Aigaforum: “Blackmailed Nation….” Say What?

Rereading "Ethiopia's new famine: A ticking timebomb", By Rick Hampson, USA Today (August 18, 2008)

What is Aigaforum talking about? Last time, he was depicting the tale of two lines in Addis and Asmara, for Sim card and bread, respectively. I personally thought that could have been some kind of joke, Aiga style satire. I thought unless he lost his mind, he wouldn’t dare to say “there has not been a line for 14 million starving people in Ethiopia”, so what else would it be except “satire”?

Of course, regardless of Shabia cadres’ in the west and other African countries out right lies about Eritrea being prospered, developed and industrialized, in surprising and bold move and contradiction of her shameless cadres, the cabinet member of EPLF told the international community that two-third (about 66.67%) of our Eritrean sisters and brothers are in dire need of food. Currently, each family is receiving 12 kilo grams food aid per month, an amount of food a big family in the west would probably consume in a single dining. Guess what? They are blaming Woyanne (Please listen http://uk.truveo.com/Death-of-the-Dream-Eritrea/id/3136812429).

Ethiopia’s case is not different, but the TPLF gang, including Aigaforum, wants us to think that “things happening to the people in Eritrea are worse than what is happening in Ethiopia.” In line with this meaningless propaganda, Aigaforum has accused USA Today, TIME, and NPR for “Blackmailing the nation [Ethiopia]”. It is shameful. Telling the truth is in no way blackmailing. USA Today has told us what is exactly happening in Ethiopia. In case if aigaforum was in haste for his blurry and unbalanced conclusion as usual or had a plane to catch to China for the Olympic and/or visit family (his communist comrades), I beg aigaforum to reread USA Today ball points as stated herein below.

1. Ethiopia , perennially one of the world's hungriest nations, once again has faced severe famine as result of the drought which killed the entire spring crop, global inflation that has doubled the price of food, armed rebellion in the Somali region that has disrupted food delivery, and assorted plagues, from insects to hailstones.


2. At least 14 million Ethiopians, about 18% of the nation, need food aid or cash assistance, according to government figures and aid agency estimates.


3. The hunger has spread across two-thirds of Ethiopia, from the slums of Addis Ababa to the parched countryside around Konso to the "green hunger" region where the rains came only after the spring growing season.


4. Urban Ethiopians traditionally were untouched by the hunger that droughts brought to the nation's subsistence farmers. Now all Ethiopians face annual food-price inflation of more than 75%; only Zimbabwe’s problem is worse, according to World Bank economist William Wiseman.


5. Even some middle-class residents of Addis Ababa are being forced to put off weddings, carry lunches to work and eat two meals daily instead of three.


6. The nation's emergency grain reserve is tapped out, and last month the food ration was reduced by one-third. The government says 75,000 children are severely malnourished. Some people are eating cactus, roots and other famine foods.


7. Ethiopia is addicted to an ever-growing dependence on food aid from countries who now must deal with increasing food problems of their own.


8. Awkwardly, Ethiopian leaders including but not limited to Zenawi and the country's health minister, who told reporters that “[Ethiopia] does not need to beat the drum of hunger … every year”, are in denial of the famine, so is the Woyanne foot-soldier aigaforum.


9. Ethiopia can ill afford to play down its food needs; other nations' own economic worries have left them less willing or able to feed the likes of Ethiopia.
   

USA today also said:

Unlike 1985, when images of a famine that killed 1 million Ethiopians shocked
the West, this year, there probably will be no mass starvation. An expensive,
elaborate social welfare apparatus, erected largely by the world's rich nations
to avert another 1985, will not permit it. However, since 1985 the population
has doubled to almost 80 million, and per-capita farm production has declined.
Meanwhile, the global cost of raising and moving food keeps rising.
Unfortunately, this year there's been push back from food donor nations, a
fatigue expressing: “'Here's Ethiopia again, looking for food again."

Who is to blame?

1. Beneath the system designed to stave off famine, Ethiopian agriculture is weaker than ever. Per-capita farm production has fallen by more than one-third since the famine of 1984-85, largely because the population has doubled — up to an average of 5.4 children per family — and the average farm plot has gotten smaller and drier.


