Some Ethiopian doctors in exile are said to be planning to invest in Ethiopia. In preparation, they have had meetings with the Woyane deputy prime minister, and ambassador Girma Biru among other officials. They wish to build a referral hospital in Addis Ababa. According to the feasibility study, the project aims as clients at the rich who would otherwise travel abroad for medical care, foreigners in the country and patients from the Middle East. Many argue that the project won’t do anything significant for the poor and accuse of such doctors as enablers of an undemocratic regime which oppresses the people of Ethiopia.
I was recently listening to the National Public Radio (NPR) when a physician from Burma said: “I will not go back to Burma because the military government now says I can come.” The physician used to own a clinic in Burma, which was closed and confiscated by the Burmis government. He managed to escape and went to exile. He continued to fight for freedom and democracy in Burma. Recently, there is news that Burma is showing progress towards democracy. Free and fair elections took place and Aung San Suu Kyi is now elected with an overwhelming support from the people. This is a progress though there are still political prisoners. The Burmis government is now telling people in exile to come home. The Burmis physician said: “I will not go back to Burma because the government says so but I will go when I see it right because it is my country.”
In the case of Ethiopia, there has been exodus of citizens since TPLF took power. Countless citizens have been unjustly killed, tortured, imprisoned, displaced from their lands and are denied jobs if they were not members of the the ruling party. The educated was not exempt. Several university professors were summarily dismissed. Professor Asrat Woldeyes was killed by the government because of unjust imprisonment and denial of proper medical care until it was too late. As a result of the continued injustices at the hands of the Woyanne regime, Ethiopian professionals are leaving their country {www:en mass}. According to one report, 46% of Ethiopians would like to leave their country. The mass exodus of Ethiopian physicians has been devastating to the country. It is reported that there are more Ethiopian doctors in the US than the whole of Ethiopia. This is a huge loss to the poor nation.
It will not be easy to blame the Ethiopian doctors for leaving their country in search of freedom and better life. I say so because where there is a divisive system as the Woyanne which favors one ethnic group over the other, values party affiliation over skills, and systematically suppresses dissenting voices, it is natural that people would want to free themselves from such mess.
Most of the Ethiopian doctors are here in the US based on political asylum for fear of persecution by the Woyanne regime. That same regime is still in power and it has not changed its manner of rule. Key government and economic positions are held by Woyannes and their affiliates. People are being thrown to prison just because they expressed their views. And guess what, the parliament is completely by controlled by one party, except for one sit. It is currently in the news that about 78,000 Amharas have been displaced from southern Ethiopia in an effort by the regime to create Amhara free area. So, we have not seen even the kind of change happening in Burma that the Burmis doctor did not see as adequate for him to engage in business with the Burmis dictators.
A contrast is to be drawn between the Burmis doctor and some of the Ethiopian doctors in exile. The former seems to have a principled stand that until freedom reigns and justice prevails, going back and doing business with dictators is unthinkable. On the other hand, some of our doctors seem to have chosen to present themselves to servitude in doing business with a dictatorship. This is so while prominent entrepreneurs like Dr Fisseha Eshetu, a physician and founder of Unity University, have left the country concluding that it is practically impossible to independently conduct business under the ravenous TPLF junta.
These doctors seem to be {www:oblivious} to the suffering of their people at the hands of the Woyanne. They seem to have forgotten that most of them came to the west and requested asylum on the bases that the same Woyanne made it impossible for them to live in their country. Now that they are economically capable of investing, thanks to the US, they seem to have forgotten the plight of their people who are subjected to Woyanne’s oppression. Some of the physicians are obviously supporters of the current regime, but the majority may have been victims of their guilt feeling that they have to give back to their country. Some may have seen a business opportunity. They are bamboozled into joining a club of people who say that ‘governments will come and go’ so it is find to work with the regime no matter what it does. I have news for them: as long as they enable the Woyanne by doing business with it, the system of minority exploiting the majority is here to stay.
Doctors, let’s be honest and be true to ourselves. Are you not investing primarily to make money? How do you think the poor will benefit from a hospital erected in Addis Ababa where the plan is to charge several thousands of birr per visit? Is it not the reality that your primary clients are the rich, the expatriates, and possibly people coming from the Middle East, etc? These people are and will continue to be capable of seeking treatment anywhere in the world. But to say that you guys are investing to pay back to your people who paid for your education is utterly dishonest.
