is Africa’s fastest-growing non-oil economy, but the U.S. Agency for International Development says that 9 million people in Ethiopia will require food assistance this year.
We have not had as much success in the pastoralist areas of our country as we have had elsewhere in terms of growth. And the pastoralist areas are very vulnerable to changes in weather. We need to move on the one hand to make pastoralism more productive, and on the other hand to try and encourage people, the pastoralists, to settle voluntarily. Secondly, we need to do more in the way of irrigation-related infrastructure, particularly in the drought-affected areas so that people benefit. And then in recent years poverty, which was largely rural is now shifting as the urban poor’s income fails to improve as much as that of those in rural areas. So there are a lot of challenges that we need to address, in spite of the fact that we have had five years of double-digit growth.
The Chinese communist junta that provides technology to African dictators like Meles Zenawi for jamming radio station such as the VOA is giving a seminar on media to journalists from Africa. What a joke!
(GNA) — Professor Liu Liqun, Dean of the Communication University of China (CUC), on Wednesday noted that the activities of the media had made the world a global village, facilitating communication and international relations.
The media, she said, should, therefore be expected to play its role effectively, to ensure world peace and mutual prosperity amongst nations.
Prof. Liu was opening a seminar on Media and Media Education for 43 journalists drawn from 22 developing countries in the Chinese capital of Beijing.
The 15-day seminar was being organized jointly by the Ministry of Commerce of the People’s Republic of China, and the CUC.
Prof. Liu expressed the hope that the seminar, an exchange development programme, would go a long way to enhance China’s policy of opening to the outside world.
She said it would also deepen her friendship and understanding of the developing world.
Prof. Yang Xiuwen, Vice-Dean of the International Communications College of CUC, stressed the need to sustain the programme, in order to strengthen the bond of relationship among developing countries.
Ms. Ljiljana Toskovic of the Embassy of Montenegro, thanked the organizer for the seminar, and hoped the participants would use such experiences to help shape the destiny of the developing world.
The participants are from Ghana, Liberia, Benin, Sierra Leone, Guinea, Ethiopia, Congo, Vietnam, Grenada, Montenegro, Nepal, Seychelles and Kenya.
The rest are from Fays, Myanmar, Eritrea, Macedonia, Lesotho, Afghanistan, Vanuatu, Timor, and Micronesia.
Participants will be taken through lectures related to basic conditions of China; traditional Chinese culture; higher education development process in China; and the countries cooperation and communication with other developing nations.
They will also learn about the history and policies of international communication in china; the history and status quo of Chinese media; history of development and status quo of higher education for the media in China; cultivation of Chinese media talents; and the international communication of media education in developing countries.
Woyanne is perhaps the most hated regime in the history of Ethiopia. In May 2005, the people of Ethiopia made it clear that they don’t want Woyanne to govern the country. Meles Zenawi & Co. responded by brutally attacking the opposition parties and their supporters. Two years later, this much hated group is still in power and continues to cause death and destruction upon the people of Ethiopia and neighboring countries. ER would like to ask the following:
(ANI) — A visit to the world’s greatest monument to love, the Taj Mahal, has left most African leaders thieves speechless.
Heads of state of Dictators of Uganda and Ethiopia, who were in India to participate in the two-day India[-to-Exploit]-Africa Forum Summit, went into raptures after visiting the historic monument that was built by Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan in memory of his wife Mumtaz Mahal.
Uganda President dictator Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, who went around Taj Mahal with his wife Janet Kataha, marveled at the architecture and technology used by artisans of yore in building the monument.
“This is a magnificent place, given the technology of that time. To find that they could build such a big structure suspended on arches, supported by columns inside the ground. I salute their contribution to human effort,” said Yoweri.
Similar sentiments were expressed by Ethiopia Prime Minister dictator MELES Zenawi, who described the monument as an extraordinary sight.
Built by an army of 20,000 stone masons, gem cutters, marble fitters and labourers between 1631 and 1648, the Taj Mahal attracts millions of tourists every year. (ANI)
It is not surprising that these two fools find Taj Mahal “extraordinary” since the countries they claim to lead cannot even grow enough food.
