(Al Jazeera) — Protests have erupted in at least three towns across Syria in the most serious case of unrest in decades for a country that has been ruled with strict emergency laws for almost half a century.

(BBC) — At least two protesters have been shot dead in the south Syrian city of Deraa as security forces clamped down on a protest rally.

A resident told Reuters news agency the pair had been killed by security forces as protesters demanded political freedom and an end to corruption.

A human rights activist told AFP that four people had been killed.

President Bashar al-Assad, whose Baath party has dominated politics for nearly 50 years, tolerates no dissent.

The state news agency Sana said violence and “acts of sabotage” had broken out at a demonstration in Deraa on Friday, prompting security forces to intervene.

It accused “infiltrators” of seeking to “provoke chaos through acts of violence which resulted in damage to private and public property”.

‘Hundreds injured’
The resident who spoke to Reuters named the two dead people as Hussam Abdel Wali Ayyash and Akram Jawabreh.

They had been among “several thousand” demonstrators chanting “God, Syria, Freedom” and anti-corruption slogans, accusing the president’s family of corruption, the resident said.

Security forces, the Reuters source added, were reinforced with troops flown in by helicopters.

An anti-government website, Free Syria, also named Akram Jawabreh as one of “a number” of protesters killed.

The unnamed human rights activist contacted by AFP named both Mr Jawabreh and Mr Ayyash among four people killed.

“The security forces fired live bullets at the protesters,” the activist said, adding that “hundreds” of protesters had been wounded.

He told AFP that “many” of the wounded had been “snatched by security forces” from hospital and moved to unknown locations.

The following are a couple of excerpts from an interesting book about the Abyssinian Character by a Russian Traveler Alexander Bulatovich who traveled to Ethiopia around 1896. The book was translated and edited by Richard Seltzer in 2000.

Ethiopia Through Russian Eyes: a Country in Transition, 1896-1898. Lawrenceville NJ, Red Sea Press.

(Excerpts)

It is hard to imagine so many contrasts united in one person, as are united in the Abyssinian character. Their character is like the nature around them — where precipices, cliffs, mountains and plains alternate among one another, and cold is mixed with tropical heat. If I allow myself a rather free comparison, this is how I would characterize the Abyssinian. He is talented and receptive, like a Frenchman. With his practicality, with the way he deals with those he has conquered and his governmental abilities, he is like an Englishman. His pride is like that of a Spaniard. By his love for his faith, his mildness of character and tolerance, he is like a Russian. By his commercial abilities, he is like a Jew. But in addition to all these characteristics, he is very brave, cunning, and suspicious.

At the present time, Abyssinia — with its ancient culture, Christianity, and historically shaped governmental order — appears like an island among other peoples who are almost in a childlike condition. Abyssinians have professed the Christian faith since 343 A.D., and before then, from the time of Solomon, they professed the Jewish faith, which even today is reflected in their ceremonies. To this day they separate animals into pure and impure; they give great significance to the ability to butcher cattle; and they circumcise their children. There are many other similarities, but I will tell of them in greater detail later. […]

Ethiopian pro-democracy forces need to closely examine the Obama Administration’s policy toward Libya that is based on short-sighted naked self interest and examine their strategy accordingly. The following is an insightful analysis by David From that was posted on The Telegraph today.

Barack Obama is in no hurry to see Gaddafi go

By David Frum

Would President Obama prefer a Gaddafi victory? If that sounds implausible, then just look at the record. On March 3, Obama announced that Gaddafi “must go”. Two weeks have passed since then – and more than a month since the uprising began on February 15. In the interim, the tide of war has turned in Gaddafi’s favour. Yet Obama has done nothing to make his own words reality.

Every proposal – from the no-fly zone and aid to rebels, to recognition of a provisional government – has somehow become bogged down.

The administration never rejected the proposals out of hand, but it never accepted them either. And now time, so very unfortunately, has run out. Admittedly, the American government moves slowly. But it does not move this slowly.

The Obama administration may not care to admit it, but it did make a decision, and one of benefit to Gaddafi. Why? One factor was surely Obama’s preference for a less activist foreign policy in general.

But there were special considerations in Libya, and they were clearly stated in a piece by General Wesley Clark for the Washington Post last Friday. The former US commander in Kosovo and a 2004 Democratic presidential candidate wrote: “We don’t have a clearly stated objective, legal authority, committed international support or adequate on-the-scene military capabilities, and Libya’s politics hardly foreshadow a clear outcome.”

The key phrase here is “Libya’s politics”. For the past few days, Washington policy circles have been worrying over a piece of research circulated last week: “On a per capita basis … twice as many foreign fighters came to Iraq from Libya – and specifically eastern Libya – than from any other country in the Arabic-speaking world. Libyans were apparently more fired up to travel to Iraq to kill Americans than anyone else in the Middle East. And 84.1 per cent [74] of the 88 Libyan fighters … who listed their hometowns came from either Benghazi or Darnah in Libya’s east.”

