Ethiopian Community in Minnesota presents Dr. Fikre Tolossa’s book signing on June 3, 2017

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By Katy Migiro

NAIROBI, May 24 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Hunger is likely to reach emergency levels in Ethiopia and the number in need of food aid will rise beyond the current 7.7 million, experts said, as drought has decimated livestock, rains have been erratic and aid is in short supply.

A farmer receives grain at an emergency food aid distribution in the village of Estayish in Ethiopia’s northern Amhara region, February 11, 2016. REUTERS/Katy Migiro

Prolonged drought, followed by floods, has pushed millions across East Africa into crisis, with 7 million in neighbouring Somalia also needing aid, the United Nations said as it grapples with the highest global hunger levels in decades.

“Despite enhanced rainfall at the end of April into early May over many areas of Ethiopia, food security outcomes are still expected to deteriorate,” the U.S.-based Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) said on Wednesday.

Herders in southeastern Ethiopia will be worst hit over the next three months, it said, with hunger reaching the fourth “emergency” level on a five-phase scale, where the fifth level is famine.

“The current marginal improvements in pasture and water are likely to be depleted by early June, which will mean rangeland resources will rapidly decline, and subsequently livestock body conditions,” it said, with the next rains due in October.

The number of Ethiopians who need food aid surged to 7.7 million from 5.6 million between January and April.

This number is expected to increase in the second half of the year, the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said this week.

“Increased funding is needed urgently, in particular to address immediate requirements for clean drinking water, much of which is being delivered long distances by truck as regular wells have dried up,” it said.

The Trump administration has proposed to drastically cut U.S. funding for global health and food aid programmes amid opposition from Congress.

(This article has not been edited by DNA’s editorial team and is auto-generated from an agency feed.)

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By Aaron Maasho 

Reuters

Getachew Shiferaw

ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) – An Ethiopian court convicted a journalist on Wednesday of inciting violence against the state with a dissident group, activists said, a judgment that an international rights group said was a bid to silence critics.

Getachew Shiferaw was arrested in late December 2015 and charged in May the following year with involvement in the operations of the outlawed anti-government group Ginbot 7.

That charge was later dismissed by the court, but he was found guilty on Wednesday of public provocation to commit “crimes against the external security and defensive power” of the state.

Getachew, formerly a freelance writer for several magazines, was also editor-in-chief of the opposition Semayawi Party’s Negere Ethiopia

He will be sentenced on May 26 and faces up to 10 years in prison.

“Today’s groundless ruling is a further slap in the face for justice in Ethiopia and proof of the authorities’ continued willingness … to misuse the criminal justice system to silence dissent,” said Muthoni Wanyeki, Amnesty International’s regional director, in a statement.

Ginbot 7 was formed by opposition figures who took part in disputed polls in 2005. They subsequently fled into exile and launched an armed struggle against the government of the Horn of Africa nation.

The government considers it a “terrorist” organization, a designation is shares with two Ethiopian secessionist groups, Somalia’s al Shabaab and al Qaeda.

Critics say Ethiopia, sandwiched between volatile Somalia and Sudan, regularly uses security concerns as an excuse to stifle dissent and clamp down on media freedoms.

Ethiopia’s 547-seat parliament does not have a single opposition politician and opposition groups accuse the government of constant harassment and intimidation.

Wednesday’s conviction comes a week after the court in the capital Addis Ababa found a former opposition party spokesperson guilty of encouraging terrorist acts for a series of anti-government posts on Facebook.

Yonatan Tesfay’s charges stem from a 2009 law that prescribes jail terms of between 10 and 20 years for anyone convicted of publishing information that could induce readers to commit acts of terrorism.

(Reporting by Aaron Maasho; Editing by Katharine Houreld and Tom Heneghan)

 

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We Ethiopians do not see our nation merely as a birthplace, or even as just an ancestral land; to us, Ethiopia plays a powerful psychological role, and we call it “Mother.”

In this photo taken Tuesday, May 9, 2017, Teddy Afro, the controversial singer whose album “Ethiopia” is topping the Billboard world chart, poses for a portrait during an interview at his home in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Known for the political statements he makes in his music, an infectious mix of reggae and Ethiopian pop, Afro, 40, whose birth name is Tewodros Kassahun, told The Associated Press that raising political issues should not be a sin. (Mulugeta Ayene/Associated Press)

We were born in the same neighborhood, a special place called Colfe Kuas Meda in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Before they retired, both of our parents were employed in public service, as professional staff in the same division of the former Ethiopian government’s police force. As children, we played soccer on the same neighborhood fields.

Now, one of us (not me) has become a world-renowned superstar, whose album, with the simple, yet unique and powerful name “Ethiopia” sits atop the Billboard world albums chart and recently set a national record by selling nearly 600,000 copies in less than two weeks.

This music is not written in one of the more widely spoken languages of the world, like Chinese, English, or Spanish. The Amharic lyrics represent Ethiopia’s national language, but this tongue is spoken in no other country. Nor does Ethiopian music generally tend to have a global fan base. And, as with other music sold internationally, purchase data reflect but a fraction of those actually listening to the songs, as other ways of accessing digital media have proliferated in the modern era.

So what accounts for the sudden, meteoric rise of Teddy Afro’s musical composition?

Sharing, as I do, his humble, highly localized origins, I cannot help but wonder what has made him, now, a transnational sensation, whose music clearly resonates well beyond regional bounds. What underlies its universal appeal?

These questions cannot be answered without recourse to Ethiopia’s prevailing socio-political circumstances. The current government, known as the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), gained control of the nation in 1991, after years of civil warfare. It did so by making a pact with its Eritrean counterpart, the EPLF, and with the help of nearby Middle Eastern powers/countries interested in controlling the strategic Red Sea ports of Massawa and Assab, the Dahlak Islands and the source of the Nile River.

Upon using their joint forces to overpower the reigning Derg government, the TPLF and EPLF went their separate ways, with the latter taking the helm of the newly split-off nation of Eritrea. Meanwhile, the TPLF promised to return power to the Ethiopian people by holding national elections after a couple years spent stabilizing the battle-worn region.

However, operating more like a mafia clique than the democratic body it claimed to be, the TPLF has managed to remain in power for more than a quarter of a century. During this time, it has divided the country along tribal lines and into various clans, against the collective will of a general public historically proud to be united under the national banner of a single, greater Ethiopian state, despite hailing from over 80 individual tribes. The Ethiopian people have tried to oppose the TPLF’s notion of tribal division through civil demonstrations and peaceful protests, but the government has responded with mass arrests and covert genocide. Anyone who speaks truth to power in Ethiopia now is liable to pay with his or her life, or at the very least their freedom.

The government pulls the wool over the eyes of Western powers by professing to fight “terrorism” in eastern Africa, the use of that term artfully aimed at silencing any dissent with the implicit justification that “fighting terrorism” carries. But the TPLF’s definition of terrorism has come to encompass any act or speech that shows opposition to its own power. Its abuses, by now, are legendary, and well known to anyone closely following international news. For example, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) places Ethiopia fourth on its list of the “10 Most Censored Countries,” trailing only Eritrea, North Korea and Saudi Arabia, a distinction earned by rates of imprisonment or harassment of journalists, restrictions on Internet use, and other repressive legislation. Indeed, Ethiopia has no independent broadcasters; Facebook and other forms of social media are strictly forbidden.

Teddy Afro himself was jailed for 18 months, several years back, on what were widely believed to be trumped-up charges, a thinly veiled excuse to silence his increasingly insubordinate voice. Still, he has put his natural talent to use in preaching unity and love for one nation, along with diversity and love for one another. In one song, he spans Ethiopia’s 4,000-year history and taps into the deepest wellsprings of pride that continue to hold its people together, even in the face of the government’s persistent efforts to splinter the country into smaller factions, more amenable to central control.

We Ethiopians do not see our nation merely as a birthplace, or even as just an ancestral land; to us, Ethiopia plays a powerful psychological role, and we call it “Mother.” Teddy Afro has put these emotions to music and, thus became a national hero. Even as the government’s education minister has attempted to purge the state schools’ curricula of the country’s true history, Teddy Afro has sung it out to the world and passed it on to the next generation. He is us and our hope, and we are him and his. And the world has listened up and taken notice. Who could turn a deaf ear to such a pure and impassioned plea for joining together as one in the face of oppression?

