A CALL FOR THE IMPRISONMENT OF AZEB MESFIN

Source: http://www.geocities.com/~dagmawi/Zebenya/Zebenya.html

April 21 2009: A CALL FOR THE IMPRISONMENT OF AZEB MESFIN –

Azeb Mesfin, wife of Meles, is now deputy head of the TPLF organization called EFFORT. EFFORT runs a large number of businesses that were established using loans from the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia (CBE). These loans, which almost bankrupted the CBE, have never been paid back. After the Ethiopia-Eritrea war, the Ethiopian economy shrank (negative GDP growth) and the TPLF was forced to seek emergency funds from the IMF and World Bank. One of the conditions for these loans was reform of the CBE. The TPLF agreed to this condition, but then used a variety of tactics to avoid doing anything. However, the TPLF was forced to allow an audit by an international firm (KPMG). The auditors report in 2003 revealed the huge non-performing loans to EFFORT. Non-performing means the TPLF wasn't even paying the interest on the loans. Meanwhile in 2001, Meles Zenawi pushed through a law that eliminates bail for suspects charged with corruption.

As a result of this law, In 2001 CBE president Tilahun Abbay and 40 other bank staff were imprisoned and accused of making illegal loans to businessmen. They had to wait 7 years in jail for court verdicts.

Also private businessmen such as Eskinder Yoseph were jailed because they had non-performing loans and yet received additional loans. In 2006 CBE president Gezahegn Yilma was found dead. The government claimed it was "suicide."

The next CBE president Abie Sano was only 35 years old. His appointment violated the NBE Banking regulations as he lacked the required 10 years of senior management experience. Abie Sano was replaced by a 31-year old. Again, his appointment violates the law as he lacks the required experience as specified by the NBE regulations.

Conclusion: All senior management of EFFORT should be placed in jail immediately until the loans to the EFFORT companies detailed in the KPMG audit are investigated. All the mafia-type manipulations, intimidations, suspicious deaths, etc.. need to be investigated.

The Meles Corruption Law of 2001 does not specify an exemption for AZEB MESFIN. She needs to be put in jail immediately.

Legendary singer Tilahun Gessesse dies at age 68

The renowned and the unforgettable Ethiopian vocalist, Tilahun Gessesse, passed away at 68 late on Sunday. It was reported that Tilahun was receiving medical treatment abroad and returned to Ethiopia for Easter holiday. He passed away when he was being taken to hospital after he felt sick on Sunday April 19, 2009.

Tilahun is loved and appreciated by all walks of Ethiopian and even received an Honorary Doctorate Degree from Addis Ababa University, in appreciation of his contribution to Ethiopian music. He has also received an award for his lifetime achievements from the Ethiopian Fine Art and Mass Media Prize Trust. more

US threatens Eritrea over support for al-Qaeda-linked terrorists

The US has warned Eritrea it risks American military action for its support for a Somalian terrorist group linked to a plot to attack President Barack Obama.

By Damien McElroy in Asmara Last Updated: 7:05PM BST 17 Apr 2009

The US has warned Eritrea to withdraw support for a terrorist group linked to al-Qaeda
The Red Sea dictatorship has drawn the wrath of America by backing extremist Islamic groups in Somalia as part of a proxy war with Ethiopia, its former ruler.
It champions al-Shabaab, an al-Qaeda-linked group that American intelligence believes has trained a dozen of its own citizens to carry out attacks in the US.
President Obama's January inauguration was hit by FBI warnings about a potential suicide threat from 12 American citizens that had left Africa to infiltrate the US and disappeared.
Subsequently Washington quietly warned Eritrea, a former Italian colony which was occupied by Britain during the Second World War, it could suffer the same fate as Taliban-controlled Afghanistan in the wake of the September 11 attacks, if the plot was carried out.
"Eritrea has chosen the wrong path," said a source. "There are consequences for working with al-Shabaab when President Obama cannot afford to look weak on terrorism by not retaliating if there is an attack on the homeland."
But President Isaias Afewerki told the Daily Telegraph that he would continue to oppose an American and British-backed Somalian government that declared al-Shabaab its principal enemy when it took office in February.
While Western governments have growing confidence in the new government, led by Sheikh Sharif Ahmed, Mr Isaias diminished the new leader as a stooge.
He called for a fresh peace conference in which his allies would be granted a significant role. "There is no government, there is not even a nation of Somalia existing," he said. "There has to be an alternative solution. Attempts to impose this new government on Somalia will not work. Peace is not guaranteed without a government agreed by all Somalis."
Mr Isaias has not forsaken his broad opposition to American foreign policy. He mocked the use of Western military force to target Somali pirates off the Horn of Africa. "Addressing piracy with military force is not going to work," he said. "Piracy, like famine and drought is a secondary issue."
Mr Isaias presides over one of Africa's youngest but most isolated states– it gained independence from Ethiopia in 1993.
The 63-year old former guerrilla relishes a reputation as an international pariah. He was broadly condemned after Eritrea became the first country to invite Sudan's president, Omar al-Bashir on a visit following the International Criminal Court's decision to issue charges for crimes against humanity in Darfur.
"By being the first country to host General Bashir after he was indicted by the International Criminal Court, Eritrea put itself on the wrong side of history," said Andrew Mitchell, the Conservative's International Development spokesman, who used a meeting with Mr Isaias in Asmara to lodge a protest against the visit.
Few see any prospect of Eritrea repairing its relations with the West as long as it maintains a constant war footing against Ethiopia. Internal repression has grown steadily worse as it maintains a standing army of 300,000 from a population of just over four million.
The regime operates a system of National Service that has been described as a "giant prison" for people under 40. The thousands fleeing the country are viewed as deserters and dozens are shot attempting to cross the border.
Prisoners, including 11 parliamentarians that have disappeared, are subjected to horrific torture, including the so-called "Jesus Christ" – crucifixion on trees in the desert.
The Eritrean leader made no attempt to deny the practice of modern slavery or torture. He claimed the imperative of building the nation was his overriding concern.
"We are a small, young country in the process of making ourselves, you cannot compare our unique reality with other nations," he said. "We are the most stable and most prosperous nation in terms of age but establishing a nation on the continent of Africa is not easy."

