The Holy Synod of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church (EOTC) is currently meeting in Washington DC. Following the meeting, the Church leaders will hold a press conference with the media to make a special call to the people of Ethiopia.
The press conference will be held at St. Gabriel Church in Washington DC on Saturday, May 12, 2012, starting at 5 PM (Washington DC time). It will also be broadcast live.
Tselemt district in northern Gondar, Ethiopia, is under military siege after confrontations between residents and TPLF regime security forces turned violent. Ethiopian Review sources in the area reported that at least 3 Woyanne troops have been killed and unknown number of civilians, including priests, are wounded.
The cause of the confrontation is the Woyanne junta’s plan to build a sugar factory near the historic Waldeba Monastery.
According to the monks and supporters of the monastery, the factory and the dam that is planned to be built nearby would destroy the holly site.
A few hours ago, the Woyanne junta shut down the telephone network in northern Gondar and we are unable to get an update. But we will try to use other means to continue getting the information out.
Meanwhile, in Metemma, a town bordering Sudan, it is reported that over 60 homes have been burned to the ground. A rebel group named Ethiopian Unity and Freedom Force (EUFF) took responsibility for setting the homes on fire. EUFF spokesman told Ethiopian Review that the homes belonged to members of the ruling TPLF junta.
(Yemen Times) — The Ethiopian refugee Seble Yohanes told the Yemen Times that she is only thirty, but her pale face with wide eyes full of concern makes her looks as if she was 50.
[Ethiopian refugee Seble Yohannes]
Looking for a safe place to raise her demands, Yohanes went to the Ministry of Human Rights in the Yemeni capital of Sana’a on Saturday. Yohanes, along with other refugees from Ethiopia, decided to sleep on the pavement next to the Ministry.
During the daytime, this exposed place becomes a sit-in rally to demand protection of their rights from the United Nations Higher Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the Yemeni government.
“The police forces arrested us in front of the Human Rights Ministry,” Yohanes said, with fear evident in her pallid face at the thought of police, who have repeatedly raided illegal refugees in Yemen and arrested as many as they can.
Ethiopian refugees contacted Yohanes and her compatriots in an attempt to relay details of the inhuman conditions inside the police detention center, intensifying her fear of ending up like them.
Yohanes handed her mobile over to a Yemen Times reporter while Hathem, Yohanes’ friend speaking on the phone while being held in a crowded detention center in Sana’a, tried to paint a vivid picture of his brutal conditions and suffering, in the hopes that the whole world might know about those in the detention centers.
More than 220 imprisoned Ethiopians are kept inside a single room. The prisoners are subjected to beating and only given one meal a day, according to Hathem.
“Diseases are spreading due to the unhealthy environment and we are not allowed to receive medical treatment,” added Hathem, who speaks limited Arabic.
The words of Hathem stoked Yohanes’ and her friends’ fear of having to face a similar fate. Unfortunately, their fears did not take long to materialize.
On Saturday afternoon, police forces arrested Yohanes along with seven other Ethiopian refugees, including two women and a 5 year-old girl, Sara.
They were taken from behind the Ministry of Human Rights, according to eyewitnesses.
While in a police patrol car, Yohanes managed to make a brief call to the Yemen Times. She spoke with difficulty, as it was clear she was crying.
“We were supposed to meet with Horia Mashhor, the Yemeni Minister of Human Rights, later today,” she said.
“After several days of continued attempts and great efforts to get to Mashhor, who was passing us for days going in and out of the Ministry, looking very busy, she agreed to meet us and set an appointment to discuss our situation.”
She said that they had short conversations with Mashhor in front of the Ministry of Human Rights, and after talking to them for a few moments she was interrupted with several calls from governmental officials who told her to leave, not taking into consideration her conversation with the refugees.
Two days prior to her arrest, police managed to detain most of the refugees who had created a protest encampment in front of the United Nation High Commissioner for Refugees for eleven months, she noted.
According to Yohanes, some refugees were held in a prison in Sana’a, while some others were moved to the camp for African refugees located in the Kharaz coastal area near the strait of Bab Al-Mandab, a key shipping lane through which more than three million barrels of oil pass daily.
Useless asylum ID
There is nothing that can protect Yohanes and the other refugees from police pursuit and relentless raids except for asylum IDs issued by UNHCR.
The first provision of the ID, however, states that the UNHCR’s ability to interfere and protect the refugees is still limited.
