ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) – The European Union has agreed to monitor Ethiopia’s elections in May, nearly five years after Addis Ababa accused the EU’s chief observer in the last poll of helping to spark violence.
The U.S.-based Carter Centre declined an invitation to observe, saying there was not enough time to prepare for the May 23 vote in the impoverished nation on the Horn of Africa.
“(EU foreign affairs chief) Baroness (Catherine) Ashton last week decided to send a full observation team for the elections,” EU ambassador to Ethiopia, Dino Sinigallia, said late on Tuesday on state-run Ethiopian television.
The monitoring team will be 200-strong and have a budget of about $10 million, Sinigallia said.
Next month’s election will be the first since a government victory in 2005 was disputed by opposition parties and some observers. Monitors said the poll fell short of global standards.
Security forces killed about 200 protesters and imprisoned the main opposition leaders in the aftermath of the vote five years ago.
Prime Minister Meles Zenawi had accused the chief EU observer of siding with the opposition and stoking the violence.
Some critics and analysts say that the EU presence at the coming election risked legitimising a fraudulent poll, in a country of 80 million people and more than 80 ethnic groups.
“The mission won’t be able to properly observe,” one analyst, who did not want to be named for fear he would be refused entry to Ethiopia, told Reuters.
PORTSMOUTH, UK (Portsmouth.co.uk) — Geologist Jason Read, 39, died on Monday, April 5, when his military escort were ambushed in the conflict ridden region of Ogaden in Ethiopia.
Mr Read was killed and his guards wounded before they were able to return fire.
Mr Read, well known in the Portsmouth area as Justin Packham before he changed his name approximately 15 years ago, had been working in Ethiopa for a geophysics company based in Derbyshire.
In a statement, his father, Stan Packham, said: ‘Justin lived his life to the full and made many friends. He will be sadly missed by a lot of people.
‘Everyone who knew him would have a different story to tell about him.
‘He was due to come home to see Pompey play in the semi-finals, but he never made it. He was Pompey-mad and would have been so pleased to see them win.
‘He grew up in Paulsgrove as a youngster and went to the City of Boys school.
‘He was extremely close to his grandmother. Wherever he was in the world, he would always send her a postcard and a gift home.
‘Justin loved his work because he hated being out of work. We’re a very large, close family. Justin’s got three brothers and a sister, and was uncle to 11 nieces and nephews. He’s also got two step-brothers and a step-sister
‘When he was home, he adored the kids. He went to see each one of his brothers and sisters to spend time with all of them. But once he’d done that, he had to get back to work wherever it was; he hated being out of work.
‘When Justin was 18, he bought a one-way ticket to Hong Kong and slept rough for about six weeks before he got a job at the airport. He ended up driving trucks with massive wheels without even knowing how to drive. When he came back to England, he flew straight back out to Germany to work with me as a bricklayer again.
‘It takes a certain breed of worker to do the jobs he did. He’s been to Uganda, Ethiopa, Madagascar, Somalia as well as Europe with the same firm.
‘He knew what to expect from the job he was doing. The firm, Tesla IMC, has been very good. They’ve been very supportive throughout.’
ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA — A three-day conference that focused on good governance, peace and security as well as sustainable development in Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa ended over the weekend in the Washington-Metro Area of Arlington, Virginia. Horn of Africa Conference in Washington DC, April 2010
Aklog Birara, a senior advisor at the World Bank and an organizer of the conference, said it was a soul-searching conference, adding that Ethiopia’s future and that of the Horn of Africa will largely depend on the talent pool of experts in the Diaspora.
“One of the features that really attracted me is the fact that it (conference) drew a cross-section of experts — foreign experts, Europeans, Americans, Ethiopians, and Ethiopian-Americans from different backgrounds. Overall, there were more than 70 speakers on different topics,” he said.
The conference organized by Advocacy for Ethiopia (AFE) and the Ethiopian National Priorities Consultative Process attracted specialists, former diplomats, human rights activists, and scholars, as well as top officials of the international community.
Birara said the conference also focused on how countrymen living abroad can help improve the lives of Ethiopians back home.
