ENTC leadership takes group photos at the conclusion of the Dallas Conference
Following a 3-day intense discussion, the Dallas conference has formed “Ethiopian National Transitional Council” (ENTC) on Tuesday, July 3rd, 2012.
The conference decided that the primary goal of ENTC is to prepare conditions for creating an all-inclusive Ethiopian Transitional Government that will replace the Woyanne ethnic-apartheid junta.
ENTC is composed of representatives of patriotic Ethiopians from around the world, thus it is a council of people’s representatives. The conference thoroughly discussed how to get organizations, such as political and civic groups, involved in the process of creating the transitional government. It was decided to let the ENTC leadership start negotiations with the various stake holders, taking into consideration the suggestions and ideas presented by participants of the conference.
On the ENTC bylaws, the Conference decided the following:
1. The ENTC local chapters will be transformed into local councils.
2. The local councils will make up the ENTC general assembly.
3. The general assembly elects a 9-member Leadership Council.
4. The leadership council creates a secretariat with 10 departments.
5. The ENTC’s temporary office will be in Washington DC.
After writing and adopting the bylaws, the conference held an election and the following individuals elected to the top 3 leadership positions of ENTC.
1. Ato Sileshi Tilahun, London, Speaker (AfeGubae)
2. Wzr. Mekdes Worku, Sweden, Deputy Speaker (Mikitil AfeGubae)
3. Dr. Fisseha Eshetu, Washington DC, Secretary General (Wana Tsehafi)
On top of the above three, the following individuals have been elected to the Leadership Council:
4. Wzr. Ferehiwot Derso
5. Ato Munsur Nuru
6. Ato Ananios Kebede
7. Ato Dereje Demissie
8. Ato Abebayehu Alula
9. Ato Belay Woldemariam
The 3-day conference was televised live via video stream and broadcast live via two paltalk rooms.
A delegation of the Congress of Ethiopian People’s United Struggle, led by its vice-chairman Prof. Achamyeleh Debela, attended the conference and offered valuable ideas and suggestions. The Congress (also called Shengo) was formed recently in Ottawa, Canada, and is composed of over 15 political and civic groups.
Before the Dallas conference was formally adjourned, the new leadership went straight to work and made a series of decisions on budget, membership dues, etc.
The 3-day conference was closed with a brief remark by the renowned elder statesman and writer Ato Assefa Gebremariam and a swearing-in ceremony conducted by a young Ethiopian, Mikael Habtemariam.
Migrant Nightmares: Ethiopian Domestic Workers in the Gulf
By Graham Peebles | Dissidentvoice.org
July 3, 2012
Employment opportunities in Ethiopia are scarce, particularly for young women with only a basic education from rural areas where 85% of the population live. Many travel to the towns and cities in search of work, only to discover a barren job scene. The World Bank puts unemployment at 20.5% with a quarter of all 15-24 year olds being out of work. Unable to find anything in Ethiopia, some venture further afield to the Gulf States. Women that head to the Gulf are overwhelmingly single, between 20 and 30 years of age, and according to the Ministry of Labour and Special Affairs (MOLSA) 70% are Muslim. Almost a quarter cannot read or write.
The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) in its 2011 report on Ethiopia documents a “huge increase in migration in and from Ethiopia, in particular by the youth,” — under 20’s make up 50% of the 85 million population. The numbers migrating to the Arabia Peninsula via all routes are increasing, with over 70,000 in 2011 making the perilous journey to Yemen, from where they seek somehow to find a way to other Gulf States. UNHCR Briefing Notes (20 January 2012) found that many Ethiopian arrivals still say they left home because of a lack of economic and livelihood opportunities. As economic migrants they see Yemen as a transit country. Naive and vulnerable they go with hope in their hearts in order to support their families and build a decent life for themselves, realising not the servitude and exploitation that all too often awaits them.
Agents and Gulf Numbers
Migrant domestic workers in Gulf countries can expect to earn $100 – $150 a month which, compared to the $12 a month maids are paid in Ethiopia, is a small fortune and the carrot that lures so many innocent and desperate. There are two “official” channels for women looking to work in the Gulf, the ‘Public’ migrant workers, registered with MOLSA, who secure work through personal contacts abroad and the 110 Private Employment Agencies (PEA), who work directly with employers or agencies in the relevant Gulf country. MOLSA say 30,000 a year are processed through these channels, and estimate a further 30,000 pass through illegal brokers. These may be individuals or companies, many of which are little more than criminal traffickers.
The PEAs and illegal brokers are overwhelmingly Muslim, commonly import/export traders in commodities, who have diversified into trading people. These ‘brokers’ see the women looking for work as simply another commodity to be packaged and sold. They know well the world in which they send the unsuspecting and care not. Bina Fernandez, in “Ethiopian Domestic Workers in The Gulf”, quotes the husband of the owner of Sabrine PEA, one of Ethiopia’s oldest agents: “I am in the business of exporting cattle from Ethiopia, while my wife exports women, and let me tell you, it is easier to export cattle [because there are fewer government regulations to comply with].”