Opposition staged rare protest rally

By Barry Malone

ADDIS ABABA, April 16 (Reuters) - Ethiopians marched on Thursday to demand the release of a jailed opposition leader in the first political protests since a disputed 2005 election ended in street violence that killed 199 people.Birtukan Mideksa, the 34-year-old leader of the Unity for Democracy and Justice party (UDJ), was first jailed with other opposition leaders after the 2005 poll. She was pardoned in 2007 but then re-arrested last year.The former judge has been in solitary confinement since December and went on hunger strike for 13 days in January."We are marching today to tell the government that the imprisonment of our leader is illegal," said Debebe Eshetu, a senior UDJ official who was also jailed in 2005."She has been put in jail to weaken our party and to warn politicians who are outside the same thing may happen to us."Birtukan is seen by regional analysts as the country's foremost opposition politician and critics of the government say she has been jailed because of the threat she could pose at next year's parliamentary elections.Experts expect Prime Minister Meles Zenawi's government to win that poll since the opposition was weakened by the imprisonment of many its top figures in 2005.Ethiopian opposition parties routinely accuse the government of harassment and say their candidates were intimidated when Ethiopians went to the polls last April for local elections.The Meles government denies it.Former Ethiopian President, Negaso Gidada, who is now an independent member of parliament, took part in Thursday's march. He told Reuters there was no democracy in Ethiopia."I am convinced that our democratic rights and human rights are being abused," he said as the demonstrators marched on the prime minister's office and the palace of President Girma Woldegiorgis.Guards barred them from entering the palace, but they were allowed to deliver a protest letter.The demonstrators were given a letter in return that said Birtukan had broken the law and so could not be released.The protest, which was approved by the authorities, was limited to 250 participants who all had to wear a government-issued identity badge. Security was low-key with only a small number of plainclothes police mingling with the crowd and almost no uniformed officers present.Protesters waved placards, played music and shouted slogans but drew little visible support from passers-by."The government have killed people who protest so I would not shout like this," one onlooker who declined to be named told Reuters. "These people are very brave."

Is Rock Throwing Punishable by Death in Ethiopia?

New Draft of Ethiopian “Anti-Terrorism Proclamation” Revealed
By Obang Metho

What next? Will rock throwing now become punishable by death?