“The focus was on Ethiopia, the Ethiopian people, and the Horn of Africa particularly. What is it that all of us can do that will make a difference in terms of the ordinary people in Ethiopia. What is it that we can provide in terms of really engendering hope (and) aspiration. Bridging relations, for example, across ideological and ethnic lines,” Birara said.
The organizers believe that development in Ethiopia, the stability and its viability, as well as peace and economic development in the region are tied to how Addis Ababa and the international donor community can work together to address previously unmet challenges.
They also said the stakes for Ethiopia and its population of 83 million people are higher than at any other time in its history.
Birara said unity and dialogue among Ethiopians could help rebuilding efforts.
“One of the areas that we tried to explore was we can’t just be constant critics. How is it that we can bridge relationships in order to contribute our part at least in building durable, strong-pluralized institutions in Ethiopia? I think the fact is that we do not reach out to one another across ethnic lines. Dialogue among us, you know. And also dialogue between the opposition parties and government. We need to really accentuate the reaching out,” Birara said.
He added that if Ethiopians fail to come together, the challenges facing the country will persist.
Alexandria, VIRGINIA (NBC News) — Alexandria Police are searching for a man they believe murdered his own 3-year-old daughter and the child’s mother.
34-year-old Simon Bahta Asfeha is now wanted for first-degree murder in the deaths of 27-year old Seble Tessema and their child, according to police. Tessema and Asfeha reportedly had a prior relationship, but don’t appear to have been married.
Police were called out to the Brent Place apartments off of 375 S. Reynolds Street around 10:30 a.m. for reports of a domestic disturbance. Instead, they found the bodies of the mother and child. “They found two victims deceased on an apartment on the 14th floor. We’re investigating the case as a suspicious death right now,” said Deputy Chief of Alexandria Police Blaine Corle.
Asfeha is reportedly driving a 1999 silver Acura with Virginia tags XKS-1522. Anyone with information is asked to call the Criminal Investigations Section of the Alexandria Police Department at 703.838.4444 or the Crime Solvers tip line at (703) 838-4858. Detectives would like to remind witnesses that they remain anonymous.
First, I would like to thank those who organized this meeting—Advocacy for Ethiopia and the Ethiopian National Priorities Consultative Process for their excellent job in creating this historic event. We need more meetings like this and I hope it is beginning to not only talk, but that it will lead to action that will benefit all of us. It has been a wonderful experience so far to come together to listen, to learn and to hear different views on a region of the world about which we all care deeply.
I was asked to talk about the campaign to end impunity. I changed the title just a bit to: Embracing Truth: A Means to End a Culture of Impunity in Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa.
The reason is that impunity is about hiding or denying the truth. Jesus said, “The truth shall set us free.” If this is true, then the lack of truth will enslave us. The lack of truth has been enslaving us for over sixty years and will continue to enslave us until we deal with it head on and begin to embrace truth in every part and sector of our society. Ethiopia has become a culture where lies, deception, cover-up, hidden motives and blatant injustice cover up countless deeds of evil. In such a culture of impunity, the worst actions of the powerful are rewarded and the best, most courageous and most honest of our people are punished for their attempts to expose the truth.
Impunity is also encouraged where people hold to rigid assumptions about the greater worth and dignity of oneself and one’s own select group, in relation to the lesser worth and dignity of another human being, which may be based on ethnicity, regionalism, political alliances, religion, gender, skin color, education and other superficial distinctives. It makes it easier to exclude, exploit and abuse those you devalue and dehumanize while justifying your own and your group’s self-interests; particularly feeling that you should not have to be held accountable for what you do.
Consider our past:
* Feudalism and crimes of Haile Selassie
* Red Terror
* Meles—pattern of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes:
* 2003 Anuak genocide—no one yet brought to justice
* 2005 election—no one yet brought to justice
* Current genocide, War Crimes and Crimes against humanity in the Ogaden
For the last sixty years, no one has been found accountable in this country. Impunity has reigned under every regime. Our current culture of impunity is founded on history and has become a sign of a deeply dysfunctional system that is destroying us.
