Weichegud! Ethiopian Politics

Ato Samuel Aseffa Hates HR 2003.

2007-10-04T16:12:00.000-05:00

Ethiopia’s Ambassador to the United States, His Excellency Ato Sammy Assefa, ~~is a moron~~ has a, shall we say, fluctuant relationship with reality.

HR 2003, the Ethiopia Democracy and Accountability Act of 2007, passed/sailed through the US House of Representatives, a fact that is pushing the Ato Sammy, already not exactly the paragon of coherency, to the very edge of complete incomprehensibility.

Herewith ye shall find his response to the passage of HR 2003… and seriously, it’s… turbo crazy.

Apparently, HR 2003 is “irresponsible legislation.” We know this to be true because the EPRDF, a government being so ably-ineptly represented by this Ambassador, knows a thing or two about passing legislations that are exquisite in their irresponsibility.

But we wonder if Ato Samuel thinks that passage of HR 2003 would-create-fresh-obstacles-to-Ethiopia's-bold-efforts-towards-comprehensive-democratic-reforms, hm?

The U.S. House of Representatives today approved irresponsible legislation that, if it becomes law, would create fresh obstacles to Ethiopia's bold efforts towards comprehensive democratic reforms.

Oh, Sammy.

The action disregards Ethiopia's immense progress in creating a competitive, pluralistic system of government and a more open civil society.

Oh, Sammy.

According to the U.S. State Department, "[t]he [2005] elections stand out as a milestone in creating a new, more competitive multiparty political system in one of Africa's largest and most important countries."

Okay, we understand some EPRDF half-wit public relations wonk probably told the Ambassador to keep throwing in US specific examples in his soft-core retorts—how else to explain Ato Samuel’s unfortunate “farmers in Iowa” disquisition in the FP interview?—but, really, we promise you, Mr. Ambassador, we are not all imbeciles. What good is a “milestone” election if the results are stolen and the opposition herded to jail? How can we put this so that EPRDFfers can understand… it’s like if Prime Minister Meles didn’t appoint the same person to head the supreme court and the election board. What good is an independent judiciary and election board if it can’t be completely controlled? Get it? Good. So can we de-Viagra the whole hard on the EPRDF has for Elections 2005? Whatever credit it might have garnered was completely annihilated by what happened after the elections. Okay. Send out a memo to retool that talking point.

But the good Ambassador leaves the best for the middle:

While many of these democratic gains seem to have gone unnoticed by Members of Congress, the very presence of two recently convicted and pardoned senior opposition leaders who testified at the Congressional hearing today bears witness to the Ethiopian Government's brave resolve to reinvigorate the democratic process.

You see what we mean? You see what we mean?!

In other words, the very presence of Berhanu Nega and (the democracy diva) Bertukan Medeksa at the hearings is proof of the EPRDF’s profile in courage, in that if the EPRDF had not bravely charged these… these… violent economist and lawyer/judge with “attempted genocide” and then imprisoned them for two years and then ran a sham trial and then convicted them and then sought the death penalty and then pardoned them… if the EPRDF had not made their lives miserable and maligned them, they would not be in front of Donald Payne whining about democracy. Only because the EPRDF was brave enough to harass/imprison/pardon these two misfits are they able to bear witness to, um, the Ethiopian Government's brave resolve to reinvigorate the democratic process.

So, you’re welcome, Berhanu and Bertukan!

It is jarring, to say the least, that immediately in the wake of these pardons the U.S. House of Representatives approved punitive measures against Ethiopia.

Jarring, indeed. For Christ’s sake, people, these geeks were pardoned just by the sheer braveness of the EPRDF. They were pardoned. Heloo? What else can the EPRDF do to get some rispek around Capitol Hill? Round up thousands and set up concentration camps? Then free 18,000 of them as a gesture of goodwill in the new millennium? Done. Persecute the free press then free 25 journalists who were charged with “treason”? Done. Install jivey ambassadors to elucidate on such bold moves towards democracy? So-ho done! What else can possibly be done?

[t]he House sadly has allowed itself to be used by extremists in Ethiopian politics who reject peaceful and legal avenues of political participation. The House action serves only to bolster these hard-line elements by encouraging the politics of extremes.

Yeah. So hate-filled are these extremists who pushed for HR 2003 that they… peacefully lobbied a branch of government! They, unlike the EPRDF, don’t have the moxie it takes to gun down unarmed citizens. Oh, House of Representatives, what has become of thee?

Mr. Payne made this clear in a recent press release in which he accused Ethiopia -- against all evidence and common sense -- of being "a source of instability in the region."

Yaaa. No evidence to back the uncommon sense reality that the EPRDF’s invasion of Somalia has created havoc, dare we say... instability in the Horn. There are no random explosions that kill civilians on any given day in Somalia. Somalia is not breaking up into tiny kibble ‘n bits. The biggest market in Somalia is as vibrant as any farmer’s market in, let’s say… Iowa. HRW has not accused the Ethiopian government of committing war crimes in Somalia. In fact, if Mr. Payne wants to see first hand all the non-evidences of just how non-jihadi Somalia has become after EPRDF’s intervention, the Ambassador will be happy to arrange for a peaceful one-way ticket to bright, sunny Mogadishu. He will even throw in the flack jackets.

You might be wondering by now, is absolutely no Samuel Aseffa philippic complete without the obligatory finger-jabbing at the EPRDF’s former guerrilla buddy who now rule s the land called Eritrea?

Wonder no more. Go on, boy. Do your thang.

The fact is that the entire region faces a serious threat from [... three guesses who...]Eritrea -- a country that the U.S. Department of State is considering listing as a state sponsor of terrorism, and that has rejected the core institutions of legal opposition parties and a private press, officially banning both, and also outlawed worship by minority religious denominations.

Forgiving the bad writing in that paragraph, we note with stunned admiration His Excellency’s seasoned peddling of obfuscation. “Officially banning.” Huh? Huh, do you see what we see? At least the opposition is not officially banned in Ethiopia—just imprisoned or under constant unofficial harassment. And the free press can operate very freely as long as it very freely tows the EPRDF line. Now if only the EPRDF can nettle those Scientologist and those Kabbalah-ists, Ethiopia would officially be known as the country less crazy than Eritrea. It used to be “we are better than Mengistu” but these days that’s ringing too close to home. Lucky for Ato Meles, he has another low bar to compare his miserable record to.

Ato Samuel… resign.

Happy New Year!

2007-09-12T09:32:00.000-05:00

Melkam Addis Amet! Happy New Year, Land O'Wonqville! May the New Year bring us joy, love, peace and... less EPRDF madness.

Close your eyes, Tear up Your Calendar

2007-09-07T10:14:00.000-05:00

Close your eyes. Tear up your calendar. It is the 80’s in Ethiopia all over again.

From HRW

[The Derg] later used the disaster as a pretext to forcibly relocate hundreds of thousands of villagers from northern Ethiopia to areas in the south. The Dergue argued that its "villagization" campaign, as it came to be known, was meant to relocate people from food deficient areas to the fertile plains of the south. In reality, the move was meant to empty rebel-held areas form potential supporters.

From Global Security: (From Newsday)

The [famine] scare prompted Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, a silver-tongued policy wonk and darling of the World Bank and other foreign donors, to embark on a policy of resettlement that would have been unthinkable when he took power 13 years ago. He decided that, if millions of highland Ethiopians could not feed themselves year after year, his government would truck them to less-crowded, more-fertile land.

That the current government has latched on to the resettlement scheme to solve the drought problem is a shock to many people familiar with this country's history.

The people who overthrew the previous military regime of Mengistu Haile Mariam 20 years ago were ardent enemies of his similar resettlement plan. Those people - including Prime Minister Meles - are now policymakers.

Time Magazine: Famine Hunger Stalks Ethiopia Again December 21, 1984

But much of Tigre remains cut off; the Tigrean People's Liberation Front has demanded that the Mengistu government rescind its resettlement policy before it guarantees the safety of the food trucks.

###

Close your eyes. Tear up your calendar. It is 1984 in Ethiopia all over again.

Back then, Mengistu Hailemariam’s brutality allowed for homeless people to be removed from Addis so as to not offend Soviet dignitaries who were coming to pat their revo-apparatchik on his head for ten wonderful years of Marxist obedience.

New York Times: POLITICS TANGLES THE SUPPLY LINE TO ETHIOPIA

November 11, 1984

(Subscription Required)

American officials, in turn, charge that Ethiopia itself played down the famine until after it observed the 10th anniversary of its Communist regime in September, a celebration on which, according to Mrs. Fenwick, the Ethiopians spent more than $100 million.

AP: August 28, 2007 Homeless Ethiopians Moved Out of Capital.

Thousands of homeless people will be moved from the capital to the countryside before next month's millennium celebration and provided help with food, shelter and medicine, a development group said Tuesday.

Beggars are a common sight in Addis Ababa, a city of 5 million with an estimated 90,000 living on the streets.

Ethiopia is planning a 10-hour celebration in Meskel Square to mark the millenium, an event expected to draw tourists from around the world.

###

New York Times Editorial: How Banquets can Feed Ethiopians

May 26, 1988

(Subscription required)

The Ethiopian Government of Lieut. Col. Mengistu Haile Mariam appears bent on starving some two million people. It refuses to allow international relief agencies access to stricken areas. … Colonel Mengistu has expelled the Red Cross and other humanitarian agencies, claiming that they were aiding anti-Government rebels in the northern provinces of Eritrea and Tigre.

BBC: Ethiopia Deadline for Red Cross

July 24, 2007

The Red Cross has been given seven days to leave the Ogaden region bordering Somalia by the Ethiopian government.

…

The regional president of Ethiopia's Somali region, Abdullai Hassan, told the BBC that the ICRC had been given seven days to leave the area.

He accused the organisation of collaborating with the enemy and of spreading baseless accusations against the regional government on its website.

###

Close your eyes. Tear up your calendar. It is 1990 in Ethiopia.

TIME: Africa Death by Starvation

January 22, 1990

Of all the obscenities of war, none is as inexcusable as the deliberate slaughter of civilians.

…

Yet a hunger crisis may hit as early as March because most of the people at risk are trapped behind lines controlled by the three insurgent armies battling Mengistu's troops. Mengistu so far refuses to let relief convoys enter rebel-controlled territories for fear the food may go toward feeding the insurgents or the trucks may be ferrying arms to them. His obstinacy follows a year of humiliating defeats for his forces in Eritrea and Tigre.

New York Times: Ethiopia is said to block food to rebel region.

July 22, 2007

The Ethiopian government is blockading emergency food aid and choking off trade to large swaths of a remote region in the eastern part of the country that is home to a rebel force, putting hundreds of thousands of people at risk of starvation, Western diplomats and humanitarian officials say.

###

Close your eyes and keep them closed.

Charlayne Hunter-Gault’s famous interview wuth Mengistu Hailemariam for the McNeil-Lehrer NewsHour circa 1984/5

Asked about his reputation as a mass murderer, Mengistu, without flinching, said he can’t even remember harming a fly, let alone kill a human being.

TIME Magazine: Interview with PM Meles Zenawi

September 6, 2007

TIME: Your image as a role model for African leaders has been tarnished by the perception that your government is not concerned with human rights.

Meles: As a person, I have never been discourteous or nasty to anybody. I may have stood my ground a bit too directly, a bit too firmly, and I believe I have over a number of years learned to be a little less direct.

###

If it is true that we become what we hate most, then Ato Meles has come full circle.

Beneath all the sparkly lights of a new Addis skyline, beyond the ephemeral distraction of an extravaganza celebration of the millennium, we forget just how bloody, how vicious, how vindictive the EPRDF and Ato Meles are.

Open your eyes and look back at the calendar.

###

TIME: Ethiopia- Few Tears for Tyrant

June 3, 1991

At 11 a.m. last Tuesday, U.S. charge d'affaires Robert Houdek was called to the office of Ethiopian Prime Minister Tesfaye Dinka in Addis Ababa. With tears in his eyes, Tesfaye announced that President Mengistu Haile Mariam had resigned and left the country.

…

The Prime Minister was one of the few people to weep for Mengistu, whose brutal 14-year dictatorship -- the last hard-line Marxist-Leninist regime in Africa -- had turned his nation of 51 million people into a wasteland of famine and internecine fighting.

God’s speed.

Ato Samuel Goes to Washington....Part 1

2007-08-24T02:49:00.000-05:00

We will ask this question knowing the answer: does everything/everyone that comes into contact with the EPRDF immediately dissolve into immitigable mediocrity?

(This is the part where you say, “yes”.)

So we are watching this horrifying video of the current Ethiopian ambassador to the United States and … seriously? Even given the generous provision that defending Ato Meles and his ghetto fabulous approach to public policy is as near an impossible undertaking as you can get, Ato Samuel Assefa, considered to be Ato Meles’ Karl Rove (how do you say ‘Turd Blossom’ in Amharic?) seems not to be trying at all.

Now, we at Weichegud… we are simple people. We don’t relish jumping all over opportunist ersatz intellectuals… no. Wait. We do relish that.

And so enters one Ambassador Samuel Assefa into our lives. He took over from our previous friend, the besottingly crazy Kassahun Ayele who routinely castrated himself whenever he had to … what’s that thing called when an ambassador has to negotiate difficult diplomatic terrains… talk. He is sorely missed—in that we miss the cerebral sores he gave us.

Soooo…. some know-it-alls at Foreign Policy, what with their fancy graphs and fancy indices, put Ethiopia in their “Failed States” list, the 2007 version. Big woop. Then they send someone to interview the ambassador so he could ‘splaine himself. And that’s when things start unraveling.

Okay. So we are hoping that this shit was very, very unfairly edited and that Ato Samuel really did not say these things because, if he did, we have to slit our wrists.

Question number 1:

Is Ethiopia a failed state?

Simple enough. How can anyone fuck that one up? Throw out your own bullshit statistics, hover in never-never-land, blame the weather and the vast right wing conspiracy and, bara-bing. Out of the park Yeah?

Answer: [Preceded by a good impression of a dumb look.]

What exactly does it mean to be a failed state? [Look around as if the answer might be on your desk.] Uh… whatever it is it, is not a failed state.

Waa? Hold right there, cowboy. Did you… could you… have you… Dude, c’mon! You had an Ivy League education! What the hell kind of a defense is "Ethiopia is not a failed state because I don’t know what a failed state is?" That's like saying, “I don’t know what that is, but whatever it is, it is not.” You see how that doesn't work... at all?

(But we will try it at work. “Why is my report late? I don't know what you mean by late. Since I don't know the meaning of late, how can it be late?)

Oh, no. He is still talking.

But I am not so sure that we know what it means to be a failed state according to this model. I believe the indices themselves are radically insufficient to give us a sense of what is going on in Ethiopia. It is a huge political experiment. Incredibly complex society. A very old, OLD country, huh… whose claim to being one of the cradles of civilization should be taken seriously.

Uh. Yeah. We have a question:… Whaaaat?

Which brings up the point: What the hell kind of indices did those magniloquent boobs at FP use to come to such a grand conclusion, and did they take into consideration just how OLD a civilization Ethiopia is? What, they think they can judge us by their “refugees and displaced persons” index; their “public service” index, their “human rights” index; their whatever the hell “factionalized elites” index is? Where is the “Do you claim Sheba and Solomon fornicated and thus a king was born” index, huh, you elitist bastards?! Good day, sirs. No, we said good day!

We want to tell you it is uphill from there, but---

Question number 2:

Why is there such a gap between the rich and poor in Ethiopia?

Okay, phew. Easy question to deflect. Redeem yourself, Mr. Ambassador. Make Princeton proud.

Blah.. blah…

… the nation is composed of small landholders … uh… and that 85% that are on the land control the land. There isn’t strict property over the land but… use of [something] right, [something] of tenure is also provided. The mainstay of the agrarian economy are the small farmers…

Sammy, Sammy, Sam-mi! You have got be shittin’ us!

Ahhh, the nation is composed of landholders who- ehem- don’t have strict ownership of the land? What's that? Is that the crazy way of saying that the government of Ethiopia strictly owns ALL the land in Ethiopia, and 85% of the population are its serfs? Boo, you disappoint us.

Or was Ato Samuel being smarter than we are dumb and subtly indicting the EPRDF’s own deranged policy: there is poverty because we don’t let anyone own their own land, he is saying in nuanced sem-inna-werq. If so, he should be expecting a very irate call from Ato Meles which will start with something like, “Hey, Ivy League boy. What are we paying you for?”

So, to re-cap, what is to blame for the gap between rich and poor in Ethiopia? Those piddling, non-land holding landowner freaks who are bringing all of us down.

And as if that response was not in itself spectacularly inane, Ato Smauel pushes the envelope ever so gently further into Crazy EPRDF Land. You were saying, Mr. Ambassador…

Maybe you can think of, I dunno, Iowa. Of course the farms in Iowa are far larger, more technological. But it is… the state it is, what, is populated by small farmers. That’s the ideal. So, I don’t think inequality in that sense is intended because still we have now put in place a market economy, but still, it has not developed in such a way that huge inequities, huge inequities of the kind that you mention exist.

So… you know how when you watch a really bad horror movie—there is always some self righteous, dumb blonde who decides to go to the basement alone to confront the monster, and she is all like “Hello. Is anyone there?” and you are like, “Anchi qebeT. Yibelish!”