The International Labour Organisation (ILO) estimates there is between 53 and 100 million domestic workers worldwide, who clean, cook, and care for children and the elderly. Within the Gulf Cooperation Countries (GCC) a staggering 50% of the 35 million population are migrant workers. In the UAE around 150,000 families employ 300,000 domestic workers and according to Human Rights Watch (HRW) report, “Walls at Every Turn“, Kuwait has 660,000 migrant domestic workers. That’s one for every two Kuwaiti’s. Extraordinary numbers, and still these workers have little or no legal labour protection and are not even considered employees within labour laws of the GCC. Lebanon’s Labor Code exclude trafficked domestic workers or ‘servants’ as they refer to them, from legal protection, no limit is placed on the hours a ‘servant’ can work or how many days per week, giving employers unlimited control.
There is, it seems, an unwritten contract between the Gulf dynasties and their citizens. The populace agrees to the regime’s unquestioned legitimacy in exchange for oil revenues being used to subsidise state welfare systems. Importing migrant workers to undertake the dirty work is part of this bargain. Bina Fernandez explains: “The state provides a leisured life in exchange for complete political control.” An important ingredient in such self-indulgent lifestyles is Domestic workers, a luxurious commodity and status symbol in a world built on image and materiality. Filipina women shine bright at the top of the human bling chain, followed by Indonesian and Sri Lankan, with African/Ethiopian women at the bottom. Human beings reduced to assets, to be used and abused as their owners see fit. Such is the attitude of many Gulf families to the fragile, lonely, isolated women in their charge.
Khafala Ownership
At the poisoned heart of the migrant domestic workers employment system throughout the GCC is the Khafala sponsorship. The scheme effectively grants ownership of migrants to the employer, fuels trafficking and all manner of abuse and exploitation. Bina Fernandez says that the “Workers’ legal presence in the country is tied to the Khafala, (sponsor/employer) who invariably confiscates their passports in order to control them.” HRW, in its report on trafficking, “As If I Am Not Human”, states that the system “creates a profound power imbalance between employers and workers and imposes tight restrictions on migrant workers rights.”
Domestic workers sleep, eat and work within the home of their employer, who they are completely dependent upon, legally and practically. Living with the family places the women in a highly vulnerable position.
The Khafala denies workers all independent rights, and creates a dangerous imbalance between employer and employee, placing all power with the sponsor. Workers’ freedom of movement is completely restricted by the employer. They can be confined to the house for weeks or months, and in many cases women are forced to continue working long past the completion of their contract and are not allowed to return home. This imprisonment contravenes Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), which states that:
(1) everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state; and,
(2) Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.
In addition to enabling extensive abuse and exploitation of workers, employees seeing a business opportunity sell sponsorships to other families. This fuels resistance to its abolition, called for by human rights groups. Khafala is a major obstacle to the implementation of universal Labor Laws and international human rights conventions. It must be dismantled as a matter of urgency and safeguards protecting the rights of migrant workers accepted and implemented throughout the Gulf region.
Traffickers and Servitude
Arriving in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Beirut and Kuwait City airports, women are routinely met by a local agent, who is all too often instrumental in their exploitation and trafficking. The women are corralled into a special area of the airport, their passports and mobile phones confiscated, and they are driven to their employer’s home, where commonly they disappear. As HRW Head of Women’s Rights, Liesl Gerntholtz, says: “What is particularly striking about domestic workers is their invisibility. Once they come to the country, they disappear into people’s homes.” Isolated and held tightly within their employer’s house women are at risk of all manner of abuse. HRW, in its far reaching report, “Turning New Global Labour Standards Into Change On the Ground“ states: “Domestic workers are typically isolated and shielded from public scrutiny… are at heightened risk of mistreatment, including physical, sexual and psychological abuse; food deprivation and forced confinement.”
Much mistreatment that domestic workers are subjected to constitutes trafficking. The United Nations Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children, signed and ratified by Saudi Arabia, UAE and Kuwait but pointedly, not Lebanon or indeed Ethiopia, defines trafficking as amongst other things, “(a) the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power.” This clearly covers the Khafala sponsorship and the entrapment of workers within employers’ homes. Exploitation is also a key element in the legal criteria for trafficking. The UN Protocol states, “the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual prostitution and forced labour, or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude.”
One further form of imprisonment that comes under the trafficking umbrella is debt bondage. Many Ethiopian women are tied into deeply exploitative and damaging working sentences by debt bondage, or bonded/forced labour. Inflated fees charged by unscrupulous agents for placing workers or spurious charges levied for moving employer are often passed on to women workers, many of which “find that deductions of 90 to 100 percent of their salaries are withheld to cover recruitment and placement fees. Depending on the country, migrant domestic workers may work for three to ten months without ever receiving a wage.” (HRW in “As If I am Not Human”.) This ‘debt’ is used to trap them in servitude. Some report being held ‘captive’ without their passport, their wages withheld for the full two year term. As HRW records: “Some were under direct or indirect threat from employers or agents of being trafficked into forced prostitution, charged substantial fines if they did not finish their contracts, or being abandoned far from home.” These are not brokers/agents in any recognisable legitimate sense of the word, but common criminals engaged in human trafficking and the destruction of lives. It is time they were treated as such by the judicial system.
