U.S. President Barack Obama scolded Ethiopia’s dictator Meles Zenawi during a brief one-to-one encounter at the G20 meeting in London on April 2. Obama reportedly told Meles that the human rights condition in Ethiopia is deplorable and unacceptable.

Following a meeting with Obama, Meles Zenawi, who was invited to represent New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD) at the G20 meeting, abruptly canceled a press conference he was about to give.

“His people gave no reasons for this. But insiders in the press center said Zenawi was worried about the kind of questions that were going to be put to him concerning human rights violations within Ethiopia and his dealing with his opponents and Ethiopia’s neighbors,” Henry Gombya of BSN reported.

“The African continent really wasn’t heard; South African President Motlanthe said he didn’t speak for the continent and Meles Zenawi cowered in the shadows,” Gombya writes.

By Jason McLure | Bloomberg

Ethiopia, Africa’s largest coffee producer, will start exporting beans itself after closing the warehouses of six of the country’s largest exporters, which it claims are stockpiling coffee and contributing to a shortage of foreign currency.

A drop in export income, because of a poor coffee harvest, weak world prices and a ban on Ethiopian beans in Japan, is being exacerbated by stockpiling, Eleni Gabre-Madhin, chief executive officer of the Ethiopian Commodity Exchange, said on March 27.

Today, the Horn of Africa nation said it would start exporting coffee via the state-owned Ethiopian Grain Trade Enterprise in a bid to improve the situation.

“Ethiopian Grain Trade Enterprise knows that it has the capacity to do this and it has a very good opportunity to fill this export gap,” said Berhane Hailu, the company’s general manager, by phone from Addis Ababa today.

The company has started trading coffee on the Ethiopian Commodity Exchange and is in talks with foreign buyers about exports, he said.

Ethiopia suspended the licenses of six of the country’s largest exporters last week after accusing them of hoarding coffee and illegally selling export-grade beans on the country’s domestic market.

The country has experienced shortages of hard currency over the past year, with the nation’s reserves falling to as little as $850 million, enough to cover just one month of imports, Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said on March 19. The shortfall has led to rationing and shortages, including cement and medical supplies, because companies can’t import goods or raw materials.

Foreign Currency

Ethiopian Grain Trade Enterprise may use the foreign currency from coffee exports to purchase and deliver wheat to Ethiopia’s urban poor as part of a government program to subsidize food prices, Hailu said.

Ethiopian coffee shipments have dropped more than 10 percent to 76,674 tons during the first eight months of the country’s fiscal year, compared with the same period a year earlier, according to the Trade Ministry.

The country has earned $221.7 million from coffee exports over the period, short of a government target of $446.7 million. Last year, the government also blamed rising food prices on hoarding by traders.

Hundreds of Ethiopians held a protest rally in London today (April 2) at the site of the G-20 meeting.

The protesters opposed the appearance of Ethiopia’s dictator Meles Zenawi at the meeting. They demanded the G-20 countries to stop financing the brutal dictatorship in Ethiopia.

The Ethiopian peaceful protesters are the biggest and most visible outside the G20, according to Rajiv Joshi, a coordinator for Global Call to Action Against Poverty .

Tamrat Layne and family the notorious Alcatraz Prison in California – March 2009

It is interesting to see that former {www:Woyanne} Prime Minister Tamrat Layne has now joined the ranks of some of the people he chased out of their country. Tamrat, who threw distinguished Ethiopian surgeon Prof. Asrat Woldeyes in jail and eventual death, is back as new person — as a Pentecostal minster — right here in the U.S. among us. It is ironic that the guy who denied freedom to millions of Ethiopians and took away the lives of so many of our compatriots is here amongst us visiting American cities and historical places such as the notorious Alcatraz Prison in northern California.

Many of our brothers and sisters under Tamrat’s orders were thrown out into the Alcatrazs of Ethiopia, or their bodies thrown to the sides of the road. Amhara peasants were massacred by angry mobs who were agitated by his ‘Tut Koreta’ (breast-cutting) Memorial Day celebrations in such places as Bedeno. The memorials were imaginary celebrations that were held to enrage the local Oromo Ethiopians and rise up against the Amara peasants who were identified as perpetrators of the imagined crime that alleged to have had occurred over 100 years ago. The agitation had worked and resulted in the slayings of hundreds of Amharas in Arsi and Harrar regions. It is these massacres that forced Prof. Asrat Woldeyes to establish an organization that would speak out against the killings and sufferings of Amhara Ethiopians.