The same EPRDF government of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi that recently passed the draconian Society and Charity Proclamation law, that severely restricts worthwhile activities within Ethiopian civic society, is hard at work again. This time the focus is on anti-terrorism.
This is truly ironic since this same regime has been accused of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes against its own people and the people of Somalia, acts that meet the definitions of terrorism according to their own newly drafted anti-terrorism law. Most Ethiopians consider the greatest threat of terrorism as coming from their own government under the control of Mr. Meles Zenawi and his supporters rather than from outsiders.
The Solidarity Movement for a New Ethiopia (SMNE) recently received a copy of a draft of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia’s (FDRE) “Anti-Terrorism Proclamation” from a source not wanting to be identified. Please read the AntiterrorismLaw.pdf. According to one of the individual who help draft “Anti-Terrorism Proclamation” Ethiopians public has not seen it yet. This law, if passed, threatens violators with penalties of death or up to 15 years in prison for terroristic acts, which in itself, may not seem to be out of line for extreme cases; however, the history of this regime is that such laws are manipulated to repress, intimidate and eliminate opponents.
Ethiopians know what this means. To outsiders, the bill may appear to be innocuous, but to insiders, they know that it will be used to intimidate and to suppress dissent. The Meles regime has become masterful at using the words of democracy—“justice”, “the rule of law”, “the protection of the people” and “the upholding the Ethiopian Constitution”, as tools of tyranny. Because there is essentially no rule of law in Ethiopia, minor infractions can be inflated into serious ones, ill-defined laws can be tailored to justify what are actually politically-motivated charges and the innocent can be targeted with trumped up charges.
When such cases are actually heard in court, the outcomes can be pre-determined by a biased court system under the firm control of the ruling party. Ask people like Ms. Birtukan Mideksa, Mr. Teddy Afro, Ms. Lalise Wodojo (a justice-loving sister from our Oromo people), Mr. Bashir Makhtal, (brother from Ogaden region and a Canadian citizen who has been held without trial for the last two years in Ethiopia and the countless other prisoners of conscience being held in prisons, jails and detention centers across Ethiopia!
The current draft of this newly proposed anti-terrorism law has many vague areas—probably on purpose. For example, one of the definitions of terrorism includes “government or public intimidation” that “creates risk to the safety or health of the public.” This is punishable by death or up to 15 years in prison. What does this mean? Speaking out against the government? Organizing an opposition party? Peacefully demonstrating against a flawed election? Throwing a rock? Standing in a crowd with someone else throwing a rock? As one can see, this definition could easily be twisted or exaggerated into meaning just about anything under a regime where the only consistent “rule of law” is impunity for privileged violators.
Here is a government trying to portray an opposite image of itself rather than what is the reality for nearly 80 million Ethiopians living in the country. Lies usually eventually catch up with those telling them and this is what has happened over the last several weeks starting when Meles was at the G-20. In the past, agents of the vast Ethiopian propaganda machine, from Meles to the government controlled media outlets, have defied the facts, time and time again, creating an illusionary world that does not exist. From years of fine-tuned practice, with straight faces and hardened consciences, they present denials, assertions and convoluted facts based on anything but the “straight” story; however, their ability to maintain these distortions with outsiders is now breaking apart as truth exposes the shameful practices of this TPLF regime to the world.
In the last few weeks, an incredible turn around as been brought about as EPRDF government spin is being confronted with conflicting facts from numerous and unanticipated sources. Is this an indication that Meles’ support within the international community is collapsing? Is the TPLF coming to an end?
For instance, a few weeks ago, a major economic conference, led by the Economist magazine, was cancelled at the last minute, allegedly because the information would have exposed the dishonest portrayal of the economic situation in Ethiopia.
Last week, officials from the World Bank publicly challenged Meles’ claims that the economy was growing by 11.2%; instead, they projected levels to be no more than 6.5 %.
When Meles was in the UK for the G-20 and under fire regarding human rights abuses, at the last moment he cancelled a press conference where some suspected he would be grilled about the abysmal state of human rights in Ethiopia. Why would the leader of a country run away from the media unless he had something to hide?
He also might have found it embarrassing to answer such questions as the head of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) since one of NEPAD’s primary goals is good governance and is an important part of soliciting foreign aid. Questions regarding genocide would not bode well; however, one wonders how effective this organization is in advancing its goals because of choosing leaders such as Meles who operates in such contradiction to the stated goals of NEPAD. If one checks the website for NEPAD, it appears that it has not even been updated for the last two or three years.
Additionally, now Newsweek has come out with a viewpoint on Ethiopia that strongly challenges the spin thrust forward by the EPRDF government of Meles. Challenges to Meles’ portrayal of Ethiopia are multiplying and will be causing new problems for this regime.
When Dr. Gregory Stanton, the president of Genocide Watch, recently called for an investigation of Ethiopian government human rights crimes from the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, indicating that the killing of the Anuak met the definition of genocide, what was the government’s reaction?Woindimu Asamnew, the spokesman for the Ethiopian Embassy in Washington DC, was quoted in a Voice of America article by James Butty, posted on 4/15/2009, as saying,
“We don’t take seriously their allegations and fabrications. They are totally unfounded, fabricated lies.” If it was “totally unfounded”, Listen to Butty interview with Asamnew VOA Interview (MP3)
