The harrowing experience of Ethiopians on the doomed Ethiopian airliner in the Mediterranean Sea last week, and the racist ways in which grieving Ethiopians who were trying to know the fate of their fellow Ethiopians on the plane were treated in Lebanon, could have been used to raise important questions and start a more important discussion. Sadly, it is being deflected in a useless direction – complaint about racism, anger at the wrong parties and a cyber-war or words with the wrong culprit. Frankly, I find the self deceptiveness and empty bravado and hypocrisy of my fellow Ethiopians more maddening than the racism and degrading treatment of Ethiopians in Lebanon which we know exists in the region all along. It is good to be angry and not unreasonable at all. But it will be a foolish exercise if we don’t know where to direct our rage to. In my view, this anger has to be directed primarily at ourselves for letting this to happen to us. If we think that this experience is an isolated case then we have closed our eyes. What has gone so wrong with our generation, the sons and daughters of a proud people, who throughout the ages fought hard to keep their pride and dignity and never let anybody look down on them? What the damn went wrong with us!
As we often do in many cases, we are taking our eyes off the big picture, completely failing to raise and answer the most important questions that we need to ask ourselves about our country and ourselves as a people. How and why have we ended up being subjected to this kind of humiliation and racism and how are we going to end it? How is it that the beacon of hope and freedom of black people around the world ended up making an industry out of exporting their beautiful children to slave labor in the Middle East at the turn of a new century?
To those of you who seemed to be angry by the racist treatment of our fellow Ethiopians, I have some more questions for you. What were you expecting a bunch of maidservants who live and work much like medieval slaves were going to be treated like in a country where most people only know them as domestic slaves? Do we expect them to read our history before they buy their slaves and be forced to care that we Ethiopians are a proud and dignified people with a along and proud history of not allowing ourselves to be looked down upon by anybody? Was this the only incident and instance that Ethiopians have been treated in inhuman, degrading and racist ways around the Middle East? Have you asked why even our Airline, Ethiopian, the island of modernity in Ethiopia that we are all proud of for its world class service and record, and frankly, one that dwarfs most Middle East carriers in every respect, couldn’t dodge the racism. Have you seen how minutes after the accident and before any evidence was available, the transport minister of Lebanon and their journalists blamed the accident on the pilot. And mind you, this is a terrorist infested area and the first eye witnesses were saying the plane went down in flames. You see, after all, Ethiopian Airlines is owned and operated by a country and people that dump their beautiful children as slaves in their countries to work seven days a week in the most dehumanizing conditions. So, what in the world have we expected them to treat us like other than in indignity?
There are many more questions that any Ethiopian worthy of self respect should ask. How many times have you heard epidemic levels of Ethiopian suicides in the Middle East? How many of us have heard Ethiopian girls throwing themselves from the top floors of buildings to end their misery in these countries? Haven’t you heard that the Ethiopian embassies in these countries routinely tell our slave sisters to go to hell whenever they ask for help? How many times have we heard that boatloads of Ethiopians travelling from Bosaso in Somaliland sink in the Red Sea while attempting to reach the cost of the Arabian Peninsula where they were treated like animals? Have you wondered why hours after the first boat capsized with all Ethiopians on board others keep riding the next ramshackle boat taking a chance on their lives? Haven’t we seen pictures of Ethiopian women beaten, sometimes even burnt by their masters in this region? How often have we heard women thrown into jail, or their passports confiscated and thrown out on the streets for voulchers to play with them? Have we not heard that many are often denied their slave salaries by their masters and thrown out on streets? Have we not heard that many dead Ethiopians are simply buried in the sands and vanish like the wind? How many of us have heard Ethiopian maidservants calling the voice of America or Ethiopian community radio stations in the West to tell us harrowing stories of mistreatment and racism pleading with us for help? An Ethiopian airline crew member I met recently told me that it is not unusual to travel from the Middle East to Addis Ababa with many young Ethiopian girls who suffer from extreme forms of depression and trauma, some who lost their minds and behave strangely. Yes, there is some awful thing happening to us as a people and we seem to be lost. If there is anything strange in this particular case, it is our attempt to treat it as an isolated case, a self deception that borders on stupidity. Rather than blame ourselves for letting this happen to us we tend to project it elsewhere.
The first job of any government anywhere is to protect its citizens, so we hear in nearly all countries. In that case we have no government. We have allowed robber barons to rule over us. The anger should be directed at us for letting our country be run by a slave trading oligarchy – the government of Meles Zenawi that turned selling young Ethiopian girls in the Middle East into a huge industry. I hear that this slave trade is now becoming one of Meles Zenawi’s most important hard currency earning businesses in the country.