Rigggght? So, the blonde in this scenario is played by Ato Samuel, and may we say, what a performance.

And why we gotta drag the poor people of Iowa into this, anyway, what with their technological farms? Never mind that according to the US Census of 2005, Iowa is ranked smack in the middle (27^th) of states with people living below the poverty level. Those bastard farmers in Iowa. Do they actually own their own land or are they tenured, um, statistic dragger-downers? And what “radically insufficient” indices are used to determine these rankings anyway?

Now we realize being perched in Washington DC and projectile vomiting platitudes is a cushy position we one day hope to aspire to, but, insane talk aside, has the Ambassador ventured out to Ethiopia recently, ‘coz we gotta tell him, there is a HUGE gap between rich and poor thanks to the wondrously incompetent cleptocracy run by Ato Meles and his dingbat man Fridays. But, we ain’t no philosophy majors.

Coming up in Part 2… Rodney King has a three-way with Eritrea: The Good Ambassador ups the ante on insanity.

Silence before death

2007-08-13T11:03:00.000-05:00

There is an incredibly poignant article in Ethiomedia titled How Long Does Hunger Last? It is written by an Ethiopian in 2000, yet it heartbreakingly applies to today’s Ethiopia. Things have a way of staying put in Ethiopia.

The emptiness and despair in the eyes of the three children who were sharing a tiny dirt spot in one of the crowded makeshift shelters were horrifying. Their mother, helplessly lying beside them, placed the palm of her bony left hand under her hollow left cheek while holding the wrist of her famished three-year-old daughter as if trying to feel the child’s remote pulse. The two boys, too weak to sit upright, shifted their eyes from their little sister to their mother and again back to their little sister in a manner that revealed their hidden horror of losing either one in a matter of hours.

The writer, Tewodros Abebe, recalls the horror of seeing a family on the verge of death. A mother, herself emaciated, waits to see how long it will take for her children to die.

When my daughter was an infant she had an insatiable appetite. If I waited one minute longer than she could bear the hunger pains, she would let out a wail that’d haunt me for hours.

So imagine the pain of Ethiopian mothers who have to first hear the wails of their hungry children and be unable to feed them. Then imagine the silence that follows.

The article is gut wrenching on so many levels—but more so because it is written by an Ethiopian. This is not a CARE pamphlet. It is not a sanctimonious BBC documentary on those starving Africans. These are the words of one of us who has seen the horror of man-made famines.

My mother has a saying: “Lij yewelede indet g’ff yiseral?” (Someone translate that for me.) And that’s what I don’t understand about the EPRDF. How can Ato Meles, a parent himself, be sanguine about letting other people’s children die?

And how can we, as Ethiopians, keep on letting this happen to us? Why have we outsourced the well being of our mothers to NGOs and Bono?

Tewodros writes about “the disheartening images of men bitterly crying like children when they were informed that their and their families’ share of the day’s food ration was gone.”

How long does hunger last? Apparently as long as we are willing to look away.

I have gotten a few emails from people who want to do some volunteer work during their visit to Ethiopia to celebrate the Millennium. Organizations in Ethiopia looking for help, please post your information in the comments section or send me an email. One organization to look into is the Ethiopian Women Lawyers Association.

My Millennium

2007-07-31T09:38:00.000-05:00

It is a historical day in the Wonqette household. I finally won an argument. I laid down my case, argued it passionately, presented evidence and bara-bing, Master of the Domain conceded. What have I been doing wrong all these years?

The issue at hand was going back home to celebrate the Ethiopian Millennium. I had always been uneasy about it… contributing to the grand pretence of normalcy. But I went along with it and we were going to take this year’s fall vacation in Ethiopia with family. I thought I could put on blinders and dance the night away… for one night.

But I am my father’s daughter. So instead we, along with a few friends who have decided to do the same, are donating the money to homegrown micro credit outfits.

By way of an explanation...

2007-07-27T05:04:00.000-05:00

Where was I?

The first day the kids played in snow in their own backyard it was fun. The second day was… fu-nn? By the third day it was, “Okay, we are ready to go back home.”

No, no darlings. Remember when mommy and daddy packed all those boxes and went crazy for a while?

Ya.

And remember when we sad goodbye to Brandon and his mommy-- who was glad to see us leave because she hates everything and everybody?

Yep.

And remember when we said goodbye to grandmother-in-law who thinks her grandson could have done much better?

Uh-huh.

Well, all of that was because we were moving. Remember we talked about moving?

Yeah.

Well, this is your new home now. Remember, you said you liked your new house? It has a red door. You love that, don't you?

Yeah.

So…

We want to go back to our real house.

Oh, little darlings. We are home.

Child #1: No we’re not.

Child #2: No we ‘ot!

Oh, my lovelies. This is a much better place. There is less silicone. More intellect. Something called a highway. And didn’t you like the people who brought you cookies when we first moved?

Yeah.

You see? And daddy’s closer to his fantasy woman- Condi, who he thinks I don’t know about.

What?

I mean, PTA moms don’t hate mommy yet. And remember we saw a “Give peace a chance” bumper sticker on that limo? Wasn’t that exciting?

Ye—ah?

You see? Sooo?

Child #1: Yeah. We want to go back to our real house.

Child #2: Yeah. We wanna kagawannabanga ‘ahwse.

Goddamit!

Child #2: Gogomeet!

Child #1: I thought you said you were not going to curse any more…

I am not, light of my life. Let’s go get us some of that lovely cough medicine. Remember, the one that makes us sleepy….

So, there you go.

In the midst of all of that debacle we lost Uncle “Can summarize world events in seven words or less.” Took the wind out of me. Made it to Ethiopia for the funeral. (Can we, collectively, as a people do something about the Ethiopian leqso process? Indescribably retarded). Tucked in all the lowlights was one highlight: I finally got to meet Ato G. Blog about that coming up.

Much thanks to the folks at Redeem Ethiopia and Carpe Diem Ethiopia and for Inde Hewan et al for checking in on me once in a while.

I am loving the Yemi at Don’t Eat My Buchela!

Support HR 2003. Call, write your representative. Stay involved.

Ethiopundit has had a lot of artwork that has blown my mind, but this one… oh, this one!

Oh, wait! The Farce Gates are still open....wide.

2007-07-24T11:56:00.000-05:00

Interesting article the BBC had—and by interesting we mean crazy.

In What Next for Freed Ethiopian Leaders?, Elizabeth Blunt tells us that:

blah… blah…

But again, when the council comes up for re-election - which should be next year - the ex-prisoners are free to compete.

Whether they will be successful is another question. In his press conference the prime minister hinted that the CUD opposition leaders are now yesterday's men.

Only hinted? Hm, pretending to be a democrat must be taking its toll on the prime minister because, usually, Ato Meles’ intellectually iffy, drama queen promulgations are very accessible. Oh well. Time for Bereket Simon to make a pharmacy run.

But then again, Ato Meles also thinks people who oppose him a) belong in jail b) should cool their heels at concentration camps and/or c) be handcuffed with their necks beneath feet as he lectures them on the beauty of democracy and the importance of respect for the constitution… so, we’ll take his hints with a shot of electro shock therapy, thank-you-very-much.

Having boycotted parliament for two years, he said, it might not be so easy to get re-elected.

Because if there is one thing the prime minister knows it is how to get, um, elected.

And here comes the dizzying part.. in three… two… one…

And besides, he said, he believed that the CUD leaders had misunderstood why so many people voted for them in 2005.

Oh he went there. Seriously? Seriously.

In his opinion it wasn't out of enthusiasm for the opposition's ideology - which he subtly suggested was Amhara supremacism.

Ahh. You would think plundering and pillaging the country for 15 years would have helped soothe Ato Meles’ hard on for the bad, bad Amhara. Alas, not even exercising, um, anointed, supreme power has been able to expunge whatever childhood neurosis and inferiority complex the good prime minister still harbors against his phantom enemies. We had underestimated just how scarred Ato Meles has been by those mighty Amhara. Hug it out, Mr. Prime Minister. Just hug it out.

And just when you think it could not possibly… oh, please.

It was a protest vote against the failings of the ruling party, failings which - he said - the party had now taken measures to address.

Yeeeeeah, baby. All that wooziness about votin’ ‘n rallyin’ n’ talky-talky of the democracy… solved! In other words, if the EPRDF held a vote tomorrow it would have to stuff only, let’s say, 3/4^th of the ballots. It is what the astute political analysts within Melesocracy call “taking Amhara supremacy and making it our own 101.”

It sounded like his first speech of the election campaign.

We think Elizabeth meant “erection” campaign, but who are we to…

The prime minister said they were bound by their promises in their letter asking for pardon.

A letter, apparently, that was written in –daggammit!- Amhar(a)ic. He can’t win for trying.

And although the letter only appears to bind them to behave within the constitution - not a difficult thing to promise - they may also find there are, in practice, other boundaries which they may not cross.

Gosh, you think, Elizabeth? Actually, the first time Ato Meles is confronted by someone with actual knowledge of economics or when he has to deal with that irksome thing the goddam Amhara do where they tell him he knows jack shit about democracy… oh, yeah, someone’s gonna know exactly where the boundary is ‘cause that certain someone is a-gonna be slapped with an “attempted genocide and outrages against the prime minister’s sensibility” charge… and this time it won’t be all pretty where EPRDF judges dress up and pretend to play a round of habeas corpus. This time it will be serious.

So here’s the thing about Ms. Blunt’s reporting… notice how many times the prime minister is quoted. Then notice how many times she attempts to get even a lousy off the record quote from anyone within the opposition just to balance things out. “So far none of the [opposition] leadership has made any formal statement” is as far as she goes. C’mon, sister. Would it have been so hard to find someone who could have at least guffawed at the assertion that the EPRDF has, ahhhh, addressed all the peoples’ grievances? Is it still reporting when all you do is summarizing Ato Meles’ gracelessness?

You want to know what’s next for the leaders. How about, I dunno, fucking asking them??

And while you are at it, ask them how they can teach Ato Meles how to handle his Amhara trauma.

Alas, all farces must come to an end....

2007-07-20T12:26:00.000-05:00

The crucible of crazy that is the EPRDF is wading in so much shitamagoo that you have to wonder… does Jesus love stupid, maniacal sociopaths?

Doubt it.

Soooo, the farce of a “trial” is finally over; someone must have thrown raw meat laced with downers into Ato Meles’ cage because, bara-bing! the prisoners have been released. And it only took the EPRDF three years to realize what a colossal jackass it has made of itself.

The dementia of this trial is unparalleled by any, you must understand. Proceedings were routinely postponed because… heck, just because; judges were routinely absent; and promised “tones and tones” of evidence proving, um, genocide, was reduced to a government witness misidentifying one defendant.

Fun was had by all.

Thing is, Ato Meles has long lost all credibility with the Ethiopian people who have been living with his flowering psychosis for a decade and a half. What was amazing to witness, however, was how much humiliation his benefactors at the State Department and at 10Downing were willing to live through for their trainwreck of an ally. Remember the State Department’s appeal for a “fair and speedy” (har, har) trial? (On par with Donald Levine’s affirmation that at least they were not being boiled alive?)

The biggest loser of this trial/verdict/pardon/saving face drama is not Ato Meles. It is his enablers in the west who stood by as innocent men and women were dragged through this farce. Now they are beating their chests in victory: we mediated a release! Look, mommy. Look what I did on my summer vacation.

Ah, STFU!

If Ato Meles did not routinely hemorrhage common sense, he would have understood just how much he has legitimized the CUD as a true “party of the people.” The jailed leaders, journalists and human rights activists could not have a more solid democratic accreditation than being tried in an EPRDF court.

In one of his inane speeches to his emasculated parliament Ato Meles noted how the west’s mediation effort to have the prisoners released was “shameful.” For once, for once, I agree. It was excruciating to witness how the west pretends Ato Meles is a statesman who can be dealt with on the up and up. No matter how many times he breaks his word, wriggles and bloodies himself out of negotiated deals, the Bush administration and the EU keep lowering the bar for a man with the intellectual aptitude and disposition of a schoolyard bully.

As for Ato Meles, he has proved himself, yet again, to be an extraordinarily ordinary… thug.

Welcome home, all who were released. You have done your part. We will do ours.

Clarification…

2006-12-13T04:09:00.000-06:00

People, people, people. So concerned was my father that I might be in the middle of translating Dr. Berhanu’s book, When Freedom Dawns, I got a rare phone call from him. He hemmed and hawed (my father is appallingly unqualified to conduct small talk but the gravity of the matter required him to cushion his concern with awkward questions about my daughter’s eating habits) until he could take it no more.

“Semash… ye Dr. Berhanu’n meSehaf… ke miyaq sew gar new miteregumiew?” (“Are you translating Dr. Berhanu’s book with the help of an expert?”)

Ah. Could there be a better way of saying, “Listen, kid. We all enjoy your cute blog thing, but… stick to shtick”?

I had to, of course, allay his trepidation. No, I told him, I am not working with an expert. And by the way, dad, what does “teleTafi” mean in English?

My mother, on the other hand, comes from a long line of proud men and women who don’t let things like facts obfuscate their custom-made reality. She grabbed the phone away from my father.

“Simi… eyesemash new? Eniya zemedachn Ato Debela, (nefsachewn yimarew enna) ye enne intna agot, eza Gefferssa minorut… esachew be Taliyan gizE turjuman neberu yibalal. Besachew wetesh yihonal. Ye lij lijachew ezi Addis A’ba ale meseleN. Dewiyilet.”

(“You remember our relative, Ato Debela (God rest his soul), uncle of what’s-his-name, they used to live in Gefferssa… well, they say he used to be a translator during the Italian invasion. Maybe you took after him. I think his grandson is in Addis. Call him.”)

And that’s how it works in my family: you are tag teamed by diplomatic temperance and irrational exuberance. For a moment though I did entertain what it would be like to talk to what’s-his-name, Ato Debela’s grandson who probably neither cares I exit nor can verify the village rumor that his grandfather once served as a translator during the Italian invasion. I imagined the awkward silence that’d proceed our strained series of “dehna nehs”… followed by… what? Me trying to weave in Ato Debela’s name into the conversation with the grace of a bull in a china shop. “So, tell me. This Ato Debela. Did he like the kitfo?”

So, no. I am not translating any book. I did propose an on-line book discussion… which was so long ago that I can now understand why people think I must be translating it… what the hell could be taking this long?

But, as an update… yes, I promise… Come the New Year the said discussion will be resurrected. Our good friend Gooch, along with the fellows (and fellettes?) at Redeem Ethiopia and Carpe Diem Ethiopia have signed up to take on chapters because that’s how they roll. The saga continues. In the meantime, no need to give Ababa Wonqette an additional ulcer.

And incidentally, the story is that the geniuses in Ato Meles’ government have started monitoring all email communication, which explains my father’s increasingly cryptic email messages. Ah. We are back in Mengistu’s era. Ato Meles is one blue khaki suit away from total unhingement. God speed.

Briefly....

2006-12-08T15:27:00.000-06:00

It started off as a simple conversation during the staggeringly platitudinous “let’s build a memorial to MLK” hug-o-rama in DC on November 13. I was there representing my company because… um, it is my duty as the token black who also happens to be a woman—an equal employment opportunity officer’s wet dream, thank you very much.

Maybe one day I will gather my wits (and guts) enough to write about the absolute banality of a $100 million memorial in the midst of one of the most perilous times for African American males… high school and college graduation rates at an all time low; incarceration at an all time high. Half the companies who have pledged money to this insanity could not care less about racial equality because… well, I’ve freakin’ worked for them.

Oh, God. And then the myriad of civil rights fossils who have not had a semi-lucid thought since 1964 trying to lecture us (the young and the black) about the good old days, and lamely hinting at what sellouts we’ve been. Meanwhile Jesse Jackson was sniffling while angling for camera time. Ugh.

The whole thing was so creepy. And by the way, Clinton loves him some brown sugar. So does Bush-- So do all those white old men from the South.

So a simple conversation turned into a big conversation and now the Wonqette household is on the verge of moving! Mo-freakin’-ving. As in moving from one state to another! It is chaos. It is mayhem. It does not have a good beat and you can’t dance to it.

So that’s where I’ve been all this month. Blahblah. Blogging will resume as things settle.

In the meantime…

I see Ato Meles’ bloodlust hasn’t abetted. The Somali war is looming over us like an insipid logic readily dangles over Rumsfeld’s head. Seriously, can’t we get Ato Meles a blood-‘n-gore video game to keep him busy, or isn’t that good enough for irrelevant, semi-literate African warlords any more? Sigh. They are so temperamental.

Also, blogs and websites have again been blocked in Ethiopia by a regime which is part thug, part halfwit. Yeah, because blocking blogs is such a great way to keep out information during these crazy pill shortage days of Melesocracy. Bravo, boys. Next, maybe you can round up random people and charge them with genocide based on a witness who thinks he sees unicorns urinating on Bole Road on the second Thursday of every month… oh, you’ve done that already.

The EPRDF is going down. The question is, are we ready? Spiritually, politically… are we ready?

Be back next week.

Vote!

2006-11-07T09:51:00.000-06:00

Been busy working on a couple of local campaigns. Will be back soon. For the first time I see really, really encouraging signs of the emerging Ethiopian-American voice. People are very aware, and voting! A new generation of Ethiopians is out there canvassing and so freakin' connected! I think HR 5680 will pass. Seriously.

