Last week, there was a great deal of teeth-gnashing, knuckle-cracking and gut-wrenching by Ethiopia’s dictators over Human Rights Watch’s (HRW) 2010 report. The dictators belched out much sound and fury that signified nothing. Their fury had to do with HRW’s conclusion that “Ethiopia is on a deteriorating human rights trajectory as parliamentary elections approach in 2010.” In blunt and unequivocal language, HRW whipsawed the dictators with the facts:
Broad patterns of government repression have prevented the emergence of organized opposition in most of the country. In December 2008 the government reimprisoned opposition leader Birtukan Midekssa for life after she made remarks that allegedly violated the terms of an earlier pardon. In 2009 the government passed two pieces of legislation that codify some of the worst aspects of the slide towards deeper repression and political intolerance. A civil society law passed in January is one of the most restrictive of its kind, and its provisions will make most independent human rights work impossible. A new counterterrorism law passed in July permits the government and security forces to prosecute political protesters and non-violent expressions of dissent as acts of terrorism. Ordinary citizens who criticize government policies or officials frequently face arrest on trumped-up accusations of belonging to illegal “anti-peace” groups, including armed opposition movements. Officials sometimes bring criminal cases in a manner that appears to selectively target government critics…
The dictators bellyached about HRW’s “unfairness” and bitterly complained about its malicious and willful blindness to the great strides and democratic achievements they have made over the past several years. “How could HRW overlook our prized Code of Conduct for Political Parties negotiated by 65 political parties?” they lamented. How could they disregard a “Code” that is so “impressive, transparent, free, fair, peaceful, democratic, legitimate and acceptable to the voters”? To add insult to injury, they even overlooked the appointment “by parliamentary acclamation” of a new human rights commissioner. No matter. All HRW cares about is carping about the “civil society and anti-terrorist laws” and fabricating stories about human rights abuses in the Somali Regional State. Those cynical and contemptible rascals have “no interest in, and no time for, any promising developments.” After all, they are just stooges and mouthpieces of the evil Ethiopian “dissident” Diaspora whose sole aim is to discredit the “democratic achievements” of the dictatorship.
When candidate Barack Obama ran for the U.S. presidency, he used a folksy idiom to describe John McCain’s pretensions as a new force of change in Washington. “That’s not change [McCain is talking about]. That’s just calling the same thing something different. But you know, you can put lipstick on a pig; it’s still a pig. You can wrap an old fish in a piece of paper and call it change; it’s still going to stink.”
Well, you can jazz up a bogus election in a one-man, one-party dictatorship with a “Code of Conduct”, but to all the world it is still a bogus election under a one-man, one-party dictatorship. You can appoint lackeys to issue a whitewash human rights report on “allegations” of abuse in the Ogaden and call it an objective inquiry commission report, but it is still a whitewash. You can appoint a fox to guard the chicken coop and call it safeguarding human rights, but the sly fox will not spare the chickens. You can put lipstick on dictatorship to make it look like a pretty democracy, but at the end of the day, it is still an ugly dictatorship!
Ethiopia’s dictators think we are all damned fools. They want us to believe that a pig with lipstick is actually a swan floating on a placid lake, or a butterfly fluttering in the rose garden or even a lamb frolicking in the meadows. They think lipstick will make everything look pretty. Put some lipstick on hyperinflation and you have one of the “fastest developing economies in the world”. Put lipstick on power outages, and the grids come alive with megawattage. Slap a little lipstick on famine, and voila! Ethiopians are suffering from a slight case of “severe malnutrition”. Adorn your atrocious human rights record by appointing a “human rights” chief, and lo and behold, grievous government wrongs are transformed magically into robust human rights protections. Slam your opposition in jail, smother the independent press and criminalize civil society while applying dainty lipstick to a mannequin of democracy. The point is, “You can wrap an old fish in a piece of paper and call it ‘democracy’ but after 20 years it stinks to high heaven!”
Of course, all the sound and fury is a calculated effort at misdirection. Instead of talking about the factual allegations in the HRW report, the dictators want to make Human Rights Watch the ISSUE. But HRW is one human rights organization that needs no lipstick to do its work, or to cover it up. HRW’s investigators do not work on a commission. They don’t get paid a dime for digging up mass graves in distant lands and conduct complex forensic studies. They make no money walking the scorching deserts for days and thumping the under brush in the tropical forests to interview remotely located civilian victims of war crimes and human rights abuse. HRW does not work for profit. They do their exceedingly difficult and dangerous work to prevent human rights abuse and to hold states, armed groups and others accountable for human rights violations. They receive their financial support largely from individual donations and gifts. HRW never takes sides in any conflict. To do their work, they do not make their own rules but use established international human rights conventions, treaties, domestic laws and resolutions of world bodies.