2. The "green revolution" that transformed agriculture in Asia and Latin America after World War II largely bypassed [Ethiopia].


3. Most Ethiopians farm as their ancestors did — with oxen, wooden plows and rainfall. Farmers agree the latter has become increasingly unreliable.


4. Ethiopia also suffers from a centralized agricultural policy [of Zenawi] that does not encourage small private enterprise or even allow small farmers to own their land.
   

Result?

• Hunger remains a touchy issue in Ethiopia. The famine of 1973-74 brought down Emperor Haile Selassie, and the one of 1984-85 marked the beginning of the end for the regime that ousted him. Now, this famine of 14 million people along with the sprit of election 2005 marks the beginning of the end of the Zenawi regime. Amen! Hallelujah!


• The nation's reliance on others for food undercuts its sense of itself as the only African nation not colonized in the 19th century, and the only one to conclusively defeat a European power: the Italians at the Battle of Adwa in 1896.


• Being synonymous with famine "hurts the image of the country."
  

Solution?

• Ethiopia needs agricultural development: hybrid seeds, irrigation systems, market roads, storage facilities.


• Zenawi should return to his conscience and do the right thing by opening the democratic space, having respect to the rule of law and human rights, ending the ethnic politics and scrapping article 39, and being amenable to sound economic policies. Otherwise, he would go in disgrace as his two predecessors did.

So why aigaforum is crying out loud?

“Nation blackmailed?” Give me a break. Please ask him if any of these are untrue? Does he know what he is talking about? “ Balckmailed?” Who is forcing the regime of Meles Zenawi and for what sake or what to gain? Who is threatening the regime of Meles Zenawi to reveal what is not out there already? Telling the true face of the famine happening in Ethiopia is not unfair threatening or incriminating of Zenawi’s regime. If aigaforum thinks that the international aid agencies are telling the truth of the famine to avenge the new NGO legislation, he is fooling himself. We all know that law is being enacted to dismantle the Opposition groups and it has nothing to do with the famine, healthcare etc.

Actually, I have my own question for him.

• Isn’t Zenawi’s shameful ethnic politics and favoritism out there?
• Hasn’t he helped the massacre of thousands of Ethiopian soldiers in the hands of EPLF after the down fall of Dergue?
• Hasn’t he compromised Ethiopia’s unity and sovereignty?
• Hasn’t he caused the killing of Ayder School Kids and General Hayelom’s?
• Hasn’t he caused the 100,000 people death for senseless war?
• Hasn’t he caused the death of 20,000 young Ethiopians from the province of Tigray at the hands of EPLF?
• Hasn’t he massacred or caused the massacred of our brothers and sisters in Gambela, Awassa, Regions 3 and 4 at large and indiscriminately, Arba Gugu, Asebot Gedam, Bedno, Ogaden, Afar, Tigray and Addis Ababa etc?
• Hasn’t he caused, as a result of his idiotic economic policy, millions of people to be affected by drought and famine year after year?
  

What blackmail is aigaforum talking about? What a shame!

Ethnic Politics in Ethiopia (Article 49)

Source: http://www.anyuakmedia.com/ethnews30406.html
Reprinted:

March 04, 2006 - Article 49 of the Constitution of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia divides the country into states of various ethnic groups: 1) The State of Tigray 2) The State of Afar 3) The State of Amhara 4) The State of Oromia 5) The State of Somalia 6) The State of Benshangul/Gumuz 7) The State of the Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples 8) The State of the Gambela Peoples 9) The State of the Harari People.
Article 49 divides the geography of Ethiopia based on the ancestry of Ethiopians and, unlike religion, it does not the separate the state from ethnicity. As a result, Article 49 is the foundation for Ethnic politics in Ethiopia.
Ethnic politics is the lowest, most crudely primitive form of politics. It is the notion of ascribing moral, social or political significance to a man’s genetic lineage- the notion that a man’s intellectual and characterological traits are produced and transmitted by his internal body chemistry. Which means, in practice, that a man is to be judged, not by his own character and actions, but by the characters and actions of a collective of ancestors.
Ethnic politics claims that the content of a man’s mind is inherited; that a man’s convictions, values and character are determined before he is born, by physical factors beyond his control. This is the caveman’s version of the doctrine of innate ideas-or inherited knowledge - which has been thoroughly refuted by philosophy and science. Ethnic politics is a doctrine of, by and for brutes. It is appropriate to a mentality that differentiates between various breeds of animals, but not between humans.
Ethnic politics invalidates the specific attribute which distinguishes man from all other living species: his rational faculty. Ethnic politics negates two aspects of man’s life: reason and choice, or mind and morality, replacing them with chemical predisposition. Ethnic politics can lead to nothing but torrents of blood in practice. Brute force is the only avenue of action open to men who regard themselves as mindless aggregates of chemicals.
Those who implement ethnic politics have only one psychological root: their sense of inferiority. To ascribe one’s virtues to one’s ethnic origin, is to confess that one has no knowledge of the process by which virtues are acquired and, most often that one has failed to acquire them. The overwhelming majority of supporters of ethnic politics are men who have earned no sense of personal identity, who can claim no individual achievement or distinction, and who feel the illusion of a “tribal self-esteem” by alleging the inferiority of some other tribe.
In Ethnic politics, men are required by government officials to fill questionnaires about their ancestry in order to prove their belonging to a certain ethnic group. In Ethnic politics, people who belong to a certain ethnic group are penalized for the sins of their ancestors, and the whole of a certain ethnic group are charged with collective ethnic guilt for any crime committed by an individual from that ethnic group.
In Ethnic politics, men are indoctrinated with notion that the individual possesses no rights, that supremacy, moral authority and unlimited power belong to the group, and that a man has no significance outside his group – the inevitable consequence is that men began to gravitate toward some group or another, in self-protection. The simplest collective to join, the easiest one to identify, the least demanding form of belonging is: the ethnic group.
United States was the best refutation of Ethnic Politics. Men of all ethnic groups came, some from obscure, culturally undistinguished countries, and accomplished feats of productive ability which would have remained stillborn in their control-ridden native lands. Men from various ethnic groups that had been slaughtering one another for centuries, learned to live together in harmony and peaceful cooperation. America had been called “the melting pot,” with good reason. But few people realized that America did not melt men into the gray conformity of a collective: she united them by means of protecting their right to individuality.
When addressing the so called “Ethnic Question” in Ethiopia, the question that must be addressed must be not weather a group recognizable in color, features, culture or language has its rights as a group. No, the question is whether any Ethiopian individual, regardless of color, features or culture, is deprived of his rights as an Ethiopian. If the individual has all the rights and privileges due him under the laws and Constitution, we need not worry about groups and masses – those do not, in fact exist, except as figures of speech.
It is not a man’s ancestors or relatives or genes or body chemistry that counts in a free society, but only one human attribute: productive ability. It is by his own individual ability and ambition that a free society judges a man and rewards him accordingly.
My personal view is that Article 49 that was forced on the Ethiopian people by TPLF/EPRDF is the beginning of the end for Ethiopia as we new it unless the government, like religion, removes ethnicity from politics, or another government that takes Ethiopia’s interest takes its place. Mind you, the United States constitution advocates the indivisibility of the country, while that of Ethiopia is the opposite. Click here to view the Ethio-Ethnic map

Reference: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand

How Must We Prepare the Soil for a Harvest of Freedom?

By Obang Metho
July 30, 2008

“Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life.
Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people…” (Galatians 6: 6-10)

Ethiopia has become a place of massive and repetitive crop failures, both literally and figuratively. We are reaping what we have sown for years—and our harvest is inadequate to meet the needs of our people in terms of food, but our biggest crisis is the harvest of destruction, oppression and tyranny that happens when crops of hope are planted in rocky and infertile soil. The question is: how can we prepare the soil for a “harvest of freedom when most Ethiopians are sitting back expecting someone else to do the work or are actively sabotaging the work of others in order to advance their own interests?”

Between a Rock and a Hard Place

Between a rock and a hard place is an expression that means: stuck between two opposing forces that are both powerful, making it difficult to find a way out of a predicament. In our case, we quickly recognize Meles and his supporters as being one of these forces—perhaps the “the hard place,” but what is the other?