Use your voice. Vote! By 2008 the Ethiopian-American vote will be taken very seriously. The image is that this a dedicated voting block with "new immigrant" fervor. The tide is turning.

Vote.

Will be back after I recover.

Zenobia has a follow up entry on Ato Kahlid’s case.

"Ethiopian Man Convicted of Female Circumcision"... Uhh...?

2006-11-02T11:03:00.000-06:00

There are probably a hundred and one reasons why one should not be surfing the web when one is on a conference call with one’s particularly onerous client, but add to that list the likelihood of randomly screaming out “holy shit!” when one reads on the front page of the BBC News webpage that an Ethiopian man in Atlanta has been convicted of circumcising his daughter.

I’ve spent a few hours reading about this case and … folks, as much as I am a feminist-in-stilettos, there is a lot wrong with this case, not that you would know it by reading a totally hysterical article that is dependably posted on CNN. The man, Ato Kahlid Adem, was going through an exceptionally nasty divorce and custody case from a South African woman who only noticed that her daughter was circumcised after the separation? And the vivid details with which the seven-year-old girl remembers what happened when she was two unsettles me.

I got into one of the biggest fights of my life with a white, liberal, “I am here to save Africa” woman about FMG. She wanted to “understand” the phenomenon, while I eventually ended up suggesting she have her clitoris hacked off to get the full scope of the matter. There is nothing to “understand” about FMG. It is brutal. It is inhumane and there is absolutely no fucking excuse for it.

But I don’t think this guy did it to his daughter. And if he did not and his ex-wife has leveled this false charge against him, it not only takes immigrant women’s plight back to the Stone Age, it devalues the atrocity of FMG.

There are too many inconsistencies about testimonies from the plaintiff and witnesses, and as Africans, as Ethiopians we need to get the bottom of this. Some of the reports I’ve read so far don’t even mention timelines and the divorce/custody petition, and once again we are letting other people define us. It is up to us to set the record straight, and if my intuition is wrong and Ato Kahlid did it, I will be contrite to the point of humiliation. But something does not add up. And if the glove don’t fit…

I am not sure if the community has rallied behind Ato Kahlid and to what extent Ethiopians in Atlanta are aware of the case--- there appears to be ample coverage of it by the local press. I hope Ethiopian lawyers in Georgia will look at this case and inform us what happened.

While doing a little research, I was delighted to run into two new Ethiopian bloggettes, which has made me very, very happy. (Dina at Coffeechilisun has been very quiet, as has Fiqirte at The Concoction.)

Zenobia at Ewnet Ethiopia has an insightful post. She declares “Kahlid Adem is Innocent.”

Eleni Agiz at Ethiopia Encyclopedia, a prolific writer and thinker (and a young’un) also covers this story in her post “Ethiopian man circumcises two year old daughter?”

I am drowning in work and life (yes, I am one of those mothers who has to work) but I hope we can all rally to find out the truth.

Eventually I will update the links on the left (I know you Explorer users can’t see the links, but why the hell are you using Explorer?).

But I welcome my sisters to the ET Blogospere.

Burnt by Tears and Blood

2006-11-01T09:23:00.000-06:00

“What kind of person would want to harm the people of Ethiopia?”

It was my mother’s lament upon hearing about the second wave of massacre unleashed by the Ethiopian government on innocent people armed only with their audacious belief in a better Ethiopia.

This is not just hyperbole. It is the truth. A government that could not handle the thought of giving up power unchained its inner demon previously gussied up with a cadaverous veneer of respectability.

What kind of person would want to harm the people of Ethiopia? The kind led by Prime Minister Meles Zenawi. And he did it with such self-absolved righteousness that let his conscious believe shooting children in the head is acceptable collateral damage.

A year ago today there was a massacre in Ethiopia, devised and executed with calculated cruelty. Eventually Ato Meles will have to explain to his children why he allowed other people’s children to be riddled with bullets and die, sometimes clutching only the rancid air around them. Perhaps only the unforgiving indictment from his own children’s eyes will make Ato Meles understand the pain he has inflicted on Ethiopians. Until then, he will keep calling the dead “hooligans.”

Ethiopia and Ethiopians will survive the consecutive waves of violence from this government because Ethiopia and Ethiopians have had enough. It remains a mystery why Ato Meles thinks a bully can break the spirit of a people who yearn to be free. After all, Meles and Co. fought with ferocity and determination against the brutality of Mengistu. Does he think other people have any less a determination and ferocity than he?

Alas, the Achilles heel of Ato Meles: the kind of hubris that comes from being in power too long to make one forget what it is like to be the underdog. He has become so used to lackeys and sycophants, so addicted to dollars and euros thrown in his tin can, so blithely content with mediocrity and numbing obliquity, and increasingly undeterred neither by his meager intellectualism or lackluster sophistication, he keeps clawing on the flesh of innocent people. After all, that’s his default. It’s all he’s good at.

Ato Meles refuses to understand that temper tantrums are not policies and begging for small change from disdainful foreigners is not economic strategy. And massacres? Massacres are not social programs.

Only honorable men worry about legacies, which is perhaps why Ato Meles and the entire EPRDF operation exist only to pillage ephemerally. But their version of a good time will eventually come to an end, and when it does Ato Meles will have inherited his children trauma and exile. He will end up talking to bare walls, lonely expect for the ghosts of those he massacred.

As his reign crumbles with ignominy, Ato Meles should pray Ethiopians will be kinder to him that he was to them. Ethiopians will remember who they have always been and will make Ato Meles and his coterie mere footnotes.

This is a government that tortures people for passing out calendars. It has forfeited any benefit of doubt. It has squandered whatever goodwill it had stitched together.

Ato Meles confuses ruthlessness with discipline, Melesocracy with democracy and chaos with opportunity. He lights incendiary fires of ethnic discourse and religious wars with the eagerness of a licentious arsonist. He is chronically unable to look beyond the today, uncaring about who or what he takes down with him. He is dishonorable, has become predictable and will become irrelevant.

Last year there was a massacre in Ethiopia.

In remembrance of those burned by tears and blood. May you live to see an Ethiopia that is no longer cruel to your children.

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With apologies to the photographer of the picture above. I can't find the credit. Please let me know.

UPDATE: Thanks Mengesha. The photpgrapher is apparently Boris Heger for the Associated Press.

How to Hug an EPRDFffer

2006-10-27T04:44:00.000-05:00

A while ago this blog declared June 15 “Hug an EPRDFffer Day”, which pill-popping iconoclast Wonq-villager, Dube, recently brought up.

It is a gem of an idea until you realize how irresponsible it is to send people on a EPRDFffer hugging mission without arming them with instructions. It is equivalent to sending people to war sans, say, a gun: something likely to get them, what’s that thing called when you stop breathing… killed.

Therefore, following are some pointers on how to hug an EPRDFffer straight from the desk of the senior fellow at the Institute de Wonqvillie’s EPRDF Identification Division, Dr. Menqarra Chraq, a self-appointed colonial vocal diasporan, Imperial Revanchist (™ Jeffrey Sachs), known chauvinist, proven “vanguardist” and unabashed revisionist (yes, actual title).

You’re welcome.

Hugging an EPRDFfer: Methodology and Modality to Avoid Being Maimed

Identification of Specimen:

While identifying the typical EPRDFffer (‘the specimen’) in its natural milieu (Sheraton Addis, parliament, at Non-Aligned Movement summits where crazy people gather to compare neurosis’- ?neurosi?) is easy, spotting specimen outside its comfort zone requires tactical dexterity and scholarly adroitness.

Essential to understand specimen does not readily admit EPRDFffing status for fear of:

a) ridicule

b) being intellectually challenged

c) possible repercussions of randomly gunning down opponents outside of Ethiopia

d) more ridicule

This has made specimen especially defensive. Therefore, diligence is required to properly identify and cozy up to the specimen.

A few pointers:

1) Sidle up to specimen and say something about “the damn Shoan Empire” and carefully note reaction. Typical EPRDFffer will start twitching involuntarily.

2) Casually insinuate how “rule of law” has to be “respected.” Perking of ears signifies positive litmus test.

3) Set up scenarios of how happy a place Ethiopia would be without the peace-hating, burgeoning democracy-smashing, constitution-usurping opposition type people. Specimen will demonstrably glow.

Note: specimen is naturally paranoid and insecure so the identification and nurturing process can be long and tedious. Patience and suspension of lucid thought are two sine qua nons huggers should ‘carb up’ on.

From Identification to Approach: Dos and Don’ts

Once you have identified an EPRDFffer:

I. Do NOT try dry hugging the specimen.

II. DO ease the initial hugging process with ample self important lubricant.

III. DO mention how Shabiya/Eritrea is behind everything evil.

IV. Do NOT mention that TPLF and EPLF were bosom buddies.

V. DO mention how Prime Minister Meles is a ‘modern progressive leader’ with ‘a vision of democracy’ that rivals the Founding Fathers.

VI. Do NOT mention the PM’s “psychopathic willingness to kill his own people to keep power.”

VII. DO expound on the intellectual convoy Ato Meles carries on his shoulders.

VIII. Do NOT mention any chips weighing down Ato Meles’ shoulders.

IX. DO accept specimen’s random, disconnected statistics quoting proclivities.

X. DO nod in reverence about how Ethiopia is balooning with democracy.

XI. Do NOT offer suggestions on… anything… any time.

XII. DO demonstrate and assure specimen you are not armed with stones (can result in being strangled or shot through the head at point blank range.)

Hugging the EPRDFfer: Debunking Myths and Folklore

Once the specimen has been properly identified and cautiously hugged, using proper post-hugging protocol will minimize bodily harm. Some myths:

A. Hugging specimen, while will potentially freeze your soul, will not result in Transferred Evil Syndrome. (Note, however, no long term studies to validate this claim available. Caveat emptor.)

B. Despite wishful thinking, said hug not shown to have any positive effect on specimen’s disposition towards human rights, torture or affection for bizarre ‘genocide’ trials.

C. Yes, do not breathe in deeply any specimen spores.

D. Some hugging episodes have resulted in chaffed loins. Consult your physician immediately.

E. In rare occasions, smell of sulfuric acid has followed hugging event. This should not elicit panic unless hugger’s clothing starts spontaneously combusting.

F. It is acceptable to share a cigarette post hug.

G. Do not promise to call specimen as you zip up and leave. It’s tacky and it makes the specimen crankier than normal when you don’t.

H. Wash, rinse, repeat.

Now, go hug. And... enjoy ?

How ugly is politics?

2006-10-24T03:12:00.000-05:00

Will be back in a sec… workin’ for the man.

Quick observation. If politics is ugly, then realpolitik is downright revolting.

1) Darfur: If you missed 60 Minutes on Sunday, watch it here or read the summary here. Reporter Scott Pelley and John Pendergrast go in search of Jacob, a Darfuri boy whose schoolbooks were found in the rubble in the aftermath of a Janjaweed massacre. Killer quote:

Sudan’s U.N. representative looked amused during Bush's speech. AlBashir threatened war against U.N. peacekeepers.

Why do these guys mock the U.S. in public? Well, it turns out our government's relationship with Sudan is complicated. In the 1990’s AlBashir hosted Osama bin Laden for five years, so he has information on al Qaeda.

"It's been a very good deal for the government of Sudan to give little tidbits of information about suspects around the world in order to blunt United States outrage over what’s happening in Darfur," Prendergast says.

Last year, the U.S. sent a private jet to bring Sudan’s intelligence chief to CIA headquarters.

"This is the same guy who was the architect of the counter-insurgency strategy in Darfur. What kind of signal does that send to the government of Sudan?" Prendergast asks.

"Look, this is a hard thing to swallow, because what you’re saying is, the United States is in bed with the government in Khartoum on counterterrorism issues and therefore we are looking the other way on a genocide I mean, that’s tough," Pelley remarks.

"I think it's a really heinous arrangement and one that history will judge very harshly," Prendergast replies.

As Borat would say, “We support your War of Terror.”

2) HR 5680: Ethiomedia has an article by one Don Baseman from Portland, Ethiopia: Repression worsens, calls for sanctions blocked by Hastert. Killer quote:

A foreign policy assistant to Earl Blumenauer (D-Oregon) told us that his office was "lobbied hard by the State Department to vote against sanctions". The Blumenauer staffer said "the Bush administration does not want to upset Prime Minister Zenawi" because of his 'cooperation' against terrorists.

Oh yeah. That again. Prime Minister as a good soldier against terror? I wonder what the lingo will be when he turns against Washington.

3) EU and Yalemzewd: Congressman Donald Payne makes an explosive accusation in his press release of October 21:

Yalemzewd, who works for the European Commission in Addis found out late last week that a decision was made to arrest her. She decided to stay in her office to avoid arrest. After several days, she was asked by a senior EC official to leave the office.

Yalemzewd was betrayed by her own employer. Instead of protecting her, this official ruined her life. I strongly condemn this act and call on the European Commission to investigate this decision.

Woah. Inde Hewan urges us to write the EU to take responsibility, and to make sure Yalemzewd is not tortured by the EU’s ally. Here are the relevant emails:

timothy.clarke@ec.europa.eu , herve.delphin@ec.europa.eu,
louis.michel@ec.europa.eu

CC: hrwnyc@hrw.org, amnesty-eu@aieu.be ,
DELEGATION-ETHIOPIA@CEC.EU.INT , horn@voanews.com , letters@observer.co.uk, hardtalk@bbc.co.uk

(see the comments section of the previous post for a sample letter.)

So, how ugly is politics? Pretty f’ing ugly. For solace I turn to music and pictures of Ethiopia that remind me Ethiopia is more than politics.

The folks at Yag for Life have great photographs of water projects they’ve funded.

… and somehow, life goes on.

And the Second Annual Wonqville STFU Awards Go To...

2006-10-20T15:50:00.000-05:00

It’s a couple of months too early for the Second Annual Wonqville STFU Awards, but friends, these are strange times.

This year’s award goes to…

… Ethiopian Ambassador to Britain, one His Excellency Ato Berhanu Kebede.

God help the man. It takes a special kind of self-loathing and mediocrity to articulate the Ethiopian government’s unhinged response to a damning report on its post-election massacres.

Listen to why Ato Berhanu deserves the honor. (Fast forward to minute 3:00. Thanks to Ethiomedia for the link.)

Seriously, EPRDF. You’ve been in power… how long? Can’t you manage to get just one person with a respectable… ah, never mind.

So, with resignation, we present Ato Berhane: intractably incoherent, intoxicatingly witless and brazenly, oh-so wantonly inerudite.

Just… just… STFU!

(Honorable mention to Jeffrey Sachs, fist recipient of the W-STFU Award. Has he STFUpped? We don’t hear from him a lot these days.)

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Ethiopian Politics has a great round up of the unfolding events in Ethiopia, especially about the EU human rights lawyer, Yalemzewd Bekele, arrested by the Ethiopian government. There are links to Amnesty International alerts about Yalemzewd, up-to-date news stories and information.

When the Fleas Start Biting.

2006-10-20T12:32:00.000-05:00

Oh. Oh, Timmy. It had to happen eventually.

Some really awfully written, badly punctuated Ethiopian government run newspaper called Eftin has EU Ambassador Tim Clarke in its crosshairs.

After a very awkward courting of the EPRDF and systematic turning a blind eye to the massacres and overall thugishness of a government run by semi-literate warlords in silk ties, the EU is finally realizing that maybe it should have taken the Ana Gomes route in handling Ato Meles. Alas, we all have to learn our lessons at our own pace.

To catch you up, Ethio-Zagol broke the story a couple of days ago that two EU diplomats and two Ethiopian human rights campaigners were arrested as they tried crossing the border in to Kenya. The Ethiopian government is claiming the two Ethiopians had warrants for their arrest for… well, “serious crimes.” If you are new to the Ethiopian government’s sense of judiciary, “serious crimes” could mean anything from “you breathed with the wrong nostril” to “you exercised your constitutionally guaranteed right to speak freely.” Pick anything in between.

So now the EU is outraged, outraged we tell you, that a government capable of holding a magnificently obtuse ‘genocide’ trial of 111 opposition leaders, MPs, journalists and civil society leaders, is turning its fangs on its “development partners.”

Oh, EU. Haven’t you supported, cozied up to, appeased and dealt with enough despots to realize that in the end, breaking up with megalomaniac Marxists is hard to do? You don’t listen.

So now, because the Ethiopian government loves the crazy, the two EU-sians are being deported, and the two Ethiopians have been arrested on aforementioned “serious crimes.”

Monsieur Louis Michel, EU Development Commissioner… any vague, diplospeak threats you can volley?

[Michel] said he had called Ethiopia's envoy in Brussels for an explanation. Mr Michel did not name the diplomats but said they were Italian and Swedish nationals working for the European Commission's delegation in the capital, Addis Ababa.

"There will be repercussions," he said.

Ah, but of course.

It should be noted that in February Mr. Michel was in Ethiopia to meet with Ato Meles. To Mr. Michel’s credit he visited the opposition leaders in Qality. The offshoot of that visit was… basically, “you two kids play nice. Democracy good. Now I gotta get the hell out of here.”

Hmm.

Continued the BBC:

[Michel] also said he had been trying since Thursday to contact Mr Meles about the incident, without success.