Violence and Despair
The catalogue of reported cases of criminal treatment and physical abuse suffered by migrant workers, including murder, rape, beatings, burning and verbal insults, is endless. The HRW report “The Domestic Workers Convention (DWC)” documents many cases including this one in Saudi Arabia. “She beat me until my whole body burned. She beat me almost every day… She would beat my head against the stove until it was swollen. She threw a knife at me but I dodged it. This behavior began from the first week I arrived.” Sexual harassment and abuse is commonplace, and leads many women to despair.
The Arab Times reports a stream of cases; for instance, on the 27th February 2012, “Police are looking for a 23 year old Ethiopian housemaid who ran away from her sponsor’s house… after her sponsors three sons raped her.” The same news source documents the case of “An Ethiopia housemaid [who] died after her Kuwaiti sponsor (allegedly) beat her.” The 2011 annual report on trafficking (US Secretary of State Office To Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons), ranks Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait is Tier 3 – the lowest possible category.
According to the report all three are destination countries for women and children subject to forced labour, sex trafficking and myriad forms of abuse, including severe beatings, slapping and attacks using weapons, such as shoes, belts, sticks, electrical cables and kitchen items. In some cases the HRW report states “physical abuse is so severe it has lead to paralysis, blindness and death.”
The case of Alem Dechesa is the most widely publicized example of mistreatment. She supposedly hanged herself (unthinkable for an Orthodox Christian) in a mental health institution in Beirut, after being dragged and beaten by the recruitment agent in front of the Ethiopian consulate where she had sought and been denied refuge. Shame on the Ethiopian authorities, who once again displayed indifference to the needs of their citizens. The Guardian (9/4/12) claims: “Alem’s case has lifted the lid on the plight of migrant workers in Lebanon… HRW says one migrant worker dies each week in Lebanon from suicide or other causes.”
Sleepless in the Gulf
For many women there is no sanctity to be found in sleep even, which is often denied workers imprisoned and enslaved within many Gulf households, where they can be forced to sleep in store-rooms, cupboards, utility rooms where they are acutely vulnerable to sexual abuse. Made to work from early morning until well into the night, with no days off, women have little or no rest and are often fed rotting or poor quality food. HRW in DWC states: “In some cases domestic workers are literally starved.” Such inhumane treatment pushes the most vulnerable to self-harm, causes mental breakdowns and, in deep despair, suicide.
Some attempt to flee their employer and escape the torment; however, there are many dangers associated with running away. With no passport or money, women on the streets are in a precarious position. If caught by the police, they risk being sexually abused, and may be returned to an enraged employer. In Lebanon workers who leave their employer’s house without permission automatically loose their legal status. Those that are not caught seek out other Ethiopian women living on the outside. The runaways live together in small rented rooms, take on freelance domestic work, sell illicit alcohol and resort to prostitution. They live hidden lives and are completely abandoned by the Ethiopian Consulate, who is guilty of neglecting all domestic workers and regard freelancers as delinquents who have broken their employment contract. They fail to recognize the exploitation and mistreatment the women have suffered at the hands of abusive sponsors and agents and their responsibility to protect their citizens in a foreign land.
Laws for the Unprotected
Victims in a chain of usury and exploitation, migrant domestic workers trapped into slavery by poverty, lack of opportunity and fear of worse need the protection written into international law to be enforced. In addition to the United Nations Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, which deals with many of the offenses being currently committed, the great hope for domestic workers worldwide is the ILO Domestic Workers Convention 189. Passed in June 2011, crucially with all Gulf States voting in favour, Convention 189 is a huge step forward in securing domestic workers’ labour rights. Ratifying states are required to ensure the effective promotion and protection of the human rights of all workers, as the ILO makes clear: “The landmark treaty setting standards for the treatment of domestic workers…. has been widely hailed as a milestone,” it “aims at protecting and improving the working and living conditions of domestic workers worldwide.” When implemented and enforced domestic workers will finally have recourse to law and potentially much abuse and exploitation currently so prevalent would be largely eradicated.
It is a long overdue legislative structure that will enter into legal force one year after ratification by two countries, (2013 earliest). Urgent and sustained pressure needs to be applied on all states to ratify this important convention. It is time long overdue that domestic migrant workers be lifted out of the shadows of slavery, abuse and exploitation into the light of decency and respect where their human and moral rights are adhered too.
In a positive move Saudi Arabia and the UAE have proposed new laws, which albeit inadequate and full of contradictions, at least recognise domestic workers as human beings, entitled to the same rights as other employees. The rule of international law must be applied to and within Gulf States where widespread inhumane treatment of domestic workers takes place and domestic labour laws reformed in line with international standards.
As Ethiopian migrant domestic workers are less expensive and easier to manipulate than other nationals, demand for them within the GCC and neighbouring states will no doubt continue. The Ethiopian Government must, as a matter of urgency, begin to offer them support, establish female support groups and demand justice where complaints of mistreatment are investigated and substantiated.