I say, the rock of resistance we face is our own misguided beliefs! We have become so comfortable with years of self-destructive thinking and the actions that result from it, that we don’t see ourselves as part of the problem. However, because of it, we are neglecting the soil that only produces misery and suffering, while illogically thinking that the harvest will be different next time. This kind of thinking has not worked in the past and will not work now. We must face up to it if we are to create a harvest that will sustain life in Ethiopia.

Facts: We are between a rock and a hard place. If we Ethiopians are our own rock, what shall we do?

1. Recognize: we have created a mess and that now we must deal with it.


2. Realize: We have to accept some of the blame for it.


3. Understand: We are suffering because of the consequences of the choices others have made.


4. Equally understand: because of our own bad choices, others will suffer


5. Know: Pretending that we don’t have a major responsibility for our predicament is part of the obstruction of the “rock.”


6. Be encouraged: We can learn to be better people and a better nation through the pain of this crisis.
   

How Can We Respond?

1. Fear God: God is what we need, but yet we will not acknowledge it and accept it—perhaps because we have swallowed a lie we have accepted from Communist times or because “we want what we want” even though it ends up bringing destruction and nothingness.


2. Seek good, not evil, that you may live. Then the LORD God Almighty will be with you, just as you say he is. Hate evil, love good; maintain justice in the courts. Perhaps the LORD God Almighty will have mercy. (Amos 5:14-15)


3. Do not run from truth and responsibility as only as we face these two things will we learn and change. Our present crisis is an opportunity for us to listen and to turn away from what has led to our crop failures of life in Ethiopia


4. Humble ourselves and receive what God has in store for those who do, for God opposes the proud. Oftentimes when we refuse to humble ourselves, we end up blaming other people or God when it was our own actions that created the messes we are in.


5. Don’t lose sight of the purpose of our difficulties because God can use them to perfect and transform us into better people. We oftentimes want the benefits of freedom without being freed of those things that keep us from succeeding.
   

Don’t be afraid to cut off that which stops transformation and healing—what is toxic, poisonous and destructive.

“…let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.” (Hebrews 12:1a)

We have broken minds, damaged emotions and hardened hearts and what comes out of that is rocky, dry and infertile soil where nothing grows.

Our history has become who we are and will determine our future unless we face it and replace it with God’s plan which is filled with truth, grace and healing.

No matter what we say, what we think is who we are and dictates how we behave. In other words, our actions show our real beliefs regardless of our words. Democracy, rule of law and justice are only shallow words in Ethiopia with no meaning. Instead, this government has shown their true beliefs through what they have done and it is not about freedom, except for the few, privileged loyalists.
What we think and the resulting actions is the soil prepared for the next generation. We can pass on soil good for:
destruction, misery and death, or for:
freedom and life

It is up to us! We must understand the right kind of leadership and to see warning signs of the right or wrong approaches. However, the public has to be invested in contributing or the best of leadership will go nowhere because they have not support. Just like a top-notch general in the battlefield will not win the war by himself. It is the common soldiers who win the war.

Two Kinds of Leadership
What kind of leadership do we need in light of this? Here is some insight into what Jesus says is the wrong kind of leadership and then he gives an example of the right kind of leadership

.(Matthew 20: 20-22, 24-28)Then the mother of Zebedee’s sons came to
Jesus with her sons and, kneeling down, asked a favor of him. “What is it you want?” he asked. She said, “Grant that one of these two sons of mine may sit at your right and the other at your left in your kingdom.” “You don’t know what you are asking,” Jesus said to them. “Can you drink the cup I am going to drink?” “We can,” they answered.

[Later] when the ten [other disciples] heard about this, they were indignant with the two brothers. Jesus called them together and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave—just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

1: Gatekeepers:

The first kind of leadership demonstrated by the personal ambition of the mother of Zebedee’s sons, I will call “gate-keepers.” This is not what will bring us a new crop in Ethiopia for it is based on flawed and destructive beliefs.

Characteristics of Gatekeepers

• “Me-first thinking”, personally ambitious, competitive against challengers, especially those most able and capable. Gatekeepers seek to destroy competition.