"Usually I can make contact quite easily with Prime Minister Meles," he said.

Yeah. Ato Meles is like that. He’s so-so about retuning phone calls when he is in the middle of a schizophrenic episode which puts him in no mood to “strengthen political dialogue, aiming at fostering the process of democratization.”

So EU is pissed. What else is new?

Brace yourselves, boy and girls. Whatever this creepy Eftin is (is it a newspaper? Seriously? The kind that has editors and thinkers?), its quivering with some kinda souped up lunacy sure to bum out EU Ambassador Tim Clarke.

Tim Clarke, God bless him, has been a fascinating subject in pre and post Election 2005. Our impression is that all he wanted was the damn thing to go through, the opposition to win a few seats, the EPRDF to be legitimized and be the first to celebrate the great European democracy experiment by doing an Irish whiskey body shot off of a nublile TPLF spokesmodel. Was that too much to ask?

Berhanu Nega tells a fascinating story in one of his speeches (London or Stockholm) where he invited Mr. Clarke to lunch and asked him what the contingency plan of the EU was in case the opposition won the elections. Mr. Clarke was like, yo, dude (or more accurately, “pishposh, my dear fellow”), the EPRDF was not going to lose these elections.

Nice planning.

With that historical background, today Mr. Clarke is faced with a new set of realities because according to the brain surgeons at whatever Eftin is:

... Commenting further on the involvement of other European Commission personnel, our sources said, the trail of evidence and facts irrefutably point to others, and, particularly the top diplomatic brass of the institution i.e. Ambassador Timothy Clarke.

Timmah! Um… Timmah?

Remember the good old days when the most foreign diplomats would be involved in were prostitute rings and drunken fests? Now they’ve graduated to smuggling hunted down human rights activists out of the country.

They do grow up so fast.

By the way, we realize a lot of journalists working for government papers have defected, but someone needs to get Eftin-tin better, what do you call it… writers, and perhaps also less windbaggy ‘sources.’ Oh jeezuz. Eftin is still talking:

Both recent and past post election deeds, such as the intentional leak of a preliminary election assessment from the desk of the "infamous EC "observer mission'' chief, Anna Gomez; the similarly orchestrated leak of a yet to be released inquiry report that followed a ''trafficking'' of a member of the inquiry commission to Germany via Bole; the sheltering of Kinigit's ex-leadership after the elections and yet without the presence of any threat or danger (the purpose being creating an image of crises and non existent abuse not to mention the arrogance of acting as if beyond the laws of a sovereign country) plus a similar sheltering of a suspect wanted by the law for offenses, and not for political conviction, as it took place very recently etc... clearly show the track record of the EU as well as some of its delegates in Ethiopia. Thus establishing the facts constituting the trail mentioned, commented the sources.

… Oh, STFU.

But here is the coup:

Additionally our sources mentioned specific instances where by Ambassador Timothy Clarke has been seen involved in relation to this present illegal exercise.

Oh, snap.

In case the Ethiopian government tries Mr. Clarke on charges of treason or “serious crimes”, we hope it will be a “fair and speedy trial” and that the Europeans will wait patiently as the Ethiopian judiciary "takes its course” while Mr. Clarke languishes in an atrocious jail cell. After all, “rule of law has to be respected.”

Of course, there is subtext to all of this EPRDF posturing. According to Ethio-Zagol, Ato Meles was terribly vexed by an observational report presented to him by an EU team about the trials of the prisoners, which anyone vaguely acquainted with reality understands is a total farce. And guess who was present at this presentation, irritating the hell out of Ato Meles? Guess.

In a meeting with the Ambassadors of the EU Troika and the commission's representative here in Addis, Timothy Clark, Meles lambasted the observation report as biased and unfounded on facts. The observer had criticized the way the court conducted the trial as unfair. Meles who rejected the report of the European Election Observers Mission last year requested to meet Mr. Elman, a renowned British human rights lawyer to make his case against the report.

When the election report by EU's mission went against him, Meles started a personal assault against the head of the mission, Ana Gomes.

Sounds about right. And what happens when Ato Meles disagrees with you? Well, if you are Ethiopian you are either killed or charged with genocide; if you happen to hail from the outside you get the honor of being called a “self-appointed colonial viceroy” or accused with running a human trafficking outfit.

You’re welcome!

Also playing into all this is a damning report the world press has picked up on (BBC, New York Times, Washington Post) that the Meles administration shot, beat and strangled unarmed citizens in post-election massacres.

Awkward.

So how does the Ethiopian government deflect attention from the inconvenient truth that Ato Meles is neither a reformer nor in the least bit interested in anything other than holding on to power by the barrel of the gun? Ah, yes. Ato Meles “admits” what the world has known for a while because the world has an IQ larger than 20: that there are Ethiopian troops (um, we call them ‘trainers’ now) in Somalia.

The people who should most be alarmed by what is happening in Ethiopia should be the appeasers of the EPRDF. Ato Meles has proven time and time again that he makes no allowances for criticism and straying from his talking points is tantamount to political heresy. He has proven that if it serves his purpose, he will turn on anyone at any time. He is an unreliable ally with the petulance of an adolescent, and those of you appeasing him have ample evidence that when your time is up, when you are no longer useful, when you are seen as anything but a dispensable apparatchik you will be disposed of without hesitation or ceremony. The time to jump ship is fast running out.

This blog has made two predictions: a) that Ana Gomes will the be one to blow the lid off of the whole “we did not steal these elections” bullshit, b) that Tim Clarke will be the next to have his patience tested.

It was back in December 2005 that the report of a concentration camp in Dedessa hit the news. Then Mr. Clarke was quoted as saying:

There comes a point where our patience as an international community is running out. We would like to see tomorrow, the media open up. Tomorrow, the political detainees being released. Tomorrow, the prisoners who’ve been taken without charge released. Tomorrow, the families and legal counsel get access. This, for us, is normal.

Well, tomorrow arrived today.

And even further back in September 2005 Mr. Clark told the Australian Dateline SBS program that:

It would be a major mistake for [the opposition] to pull out because there is no other way forward. … Of course, they may not be happy with the results, and they will be discontent, and they will have difficulty with their supporters perhaps, but this is the only game in town.

That’s the kind of appeasement that emboldened Ato Meles.

We wish Mr. Clarke well. We wish he had the moral clarity of Ana Gomes. But we hope he will not level any more platitudes on Ethiopians who will suffer a worst fate than resigning from an Ambassadorship.

The next one to fall will be the Ethiopian ambassador in Washington DC.

How do you ask another generation to heal?

2006-10-19T03:01:00.000-05:00

“This was a massacre.”

A draft of the [inquiry into the June and November killings] obtained by AP says that among those killed were 40 teenagers, including a boy and a girl, both 14, who were shot.

…

"Old men were killed while in their homes, and children were also victims of the attack while playing in the garden."

A new generation of Ethiopians now bears the scars of a massacre.

My father and I have been exchanging emails and old fashioned letters about what’s been happening in Ethiopia, especially the responsibilities of our respective generations.

With his permission… (translation of Amharic mine.)

Daughter,

…

Perhaps you undervalue what you call your “rose-tinted glasses.” I may not have left you much, but I hope eventually you will see the value of those glasses and the prism with which they enable you to see Ethiopia.

Yes, indeed, we chose exile. But in many ways exile was imposed upon us. That meant depriving you of a childhood and adulthood in Ethiopia. How do I give you that back? The Ethiopia I grew up in and adored was not a perfect Ethiopia, but I never saw soldiers dragging children from their warm beds and shoot them in front of their mothers. When you see that, child, when you see that you want your children never to see it.

The Ethiopia we left behind was not the Ethiopia I knew. I never talked to you about those days because it was not the Ethiopia I wanted you to know.

…

The thought I would be raising my children in a foreign land had never crossed my mind. You see, I am indebted to Ethiopia: for the education she afforded me, and for the high expectation she had for me and for my colleagues to succeed even under the harsh circumstances of a segregated United States. We couldn’t wait to go back to Ethiopia to serve our country. I wish I could explain to you the air of enthusiasm and optimism at that time. I ask now, will your generation ever experience that kind of euphoria, even if it is fleeting? We felt so powerful. We knew our destiny. We had what is visceral and God-given: ownership of Ethiopia.

Though your mother and I have many regrets, we don’t regret sheltering you from the Ethiopia of the 70s. "Every generation has the potential to be great." Do you remember when we read that together? Mine, I thought, was to protect yours from an Ethiopia that ate her young. It was an unfortunate assignment, far different from what we thought was our calling. But someone had to stop the hemorrhaging, both spiritual and physical—a task we were ill-equipped to handle, admittedly.

Your mother and I wanted you to love the Ethiopia you never got a chance to know. For that, we had to hide what we thought would harm your nascent sense of identity.

…

As for what you think your generation’s responsibility is, well, whatever it is you decide it to be, I hope it involves paying back our debt to this country. It is a debt you don’t deserve to shoulder, granted. But my hope and prayer is that, despite our clumsy implementation, we have paved a road (no matter how bumpy) that will lead you, your siblings and children back to Ethiopia. If you continue to see what is good about Ethiopia, what is worth fighting for, what is worth preserving, then I think I have done my job. I like what you write when you say, “Ethiopia is much more than politics.” It is true although it gets difficult to see these days.

I pray to God you will always love this country, even with all its wretchedness and melancholy.

You are always in my thoughts, daughter.

Your father,

We thought our parents had stopped the hemorrhaging, but the EPRDF has managed to inflict a series of new horrors on a new generation. So here we are, again, sons and daughters of people who somehow survived what Mengistu did to Ethiopia, freshly wounded by a government bent on carving its brand of terror in our psyche.

What do we tell our children? Most importantly, what do Ato Meles and his supporters tell their children? Fast becoming a sad footnote in Ethiopian history, the EPRDF is busy destroying an Ethiopia it could never bring itself to love.

What happened last June and November were massacres. Ethiopians knew it. Tony Blair knew it, Jimmy Carter knew it, and the State Department knew it.

Now, the world knows it.

A Preamble to the Preamble

2006-10-16T06:41:00.000-05:00

Update: We don’t want to unduly stress anyone, so we’ll forge ahead with the people we have. The main point is that we get this done and then take stock of the sociological underpinnings of this experiment later.

Gooch, Redeem Ethiopia fellers: what can we say?

Updated schedule:

Introduction and Chapter 1 (Pages 1-65) : ETW
Chapters 2 & 3 (Pages 66-157): His Goochness
Chapters 4 & 5 (Pages 158-258): __________
Chapter 6 & 7 (Pages 259-355): Redeem Ethiopia, hosted on their site.

That will get us halfway.

.............................................................................................

It’s like Murphy’s Law… after stomping out small clusters of fire ignited by kids who think mothers are an endless source of food, patience and love (wtf! someone break it to them gently), I thought I’d save a few hours over the weekend to write in peace. Ha! It’s like I am new to this shit.

Yes, totally lame but I have fallen short of my ambitious plan to pen down thoughts on the Introduction and Chapter One of “The Dawn of Freedom.” As a notorious overachiever and nouveau geek, believe me, nothing you say could match the derision I’ve leveled on myself.

So, with deepest apologies, we will start the discussion next week and I’ve broken up the chapters thus:

Introduction and Chapter 1 (Pages 1-65) : ETW
Chapters 2 & 3 (Pages 66-157): His Goochness
Chapters 4 & 5 (Pages 158-258): Not Anonymous
Chapter 6 & 7 (Pages 259-355): Um… YL and T at Redeem Ethiopia (?.. Don’t leave me hangin’, gentlemen.)

Even top-level consultation with Ethiopian literati well-versed in deciphering coquettishness has not helped in figuring out Ye Filwuha Lij’s response to the request she takes on this assignment, so… it shall be done for her… (C’mon girl, we need girl power!)

Chapter 8 & 9 (pages 356-418): Filwuha Lij

The Concoction, Dagmawi, Enset, Seminawerq, Ethiopundit, Carpediem… any interest? We can host it on your respective blogs (as will –ahem- Redeem Ethiopia) like the resourceful ferenjies do with “Carnival of Revolutions.”

One point… here is what Not Anonymous said to me about my brazen, public, unilateral milmela of people to share in this task…

Hey, wonq! for the life of me, I don't know why you thought you could just dole out chapters and such with the same air of philanthropic generosity with which one might hand out mulmul to some mender kids at buhE!

You see why he was assigned? (Aside: I would be wearing a formidable sash and a respectable housecoat as I hand out perfectly sculpted and mul-mul’ed dabo, by the way.)

Bottom line is, “The Dawn of Freedom” needs all our input since I don’t have the intellectual aptitude to do a thorough analysis. I am, however, gifted in agitation and tripping over social experiments.

This is our version of a good, old fashioned Ethiopian debbo.

..............................

Does anyone know where Tsegasaurus is???

AmlakE... feTariyE

2006-10-13T07:16:00.000-05:00

The grandmother-in-law just became a registered voter, goaded, by the way, by one of the great-grand children who came home from first grade after participating in mock mid-term elections.

Grandmother-in-law asked the grown-ups why they never told her about this thing-- this voting thing. Grown-ups slinked away murmuring something about cleaning the gutters. Grandmother-in-law now thinks the fruits of her loins are rotten.

Grandmother-in-law now adds this line to her morning prayers: “AmlakE, feTariyE… dehnawun sew asmeriTeN…” Her nimble fingers speed through her rosary beads with assembly line efficiency. Rat-tat-ta-ta-ta…. “AmlakE feTariyE, ke erkuss sew sewireN. Antew ijEn yizeh asmeriTeN… Mela’ktoch, Emiye Mariyam.. ke innE gar teselefu.” (“My Lord, my Creator... save me from electing a heretic. Angels, Our Mother, line up with me as I vote.”)

The guilt of putting someone in office who might turn out to be a scoundrel now weighs heavy on grandmother-in-law. She frets if she votes in the wrong person she would have imposed injustice on people.

So, every morning, she looks up towards the heavens and in her raspy voice… "feTariyE… amlakE…" (“my Creator… my Lord…”)

If only the rest of us had half the angst and a quarter of the reverence for the right to vote for our leaders.

Amnesia Redux?

2006-10-11T15:50:00.000-05:00

Our friends at Redeem Ethiopia don’t blog often enough, but when they do… goodnight! The latest entry, The Lures of War, is the kind of succinct brilliancy this blog will one day dream of being when it grows up.

Redeem Ethiopia, preach it brother:

Most western policy makers are surely a lot more naïve than the Ethiopian populace when it comes to reading the motivation of Ethiopian leaders. For instance, it has still not sunk in for most US policy makers that to support Ethiopia in Meles’ provocative invasions of Somalia can only strengthen the Islamic court by giving it a lot more legitimacy than it could muster on its own.

In many ways the rarasissboombah war of Ato Meles’ Attention Deficit Disorder should remind us of the EPRDF’s sneer-y war drumming back in 1998 when Eritrea was enemy du jour- an entity that had to be destroyed because it was, all of a sudden, destroying the Ethiopian way of life. Never mind that for seven years (longer, actually, since Meles and Iyassas were AK47 slinging Marxists guerilla buddies) Eritrea and Ethiopia could not be any more of BFFs.

So, suddenly and conveniently (or maybe because the crazy pills run out), Ato Meles became vaywee vaywee worried about Ethiopia’s borders, mainly that there wasn’t one up north. (Yes, usually you don’t grant “independence” to a province without, what is it called… actually demarcating the damn territory, but that’s not how Ato Meles rolls.) Ethiopians were asked to have amnesia: uhh, were we dreaming the whole TPLF-EPLF reign that rendered non-TPLF Ethiopians second class citizens? We were? Okay. Let’s go kill us some Eris.

Apparently that strategy worked so well that fast forward to 2006 and people in the Somali region/Ogaden, long neglected and marginalized by Ato Meles, are going to be asked to die for the glory of Ethiopia.

The US’ policy regarding the Horn of Africa and the looming catastrophe in both Ethiopia and Somalia has been lazy and chaotic. Ambassador-in-waiting Donald Yamomoto keeps turning the “Ethiopia is a strategic partner in the war on terror” wheels even as the wheels are coming to a grinding halt with a piercing squeal. Mr. Yamomoto forgets, Ato Meles thought it was a perfectly acceptable policy to deport people “if we don’t like the color of their eyes.”

Rock on, Don.

Soon, the US will learn just how unreliable an ally Ato Meles can be. For seven sloth-ridden years, the TPLF tangoed with one of the worst totalitarian African leaders next to, well, Ato Meles. When the novelty run out Ato Meles happily sacrificed tens of thousands of Ethiopians in the name of territorial integrity which left Ethiopia without a port.

Seriously? Haven't we learnt to pick our friends (Saddam Hussien call your office) a little more carefully?

Then came the Algiers agreement—where Atos Meles and Issayas shook hands and played nice by signing a treaty. An independent Border Commission would decide the final demarcation of the Ethio-Eritrean border. Ato Meles didn’t bother to take Badme (the alleged trigger point of a two-year war) out of the negotiations because… just ‘coz. Ato Meles famously said that he would accept the Commission’s demarcation even if the line cut through Addis Abeba.

Well, we all know what’s happened since. Border demarcation is for pussies… apparently.