Vile accusations against HRW are not new. All governments and groups stung by HRW’s factual reports squeal like a stuck pig. They try to discredit HRW’s reports as methodologically flawed, unsubstantiated, speculative, slanted, unfair, biased and so on. They try to distract and misdirect public attention from the evidence of their criminality in the reports by attacking HRW as an antagonistic and politically vindictive organization. In the past few years, HRW has been vilified by those on opposite ends of the same conflict. Egypt and Saudi Arabia have called HRW a “Zionist” organization. The Israeli government has accused HRW of being “obsessed with Israel” and dubbed them “supporters of terrorism.” But HRW is an organization with the highest level of integrity. They will not back down from holding any government accountable, including the U.S. In its latest report, HRW praised President Obama for abolishing secret CIA prisons and banning all use of torture, but they clobbered him ferociously for “adopting many of the Bush administration’s most misguided policies” including the policy of “indefinite detention without charge” of “enemy combatants”.
There is no secret to HRW’s investigative work. They conduct extensive interviews of alleged victims of human rights abuse. They work with confidential informants in victims’ communities and gather evidence from others sources within a given country. They talk to officials and top political leaders and analyze government reports and any other relevant documentation and data. They conduct field investigations and their experts conduct forensic studies, perform ballistics tests and examine medical and autopsy reports. They always seek official permission to conduct their investigations, but most governments generally refuse or ignore the requests to enter their countries for such purposes. HRW has a rigorous system of checking and cross-checking facts. Before publication, HRW always presents its findings to the relevant governments for comment and feedback, and to incorporate changes and make corrections where appropriate. Often, regimes and governments remain silent and provide no feedback on the reports before publication. Once the reports are made public, governments sensitive to criticism unleash their spin-doctors to moan and groan about HRW in an attempt to capture media attention and deflect public scrutiny from the evidence in the reports that incriminate them.
“No one loves the messenger who brings bad news.” But attacking the messenger does not make a lie out of the message, just as putting lipstick on a pig does not make the pig a swan (perhaps a vulture).
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Alemayehu G. Mariam, is a professor of political science at California State University, San Bernardino, and an attorney based in Los Angeles. He writes a regular blog on The Huffington Post, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alemayehu-g-mariam/ and his commentaries appear regularly on Pambazuka News and New American Media.
African leaders gangsters have come in great numbers with great enthusiasm to Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa to get some more training in the art of robbery from the master of swindle, Meles Zenawi and his wife Jezebel.
Each one of these plunderers will introduce himself/herself to the chief thief, Meles Seitanawi, with pride and self confidence that they are all from Africa and that they have come to Addis Ababa to accomplish some pressing issues that their country, Africa, is facing today, and after the chief thief has recognized all of his guests and welcomed them to this beautiful city of Addis Ababa, whose old name, to some Oromos, is Finfinne, they will go quietly to their proper seats.
They have agreed that no camera is allowed while they are discussing certain and sensitive issues such as land dealing, export, import, investment, and one’s own assets. They all have agreed to talk about the pressing issue first, and they found out the urgent issue is how to protect their own personal assets.
Having mentioned some of the names of foreign banks where to put one’s own assets, they suggest that some African leaders with big assets – over a billion dollars – should put their assets in a safest foreign bank in the names of their own friends or families instead of their own names to avoid litigation from their own countries.
Next, they discuss about their personal safeties when there is a government change in their countries. They promise and swear in the name of God or Allah that they will keep their promises to grant a safe place to any African leader who flees his country for his safety and for the safeties of his own family, and whatever crime he may have committed and how much money he may have looted, he will be granted a safe haven in one of the African states.
Case in point, Mengistu Haile Mariam is still alive and enjoying life with his family in Harare, Zimbabwe; Al Bashir of Sudan, after he has been indicted by the International Tribunal Court for genocide against the Darfuri, is still in power and governing his country. Taking these two extraordinary examples and putting their prides on them, these Africans robbers feel more confidence on each other and are determined to loot their country and transfer their money to foreign banks. Again and again, they have promised to stick together to improve their own personal lives and the lives of their own friends and to isolate those who disagree with them and condemn them as advocates of terrorism in the Horn of Africa.