While he speaks, in an immediate sense, to and for the Ethiopian people themselves, his voice echoes that of all individuals longing for unity, harmony and freedom everywhere these human dignities are denied. Evidently, he has touched a chord that reverberates well beyond the neighborhood he and I grew up in, and my hope is that world will hear the cry for change resounding in his music and, at long last, heed it.

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By Aaron Maasho
Reuters

Yonatan Tesfaye sentenced to 6 years

ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) – An Ethiopian court sentenced an opposition politician to six and a half years in prison on Thursday over a series of anti-government comments on Facebook that it said encouraged terrorist acts, his lawyer said.

Yonatan Tesfaye, a former spokesperson for the opposition Semayawi Party, was arrested in 2015 and charged in May last year over remarks he made about anti-government protests on the social media site.

Hundreds of people died in anti-government demonstrations in 20015 and 2016 in the Horn of Africa nation.

Since then, more than 26,000 people have been detained, including many opposition activists, according to an April parliamentary report. A state of emergency has been partially lifted, but many restrictions are still in place.

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The Ethiopian Public Forum in Seattle urges Ethiopians to attend this meeting at the Ethiopian Community Center in Seattle on Saturday and Sunday May 27 and 28 starting at 8:00 AM in the morning.

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By  MeskeluAyele                                 

The translator’s note – I would like to thank Meskelu Ayele, an outstanding writer on opposition websites in recent times, for his amazingly superb, timely, and brief piece of writing he made us read this morning. I am really wordless to express my gratification during and after my reading of his piece. He concisely reminded me of my almost ‘agelong’ readings on the subject he directly mentioned and indirectly alluded in his short and precise message.  I also tried to imply this subject of world leaders in my recent letter entitled “WHO is falling headlong into the Abyss of Decadence?” which was posted on many websites.

I would like to confess that it was too difficult for me to translate his title, which goes like this in Amharic,  “ዓለም የሚመራው  በለየላቸው ማጅራት መችዎች ነው”. I understand the testing occasions of professional translators, not amateurs like me, in conveying the original message of people from one language to another. It is practically very difficult, for languages are not related only with words of the languages. It is vitally important to know the psychology, the culture, the tradition, etc. of the linguistic family to properly translate. I, for example, was very much bothered to translate”ማጅራት መችዎች” and “መናጆ” into English and I went to the extent of asking one white person whose mother tongue is English. He told me to use ‘loot’ or ‘pilferer’; nevertheless, I was not satisfied with these words, too. On the other hand, Meskelu’s hidden point is not referring, I believe, only looting or pilfering materials. It rather focuses on immorality and beyond that. Otherwise, Bill Gates or thousands of others who are billionaires currently are going to be looters and/or pilferers. I guess they are not, at least now. They do not have any material or financial problem though material satisfaction is endlessly infinite. Their main hidden agenda is to divert the moral status of the people of the world to the standard of their great master whose source of happiness is human sacrifice and pyrrhic destruction.  …  Now let me take you to the translation.

À

George Bush [Sr.] and Tony Blair had killed [were the reasons for the killing of] about 1.2 million people in Iraq. The number of victims goes up exponentially if we consider the overall calculation of casualties, internally displaced people, and those exposed to the ugliest life of refugee camps anywhere in Middle East or Europe. This public secret is well known by the Security Council of the UN as well after a committee of experts formed by this same international organization had ordered a study. But what remains to be ridiculously puzzling is that the result of the study is deemed to be locked in an iron box up until 60 years as of now. This awkward decision, a decision whose makers should be brought to justice if there were an authentic court system on Earth, might have been passed to conceal now and expose later the alarming result of the study after all the actors and actresses of the doomsday in Iraq are surely extinct by the time 60 years are gone. By that time this top secret, which holds the bitterest human holocaust caused by the few elect of our time, is released, newspapers and media outlets will enjoy it for a week or two saying “Mr. so and so caused the extinction of some five and six million people in Iraq and the Middle East 60 years ago.” Period!

The nation we now know as ‘Saudi Arabia’ is a property of an individual whose name was Al Saud, a nomadic boss of the powerful clan by the time he was alive. This country is named after this guy some 100 years back. As of that time to date his predecessors are ruling this influential petroliferous nation. All the kings that reign in tandem are from the genealogical pedigree of this man.  His children of the 21st century created a dangerous virus called ISIS which it is by now the main reason for the suffering of millions of people in the Middle East.

Here is the story how ISIS was created:- There were prisoners in the dungeons of Saudi Arabia who were convicted of crimes such as rape, drug and human organ trafficking, murder, and others. Those prisoners were waiting for the beheadings sentenced against them according to the Sharia law of the country. But with the blessing of the West, those so called criminals were allowed to escape and establish ISIS. That political drama was meant to set the Middle East onto fire as we see it now glowing to the extent of which the flames are far reaching to Europe and elsewhere .

Nowadays, the former goatherds of Saudi Arabia are able to buy modern fighter jets and hire mercenary pilots from Latin America and East Europe to incessantly bombard Yemen. It is heartbreaking that these days Yemen has become the bath blood from human sacrifice to the Illuminati and the Masons. She is being pounded from the air, the land and the sea to quench the blood thirst e of  the aforementioned forces. It goes without saying that the news of this dying country, Yemen, is hidden from the world due to the agreement made between the mainstream media and their “Lords of Poverty”, according to an expression of Graham Hancock. Both the Security Council and The UN as well never want to discuss Yemen in any of their meetings. This is done on purpose.

Including Ukraine, almost all East European countries are infested by authorities and statespersons who want to be seen more American than even the Americans themselves. In Latin America, a conspiracy, as a result of which the decent President, Dilma Roussef, was deposed from power through mob, was made to take roots in Brazil. Instead of her, the new president, Michael Tumer, who is said to be the puppet of the aforesaid forces of darkness, was made to be the leader of this fledgling nation. But thanks to the gradual change in awareness of the people of Brazil, they have begun now to revolt against him after becoming cognizant of the CIA mission he has been implementing with the expense of Brazil and Brazilians. Nevertheless, it is a  pity that the country is getting into another chaos due to the insatiate nature of leaders of this world along with the mega corporations they or their brethren manage.

If we analyze the global affairs or transactions mostly controlled and headed by the big corporatocracies, everything is surprisingly full of maladies. Truly speaking, that sphere of life does not belong to sane people. It only belongs to those who have sold their souls, perhaps, in a euphemistic expression, to hedonistic secularism because of which the person may be tempted to be inhuman and utterly deviant to achieve his political and material aspirations.

Bill Gates and &c. are currently queuing up at the doors of the UN and WHO to fulfill the ill-intentions of the Supreme Master of the negative energy in this entire world. As a matter of fact, these children of his are said to have been prepared to minimize the population of this planet [possibly by 80% in the near future]. To that end, there are scores of documents of mega projects, to be (being) funded and run by people like Bill Gates himself, on the tables of big offices worldwide.  To accomplish such mysterious plans of mass destruction, empowering feeble minded people such as Tedros Adhanom from the third world is vitally important.  This Adhanom, an Adhanom known for his sympathetic attitude toward and psychological inclination to gays, had out rightly been found to be the very person helpful to go ahead with the instructions of big brothers. According to insiders, this guy has been groomed for the last two years by hired special trainers so that he fits this position as WHO Director General. It was crystal clear, therefore, that other candidates were simply accompanies, what we call  መናጆ in Amharic [read as – mennajo]. The responsibility of those mennajos was to simply serve as a conjuring spell during the election process and deceive the already deceived and confused population of our planet. [Some facts:- Once in the near past, Adhanom received a VIP, who was an activist of homosexuality in addition to his presidential power, at Bole Airport. By then, because the weather was rainy, the color combination of the umbrella Adhanom used was the emblem of gays; we can presume that he should have done it on purpose to appease his master. Adhanom was free from any significant responsibility of TPLF’s government in the past two years, perhaps, to get an adequate time for the training he has allegedly been engaged to fit the office he has recently assumed. Once gays demanded certain rights in a somewhat secret meeting held in one of starred hotels in Addis; there was a rumor that that meeting was carried out or to be carried out with the blessing of Adhanom. The list goes endlessly to suspect this man at least as a sympathizer of gays. NB. Being gay or sympathizer of gays per se may not be harmful with respect to nation building or fighting injustice. No need of argument here.]