Some of the doctors are politically astute in their support of the Woyanne regime that is benefiting their minority group. For those Ethiopian physicians who honestly think they are investing to help Ethiopia, please do your homework first as you may regret later. Although your investments may be well intentioned or for the purpose of making profits, there are a potential risks that you will eventually succumb to.
As planned, the doctors will be able to raise only a portion of the investment. In the current reality of minority group controlled Ethiopia, it will be imperative that Azeb Mesfin and other high powered Woyannes will be part of the business.
Then, you are effectively doing business with the woyanne which will control your investment from the inside.
In so doing, you are benefiting the very group (Woyanne) that most of you accuse it of doing you injustices that forced you to into exile, and a group which is making the country hell for most people.
According to the bylaw of the project, the investing physicians will have to spend two weeks per year in proposed hospital. For those physicians who may have a differing political view from that of the Woyanne, it will be impossible to express their views freely or risk their business or possibly be imprisoned like many if they choose otherwise.
Then, the Woyanne regime will have achieved its goal of Diaspora investment policy , i.e., weakening the opposition by keeping people silent for fear of their business being endangered no matter what a cruel injustice the very people the doctors claim to help are subjected to.
My dear Ethiopian physicians, do you really follow the political situation in your country, Ethiopia? Do you really appreciate the cries of so many million people? Are you aware that journalist Eskindir Nega, who used to live in the US but left for Ethiopia hopping that he will make a difference, is now languishing in prison possibly facing death for the only crime of expressing his views? Many more Oromos, Amharas, Somalis, etc are currently languishing in prison. Are you aware that the Anuaks were massacred by the Woyanne, and now they are being displaced and their land, Gambella, is being given away to Indian and Arab “investors” for dirt cheap prices?
I hope you have seen in the internet when the Indian Karituri representative told the British journalist: “they gave it to us, we took it; we didn’t even see the land when we agree,” as he expressed his surprise about how cheaply they got a huge land in Gambella. Are you aware that Ethiopian land has been given away to Sudan by the Woyanne? Are you aware that the Amharas are currently being deliberately displaced from the southern Ethiopia because of the ethnic policy the Woyane espouses? Are you aware that our sisters are being trafficked to Arab countries? Do you know that Yenesew Gebre, a 29 year old teacher in southern Ethiopia burnt himself to death protesting the injustice perpetrated by the Woyane regime?
Dear physicians, if you are aware of the above and other myriads of national disasters inflicted by the Woyanne, do you think you should do business with this regime?
If you think you are not deliberately doing business with the regime, the reality is you are. You are indeed enabling the regime to further perpetrate crimes against our country. If you think you will do what you plan to do and hope things will get better, I tell you that your effort is synonymous to treating a {www:hookworm} infection with a {www:blood transfusion}. Though, a blood transfusion may be necessary for severe {www:anemia} due to a hookworm infection, you are guaranteed to require more blood transfusions in the future unless you treat that hookworm infection with a drug that cures it. You choose! You can choose to be a change agent like the Burmis doctor or become an enabler of a parasitic regime in doing business with it and keeping silent. You choose!
The oft quoted phrase “Freedom is not free” is true. No outside force is coming to give oppressed people the freedom they so much want. People will have to learn how to take that freedom themselves. Easy it cannot be. We should expect to face repression… [read more]
BURAYU, ETHIOPIA — Alem Dechasa left Ethiopia in January to work as a maid in Lebanon, where she apparently killed herself. Her journey started in Burayu, a poor settlement outside Addis Ababa.
Lemesa Ejeta sniffed and cleared his throat but could not stop a tear from slipping down his cheek. His four-year-old daughter, Yabesira, had just run out of their mud-and-straw house to play, and it was as if he felt he could at last let go.
He struggled to describe the last time he saw his partner, Alem Dechasa Desisa, the 33-year-old mother of Yabesira and Tesfaye, 12. Alem left Ethiopia in January to work as a maid in Lebanon; she apparently hanged herself in a hospital room after she was beaten on a street in Beirut, allegedly by a man linked to the recruiting agency that took her there.