They claim they have the right to rent or give some of their fertile lands for foreign investors who can develop the land and hire more domestic workers and produce more food for the African hungry children and more revenues for their government, and this is one of the quickest ways to swindle money in the form of foreign investment, land development, and unfair taxation of the new companies.
The long term effect of land development is overshadowed by the short term of productivity from this rent-free land given to foreign developers. The long term effect is destroying the ecosystem of the land and changing the life styles of the inhabitants of the land and evicting them from their ancestral land without compensating them for the great lose of their land, their grazing pasture, their grave land, and their historical, cultural, religious, and recreational areas.
Engulfed with personal interests, avarice, lust, and power, these African robbers or leaders think less about their people and think more about themselves. They have come and gathered here in Addis Ababa to find some effective ways to hide their assets instead of sharing them with their own people, to protect their criminal friends rather than bringing them to justice, and to advocate democracy and the rule of law instead of continuing to run their countries in the same old and barbaric ways.
Winding up their unproductive discussions (of course the discussion is very fruitful for their personal interests) for the common people of Africa, and especially for Ethiopia, Somalia, and Eritrea, these daily and nightly robbers or leaders of African states have profusely expressed their deep gratitude to the unsparing hospitality of the Ethiopian people and especially the smiling faces, giggling, and kindness of the Addis Ababa beautiful damsels.
To my dear friend Barack Obama. I hope this letter finds you well. We are doing fine here in this location that will stay nameless. Except for that little matter of famine, deflation and inflation most things are under control thanks to the Pentagon, IMF, World Bank and hodam Diaspora.
I am writing you this letter to console you on that little loss your party suffered in Massachusetts. I feel your pain. On the other hand I feel compelled to share with you the art of election, politics and staying in power.
My dear Barrack, I am really sorry for not contacting you earlier to share my misgivings regarding your sincere and shallow view of elections. Bereket and myself have long concluded that your candidate was going to lose. I tried to call and warn you plenty of times but as usual most circuits were busy. You have only been in office one year. Take it from a person who has been in charge for over eighteen years governing is not a simple matter. We in this nameless place know it is not for the faint-hearted.
I understand you have mid year elections coming. I hope the debacle in Mass. Has opened your eyes. I would like to share my experience and offer a few suggestions at this time. You might not be aware of it but I was put in the same predicament a while back. It was the first time I tasted the bitter medicine of defeat and humiliation. I was forced to kill a few and jail a lot. I don’t want you to go through the same nightmare. I don’t wish that on no one, not even my nemesis Isaias. Azeb tells me I was impossible to live with. I believe her. I vowed it would never happen again. It took four years of preparations to guarantee a sure victory. I have upgraded the art of dictatorship to a higher level.
Well, here you go buddy this is my blueprint for a successful election. I gave the same advice to your predecessor (remember the Supreme Court decision regarding vote counting in Florida, let us just say I played a little part…wink) but I charged him for it. For you my black friend it is free. Don’t tell Aiga I called you a friend.
I notice you have only two major parties. What kind of choice is that? Here in this nameless place I have organized over fifty. Of course all are subsidiary of TPLF but no one has to know. They are organized as ethnic group based on birth or language. My own cadres change their names and are put in charge until we produce local cadres schooled by TPLF to take over. We were lucky to recruit and train Amhara and Oromo cadres during the time in the field. They are serving with distinction. I am sure you will not have any problem forming one party per state and a few more based on gender and color. In America you got homosexual and trans gender people what ever that is, so go ahead create a party for them too. The more the better. It impresses the ferengis.
Your biggest challenge will be the media. Here (nameless place) I solved that problem in a creative manner. First I amended the definition and requirement of owning means of communication. I created a few of my own and last but not least I have the unruly editors eliminated or exiled. The Reporter is my flagship publication. This might not work for you so another solution is needed. Blackmail and extortion might be more appropriate in your case. I have what is called ‘Musina Commission’. Their office is next door to mine. Here is where I collect all information. Information is power. I am aware you can’t exile your opposition but you sure can blackmail them.
There is also the problem of having your own security. I understand you can’t ask the FBI to do some of the dirty work required to safe guard the smooth operation of the constitutional order. I suggest creating your own force. Federal police and Agazi force has been a lifesaver for me. Your system has all this separation of power and accountability foolishness built into it. I say to you, go around it my dear Barrack. There is nothing empowering like having your own private militia. May I suggest importing some Kenyans from your father’s tribe? They will be loyal to you and most of all since they don’t speak the language there is less chance of contamination. Believe me you will have all these Senators and Representatives cowering in front of you. I know you will drool over a few of my pets here in Arat Kilo. My new addition to the manger has already shown promise of consideration for the presidency after the elections. I am satisfied with his performance both in Mekele and Bahr Dar.