No force has made the ferenjis to be owners of the Big Bang and this planet belongs to all of the residents irrespective of race, color, sex, religion, etc. We all human beings need no one’s permission to co-exist with each other. Bill Gates, whose behavior is absolutely the same as that of Joseph Gobles, the Minister of Hitler’s Army during the Holocaust, is by now trying his best to control WHO and do whatever his capricious mentors are planning to do. Understanding the insincerity of this conspiracy, we Ethiopians alone shouted and cried if we could minimize the danger that is coming ahead. But it was in vain and the villains have triumphed in a “landslide” win. What we are sure of is that the world, which, perhaps, is by now scoffing upon us, will regret soon when the Pandora’s Box will have been opened and millions, even billions, of people will face the consequence of their silence now. The sole intention of our crying worldwide was to expose the conspiracy of those big brothers. Nothing else.

Last time, The Russian President Vladimir Putin openly exposed that the invention of Ebola virus which took many lives in West Africa, along with its psychological, social and economic impacts, is directly related with this man’s, Bill Gates’, intervention. Moreover, President Putin pointed out that the absolute silence of WHO not to react in time was the result of this man through the international syndicate clandestinely formed for the purpose of accomplishing the will of the [Illuminati].

In connection with the lamenting incidence caused by the aforesaid virus, there and then we observed some alarming phenomena. While countries like Morocco refused to host the African Cup, for fear of the spread of the virus, and while many others temporarily blocked the flow of tourists and commercial ties, on the contrary, the TPLF government of Ethiopia was more titillated by the dollars its airway scoops than the death of its citizens. That was so amazing and we all were dumbfounded. No nation in the world gives more priority for money than the security and wellbeing of its citizenry. Our leaders have proved that they are so special in various aspects. In addition, while countries were calling back their citizens from the virus stricken areas of West Africa, the TPLF government sent a so called task force to Liberia and that was also registered as a show of its love for money. Therefore, it is better for any concerned body to examine the whole secret behind the sphinxlike nature of this ethnocentric anaconda of the  so called Ethiopian government .

The translator can be reached – nzeleke35@gmail.com [I shall be responsible for any bad translation and/or for any content(s) the writer has not intended to convey.]

Translated from Amharic by Netsanet Zelleke

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As the latest development with WHO’s appointment of Tedros Adhanom shows, the TPLF continues to benefit from the achievements of our ancestors. The fact is, if the TPLF was not able to mobilize and secure the support of all African nations; let alone winning the W.H.O. Director general seat, Tedros would not even be considered for the position, due to his lack of experience and his failures to report Cholera outbreaks. And this is where the irony of Tedros, and by extension, the TPLF, continues to reappear like a plague.

Over the last 20 years, the TPLF has mastered the art of manipulating the African Union (AU) and its regional blocs like IGAD. Meles Zenawi used clever tactics and rhetoric to appear as a pan-African leader representing the whole continent, thus going to G8 & G20 Summits and exclusive forums. Due to the AU being headquartered in Addis Ababa, he was able to do just that. He also diplomatically outmaneuvered regional foes, like Asmara, and garnered geopolitical influence internationally. One of the benefits of this influence, for example, was keeping the UN silent about TPLF violating UN Commission’s border ruling with Eritrea. The end result is a “no war no peace” scenario that has crippled TPLF’s archenemy in Asmara.

What’s more, by harnessing Addis Ababa’s significance as a diplomatic outlet to the rest of Africa; and Ethiopia’s status as the biggest population in the region, TPLF leaders persuaded China to invest in massive infrastructure projects. TPLF used some of the mega projects financed by China (Ex. the grand hydro dams) to benefit politically at home, by triggering Ethiopian nationalism to divert public discontent and to pacify anti-government sentiment domestically.

Meanwhile, Ethiopia’s status as the capital of Africa and the home of AU, also led to various high profile visits from Western leaders, including President Barack Obama. Every state visit to Addis Ababa from foreign dignitaries legitimized and humanized the TPLF. Every official visit from western leaders was rubbed in the face of the Ethiopian people, using its media monopoly, to discourage dissidence and portray hopelessness among the opposition. All these developments, not only perpetuated Addis Ababa’s influence, but also emboldened the TPLF dictatorship as the international community continued to ignore or belittle its widespread human rights abuses and crimes against humanity. TPLF was so emboldened that it even lobbied in support of the war criminal dictator in Sudan against ICC, and again, it won …. thanks to a near unanimous support from AU members.

There are many more examples of how TPLF exploited Ethiopia’s status as one of the biggest countries by population and as the diplomatic center of Africa. If it was not for Addis Ababa’s prestige as the Headquarters of AU and UN ECA, the TPLF would have zero diplomatic leverage and it would have been just another irrelevant ragtag African militia.

Therefore, today, TPLF owes everything, including its survival, to the past glory of our ancestors.

The paradox in all of this is that, TPLF, the guerrilla movement, existed because it was against everything that made Ethiopia what it is today. TPLF came about by opposing the multiethnic nature of Ethiopia. TPLF’s manifesto was crafted as a rejection to our emperors and ancestors, who made Ethiopia a massive country (population) by uniting people from dozens of tribes and clans. TPLF opposed the idea of a multicultural nation-state with a melting pot in the middle (Shewa) where millions were born of parents of different ethnic background from every corner of the country. The TPLF hated everything about Ethiopia. Meles even said Ethiopia is only 100 years old and claimed that we have no shared history, no interaction before Menelik II. He and his TPLF henchmen destroyed our flag and our identity. They destroyed our country and divided it into tribal enclaves like Fascist Italy did. Instead of democratizing, they tribalised and robbed our nation: massacring thousands on the way.  Much like the anti-Christ, if we are to define the anti-Ethiopia: TPLF would be its acronym.

That is why it is surprising today how TPLF manages to survive owing to everything that defined Ethiopia. Addis Ababa became the capital of Africa because of political and diplomatic achievements of Emperor Haileselassie; the ruler TPLF hates. Ethiopia became a huge country in population because of our visionary emperors, Rases, and generals who united (by force, trade, intermarriages, assimilation etc) people from all walks of life in the Horn of Africa. And modern Ethiopia became famous worldwide and adored by black people globally because of the military achievements of Emperor Menelik; the leader TPLF despises. Therefore, It is an irony that Tedros Adhanom and his TPLF continue to succeed and survive due precisely to what they hated about Ethiopia.

The blind rubber-stamp vote for Tedros by African nations is yet another example of how TPLF benefited from Ethiopia’s historic prestige at the AU & UN.

So, What does all this teach us?

One of the main takeaways from the recent development is that nothing meaningful has really changed. Because, what makes Ethiopia great today is what our ancestors did decades and centuries ago. TPLF inherited a proud country of patriots who achieved greatness militarily and secured political & diplomatic prestige internationally. The dilemma is that the people profiting from Ethiopia’s past glory are those who hate Ethiopia; not those of us who love our country, our diversity and our history. And the only reason why we have not taken back our country from TPLF is because most of us are not ready to sacrifice (armed struggle) because it requires demolishing the Ethiopia (using years of civil war like EPLF/TPLF) we love. For example, TPLF views Ethiopian people as a foreign enemy so it was morally justified and ideologically acceptable for TPLF to massacre and kill tens of thousands of our people to overthrow the DERG regime. But for us, we consider Tigrayans part of us, our blood, because Tigrayans are Ethiopians so most of our people still consider armed struggle morally wrong and ideologically unreasonable.

Another lesson from this paradox is that TPLF will always depend on the gun, not on principles, because it has no consistent principles. For example, one of the most revealing period of TPLF’s rule was in September 2007, when Ethiopia celebrated the new millennium. After annoying us with their propaganda that Ethiopia is only 100 years old, Meles Zenawi and his TPLF henchmen completely changed their story 180 degrees and proclaimed that Ethiopia is an ancient country, thousands of years old. By celebrating an Ethiopian millennium that they previously rejected, TPLF’s strategy was to calm down the anti-government protests and the post-election tension that threatened its rule then. The TPLF’s brief pro-Ethiopia strategy worked masterfully; but it probably confused the EPRDF cadres who really believed in the nonsense “revolutionary” tribal philosophy which wrongly defined Ethiopia as a young “Amara” empire that colonized everybody else. Such flip-flopping and ideological inconsistency is a reason why TPLF will never have the popular support to rule Ethiopia democratically.

The fact that TPLF has no consistent principles and the irony that it continues to exploit Ethiopia’s past glory to feed its current dictatorship is proof that TPLF is very fragile ideologically; despite its military dominance. This is proof that our cause is greater and this is proof that our patriotic ancestors were visionary. And for those of us Ethiopians struggling against this tribal fascist regime today and fighting for democracy; it is the light at the end of the tunnel.