In the negotiations after the May 2005 elections Ato Meles always pulled his trump card whenever he couldn’t handle intellectual gravitas: his famed “psychopathic willingness to kill his own people to keep power.”

Ethiopundit has surmised that the Meles regime would resort to slave trading if it meant hanging on to power. It is our contention that if the tide turns and Ato Meles thinks aligning with the Islamic Courts would extend his stay, he is taking that deal. You think that’s hyperbole? His guerilla buddy in Eritrea is sending arms to the ICU. Now, Eritrea has a measurable Moslem population. Why in the world would it dip its toes in a cesspool of fundamentalism? Because, and we hope you are taking notes, Ato Meles’ counterpart has the kind of special crazy in his heart that cultish, sh0rt-sighted warmongers can only aspire to. Allegiances between totalitarians is a very fluid situation- the Mujahadeen, the war lords in Somalia. You would think the US remembers these kinds of details.

Both Meles and Issayas have gone as far as imprisoning and torturing people who had fought with them in their liberation wars. Their loyalty is to their egos, while the people they rule with an iron fist are mere pawns to be patted on the head before they are stationed in front of cannons.

If it means holding on to power, the EPRDF will resort to any measure. For God’s sake this is an administration that has compared the opposition to the Rwandan Interwame! Bubbly government spokesperson Bereket Simon, in defending the killing by government forces of unarmed protestors, has said,

“But, what was the alternative? Let's look at it. The alternative was strife
between the different nationalities of Ethiopia which might have made the Rwandan genocide look like childsplay. This was the alternative.”

(Emphasis added)

Before the amnesia sets again, let’s remember that Ato Meles has that easily, that callously used the deaths of a million slaughtered Africans as a cheap campaign ploy. Additionally, the unfinished war between Ato Meles’ and Ato Issayas’ restless testosterone is playing out as a proxy war in Somalia.

The bottom line is, only a democracy can counter fundamentalism. That’s why, we assume, 2,775 American boys and girls and over 600,000 Iraqis have given up their lives.

The US, Tony Blair, Jeffrey Sachs and all of Ato Meles’ enablers are in for a very rude awakening.

Until then, rock on.

…………………………….

Additional reading: Meles’ Sea of Lies

Aside: Tsegasaurus at Egoportal… do we need to send your picture to Ethan Zuckerman? Tell us you are alive.

An now for something really interesting:

2006-10-09T11:42:00.000-05:00

Blogging will be light this week. But I have had to be unglued from the computer thanks to a brilliant link from Enset about recently declassified documents from the State Department.

It shows you:

a) It sucks to be a poor nation

b) Nixon was a robot.

c) It really sucks being a poor nation.

It also makes you wonder what will emerge from the transcripts of Yamomoto, Frazer and Huddleston meetings with Prime Minister Meles Zenawi. Ato Meles forgets he is leaving a paper trail that will chronicle his cruelty, incompetence and tragic downfall.

Be back soon.

Reminder: Discussion of “The Dawn of Freedom” by Dr. Berhanu Nega will start next Monday. www.berhanunega.com

Meanwhile in Somalia…

2006-10-05T11:38:00.000-05:00

A round-up of sorts...

Wanna make $100 a week? The Islamic Courts are hiring part time hand choppers.
The ICU controls “70% of Somalia” and it is headed by someone who hates the Qat and, presumably, the hip-wriggling vocation of Beyonce.
Ethiopia: meet your new neighbors… fundamentalist Islamists, Ethiopia. Ethiopia, fundamentalist Islamists. Now play nice, you two.
Osama’s Craigslist ad:

“Wanted: African country torn asunder by tribal warfare to serve as gateway to, um, ‘law and order’ type of hush-hush operation. Access to several strategic ports a plus. If you are in close proximity of two countries with psychopath leaders who think proxy wars are fun and funny, if you like the mellifluous sounds of Jihad in the morning and long walks on the beach, contact me ASAP. AOLIM I.D. is ‘we-will-rule-the-world-11.’ Special preference given to populations which like/love/obsess over Whitney Houston (strictly in a ‘women should wear the beehive suits’ Islamic militant kind of way). Don’t miss this once in a lifetime opportunity to bring the "slam" in "Islamisist." Call today! And, oh… death to America.”

And no potential geo-political disaster in the Hon is complete without at least one incomprehensibly senile soundbite from the Ethiopian government. Ato Bereket Simon, do what you do best: “If the Islamic courts led by the Jihadists are attacking Baidoa, we have told them we will not let them do it.”

Never gets old.

So eight years from now, President Bush will be on CNN and some smirky reporter will ask him why he didn’t do enough to stop Islamic fundamentalism in the Horn. Mr. Bush will have his long-awaited version of the Clintonesque meltdown:

I was the decider. I was deciding at that time. And that fell’er there at that time Mekles… Medes… abu-bin-Madras (can’t recall his name right now) he was tellin’ us this was no big deal and that he would “crush” the.. the Talibanists. He was our ally in the War on Terror, you see. We believe our allies. We are… believers. The fell’er said he’d take care of it all he needed was a little money, well heck a lot of money, and license to prosecute all the so-called “opposition” which was spreading the genocide and the ethnical strife and the over throwing of his constitution. You can’t go ‘round attempting to overthrow a constitution! So we said, “Hell, yeah. Do what you must, Melkes. We’ll pretend it’s all part of the… democratization process.” Who knew he was gonna be such a … well, at least I tried. I tried and failed, but I tried. And now you did your little liberal hit job on me when all I wanted to talk about is how I love me cutting shrubs…”

In the meantime, Four Killed as Christians and Muslims Clash in Ethiopia.

Enjooooy!

The Wonqville Book Club

2006-10-03T12:04:00.000-05:00

The dedication in Dr. Berhanu Nega’s book, “The Dawn of Freedom” reads as follows:

To my mother Weizero Abebech Wolde Giorgis:

Compounding your pain of not even being able to bury the child you lost in the aftermath of one political turmoil, now you find yourself passing meals to a son in prison. I am hopeful that the day signaling the end of your despair and the despair felt by countless others mothers is near.

To my father Ato Nega Bonga:

For showing me the value of work and love of country by example.

To my wife Dr. Nardos Minassie:

For teaching me the healing power of love.

To my children Noah and Eyassu:

I hope you will understand the struggle I delved into in the name of liberty is both for me and for you. I consider this to be part of the duty of a father. The biggest strain, however, is being apart from you.

To all of you who have died, suffered and been exiled in the name of democracy and liberty in Ethiopia:

Your suffering is the last pang of labor that will birth democracy. The pain will eventually ebb. The enduring spirit of CUD is testimony to that. We are indebted to you and what you have contributed.

To Siye Abraha and Asseffa Abraha:

You are living proof of a government that pays lip service to the rights and protection of ethnic groups while only visiting misery, lawlessness and incarceration on those who stand up for those same rights and liberties.

To Ato Birru Mammo Gilo:

Incarcerated at the age of 85 on suspicion that your son supports the OLF, you were rounded up along with your two sons without a warrant or due process. You still languish in Qaliti jail at the age of 93, having served eight years without having your day in court. No starker example can be found to illustrate the complete degradation of the Ethiopian justice system.

(Translation mine… as always comes to you with profound apologies for mangled metaphors.)

I have not found a place that is discussing “The Dawn of Freedom” so here goes a proposal:

Starting in two weeks, this blog will attempt a discussion of Berhanu’s book, chapter by chapter. I will start with the introduction but hope some of the regular contributors (um, Gooch and the rest of you who shall remain nameless only up until you don’t do what I say) will volunteer to take on a few chapters. Two weeks will give people who have not yet gotten the book yet to skedaddle to www.berhanunega.com and get a copy.

Then join in. It is perhaps the book that will define a generation… set a new standard for political discourse, and maybe, hopefully be what helps us heal.

Discussion (introduction) will start on October 16. Gooch, first chapter?

A Tale of Two Meetings

2006-09-29T08:27:00.000-05:00

Purpose of meeting:	Homeowners association
Scheduled starting time:	7:00 p.m.
Actual time meeting started:	7:02 p.m.
Agenda:	Speeches and speeches, updates and updates. Councilman presentation on how the neighborhood successfully blocked a developer from McMansioning a yay-size property Fire marshal presentation: don’t let children near fire Update on the upcoming neighborhood social (decision made to have a kosher stand). Congressperson made a pit stop. Shook hands—a bit too firmly-- smiled staidly and… very proud to represent us in congress. (Elegantly frazzled staffer subtly distributed campaign buttons made in China.)
Most interesting person there:	Elderly woman in a Chanel suit and flip-flops knitting a… tablemat? sweater? large bib? who seemed totally disinteresting in everything except the issue of people parking on the street. Police spokesperson gently reminded her that… um, parking is allowed on city streets. She was not happy. Not happy at all. Police spokesperson shriveled when she narrowed her eyes and poked her ball of wool with two army-size needles. I love her. It seems perfectly normal now not to want people parking their stupid automobiles on the street.
Most uncomfortable moment:	Spotted PTA-Nazi housewife who dresses her daughters like Future Republican Security Moms looking at me with her trademark “Oh, you are one of those mothers who work?” glare dripping from her fluttering eyelashes. Time to pretend to check the Blackberry. Don’t let me find her parked on the street.
Best line of the evening:	HOA chairman says how great it was that the neighborhood was diversifying, “y’know, ethnically.” Cool. 1 black person, 2 Asians and several people of middle eastern background. Maybe, chairman said flashing a “I love you people” smile, “maybe it’s time for some kind of ‘international day’ celebration.” I like. TrE siga being carved from a whole bull hung on hooks at the Ethiopian section. Or… chairman didn’t mean an all out “ethnic rally day” a la Senator Macacawitz, did he?
Times I checked my watch:	More than 15
# of decisions made and voted on:	10. Everything on the agenda.
Scheduled end time:	8: 30 p.m.
Actual time meeting ended:	8:33 p.m.
Next meeting:	Quick check of calendar- date set
How we knew the meeting was over:	Several personal electronic devices beeped.
What happened after the meeting:	Now that business was done with… everyone was politely priming to rush to get away from each other. I had to remind myself these were my neighbors and this was a community meeting… so I decided to, whatdoyoucallit, commune. How are you… how are you… how are you? Pretty obvious no one knew no one’s name. Oh, hey… we should go running together. Call me. No one touched the punch and cookies. (What?! Carbs?! Heresy.) Very skillfully, we were all edging towards the door. Don’t know if it was paranoia but had a feeling PTA-Nazi was trying to corner me. I love her shoes. My daughter had barfed on mine that morning. It was drizzling, cold and dark outside. I didn’t have an umbrella coz that’s how I roll. People muttered tart goodnights and pretended they didn’t see me putting up my collar. They opened their small, tiny, one-person umbrellas and melted into the night. I hunkered beneath my briefcase and ran to my car. I stepped into a puddle. Ah. One way to wash off barf off of footwear.

And then four days later:

Purpose of meeting:	An Ethiopian community/grassroots philanthropic/outreach… something
Scheduled starting time:	6:30 p.m-ish
Actual time meeting started:	7:28 p.m.
Agenda:	Agenda?
Most interesting person there:	Elderly, supremely elegant man who kept referring to the young people present as “tikuss hyloch”… and not in that sarcastic, demeaning way either.
Most uncomfortable moment:	A know-it-all (yeah? we have those?) 50-ish ex-EPRP type kept lamenting how people in Addis were being forced out of their houses to live in “condoms.” Ahhh, really? Because of the AIDS? Ohhh. It… was… not… meant… in… an… allegorical, art-as-truth kinda way.
Best line of the evening:	“Fqr yeTemawun hzb fqr magat mechal alebn.” (No way to translate that so it makes sense… loosely, “we have the responsibility of feeding love to a people parched for love.”) I tried picturing scenarios in which I force-feed my love to a reluctant ET. Maybe not so much.
Times I checked my watch:	More than 15.
# of decisions made and voted on:	I think…one. We decided to decide on the name of the organization at the next meeting.
Scheduled end time:	“Eskemiyasschilen.” (“Until we can bear it.”)
Actual time meeting ended:	9:47 p.m.
How we knew the meeting was over:	We could not think of anymore broad, over-reaching, magnificent declarations. Once you have declared your mission to be feeding love, people, there ain’t nowhere to go but down.
What happened after the meeting:	I had let my brother drop me off, and like all people in their 20s who have a warped sense of punctuality, he was nowhere to be seen when the meeting finally broke. It was dark. I resigned myself to wait in the lobby but the security guard was shutting the building. As we all headed outside the group noticed I did not have a ride. Immediately, five people offered to drop me off even though it was out of their way. I thanked everyone, but, I insisted, slacker brother will be here any moment. It was decided (without a word being uttered) everyone would wait with me. (Time honored Ethiopian concept of “maTabeq”) No. really. It was getting late. I’ll be fine... really… Nothing doing. My weak mutters of protest were shushed. An impromptu circle formed. The conversation veered to who knew whom from where. How’s your mother? How’s your father? How’s Abba so-and-so. “Ye kebere selamta… innEm.” So there we were, 10 strangers who were not strangers at all. I lost track of how late my brother was. It was a cold night, but in so many ways it was warm. And I needed warmth.

Final Push for HR 5680

2006-09-28T09:21:00.000-05:00

Friends,

Here is information on a big push today for HR 5680. There is a rally on the Capitol.

I might be in the minority here, but I still believe there is a way to help Speaker Hastert “save face.” A better tactic might be to encourage him to be a champion of HR 5680. Portraying him as a shill for K Street might seem politically expedient (don’t know how), but it has deleterious long term consequences. Statements such as “Ethiopian-Americans across the United States are dismayed and surprised that Speaker Hastert has decided to thwart freedom, democracy and human rights in their homeland” [emphasis mine] are seriously unhelpful.

My representative has promised to push for an HR 5680 vote. It is essential we get our reps to rally for HR 5680 as well.

Ethiomedia has the best how-to posted here. Following up on our exercise to get 10 non Ethiopian-Americans in our respective circles involved, ask 10 friends to write their representatives. Make it easy on them by finding out who represents them (enter zip code here), then print out a sample letter, have them sign it and fax it off yourself.

Vigilance.

...................................................

Here is an interesting article on the “do-nothing” congress (New York Times).

Letter from Addis, Re: "Dawn of Freedom"

2006-09-26T11:32:00.000-05:00

I got a nice email from “Mebreq” in Addis about
Berhanu Nega’s book, “The Dawn of Freedom.”
Thought I would share the redacted version. My
uncle has sworn he has sent me a copy—although
I have yet to receive it. I understand that one
can now get it online from
www.Berhanunega.com. (Which is why,
Mebreq, I have not done what you asked me to.)

Anyway… anyone who was at the discussion session in DC a few weekends ago, maybe you can update us?

I have always kept trying to follow you even when your prose

sometimes takes a sudden turn to go through what I

find to be the foreign territory of esoteric

references and usage of American culture and idioms...

But it is fun. All the time. And that's extraordinary.

the main reason that led me to put

finger to keyboard and hammer out this note... is the

fact that I have recently been able to get hold of Dr.

Birhanu's new book "Yenetsanet Goh SiQed"  It is next

to impossible to buy it in the city at the moment.

I no longer have any doubt that the reports

of 10,000 copies being sold out in 4 days are

accurate. I had some fear that the great expectations

would overwhelm the book's influence... but I have to

say, that man is something else! What with him being

in a filthy prison, I can't fathom just how in the

world he was able to put himself in that elusive state

of mind where one can even hope to write the kind of

book he did. The words seem to flow effortlessly...

and yet the book never loses its cohesiveness. Most

who align with [or] oppose the current regime fall to

address most points of Meles's ideology and fall back

to attacking on one narrow aspect of his range of

deeply flawed ideas. But Birhanu does a wonderful job

of showing just how thoroughly he understands the EPRDF

and its mentality and gives such strong counter points

and beautiful arguments, that countless times I ended

up having to put the book down and... ask myself just

what it all means when such a man is put behind bars,

charged with genocide...

[Dr. Birhanu] has done so much, gone through much...and

yet is able to keep his book from falling into what it

could easily have become - a cheap bombastic diatribe.

I believe he has managed to put forth a work that

clearly, undeniably unequivocally gives him a complete

intellectual/ideological dominance over any of the

hogwash that Meles and his cronies keep spouting. It

is my firm belief that this should be a required

reading for any literate, thinking Ethiopian who has

ever lost a minute's thought on his/her country and

its future. In addition, I think this is a potent

medicine that will show the light to anyone hypnotized

and hoodwinked by the subterfuge of the EPRDF...  or

for anyone who only thought of CUD in context of the

EPRDF (as just "that party" opposing the EPRDF)... it

sheds so much light on their principles much more than

their campaign manifesto ever did.  Even though Dr.

Birhanu writes this book as an individual and puts a

clear disclaimer that it is not to be taken as a

statement of the CUD, I feel there isn't a better

insight into what the party had offered and what it

could have done. Even though he claims otherwise, and

although many of his actions seem to indicate to an

idealist (leaving his comfortable life to go into the

dangerous world of Ethiopian politics), Dr. Birhanu

surprises on many points by showing that he has given

much thought about all details of the things he

proposes...and by stating and effectively defending

his views, he inadvertently leads the reader to

daydream - painting an image of an Ethiopia that could

have been... and hopefully that will one day be. For

all those who argued (some maliciously others

unknowingly) that Birhanu and his colleagues were just

a ragtag team of ergue remnants, imperial

revanchists, amhara supremacists...etc, I truly

believe that this book will show them the right way,

at least for those who want to be on it.