Within Ethiopia long-term measures in education and the creation of employment opportunities for women are essential. Tighter controls must be applied to recruitment agents and steps taken to root out illegal brokers involved in trafficking to Gulf States, where such horrendous abuse is allowed to take place, destroying the lives of so many vulnerable young women.
Graham Peebles is Director of The Create Trust, a UK registered charity. He worked in the West Bank in 2009, running a series of education workshops for Palestinian children. He can be reached at: [email protected].
The time has come for an Adwa Spring, what started with a joke of a soccer tournament come cultural sham has transformed into something bigger::
by Teddy Fikre dated: Tuesday, July 2nd, 2012
Do you feel that? Feel what you ask. That shaking, the tremble below your feet as the upper crust of society suddenly shifts under the sea bed and a new ground pops up overnight to replace the staid landscape. That feeling you feel in your toes and gyrating through your bones is not an earthquake, it is the transformation of the Ethiopian vanguard as the Habesha scene is being mangled and renewed in the most violent way yet in the most serene sense of quietude. The old is giving way to the new, this is a new day and an Addis Moment–what you are witnessing is a Paradigm Shift.
For too long, good and decent everyday folk have been too intimidated by brute force and implied threats to keep quiet or else face eternal banishment. Too often, these words of bluster and hubris have been accompanied by violence as hundreds of thousands of Ethiopians since 1974 have perished overnight and were later buried in unmarked graves. First the ruthless Derg government led by Mengistu Hailemariam ravaged Ethiopians and left us whispering in cold corners and afraid of our own shadows. The unending sense of foreboding and fear can be traced back directly to the Derg regime where everyone suspected their own neighbors—hell, some were even afraid of their own children. Dictatorships are fomented and made permanent by tyrants that cripple leaders and leave the populace in an unending sense of terror.
Where the Derg left off the TPLF junta has perfected. I don’t understand it and I never will, how is it that a people who felt the touch of injustice turn to the very same tactics that brutalized their children to pass on a legacy of horror to the children of their own countrymen? How is it a group that felt oppressed now can oppress the group that they felt oppressed by while knowing full well that all Ethiopians—without regard to ethnicity—suffered immensely under the Derg. This is the way of humanity though, no people on this earth–putting aside Native Americans and African-Americans–suffered a collective injustice like the Jews. Alas, now they have their own country, which parenthetically robbed Palestinians of their homeland, and the Jews in the name of “Homeland Defense” turn to some of the most horrific tactics to oppress and put down the Palestinians people.
But all things done in the name of injustice eventually give way to equity. Eventually the paradigm changes as people, leery of stifling oppression, revolt and say enough. That moment happened in Tunisia, Egypt, and throughout the Middle East. Look closely, and you might find in the least likely place a seed of a revolt taking place in between a kick and a testa. A test case is being implemented by a group of outgoing Ethiopians, most based in the DC metro area, to change the paradigm and introduce a new form of non-violent tactics to oust tyranny in Ethiopia. Egsyaber willing, this seed will sprout, Inshalla the community will water the seed planted by these young people and let a new movement develop that will be our version of the Arab Spring. We might call this paradigm shift the Adwa Spring.
If you think that this article is a self-adulation missive, let me first state a disclaimer to dissuade you from that thinking. I promise you that this is not a self-love note. I might be the most visible of those “younger Ethiopians—I say “Younger” because I am 37 and I feel like I am 87 right at this moment—but rest assured that there are hundreds behind the efforts that I am a part of. We communicate and strategize on Facebook, Twitter and text messages. There is an army of Ethiopians behind me; some have family back in Ethiopia so they are leery of coming out in public for fear of putting their relatives in danger. Others are still a bit hesitant to be too public with their “resistance campaign” for fear of being targeted for persecution and intimidation. However, as each day passes, their spines are turning to steel as they slowly come around to realizing that fear is the only thing to fear.
I don’t blame them for their reticence. I myself prayed for days before I decided to wage war on AESA One. I thought of my family and how their lives would be disturbed. To be honest, I built in a 20% chance of bodily harm or death before I decided to leverage all my abilities to bringing down a nefarious and a duplicitous organization by the name of AESA One. And just as I predicted, the threats and harassment followed suit as soon as I started sending out press releases accusing AESA One of being a sham and tying them in to blood money from back home.
On Saturday, as I was going around passing out flyers for the “Free Ethiopia Celebration” where we were planning to feed our people for free and entertain them for free, a coward called my sister with a blocked number, cited where she lived, and made an implicit threat that my life was in danger if I did not back away and leave the AESA One event on Wednesday alone. Then on Sunday, when I arrived to set up the “Free Ethiopia Celebration”, two cowards–one in a blue shirt and a cast on his hand–came towards the African-American Civil War Memorial with a menacing look and called out my name as if though they were itching for a fight. As God would have it, my friend Mastewal and another compatriot showed up at that exact moment and convinced these two TPLF goons to tuck tail and run.