TeshomeBorago@gmail.com

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By Alemayehu G. Mariam

I knew from the get go that the whole WHO “election” for “director-general” was a sham, a set up. Just like the 2015 Ethiopia “election” which resulted in a 100 percent “victory” for the Thugtatorship of the Tigrean People’s Liberation Front (T-TPLF).  Who was going to win the WHO job was a foregone conclusion.

That is what I wrote in my June 2016 commentary, “Guess Who is Coming to WHO in 2017”.

I could smell a rat. Sniff, sniff. I knew the fix was in a year ago!

I believed then as I do now that Empty Suit’s “appointment to the top WHO job would be a travesty and a colossal disservice to the cause of preserving world health.”

In my May 14 commentary, I wryly observed that Bill Gates was the puppet master in the “election” of Empty Suit to lead WHO.

So, I congratulate Bill Gates for getting his man (or is it toady?) at the helm of WHO. Now, Gates gets to run G-WHO like he did Microsoft.

Gates, the great philanthropist, was once known as a “dictator and autocrat” on Planet Microsoft.

They say birds of a feather flock together.

As I noted in the last sentence of my May 14 commentary, “I could not care less if Adhanom is head honcho at WHO in Geneva or the Mayor of Whoville in cartoonland.”

Now that Bill Gates’ has his Stepin Fetchit at WHO, I still don’t give a rat’s behind who runs WHO (to the ground).

As long as the new G-WHO does not rip off  American Joe and Jane Taxpayer, it’s cool by me. I am hip to that!

Everybody knows he who pays the piper calls the tune. The Gates Foundation calls the tune at WHO.

In 2010, the Gates Foundation gave WHO $2.5 billion. That Foundation has dumped billions more in handouts to WHO over the past seven years.

As the single largest donor to the WHO, the Gates Foundation has extraordinary influence and leverage on WHO health policies and priorities, and leadership.

If WHO were a publicly traded company (as opposed to a closely held corporation of highly paid “medocorats”), the “election” of Empty Suit would be considered a hostile takeover.

It is obvious that Empty Suit is shoved down the throat of WHO’s management, board and staff. No one dares to object publicly because they know which side their bread is buttered.

Gates has some business interests (“projects”) in Ethiopia. According to one report, the Gates Foundation is funding 150 development projects worth USD$50 million.

Bill Gates does not give a rat’s behind about the tens of thousands of Ethiopians massacred and imprisoned by the T-TPLF for exercising their constitutional and human rights. The corporate line is, “The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is concerned about the recent violence and unrest in Ethiopia and we are monitoring the situation with our partners on the ground. The foundation remains focused on helping reduce poverty in Ethiopia by working with partners to improve the country’s agricultural productivity and health systems.”

The crimes that go unpunished, covered up and excused in the name of saving the people from poverty. But it is the privilege of the rich to save the poor by destroying them.

Empty Suit will be the Rodney Dangerfield of WHO. He will never get the respect of the rank and file. Everyone knows that Empty Suit is in the WHO to do Gates’ bidding. Soon enough, WHO will officially become G-WHO.

But the ultimate question is, “Who was WHO before it became G-WHO?”

A league of overpaid and underworked medocrats who spend money like drunken sailors?

According to a recent Associated Press report, “The World Health Organization routinely spends about $200 million a year on travel – far more than what it doles out to fight some of the biggest problems in public health including AIDS, tuberculosis or malaria.”

In 2016, “WHO spent about $71 million on AIDS and hepatitis. On malaria, it spent $61 million. And to slow tuberculosis, WHO invested $59 million.”

Margaret Chan, the incumbent Director General spent more than $370,000 in travel in 2016.

Yet, just last week, shameless WHO complained  that “health sector requirements of US$ 103 million are only 23% funded and WHO has received less than 10% of US$ 25 million required for an organizational response.”

Now that’s chutzpah!

WHO also recently asked for nearly $230 million to “stop the humanitarian catastrophe” in Somalia and Yemen. Talk about bold-faced, brass-balled rip off artists!

The WHO election for director-general was a travesty, political theater intended to give legitimacy to  a rigged election.

Again, my position is clear. So long as WHO, G-WHO or whoever does not pick the pockets of American Joe and Jane Taxpayer, it’s no skin off my nose who play-acts to be director-general.

I just don’t believe it is fair that hardworking American Joe and Jane Taxpayer should be required to bankroll the luxurious and extravagant lifestyles of WHO medocrats!

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Let us have a real talk. Enough to a fabricated rant.

Oromia is the largest region which is created 26 years ago and located within the Ethiopian territory. That is what it is. Neither it is a State nor a Nation.

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By Aaron Maasho

Getachew Shiferaw

ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) – An Ethiopian journalist was sentenced on Friday to 18 months in prison on charges of subversion, his lawyer said, but is expected to be freed within a week as he has been in jail since his arrest in late 2015.

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Colonel Goshu Wolde Historical Speech – US House of Representatives Committee on Africa Affairs

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Abdur Rahman Alfa Shaban

The Ethiopian government has secured exit visas for about 40,000 undocumented citizens living in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has subsequently dispatched a team to Saudi to help in the safe return of the nationals who are taking advantage of an Amnesty program between the two governments.

Ethiopia’s Foreign Minister, Workneh Gebeyehu who visited Saudi also held talks with the national airline, Ethiopian Airlines, on how best to bring back the nationals.

Barely a week ago, Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn expressed worry over the refusal of nationals illegally resident in Saudi to return despite the amnesty program.

Desalegn said he feared that the Saudi government will resort to forcibly deport Ethiopians who have refused to voluntarily return home.

The Premier was quoted by the Ethiopia News Agency as saying, “the situation that made the Saudi Government forcibly deport our citizens is being created. Therefore, it is better if our citizens come back home before various problems arise seizing the opportunity they are given even in the remaining short period”.

The 90 day amnesty at the end of June and authorities said the numbers of people they expected to return under the program was all but underwhelming.

The period for illegal foreigners to leave the oil-producing giant started on March 29, 2017. Those who fail to leave will be subjected to fines or face legal measures, which include forced deportation.

Most rich Middle East countries hire thousands of domestic helpers from Africa and Asia. Most of these helpers often complain of abuse from their employers.

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By Prof. Alemayehu G. mariam

The T-TPLF Horsemen of the Apocalypse a quarter of a century later in Ethiopia
On May 28, 1991, a rag tag rebel army of the Tigrean People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) marched into Ethiopia’s capital. That day shall eternally live in infamy
The TPLF is a terrorist organization listed in the Global Terrorism Database.
Ethiopia today is a thugtatorship.
Ethiopia today is a thugtatorship under a “state of emergency”.

The T-TPLF is in a state of emergency sitting atop a powder keg with a slow burning fuse steadily getting closer to the flash point.

In 1995, the late leader of the T-TPLF declared the litmus test for the success of his TPLF regime should be whether Ethiopians were able to eat three meals a day. (Watch video here.)

Two decades later in 2011, Meles pompously declared, “We have devised a plan which will enable us to produce surplus and be able to feed ourselves by 2015 without the need for food aid.”

Ethiopia today is facing famine of biblical proportions.

In May 2017, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations reports, “Food insecurity has surged since the beginning of the year. As of May, 7.8 million Ethiopians are in need of emergency food aid, a 39 percent increase since mid-January. Malnutrition rates are also increasing and extreme coping mechanisms are observed.”

The T-TPLF “candy store”, a/k/a USAID kept on insisting that there is only food shortages and no famines in Ethiopia. “This was the worst drought they had ever seen in their lives — worse in many cases than the conditions that their areas had seen in 1983, 1984,” declared Jeremy Konyndyk, Director, USAID’s Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance in April 2016.

USAID and the rest of the international poverty pimps turned a blind eye, deaf ears and muted lips as the T-TPLF used humanitarian aid to build its political base and outright buy votes.

Meles and the T-TPLF implemented a divide and conquer strategy called ethnic federalism creating the modern equivalent of apartheid white South Africa’s Bantustans.

The T-TPLF’s version of black apartheid is called Klilil-istan.

From the time the T-TPLF seized power, it embarked on a systematic program of  de-Ethiopianization  with the twin aims of 1) striping Ethiopians of any meaningful consciousness of their national identity and expurgate from their collective social experience any sense of commonly shared values, beliefs and customs, and 2) balkanize, merchandize and dismember the country employing a variety of tactics and schemes.