• Reserve the best for me and keep everyone else outside the gate! Prejudices based on ethnicity, skin color, religion, gender, region, education, etc.


• Tribalistic or ethnic dominance, “It’s our turn to eat—not yours and we will fight you for it!”


• Gatekeeping can mean the use of violence, but it does not necessarily only mean that. It could mean spreading rumors, sabotaging the efforts of others, preventing others from getting an education, clean water, economic opportunity, land or roads, but it can also mean passive resistance—lack of acknowledgement, denying credit for accomplishments, exclusion, etc.).


• “There is only enough for us—not you!” Instead of cultivating more soil, the gatekeeper destroys the soil of others. Instead of planting more trees, the gatekeeper will steal or grab on to someone else’s, stepping on the hands and heads of others to get ahead.


• Trust issues emerge for the gatekeeper is an opportunist (changes positions and loyalties based on what is best for him/her) so others don’t trust him/her and conversely, he/she does not trust others because he/she believes others are like him/her


• Secretive because the public face does not match the private face. The gatekeeper knows that public knowledge of his/her private motives and tactics would bring public disapproval so they are carefully hidden.


• Blames others and accepts little responsibility or accountability for mistakes


• Unfree and self-destructive


• Unchecked power will lead to abuse of others and downward cycle for individual
  

2: Jesus’ way: Servant or Slave of the People

The second kind of leadership is what Jesus demonstrates in his life and calls his followers to imitate. He promises that it is the way to being “great” or “first” in the kingdom of God. It is freely choosing to become a servant or slave to others.

Characteristics of Slaves/ Servants

• Free to choose to humble self and to serve others


• Puts the well-being of others first


• Gives justice more than demands justice


• Not threatened by others who are talented, committed and able to help


• Actively empowers others and seeks ways for them to use their gifts


• Respects the personal boundaries of others—independence, property, etc.


• Overlooks faults of others unless respectful confrontation necessary for the betterment of the person, others or for a just cause


• Courageous enough to speak out against misguided, wrong and destructive ways regardless of personal consequences


• Actively works against hate, lies and injustice—not against people.


• Transparent: Admits faults and mistakes and forgives others for theirs


• Lives under the moral authority of universal principles given by our Creator rather than by the winds of culture, peer pressure, opportunity, revenge, escapes, etc
  

Characteristics of good leaders:

1. Humble and self-effacing


2. Respects and listens to ideas and opinions of others; questions them to gain better understanding of details that form and impact the “big picture’


3. Ambitious for the right, for a cause, for a country—not personally ambitious or needy for recognition nor competitive towards others who are helping


4. Happy if others are successful in contributing, empowers them and then gives credit to them for their accomplishments


5. Goal is to pass on success to successors so they can achieve even greater success


6. Desire is not to lead, but the reason for involvement is due to personal convictions and any God-given leading and passion


7. Jesus is an example who embraced downward mobility—washing the feet of his disciples and then dying on cross for others to be freed from destruction to life
   

Application:

We must know what we want in order to fight for it. Then, we must be examples of what we are fighting for. Are we fighting for dominance—gatekeeping—leaving others out or for becoming a nation depicting humble servanthood to each other?

In the first, we plant seeds of destruction.
In the second, we plant seeds of freedom, justice, peace and truth

Meles is our hard place, but we are the rock. Without changing, we will put ourselves in another hard place. We cannot be successful by just changing our government if we remain the same. We must not resent the message of those who put pressure on us to think differently about our part in this. It is not all Meles’ fault and we must be prepared should this government change. Right now, we are not ready.

Even God disciplines those he loves and we know he loves Ethiopians—all Ethiopians. We should attempt to not resist his teaching but to be quick learners.

Who will free Ethiopia?

A changed Ethiopia will come from changed minds and hearts. It will not be a politician or political party members, but it has to come from the average Ethiopian throughout Ethiopia and in the Diaspora. However, a few can destroy Ethiopia if the rest of us are silent and do nothing.