In America, if someone is spreading lies and untruths, there is this thing called defamation and libel and issues are settled in the court. Only in TPLF oppressed Ethiopia are citizens harassed and intimidated with death threats in order to keep quiet. Listen here AESA One, your brutal tactics might work in Ethiopia but this is America. I will NOT be silenced by your tirades and your threats. If what I say is untrue, sue me and I will see you in court. But just know this, I am in talks with the media and contacting the American Journal Association, I am begging you to sue me so that I can turn you into the face of African tyranny and in the process expose what Meles Zenawi did in locking up our brave Ethiopian jegna journalists.
The minute that the paperwork is filed, I will drive immediately to Philadelphia and hold a press conference in front of Liberty Bell with a ts-hirt that has the picture of Eskinder Nega. Moreover, there is this thing called discovery; I will request for 10 years worth of financial records of not only AESA One but each and every one of the AESA Executive Board. Ask your expensive lawyers about discovery and they will most likey advise you not to sue me or else you will pay a lot more than the PIPER. I will turn the whole of AESA One, Al Amoudi, and Abinet Gebremeskel and alike into the personification of all that ails Africa. I have 4,000 press releases ready to be sent the second you sue me.
Alas, you know not to sue me, you are smarter than that. So like cowards you turn to intimidation tactics like calling my sister and terrorizing her to death. You turn to calling my phone endlessly with blocked numbers. You turn to sending goons out on Sunday to intimidate me. In the process, you seek to make me go quietly into the night and aim to keep the hundreds who are behind me to never follow the same tactics. But here is what you don’t understand, my grandmother was a hero who fought the Italians during World War II and was given a medal of honor by Haile Selassie. My grandfather was a war hero as well; he was the pride of Gonder for his bravery and courage in the line of fire. I do not scare easily, hell, I don’t scare at all. Keep your mafia tactics up, you do nothing but encourage me to keep pushing because you only verify what I accuse you off each time my sister gets a death threat from a blocked number. Moreover, the death threat I received gave my press releases extra weight, two lawmakers and one major media outlet that were ignoring my press releases are now seriously looking into my allegations. I guess I should thank you and that coward who called my sister on Saturday for the Hebret.
But, rest assured that I am not a meek individual. I have read the Art of War over 200 times. So you want to get thuggish with it, here is my warning to you. Stop making death threats at my family, or else. Or else what you say? Well in the past 24 hours, people have sent me the pictures, addresses, names, school addresses, and work places of EVERY AESA One affiliated member’s family from Al Amoudi, Abinet Gebremeskel on down. This information I will guard with my life and will take to my grave, unlike you I have honor and choose not to involve the names and pictures of family members even as you make implicit threats against my nieces and nephews. But I warn you, back away, I have now written an articles that publicizes the names and pictures of EVERY single member of the AESA One family, including the addresses of your homes, your work and on down.
This information was forwarded to me by over 16 individuals who you must have wronged in the past. As my family goes so does your family, as I go so you go. If you want to fight me, fight me in court, but if you turn to the ways of gangsters, I will… CONTINUED
A detailed audit will be published within 48 hours on www.browncondor.com of all monies raised for this weekend’s “Free Ethiopia Celebration”. We will provide line by line accounting of each expense and where the money went. AESA One and all other non-profits affiliated with Ethiopia, please follow our lead, it is time to open up your books or be known forever as leboch. If you have ANY questions about the expenses affiliated with “Free Ethiopia Celebration” contact us at [email protected]
The climax of Ethiopian Sports Federation North America’s opening ceremony on Sunday, July 1st. Watch the video below? The event will continue until Saturday. Click here for schedules and more info.
The Ethiopian Sports Federation in North America (ESFNA) opened its annual soccer tournament on Sunday, July 1st, in Dallas, Texas, with a big fanfare. I have been to several ESFNA events in the past, and I am sure many people would agree that this year’s is the best organized, and the most exciting event in the Federation’s 29-year history. On top of that, it feels like a genuine family event where Ethiopian patriotism is once again fully embraced. A horse galloping into the stadium with the rider carrying an Ethiopian flag while Teddy Afro’s Tikur Saw was playing was a particularly fantastic and emotional scene. The only thing that tempered my excitement was when some one informed me that the Woyanne-operated Ethiopian Airlines was among the sponsors of the Dallas event. After ESFNA’s patriotic Ethiopians successfully expunged Al Amoudi servants and Woyanne thugs from the Federation, apparently there are still some who are lurking around trying to cause trouble. ESFNA has come a long way in cleaning up its house from Woyanne thugs, but the fight must continue until all remnants of Woyanne are fully cleared from this great Ethiopian institution. The ESFNA event will continue until next Saturday. I urge you to come with your family and enjoy. I am told that the horse will make an appearance again on Wednesday, July 4. Watch the video below. – Elias KIfle
Over the past six years, I have written numerous columns defending press freedom in Ethiopia. In a 2009 commentary entitled, “The Art of War on Ethiopia’s Independent Press”, I expressed astonishment over the heavy handed treatment of the free press: “Use a sledgehammer to smash a butterfly! That is the exquisite art of war unleashed on Ethiopia’s independent press by the dictatorship of Meles Zenawi today.”