why did the African Union’s High Commission for Human and Peoples’ Rights accept this Anuak case in 2007? When the Anuak Justice Council, with the outstanding legal assistance from the American Human Rights Clinic in Washington D.C, presented the case of the Anuak, with extensive documentation obtained through multiple investigations, to the African Union’s High Commission for Human and Peoples’ Rights, it was accepted. To be accepted, the burden of proof is high, not only for evidence pointing to the perpetration of human rights crimes, but also to establish justification for hearing the case outside the country, which essentially means proving that local remedies had failed.
All these democratic values and God-given principles—calling us to love others, respect humanity and to care for others—have been violated in Ethiopia. Up until recently, much of these abuses were carried out in the dark, but as the truth is exposed, covering up these abusive acts will become less and less possible. This is what is now happening.
The last three weeks have revealed the lies to the public and the reactions of Meles and others within the regime are showing how fearful they are of public exposure of the truth. This is what the Solidarity Movement for a New Ethiopia intends to continue to do. It is our goal to not only identify the perpetrators and their violations, but to also make sure that these violators have no place to hide in western countries and that they will be brought to justice no matter how long it takes.
We have begun to see that this government is not as mighty as people have thought. As Meles ran away from the media coverage in the UK, he failed not only the country, but also Africa. He may have taken over Ethiopia with guns, but there is something more frightening to him than guns—facing the truth and the ICC.
That fear of accountability and exposure explains the rationale behind the proposed law, which is to find new means to continue to suppress the truth and punish resisters. This also explains the irrational application of the Ethiopian Constitution in the imprisonment of Birtukan and other political prisoners and why the Unity for Democracy and Justice (UDJ) opposition party could not get a license to hold a peaceful march in Addis Ababa from their office headquarters to the parliament building. Due to the widespread discontent within the capital city, such a rally could start with 200 people and end up with 200,000 or even 2000,000 as it happened in 2005.
When Genocide Watch president Dr. Gregory Stanton said it was only a matter of time before Meles goes to the place behind bars where people who have committed these kinds of human rights crimes belong, it must have struck fear in his heart, for as the truth emerges about this regime, the flames of ethnic hatred and division he has kept going over his 18 years of authoritarian rule are dying down. His ability to maintain this fire is lessening and it may only take the gentlest of breezes to extinguish it. We do not know from which direction it will come—it could be from the North, South, East and West of Ethiopia or from a faraway land, but it will come and peace-loving people are looking forward to that day.
One thing Meles and his supporters may not realize is that the Ethiopian Constitution and the proposed anti-terrorism laws that are being devised to entrap others may actually provide the very tools needed to overcome this brutal regime. This would be the best outcome—for the Ethiopian parliament and people to take a moral stand to uphold the law of the land. The following is only one example of how the hands, feet and head of the EPRDF could be later charged under this new law.
Just today (4/15/09), in the Jimma Times, one can read about the EPRDF government harassment and intimidation of an Oromo student, Tasew Tabor Goobaa, who was recently expelled from Gondar University without any charges or wrongdoing other than being accused of having connections to the OLF. He was later abducted, also known as kidnapping. The dean of the school, a man named Muluken, was also suspected of being involved in his dismissal and final abduction.
According to the new anti-terrorism law, if passed, the dean of Gondor University, the government forces involved in the intimidation and kidnapping (abduction) and those authorizing those actions, could all be held responsible for terrorism.
Please view the following parts of the proposed draft law:
Part Two, Terrorism and Related Crimes, Section 3, Terrorist Acts:
Category 1, which states:
“Whosoever, for the purpose of advancing political, religious or ideological cause; and with the intention of:
b. intimidating the public or section of the public;
iii. commits kidnapping or hostage taking….
…is punishable with 15 years of imprisonment to death.”
This has been a year of firsts: Omar al-Bashir of Sudan is the first sitting president to be issued an arrest warrant for charges in violation of international human rights law. Alberto Fujimori of Peru is the first formerly elected president to be convicted of human rights crimes by national courts in his own country.
Will Meles Zenawi be the first sitting prime minister to be convicted of genocide, crimes against humanity or war crimes by national courts in his own country while in office? Will the people of Ethiopia have the moral courage, strength, wisdom and wherewithal to use the legitimate rule of law to enforce the legitimate rule of law in Ethiopia?
This TPLF regime, which is based on lies, deception and manipulation, is destroying Ethiopia, but God will be faithful to us if we fully seek Him and obey His golden rules of loving and protecting one another for “no one will be free until all are free!”
May God empower us and give us the strength and the wisdom to do our part in making truth and justice prevail in Ethiopia. May we prepare fertile ground by reaching out to embrace one another as we seek to repair our broken lives, our broken relationships, our broken villages, our broken laws and our broken country.
Let us take heart in knowing that God can accomplish far more than we can ever ask or imagine and that He rewards those who seek Him. Even though Meles and those in powerful positions in Ethiopia and throughout the world may abandon Ethiopia, as long as we truly seek God, and put our “humanity before our ethnicity,” He will never abandon Ethiopia and its precious and beloved people.
________________________________________
For more information please contact Mr. Obang Metho, Executive Director of SMNEE-mail: Obang@solidaritymovement.org