The UNHCR office recognizes only the official refugees carrying IDs. But according to the UNHCR, holders of these IDs are not necessarily guaranteed any financial assistance nor the right to resettle in a third country. This draws the ire of African refugees, particularly Ethiopians.
The IDs terms are based on Articles no.17 and 22 of the 1951 United Nations convention relating to the status of refugees, which was ratified by Yemen. The convention only ensures refugees the right to work and public education. The ID has to be renewed every year.
Some minority groups from the Ethiopian political opposition have managed to resettle in the United States and EU countries after staying in Yemen for a while.
Yohanes, like most of the African refugees who continue flowing into Yemen, do not want to settle down in Yemen. They consider it a transition point for their resettlement in rich countries like the Gulf states, the US, or EU countries.
Imam Hussein Edrees, a 60-year-old Ethiopian refugee, was standing among refugees at the protest encampment in front of the Ministry of Human Rights, holding his old refugee documents in his hands.
On November 16, 1992, Edrees obtained his asylum in Yemen from the UNHCR, and had been renewing his ID every year, until 2006, when the UN agency began to refuse to continue renewing his asylum card.
Although he has had five official appointments with UNHCR representatives in Yemen, Edrees said he has not been able to meet any officials of the UN Refugee Agency.
Khadija Nassr Al-Din, another Ethiopian refugee, who has been in Yemen for more than fifteen years, said her husband Kaidani Mariam Asfa died in 2001 after a long struggle with intestinal cancer. However, neither the UNHCR nor the Yemeni government offered her or her husband any assistance.
With her eyes full of tears, Kadija said, ” my husband died while hugging our son.”
While Kadija is Muslim, her husband was Christian. Their son, Ibrahim, was given a common name to both religions. They embodied a unique coexistence between people with different religious backgrounds.
Thousands of African refugees risk their lives when they cross the Red Sea on board small boats run by human traffickers. Smugglers dump them into the sea two kilometers from the Yemeni shore, forcing them to swim the rest of the way.
Yohanes said that in the boats belonging to traffickers, the refugees are mercilessly beaten if they attempt to move or raise heads or hands.
In a separate event, last month the Interior Ministry found an armed gang in Haradh area, in the northern governorate of Hajjah located along the borders with Saudi Arabia. The gang was holding dozens of illegal African refugees prisoner, mostly Ethiopians.
In a statement, the ministry said more than 170 African refugee were kidnapped, including ten women, 50 children, and 19 old men. The refugees were subjected to beating and torture by the armed gang.
“Due to beating that targeted the face and other sensitive areas, some refugees now suffer from sight and hearing problems,” added the statement.
The ministry also revealed that in February, police forces had managed to arrest two members of the armed gang. The two members had been detaining 128 illegal refugees from whom they were trying to extort money.
More than 65,000 Ethiopian immigrants arrived to Yemen in 2011, compared to 34,422 in 2010, according to the UNHCR.
The UN refuge agency further pointed out that 37, 333 Ethiopians arrived in Yemen illegally, revealing that 616 are either dead or still missing.
I am a man without a country. I feel like the protagonist in the novel “Invisible Man”, a character so invisible that he did not even have a name in the book. Invisible Man is a chronicle of a man who was born so light skinned that he was most often passed up as a white man during the era of Jim Crowe and segregation in America. So he was able to sway and slip between being black and being white, able to hang out at speakeasies during the night while walking properly during the day with white people—in the process fitting in neither place. He was a man without color and a man without existence; he lived on the precipice of nothingness and was not accepted by either side of his heritage.
Ironic isn’t it, this is one of my favorite books of all time. Little did I know when I used to read it copious times that the book was really a foreshadowing of the fate that awaited me. For I too sway and slip between two identities—except my two identities are Ethiopian (born and Ethiopian to the bone) and African-American (assimilated in America thus I speak slang with the best of them). I can hang out at Habesha restaurants and call women “Yene Big Foreheadiye” while speaking my tebtaba Amharic at night and then hang out with my fraternity brothers (Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, an African-American Fraternity) while trying to “set out a hop” even though I suck at it.