Tamrat Layne and family at Golden Gate Bridge San Francisco – March 2009

Now, as a “family-man,” Tamrat is walking happily on Fisherman Wharf in San Francisco, visiting the famous Golden Gate Bridge, as if he has not denied the happiness of many families and violently took away the lives of many innocent loved ones.

Although Tamrat himself may have been thrown in jail after disagreement with his puppet-master Meles Zenawi, he had equally participated with other Woyane officials in ordering killings and unleashing sufferings against countless innocent Ethiopians. He remains a criminal at large that many Ethiopians would like bring to justice — no matter how religious he looks and sounds now.

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (World Bank) – The Ethiopian Government and the World Bank on March 14 officially launched the General Education Quality Improvement Program (GEQIP).

The project aims to support Ethiopia’s effort to improve the quality of general education through, among other things, improvements in teaching and learning conditions in primary and secondary institutions as well as management planning and budget capacity of the Ministry of Education and Regional Education Bureaus. Specific activities include a Teacher Development Program; curriculum, textbooks and assessment; education management information systems; and a school improvement program.

The program is supported by an International Development Association credit of US$50 million which is the first part of a two-phased Adaptable Program Loan, a loan that provides the borrower phased support for a long-term development program, and will leverage an estimated collective investment of US$417 million in additional resources from the Government and other development partners.

Around 16 million students in primary and secondary schools as well as 225,000 teachers are expected to benefit from the GEQIP.

Speaking at the launching ceremony, Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi stated that in addition to leveraging additional support, the program will also contribute to effectively achieving the education quality improvement goal. He reaffirmed the governments’ commitment to not only expanding education across the country, but to improving the quality of education.

During the launch event, the World Bank’s Country Director for Ethiopia Kenichi Ohashi indicated that Ethiopia is on the right track to achieve the Millennium Development Goals in the education sector and expressed appreciation for the efforts being made by the Ethiopian government to ensure quality education for all.

Genocide Watch, the international campaign to end genocide, has called on United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Justice Navanathem, to initiate an investigation against the government of Meles Zenawi. Genocide Watch cited the atrocities committed in Gambela against the Anuaks and ethnic Somalis in the Ogaden as examples of the crimes that have not been seriously investigated by the UN body.

In an open letter Genocide Watch President Dr Gregory Stanton wrote to the Commissioner, he commended the International Criminal Court for indicting the Sudanese President, Omar Hassan Al Bashir, but noted that “one of the first leaders to defend Omar al-Bashir and condemn the warrant was Prime Minister Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia, whose government has also been implicated in a pattern of widespread perpetration of serious human rights atrocities in Ethiopia and in Somalia.”

“He and those within his government may be keenly aware of their own vulnerability to similar actions by the ICC in the future that could upend a deeply entrenched system of government-supported impunity that has protected perpetrators from any accountability,” Dr Stanton noted.

The Genocide Watch President asserted that a UN investigation was justified due to the culture of impunity that existed within Ethiopia and underlined that “extensive documentation is available to examine the violations, most of which has been compiled in independent investigative reports completed by international human rights organizations.”

“We also believe that the Ethiopian people have been waiting long enough for genuine justice and relief from the harsh oppression and brutal tactics committed by a government that purports to be a partner in the War on Terror, while terrorizing their own people,” the letter noted.

Dr Stanton said that Genocide Watch and Survivors International confirmed that the atrocities committed in Gambela against the Anuaks in 2003 “fit the definitions of genocide and crimes against humanity. Human Rights Watch also conducted two investigations of their own and determined that the crimes against the Anuak meet the stringent definition of crimes against humanity.” He also indicated that Genocide Watch was willing in providing assistance to the Commission in carrying out the investigation.

“We in Genocide Watch, and other human rights organizations are determined to pursue justice, even long after violations have occurred, as part of our mission. Investigative reports, contacts and other information can be provided should you need them,” he said.