In a 2007 column entitled “Monkey Trial in Kangaroo Kourt“, I wrote about the Kafkaesque use of the courts by the dictatorship in Ethiopia to crush dissent and suppress criticism. Franz Kafka’s famous novel, The Trial, begins with the sentence, “Someone must have been telling lies about Joseph K., for without having done anything wrong he was arrested one fine morning.” K., is ordered to stand trial before know-nothing judges who do the bidding of their invisible puppet masters. K’s guilt is a foregone conclusion. Everything about the trial is a secret — the charges, the court procedures and the judges. K cannot defend himself because he is never told what crimes he has committed. He is denied access to the evidence against him. K’s trial is delayed time and again. His lawyer is unable to help him in a system where there is neither law nor procedure.
Such is the stark portrait of Zenawi’s prosecution and conviction of journalists, dissidents and opposition political leaders in his Kafkaesque Kangaroo Kourts in Ethiopia (KKK) today. He uses lies, damned lies and loathsome lies as evidence to convict opponents and those who disagree with him under his cut-and-paste anti-terrorism law. To add political drama and add insult to injury, “sentencing” is scheduled for mid-July.
Human Rights Watch documented that the “convictions” last week, together with others over the past six months, “bring the total known number of individuals convicted of terrorism-related charges to 34, including 11 journalists, at least 4 opposition supporters and 19 others.” Zenawi can now beat his chest in triumph and do a few victory laps for “convicting” Eskinder Nega, Reeyot Alemu, Woubshet Taye, Swedish journalists Martin Schibbye and Johan Persson, and opposition party leaders and dissdents Andualem Arage, Nathnael Mekonnen, Mitiku Damte, Yeshiwas Yehunalem, Kinfemichael Debebe, Andualem Ayalew, Nathnael Mekonnen, Yohannes Terefe, Zerihun Gebre-Egziabher and many others.
None of this is new even to the casual observer. Over the years, Zenawi has been using his KKK to railroad into prison independent journalists, opposition leaders and dissidents. So say the U.S. Government and various international human rights organizations using diplomatic language. The 2010 U.S. State Department Country Reports on Human Rights Practices on Ethiopia concluded: “The law provides for an independent judiciary. Although the civil courts operated with a large degree of independence, the criminal courts remained weak, overburdened, and subject to significant political intervention and influence.” Human Rights Watch concluded in its 2007 report: “In high-profile cases, [Ethiopian] courts show little independence or concern for defendants’ procedural rights… The judiciary often acts only after unreasonably long delays, sometimes because of the courts’ workloads, more often because of excessive judicial deference to bad faith prosecution requests for time to search for evidence of a crime.”
Condemnation of the KKK Verdicts
There has been an outpuring of condemnation against the KKK verdicts and demands for the immediate release of the “convicted” journalists and others from various soruces. The Committee to Protect Journalists issued a statement asserting that “The Ethiopian government has once again succeeded in misusing the law to silence critical and independent reporting. Ethiopia will not hesitate to punish a probing press by imprisoning journalists or pushing them into exile.” Human Rights Watch expressed dismay: “This case shows that Ethiopia’s government will not tolerate even the mildest criticism. The use of draconian laws and trumped-up charges to crack down on free speech and peaceful dissent makes a mockery of the rule of law.” Amnesty International condemned the “trumped up” charges and declared: “This is a dark day for justice in Ethiopia, where freedom of expression is being systematically destroyed by a government targeting any dissenting voice. The verdict seemed to be a foregone conclusion.”
U.S. ambassador to Ethiopia, Donald Booth said, “I find the convictions of predominantly journalists and politicians raises questions about the compatibility of the anti-terrorism law with constitutional guarantees for freedom of expression.” According to the Embassy’s posted statement: “The arrest of journalists has a chilling effect on the media and on the right to freedom of expression. We have made clear in our ongoing human rights dialogue with the Ethiopian government that freedom of expression and freedom of the media are fundamental elements of a democratic society. A U.S. State Department spokesman explained that even though the U.S. works with the regime in Ethiopia “on certain things, you can be straight with them when you disagree with their policies in other areas, as we always are with Ethiopia with regard to press freedom.”
U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy, who two weeks ago in his statement in the Congressional Record, noted that the ruling regime in Ethiopia has made it impossible for “journalists like Eskinder Nega to do their work of reporting and peaceful political participation”, issued a strongly worded press release condemning the travesty of justice:
The Ethiopian Government’s use of vague anti-terrorism laws to silence the press has been widely and rightly condemned. The conviction of Eskinder Nega and other journalists, who are accused of nothing more than the peaceful exercise of rights clearly recognized under international law, is the work of a regime that fears the democratic aspirations of its own people. Over the years, United States administrations have provided Prime Minister Meles a veneer of legitimacy due to our shared interest in countering real terrorist threats, but he has exploited the relationship for his own political ends. It is time to put the values and principles that distinguish us from terrorists, above aid to a government that misuses its institutions to silence its critics.
Eskinder and Andualem, Invictius!