With a Friend Like This

Ethiopia was supposed to help America in the war on terror. But it's only made matters worse.

Jonathan Tepperman

NEWSWEEK
From the magazine issue dated Apr 20, 2009

Few people outside Ethiopia have ever heard of Birtukan Mideksa. And that's just how the government wants it. Since December, Birtukan has been kept in solitary confinement, one of hundreds of political prisoners there. Her apparent crime? Organizing a democratic challenge to the increasingly iron-fisted rule of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi.

In the past year alone, Meles's ruling party has rigged elections, effectively banned independent human-rights groups, passed a draconian press law and shrugged off calls for an investigation into alleged atrocities in the restive Ogaden region. Yet in the same period, his country has become one of the largest recipients of U.S. aid in sub-Saharan Africa, getting a cool $1 billion in 2008. The Bush administration claimed that Ethiopia was the linch-pin of its regional counterterrorism strategy and a vital beacon of stability. But the evidence increasingly suggests Washington isn't getting what it pays for, and is supporting a brutal dictator in the process. Candidate Obama pledged to strengthen democracy in Africa; if he's serious, this is a good place to start.

America's warm relations with Ethiopia date to the days after 9/11, when the country's Christian-dominated government came to be seen as a natural U.S. ally in a region targeted by Islamic extremists. After disputed elections in 2005, however, Meles—once hailed by President Bill Clinton as part of a promising "new generation" of African leaders—began clamping down on dissent.

Yet Washington tolerated his lapses because it needed his help fighting Qaeda-linked Islamists in next-door Somalia. In December 2006, Ethiopia's U.S.-trained Army duly invaded its neighbor, ousting the radical Islamic Courts Union government there. But the adventure hasn't worked out as planned. No sooner had the ICU been toppled than an even more radical group, Al-Shabab, sprang up to fight the invaders. And although Seyoum Mesfin, Ethiopia's foreign minister, recently told NEWSWEEK that the Islamists have been militarily "shattered," they now control much of the country's south and have tightened links with Al Qaeda. Meanwhile, the Ethiopian troops have pulled out, and the country they left behind has been thoroughly devastated. Two years of fighting forced about 3.4 million Somalis, some 40 percent of the population, from their homes. Yet only a few high-ranking terrorists were eliminated, and Russell Howard, a retired general and senior fellow at the Pentagon's Joint Special Operations University, says the occupation only "empowered" the radicals.

Such failures—and Ethiopia's growing repression—suggest Washington should rethink the relationship. Just what Ethiopia offers the United States today is unclear. Addis Ababa has contributed troops to U.N. peacekeeping forces in Darfur and Burundi and plays a large role in shaping the policies of the African Union. But this shouldn't earn it unquestioning U.S. support.
To reset ties, the United States should push Ethiopia to democratize. And it must urge it to reconcile with its archnemesis, Eritrea. Resolving the conflict between the two states is key to addressing a whole range of threats to U.S. interests. Tiny Eritrea won independence from Addis Ababa in 1993, but the two countries fought a 1998–2000 border war and relations have remained hostile ever since, in part because Ethiopia, with tacit U.S. support, has ignored an international ruling that redrew their border. Too weak to challenge Ethiopia directly, Eritrea has funneled support to its enemy's enemies—including Al-Shabab and its America-hating foreign fighters. Eritrea also recently instigated a border conflict with Djibouti, home to an important U.S. military base.

Washington should thus push Ethiopia and Eritrea to make amends; better relations would mean an end to their proxy war in Somalia, which has helped turn that state into a Qaeda haven. Should it choose to use it, the United States has plenty of leverage. Most U.S. spending on Ethiopia goes for health and food aid, which aren't easy to cut. But the Obama administration could make military aid and weapons sales contingent on Meles's improving his behavior. The House of Representatives passed a bill in 2007 to do just that, but the measure died in the Senate without White House support.

Much will now depend on the man Obama has nominated for the State Department's top Africa job, Johnnie Carson. Carson's record is promising: while ambassador to Kenya from 1999 to 2003, he helped persuade longtime President Daniel Arap Moi to step down, clearing the way for multiparty elections. Should he bring similar pressure to bear on Washington's new African ally, Birtukan, Ethiopia's other political prisoners, Africans throughout the Horn and America itself would all benefit.

With Jason Mclure in Addis Ababa
Source: URL: http://www.newsweek.com/id/193503
© 2009

Open Letter to the Editor of Aiga Forum, Isayas A. Abay

Ato Isayas Atsbaha Abay
Aiga Forum, Owner and Editor
San Jose, California
United States of America

Dear Isayas Abay,

Save our affiliation to parties/ fronts, we all have roughly “virtuous dreams” for our country. A vast majority of Ethiopians necessitate our politicians to succeed in bringing the much needed development to our country and in that tackling the evils of poverty, disease, illiteracy, dictatorship, repression and war even though the blazing statements thrown out from different aisles of parties/ fronts are unhelpful.

Alas, it is true and irrefutable fact that few in the opposition circle reject Meles because of his background (ethnicity, region etc.) as there are few from Tigray who buttress him because he is from Tigray and is Tigrean (though his mother was from Eritrea). The concept that the leader is “our race, ours…(in this case from Tigray…Wedi Tigary)” is by far and in all counts the feudalistic, regional and tribal complex, a complex of an exaggerated estimate of ones own value and importance, which surprisingly some in the opposition have also sought to claim and/ or reclaim. This is an outdated mentality and a backward thinking by which the civilized world buried and moved on for better. The perfect example and proof is that the mainstream in the United States have voted overwhelmingly to their first black president, Barack Obama.

Be that as it may, what I see in you is that more like supporting Meles regardless of whatever he does (because he is from Tigray and is Tigrean) which does not meet your level of maturity. I am mindful and aware of the fact that you are an Engineer with several years of experience working for Cisco (and may be other companies as well), well read, mature, and without doubt can deliver real issues way beyond belittling issues in relation to poverty, healthcare, investment, education, good governance, democracy, human right as well as parties/ fronts with legitimate/ illegitimate agendas. Furthermore, regardless of who we allegedly are ethnically and where we come from, I am not doubting your knowledge on Ethiopian history that most Ethiopians can trace our ancestors to common Tigrean, Amhara, Oromo, Gurage, Afar, Somali, Agnuak great, great, great…grand, grand, grand…mothers and fathers, to those who made us big historically, but in no ways our support sways towards repression over freedom. However, I have a feeling that you kept moving towards the center of ethnic favoritism, hate mongering, false accusation, character assassination and the like.