Perhaps our suffering will force us to wake up. God sometimes allows suffering and hardship in our lives to force us to produce a better crop—one that he can only use after we are refined by persecution, difficulty or hardship. For instance, I am certain that God is the one who allowed the painful experiences I have gone through in the past in order to shape me now. Someone once said that such experiences leave us with one of two choices—to become better, more compassionate and God-fearing people or to become bitter and consumed with anger and hate.

Those experiences were difficult, but they taught me something I would not have learned from ease of living. Through my own pain I started to see the pain of others. I see now that God has used these lessons to teach me to trust Him and to live differently because of it. He gives each of us the responsibility of picking up the broken glass in our pathways so others, such as a child who might not be carefully looking out for it, would not be injured in the future. This is what we must do now.

The genocide of the Anuak was horrific, but God is using this, as only He can, to bring about something good. The lives of precious Anuak relatives, friends and colleagues were stolen from my life and I will grieve that loss forever. However, I have been pushed through this tragedy to expand my world and as a result, I have met over a thousand Ethiopians and non-Ethiopians throughout the world who have become not only friends, but like relatives to me. I am amazed how God has used this horrible tragedy to bring new people together. What Satan wanted for destruction, God can use for His purposes.

How Can We Respond?

I want to invite you to follow the example of Jesus in becoming a slave or servant to others. Let me be the first to publicly declare my choice. I am a slave to Ethiopia by choice, because I am free and because God has filled me up with love towards you. I encourage you to give up being a gatekeeper if you recognize this in yourself and most all of us will recognize it in ourselves because we are flawed humans. But yet, we must fight against it because it is a trap and it is the right thing to do. It leads to nowhere. I t is only by denying ourselves, and our personal ambitions, that we become free. I encourage you to cut off the load of competition, gatekeeping, sabotaging others or waiting for someone else to free you.

Let us be a nation of humble people who fear God and are filled up and willing to serve others.
Those two disciples of Jesus, the sons of Zebedee who were seeking honor, were transformed. You can read about them—James and John—in the Gospels, especially in the Gospel of John, written by John himself.

In the last chapter (John 21: 15 -19) of that gospel, John records a discussion between Jesus and the disciple, Peter where Jesus again turns upside down the world’s view of leadership. This time, he understands. In this passage, Jesus is asking Peter if he really loved him. Peter says, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.” Jesus responds by saying, “Feed my lambs.” Again Jesus asks Peter if he truly loves him. Peter again says, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.” Jesus repeats the same instruction, “Take care of my sheep.” A third time, Jesus asks Peter, “Do you love me?” Peter, hurt because Jesus had asked him the same question three times responds again, “Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you.” Then Jesus gives him the call for the third time, “Feed my sheep.” He then told him that it would cost him, but that it would glorify God. He then told Peter to “follow him.” Peter followed him and God used him as the rock to build his church by humbly “caring for the lambs.”

Gatekeepers don’t care about the sheep, but make sure they eat first. Are we willing to become people concerned about the sheep—who “feed the sheep” of Ethiopia, of the Horn, of Africa and of humanity? Our future will be dramatically altered if we do. Are we willing to take such a step? Until we do, we will be in self-perpetuating bondage to our past failures. We will eat and never be filled, drink, but will remain thirsty. We will desire freedom, but our souls will be in bondage to destruction. The reality is, we are not really ready to be free of Meles until we are free in our souls. May the God who loves Meles as much as He does us, free his soul as well.

Are We Rightly Preparing for a “Harvest of Freedom?”

Do we reap what we sow? Yes, but the “best injustice” in the world is that God is full of forgiveness, love, mercy and grace and if we humbly repent of our ways and seek guidance from our Creator, He not treat us as we deserve. If we are willing to listen, He can lead us to new solutions to our predicament. He is interested in healing the wounded and raising up the sick from their beds of torment. He wants to produce freedom in our souls that will spill over in its abundance to others. He is not interested in punishing us, but in redeeming us. The only way Ethiopia can be freed is if all Ethiopians come together and agree to put their differences aside, with one common goal in achieving a national reconciliation like South Africa did, like Mahatma Ghandi did, or like Martin Luther King, Jr did in the civil rights movement. This is why we are calling for a Solidarity Movement for a New Ethiopia.