Unlike Kafka’s Joseph K. who met his end helplessly bleating out the words, “like a dog”, Eskinder and Andualem returned to their prison cells like two roaring lions sauntering to their cages. (I say, one caged lion commands more respect than a thousand free hyenas.) They knew long ago that their “conviction” was inevitable and a foregone conclusion. No journalist, dissident or opposition party leaders has ever been found not guilty by Zenawi’s KKK. Eskinder Nega, a man whose name is synonymous with the word dignity and the irrepressible symbol of press freedom not only in Ethiopia but throughout the world, had a few words of wisdom to share with the unprincipled hacks in robes: “I have struggled for peaceful democracy, and I have never disrespected any individual and I didn’t commit a crime. My conscience is clear.” The hacks tried to silence him, but as always Eskinder spoke truth to power: “You have to stand for justice, you have to allow us to say what we want… you have no right to limit our freedom of speech.”
Eskinder is a hero of a special kind. He is a hero who fights with nothing more than ideas and the truth. He slays falsehoods with the sword of truth. He chases bad ideas with good ones. Armed only with a pen, Eskinder fights despair with hope; fear with courage; anger with reason; arrogance with humility; ignorance with knowledge; intolerance with forbearance; oppression with perseverance; doubt with trust and cruelty with compassion.
It is a crying shame that Eskinder, who is a hero to so many heroes of press freedom throughout the world, should be judged by an unholy trinity of benighted, scheming and pusillanimous judicial puppets.
Andualem Aragie, the dynamic and courageous young opposition leader was defiant and unbowed:
The last six months that we have spent are days when the people of Ethiopia have struggled for their human dignity and human rights. But the people have not been fortunate enough to enjoy their democratic rights. In my generation, I have tried to struggle to the best of my ability for my children and for all the people of Ethiopia. In doing so, I did not start with malice [or ill will]. In doing so, I did not commit a crime. In doing so, I did not aim to undermine the interests of my poor country. In what I have done, I do not believe I have offended my Creator, the people of Ethiopia or my own conscience. I am in total peace. Why I am standing here is because of my yearning for freedom. This is not the first time that I have sought justice in Ethiopian courts and been denied jusitce. I will not ask for mercy [from this court] for I have committed no crime. I will graciously drink from the cup of oppression my persecutors have prepared for me for my conscience will not allow me to do anything else.
Why Does Zenawi Persecute and Prosecute the Free Press and Dissidents?
Why does Zenawi go through hell and high water to crush the few struggling independent newspapers, dissidents and opposition leaders in the country? Why does he shutter newspapers that have a circulation of just a few thousand copies when he owns ALL of the printing presses and radio and television media in the country? What is he afraid of?
The answer is simple: The Truth! Zenawi can’t handle the truth. He hates the independent press because it reflects the corruption, repression and oppression of his regime. He fears criticism and genuine expression of public opinion because he does not want to see his reflection in the true mirror of the peoples’ eyes. He much prefers to wallow in his own delusional, imaginary and virtual image of the “Great Leader of the Renaissance” reflected in the glazed and bulging eyes of his Yes-men. But as the recent history of the “Arab Spring” has shown, dictatorships are like castles built of sand which dissolve and are washed away when struck by a single sweep of the ocean’s wave. Regardless of how long dictators keep cracking down on the free press and terrorize the people, in the end they are always swept and vacuumed into the dustbin of history by the tornadic force of the people’s fury. Think of it, always!
It has to be remembered that AlShebab has assigned me secretly to make propagation activities in Ethiopia, Somaliland, Kenya and Uganda. To accomplish the task we have agreed with you through your representative Ato Mamush Sentie in Eritrea to publish propaganda articles against the Ethiopian government, against the interest of the Ethiopian people and the American government…”
Give us a break!
But we have seen it all before. Zenawi’s MO goes through three stages. First, he demonizes his adversaries. Then he criminalizes them. In the third stage, he dehumanizes them.That is how he did it to Eskinder Nega, Andualem Aragie, Dawit Kebede and so many others.
Temesgen and Feteh are now undergoing the demonization stage. In a few weeks or less, a full scale campaign will be waged against them in the regime owned media. They will be called “terrorists”, “insurrectionists”, “agitators”, “foreign agents” “spies” and whatever else the dirty tricks department can manage to fabricate. There will be frenzied “calls” to the regime from “ordinary citizens” to take action against them.
The criminalization stage will begin in a couple of months or less with a videotaped arrest of Temesgen and possibly other Feteh members in the street in much the same way as they did Eskinder Nega and Andualem Aragie. (Someone must really enjoy watching the videotape of those arrests.Eskinder’s official captors videotaped the whole arrest and laughed boisterously as Eskinder’s traumatized six year old child cried his eyes out for his daddy.)
Then, the dehumanization stage takes place in jail as they await “trial” in the KKK — torture and beatings, denial of medical care, denial of family visits, daily insults, humiliation and degradation, solitary confinement and on and on. In the end, there will be a show KKK trial for Temesgen Desalegn et al with ambassadors, representatives of international organizations and family members sitting in the gallery. The verdict and sentnece will be the same as always: Guilty, guilty, guilty… 15 years at hard labor… 20 years at hard labor… life in prison…
It is all so pathetically predictable.