ADDIS ABABA (Associated Press) — “We are getting out of the whole process. The whole process is an illegal process,” Beyene Petros, leader of the United Ethiopian Democratic Forces, a national coalition of opposition parties, told The Associated Press.
Ethiopia The Woyanne regime in Ethiopia, a key U.S. ally in the Horn of Africa, has a long history of human rights abuses and flawed elections. Government security forces killed 193 civilians protesting alleged fraud in the 2005 general elections, which the European Union said were flawed.
Ethiopia will hold local, regional and some federal elections on April 13 and 20, with some 4 million seats up for grabs. But the main opposition groups, including UEDF and the Oromo Federalist Democratic Movement, say at least 17,000 of their candidates have dropped out under pressure.
Many of the dropouts are in volatile western Ethiopia, where a rebellion by the Oromo ethnic group has been simmering for decades, the opposition said.
The dropout figures, which the opposition cited from their own tallies, could not be independently verified.
The Ethiopian Woyanne government strongly denied the allegations.
“That’s simply baseless,” said Bereket Simon, special adviser to Prime Minister dictator Meles Zenawi. “There is no harassment, that’s why nobody can prove it. We haven’t experienced that, and they haven’t experienced it either. Both the opposition and the ruling party haven’t experienced any intimidation.”
But the AP interviewed a dozen candidates and voters who gave independent accounts of intimidation by local officials with the ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front Tigrean People Liberation Front (Woyanne).
“Intimidation is going on on a mass scale,” said Bulcha Demeksa, a lawmaker who heads the opposition Oromo Federalist Democratic Movement. “People have been told all kinds of scary things, like their children won’t find jobs when they finish school … that if they starve, they will not get any food.”
David Shinn, former U.S. ambassador to Ethiopia, told a congressional committee in Washington in March that he was concerned about this month’s elections.
“The local elections are an opportunity for advancing democracy in Ethiopia,” Shinn told the panel. “If they fail to achieve this goal, it will be an enormous lost opportunity.”
In the tiny town of Nedjo, nestled deep in Ethiopia’s western coffee country, aspiring teacher Seifu Tamiru said local officials from the ruling party forced him to abandon his ambitions of becoming a member of the town council.
“They said, ‘If you keep on running for this position, you will not be employed as a teacher,'” said Seifu, 26, who ran as a member of the OFDM. “They said, ‘Nobody in your family is going to be employed.'”
Seifu’s campaign didn’t even last a week.
“I was registered on Friday,” Seifu said. “They started intimidating me on Saturday. I dropped out on Wednesday.”
Beyene, leader of the UEDF, said at least one candidate from his party faced an attempt on his family’s life.
“They torched a family when they were sleeping,” he said. “The father was running as a candidate on our ticket.”
The family, he said, escaped unharmed.
“That is our biggest success,” Beyene said wryly, “that no one has been killed.”
The National Electoral Board of Ethiopia said it has received complaints but cannot act without more evidence.
“Can they provide the evidence they were forced (to drop out)?” said board secretary Tesfaye Mengesha. “No, we asked them, they can’t. How can they say they are forced? It’s just an allegation.”
OFDM said it has determined that up to 3,000 candidates may have been forced to drop out, according to their internal records. Beyene, the leader of the other opposition party, said the party lost 14,000 candidates for local seats in western and southern Ethiopia.
“This is from our own records,” he said. “We maintain our own records and we tally who has passed, who has qualified and who has been dismissed. Our district managers compiled this information.”
Beyene said he again fears violence in constituencies where his party’s candidates have popular support. He also cited ethnic concerns and popular frustration with the nation’s political elite, which is dominated by Ethiopians from the northern Tigray region.
“My fear is that in many of these places there will be violence,” he said. “The worrisome point is how this society is being polarized. And this follows ethnic lines.”
Also Thursday, about 2,000 people gathered in central Addis Ababa to hold a rare political protest.
“We want to be free,” said Tayib Mohammed, 37, a member of the Welene, a predominantly Muslim tribe from the south of Ethiopia. That group also claims exclusion from the political process.
But despite promises by the government to bolster freedoms, many critics, opposition supporters and politicians feel democracy in Ethiopia has regressed since 2005.
“It has not gotten better,” said Bulcha, the opposition lawmaker. “Democracy in Ethiopia is stillborn. It is not active now.”
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