1. The most egregious and recent one is your inane and odious statements directed at Obang Metho. You claimed that Obang is being “used by the opposition to falsely present the impression that minorities had a meaningful role within their power structures when in fact, such roles were only reserved for insiders.” This statement of yours is mortifying, immoral and out of character which should not be replicated, and it is your moral duty to recant your statement.

2. You were also unfolding the good old days of Meles, the time he locked up Seye and his family in prison recently when you accused Seye for joining Medrek. You may say that Meles was victories back then and continues to be one (You continued to call him “the Lion”), but as the saying goes, “one person’s good old days is another person’s bad memory.” Hence, Seye and his supporters may forgive Meles but will not forget the fact that Meles put Seye in prison without the due process of law for the sake of protecting Eritrea’s interest over Tigray and of course Ethiopia. Hence, whatever you do, it is once again your moral duty to leave Seye and his family alone. He has suffered enough and yet joined the vision what has been considered “best for Ethiopia” by the majority of Ethiopians.

3. Character assassinations, false accusations, and hate mongering against Andargachew Tsige, Dr. Berhanu Nega, Judge Birtukan Mideksa, Hailu Shawel, Hailu Araya, Professor Mesfin Woldemaraim, Seye Abrha, Alemayehu Gebremraim, Obang Metho, Gebru Asrat and others are becoming your daily tasks, and it is getting worse by the day. Your act is immoral and unacceptable in all accounts, and you, Isayas Atsibha Abay, are responsible for using fighting words which would endanger the fabric of our society and country.

I, as an individual, hereby request you to come back to your reasonable conscience and stop your evil deeds. Nonetheless, please note that I am not in anyways trying to limit your freedom of speech as I don’t have the authorities of Meles Zenawi’s alike; however, I would like to inform you that your statements are "fighting words”-those which by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace. “It has been well observed that such utterances are no essential part of any exposition of ideas, and are of such slight social value as a step to truth that any benefit that may be derived from them is clearly outweighed by the social interest in order and morality.” Individuals who propagate hate, false accusation, and character assassination like you need to bring their actions to a halt for the sake of our people.

The chapters we have recorded so far after the 1974 revolution are communist memoirs, manifestos etc where by oppressors and oppressed have been categorized, if not made up. Because Ethiopia did not have a proletariat class, Derg, Meison, EPRP, TPLF etc categorized ethnic Amharas as Oppressors and others as Oppressed, which is totally ridicules. It is totally absurd to cast Amharas as oppressors as they like most other ethnic groups still:

• wears Lemid (sheep or goat skin) with per capita income of less than a quarter a day,


• struggle to cop-up with drought and starvation, and


• farm as their ancestors did 3,000 years ago— with oxen, wooden plows and rainfall.

Under no circumstance, they fit the likes of oppressors. It is also wrong to portray Ethiopian former rulers in their entirety as Amharas when the unabashed history of Ethiopia had recorded all Ethiopians sharing the responsibility of governing and defending Ethiopia. The idea that Amharas were oppressors and Ethiopian former rulers in our long history were Amharas is simply baloney and an evil-child of Mengistu, Meles, Isayas, Iyassu, Lencho etc and blown out of proportion by people like you. However, this is not to say that there was no oppression; in fact there was oppression all over Ethiopia but it was not targeting selected few.

The next chapter we write needs to be a chapter which will serve the next generation to coexist peacefully without any regard to ethnicity and religion. In order to become Pro-Meles, I don’t think you need to engage in false accusation, hate mongering, demonizing individuals, character assassination and the like. You may support your dictator as you wish, but I personally beg you to repent for the sins you have committed on issues I mentioned herein above. If you can, join the struggle to democratize Ethiopia, the struggle for unity and sovereignty of Ethiopia, human rights, democracy, rule of law etc. If not, at least avoid hate and false accusation which will affect the next generation and the generation to follow. Please govern yourself in a Godly way.

The Week of Pains (the Himamat) is right at the corner, so please repent and think of all Ethiopians who are under siege, dire poverty, in their sick bed, in prison and/or lost their property or life without the due process of law.

Hope we will see the Dawn of Ethiopia soon.