Last but not least let us talk about elections. Remember they do have elections in China and Russia, you see my friend it is just a matter of definition. I suggest you use your new security to kidnap some of the opposition candidates, co-opt a few and jail others until the election is over. Needless to say you should have boxes and ballots processed and ready to be unveiled the evening of the election. I hate to say it but we were caught unprepared during our last election. It took us over six months to reprint and recount. Foreign observers are a curse. Avoid them at all cost. If at all possible demand observers from friendly regimes. I have already put my request for Zimbabwean, Nigerian, and Uzbek observers. Of course we have trained our own observers too. Most wouldn’t find the door in a studio apartment. Sweet.
I have noticed that you address your people with respect and heap all kinds of praise on your subjects. That is a definite no, no. There is nothing they love more than being degraded. It is always a good idea to humiliate them. The more you trample on them the bigger their respect for you. Fear is what humans understand. A leader should be feared. Love is for sissies. I suggest you manufacture a few incidents and use your security forces to show who the boss is. Inter ethnic, inter state or inter faith crisis is what is required to present yourself as a lifesaver. By all means encourage strife and show up to save the day. It is too bad you can’t invade Canada or Mexico. There is nothing like war to rally your subjects around you. Afghanistan is too far. What the heck go ahead and invade Mexico. Illegal alien threat is a good excuse to wave in front of your people.
There are a few kinks I have been tackling with Berket during our daily ‘bercha’. I could arrange a shipment of the best Harar or Yergachefe Kat if you are open to the idea. I find the experience enriching and Berket swears that I come up with the best ideas during our afternoon session. Anyway we still have not figured out what to do in case of a few misguided souls complaining after the election. I doubt I can get away with a little violence like the last time. Thanks to your liberal friends killing a few is not in fashion anymore. Despotism is not what it used to be.
I am a little worried about this renegade group called G7. Despite my request to have their leader deported back, your justice department has ignored me. May be you can intervene on behalf of your new friend. While you are at it could you talk to Gordon Brown and mention the other G7 terrorist in London. I will be indebted to you. Tell you what my friend I have a few well-respected torturers that I will be willing to lend you for your new security. They have impeccable credentials and have served in North Korea and Zimbabwe with distinction. Well Barrack I wish you good luck and please don’t hesitate to call me. I know the circuits are busy but you never know.
Meles Zenawi
TPLF chairman
EFFORT CEO
Prime Minster of name less place
Defense Minister
Finance Minster
NEPAD Chairman
P.S.- Please give my regards to Michelle and Azeb profoundly apologizes for that little incident in Pittsburgh. I promise not to bring her during the next G20 meeting. I know you will help me with the invite. I promise to behave and not follow you around for a Kodak moment. XoXo.
ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA — China’s minister for commerce says trade with Ethiopia will reach $3 billion by 2015
ASK AN Addis Ababa taxi driver to take you to Ethio-China Friendship Road and he might just scratch his head.
The renaming of Wollo Sefer, one of the Ethiopian capital’s main thoroughfares, in tribute to the country’s burgeoning ties with Beijing might be obvious from the new street signs but it has yet to filter down to everyday use.
The road is not the only marker of China’s growing engagement with Ethiopia.
Addis Ababa’s ultramodern airport was built by the Chinese, as was the city’s ring road and flyover.
An extensive renovation of the African Union headquarters in downtown Addis is being financed by the Chinese to the tune of more than $100 million (€71 million).
Across the city, a Chinese government-built school, designed to cater for up to 3,000 students, offers Mandarin classes as part of its curriculum.
Scores of Ethiopians have been given scholarships to study subjects including engineering and architecture in China.
The Chinese restaurants and clinics advertising acupuncture and traditional herbal remedies that have become part of the landscape in almost every African city in recent years are here too. According to local media, some 1,000 Chinese companies operate in Ethiopia.
Besuited Chinese businessmen can be seen discussing deals in Addis hotel lobbies, while engineers and others fresh from working on road and telecommunications projects or building power stations and water supply systems haggle for souvenirs in the city’s sprawling Merkato before flying home to Beijing.
In some Ethiopian towns and villages, it is not uncommon for foreigners to find themselves being greeted by children yelling “China, China”.