From time to time I meet some pigs who feed at Meles Zenawi’s trough. They tell me something I already know very well. They tell me the economy in Ethiopia is growing. Nobody is contesting that other than the inflated statistics cooked-up in Meles Zenawi’s office for propaganda purposes. This is not even a secret. I have heard it from people who work on analyzing and reporting the data. These pigs, like any pig, hardly understand the meaning of economic growth and development as it relates to social welfare and how to measure it and account for the source of the growth and who benefits out of it. If they see buildings and asphalted roads and bridges and a few people in Addis Ababa and elsewhere striking it rich overnight, that’s it- economy is growing. They seem to have very little clue that the TPLF is expected to do something for a living or that it is supposed to show us something in the form of growth for being one of the world’s most important destinations of billions of dollars of foreign aid in the world and the huge remittance from millions of Ethiopians abroad, including from the slave labor its sells to the Middle East and the massive number of children it sells for adoption? By the way, have you stood by at major terminals of Ethiopian Airlines? The most common scene is a parade of people carrying small Ethiopian children. I once saw an old Ethiopian woman crying profusely at the site of the little children at Dulles Airport in Virginia. These adopters say they pay a fortune to Mr. Zenawi’s government to get these children. Did you hear that the government of Australia saw the obscenity and was forced to stop it recently? Is this a proud thing to do for a people and a country which boasts “unheard of” economic growth?
The naming of the Abay Bridge by Meles Zenawi is an interesting illustration of how Meles himself and the pigs at his trough perceive economic growth and development. According to the local media reported at the time of the inauguration of the bridge, Meles Zenawi named the bridge “Hidasse dildiy” – meaning the “bridge of renaissance.” What makes this interesting is that the construction of the bridge was 100% funded by the Japanese government! Silu semta doro tanqa motech!
Whatever its source, what is economic growth or development anyway if it is not meant to improve the life of people? Why is it that our loss of pride and dignity and humiliation so positively correlated with this reported growth? I mean, how is it that the more the country grows economically, the more people live in humiliation and desperation, and the number of the poor increases exponentially? Who is getting rich any way? What the pigs and the TPLF officials don’t tell you is that the number of the absolute poor and the perennially aid dependent population more than tripled since TPLF arrived in Addis Ababa almost two decades ago? Beggary is no more a humiliating exercise in Ethiopia. It used to be. If you happen to meet any of these pigs, or any of the government officials who brag about economic growth in Ethiopia, ask them to show you what the country manufactures and sells to the world other than good old coffee and other agricultural products that we began exporting a century ago. Ask them how many extractive industries like mining are operating.
And lo and behold, a slavery of epic proportions is hovering at your door steps. If you are not redirecting the anger and rise up to make changes as any people worthy of dignity and respect must do now, wait until the Middle East tycoons begin operating the land Meles Zenawi is selling them at bargain prices now. If you think the current land grab in Ethiopia is traditional investment and not colonialism, just wait until your relatives begin working in the Egyptian, Arabian and Asian plantations. I am not sure if it will be too late by then. If you are angry that you are despised outside of your country, you will see what it looks like when they come home to take the land our fathers fought hard to leave for us. But when are we going to say enough is enough! Ehhhhhhhhhhh!
ADDIS ABABA (Bloomberg) — Ethiopia’s ruling party said the country’s largest opposition grouping, the Forum for Democratic Dialogue (Medrek), would try to foment violence after elections scheduled for May in an effort to spur foreign governments to intervene.
“They are ready to create violence after the elections,” Hailemariam Desalegn, the parliamentary whip for the ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front [a cover for Tigrean People’s Liberation Front (Woyanne)], said in a phone interview this week. “Their ultimate objection is not free and fair elections but to get power-sharing like in Zimbabwe and Kenya. I think this is very dangerous and they should be properly told this.”
He said opposition allegations that elections scheduled for May 23 would not be free and fair were designed to fuel popular discontent that would lead to street clashes as happened following the country’s disputed 2005 poll.
The warning came as the opposition Unity for Democracy and Justice (UDJ), the largest political party in the Forum, accused the U.S., Britain and other Western aid donors of silence over the jailing of UDJ leader Birtukan Mideksa and other human rights abuses.
The U.S. and U.K. “are following the old way of doing business,” said Andualem Aragie, UDJ’s secretary general. “They are partners in development with the Ethiopian government but I don’t think they are partners in freedom and democracy.”