Again, as I have it many times, this is not about politics, but about how human rights is founded on God-given principles of how to act towards others to bring about healthy, well-functioning societies. We in Ethiopia have been entrapped in self-defeating patterns that have skewed our views on leadership and caused us to follow those who have led us to more destruction. We have “grown” exactly the crop of leaders, and the crop of followers, we have planted. We must open our eyes and change our ways.

As long as we have Ethiopians who will eat the crops of failure without calling for a re-nourishing of the soil and the planting of new kinds of seeds, we will see crop failures and the malnourishment of the soul of Ethiopia. It is time to cultivate a new kind of crop that will bring the “harvest of freedom” for which our hearts crave. Are we ready? The answer is yours. You do not have to be a leader to influence our leaders and our society.

May God expose the lies that have perpetuated our misery so that we may choose a different path. May God’s name be praised and may He redeem the hearts, minds and souls of Ethiopia!—

————–For more information please contact me by email at: Obang@anuakjustice.org —————

The Greatest Man, Dr. Berhanu Abebe Passed Away at 75

Source:Written by CyberEthiopia

Wednesday, 16 July 2008

Addis Ababa, July 3, 2008 (Addis Ababa) - French President Nicolas Sarkozy expresses condolences on the death of the renowned Ethiopian scholar, Dr. Berhanu Abebe. Sarkozy sent the letter of condolence to President Girma Woldegiorgis on behalf of the French people and government; and on his own.

President Sarkozy said the death of Dr. Berhanu was a loss not only to Ethiopia but also to Africa, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs told ENA.A press release from the French Embassy in Addis Ababa also said "Professor Berhanu Abebe will be sorely missed"."An incredible mind and a wonderful scholar, Professor Berhanu Abebe was, all through his lifetime, a committed and outstanding proponent of the Ethiopian culture as well as of Francophony.”“A lawyer, historian and erudite , Professor Berhanu Abebe was entrusted with prestigious positions, which he owed to his great talent: an academic and researcher of great renown, he was also appointed Vice-president of the PanAfrican Congress and Deputy General Manager of the Ethio-French Railway Company.”

“Professor Berhanu Abebe authored a French-Amharic dictionary and an Amharic-French one and translated several pieces of work into Amharic (notably "le Bateau ivre", by French poet Arthur Rimbaud). In 1998, he published a remarkable history of Ethiopia in French, a testimony of his love for both Ethiopia, his native country, and France, to which he was the greatest of friends.”"France honored Professor Berhanu Abebe's many achievements by bestowing upon him its greatest destinations: he was made a knight of l'Ordre National du Mérite, an Officer of the Palmes Académiques (for academic excellence), a knight of La Légion d'Honneour and a Commander of "Arts et Lettres" '.

His commitment to the values of peace and dialogue, and his humanist principles were at the heart of his life, it said. On the occasion of the bi-centenary of the French revolution, Professor Berhanu Abebe had translated the Declaration of Human Rights into Amharic.

SERIOUS NOTES ON THE STRUGGLE FOR DEMOCRACY

Several Ethiopians were frustrated and becoming cynical as the struggle to democratize Ethiopia seems being lead to dead end. They were up in arms over the failure of opposition leaders at best to work together and/or at least to” agree to disagree” on the choice of strategies of the struggle. Few Diaspora member flew off the handle when Professor Mesfin reportedly said, “EPRDF is not an enemy.” It is unfortunate.

UDJ and Ginbot 7 leaders and other good wise men/women told these Diaspora members to not get their knickers in a twist as the battle lines have been drawn among those who accept the peaceful struggle, armed struggle, and peaceful/armed struggle. What these few angry men/women kept forgetting is that all parties/fronts have bones to pick with together as their end goal is to democratize Ethiopia. The peaceful and armed struggle should not be a bone of contention. Some people vehemently argue that “those who accept peaceful struggle are free to follow and support UDJP and the like; those who choose armed struggle, they are free to join EPPF and others; those who believe in armed/peaceful (Hulegeb) struggle, they may follow and support Ginbot 7, EPRP and others. We are free to talk the talk, so let’s start walking the walk.” It makes sense.