As part of the de-Ethiopianization program, Meles and the T-TPLF declared in the preamble to their  constitution that there is no Ethiopian nation, only “nations, nationalities and peoples.”

Meles declared Ethiopia’s flag is a “piece of rag” and “Ethiopian history a fairy tale.” (Watch video here.)

The real fairy tale tellers are Meles Zenawi and the T-TPLF.

In his “Voodoo Economics”, Meles claimed an expected growth of nearly 13 percent in 2011. The IMF called him out and politely told him, “Statistics collection of the country requires transformations, and we advised the government to do that.”

Meles and the T-TPLF commissioned the World Bank and the other international poverty pimps to carry on with the fairy tale telling.

The World Bank-ruptcy continued to propagate the bogus growth claims of “double-digit growth over the past decade”. For years, I challenged the T-TPLF, the World Bank, the IMF and others to put up their supporting data for critical scrutiny or shut the hell up. They have chosen to shut up. But the challenge stands.

Meles and the T-TPLF continued to tell fairy tales by claiming they won the 2010 election by 99.6 percent and the 2015 by 100 percent.

The T-TPLF uses state terrorism to cling to power and suppress all opposition.

Since 1992, the T-TPLF and its regional lackeys “have cultivated a climate of fear and repression by using state power to punish political dissent in often brutal fashion.”

In 2005, Meles Zenawi and the T-TPLF ordered the massacre of hundreds of people following the May 2005 election. The findings of an Inquiry Commission set up by Meles Zenawi put the entire blame for the massacres on Meles and his T-TPLF.

In 2016, T-TPLF “security forces shot into crowds, summarily killing people during mass roundups, and torturing detained protesters.”

The T-TPLF, in violation of international human rights law and conventions, continues to hold tens of thousands of political prisoners. A partial list of T-TPLF political prisoners and torture victims with long prison sentences is available HERE.

The T-TPLF practices torture widely in its official and secret prisons. The details of the torture practices are so horrific they shock the conscience. The scope of T-TPLF torture practices has been documented by Human Rights Watch.

The T-TPLF has completely destroyed press freedom in Ethiopia.  The T-TPLF continues to persecute journalists and criminalize  journalism, bloggers and opposition leaders and dissidents.

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, Ethiopia ranked fourth on is 2015 list of the 10 Most Censored Countries and is the fifth worst jailer of journalists worldwide.

In April 2015, dozens of Ethiopians in Libya were slaughtered by ISIS/ISIL. The T-TPLF refused to acknowledge the terrorist beheading victims were Ethiopians. T-TPLF spokesman Redwan Hussein demanded confirmation even though numerous international media sources had affirmed the victims were Ethiopians.

In 2013, when the Saudi Arabian regime unleashed a campaign of terror against Ethiopian domestic workers and refugees, with Saudi police, security officials, mobs and vigilantes taking to the streets literally hunting down Ethiopians, beating, torturing and in a number of cases killing them, the T-TPLF remained silent.

T-TPLF #3 man Tedros Adhanom told the press, the deportation and killings “is something that has been bugging me for some time now” and summoned  the Saudi Arabian ambassador to apologize: “Ethiopia would like to express its respect for the decision of the Saudi Authorities and the policy of deporting illegal migrants.”

In 2014, the T-TPLF massacred  at least 47 university students in the town of  Ambo, 80 miles west of the capital Addis Ababa, and environs. The T-TPLF regime dismissed that massacre and tried to sweep it under the rug claiming that a “few anti-peace forces incited and coordinated the violence”.

The T-TPLF is a corruptocracy  (a political system operated and controlled by a small clique of corrupt-to-the-core vampiric kleptocrats who cling to power to enrich themselves at public expense).

In 2012, the World Bank issued a 417-page study entitled, “Diagnosing Corruption in Ethiopia” covering eight sectors (health, education, rural water supply, justice, construction, land, telecommunications and mining). I offered extensive comments on that report in my weekly commentaries in 2013.

The T-TPLF has sold out the country’s most fertile land to fly-by-night investors for pennies and “forcibly relocating tens of thousands of people from their ancestral homes to make way for large scale commercial agriculture.” When one of the land grab deals went sour, the “investor” threatened to bring down the wrath of India on the T-TPLF.

The T-TPLF “Addis Ababa Master Plan” was overwhelmingly rejected, and T-TPLF “security forces shot dozens of protesters in Shewa and Wollega zones, west of Addis Ababa and other locations to crush the resistance.

The T-TPLF has ushered in ecological catastrophe: deforestation, desertification, soil erosion, overgrazing and population explosion.

The Ethiopian Agricultural Research Institute reports, Ethiopia loses up to 200,000 hectares of forest every year. Between 1990 and 2005, Ethiopia lost 14.0% of its forest cover (2,114,000 hectares) and 3.6% of its forest and woodland habitat. If the trend continues, it is expected that Ethiopia could lose all of its forest resources in 11 years, by the year 2020.

The T-TPLF destroyed the lives and livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of indigenous peoples in the Omo region of Ethiopia. Experts warned that Gibe III could destroy the fragile ecosystem for an additional 300,000 people downstream in Lake Turkana, a UNESCO World Heritage Site (a site of special cultural or physical significance to the world at large) which gets up to 90% of its water from the Omo River.

The T-TPLF has embarked on a number of white elephant projects which are presently teetering on the cliffs of bankruptcy or are doomed to bankruptcy.

In January 2017, it was disclosed that the T-TPLF’s light rail project was 1.8 billion birr in the hole.

The “Ethiopian Railway” project which supposedly connects the Ethiopian capital with Djibouti on the Red Sea coast in 2016 had debt of 102.5 billion and counting.

The T-TPLF has embarked on a fool’s errand known as the “Grand Renaissance Dam”, presumably the “largest dam in Africa”.  That dam ain’t nothing but a dam white elephant.

Ethiopia is at the top of the International Monetary Fund’s Highly Indebted Poor Countries. In 2012, the T-TPLF reported total debt of USD$13.2 billion. In 2015, the debt had risen to USD$22 billion. It is now estimated in the range of USD$30 billion.

In February 2015, I asked: 1) “Is Ethiopia’s “odious sovereign debt” to the odious World Bank legally enforceable? Are future generations of Ethiopians liable to the debts accumulated with the World Bank by the T-TPLF?”

My response emphatically was and remains that neither this nor future generations of Ethiopians have a legal obligation to pay for the “odious debt” incurred by the T-TPLF.

Moody’s bond rating service in December  2016 rated Ethiopia’s USD1 billion Euro bond issued in 2014 B1 (highly speculative,  subject to high credit risk”, bordering on noninvestment grade). In other words, that bond is pretty much “junk bond”.

In 2016, the T-TPLF was fined $USD$6.5 million for illegally selling unregistered bonds for the “Nile Dam” in the United States. It was the culmination of the T-TPLF’s 4-year shakedown of Diaspora Ethiopians in the U.S. by disguising a protection racket into a bond sale program.

On January 18, 2017, the T-TPLF signed a “Memorandum of Understanding” to pay a Washington, D.C. lobby firm nearly $2 million to influence the Trump Administration. Yet, as the T-TPLF spends million to cling to power, 5.6 million people are facing famine while the T-TPLF continues to panhandle for nearly a billion dollars in humanitarian aid.

In March 2017, over 200 people were buried when a “mountain of garbage” at a landfill commonly known as “Qoshe”, some 13 miles southwest of the capital, collapsed on an adjacent neighborhood in Addis Ababa.

Such has been the history of Ethiopia and the fate of the Ethiopian people since the occupation by aliens from Planet Thugistan on May 28, 1991.

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Ethiopia: Culture and National Identity – SBS Amharic

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Taking the lead just past the three-kilometre mark, Ethiopia’s Netsanet Gudeta ran away from a strong women’s field at the Ottawa 10k, winning the IAAF Gold Label road race in 31:35 on Saturday (27).

Among the vanquished was heavily favoured Kenyan Paskalia Chepkorir who struggled home second in 32:08 with Monica Ngige, also of Kenya, taking third place in 32:46.

Given the warm conditions – it was 23C at the 6:30pm start – it was a bold display of front running by the 26-year-old Ethiopian but she had an additional incentive to run hard from the front as the race offers a $4000 bonus to the first runner, man or woman, to cross the finish line.