Update: HR 5680

2006-09-21T15:58:00.000-05:00

I just talked to Hastert's office. They are deluged and aware-- and frankly a little weary.

I have gotten a few emails demonizing Hastert. Hello?! Exactly what happened to Donald Payne. Am I missing something? Do we Ethiopians “need” an enemy to galvanize?

As I understand it, we just need to ask the Speaker to schedule HR 5680 for a vote. And the strongest reason why it should be voted on is because it is in the best interest of the US—encouraging human rights and democracy are the best ways to combat extremism in a volatile Horn of Africa. Period. I am not sure I understand the two-week “do or die” deadline that is driving a mini-frenzy. Yes, there is recess coming up, but by no means is this bill doomed if it is not on the docket in two weeks.

People have to be methodical and calm. Fighting for democracy is not a “quick result” game where we think if we do X then Y must follow or the entire equation is wrecked. Sometimes you have to go through V to get to Y.

Thank you Aba Doyo from the comments section for the link to The Hill article. It was fascinating. Lobbying congress is a fine art. Alliances have to be nurtured and courted. This is a long-term commitment and not a roll in the hay, so how we treat congressional staffers should reflect our maturity and seriousness.

One thing I have learnt through all this is how insularly most of the Ethiopian-American existence is. We still have an immense problem venturing outside our comfort zone. A small example, how many of us belong to our alumni association? Even Ethiopians who have been lucky enough to have gone to top universities in the States rarely look back once we have degree in hand. Some of the most influential people leading this country went to these schools, and nothing opens up more doors than an alumna bond.

Someone needs to write a book on the art of networking for ETs. Seriously. Like all first generation immigrants, I guess we only venture outside our community only when we need something, and then drop off if we are not successful on the first try. It doesn’t work like that. We have a great opportunity to set a strong foundation. Once you get that going, even if the building falls, the foundation will sustain quick rebuilding. But if we are constantly pouring concrete on sand to set up ephemeral foundations we will be going nowhere fast.

The first step is to know what it takes to lobby the United States government. Know your representatives, vote, join our neighborhood associations and attend city and county meetings. Establishing personal relationships is a powerful tool yet unappreciated in our community.

My mother was very good at this. She used to volunteer PTA meetings at our house—which was a source of much consternation for our father who always became edgy when he had to deal with more than three ferenjie faces at one time… especially in his territory. My grandmother-in-law (such a thing?) still whispers when she sees ferenjies in our living room, and I have friends (you know who you are) who, when we invite them to a party at our house, immediately ask, “Is it an abesha thing or a ferenjie thing?” … ‘coz God forbid if the two shall meet!

To be sure, the Diaspora (the vocal one that Ato Meles’ government feels a need to, um, shut up) has come a long way. There are Ethiopian-American “get out the vote” initiatives happening. People are meeting with their representatives and senators. Even at a very ad hoc level, there is significant movement. Eventually, there will be one big gynormous PAC. But until then, there is an impressive, educated grass roots movement planting strong seeds. To really understand how grass roots movements work, research the history of the Christian Coalition.

Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on how you see things), a strong Ethiopian PAC will come only after we are dealt a big blow. What the EPRDF should be more afraid of is this bill not passing because that will be the galvanizing factor. It will mean people who are in this thing for the short term and novelty will give up, which hopefully means more serious people who are not afraid of a few hits will fill the vacuum.

All to say… Hastert is our friend. Our job is to let him know that he is our friend. I have sent his staff a nice thank you letter, and maybe those of you in DC can deliver a basket of sambusa and a couple of bottles of tej to quench his staffs’ throats that are parched from talking to us. Any volunteers?

Speaker Hastert’s fax number is: 202-225-0697. I also like Demamu’s suggestion that we all get 10 non-Ethiopians to join the cause. I’ve gotten 6 and it took less than 2 hours!

Vigilance.

……………………………………

Those of you who haven’t, join LinkedIn.

Don’t miss The Last King of Scotland, the Idi Amin movie coming out next week (September 27.)

And don’t dare miss Borat’s movie- mark your calendar. November 3.

The Ethiopian Diaspora comes of age.

2006-09-20T13:09:00.000-05:00

Coalition for HR 5680- the webpage.

Take a moment to ask the Speaker of the House to schedule 5680 for a vote.

E-mail: DHastert2@housemail.house.gov

202-225-2976

Chief of Staff: Scott Palmer scott.palmer@mail.house.gov

Legislative Director: Anthony Reed anthony.reed@mail.house.gov

Press Secretary: Ron Bonjean Ron.Bonjean@mail.house.gov

With Allies Like This, Who Needs Enemies?

2006-09-18T17:14:00.000-05:00

Apparently aided by a lobbying firm DLA Piper, HR 568o is stalled in the House of Representatives.

But why do people think the Meles government’s status as a US “ally on the war of terror” an insurmountable obstacle? The Pro-EPRDF lobby tells its supporters to help quash HR 5680 by informing US legislators that Ethiopia is an “ally on the war on terror,” as if that is an infallible logic.

But what kind of ally has the Ethiopian government been?

With all due respect to conventional wisdom, what is happening in Somalia is the strongest argument the opposition has to convince the US to sever its ties with the EPRDF. Further appeasement of the Meles regime is putting not only American interests in jeopardy, but it is contributing to the creation of a new haven of terrorism in one of the most dangerous and volatile areas in the world.

It is extremely important to understand how in the world one of the most secular and moderate Muslim nations is now teetering on the brink of sharia law thumping extremists who think watching soccer is an assault on Islam.

15 years after Somalia descended into anarchy in 1991, life has been one of sheer horror for Somalis. As the Council on Foreign Relation’s backgrounder on the rise of extremism in Somalis states, the various warlords who took over Somalia in 1991:

“were notorious for indiscriminate violence: Women and girls were often raped and locals could not move about the city without fear of being killed.”

Corruption was as rampant as the violence. The BBC reported people have “been afraid to leave [their] house” for 15 years.

The neighboring Ethiopian government, led by a rabid Marxist ethnicologist who got the Bill Clinton “Enlightened African leader” stamp of approval, was sanguine with the lawlessness in Somalia, even encouraging it, believing that a fractured Somalia was in the Meles government’s best interest. It postured itself as a fighter of terrorism, and an understandably skittish post-9/11 Bush Administration poured money and expertise into Prime Minister Meles’s “terror fighting” apparatus. (Sadly, US-made Humvees meant for this purpose were later used to gun down unarmed protestors. Awkward.)

As we learnt in Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq and countless other places, people eventually tire of lawlessness and fear. They look for any other option that might offer peace and stability. Stability in fractured Muslim states, unfortunately, is exactly what Al-Qaeda and extremists look for to set roots.

Enter the Islamic Courts Union in Somalia.

A network of 11 Islamic courts has been set in recent years in Mogadishu, funded by businessmen who preferred any semblance of law and order to complete anarchy.

The courts' stated goal is to restore a system of Sharia law in the city and put an end to impunity and fighting on the streets.

By any standards, the ICU provided beleaguered Somalis a breather. Despite the first transitional Somali government being created in Kenya in October 2004, it could not establish itself in the capital Mogadishu because of security concerns. It instead settled in Baidoa, a town in southern Somalia, in February 2006. This transitional government was a consortium of warlords. Its president, Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, is a warlord with ties to Ethiopia.

By the time this new government took its place as the only internationally recognized government in Somalia, the ICU had already managed to win the hearts and souls of Somalis.

Daveed Gartenstein-Ros is one of the most prolific analysts on one of my favorite blogs, The Counterterrorism Blog. He correctly surmised:

As the Islamic militias gain ground in Somalia, they encounter little resistance. Residents don't have much incentive to fight the ICU, since the transitional government did little to engender loyalty. In fact, many residents welcome the prospect of stability that the ICU brings to a country that has been ravaged by war. Moreover, some of the government's soldiers have defected to the ICU's force, further adding to the Islamic militia's strength.

Prime Minister Meles’ support lay behind the transitional government, which would have been noble (after all this was an internationally recognized outfit) except that, like most things Ato Meles does, it was calculated, shrewd and miserably self-serving. Instead of strengthening the transitional government because it would be good for disenfranchised Somalis, the Ethiopian government acted like a puppet master. Instead of playing this behind the scenes, it chose bombast. As always, the EPRDF and Ato Meles needed to be the center of attention, a God-complex that has been a recurring infliction in Meles’ administration.

Needing to strongly depict itself as an ally on the war on terror, thereby deflecting attention from the massive unrest in Ethiopia following the May 2005 elections, the Ethiopian government sent troops to Baidoa (after of course congenitally lying about it) to protect the transitional government. It raised the stakes by saying that it would “crush” the ICU.

Washington rejoiced.

Unfortunately, we forgot… What fuels jihadists more than a sense of “protecting the motherland” from invading infidels backed by the US? Nothing. The ICU declared a jihad against Ethiopia.

The world was shocked, shocked when on June 5 the ICU captured Mogadishu. It was a stunning loss only to those who were not following the situation closely. A coalition of warlords which had craftily aligned to form the “Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism” in February 2006 was soundly defeated despite being backed by the US and Ethiopia.

Again from the CFR:

Despite its name, the ARPCT probably does little to combat terrorism and is more interested in maintaining the lawless status quo in which the warlords thrive. Experts say the moniker is an attempt to make the group appealing to Western governments, highlighting their battle against the spread of an Islamic militia. The scheme seems to have worked: In June there were widespread reports the United States was providing financial support to the ARPCT.

While one would think this would have given pause to the Bush administration to question how it got suckered into this quagmire, Washington chose instead to play a part in the creation of something called the International Contact Group on Somalia on June 15—well after things had started to deteriorate. Jendayi Frazer, Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, who has been particularly unserious about the unfolding disaster in the Horn of Africa (she asked the Ethiopian opposition not to throw stones at government forces as a solution to the post-election killings in June and November 2005) , provided the usual boilerplate.

“What we're trying to do is gain greater information, fidelity, and also make it very clear to all entities in Somalia, whether it's clan elders, whether it's Islamic court militias, whether it's warlords, whether it's business people - however you want to characterize them - that these foreign terrorists are going to continue to be a critical interest of the United States. They have to be turned over."

It was perhaps the lowest point of US diplomacy in the Horn.

The unnerving thing is that even after the fall of Mogadishu, there was an opportunity to diffuse the situation had there been someone who thought about long term strategies to curb a new hub for extremists. (Sadly, according to a New York Times article, Michael Zorick, the State Department's political officer for Somalia, was “reassigned to Chad after he sent a cable to Washington criticizing Washington's policy of paying Somali warlords.”)

The chairman of the ICU, one Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, considered a moderate element within the Union, had written a four-page letter to the UN, EU and the US calling, as the BBC reported, for “the establishment of friendly relations with the international community, based on mutual respect.” He continued, "We categorically deny and reject any accusation that were/are harboring any terrorists or supporters of terrorism," and adding, "We would like to establish a friendly relationship with the international community."

Sure it could have been a rouse, but it was an imminently exploitable one. It was an olive branch and seizing it before the ICU had a chance to regroup would have been helpful.

Even radical ICU leader Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, a higher up in al-Itihaad al-Islaami, recognized by the US government as a terrorist organization, was careful to disassociate the ICU from Al-Qaeda.

In fact, there was reason to be optimistic even in early June. Quoting its editor of the Somali service, Yusuf Garaad Omar, the BBC reported:

"The Islamic courts and the transitional government need each other," [Omar] says. "One is the legal government, the other is a popular force in control of the capital."

But he warns that it is only a step forward on a long road towards the end of war. He says the Islamic courts are likely to become whatever others want them to be. If treated with respect - as partners - they could turn into the group which delivers the capital to the government and so end years of conflict.

But if they are viewed as a hotbed of Islamic extremism, that too, could become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

It is hard to believe that the ICU would have delivered Mogadishu to the transitional government and retreat, but it is a sentiment that is echoed by Professor Abdi Samatar from the University of Minneapolis:

I think Somalis have always been moderate practitioners of Islam and very, very free people. The same gentleman, Sheikh Sharif, also noted today that they are not interested in becoming ministers or government themselves -- that's the Islamic courts -- and that they will be using the Sharia law until such a time when a constitutional government is formed.

Adding,

What they want to do is create the conditions in which the Somali people, and particularly the people of Mogadishu and the Banadir region, could be able to have determination as to which way they want to go

Who knows? But the fact remains that an opportunity for détente was willfully squandered. Who knows what would have happened if the US had not listened to the Ethiopian government’s braggadocio about “crushing” extremists? Instead, believing Ethiopia to be a reliable ally capable of containing extremism, the US decided on a proxy war approach.

What has unfolded since then should raise concern. Washington tightened its alliance with the Ethiopian government. Direct aid that had been cut off by the World Bank after the June and November killings were resumed. Paul Wolfowitz, the paragon of global democracy and a staunch architect of America’s moral war against tyranny, went on a highly publicized tour of Ethiopia, holding Meles’ hand and assuring the autocrat that between democracy and stability, the US would choose stability, however unstably. It was heartbreaking. Wolfowitz couldn’t even find a way to be discomforted by the imprisonment of 111 opposition leaders, journalists and civic group leaders which the Ethiopian government is trying for “genocide.” Perhaps he never got this letter.

With Ethiopia fanning the flames, the ICU started muscling in on the rest of Somalia. It captured the town of Beletuein, a stronghold of warlord Yusuf Ahmed Hagar, who also happened to be the transitional government’s nominee as governor of the Hiran region. Frigteningly, according to Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, this was a “significant strategic victory for the ICU” especially if it wants to “further spread its influence into Ethiopia.”

Soon, Harardhere, a port city fell, giving the ICU access to the Indian Ocean. Then Eldher fell. Then port city of Hobyo fell. Douglas Farah frustratingly noted that Kazakstan had now joined Eritrea as a supplier of arms to the ICU. (The president of Kazakhstan, a world-class kleptrocrat, will, incidentally, be hosted by President Bush at the White House at the end of September, and is also invited to Kennebunkport.)

Meanwhile, the ICU was getting stronger and more radicalized. It continued to use Ethiopia’s presence in Baidoa as a rallying call, and Somalis who initially had a symbiotic relationship with the ICU were now entrenched in the radical culture of jihad. ICU installed a “ program to disarm Somalis not affiliated with the Islamists.”

The transitional government started suffering massive defections and resignations due to its association with Ethiopia. (Ethiopia is itself going through its own spate of generals, soldiers and diplomatic staff defections.) Now emboldened, the ICU delayed talks with the transitional government.

The transitional government is now holed up in landlocked Baidoa, surrounded by an ever-expanding ICU force. Talks resumed on September 4.

"We are brothers, we can achieve a lot. We want to focus on ways and means to take Somalia out of its current debacle," Sharif Hassan Sheikh Aden, speaker of Somalia's transitional parliament and leader of the government delegation, said at the opening of the Khartoum talks.

But here is the hair-raising part of Bill Roggio’s analysis on August 23. (Emphasis added.)

Both the Ethiopians and the Islamic Courts appear to be waiting for the other to make the first move and spark the war.

Well, guess what happened today?

“Twin Blasts In Somalia Apparent Assassination Attempt.”

Two explosions rocked the Somali town of Baidoa on Monday, killing the president's brother and three others in an apparent assassination attempt, officials said.

President Abdullahi Yusuf escaped unharmed, government spokesman Abdirahman Dinari said.

This is Al-Qaeda style terror: car bombs, assassinations. This is frightening.

So, again, how did one of the most moderate Muslim nations in the world disintegrate thus? What are the long term ramifications of war in the Horn now that the Ethiopian government will certainly venture out to “crush” anyone it deems is an enemy of the transitional government?

The best antidote to radicalism is a stable government that understands and is serious about the long-term benefits of democracy. The best antidote to curbing Al-Qaeda is leadership which has the respect and support of the people. The Meles government is viscerally not the former, and severely lacks the latter. By continuing to blindly support the current Ethiopian government (which is a slowly dying regime), Washington is fast losing the hearts and souls of Ethiopians, who have so far looked towards the United States as an ally of the people, not the government.

The current American Charge d’ Affaires to Ethiopia, Ms. Vicki Huddleston, has been incomprehensively incompetent and unfocused. She is a mediocre broker of peace, to put it kindly, and her support of a “fake CUD” to appease the Meles government was a great disservice to the Bush administration. Hopefully, Donald Yamamoto will be confirmed as US Ambassador soon. We need serious people dealing with this volatile situation.

It would be one thing if the US had no choice but to support the Meles regime in order to stabilize situations in Somalia. But the US has options. Sadly, democratically elected Members of Parliament are in prison, in exile or dead. These are pro-west, pro-free market thinkers, now betrayed by the very tenets which made hope in Ethiopia possible. It was unconscionable that the international community did not put its foot down when the Ethiopian government arrested and tried opposition members on absurd charges of genocide. This blog contended that once the “trials” start, it would be difficult to pull back and save face. It was another colossal mistake enabled by Ms. Huddleston and Ms. Frazer, who put enough pressure of the government to have genocide charges dropped against VOA employees, American citizens of Ethiopian decent. Alas, the rest of the opposition was left to fend for themselves against a well armed US ally.