Alem’s journey to a lonely death started in this one-room hut in Burayu, a bereft settlement outside Addis Ababa where mothers like her and fathers like Lemesa face a Herculean struggle to survive each day.
Alem was one of many women who defied an Ethiopian government ban to work as housemaids in Lebanon, hoping to make life better for their children. It was a heartbreaking choice to have to make.
“She was in a queue at the airport but after she entered the terminal she was told it’s not time for her yet … and so she came back to see us,” said Lemesa, tears flowing down his cheeks, as he described the day she left.
“Our daughter, Yabesira, said, ‘If you’re leaving, who is going to dress me for school?’ and then she cried, and I cried and then Alem cried,” he said, speaking through a translator.
Two of Alem’s handbags hang from a nail on the wall. There are a few wooden chairs, a coffee table and two small mattresses leaning against another wall. In a corner is a straw basket made by Alem. Outside, the lean-to where she used to cook traditional, flat injera bread was cold and full of ashes.
Alem’s case has lifted the lid on the plight of migrant workers in Lebanon, where human-rights groups say they are regularly abused. Human Rights Watch says one migrant worker dies each week in Lebanon from suicide or other causes. They have no legal protection, and this is why three years ago Ethiopia banned its nationals from travelling there to work.
Alem’s beating, in late February, was broadcast by Lebanese TV in March and has been viewed by tens of thousands on YouTube. Newspapers and human-rights groups identified the man in the video as Ali Mahfouz, brother of the head of the recruiting agency. He has been charged with contributing to her suicide. He says the agency was trying to send her home because she had mental health problems.
The video showed Alem being dragged along the street outside the Ethiopian consulate. Her hair was pulled and she was bundled into a car. She was later admitted to a psychiatric hospital. A few days afterwards she apparently hanged herself.
In a statement , Human Rights Watch quoted a social worker with Caritas Lebanon Migrant Centre as saying that Alem first worked with a Lebanese family for a month but was returned to her agency because of communication problems. She did not get paid. Her second job only lasted a few days.
Alem allegedly told the social worker that a recruitment agent had beaten her and threatened to send her home. The statement also said she had previously tried to kill herself by drinking a cleaning product and by jumping from a car.
The mystery surrounding Alem’s life and death in Beirut hangs heavy over Burayu, where children in ripped clothes that are too thin for this rainy March day cluster around huts, as donkeys bray and hammers clank in a nearby quarry.
Lemesa has not yet told Yabesira – which means “work of God” – or Tesfaye that their mother is dead. “They are suspicious of something because people have been coming here, crying, but I am afraid to break the news to them,” the 31-year-old said. “Sometimes the children see her photo and ask when she is coming back to Ethiopia. If I tell [Yabesira] she is dead, I am afraid of the questions she will ask me.”
But when asked about reports that Alem killed herself, Lemesa, said: “I haven’t heard anything about her committing suicide.” Suicide is a taboo subject in Ethiopia, especially among Christians such as Lemesa.
Lemesa said he had heard only that before her death she was beaten. He later saw a newspaper article about the beating, but he has not seen the video, which prompted protests by Ethiopians.
A neighbour, Tadelu Negash, a 27-year-old mother of four with tight braids, was originally going to go to Lebanon with Alem but decided not to when she realised the process was illegal. But she has not dismissed the idea.
“We have no other option. We don’t want our children to suffer like we did … When we see what happened to [Alem], we feel very sad … But when you see the reality here, there are problems after problems, so much suffering, so we think it’s not such a bad idea,” she said.
Alem and Lemesa lived in Addis Ababa for nine years but eventually could not afford the rent there and moved to Burayu. Things got no better, and they decided that Alem would go to Lebanon. “We got the idea from our neighbours … Almost everyone is going to work abroad … So if everyone is doing it, we thought we should give it a try … She said she would work very hard and return,” said Lemesa.
It cost about 10,000 birr (£360) to send Alem to Beirut – about 4,500 of that went to the broker, a man who will only speak on condition of anonymity. He said a relative working in Beirut gave his number to an employment agency, which contacted him to ask if he could find workers.