The elite women were given a head start of three minutes and 10 seconds over the men’s field. Gudeta’s compatriot Leul Gebresilase gave chase but fell a mere eight seconds short of catching her as he won the men’s race in 28:43. They hugged at the finish and were wrapped in an Ethiopian flag by supporters.

“I am extremely happy for winning the race,” said Gudeta. “I was confident from the beginning and I had the feeling that I was going to be ahead of the men.”

Several times over the final few kilometres she checked her wrist watch – she passed 5km in 15:50 – and turned around to see who was in pursuit. Clearly she had destroyed the Kenyan challenge early on but it wasn’t the women she was concerned about.

“It helped that I had to run very fast so I could compete with the men, to be ahead of them,” she said.

“I had to keep checking who was behind me, how I was doing. That was all I was doing. I was more concerned about the men. Once I left the (Kenyan) ladies, I didn’t have much concern about them. My concern was with the men.”

Victory in the women’s race earned her $8000 in addition to the gender bonus. Chepkorir, who has a best 10km time of 30:57, just two seconds slower than the Ottawa course record (30:55 by Gladys Cherono in 2015), collects $4000 for finishing in the runner-up position while Ngige will earn $3000.

“When I was starting the race I thought I would win,” said Chepkorir. “I got to around 5km and I had a problem in my throat, so I reduced the pace. I have allergies. When I came here I got the allergies. I was sneezing.

“I was not looking back I listened to the men coming from behind. And I heard Monica. I knew I would be number two. I am very happy.”

The men’s race had suffered with the last-minute withdrawals of 2012 winner Geoffrey Mutai due to injury and defending champion Mohammed Ziana because of passport problems. Last year’s runner-up, Yitayal Atnafu of Ethiopia, also cancelled with an injury.

But once the gun was fired, the remainder of the elite entrants got down to business and the absence of the pre-race favourites was largely forgotten.

It was Nicholas Bor, the 2015 Ottawa champion, who charged out to an early lead in the men’s race. For the past two years he has battled injuries and treated Ottawa as a comeback race. Within three kilometres, the pack had whittled down to three. The 24-year-old Gebresilase, who has a personal best of 28:12, followed closely alongside USA’s Marty Hehir of the Northern Arizona Elite Club. The trio passed half way in 14:29, but when the Ethiopian surged at 8 kilometres it was a decisive move.

“I was looking straight ahead to Netsanet; in the last kilometres she was very strong,” Gebresilase said. “But I am very happy that Ethiopians won both the competitions today. This race is very good, very well organised.”

Hehir was delighted with his performance, crossing the finish line second in 29:05. A graduate of Syracuse University, he has been training in Flagstaff, Arizona, since graduation two years ago and earlier this spring he recorded a 10,000m PB of 28:08.60. Bor, meanwhile, finished in 29:33, a victim of both the Ethiopian’s dramatic surge and the heat.

“I was definitely aiming for at least the top five so I know I was able to be up there,” said Hehir. “Training has been going well. This was essentially the race I was peaking for and I wanted to give it a shot and I did so.

“The reason Bor dropped is because the guy who won put in a huge surge so I was barely hanging on as well. I wasn’t thinking too much except for the pain of it all. But I was pretty happy when I saw that Bor broke hard.”

Although he had felt faint at one point in the race, around the time Gebresilase surged, Bor was pleased with his performance. He collects $3000 for third place.

Paul Gains for the IAAF

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Lencho Bati

The big speech given by ODF leader Lencho Bati in the Seattle Ethiopian convention has already sparked controversy among Ethiopians worldwide. Some Ethiopians in the diaspora think he is a visionary Oromo leader with idealism and hope for unity in Ethiopia. That is fine and we should engage with his moderate views; compared to some left wing separatists. Anytime groups come around a table for dialogue should be applauded. But most us are still left scratching our heads on what exactly is Mr. Lencho planning to unite?

 

Most of us who attended the event or watched the video of his speech seem to be mesmerized by his charisma and his populist rhetoric. Lencho got many laughs from the crowd with his references to Prof. Mesfin’s age and his jokes that Oromos wanted to “take Wallelign” if Amharas don’t want him. But, behind all this comedy is the same old ethnic politics that we have come to hate about Woyane.

 

For example, Lencho depicted the political battle as being between ethnic unionist and ethnic separatists. But let us pause for a second. That is the same two narrow choices offered to us by TPLF!  In 1991, Meles basically told us “hey look at those separatist OLF and ogadens, they want to destroy Ethiopia but we TPLF will save you from them.” 26 years later, Are we going to fall for this same old trick? Are we going to repeat history again? Are we going to settle for backward Marxist politics that divide and define people based on temporary languages, by ignoring our complex and holistic identity as multiethnic Ethiopians?

 

When Lencho said “we are unionists,” the question on most Ethiopians must be who exactly are you uniting? Oromos and Amaras? What about around half of Ethiopians who are born with both or many ethnolinguistic ancestry? What about millions of mixed and non-mixed Ethiopians who simply do NOT want to identify with a certain narrow tribal label?

 

Mr. Lencho, the main problem with the last transitional process in 1990s was not the lack of alphabet soup tribal labels sitting around the table. The problem was millions of Ethiopians were ignored and insulted when TPLF decided to exclude Ethiopians who are simply Ethiopians! That is why these Ethiopians rallied around Kinijit/Andinet in 2005 and voted out TPLF. We are not worried about replacing TPLF with another LF or ODF or a coalition. We want to remove the whole system that divides our people based on tribe.

 

Mr. Lencho, just think of Wollo province for a second, which is around 8-10 million and almost 10% of Ethiopia. If you are Wolloye, you will know that let alone ethnicity, even religions are mixed. Anywhere, you will find a person with a Christian first name and a Muslim father name or vise Versa. When TPLF re-drew our map, it was so confused that it had to put an “Oromo zone” in the middle of Wollo because people everywhere are mixed. After 25 years, woyane’s social engineering still has failed and many people in Wollo are proud of their mixed identity. Now, if you go in the middle of Wollo and shout “I am a unionist,” do you know how ridiculous you will sound? How can you ethnically unite a person who already has great-grand-parents from different ethnicity? Nature has already done the job for you sir. These people have been mixed for generations, way before your bogeyman Menelik was even born, perhaps even before 17th century, when Oromo speaking rulers reigned. For people in Wollo, it would make better sense, if you promise them to end this nightmare of ethnic politics that threatens to destroy their identity and divide their families. It is better if you promise them individual rights based on democracy and merit, instead of group rights that only benefits tribal elites.

 

I gave you only one example of Wollo, but you can go to every urban and other regions and you will find millions who are born mixed, some of them don’t even know it, thanks to being brainwashed by Woyane politics (and their OPDO and ANDM branches). These days even so-called “Amharas” have been brainwashed by woyane to think tribally. But you can tell how ridiculous these TPLF/ANDM Amaras are because they go to Welkait and wave the flag of Ethiopia and worship Menelik & Taytu. They are so amateur that they don’t realize their “Amhara hero” Taytu was Oromo and even Menelik’s mother was Oromo. This is how childish and confused the tribal politics has become.

 

Mr. Lencho, we need to end this ethnic politics nightmare and throw the whole woyane system in the garbage of history. We don’t need another ethnic unity formula. Yes, We realize some of your diaspora Oromo constituents are even more ridiculous and have dreams of independent Oromia nation. That is unfortunate that we have short-sighted and uneducated people. Let them try and die fighting for their mythical nation. Because we can not repeat history again and change the terms of our future. It is time we end our misery, bitterness and backwardness, and join the globalised modern world. The debate of Ethiopia’s future can NOT be between ethnic unionists vs ethnic separatist. The future debate is between ethnic unionists and non-tribal democratic forces, period.

 

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Netsanet Bulto

Ever since the death of the late TPLF chairman and Prime Minister, Meles Zenawi, the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) has lacked a similarly dominant personality able to maintain consensus, either thru charisma, intrigue, or both.  This condition has given rise within the TPLF to internal divisions and animosities. Abay Woldu, the current president of the regional state of Tigray, holds the chairmanship of the party. But he does not wield the power, nor command the respect, the late Meles held. This leadership vacuum has led to an intense, internal power struggle within the TPLF. Stories from multiple and credible sources abound to this effect.

The worst schism to emerge is between the domestic and military intelligence agencies. Fissures also have opened between the ruling party, security agencies, the military and the bureaucracy.  Open and confidential sources indicate that friction within and between state organs, involving the regime’s most important personalities, has created an unprecedented crisis.