Following disputed presidential elections in Zimbabwe in 2008 and Kenya in 2007, international mediators brokered agreements that allowed opposition parties to share power with Presidents Robert Mugabe and Mwai Kibaki.
The opposition has sought to raise pressure on the U.S., U.K., and other donors who supply more than $2 billion in aid annually to Ethiopia, saying their silence is tantamount to political support for Prime Minister Meles Zenawi.
The U.K. government has a “frank and full dialogue with the government of Ethiopia on human rights and democracy including Birtukan,” said Gavin Cook, a spokesman for the British embassy in Addis Ababa. “Our development assistance, regardless to who is in power, has helped benefit millions of Ethiopians.”
Michael Gonzales, a spokesman for the U.S. embassy in Addis Ababa, declined comment.
ADDIS ABABA (APA) — The 14th African Union Summit on Tuesday unanimously re-elected Ethiopian Prime Minister genocidal dictator Meles Zenawi to represent Africa in future consecutive global climate conferences. [In Africa, failure and betrayal are rewarded. That is why the continent is a land of misery.]
The Summit commended the leading and coordinating role of Meles at the tough negotiations at the Copenhagen Climate Conference. [The fact of the matter is that Meles betrayed Africa in Copenhagen, as reported here.]
The leaders expressed their satisfaction with Meles “who strives to secure the benefits and interest of Africa.” [Thieves standing up for each other at the expense of Africa they claim to represent. Read about Meles Zenawi’s role in Copenhagen here.]
Meles was elected last year to lead the African Union delegation of thieves to the world climate conference at the AU assembly in Libya .
Tanzanian president, Jakaya Kikwete lauded Meles’s efforts at the Copenhagen climate conference where he took into consideration Africa’s interest. [Liar]
The world climate conference in Copenhagen was a forum where the international community, including the developed countries promised to give Africa tens of billion dollars in the coming three years and another $ 100 billion by 2010.
The money will be utilized for climate change adaptation and mitigation programs in Africa , which severely affected by the climate change. [The money goes into the pockets of these looters who are being propped up by neo-colonialists.]
Hany Gebre was killed in the crash of an Ethiopian Airlines flight on January 25
Sunday morning, I went with the photojournalist Matthew Cassel (Just Image) to the Ethiopian Full Gospel Church, in Sebtiyeh, just outside of Beirut, for Sunday services and the funeral of one of the congregants, Hany Gebre, who died in the crash of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 409 last Monday.
If you are looking to understand the plight of Ethiopian domestic workers in Lebanon, look no further than the fact that this service — six days after the incident — was the first time the Ethiopian community could reliably get time off from work to gather. About 150 women — and they were ALL women — were there, and many cried for the entire three hour service, which was conducted through song and spoken word, wholly in Amharic. Representatives from the Ethiopian Consulate stopped by to pay their respects and distribute their personal mobile numbers, which everyone in attendance dutifully wrote down. They, too, left in tears.
The ceremony itself was spectacular — haunting in its beauty and sorrow.
Ethiopians mourn in Beirut (Photo: Matthew Cassel)
I went with a friend and journalist today to cover a service at an Ethiopian church outside Beirut to remember one its members, Hany Gebre, along with 89 other people, mostly Lebanese and Ethiopians, killed on an Ethiopian Airlines flight that crashed into the Mediterranean Sea shortly after takeoff last Monday. Hany was employed as a domestic worker in Lebanon and was on the way to visit her family for the first time since she came to Lebanon three years ago when the plane went down. The community of Ethiopian women at the church is tightly knit, and most women said they knew Hany well. We entered to a roomful of sobbing women listening to the animated preacher singing prayers in Amharic.
It was an awkward experience for me to again take pictures of a room full of people letting their tears flow, and like I told my friend in the church, I hate taking pictures in these situations but I know that I should so others can see. As he sat there with his notebook I thought of a quote by Lewis Wickes Hine, one of my favorite photographers who once said, “If I could tell the story in words, I wouldn’t need to lug around a camera.” Even though my Canon isn’t quite as obtrusive as the cameras were in Hine’s day, the act itself will always be obtrusive in a situation like this and make me wish that I could remain unseen in a corner capturing the scene by jotting down notes in a small notebook.
At one point I had to leave the emotional scene in the church and get some “fresh air” by smoking a cigarette across the street. Outside, I sat staring at the Lebanese passersby. I wondered what a society that many have increasingly called “racist” thinks of the hundreds of black women who gather in their neighborhood each Sunday.