Impunity often begins with wanting something. Instead of working for it or accepting that we cannot have it, we try to get it in the wrong way and trample on someone else’s rights in the process. These desires can be powerful and caving in to them has led many into trouble. Once in trouble, we fear being discovered and being held responsible for what we have done. The best decision is to face up to the truth and accept the consequences of our actions; however, oftentimes, this is not easy. Many do not want to pay the penalty for what they have done and if they are in a position of power, they use that power to escape accountability.
Impunity is all about the desire to cover up for one’s wrongdoing—to “get away with it!” This can also include covering up for one’s family, clan, ethnic group or cronies. This is one of the oldest flaws of human nature; first recorded in the very first chapters of the Biblical book of Genesis. God had told Adam and Eve they could eat of any tree in the garden but one. The serpent tempted them, but they gave in to the desire. Eve ate first and then Adam. When God asked Adam if he had eaten the apple, did he accept responsibility? No, he blamed Eve. When God questioned Eve, did she admit? No, she blamed the serpent.
The first crime—a murder—was committed by Adam and Eve’s son, Cain, who killed his brother, Abel. Cain covered up the murder and tried to hide from God but could not. When God asked him about his brother, he became angry and defensive, trying to cover up by not answering the question; instead asked, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” It is called deception. God said his brother’s blood cried out and that Cain would be banished. Cain still was not sorry for what he had done, but only expressed self-pity and worry about himself. How far have we come since? Not very far for it is our problem we face today.
The attitude of wanting to cover-up one’s own crimes or to blame someone else is part of every human experience, but usually, in well functioning, healthy societies, families, communities, one’s own conscience, religious institutions and the rule of law hold people accountable. The laws are just, fair and equally applied to all members of society, regardless of power, privilege, wealth or position. No one is above the law—even those at the top—and it prevents most people from committing crimes because they fear the expected penalties. Under these circumstances, societies can flourish with most citizens voluntarily complying. Justice is predictable and not dependent on the political calculations of any powerful individual or group. Peoples’ trust in the institutions increases to the benefit of all.
Now, go to the opposite negative extreme and you get Ethiopia where those on top can do as they please. The guilty are found innocent and the innocent can be found guilty. In Ethiopia, what kind of justice you get depends on whether or not you are a part of the: “inside family of the TPLF,” part of the TPLF repressive system of puppets all over the country or simply call yourself a government supporter, if only in name. On the negative side, if you are an outspoken critic, a political opponent, a resistor of something the TPLF wants, or simply a scapegoat for someone else, you can be assured of being treated as an enemy of the state.
Let’s go back in history. During the empire, a few elite on top totally escaped being held accountable for any of their crimes, which were many. It was the reason the Ethiopian people rose up in a revolution that brought Haile Selassie down. Then Mengistu came in and again, those at the top who were guilty of committing many crimes against the people, escaped justice. When the oppressed people of Ethiopia rose up against him, he brutally clamped down on the people and his regime became known for the “Red Terror.”
Human rights experts estimate that maybe 500,000—half a million people—were killed during his era in power. Now we have Meles and people are again rising up against a system of impunity and terror. It is only a matter of time before history repeats itself as is being done in many other places; for example in Kyrgyzstan, where the people overthrew the government only a few days ago.
In Ethiopia, the rule of law has failed for over sixty years. It affects every sector of society and until it is fixed, Ethiopia will never rise up out of its misery. It is a systemic problem based on denying the truth, making immoral choices, elitism and dehumanizing everyone but yourself and your particular group.
What Can Be Done?