Sincerely,

Dagmawi Dawit
Email: ethio_dagmawi@yahoo.com

Fleecing the G-20

Alemayehu G. Mariam ǀ April 2, 2009

The Sky is Falling!
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown wants the G-20 (or Group of Twenty Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors of the world’s largest economies) to help cash-strapped African countries manage their balance of payments (money going from one country to all others) as their incomes from foreign investments and aid, remittances and commodities prices vanish in with the collapsing global economy. In mid-March, Brown invited a number of African leaders to meet with him in anticipation of the scheduled G-20 meeting in London on April 2. The hype preceding the G-20 meeting was full of hectoring moralism by the designated panhandler-for-Africa, the dictator in Ethiopia:
“Africa was beginning to stand up and now it is being knocked down again by this crisis, which is not of Africa’s making. That is one of the biggest tragedies. They [G-20] should care about Africa because it is in their interests. Some African countries could go under and that would mean total chaos and violence. In the end the cost of violence is going to be much higher than the cost of supporting Africa… We are talking about the range of money that is being spent on the mid-sized banks [in the U.S.]. Consider Africa as one of those banks… Any stimulus money spent in developed countries is going to have less global impact than if the same amount of money were to be spent in Africa… One of the problems at the moment is that the situation is so volatile… It keeps changing every week. It destabilises everything, including one’s thinking. If we knew where the bottom was we could start thinking as to how to get out of it….”
Not long ago the same dictator triumphantly proclaimed a 12.8 per cent annual growth rate in Ethiopia, and casually dismissed the effect of the global economic turmoil: “The crisis will more or less have little effect on the [Ethiopian] economy since our financial sector is not attached to the global system. Had it been the case, we would have suffered much.”
Others were parroting the same theme of impending African gloom and doom. Egyptian finance minister Youssef Boutros-Ghali mournfully warned, "In the case of Africa, people are going to die. We are talking about lives, not just somebody who will have to drive a smaller car." Tanzanian president Jakaya Kikwete was quick to shift the blame: "This is a very unprecedented problem. Africa is a victim. We are not responsible for its genesis but all of us are suffering." Even the sober Kenyan prime minister Raila Odinga joined the verbal joust by invoking the specter of marching African hordes: "When there are problems in Africa, Africans will vote with their feet by coming to Europe.” It was like a chorus of African Chicken Littles clucking: "The sky is falling! The sky is falling! We must go and tell the king!"
Will Accept Cash, Check, Credit Card or Gold to Bailout Africa!
The G-20 claims to be “an informal forum that promotes open and constructive discussion between industrial and emerging-market countries on key issues related to global economic stability.” The G-20 money men and the chiefs of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank will be discussing ways of helping the poorest counties in the world, while coordinating strategies to alleviate their own deepening economic crises. Pleading the African case for more money will be the dictator in Ethiopia. His message is a simple one: Africa needs more money. That money is readily available in the form of gold bars stashed at the IMF. Sell the gold stash and hand over the cash to African governments to cushion the effects of the global economic downturn. As of this past January, the IMF held 3,217 metric tons of gold (valued in excess of $43 billion), according to the World Gold Council. “Gold prices are doing well now so a slight correction to mobilise resources for Africa would not be that difficult,” suggested the dictator in Ethiopia. If the G-20 takes the bait, Africa’s “leaders” will be standing ready with pick and shovel in hand to dig into the IMF pot of gold and dig themselves out of economic trouble.
But in Ethiopia’s case there is something creepy -- a weird feeling of de ja vu -- about all of the gold talk and bailout metaphor of “considering Africa as one of the mid-sized banks”. Exactly a year ago we were shocked by the revelation that gold bars worth over 16 million dollars had simply walked out of the bank vaults in Ethiopia in broad daylight.[1] The official story was that unsuspecting Ethiopian bank “officials” were bamboozled by a gang of crooked international gold dealers who literally sold them spray-painted lumps of iron as 24-carat gold bars. The bank “officials” got ripped off because they made the common mistake of believing “all that glitters is gold.” According to the “Anti-Corruption Commission” of the ruling regime, some 26 suspects are in custody. No one has been prosecuted for this spectacular crime (and the matter has been quietly swept under the rug for the past year). Now they are talking about “mid-sized banks”, selling billions of dollars worth of IMF gold and sharing the loot among African dictators. It feels like a set up for another bank job.
In the Hole and on the Dole

African governments have been in the hole and on the dole for years. Since the 1970s, they have been sucking up massive amounts of economic aid and loans from the West and the international lending institutions. Much of that money has been lost to corruption. According to a 2008 World Bank study, it is estimated that “25 percent of GDP of African states is lost to corruption every year [in excess of one-half trillion dollars], with corrupt actions encompassing petty bribe taking done by low level government officials to inflated public procurement contracts, kickbacks, and raiding the public treasury as part of public asset theft by political leaders. Some $20 billion to $40 billion in assets acquired by corrupt leaders of poor countries, mostly in Africa, are kept overseas.” [2] Massive corruption has given rise to a parasitical ruling class in Africa – a “pluto-kleptocracy” (government of rich thieves). The World Bank and the IMF complain in their so-called confidential reports that specific African countries have used loans made available to them as "mechanisms for regime maintenance," allowing the ruling parties to set up "slush funds" to pay for patronage and a military buildup. By 2005, Africa had a debt of $295 billion after repayments of $550 billion for loans it had received over the preceding three decades. Under the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative, thirty-three African countries were eligible for debt relief of about $80 billion by 2006.