Earlier this month Chen Deming, China’s minister for commerce, was in town predicting that trade volume between the two countries will reach $3 billion by 2015. Chinese investment in Ethiopia amounted to just under $1 billion last year, and there is much talk of future investment in agricultural projects.
“China and Ethiopia have been mutually supportive on the political front and closely co-operating on the economic front,” Chen said, going on to use the stock expression Chinese officials trot out when discussing relations with African states: “It is fair to regard the Sino-Ethiopian friendship as an all-weather one.”
China’s new engagement with Africa has played out very differently across the continent, helping revitalise moribund economies in some countries, while breeding resentment elsewhere due to support for unsavoury regimes, poor work practices and threatened local industries.
There have been a few cautionary tales for the Chinese along the way. In 2007, for example, nine Chinese oil workers were killed and seven briefly kidnapped in the restive Ogaden area of eastern Ethiopia.
Ethiopian prime minister genocidal dictator Meles Zenawi says African states must be prudent in setting the parameters of the relationship.
“The Chinese interest in Ethiopia has been nothing short of a godsend,” he tells The Irish Times.
“We have benefited massively from it, but like everything else it is capable of becoming a nightmare . . . It is up to the host countries as to how they use the available resources from the Chinese in the best possible manner. Those who do will benefit, those who don’t may not benefit as perhaps they ought to.”
China’s assistance in building infrastructure and its investment in manufacturing has been invaluable for Ethiopia, Meles says.
“We need investment from any quarter we can get it. The Chinese have been more aggressive in investing in Ethiopia than many others and our hope is that Chinese investment will entice not only additional Chinese investment but also investment from other countries.”
But, as in every African country wooing Beijing, there is debate over who stands to gain. A 2008 study by an economist at Addis Ababa University noted that while Ethiopian consumers will benefit from cheap Chinese imports, small local firms, particularly in the clothing and footwear sectors, will lose out.
Opposition figures, like many of their counterparts elsewhere in Africa, mutter darkly about deals agreed behind closed doors, and speculate on the motives of both the government and Beijing.
One told me he suspects that the Meles regime sees China’s overtures as an opportunity to shore up support where it matters on the world stage.
Whatever way the debate shifts, however, the one thing everyone seems to agree on is that the Chinese are here to stay.
You are hereby warned; you are being given notice of your eviction from the country. You are no longer welcome here. Find a new place to live. We do not care where. All we want is your land, water and resources. They are no longer yours; but now are ours. If you resist, you will suffer the consequences. On the other hand, if you are willing to become part of a neo-slave labor force or to silently give up any claims to anything, you may stay as long as you are useful and compliant. We and our partners stand to make millions, if not billions, from this new economic investment and we will tolerate NO interference from you! Truly not yours, The Anti-Ethiopian TPLF/EPRDF government of the few elite and entitled
The grabbing of fertile land going on in Ethiopia is not just rhetoric, fear mongering or in one’s imagination; but instead, it is real and happening at a ferocious pace all over the country. It will change Ethiopia forever and the major damage may be done by the end of 2010. We in the SMNE covered some of ways it has already impacted Ethiopians in our New Year’s article, Reflection Brings Questions read more…. Since then, we have seen additional alarming reports in the media and received new information from the ground. What we conclude is unless Ethiopians act quickly to stop this, we will no longer have a country to call our own.
Why in the world would a government sell off its land and natural resources, much of which will be exported, especially being a beggar nation that feeds many of its people with food grown in foreign countries? It defies common sense, which makes it all the more dangerous. In the SMNE, we cannot be silent during this abusive exploitation and move towards making Ethiopia a slave state. Our family members have been displaced while foreigners are thriving. One can see that what this government wants is the land and resources but not the people.
Ethiopians, whose ancestors have lived for centuries on the same land, are discovering that they no longer have any rights to it. Ethiopians, especially the most marginalized, are at risk of being evicted from their ancestral lands as it is being leased for almost nothing—and for many decades—to Ethiopian-owned and foreign-owned multi-national corporations, countries, banks and wealthy individuals. Businesses or investments owned by the ruling party, their family members and their supporting friends, both Ethiopians and non-Ethiopians, are capitalizing on this new opportunity to exploit new money-making schemes, only available to political and financial supporters of the Marxist-Leninist leaning Ethiopian government that still prohibits its own citizens from owning land.