We do not have to wait for regime change to hold the guilty responsible for their crimes. Even this conference is a means to break down impunity by exposing what is happening. At some later date, there may be charges, trials, reparations and methods of transitional justice—all of which we should be thinking about—but for now, I would like to mainly concentrate on the following immediate actions:
Exposure, Exposure, Exposure: Impunity weakens under exposure!
a. Show truth, inconsistencies, illegal practices, vulnerabilities where they exist now and make it public; holding parties accountable where possible.
b. Collect info from the ground—must go to some work to gather ACCURATE information from as many areas/regions as possible and should include: testimonies, reports, facts, pictures, video.
c. Research- so have a factual basis for efforts both now and in the future where information will be important. For instance, Genocide watch interviewed victims and witnesses within approximately six weeks of the genocide, making the information much more reliable than trying to do it now.
d. Develop teams/ think tanks to work on specific important areas of their expertise; for example, money laundering, privatization of national monopolies, foreign investment (land, mineral rights, water, oil, etc), environment, transitional justice, security, etc.
e. Research laws, applications and appropriate legal resources that could be utilized now within and outside of Ethiopia.
f. Use Media to get info out and to provide new facts, research and incidents.
g. Target strategic groups (donor govt.s, NGO’s, faith groups, multinational corporations, etc- get info to best groups for actions and ask for specific actions. Some groups already know the truth, but until it is exposed publicly, they won’t do anything-find out what that is—there may be a threshold where once it is crossed, this regime becomes a liability rather than an asset.
h. Hold as many perpetrators and those complicit with them, accountable now
1. Make it public: list those who are guilty or complicit –name who is who and who is doing what
2. Make clear to them what can happen as a consequence now or later
3. See if you can hold those co-conspirators, outside of Ethiopia, accountable by laws of their own country
Do the Same in all Sectors of Ethiopian Society: The tentacles of impunity reach to every sector of Ethiopian Society; the entire system is broken and should be confronted:
1. Government/parliament
2. Election, election board, voting, observers, etc
3. Business-dealings where Impunity may not last
a. Ethiopia—wide-scale corruption
b. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA)-
c. Ethiopia an at-risk country for money laundering, terroristic funding
d. Expose bribes, kickbacks, deals, etc
e. Expose consequences of doing business through impunity
4. Justice – expose names of judges, prosecutors, practices
5. Banking and finance, national treasure, monopolies
6. Land/mineral/natural resources
7. Development
8. Human rights
9. Educational system
10. Military
11. Religious groups (encouraged to stand against systemic impunity, injustice, oppression, corruption, repression)
Rationale for SMNE: Why I became part of this Solidarity Movement for a New Ethiopia
* the old Ethiopia is unacceptable
* Rationale: Many of my people killed and reason I became involved was because the survival of my people depend on everyone else—a system
* Learned, we Ethiopians are not exception, but instead, like other countries that have hurt others
* Led to form something to speak out about everyone and so created solidarity movement
* Based on moral principles because only way to de-construct impunity is from the inside out!
* Only the healing of a system of oppression and injustice will bring about a New Ethiopia
* Begins with a flawed mindset based on lies; must be replaced with God-given truth
Principles to freedom, justice and to ending impunity
1. Humanity before ethnicity–Impunity made us lose our humanity or Ethiopian-ness (some don’t like name Ethiopia, but among the marginalized, I am among the most marginalized. To genuinely stop impunity, must start with ourselves, with me first. Then take it to the grass roots. To me to acknowledge my part of society, is like recognizing that each of us makes up a part of the body of Ethiopia. When wound in the body, the body is not functioning as it should. The killing of my people pushed me to reach out to Ethiopians, not sweeping the problems under the carpet, but to create a healthier society, we must try to change and correct what is creating the wounds. This is why SMNE created. We are willing to work with everybody, but we will never compromise and become part of the fake unity. No unity is better than chameleon unity where walk on others to get what you want. Faking unity is a tool to deceptively carry on impunity and I will never be part of this.
2. No one is free until all are free
a. Must break the pattern of Serial exclusion: One tribe take all or it’s ‘my group’s’ time to eat, which means, it’s your turn to suffer now (rationale for last regimes’ cruelty and selfishness towards others) For marginalized, it is ALWAYS their turn to suffer.
b. Inclusion of all citizens only way to break impunity and bring about sustainable freedom, justice and opportunity.
1. Impunity has always been a part of exclusionary dictatorships — Haile-Selassie, Mengistu, Meles
2. Must change system—based on flawed thinking—in every sector of the system; this is not just about Meles
3. Assumptions of entitled or non-entitled participants in politics and power are rigid, outdated and must be challenged
4. Equal opportunity and fair distribution of services, etc based on citizenship; not tribe
c. Unity in fight is NOT for unity’s sake, but FOR principles that will free us!