He said he saw that Alem was struggling and suggested she go, claiming not to know about the government ban. “After what happened to Alem, I received information that it was banned … The agency hasn’t asked me again, but I have quit,” he said.
Ethiopia’s consul general in Beirut estimates that there are between 60,000 and 80,000 Ethiopians living in Lebanon, 43,000 of them legally. Tigist Mengistu is among them.
Tigist, who used to go to church with Alem, left in 2010. She has told her parents, Derebie Begi and Mengistu Birrie, that her job is easy but has not sent any money since repaying a loan from her father. “Since what happened to Alem, I worry the same may happen to my daughter,” said Derebie.
“Alem never got any rest when she lived here,” said Mengistu. “She was always cooking injera and trying to sell it on the streets. She went to the forest to collect wood and leaves for cooking.”
Human Rights Watch and other groups have urged Lebanon to reform restrictive visa regulations and adopt a labour law on domestic work. “[Alem’s] death is an outrage on two levels – the violent treatment she endured and the absence of safeguards that could have prevented this tragedy,” said Nadim Houry, deputy Middle East and north African director at Human Rights Watch.
Lemesa is now waiting for Alem’s body. But he has another problem: Alem’s parents say he was separated from Alem and that he has had a child with another woman. They say that is why she left. Lemesa has denied this, saying he and Alem were never legally married but had been together for 13 years.
Lemesa and Alem’s brother Leta both want to be put in charge of Alem’s estate, and any compensation. Lemesa has been to court to determine whether Alem’s children or parents are her legal heirs. The court cannot rule until the body is returned.
The legal wrangling is understandable: for people with so little, it is a matter of survival. It was almost impossible to unravel the allegations of infidelity: about the only thing everyone seems to agree on is that Alem never seemed depressed.
“She was perfectly healthy when she was here,” said Lemesa. Alem’s mother and father, who had come from the countryside to fill in forms at the foreign ministry in Addis, agreed. They were dressed for official business: 75-year-old Dechasa Desisa wore a faded, striped suit with a purple shirt while his wife, Kafany Atomesa, had a black headscarf and a traditional white netela shawl.
Alem was the fifth of 11 children. Her parents had come from Gindeberet in Oromia and they were accompanied by Leta, who works as a truck driver’s assistant. He translated from Oromiffa, the language spoken by his parents, to Amharic. When asked if Alem was ever depressed, Kafany shook her head – and at that moment the single bulb lighting Alem’s hut gave out. “[Alem] was always laughing. She was always giving advice to people,” she said into the dark.
The recent ethnic cleansing of 78,000 Ethiopians of the Amhara ethnic group from southern Ethiopia by the Woyanne junta is a horrible crime. Ethiopian Review has been reporting similar {www:ethnic cleansing} campaigns against other Ethiopian ethnic groups, particularly the Ogaden and Gambella over the past several years. How is it that Meles Zenawi and his Woyanne junta are able to commit such atrocities against millions of Ethiopians?
I’m not providing any new fact when I tell you that the main culprits of these horrors are other Amharas — those Amharas, Oromos, Ogadenis, Gembellas and other ethnic groups who obey the Woyanne rule, who socialize with Woyanne members, who pay tax to the Woyanne regime, who fly Ethiopian Airlines, who drink Al Amoudi’s Pepsi, who socialize with Woyanne members, who go to Ethiopia from the Diaspora and try to open businesses or buy properties… all these individuals are knowingly or unknowingly contributing to the crime of ethnic cleansing and genocide against their own ethnic groups.
One of the Woyanne junta cheerleaders, Mimi Sebhatu, who hosts a radio program in Addis Ababa, said in an interview yesterday that the Amharas who were expelled from the south are illegals. Mimi is half Amhara and her husband Zerihun Teshome, who is an adviser to Bereket Simon, is full Amhara, and yet she calls Amharas “illegals” in their own country. These anti-Amhara Woyanne collaborators must be condemned and ostracized until they are brought to justice for aiding and abetting the Woyanne ethnic cleansing campaigns.
We don’t necessarily need to shoot bullets at Woyanne to stop it from committing injustice against us. What we need is to STOP doing business with Woyanne-affiliated businesses that fuel its machinery of repression.