That might not seem a statistically valid survey of public opinion inside Libya. But given the prevailing lack of information about the anti-Gaddafi insurgency, the factoid acted to corroborate fears of an Islamist takeover of Libya – or, maybe worse, the collapse of Libya into a Somalia-on-the-Mediterranean.

Perhaps President Obama reasoned something along these lines: “Yes, Gaddafi is a very bad guy. But he quit the terrorism business a decade ago and paid compensation to the families of victims of the Lockerbie bombing. He surrendered his nuclear program in 2003. He co-operates with the EU in stopping illegal migration into Italy. He is a reliable oil supplier and a good customer for Western companies.

“It’s very sad to see Gaddafi crush an uprising so brutally. But things could be worse. Tribal leaders, fighting each other, inspired by Islamic ideology – all just 300 miles from the coast of Sicily? We could have 300,000 refugees showing up on the Nato side of the Mediterranean. Better stick with the devil we know. The blood-letting cannot last much longer, stability will return soon. And then we can express regret for the loss of life, offer humanitarian assistance and impose some kind of sanctions on the Gaddafi family – at least until the fuss dies down.”
Europeans who invested so much hope in Barack Obama may hesitate to accept the news that their man is not the idealist they had imagined. But Arab leaders have already got the message: Mubarak was a fool, don’t resign in the face of protests, instead use force. The king of Bahrain has learnt the lesson of Libya: he is importing Saudi troops to suppress local protesters. Whoever called this moment the Arab 1848 had it right – assuming, that is, that the anonymous wit remembered how the original 1848 turned out.

But let’s consider what meaning the Arab 1848 has for the West. Over the past near-decade, how often have voices in Britain and Europe reproached the Bush administration for its foolish infatuation with Arab democracy? Look at what happened in the Palestinian Authority, where the locals used their votes to vote for Hamas – and never got a chance to use them a second time. Look at what happened in Iraq, where the overthrow of a dictator opened the door to civil war, terrorism and Iranian influence. And indeed, the criticisms were powerful, as far as they went.
But Libya confronts us with the consequences of the opposite policy. As happened in Iraq in 1991, the world is acquiescing in the brutal suppression of a popular uprising by an Arab dictator. Will this violently reasserted dictatorship be “stable”? If those data on Libyan suicide bombers are correct, then Gaddafi’s dictatorship has bred Islamic resistance. Will more violence intensify Libya’s Islamification? And since no regime lasts for ever, what will Europe face across
the Mediterranean when the regime does finally go?

Libya confronts us, too, with the folly of the traditional “realist” response to Islamic radicalism: the delusion that somehow the carving of a Palestinian state out of Israel will pacify the region. Are the boys of Benghazi fighting for Palestine? How exactly would installing a Palestinian president-for-life in east Jerusalem reconcile Libyans to a second generation of Gaddafis seizing Libya’s oil wealth as their personal fortune?

Libya is Obama’s Iraq in reverse. The fighting may end faster when the dictator survives. But the consequences may reveal themselves as no less ugly, no less large, and no less enduring.

Imagine having no opportunity to dream and strive to reach your full potential. Imagine watching your future pass by while living an unfulfilled life because you are one of the unlucky ones to be outside the circle of the well-connected who control the country.

Under the current system, only 0.5 percent of Ethiopian high school graduates have the opportunity to enter higher education, which is one of the lowest in the world; and the rest are left to face bleak futures. If you are one of the millions of Ethiopians who are fed up living a dreary and meaningless life under the ruthless TPLF regime, consider yourself one of the leaders of the upcoming revolution.

All major political changes often start small and at a local level. As such, you can be instrumental in igniting the Ethiopian revolution as Abdesslem Trimech did in Tunisia. To successfully direct this revolution, you need to start from your own family, and move on to convince your friends, neighbors and colleagues. The idea is to organize the society, one neighborhood at a time, while isolating TPLF and its cronies.

Once you have effectively organized your neighborhood, you can organize like-minded individuals into a group. This group will function to establish effective local based strategies that would:

a) Dismantle TPLF’s political and economic base;
b) Target TPLF‘s supporters and loyalists; and
c) Ignite and sustain a revolution.

Remember, 85 percent of Ethiopia is rural and that TPLF controls Ethiopia through kebele (local governments).You must work hard to make every kebele a TPLF Free Zone, and that starts with your own neighborhood. Amongst many other strategies, you must try to compile the names of TPLF collaborators in your kebele and begin to send them messages, directly or indirectly, to join the revolution or face justice in the post TPLF era.

Political change must come to Ethiopia to create a just and fair system for the youth, so they, too, have the opportunity to go after their dreams regardless of their places within the society. For that to happen, you must organize locally and devise strategies that would peacefully bring about democracy. As President Obama once said, “No one has written your destiny for you. Here in America, you write your own destiny. You make your own future.” The same should be the case in Ethiopia.

Commit yourself to doing your part in giving the youth of Ethiopia a chance to shape their own destiny. Make the month of May the beginning of the end of the Meles’ era! Believe in yourself, because you have the power to be a part of history.

Be ready to say enough is enough! BEKA!

The Ethiopian Revolution 2011