One of my favorite bloggers, Robert Mayer at Publius Pundit, rightfully agonizes the importance of supporting Ethiopian democracy and (not versus) not supporting a tyrannical regime.

I realize that it is important to make sure that a Taliban-like regime is not established in Somalia, but at the same time the freedom of the Ethiopian people cannot be compromised because of it.

Bingo. The thing is, the two are not mutually exclusive. For the Taliban not to resurrect itself in a nation like Somalia which has miles and miles of porous borders, we need allies in nations surrounding Somalia that care more about Somali people than power mongering. The current Ethiopian regime has proven itself an unworthy ally that has been instrumental in radicalizing Somalia. Somalis have the right to choose their leaders. Unfortunately, the current Ethiopian government’s belligerent policies are pushing Somalia and peaceful Somalis towards intractable radicalism. Once extremism spreads, it is hard to pull it back. The US can’t afford to fight a new front on terror.

In the end, Ethiopians, especially the opposition, should be happy that theirs was a truly grass-roots movement towards democracy, unaided by the greatest democracy on earth. The Ethiopian Diaspora, maligned and harangued by the Ethiopian government and its embassies, has managed to nudge Rep. Chris Smith’s (R-New Jersey) and Rep. Donald Payne’s (D- New Jersey) bipartisan bill, HR 5680, through the International Relations Committee. It is now up to Speaker Dennis Hasterd to schedule it for a vote.

After what happened in Somalia today, the US should grab this last opportunity to still be a player in the Horn of Africa. After sending a strong message to the Meles government that its cozy “ally on the war on terror” status has cost the US dearly, the US should now insist on a negotiated settlement between the EPRDF and opposition parties. If Ethiopia descends into civil unrest, the US will be shut out from setting the agenda on Horn issues. That goes against US interests.

Without doubt, the Ethiopian government has contributed to the instability of Somalia. Ethiopia also has a significant moderate Muslim population. The US is on the verge of completely losing the hearts and minds of the majority Ethiopian population. That’s the majority of 77 million people.

Unquestionably, the US should conduct its foreign policy according to what is in its best self interest. In this case, the US’ best interest is to align itself with the Ethiopian people who are in a valiant fight for liberty. Sure swathing the current Ethiopian regime with yet another layer of bandages might seem most expedient. But doing what is expedient isn’t what made this country great.

It is not if, but when the Meles regime falls, the US should not be seen as the one who had prolonged the agony. It is exactly because Ethiopia is an ally of the US that HR 5680 should be passed!

Help pass HR 5680. Call your representative. Call Mr. Hasret’s office: Phone: 202-225-2976. Write to him: Fax: 202-225-0697. Email: DHastert2@housemail.house.gov. (Sample letter available at the HR5680 page here.)

……………………………………………

Africa: The Perfect Photo-Op

2006-09-14T10:45:00.000-05:00

I am sitting in my dentist’s waiting room, flipping through really old magazines, and doing my best to dodge the anorexic receptionist’s icy half smiles. (And by the way, my dentist charges $200 to look your way without disdain. You’d think we’d get current issues of Vanity Fair for that price.)

Anyway, there on the cover of a dated People Magazine is Jessica Simpson—pre divorce, while she was in the middle of the most blatant lie in this town (“My husband and I are happy! Really!”) since Jeffrey Katzenberg swore his allegiance to Michael Eisner.

And guess where Ms. Simpson is during a pre “we decided to go our separate ways but remain good friends” publicity tour? Where can American starlets possibly go to blunt an upcoming publicity onslaught? Yep. They go to Africa. They go to Africa and they make sure they are photographed feeding emaciated kids.

Ah. Africa. It’s not just for messianic rock stars anymore.

It reminds me of a snarky article about Ashley Judd in South Africa by Josh Trevino which was originally published on Tactitus, but removed because… well, goddamn lawyers. You can read it here, however.

Among the notable parts:

And every place we went, Ashley Judd swooped down like a good Southern matron and hugged the small children. She cried with destitute mothers. She stroked the heads of poor black people. The photographers from Glamour and Conde Nast loved it. And then, she's back in the car, and Ashley is tired, and Ashley is sick, and Ashley needs acupuncture. I asked the YouthAIDS senior person whether maybe Ashley was a bit spoiled, and she told me the story of how Ashley refused to do their first promotional tour to Cambodia unless she was allowed to fly British Airways first class all the way. “That's quite an expense for us as a humanitarian organization....but we ended up having to do it.”

A profound love for humanity, but no time for humans: the very picture of the narcissist celebrity leftist.

Never gets old.

Eventually, eventually I will blackmail/wear down a Mr. AK to write the back story of when Geldof first visited Ethiopia… before he became a Bushie. ("Clinton was a good guy, but he did fuck all.")

Another thing. Can we do this? Can we put a moratorium (pronounced “moratori’UM” as in South Park’s “Planetari-UM”) on Africans performing native songs and dances for visitors? It’s always awkward trying to keep up with the beat and all… and having to keep a smile plastered on your face in the merciless heat while all you want to do is hand a check to someone and find a Chinese acupuncturist… really, ship the starving kids to a Hollywood studio and save everybody humiliating exercises in humility.

And seriously, this is a crime against humanity.

As Africans, how did we let Africa get to this point?

An Extraordinary Man

2006-09-12T20:58:00.000-05:00

"When I entered prison, my overwhelming feeling was one of a great burden being lifted off of me. The only ones responsible for what happens after now are the leaders of the EPRDF. We did everything possible within our power to steer the struggle away from this situation. Knowing that we could not have done anything more freed my heart from regret."

- Quote from Dr. Berhanu Nega’s book, “Ye NeSanet Goh Siqed” ("When the Dawn of Freedom Breaks.")

From http://www.berhanunega.com/

(With apologies if I massacred the translation.)

I have read excerpts from Ato Berhanu’s book. By any, any standard, this is an extraordinary man. From the obviously high value he puts on his wife’s opinions, to how he describes in painful detail the CUD's internal struggle about whether it should or should not join parliament, this is a man with astonishingly intimidating insight, intelligence, instincts, and most of all, integrity. As a parent, I can only dream of leaving my children a quarter he has left his. And as an Ethiopian, I know now I will always be haunted by the question, “What have I done for Ethiopia?"

I have tried to argue on this blog the importance of honor in leadership. The people in prison are testimony to men and women who value honor above power. Ethiopia has taken one giant leap.

This is an extraordinary man.

You can now get information on how to buy the book online by emailing a request to bookorder@ berhanunega.com. I hope it is translated to English soon because the world needs to know this man’s and his colleagues’ contribution to Ethiopian history. In the meantime, my uncle ('seven words or less') has promised me my own, personal copy.

Qrb new ye Ityopiya tinasaE.

Hello? EPRDF? This is how you do it.

2006-09-12T06:44:00.000-05:00

Apparently, Weichegud! ET Politics has a department that handles “doddering incoherence.”

…………………..

Guess who’s taking time off from spewing nihilistic scuzz about the birth pangs of a pulsating democracy in Ethiopia (the kind that requires lowtz and lowtz of people in jail, dead, or, preferably, both) to aim its doddering incoherence at this blog?

Guess.

Guess who thinks low-grade lecturing on NGO registering requirements is a clever riposte to an entry about a man who was jailed for not paying a capricious “filing fee”?

Oh, c’mon. Guess. And no, it’s not a four-year-old.

As if serving as a gedel mamitu to Ethiopia’s el primo mysterio’s every manic passive aggressiveness is not a full time job enough, someone at Aiga thought it was a brilliant idea to post a giddily banal response to “16 days”, and may we say… “there, there.”

Verbatim:

Meskel Square has invited its readers to read an article from weichegud. Being a regular reader we have obliged. If anything election 2005 has netted us the Diaspora many bloggers weichegud being one of them!

After reading the article we realized the folks at weichegud are surprised to know that NGOs are required to register and follow strict regulation. What amazes us more is that weichegud with their big mouth and vocal pen are surprised the government is doing its homework on one of their contact person.

To expect the EPRDF government give blind eye on a questionable money coming from the vocal Diaspora in the name of NGO is really expecting too much. When will weichegud and its staff realize better days can only come once the law of the land is respected. We are sorry Ato G has to suffer even for a single day but does weichegud think it is helping him and his cause really? Is not weichegud "ayni yebley seni yebely" critic of the [sic] governemnt?

Can they get any cuter if they tried? Not even if the unnervingly perky version of Katie Couric hogtied them to a pink polka dotted VW Bug and wind chimes played the theme to “Endless Love” they couldn’t.

Wanna walk it off, boys?

Now, people at Aiga, we are usually the ones with the tinniest minds in the room, so hold on while we adjust….

… and we’re back.

Before Aiga sagely pointed out that jailing an elderly man without charge for 16 days was how the EPRDF does its… ahhh… “homework,” we, what with our penchant for rabid “ayni yebley”ism, thought it was a pretty douchey thing to do to an old man. Who knew it was an actual standard for the EPRDF?

And we’re in the last throes of “seni yebely”itness, and God knows we don’t want to assign any more ‘homework’ to a government on a warpath to democracy, but there is this little case of a missing Birr 5 billion from Ethiopian coffers. Will the government be imprisoning anyone for that, or is this kind of diligence only extended to old men in small villages?

When will weichegud and its staff realize better days can only come once the law of the land is respected.

Really? This again? Is the EPRDF still using this argument as a laxative? It’s like people who still use “paradigm shift” to describe…

Oh? Oh!

So, yeah, guess it was too much to ask the government to “give blind eye on a questionable money” being funneled in from big mouthed, vocal penned… no, excuse us, big mouthed, vocal penned “ayni yebley seni yebely" critics of the government. We, like the EPRDF, keep forgetting that the law of the country has to be respected. It’s on our ‘to-do’ list now: “Respeck thayr authoritah!”

You know what we hate? Having to teach our critics on how to critique us. It leaves a distinctly “ayni seni” taste in our mouths. And that does not do anyone any good. So is it unfair to judge the EPRDF by its defenders?

Now, as Ari would say, let’s hug it out. We’ll invite ourselves to one of those reunions and fundraisers advertised on Aiga, if they can get a big mouth to pen their not-so big-ly highbrow comebacks.

Two hearts

2006-09-10T20:28:00.000-05:00

We remember 9/11... five years ago... so far yet so near.
And to Ethiopians all over the world...
may 1999 bring peace...
... and above all...
hope that
better days will dawn in Ethiopia.

Burn, baby, burn

2006-09-07T10:41:00.001-05:00

I don’t know about you, but the highlight of the summer for me, because I have lost that certain will to live thing, was blue-haired, congenitally peevish Senator Ted “bridge to nowhere” Stevens’ (R-Alaska) rapturous wisdom on that innernetz and its world web of wide business.

I just the other day got, an internet was sent by my staff at 10 o'clock in the morning on Friday and I just got it yesterday. Why?

Because it got tangled up with all these things going on the internet commercially.

So you want to talk about the consumer? Let's talk about you and me. We use this internet to communicate and we aren't using it for commercial purposes.

But of course. It’s a good thing Mr. Stevens is not in any kind of, say, committee, that regulates US commerce which is debating net neutrality issues.

And then proving he is a walking stroke about to happen:

And again, the internet is not something you just dump something on. It's not a truck.

It's a series of tubes.

And if you don't understand those tubes can be filled and if they are filled, when you put your message in, it gets in line and its going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material.

Ah. One more reason why women in Alaska should have their tubes tied—just a precautionary measure.

But really, you actually have to hear the righteous timbre in Stevens’ voice as he says this shit. No other way to capture the correct senseless-to-lunatic quotient. (Jon Stewart has a summary here.)

So we all laughed and laughed and thought nothing else could possibly eclipse this.

Steadyyyyy.

Ahoy! Captain Meles Zenawi asking permission to come aboard the Crucible of Crazy.

In June, the Auditor General of Ethiopia, one Lemma Argaw, a man with perhaps a small but latent death wish and a set of brass balls, presented a 30-page document to parliament. Bottom line: about 5 billion Birr supposedly channeled to regional states is… what do you call it... missing.

Odd.

How can one possibly explain losing track of 5 billion birr? That's about $550 million in a country where the average income is about $100 a year. I’m just saying… 5 billion birr is no cappuccino change.

Well, the answer is, one does not explain it.

Prime Minister Meles, the self-anointed vanguard of wobbly economic theories, renowned pontificator of pith, and occasional purveyor of gruesome ethic lessons, bristled at the news, but not for the reasons you’re thinking.

According to Fortune,

Alas, the Prime Minister did not mince his words when he told a dumbfounded, although subdued House, that regional administrations had the authority that could go as far as burning the money [emphasis mine] they received as subsidies from the federal government, if there was to be an article in their constitution allowing for that to happen.

Whaaa? So… meaning, regional administrations are not like trucks you dump tubes of money onto?

The Prime Minister accused the Auditor General of two cardinal sins: being a breach of constitutional rules and [being] unethical.

Notice the prime minister’s restraint. No “genocide” charges.

Odd.

[Meles] argued that the Auditor General has no business auditing the expenditure of regional governments that have the constitutional right to spend their money the way they want to. He said that when it comes to auditing they have their own regional auditing offices to take care of the job. He wants the Office to register to subsidies as a federal expense but stop its power short of meddling in their internal affairs.

[Emphasis added, with much confusion.]

Ohhh. Could it be? Could it possibly be that Prime Minister Meles knows less about running a federal government than Mr. Stevens knows about how tubes run the internet?

The Fortune article is actually very interesting. It has a long preface on how the parliament, what with all the opposition (the ones not in jail, exile or dead) in there, is humming along a-okay. It describes how an avuncular Ato Meles lectures his subjects on Econ 101; how they sit at his feet drinking in his intellectual girth with wide eyes and sweaty brows. Melesocracy at its finest. Everything is peachy, even a little dissent is tolerated, as long as Ato Meles is not seriously challenged. As long as everyone agrees he is the philosopher/king no one has to die.

But then… this Auditor General person… this party pooper has to spoil the fun with his… auditing! Ato Meles was having none of that.

Like umpteen times before, right in front of our very eyes, he resorts back to the true Meles: a belligerent, coarse, painfully ersatz intellectual who, without a gun trained at the Ethiopian people, would be just another dilettante bush leaguer doing whatever it takes to hold on to power.

Gosh, if only in May 2002 the people in Sidama were protesting for their right to burn money and not federal interference in their "internal affairs." There would not have been a massacre in Awassa.

In the meantime, anybody who sees 5 billion birr floating around somewhere, please report it to the nearest... actually, scratch that. Burn it.

.........................................

Ethiopundit has part two of Ato Meles’ "book" fiasco in Intellectuals and their Discontents

· Dina at Coffeechilisun is back!

· Andrew at Mesqel Square has been kinder to this blog than it deserves.

· Redeem Ethiopia is stunningly thoughtful and precise.

· Still no sign of Egoportal.

Don't Worry, Be Happy

2006-09-05T16:07:00.000-05:00

First off, Coffeechilisun and Egoportal, can you send us smoke signals? The Ethiopian blogosphere is not the same without you two.

Secondly, here is another call to all of you back home to start blogging. History is unfolding and some first hand information for posterity would be helpful.

Thirdly, a few words from guest blogger Chraq.

Small victories: the new prescription for Ethiopian happiness.

I read something pretty amazing from a ferenjie blogger in Addis. Titled, ‘Small Ball’ in a blog called Addis Calling, Ethiopians are called upon to be… happy, to appreciate the small victories they’ve achieved.

The staggering part is that this comes from someone who seems to be against the Bush administration’s Iraq policy. I dare conclude someone from the American left.

Tut-tut.

The writer cites the DailyKos as an example of being thankful for small victories.

A great disservice is done when we ignore small victories or ignore their potential. When you become fixated on overall, total victory, you actually enable the very power you are so vehemently against.

If anything, it is the bloggers in America that have taught me this. The netizens of Dailykos are passionate small-ballers. They are obsessed with every victory no matter how trifling. They think long and zealously on how to bank as much as possible out of any victory. Losses, in their minds, are only small victories.

Hm. I am taking a leap in assumption that the writer is American, making the disservice of the “small ball” analogy even sadder. The writer either doesn’t understand, or even worse, doesn’t care that the atmosphere DailyKos operates under is diametrically opposed to the one the Ethiopian opposition has to live under. Imagine if the Bush administration jailed Kos and his Kosonostra for “attempts to subvert the constitution” and then added in a charge of “genocide” for expressing its opposition. Then maybe we can talk about being happy about small victories.

Hundred of people have been killed or are in jail in Ethiopia for the same thing Kos says and does every day. Why don’t we talk when 111 Koszis have spent a year in prison, under atrocious conditions, before we start grandstanding? Or, even better, let the Bush administration gun down 100 peaceful protestors in Crawford and see how good small victories feel.

When African Americans were finally allowed to vote in this country, would the writer have said, “be happy to be a small-baller” if the 1965 Voting Rights Act came with a clause that an African American vote would be counted as 1/4^th a white vote. Or Brown vs. the Board of Education came with the stipulation that 10 African Americans a year would be allowed to cross the barrier of segregation.