I noticed an older Lebanese woman walk past with her Ethiopian “helper.” In the standard contract that all employers must sign, migrant domestic workers in Lebanon are allowed to take at least one day off per week (usually Sunday), but many employers prevent them from doing so. I assume this was an example of that. The Ethiopian worker, arm-in-arm with her employer, glanced inside the church as they walked past and immediately started crying on the street. The Lebanese woman seemed not to notice (or not to care) as she asked the worker for help while she rummaged through her oversized handbag.
Since the death of Theresa Seda across the street from my home, I’ve been increasingly involved in the plight of foreign workers in Lebanon. Previously, I hadn’t focused on this issue because my reason for being in the Middle East is to combat a highly inaccurate image of this region and its people being portrayed in much of the Western media. If I was going to cover the exploitation of workers, I wouldn’t need to travel half the globe to do so. And I distrust many Western journalists who come here critical of everything Arab while ignoring their own government’s role in shaping this war-torn and unstable part of the world. But the abuse of workers in this country is unavoidable. Every time I leave the house I see a foreign woman carrying a bratty child, picking up dog shit or staring out the window of her “madame’s” car in envy at those of us walking around with relatively few cares in the world. There is a common expression shared by oppressed peoples. Its one that screams of a yearning to spend time with family, swim in the sea, relax on a nice chair, meet friends, have money to purchase goods, travel, be free. And as someone concerned with social justice, it’s impossible to turn a blind eye to the abuse in Lebanon that is happening all around me.
Now, the big question: are Lebanese racists? Some Western journalists feel they’re in a position to say yes, but not this one. Surely there are many racist Lebanese, and it is a serious problem affecting the whole of society — nearly everyone refers to migrant domestic workers as “Sirlankiin” (Sri Lankans) regardless of what country they actually come from. But, for example, is the Ethiopian worker and her Lebanese employer an example of this racism? It’s hard to say. Before making generalizations and pointing the finger solely at Lebanese, I would take a step back and look at the question on a global scale — how many societies existing today don’t contain elements of racism? If these Ethiopian and other workers were to travel elsewhere (or stay in Ethiopia), would that solve the problem?
I thought about all of this before I heard the music sounding (seen in the video below) through the church doors and out into the street. I quickly put out my cigarette and ran back inside lugging my camera along to help me tell a story we don’t often hear.
At noon every Sunday an old Toyota sedan donated by supporters of Ethiopia’s most famous prisoner pulls up near a jail on the outskirts of the capital.
A 74-year-old woman in a white shawl and her four-year-old granddaughter — the only outsiders the prisoner is allowed to see — step out for a 30-minute visit.
Most inmates at Kaliti prison want their relatives to buy them food. But Birtukan Mideksa, the 35-year-old leader of the country’s main opposition party, always asks her mother and daughter to bring books: an anthology titled The Power of Non-Violence, Bertrand Russell’s Best, and the memoirs of Gandhi, Barack Obama and Aung San Suu Kyi, the Burmese political prisoner to whom she has been compared.
Birtukan, a single mother and former judge, was among dozens of opposition leaders, journalists and civil society workers arrested following anti-government demonstrations after the disputed 2005 elections.
Charged with treason for allegedly planning to overthrow the government — accusations rejected by independent groups such as Amnesty International — the political leaders were sentenced to life imprisonment. After spending nearly two years in jail they were pardoned, but Birtukan was rearrested in December 2008 for challenging the official version of circumstances that led to her release. Her pardon was revoked, her life sentence reinstated.
“My child did not do anything wrong — she had no weapon, she committed no crime,” said Almaz Gebregziabher, Birtukan’s mother, in her house on a hillside in Addis Ababa after visiting her daughter one recent Sunday. “I want the world to know that this is unjust.”
Many Ethiopians agree. Birtukan’s treatment has cast a shadow over elections due in May. Opposition parties and international human rights groups said the case is proof of the authoritarian government’s stalled progress towards democracy.
It is also evidence, they said, of the double standards of Western donors when dealing with Meles Zenawi, the prime minister, a major aid recipient and ally in the “war against terror”. Although Zenawi makes no attempt to hide his disdain for Birtukan — talk of her release is a “dead issue”, he said in December — he denies the case is political.
But a look at her history with his regime shows why few people outside his party believe him.
Birtukan excelled at university and was appointed a federal judge in Addis Ababa. In 2002 she was assigned a case involving Siye Abraha, a former defence minister who had fallen out with Zenawi and was accused of corruption. Birtukan released him on bail — a rare show of judicial independence in Ethiopia — but when Abraha left court he was immediately rearrested and jailed.