But the corruption situation in Ethiopia is more acute. In 2007, when Ethiopia's auditor general, Lema Aregaw, reported $600 million in public funds missing form regional coffers, the dictator fired Aregaw and publicly defended the regional administrations' "right to burn money." When Gebru Asrat, a former top official and party member of the of the ruling regime made the accusation that "the people are sick of the corruption, about the lack of government services, and they only support Meles out of fear," he was swiftly excommunicated from the regime’s officialdom. When the IMF, the World Bank and other donors demanded privatization, the regime leaders sold off some of the most profitable state enterprises to their friends, relatives, henchmen and cronies.

Bailing Out the People of Africa v. Bailing Out Toxic African Dictators

The basic argument African dictators are making for a G-20 bailout package is a moral one: Unless G-20 taxpayers assume the responsibility for Africa’s economic problems by selling IMF gold and increasing aid, Africans will die by the millions and violence will consume African societies. This is a manifestly false and self-serving moral dilemma manufactured by African dictators to save their own skins. They know that economic problems often trigger social upheavals which result in the sweeping away of corrupt dictatorships.

The G-20 have a superior moral counter-argument to make: It is immoral for G-20 taxpayers to finance African dictators who persecute their people, trample on their human rights and mismanage their economies while keeping themselves and cronies filthy rich from stolen loan and aid money. If African governments want aid and loans from the G-20, they must agree to be held accountable for their acts and omissions in upholding the rule of law, protecting the human rights of their people, institutionalizing democratic practices and processes, releasing all political prisoners, allowing the free functioning of civic institutions and the independent media and ensuring judicial independence. Giving more money to morally, economically and politically bankrupt African dictators without the strings of democratization, human rights and accountability attached is like giving blood transfusions to a corpse whose blood has been sucked dry by vampiric brutes. African economies will remain on life support so long as the G-20 member countries blindly support African dictators and remain willful accomplices to their crimes and corruption.

Can’t Do Structural Adjustment When You are Shackled to Debt and Poverty

Multilateral lending institutions and Western donor governments providing aid need to re-think the way they do business in Africa. The IMF and World Bank must be transparent themselves in their loan programs. They must provide honest accounting of the success and failure of the programs they support in Africa. It is reprehensible for them to praise African dictatorships in public for their economic policies, and in their confidential reports rip these same governments for massive corruption, mismanagement, fraud, waste and abuse of “development funds”. The fact of the matter is that for many African dictatorships piling up billions in debt is like walking to the neighborhood kiosk and getting cigarettes on credit from the store keeper. They will pay it back in nickels and dimes if they get the money; if not, the store keeper will be stiffed. Their mentality is that IMF and World Bank loans are “free money”. Get as much free money as possible, and let someone else in the future worry about paying it back.

The G-20 and the multilateral lending institutions need to reform and fix what is a manifestly callous lending system. They need to re-examine the devastating consequences of their misguided policies that elevate organized greed over individual need. For decades, they have been preaching the gospel of “structural adjustment” (requiring loan recipients to privatize, deregulate, reduce trade barriers and adopt one-size-fits-all free market policies) which places a much higher premium on constructing shiny glass buildings, fancy urban highways and export-oriented industries than meeting the survival needs of ordinary people (food, medicine, clean drinking water, etc.). Millions of Africans die from starvation, preventable diseases, environmental contamination and abysmally poor governance as the international money lenders tether African economies to their structural adjustment policies.

Fleecing the Golden Twenty?

The whole IMF gold sale thing may be a touchy affair for Gordon “Golden” Brown, who as Chancellor of the Exchequer a decade ago sold well over 60 per cent of U.K.’s gold reserves at fire sale prices and earned his nickname. At the time, his actions were roundly criticized as a "disastrous foray into international asset management". The simple message for Golden Brown and the G-20 financiers should be: “Give Africans a strong hand in establishing democracy and getting rid of dictatorships, and you will never have to worry about giving them handouts!”

The proposed quick sale of IMF gold as a magic elixir to fix Africa’s current economic troubles is snake oil gimmickry. Any such sale requires approval of 85 percent of the 185 IMF member countries. The U.S. alone has 17 percent of these voting rights (enough to veto any decision), and there is no realistic chance that President Obama or Congress will approve a daylight fleecing of the IMF to support dictatorships in Africa. As the U.S. faces a budget deficit forecast of $1.8 trillion in 2009 and $1.4 trillion in 2010, it is unlikely that the U.S. will provide significant direct bailout money (not even in the “range of money that is being spent on the mid-sized U.S. banks”) to African dictators. There are proposals currently floating around the G-20 to infuse the IMF with bailout money for developing economies in the range of one-half trillion dollars, but that may be a pipedream as the world’s largest economies struggle to manage their own problems. Against this background, the plea for deliverance on the G-20 stage, to paraphrase Shakespeare in King Lear, is a farcical demonstration of the excellent foppery of dictators who after plundering the riches of their nations, make guilty of their disasters the sun, the moon, and stars.
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[1] http://www.ethiomedia.com/abai/all_that_glitters_is_gold.html
[2] http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTPROSPECTS/Resources/334934-1110315015165/wps4609_BeyondAid.pdf