1. What we think matters—our fight against exclusionary practices starts with replacing flawed thinking
2. —the less tolerance we have as a society for exclusion, impunity, deception and lies and, the greater success we will have as a society!
3. the more widespread the support for inclusion and equal justice under the law—the more quickly we will overcome impunity and what has kept Ethiopia in the dark ages for too long!
3. Greed and Ego are the foundation of wrongdoing.
a. Impunity is about covering up for something after choose the wrong thing. Effective and strong institutions can create an atmosphere of respect and compliance with the law or obligation to adequately resolve wrongdoing when social rules or the law is broken
b. Society also has to be ready to confront and hold others accountable.
c. Moral restraints and expectations needed to heal past mistakes and offenses; including remorse and efforts to correct the wrongdoing
4. Strong Rule of law discourages wrongdoing: especially for those of little conscience, who would commit crimes if could get away with it. Getting caught and having to pay the penalty is a deterrent and sometimes enough to prevent many from breaking the law in the first place.
5. High cultural social value on: truth, moral courage, responsibility and humility with accountability, justice and grace and no-tolerance for: impunity, exclusive politics, corruption and deception—both working together will genuinely break down walls of many years of impunity and repair a broken system
6. Start with oneself: If want genuine ending of impunity, each of us must purposely seek it in one’s self and in expectations of others.
I am not here for a political motive, but I am here for a healthy society for when we have a healthy society; then such a society will include my children—where there is not discrimination, but opportunity, where there is no impunity, but equal justice. This can be your goal as well; together we can bring about a healthier society.
May God help us end our destructive culture of impunity, to find healing from the wounds of our past and to bring about a society that embraces truth, righteous behavior towards others and accountability for our own actions. May the truth truly set us free! Thank
(Obang Metho, is the Executive Director of the Solidarity Movement for a New Ethiopia, [email protected])
Your browser may not support display of this image. Since the 1974 revolution, Ethiopia has witnessed cycles of unimaginable violence. City streets as well as remote villages that are normally far from the influence of the brutal political elites in the center have been washed with blood and littered with the bones of tormented men and women. The tragic 1974 revolution was not just a bumpy transition from a feudo-capitalist monarchy to a more progressive system as we were told time and again. It was also the beginning of untold brutality that has still continued to haunt us. It is a story of man against man, comrade against comrade, citizen against citizen…. It was simply akin to what the English philosopher Thomas Hobbes called a state of nature, where “men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called war; and such a war as is of every man against every man.” In the state of nature life was “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”
Upon the invitation of the Stanford Ethiopian and Eritrean Students Association, Maaza Mengiste came to Stanford University last Friday to share her own story and read a passage from her well acclaimed first novel, Beneath the Lion’s Gaze. She spoke with a mellifluous and passionate voice, not like a fiction writer but as someone who was amidst the turmoil witnessing all the horrors and brutalities that tormented and ruptured her homeland.
Oscar Wild once said, “Anybody can make history. Only a great man can write it.” The wise man was only half right as women like Maaza are writing history with incredibly powerful imagination. Though it is quite rare to find young ladies flipping through the horror stories of political violence, Maaza was among a few exceptions immersed deeply into revolutions around the world. She read books and watched films about political upheavals in Latin America, Middle East and Africa. She tried to understand human nature in the course of bloody political upheavals.
When her friends were out reveling and partying, she used to spend days and nights reading and writing about a bloodcurdling part of human history. The Ethiopian Revolution was particularly fascinating to her. But her fascination did not end there. After five years of painful emotional journey, her story came out earlier this year as a novel that vividly depicts what happened during the height of the violence.
For Maaza, the horrors and tragedies of the 1974 Ethiopian revolution started to unfold when she was a graduate student. After all, she fled Ethiopia with her family when she was around four during the height of the turmoil. She lived in Nigeria, Kenya and the United States as an exile. When she left Ethiopia, she had only faint memories of the turmoil, slogans of students, marching soldiers, sounds of gunshots, frays and grieving mothers wailing frantically around her neighbourhood.