This betrayal of the Ethiopian people is being carried out by a greedy group at the top, willing to exercise its military brute strength to get its way; on the other hand, the way it is being executed reveals the desperation of a tottering government, willing to go to any means to get the necessary hard currency needed to better shore up their loosening control of the country. This is a legitimate concern on their part due to the increasing anger of the people; yet, these actions are simply fueling more anger that will require more force and money to contain.
From the reaction we are seeing to this newest wave of shocking violations of the peoples’ rights, the Ethiopian Constitution, international human rights laws and God-given universal moral laws, it is only increasing the inevitability that this regime will eventually be ousted.
The objections of the Ethiopian people are not about economic growth and development, foreign and private investment or capitalism in general if these were undergirded by appropriate legal protections and procedures. Instead, their objections are about the exploitation of the people, many of the most vulnerable, who are being robbed of all they own while the government threatens them into submission; sometimes literally holding a gun to their heads. This is happening all over the country.
Look at these few pictures from Gambella, showing some of the 200 pieces of construction and agricultural equipment which have recently arrived in Gambella town, purchased by Mohammed Ali Al-Amoudi’s company, Saudi Star Agricultural Company, which now leases 10,000 hectares of land—just a start since he supposedly wants some 250,000 hc in total. Five hundred trucks are said to be arriving in February, just a portion of an additional 1500 to 2000 trucks said to be in the plans.
In the Abobo area of the Gambella region, Al-Amoudi has already started clearing the ground. The location he is now clearing was land held by the Federal government as a natural reserve for wild life. The local people have been told to not speak to outsiders. We also have reports that Al-Amoudi had a meeting with the governor, Omod Obang Olom, where he told him he wanted the Anuak in the Diaspora to be silenced; saying he was willing to hire (bribe) people from the Diaspora who could counter any claims of exploitation with claims that this was going to benefit the people.
Al-Amoudi is now also destroying forests in the Mazengir area, located in the area of Gomerra on the border between Gambella and the Southern Nations.
In Ilea, 35 K east of Gambella town, where the East Indian company, Karuturi Global, is clearing thousands of hectares of some of the most fertile Anuak indigenous land, he is in the process, cutting down the valuable Shea trees, which are a rich source of high quality cooking oil, lotions and food.
Gambella is one of the few remaining areas where Shea trees can still be found in Africa, trees that take twenty years to reach maturity. These trees were the focus of study at Addis Ababa University, where researchers recommended that this area become a protected reserve, but now Karuturi has fourteen tractors working daily to destroy this precious and endangered natural resource.
Even more upsetting to the Anuak is the clearing and destruction of Anuak burial ground. However, they are afraid to speak up in protest because if they do, the government will arrest them. The company has joined with the government in also warning the people to not talk about all of this at risk of being arrested and losing their jobs. Instead, they have been told, if a reporter approached them with such questions as to whether they would be receiving any compensation for their land, they were to say that the company was planning to do something in the future. However, no contracts or agreements have been signed and no details given.
The Meles government has now requested 90,000 hectares of land close to Gambella town, for their own use. In fact, what they are doing is claiming this land for EPRDF government supporters. Now, people from anywhere in the country, as well as those living in the Diaspora, can go to the Ethiopian Embassy, pay $500 and receive a yellow identification card, giving him or her, the right to invest in Ethiopia.
Now, many of these people are coming into Gambella and making formal requests for this land. In other words, someone from the EPRDF can say they want a certain amount of land, but do not have to pay for it. Instead, they are given a certificate that they now own this land, giving them “the capital” to now borrow money from the Ethiopian bank to pay off the land loan and even invest in another business.
At the same time, the indigenous people of Gambella are being displaced from their land, get no compensation for it and no opportunity to obtain such loans; particularly if they are not EPRDF members—members who will of course, later be expected to vote for the ruling party in the upcoming election!
While this is all going on, for the first time in memory, the self-sufficient people of Gambella are experiencing a drought and many are threatened with hunger and starvation just as their lands are being taken over by outsiders. Meles alleges that the Gambella regional government gave him the green light to assume control over the leasing of the land because the people of Gambella are too uneducated to do it. However, when you ask the people, even those in some positions of authority in Gambella, they will tell you that the government simply took over the land without ever consulting them.
But by now, you know, everything done by the government of Ethiopia is based on deceit. When Meles calls the people of Gambella uneducated, he fails to mention the fact that there is not a single university or college in the entire region; despite the building of many universities in his own Tigrean region and other regions since he came to power twenty years ago. He also fails to explain why his government troops targeted the most educated leaders in the Anuak massacre of December 13-15, 2003. Marginalization of the people in coveted sections of the country can mean “exploitive opportunity” for shrewdly manipulative leaders like Meles; yet, it leaves the silenced people, victims of an apartheid system, similar to South Africa.