Birtukan’s relatives said she joined opposition forces before the 2005 elections and was arrested and released in 2007.
Upon her release she set about bringing together the various opposition groups from 2005 and helped found the Unity for Democracy and Justice, of which she was elected chairperson. Her age and gender made this extraordinary.
In November 2008 Birtukan told an audience of Ethiopians in Sweden that her pardon had come as a result of negotiations rather than an official request made through legal channels. Although people who were in jail with her said this reflected the truth, the government said it equated to denying asking for a pardon, and sent her back to jail.
And there is no sympathy from the government. “She was advised to obey the rule of law,” said Teferi Melese, head of public diplomacy at the foreign affairs ministry in Addis Ababa. “But she broke the conditions of her pardon, thinking her friends in the European Union could get her released.”
That foreign embassies, including Britain’s, which have been refused permission to visit Birtukan, have barely made a public complaint about the case appears to back opposition complaints that when it comes to Ethiopia, donors favour stability over democratic reforms or human rights.
“The government says the more we make noise the more difficult it will be to get her [Birtukan] out,” said one Western diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity. “Are we going to risk our entire aid budget for one person? No.”
African leaders gangsters have come in great numbers with great enthusiasm to Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa to get some more training in the art of robbery from the master of swindle, Meles Zenawi and his wife Jezebel.
Each one of these plunderers will introduce himself/herself to the chief thief, Meles Seitanawi, with pride and self confidence that they are all from Africa and that they have come to Addis Ababa to accomplish some pressing issues that their country, Africa, is facing today, and after the chief thief has recognized all of his guests and welcomed them to this beautiful city of Addis Ababa, whose old name, to some Oromos, is Finfinne, they will go quietly to their proper seats.
They have agreed that no camera is allowed while they are discussing certain and sensitive issues such as land dealing, export, import, investment, and one’s own assets. They all have agreed to talk about the pressing issue first, and they found out the urgent issue is how to protect their own personal assets.
Having mentioned some of the names of foreign banks where to put one’s own assets, they suggest that some African leaders with big assets – over a billion dollars – should put their assets in a safest foreign bank in the names of their own friends or families instead of their own names to avoid litigation from their own countries.
Next, they discuss about their personal safeties when there is a government change in their countries. They promise and swear in the name of God or Allah that they will keep their promises to grant a safe place to any African leader who flees his country for his safety and for the safeties of his own family, and whatever crime he may have committed and how much money he may have looted, he will be granted a safe haven in one of the African states.
Case in point, Mengistu Haile Mariam is still alive and enjoying life with his family in Harare, Zimbabwe; Al Bashir of Sudan, after he has been indicted by the International Tribunal Court for genocide against the Darfuri, is still in power and governing his country. Taking these two extraordinary examples and putting their prides on them, these Africans robbers feel more confidence on each other and are determined to loot their country and transfer their money to foreign banks. Again and again, they have promised to stick together to improve their own personal lives and the lives of their own friends and to isolate those who disagree with them and condemn them as advocates of terrorism in the Horn of Africa.
They claim they have the right to rent or give some of their fertile lands for foreign investors who can develop the land and hire more domestic workers and produce more food for the African hungry children and more revenues for their government, and this is one of the quickest ways to swindle money in the form of foreign investment, land development, and unfair taxation of the new companies.
The long term effect of land development is overshadowed by the short term of productivity from this rent-free land given to foreign developers. The long term effect is destroying the ecosystem of the land and changing the life styles of the inhabitants of the land and evicting them from their ancestral land without compensating them for the great lose of their land, their grazing pasture, their grave land, and their historical, cultural, religious, and recreational areas.
Engulfed with personal interests, avarice, lust, and power, these African robbers or leaders think less about their people and think more about themselves. They have come and gathered here in Addis Ababa to find some effective ways to hide their assets instead of sharing them with their own people, to protect their criminal friends rather than bringing them to justice, and to advocate democracy and the rule of law instead of continuing to run their countries in the same old and barbaric ways.
Winding up their unproductive discussions (of course the discussion is very fruitful for their personal interests) for the common people of Africa, and especially for Ethiopia, Somalia, and Eritrea, these daily and nightly robbers or leaders of African states have profusely expressed their deep gratitude to the unsparing hospitality of the Ethiopian people and especially the smiling faces, giggling, and kindness of the Addis Ababa beautiful damsels.