Until she joined New York University’s graduate creative writing programme in 2005, she hardly wrote anything serious about Ethiopia. But as part of her graduate school work, she made her fist effort. Based on her faint childhood memories, she wrote an 11-page short story about the horrors of the violent revolution that shattered close-knit families across the country. In spite of the fact that the short story was her small debut that broke her silence and brought out her memories, it raised more questions and stirred the curiosity of her classmates. As a result, she began to delve into the grim history researching intensely, weaving the story spinning facts and imagination without any chronological order.
Like a jigsaw puzzle, she assembled the long but gripping story about the popular revolution hijacked by a brutal military junta that copied acts of atrocity from the Bolsheviks and unleashed the Red Terror campaign to silence any forms of dissent and resistance. The more she researched into Ethiopia’s ugly past, the more she was sucked into the torture chambers and the killing fields.
Maaza found writing the book not only a daunting task but also an emotionally disturbing experience. Adding gloom to her personal story was the fact that she was just a poor young woman in New York City who could not even afford a decent writing desk and a warm home. Her favourite place to write was a small café in her neighbourhood. At times, her tears would stream down her tender cheeks while writing about torture and brutal killings. Some customers used to offer her a cup coffee to console her but others feared to approach her thinking that she was out of her mind.
Beneath the Lions’s Gaze is told from the perspective of a medical doctor’s family caught up in the upheavals. Dr. Hailu, who got involved in the tragic revolutionary fervent when he helped a victim of torture, is the main character. To make matters worse, Hailu’s youngest son, Dawit, was radicalized and became a member of an underground student movement that was a target of the killing squads. It was the disturbing history affecting the protagonists of the time of terror, fear, sorrow, anguish and tragedy that has become the central plot of Maaza’s novel.
Maaza’s daring work has received raving reviews in major publications across the US. It is a rare feat for an Ethiopian writer to enter the literary world with standing ovation. The New Yorker said: “Mengiste’s social intelligence and historical research allow her to write compassionately about emotions denatured by brutal regime or calcified by conviction. But the real marvel of this tender novel is its coiled plotting, in which coincidence manages to evoke the colossal emotional toll of the revolution.”
There is a powerful lesson to be learned from history. As Maaza has powerfully resurrected memories of a tragic segment of our history, we need to reflect on the past and envision the future. Ethiopia is still a nation of uncertainties, a powder keg whose future can be as rapturous as its terrifying past. The nation has gone though the excruciating pains of a violent revolution and a protracted civil war that brought about more calamities, famine, divisions and genocidal killings. The stable and prosperous country that the young revolutionary idealists had hoped to build is still a far cry. Their immeasurable sacrifices have been fruitless and their clarion calls for land to the tiller, equality, justice and freedom have never been answered.
“Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it,” as the philosopher George Santayana said. The doom and gloom of Ethiopia perpetuated by tyrants, past and present, must end somewhere if we are really willing to learn from our terrible history of violence and brutality. It is an unacceptable truth for a nation to suffer for nearly a century under three diminutive despots, the king, the army officer and the narrow-minded ethnocrat.
Today Ethiopia is standing at the crossroads of history. It is heavily pregnant with a burning desire for change that can trigger a sudden eruption at any time. Whether we like it or not, the call for change will be answered and the volcano of anger and frustration suppressed by tyranny will eventually. In the face of a tyrannical resistance to change, the peaceful way seems to have lesser chance of success than the curse of violence and vengeance that has already destroyed our rich history and heritage. As John F. Kennedy said: “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible, make violent revolution inevitable.”
Revolution is a process; first it is conceived in the hearts of true believers, it becomes contagious spread to the masses and in the final phase it explodes like a volcano. No guns and tanks have managed to stop real revolutions throughout history.
Beneath the Lion’s Gaze, which is a tale of brutality and cruelty in “revolutionary” Ethiopia, is a must read for those who want to understand tortured nations like Ethiopia in a better and deeper way. History has a lot to teach…