One of these businesses is Ethiopian Airlines, which has become a major cash cow for the Woyanne junta. If you have to travel to Ethiopia, pay a little extra money and take Lufthansa or any of the other airlines that fly to Ethiopia.
The other major sources of income for Woyannes are those Ethiopians in the Diaspora who go to Ethiopia for vacation or try to open businesses there. They are collaborators in Woyanne’s atrocities, including the recent ethnic cleansing campaigns against Amharas and Gambellas, as well as the ongoing war of genocide in Ogaden.
Saudi agent Al Amoudi is currently trying to hijack or split up and destroy the recently liberated Ethiopian Sports Federation in North America (ESFNA). Many of the players and business owners he is inviting to participate in the event are Amharas and Oromos who seem to be saying, “I don’t give a *** if Al Amoudi is looting Ethiopia and trafficking our sisters to the Middle East to work in slave-like conditions.
Let’s stop cursing Woyanne and take concrete steps to weaken and kill it. Start from the collaborators — hodam Amharas and Oromos who are cannibalizing their own people.
I understand you had a meeting with Ethiopian Woyanne Ambassador to United States to discuss about the establishment of {www:referral hospital} in Ethiopia. We would be very grateful if you can spend few minutes to elaborate the idea behind establishing a referral hospital. The following questions may only help guide your response.
In one of the world poorest country, Ethiopia, where the health care service already facing daunting challenges to deliver minimum standards of health care, what good is referral hospital doing? Is it referral hospital or regular health care facilities that will benefit the people of Ethiopia most?
When answering these questions think about what a health care specialist said: “referral hospitals should be seen as the {www:capstone} of the health care pyramid.” Do you guys think the pyramid (lower level healthcare facilities) is firmly established to hold the capstone?
I understand you guys can do whatever you want to do with your hard earned money. That is your absolute right. You have all the rights to establish a fancy referral hospital for the powerful and wealthy people of the country and save them a trip to Europe, United States, or Asia. Make good money too. If you are interested in elaborating your idea about your prospective investment, tells us what you are up-to. Implicitly or explicitly, saying “none of your business” is also your right.
The general view is that referral hospitals are often too costly and make very limited contributions to improving the health of the whole population. This is because referral hospitals are usually located in urban areas and are intended to provide costly specialized health care to patients referred from lower levels of the health care system. In a general sense, referral hospital is mainly to the wealthy.
If a referral hospital is established in our country, it does not take a telepathist to predict that the powerful government officials and wealthy urban dwellers would dominate the facilities for regular health care visits when they could be assisted by general practitioners at lower-level clinics. Poor people would not get the chance, because it would be congested with the powerful and wealthy unnecessarily occupying beds and other facilities for long periods.
The other concern associated with referral hospitals is a health care equity issue. Doctors may find it attractive and rewarding to work in referral hospitals, depriving rural health facilities of the expertise they desperately need.
That said, referral hospitals have positive impact on health care system when established at the right place and at the right time. For instance, beyond providing high quality health care, referral hospitals perform broader functions in the health system such as training doctors, conducting research.
On the weekend of March 24, 2012, the Woyanne ambassador in Washington DC, Girma Birru, held a meeting with over 70 exiled Ethiopian physicians who reside in the US. As reported by Ethiopian Review previously, the objective of the meeting in Alexandria, Virginia, was to discuss about a plan to build a private referral hospital in Ethiopia, but the hidden agenda is for the Woyanne junta to the doctors for its crude propaganda at home.
The doctors had initially planned the hospital project as a private enterprise and formed an organization named “Ethiopian American Doctors Group EADG.” However, as in every Ethiopian organization, Woyanne agents did not waste time to infiltrate the group with the help of some opportunist individuals. Now, EADG is fully controlled by Woyanne junta agents, including Henock Gebregziabher, Getachew Hagos, Mezgebe Berhe, Abiy Mekoya Gebreselassie Nida, and former physician of Meles Zenawi, Mulai Teklu Yohannes.
Some of the doctors have withdrawn their membership after they found out about Woyanne’s involvement.
Ethiopian Review obtained a list of current active members of the EADG.