Torn between party loyalty and popular anti-government sentiment, important partners within the ruling coalition, such as the Oromo People’s Democracy Organization (OPDO), the Oromo wing of the ruling EPRDF, have begun to assert their independence from the once-omnipotent TPLF faction. The result has been the purging of thousands of mid- and low-level OPDO officials in an attempt to maintain party cohesion in the face of popular anti-government protests engulfing the Oromo region. However, sources report that new recruits and appointees meant to replace those purged are also quietly resigning. Open defiance of the regime and the so-called “Command Post” administering martial law has become widespread throughout Oromia and is openly expressed in social gatherings and in public.

While OPDO has been under organizational stress since the recent resurgence of Oromo protests, Abadula Gemeda, the speaker of parliament and former president of the Oromo region, has stepped into the breach. Abadula is a close associates of Gen. Samora Yunus, the military chief of staff, who has been calling the shots since the implementation of martial law. Samora’s position as head of the notorious Command Post is reportedly a cause of resentment within the military’s upper echelons, including his longtime rival, Lt. General Saere Mekonnen, until recently Commander of the Northern Front and currently Head of Training Main Department of the Ministry of Defense.

A Samora loyalist,  Lt. General Abraha Wodlemariam, a.k.a Quarter, the notorious war criminal responsible for the massacre of thousands of civilians in the ongoing counter insurgency in the Ogadan region while in his capacity as a commander of the Eastern Front and in concert with another  butcher, the President of the Ogaden region, has been appointed to a new position of Chief of Operations of Defense. This is yet another clear indication that Lt. General Seare is, once again, sidelined, and Samora’s grip and consolidation of power over the military is becoming more than clear.  It has been reported that Security Chief Getachew Assefa, Abay Tesehay, Sibehat Nega, and others, including former Airforce Commander, Maj. General Aebebe Tekelehamina, aka Jobe, have been actively working behind the scenes to have Lt. Genera Seare Mekonnen replace Samora as Chief of staff of the Defense forces of the TPLF dominated military and state.

As well known, the former commander of the Airforce, Gen. Abebe, like his close friend Tasdakn Gebre Tesnay, former Chief of Staff, has made his deep frustrations public at the state of affairs in Ethiopia under the current regime. In a series of articles published by the Amharic weekly, the Reporter,  in  the past year, the retired General has called the current situation in Ethiopia one that is endangering the security and survival of Ethiopia , and therefore, as the most potent threat, not only to the regime, but also  to the  multiethnic national fabric. In his latest article, retired Maj. Gen. Abebe recounts pervasive corruption, including at the highest levels of government, absence of good governance, lack of a democratic space, human rights abuse, and the inability of the regime to respond to popular demands, lack of political will and proper mechanisms in place to make the necessary changes.

These salient features all the more discussed as factors that would somehow converge to destabilize Ethiopia and pose the most serious security threat to Ethiopia. The former General has indeed the courage to ring the alarm bells to the otherwise deaf ears of the regime and its leaders who are in disarray. Although, one may argue that the general is off the mark as regard to the correct prognosis, which cannot be other than a transitional process towards a genuine democratic order for the country that involves all stakeholders and political forces.

The other key leaders of OPDO are Lemma Megersa, Beker Shale (until recently) and Abiye Mohammed, the former minister of science and technology, who maintains a low public profile. While close to chief of staff Samora, this coterie of OPDO’s bosses are, like their patron, Abadula, at odds with Getachew Assefa, the chief of security. Getachew, in turn, is reported to have the backing of Abay Tsehay, and Sibehat Nega, both TPLF heavyweights still wielding perhaps the greatest influence within the TPLF in the wake of the Oromo protest that rocked the region in the past eighteen months. Lemma Megersa, a onetime security official, has a firm allegiance to Abadula, who was instrumental in his rise to power as president of the Oromo region.  Unlike the rocky relationships most OPDO leaders now have with those of the security services. Lemma is known to report regularly to Abdadula about communications he still maintains with security chief Getachew.

Haile Mariam Desgalegn has turned out to be a lame duck Prime Minister and a pawn in the never-ending power struggles of the TPLF power brokers. He is said to be close to General Samora’s group. One recent clue to this is his recent rebuff of a report released by Aba Tsehaye, a close supporter and ally of Getachew Assefa, concerning the incompetence permeating the executive branch’s cabinet and state ministers.

These ministers were appointed by Haile Mariam, the prime minster during the state of emergency as part of an “in-depth renewal” promising good governance, less corruption and responsiveness to popular demands for change. But neither this much-vaunted Tilk Tehadiso, nor the change of cabinet and state ministers, has delivered or appeased public anger in the wake of the Oromo and Amhara protests. The Ethiopian people have largely perceived the Tilk Tehadeso as yet another of the regime’s gimmicks to cover up and reverse the growing illegitimacy, crisis of confidence and near-total rejection by the Ethiopian people that have plagued it in the past eighteen months and were expressed by the massive protests in the Oromo and Amhara regions.

Leadership of the regime’s Amhara coalition partner, ANDM, has also been at odds with its TPLF partner to a point of approaching open confrontation.  Like the OPDO, ANDM’s ranks are rife with resentment and discontent over TPLF domination and the heavy repression that followed protests around Gondar and Gojam in the Amhara region.

The TPLF-controlled military is also suffering from low morale. Desertions and defections, especially by the Amhara and Oromo soldiers whose ethnic groups comprise most of the lower ranks, have sharply increased in the rebellious areas.  The defection of entire platoons and companies has occurred on several occasions. Anxiety and confusion over such developments now afflicts nearly all military forces at all levels, including the Agazi Division, a special unit used for repression that’s widely despised since its massacre of hundreds of unarmed protesters in the aftermath of the stolen 2005 election. This trend has worsened since the most recent Oromo and Amhara protests. Recruitment quotas are unmet, chronically so in the Amhara, Oromo and, to a lesser extent, other regions.  ESAT and other media outlets have recently covered the severity of this problem confronting the regime.

Another trouble that has been a chronic headache for the TPLF military and security top brass has been the emerging armed popular resistance in Norther part of Ethiopia. The military leadership had held several secret meetings on how to control the situation in Northern Ethiopia, including a discussion without reaching an agreement, about the possibility of invading Eritrea and thereby wiping out the armed resistance groups based there. This option has been objected by elements of the military and security who understand the extremely low state  morale in the army, the chronic defection and desertions plaguing it ,  as well as  with their bitter memory of the military’s  tragic loss at the battle of Tsoerna in June of 2016 which the TPLF commanders ill-advisedly  launched against Eritreans, resulting in  total carnage , hundreds of the Ethiopian armed forces  killed and several hundred others  lightly and heavy wounded, crowding Mekele Hospital and other medical facilities in Tigray.  One consideration related to this view on the part of those who oppose military measures against Eritrea has to do with the very fear harbored by TPLF leaders. They lack confidence because they very well know that the army is dominated by Tigrayan commanders from top to bottom, the army has a very low morale, and top it all they are very much aware that the army is fully about the malfeasance and massive corruption of its top brass, Thus they surmise the armed forces as it is constituted today   cannot be relied upon for a full scale war with the tough and hardened Eritrean defense forces. In addition, the tough and rough terrain that is known to give a high advantage to defending Eritrean forces in an event of an invasion by the TPLF led Ethiopian Armed forces.

Getachew’s National Intelligence and Security Service, known as NISS, is struggling to maintain its status and expand its turf. NISS is increasingly engaged in staving off challenges to its influence from the military intelligence service led by Maj. Gen. Gebre Dilla, a close ally of General Samora Yunus. Defense’s Military intelligence Department is said to be competing for power by overextending its tentacles and fielding agents of its own down to the kebele, or neighborhood, level and into all kinds of organizations, including religious ones, generating apprehension and visible hostility on the part of Getachew and NISS.

Recent leaks about infighting and power struggles within the ruling political elite are due in part to this development. They describe Samora and his own military intelligence chief, Gebre Dilla, using the state of emergency and the command post apparatus as a cover to widen their jurisdiction and infringe on the civilian intelligence services’ authority. This contest has added to the animosities, factionalism, and internal divisions affecting the minority regime.