The people of Gambella will say that this land was not given to us by Meles, by Meles’ father or by his mother, but by God. As one Anuak summed it up, “Our pain is internal. We are bleeding from the inside from everything we see around us daily. How long before it explodes, I don’t know, but when it does, I don’t know what price any of us will pay—we the owners of the land or those who are exploiting us. Time will tell.”
This discrimination is immoral and shameful and only creates more simmering tensions among the people that could erupt someday. We have heard that the same thing has been going on for even longer in Welkayit Tegede, a very fertile part of the Amhara region. Victims of these land grabs are forced to stand by while their ancestral land is given away and their children pushed aside. Now, in the Welkayit Tegede area, formerly the Amhara region, but in the process of being acquired by the Tigrean region, everyone, for the first time, is required to speak Tigrean. If they refuse or are unable to comply, they are told to leave the area and go to the Amhara region. Most of the people in Welkayit Tegede have already lost their ancestral land this way.
In the southeastern part of Ethiopia, a recent conflict erupted between civilians and militias, loyal to the ruling party. It occurred in the Ogadeni province of Shiniile following a protest over the government’s confiscation of 60,000 hectares of the most fertile land, allegedly sold—or leased—to a Chinese consortium or to highlanders, migrating to the region.
These are just a few reports, but the same thing is going on in the Afar region, in Beninshangul-Gumuz, in Oromia, in Southern Nations and wherever there is desirable land or resources. Reports have included allegations by the new Ethiopian laborers that they are not being treated with respect.
I was told about a man working on a farm in Bako outside of Addis Ababa who demanded better treatment for the local people from their East Indian company, Karuturi Global, employer. The East Indian man accused him of having an attitude and asked him about what tribe he belonged to, accusing him of being an Amhara. He said, “We were told that the Amhara are the stubborn, control-freaks and that this is not your time.” He fired the man. Who told this man such prejudicial opinions about the ethnicity of Ethiopians?
Ethiopia—the land, the water, the resources and the people—are now being sold to the highest bidder by none other than their own government under the dictatorial leadership of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi—a “neo-slave trader” of the 21st century. Human beings have been sold since the beginning of time; often by those closest to them, but as a society, most of us hoped this was in the past.
Jesus was betrayed by Judas who “turned on him” for thirty pieces of silver. Joseph, one of the patriarchs of the Bible, respected by Jews, Muslims and Christians, was sold by his own brothers for twenty shekels of silver to slave traders going to Egypt.
During the years of African slavery, it was usually not the western slave traders who captured the Africans to be sold; but instead, it was opportunistic Africans who preyed on other “tribes” they devalued or with whom they competed, making profitable deals for themselves at the expense of these other human lives. We know the rest of that tragic story that only came to an end when people of moral and political will stood up against this structural evil.
During the invasion of Ethiopia by Mussolini’s Italy in 1934-1941, there were Ethiopians who took bribes from the Italians and betrayed Ethiopia for a price. None of this is new, but unfortunately, we now have new turncoats and slavers in our midst and it is the EPRDF government of Meles. The inherent reason for government is to protect its people and to enhance their well being; however, in Ethiopia, the opposite is true. The people need protection from this oppressive government that uses force, lies and a perversion of justice to confiscate anything they want. If the people get in the way, they are expendable.
If we, the people of Ethiopia do not quickly take action, Ethiopians living on their ancestral land will soon be considered trespassing and the laws of a corrupted land will evict them. Ethiopia will no longer be owned by Ethiopians, but will be under the control of outsiders and a handful of elite. We will either have to leave the country or become the neo-slaves of the 21st century. This is intolerable and unacceptable. What would possess a leader of a country to do this?
Everything he is doing is a contradiction between talk and action. A month ago Meles was in Copenhagen begging for billions of dollars to protect the African forests, but here he is in Ethiopia, destroying our forests and giving the land away for nothing rather than feeding Ethiopians. It is immoral. It is time for all Ethiopians to stand together to stop this craziness. This should unify all, including the many people fighting in liberation fronts: the Gambella Liberation Front, Ogaden National Liberation Front, the Oromo Liberation Front, the Afar Liberation Front, the Sidamo Liberation Front and the Benishangul Liberation Front. If we do not act together now, you may not have a region to liberate for by the time you do, it may already have been sold to the Chinese, India, Saudi Arabia or some other country.