There, in those moments of speaking Amharic and “setting out a hop” — in the crevices of the chronometer we call life — I find myself to be Invisible Ethiopian. That is precisely why I am writing a novel called “Invisible Ethiopian” at this exact moment which will be published in 2013 — because I am neither accepted by Ethiopians nor African-Americans. I am lost in the {www:ether} between both communities; I am crushed by the massive indifference from Ethiopians and African-Americans. I am judged as being IBD when I beseech my fellow “Habeshas” to believe in Hebret and equally relegated as crazy by my fraternity brothers when I tell them that we as Ques have a massive responsibility to our community besides setting out hops.
Grant it, there are a lot of Ethiopians and Ques who do the work in the shadows and live up to the legacies of our forefathers. But for the most part it seems that Adwa is dead—Click…Clack…KAPOW trigger pulled by indifferent Ethiopians—and Just, Love, Cooper, and Coleman would roll over in their graves 80 times if they realized the state of our fraternity. For stating the obvious that Ethiopia is really colonized—I am vilified by my own community. For stating the obvious that Omega Psi Phi has morphed into something that I no longer recognize—I am talked about in the vine by my own fraternity brothers and I am sure there are some who would love to take me to the green for writing this article. … [read more]
The Organizing Committee of Ethiopian National Transitional Council (ENTC) held a press conference on Saturday, April 28, 2012, to deliver progress report and announce new initiatives. Several members of the media and over 84 participants had attended the press conference online.
Progress Report
The first part of the press conference focused on progress report. Representative of the Organizing Committee, Dr Fisseha Eshetu, announced that the conference to form the transitional council will be held starting on July 1st, 2012. Two cities are competing to host the conference — Dallas and Washington DC. The Organizing Committee will select the host city this week, according to Dr Fisseha. He reported that local chapters are currently being formed in over 35 cities. During the past 10 days alone, chapters were formed in Atlanta, Las Vegas, Sacramento and London, UK.
The primary responsibility of the chapters are to elect delegates to the June 29-30 conference. The chapters will play a critical role in making sure that every sector of the Ethiopian society is well-represented in the conference that is intended to be a people’s congress (Hizbawi Shengo).
New Initiatives
Dr Fisseha announced that the ENTC Organizing Committee fully endorses the call by 12 Ethiopian media organizations for boycott of enterprises that are controlled by the TPLF regime. He added that the ENTC is forming its own special task force that will coordinate the boycott campaign, and among it first targets are injera, beer and other items that are exported from Ethiopia by TPLF-affiliated companies. In the case of exporting injera, it is causing the tef prices to rise hurting the people in Ethiopia, Dr Fisseha explained.
The other project the ENTC OC has initiated is exploring possible charges of war crimes against the TPLF regime with the help of the International Tribunal Court (ICC). A legal task forces is being formed to carry out the task, Dr Fisseha reported.
The legal task force will also look into the U.S. law named FARA (Foreign Agents Registration Act (22 U.S.C. § 611) that prohibits foreign spies from spying on citizens and residents of the United States to find out if the law applies to TPLF regime agents who are spying on Ethiopians and American-Ethiopians.
Regarding the participation of Ethiopian civil, political and other types of organization in the formation of the transitional council, Dr Fisseha explained that no one will be left out. He reported that progress is being made in several fronts as far as getting all stakeholders involved in the process.
– END –
For further information or to inquire how to support the formation of the Ethiopian National Transitional Council, please write to: [email protected]
EDITOR’S NOTE: The Woyanne regime-controlled Ethiopian News Agency (ENA) reported today that several employees, including Pakistani nationals, working for Al Amoudi in the southwestern Ethiopian region of Gambella have been killed and wounded by an armed group last night. Read the report below:
(ENA) — Four Ethiopians and a Pakistani, employees of the Saudi Star Agricultural Business Headquarters in Gabellla State were killed and injured eight others in a shooting late on Saturday, the Gambella State Police Commission said.
In a press release it sent to ENA on Sunday the Commission said the fatal incident occurred at a construction site five kms away from the organization headquarters.
The Commission said some ten suspected assailants are in police custody.
The Police said the joint investigative team consisting of regional and federal security forces is undertaking the investigation to bring the perpetrators of this heinous crime before justice.
The Commission said the public is enjoying the fruits of development and democratization owing to the prevailing peace and stability in the region.
The Commission called upon the public to cooperate with the police in its effort to bring swiftly the culprits to justice.
The Commission expresses deepest condolences to the victims and their families of this cowardly attack and wished solace and speedy recovery to the injured.