Underneath these visible manifestations of discord, the demoralization infecting the military has spread to NISS as well. Intelligence sources attribute this to the repeated failure to control emerging political conditions throughout the county—viewed by many observers as a decaying political system cracking at the seams–and inability to understand the new fissures. Adding to this institutional state of anxiety is the budding armed resistance of Patriotic Ginbot 7 forces, now gaining momentum and intensity in their attacks on military, security, and regime administrative targets in several parts of the country, especially in the northern and southern Gondar areas of the Amhara region.

The post The Crisis of Leadership and Legitimacy within Ethiopia’s TPLF Minority Regime appeared first on Satenaw: Ethiopian News | Breaking News: Your right to know!.

Kidane Alemayehu

An unpublished photos documenting the massacre carried out by Italian soldiers in the Ethiopian Orthodox monastery of Debre Libanos in 1937. The TG2000, the news of Tv2000, shows exclusively a historic snap with the monks are waiting to be loaded onto trucks that would eventually lead them the scene of the shootings. A massacre took place forgotten the fascists 80 years ago. No one knew of the massacre of the monastery of Debre Libanos someone had snapped photos. In May ’37, in Ethiopia, some Italian soldiers were shot in retaliation 2000 people defenseless monks and Orthodox pilgrims (449 seconds the official report). The order was given the viceroy Rodolfo Graziani. It was General Pietro Maletti to execute the command. Tv2000 devoted a documentary film in the massacre, with documents and unpublished testimony by the journalist Antonello Carvigiani, for photography by Andrea Tramontano. Now, for the first time, the TG2000 also shows the image of the massacre, thanks to Luigi Panella, history lover of Italian colonialism in Africa.

“There was a boy – told Panella to TG2000 – who had not yet turned 27, in that plain where the monks were shot. His name was Virgilio Cozzani, was a lieutenant of complement in the 45th Battalion colonial Muslim who Maletti gave the job to do the shootings in Shunkurti. This is the place that is mentioned in the COZZANI photographs. COZZANI went around with a camera, taking photographs like all Italian boys in Ethiopia at that time. On May 20 he made some photographs just the day before the massacre and later on May 21 to Shunkurtì “.

“In the back of the photo – it revealed Panella – there is also a record made by COZZANI, in his own hand: Debre Libanos, Casci prisoners, the helmets were Coptic priests, 20 May 1937. And then another record. On May 21, 37, ‘hello neh …’. The ‘hello neh …’ this Italian guy, who goes in the other pictures on horseback, smiles but then becomes the protagonist of a terrible massacre, almost mocking. The impression is that the banality of evil, of a young man laughing and joking before making a killing. ”

The attack on Rodolfo Graziani – took place February 19, 1937, exactly eighty years ago – is a testimony to the Italian conquest of Ethiopia – proclaimed by Mussolini’s speech on 9 May of the previous year, it is by no means complete. The Ethiopian resistance controls large areas of the country and manages to pull off an attack on the Viceroy even in the heart of the Italian power: the Addis Ababa government building.

That ‘s where Graziani organizes a ceremony to celebrate the birth of the Prince of Napoli Vittorio Emanuele of Savoy, came to light on 12 February. Appointment invites all local notables but also the city’s poor to distribute alms.
Taking advantage of this occasion, two young Eritreans, Abraham Deboch and Mogus Asghedom, hurl bombs against Graziani. There are seven dead. The Viceroy is wounded.

Ian Campbell,  historian of British descent residing in Addis Ababa and maximum knowledge of these events, tells Antonello Carvigiani for Docufilm of Tv2000 Debre Libanos (2016 – directed by Andrea Tramontano , edited by Dolores Gangi ): ” What happened was in February 1937 She occurred an attempt on the life of Graziani while he was presiding over a public event they were participating in several thousand Ethiopians. The were launched against several hand grenades, despite the security system that was designed to protect. These were the grenades thrown at her at close range, and he was seriously injured. All his life he had to suffer the consequences of this attack, bringing in their own bodies of those hundreds of shrapnel. “

IAN CAMPBELL

Italians unleashed a ferocious revenge . For three days Addis Ababa is put on fire. It ‘a massacre. Ethiopian sources speak of 30,000 victims. Italian historians say 3000. Leading the crackdown are the black shirts of the Federal Guido Cortese.

The president of the Association of the Ethiopian patriots, Daniel Jote Mesfin, explains Antonello Carvigiani:  In Addis Ababa after the attack unleashed a bloody repression led by the Blackshirts. The city is burned, destroyed. They killed hundreds of people, including children and old women. The city was a river of blood. It was a black day in our history. “

Three days of massacres and looting. A recount, there is also an Italian witness, the envoy of Corriere della Sera Ciro Poggiali, who in a memoir published in 1971 writes:

“All civilians who are in Addis Ababa, in the absence of a police or military organization, have taken on the task of lightning revenge conducted with the most authentic fascist squads systems. They go armed with truncheons and iron bars, accoppando many natives are still in the street. Additional property made mass arrests; Negroes herds are driven to terrible shots curbascio like sheep. In short, the streets around the tukul are strewn with dead. I see a driver who knocked down after an old black man with a shot of mace pierces his head from side to side with a bayonet. Needless to say, the destruction strikes against unsuspecting and innocent people. “

FEBRUARY 19, 1937 GRAZIANI WITH ABUNA KIRILLOS IN GHEBBI SHORTLY BEFORE THE ATTACK

The violence did not spare the Orthodox Cathedral of St. George . He describes, again, Ciro Poggiali:  “I’ve been to visit the interior of the Church of San Giorgio, ravaged by fire hanged out time with oil drums, for order and the presence of the Federal Cortese. All the paintings were lost. The sanctum has been opened and the ciborium containing the tablets of the law has been burned. Fifty deacons who were gathered in the bell house were tied with the intention to let them burn inside the church as it burned, but the intervention of a colonel of the grenadiers prevented the destruction. “

These three days of massacres are not enough to appease Graziani, who is convinced that behind the attack there is the Ethiopian Orthodox Church and, in particular, the monastery of Debre Libanos.

Ethiopia is, in fact, a Christian country, evangelized, according to tradition, by San Frumentius, in the fourth century. Church and Empire are the two pillars that support the state. Religious authorities and politics are intertwined and mutually supportive. The monastery of Debre Libanos is the center of this historic alliance. Graziani want to break it. He believes that to consolidate the Italian military conquest is necessary to crush the Orthodox Church.
Corroborates the news – never confirmed – according to which the two assailants have fled the monastery of Debre Libanos and planning its annihilation.

On 18 May 1937 , the General Maletti surrounds the monastery. It is no coincidence that they are chosen from those days is the feast of the Archangel Mikael and St. Tekle Haymanot. A great religious solemnity. Many pilgrims reach the monastery. The Italian troops to enter but do not go out. It’s a trap.

On 21 May, priests, monks and pilgrims are loaded onto military trucks and taken away from the monastery, to be shot on the plateau of Laga Welde.

Still tells Ian Campbell: “Each truck was filled with a variable number of prisoners between thirty and fifty, he started a truck every thirty minutes, and these prisoners were taken to a site on the far edge of a very deep gorge. About 500 meters deep. They shot the prisoners in groups, and the bodies were thrown in the deep waters “.

The young deacons come instead executed in another place: Ingecha, near Debre Berhan. According to the official report of the victims of the massacre Graziani totaled 449: 320 monks and 129 deacons.
IAN CAMPBELL, however, believes that the figures are different:  “The numbers reported by Graziani are very low. We know that the number of members of the clergy – including monks – was no less than a thousand. The total number of people murdered in the monastery area is about 1,200 and the number of people killed in Debre-Berhan is about 800, including deacons. The total number of victims, however, is still uncertain, because while the names of the monks were known, the same is not true for the pilgrims who had gone there for that occasion. ”

Altogether, they are killed by Italian troops between 1800 and 2200 people. Priests, monks, deacons, pilgrims come to the monastery of Debre Libanos to pray.

This is the largest massacre of Christians ever in Africa.

EXTRA CONTENT

The town of Castiglione decided to rename the street named after the general Pietro Maletti, a native of the country, war hero, but also responsible for the massacre of the monastery of Debre Libanos, Ethiopia in 1937.

The basis of the decision also documents collected in the documentary film of Tv2000. Marco Bergamaschi Service

The post FEBRUARY 19, 1937, AFTER THE ASSASSINATION GRAZIANI IN THE MASSACRE OF DEBRE LIBANOS appeared first on Satenaw: Ethiopian News | Breaking News: Your right to know!.