This is the time for all of us to come together and to stand up as one people to save the country. Let us save our people from being sold into slavery. The land belongs to all of us and is where our ancestors are buried. This should unify us.
This savage attitude of Meles must be stopped so for those who are in liberation fronts and for those who are not; let us liberate our thinking from tribalism and free the country! Fighting alone is what gives Meles the green light to do what may quickly become irreversible damage.
We do not have the luxury of remaining separate anymore for if we do, we will be finished. Then we will share in defeat. Instead, let us reconcile and stand together as one nation of people who will value each other, passing on a blessing rather than a curse to our descendents. May God help us and save Ethiopia from destruction!
(Please do not hesitate to email me if you have comments: [email protected])
ADDIS ABABA (The Economist) — Worries about Ethiopia’s election, due in May, are growing. Aid-giving Western governments hope it will pass off without the strife that followed the last one, in 2005, when 200 people were killed, thousands were imprisoned, and the democratic credentials of Meles Zenawi, despite his re-election, were left in tatters.
Though poor and fragile, Ethiopia carries a lot of weight in the region. A grubby election could worsen things in neighbouring Sudan, where civil war threatens to recur. The borderlands near Kenya, where cattle raiding, poaching and banditry are rife, would become still more dangerous. A renewal of unrest in Ethiopia would be exploited by its [Woyanne regime] arch-enemy, Eritrea, which already backs sundry rebel groups in an effort to undermine the country’s government Woyanne. And it could make matters even worse in Somalia, where jihadist fighters linked to al-Qaeda want to weaken “Christian” Ethiopia, where a third of the people are in fact Muslim. Foreign intelligence sources have long feared a jihadist attack in Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa.
Ethiopia is a country of contradictions. With its present population of around 82m growing by 2m a year, it is poised to overtake Egypt as Africa’s second-most-populous country after Nigeria, with around 150m. It hosts the seat of the African Union. It runs one of Africa’s biggest airlines. This year its economy is predicted to grow by 7%, one of the fastest rates in the world [according to the Meles regime]. It is wooing foreign investors with offers to lease 3 million hectares of arable land [pushing out local farmers]. It is expensively branding its coffee for export.
Yet the grim side is just as striking. Hunger periodically stalks the land. Some 5m people rely on emergency food to survive; another 7m get food aid. Few people benefit from the country’s free market [the beneficiaries are only members of the ruling party]. Ethiopia has one of Africa’s lowest rates of mobile-phone ownership [to keep the people in the dark age]. Income per head is one of the most meagre in the continent.
All this is the responsibility of Mr Meles’s Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), which has run the show since 1991. The party is dominated by former Marxist rebels from Tigray, even though Tigrayans, among them Mr Meles, make up only 6% of Ethiopia’s population. Not that Tigrayans want to cling to power, says Mr Meles brusquely. It is just that Ethiopia needs consistency to pursue a long-term development agenda. And the EPRDF can point to some successes. Since Mr Meles came to power, infant mortality has fallen by half, school attendance has risen dramatically and life expectancy has increased from 45 to 55 years.
Nourishing a liberal democracy or upholding human rights, however, has never been central to that agenda, even less so after Mr Meles clobbered the opposition in 2005. Some Western diplomats insist, implausibly, that politics has got better since. The government and some opposition parties have, for instance, signed a code of conduct for the coming election. Some of the opposition groups are genuine, but others are in hock to the EPRDF. In any case, the main opposition grouping, Forum, refused to join the talks, arguing that the EPRDF would exploit any agreement for its own ends. The government has been smothering potential sources of independent opposition, such as foreign and local NGOs. It insists it does not censor the press, but newspapers continue to close and independent journalists are moving abroad. Some farmers allege they are being denied food aid for political reasons.
Forum is demanding the release of one its leaders, Birtukan Mideksa, from prison. She was jailed with other opposition figures after the 2005 election, later pardoned, then arrested again. She is unlikely to be let out again before the poll as she could, some say, pose a real threat to the EPRDF in Addis Ababa and other cities.
Yet most Western governments seem keen to downplay Mr Meles’s human-rights record, hoping his re-election will keep his country stable. America is to disburse $1 billion in state aid to Ethiopia this year, more if covert stuff is included. Ethiopia can expect a similar amount from the European Union, multilaterally and through bilateral arrangements with Britain and others. And climate-change deals may bring Mr Meles even more cash.