Losing the Battle, Winning the War
This is the unfinished story of the war on the independent free press in Ethiopia, and the victors and the victims in that war. The final struggle between the dictators who wield swords and the journalists who wield pens, pencils and computer keyboards will be decided in a war for the hearts and minds of the Ethiopian people. I have no doubts whatsoever that the outcome of that war is foreordained. In fact, I believe that war has already been won. For as Edward Bulwer-Lytton penned in his verse, in the war between swordholders and penholders, final victory always goes to the penholders:
‘True, This! –
Beneath the rule of men entirely great,
The pen is mightier than the sword. Behold
The arch-enchanters wand! – itself a nothing! –
But taking sorcery from the master-hand
To paralyze the Caesars, and to strike
The loud earth breathless! – Take away the sword –
States can be saved without it!’
But if the paramount question is to save the Ethiopian state or to save Ethiopia’s free press, I would, as Thomas Jefferson said, save the latter: “The basis of our government being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.”
The Actions of Our Enemies, the Silence of Our Friends
Dr. Martin Luther King said, “We will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.” I would add that we will remember and forgive the words and actions of our enemies for they know not what they say and do; but the cowardice, indifference, apathy, disinterest and cold neutrality of our friends who know or should know better but stand in the face of evil with their heads bowed, eyes closed, ears plugged and lips muted, we can neither forgive nor forget!!!
I believe nothing is more important and uplifting to political prisoners than knowledge of the fact that they are not forgotten, abandoned and forsaken by their compatriots. We must stand with Eskinder Nega, Andualem Aragie, Reeyot Alemu, Woubshet Taye and the countless political prisoners in Ethiopia. Every day, they are beaten down and brought to their knees. We cannot hear their whimpers of pain and the silence of their desperation. Because they have no voice, we must be their voices and speak on their behalf. Because they are walled behind filthy prisons, we must unfailingly remind the world of their subhuman existence.
We must all labor for the cause of Ethiopian political prisoners not because it is easy or fashionable, but because it is ethical, honorable, right and just. In the end, what will make the difference for the future of Ethiopia is not the brutality, barbarity, bestiality and inhumanity of its corrupt dictators, but the humanity, dignity, adaptability, audacity, empathy and compassion of ordinary Ethiopians for their wrongfully imprisoned and long-suffering compatriots. That is why we must join hands and work tirelessly to free all political prisoners in Ethiopia.
FREE ALL POLITICAL PRISONERS IN ETHIOPIA!
FREE THE FREE PRESS IN ETHIOPIA!
Amharic translations of recent commentaries by the author may be found at:
http://www.ecadforum.com/Amharic/archives/category/al-mariam-amharic and
http://ethioforum.org/?cat=24
Previous commentaries by the author are available at:
Do you feel that? Feel what you ask. That shaking, the tremble below your feet as the upper crust of society suddenly shifts under the sea bed and a new ground pops up overnight to replace the staid landscape. That feeling you feel in your toes and gyrating through your bones is not an earthquake, it is the transformation of the Ethiopian vanguard as the Habesha scene is being mangled and renewed in the most violent way yet in the most serene sense of quietude. The old is giving way to the new, this is a new day and an Addis Moment–what you are witnessing is a Paradigm Shift.
But all things done in the name of injustice eventually give way to equity. Eventually the paradigm changes as people, leery of stifling oppression, revolt and say enough. That moment happened in Tunisia, Egypt, and throughout the Middle East. Look closely, and you might find in the least likely place a seed of a revolt taking place in between a kick and a testa. A test case is being implemented by a group of outgoing Ethiopians, most based in the DC metro area, to change the paradigm and introduce a new form of non-violent tactics to oust tyranny in Ethiopia. Egsyaber willing, this seed will sprout, Inshalla the community will water the seed planted by these young people and let a new movement develop that will be our version of the Arab Spring. We might call this paradigm shift the Adwa Spring.
On Saturday, as I was going around passing out flyers for the “Free Ethiopia Celebration” where we were planning to feed our people for free and entertain them for free, a coward called my sister with a blocked number, cited where she lived, and made an implicit threat that my life was in danger if I did not back away and leave the AESA One event on Wednesday alone. Then on Sunday, when I arrived to set up the “Free Ethiopia Celebration”, two cowards–one in a blue shirt and a cast on his hand–came towards the African-American Civil War Memorial with a menacing look and called out my name as if though they were itching for a fight. As God would have it, my friend Mastewal and another compatriot showed up at that exact moment and convinced these two TPLF goons to tuck tail and run.
But, rest assured that I am not a meek individual. I have read the Art of War over 200 times. So you want to get thuggish with it, here is my warning to you. Stop making death threats at my family, or else. Or else what you say? Well in the past 24 hours, people have sent me the pictures, addresses, names, school addresses, and work places of EVERY AESA One affiliated member’s family from Al Amoudi, Abinet Gebremeskel on down. This information I will guard with my life and will take to my grave, unlike you I have honor and choose not to involve the names and pictures of family members even as you make implicit threats against my nieces and nephews. But I warn you, back away, I have now written an articles that publicizes the names and pictures of EVERY single member of the AESA One family, including the addresses of your homes, your work and on down.
The Triumph of Lies