Celebrating small victories is only possible in an atmosphere that allows it. When you know there is a remote possibility of a second chance at doing something better is when you lick your wounds and move on. When you know you will not end up in exile, in jail or dead if you express your views is when you can celebrate small victories. When you have confidence your opponent will play by the rules and not make it an “all or nothing” game is when you happily celebrate your small-baller status.

When the EPRDF knew it had lost Addis Abeba it immediately transferred the AA police jurisdiction under the federal government. All the major income-generating institutes that fall under city municipality were co-opted under the federal machinery. And then, when the EPRDF realized it has lost the elections, it changed the rules of the parliament. Perhaps the writer can point out to Ethiopians which part of all of this they should be celebrating.

Imagine if the democrats win back control of the Senate this November. And then imagine if President Bush declared it would now take 88 votes to override his veto. Certainly the democrats would be happy for the “small victory” of gaining back the Senate? Certainly, some measure of celebration of a ‘small victory’ can be extracted if Pelosi was thrown in jail because she called for a peaceful protest?

What the Ethiopian opposition achieved was no small victory. People died protecting ballots. Even more people were tortured because they supported the opposition. Even after all of this, the opposition agreed to join parliament if a measly eight point condition was accepted. What were those conditions?

1. The Election Board needs to be restructured and be able to operate independently

2. All forms of media should be free and available to all political parties.

3. The legal system must be able to operate independently without any coercion from the ruling party.

4. An independent commission to be established to investigate the June 8, 2005 killings of innocent Ethiopians.

5. Ensure the police and armed forces do not get involved in politics and take sides.

6. Recent laws that have been passed at the concluding sessions of the last Parliament that deal with parliamentary procedures and governance of the City of Addis Ababa should be rescinded.

7. All political prisoners should be released, and opposition party offices that had been closed should be opened.

8. Establish an independent commission, that is acceptable to all parties, to follow up that the above mentioned issues are resolved on a timely manner.

This is what makes the opposition intractable and unaware of how to celebrate small victories?

That an American, who from birth is taught above everything else to love liberty and zealously protect it, wrote this piece pains me. That it came from the left is not surprising. After all, it was Jimmy Carter who was one of the first people to condone the ban on post-election demonstrations imposed by the EPRDF.

In a previous post, the writer is anguished by the Bush policy in Iraq. Well, by the same formula he/she imposes upon Ethiopia, can’t the administration take credit for the three free elections in Iraq? Aren’t Iraqi’s “free people.” And “free people are free to loot” as Rumsfeld put it? Is the writer happy with the small victories in Iraq?

Somehow, Ethiopians yearning for the same freedom that has made this country great is still seen as a luxury. We have, after all, the American ambassador lecturing people who are dying and in prison about the virtue of patience.

It would be funny if it were not so colossally tragic.

It further highlights the importance of having Dr. Birhanu Nega’s book translated into English because he, more than I ever could, explains why people who have seen the rays of freedom, will never again settle for crumbs.

We can no more ask Ethiopians to settle for a third-rate democarcy than we can of ourselves.

From the land of Live free or die,

Chraq.

And now for something completely different

2006-09-02T00:02:00.000-05:00

Have the terrorists won when decent, hard-working blogettes have to hand over their favorite Shiseido liquid gloss over to airport security? It’s so wrong. And un-American.

So to soothe the agony of seeing a perfect set of makeup thrown into a garbage bag-lined barrel by unsympathetic TSA agents, this blogette finally settled to listen to Gigi’s new album, Gold and Wax. Her last album, Gigi, was nothing short of sensational. Gud Fella and Zomiye.. hair… back… straight. ‘Nuff said.

So, what the hell happened to Gold and Wax? First of all, Gold and Wax? Was the title an attempt at nuance? Wax and Gold, only hipper?

Camp much?

Track after track was a massive disappointment, and incase you’re thinking, “It’s Gigi. Dim the lights, already” in preparation of having your, um, gold waxed? Ehhhh… Not so fast, Poindexter. There’s a deeply religious song embedded in there that will unexpectedly kill off whatever freak you managed to get on.

As for the remorselessly gaudy album cover. Seriously, is it 1983 all over again? Didn’t somebody ban jerry curls from our cultural cosmos?

On the other hand, I had to wrestle the only copy of Wuddase in the house by feigning a hormonal attack. Finally sat down to listen to it while Continental Airlines cancelled two and a half flights. I think I am loving this album, even though I have not yet found anyone who can do Ethio-jazz as well as Mulatu Astatke. These guys come the closest. It helped me say goodbye to some damn good makeup. I am loving this album. And someone tell Gigi's handlers what a great album cover should look like.

Could someone have warned me about a movie called “Yemyderq enba”? Anyone? Anyone thought to spare me a few cholesterol points? I am all for encouraging Ethiopian filmmakers, but someone’s nose hairs need to be plucked out one by one for this travesty. Who's going to dry my friggin' tears?

In the ferenjie music, the Foo Fighters were on the Tonight Show and, man, can they still rock. Why were the 90s still the best decade for American music? Also, I wanted not to like K.T. Tunstall, but, alas, I do. As always, Death Cab for Cutie… what can you say about DCFC? Everything music and lyrics should be.

What’s everyone listening to? Any good movies?

Have a great Labor Day!

16 Days

2006-08-30T14:30:00.000-05:00

Every three months or so we get a letter from Ato G, an elderly Ethiopian man who lives a few hundred kilometers from Addis Abeba. Ato G’s letters have become events. We pass them around eagerly.

Ato G's handwriting is brittle and it carves mercilessly into the flimsy, bumpy sheet of paper. He uses the same color pen -bluish purple- that leaves a crater of ink spots every time he rounds the letters “de” and “m.”

His letters are agonizingly no nonsense. He doesn’t use any magniloquent greetings Ethiopians usually preface a simple letter. (“Ke semai kokeb yebeza nafqote …” Loosely translated… “My yearning transcends the number of stars in the sky…”) Instead, each word is obviously penned after much thought, none wasted on himself. He takes time to list all our names, with all the women prefixed with a respectful “Weizero” (Mrs.) and the men with Ato (Mr.). No sycophant titles; not a trace of overwrought flattery or flowery phrases.

But then… then he calls us “Lijoche” (my children). And the way he writes it, Lijoche… something about it tugs at me every time.

In fact only three of us have met Ato G. He is our contact for a small community project we started a few years back. He handles the little money we send and updates us on projects. On reports that include micro credit transactions he makes the recipients sign their names. If they can’t write, he makes an impression of their thumbprints.

He is a remarkable bookkeeper. Every penny is accounted for. Stunningly so. His ledgers are homemade. The lines which separate the columns are obviously painstakingly straightened and well measured. Name, date, amount, and sometimes there is a column for comments.

“You work hard for your money,” he told us when we first made contact with him. “I will work as hard to make sure none of it is wasted.” And boy, has he.

When he got a bonus and a raise at the end of one year he thanked us by sending a glossy card with a loud, embossed red rose on the front. Inside were the word “Thank you” printed in one of those flowery fonts. Underneath, written in Ato G’s unmistakable handwriting, the words “God bless you” in Amharic. Then his familiar signature. Underneath that the date, both in the Ethiopian and Gregorian calendars. I can only imagine how much trouble it was to get that card.

You could almost set your watch by Ato G’s letters. Steadily, every three months, give or take a few days.

But suddenly it stopped. A few weeks past his deadline we started worrying. Was he sick? Did a family member die? Did he die? A few more weeks passed. We managed to successfully whip ourselves into a conspiracy theory frenzy. Had he absconded with the money? Is he funneling it to Hamas? Finally, we decided that the two people in our group who were going to Addis for a wedding would follow up on the situation.

As abruptly as they had ended, however, the letters resumed.

Lijoche, started his first letter back from absentia. But this time there was weariness in that word. He stated simply that he had to leave on a personal matter and that he would send the ledger in another letter. Everything was fine. He apologized for worrying us.

We figured it must have been a family emergency of sorts so we disguised money as a bonus and sent it with the next payment. No harm. No foul. Life went on. Every three months we’d get a letter.

Nearly a year passed before we found of the nature of his “personal emergency.” He was in jail.

Apparently, the story goes, he was approached by a local officer/thug and was asked for a new "filing fee", which was code for a bribe. Ato G knew it. The program he was running, small as it were, was successful enough to attract the local authority’s attention. After harassment of himself and then his family, Ato G was called into the local police station. Who did he think he was? Is he OLF? Worse, was he CUD? Where was the money coming from? Ato G knew the routine, but he was not going to pay a dime in bribes.

So he ended up in jail.

The bureaucrat pencil-pushers thought a few days in jail would straighten out the old man. Ato G’s wife, a fiery woman when she has to be, was taking none of this with even the slightest demureness. She stormed the police station. After a valiant foot-stomping session she was escorted out. Her house was rampaged. The officers seized “evidence” implicating Ato G of “improper behavior.” (Not genocide.)

Ato G served 16 days in jail. His wife, his friends and community leaders were so outraged by his imprisonment that it was causing the local authority more headache than the 200 Birr ($22) “filing fee” was worth. Ato G was released after being given a strong civic lesson on how to be a law-abiding citizen.

For a series of complicated reasons, I wept when I heard the story. Someone my father’s age just lost 16 days of his life for $22. Perhaps we had stressed fiduciary responsibility too much and should have made provisions for such “emergencies.” Why wouldn’t he just pay the “fee” and move on?

Deep down I wanted to be inspired by the story, but I didn’t want to intellectualize it. I wanted it analyzed, compartmentalized and most of all, out of my mind. I wanted to write about it with bombast on “the will of the people” and wave my finger in hubris.

Instead, I spent an hour clutching my stomach, doubled up on the bathroom floor.

I finally tracked down a phone number for Ato G. I had never talked to him or written him. In fact the only reason I had joined this group was to stop being harassed by a friend who started it out of frustration. I usually just sent my check monthly and grudgingly helped with a few things. I was certainly a bit player.

It took a while for them to find Ato G.

“Alo??”

His voice was exactly as I had imagined: slightly raspy, thoughtful, calm. I stammered through a long introduction.

“Ere, ere. TenayistiN.” (Hello) His voice only slightly rose in guarded surprise.

I had a carefully laid out plan. I would start by thanking him for all his hard work. Then ask for a perfunctory status report. Then methodically meander into a casual inquisition about the 16 days. Then I’d offer help. Does he have kids? Can I help them? Is the amount we send enough? If he goes to Addis can he please look up my parents and introduce himself… Analyze. Compartmentalize.

Instead... instead, I heard my voice cracking. What I wanted to do most was cry. For him, mostly, but also for me, and Ethiopia. I knew it would be highly indecorous and selfish, but I wanted to cry.

I managed to ask him how he was. And that I had heard about his imprisonment. I started telling him how sorry I was but I heaved in the middle. And my voice cracked again.

He said nothing. I said nothing. I covered the receiver and tried coughing and holding my breath alternatively. He finally took mercy on me.

“Mechase mn yderegal? Dehna qen eiskimeTa.” (What can you do? Until better days dawn.”)

He wasn’t self-effacing. He didn’t exude unnecessary bravado. But he didn’t tell me “Oh, it was nothing,” which was what I had secretly hoped he’d say in typical Ethiopian dispassion.

I agreed with him, hoping he would talk more so I could gain my composure.

“Dehna qen yimeTal.” (Better days are coming.) I finally whimpered. He didn’t speak for a long time.

“Essuma ayqerim.” (That is inevitable.) I might have imagined the crack in his voice.

That’s the thing about Ethiopia. What breaks your heart also manages to mend it.

I wish people knew how much kindness there is in Ethiopia. Even through this seemingly chronic state of misery and brutality, there is kindness that breaks your heart into a million and one pieces. Ethiopia, we often forget, is so much more than a government determined to asphyxiate the spirit of people already savaged.

And perhaps the universe is waiting for us to find our spirits before it dawns better days for us. But the minute I loved what Ato G had done more than I hated the people who had robbed him out of 16 days, I knew I had arrived.

It is ruinously, unrelentingly peaceful. Better days are coming because there are so many others doing their "16 days."
................................................................

The accompanying photograph is by a fantastic photographer, "adritzz". His/her photographs from Ethiopia on flickr are mindblowing.

While we were gone... they're letting anyone write books now?

2006-08-27T23:26:00.000-05:00

Here are a few things you need to know about Prime Minister Meles’ new, uh, book: African Development: Dead Ends and New Beginnings. (Not to be confused with his upcoming biography, How I Dead-Ended the Beginning of Development: Making Melesocracy Work for Africa.)

Wonton lack of quotations from Tina Turner songs. (Really, how hard would it have been to work in “I’m your Private Dancer… Tony Blair” in there somewhere?)
Unjustifiable, unforgivable not calling of even a single person or non-person a “self-appointed colonial viceroy”, even in passing.
Ne’er, not even one, ‘academical’ series of intemperate “Why? Why? Why?”s or “Really, really, really I am a genius if you don’t think about it” articulations.
Criminally negligent non-attempts at minting new Melesian missives. Like...? Like:

While I was expecting a huge garbage damp [sic] all I got was newly started garbage damp[sic] that was unable to bury the truth.

(Then again, how would one improve on that?)

... but...

5. Thankfully, thankfully, it is teeming with horrifically clichéd 80s obiter dictums such as… wait for it… “paradigm shift.” (Seriously, we know someone who was kicked out of B-School for uttering “paradigm shift”… as a joke.) WTF?! Paradigm shift? Bonapartism… Revolutionary Democracy… Garbage Damp. It’s like Ato Meles didn’t earn a bogus degree from something called Open University.

Listen, we know Ato Meles when he was on noxious literary rampages with titles such as “The Grapes are Sour”, okay? Let’s not waste lipstick on a pig.

As always, though, Ethiopundit does an absolutely magnificent job in tearing this dead end a new one in a brilliant piece, Hypnotize.

Our friend Gooch cogently asks, “What could possess a man in Meles' position to presume that he has something to contribute to discourse on African development?”

We say it is has something to do with the whole “psychopathic willingness to kill his own people to keep power” thing haranguing Ato Meles, but what do we know? We still think “duh!” is a respectable rejoinder.

Gooch, however, is more nuanced.

And now a few words from His Goochness:

A Special Ivory Tower for a Special Man

You may have heard that our esteemed Prime Minister is writing a book. Yes, after writing that 700-page spellbinder on Abiyotawi (Revolutionary) Democracy back in 2001, Prime Minister Meles has found the time to have another go at authorship.

It's amazing how he finds the time. Here he is, running one of the poorest countries in the world, a country of 75 million people, a country in crisis, well on the way to becoming a failed state, where demographic and environmental constraints seem almost intractable, running what is almost a police-state, having arrested and condemned opposition leaders to death or life imprisonment, and he finds the time to write a book on 'African Development'.

And a prescriptive book at that! Usually, it's people who've succeeded at something who write “how to” books, you know. The EPRDF has succeeded at maintaining poverty at 1991 levels and presided over an annual growth rate of a whopping 1.1% per capita.

Okay, perhaps it's Meles the academician writing the book. After all, EPRDF theory has always been sound - it's only the application (read, everyone except the party) that needs work. Yes, up in his ivory tower, at his detached best, armed with a (first class) Master's degree from Open University, it seems Meles feels that he knows enough to pontificate on African development!

And yes, that's African development, not just Ethiopian development, for his knowledge extends far beyond Ethiopia. Apparently, Meles can talk authoritatively about African development, and how the wonderful lessons and successes in Ethiopia can actually be translated to the rest of Africa!

What could possess a man in Meles' position to presume that he has something to contribute to discourse on African development?

Well, I think 'possess' says it just about right. I know all the talk about him being one of the 'new breed' of African leaders, the endless platitudes from Sachs, Stiglitz et al, the worship of the sycophants he surrounds himself with, etc., got to his head, but I would have thought that the last twelve months may have doused his delusion with some reality.

Normally, I advise people to read stuff, even if it is written by Meles. There are always things to learn, you know, and it's good to be open-minded. But, having glanced through the 51-page preliminary draft excerpts, I say, don't bother. It's nothing but a third-rate Master's thesis, with an amusing 85, yes, 85, instances of Meles' favourite word - 'rent-seeking'. Well, perhaps the psychologists among you would find it an interesting read.

Weichegud! Ethiopian Politics

Ato Samuel Aseffa Hates HR 2003.

Happy New Year!

Close your eyes, Tear up Your Calendar

Ato Samuel Goes to Washington....Part 1

Silence before death

My Millennium

By way of an explanation...

Oh, wait! The Farce Gates are still open....wide.

Alas, all farces must come to an end....

Clarification…

Briefly....

Vote!

"Ethiopian Man Convicted of Female Circumcision"... Uhh...?

Burnt by Tears and Blood

How to Hug an EPRDFffer

How ugly is politics?

And the Second Annual Wonqville STFU Awards Go To...

When the Fleas Start Biting.

How do you ask another generation to heal?

A Preamble to the Preamble

AmlakE... feTariyE

Amnesia Redux?

An now for something *really* interesting:

Meanwhile in Somalia…

The Wonqville Book Club

A Tale of Two Meetings

Final Push for HR 5680

Letter from Addis, Re: "Dawn of Freedom"

Update: HR 5680

The Ethiopian Diaspora comes of age.

With Allies Like This, Who Needs Enemies?

Africa: The Perfect Photo-Op

An Extraordinary Man

Hello? EPRDF? *This* is how you do it.

Two hearts

Burn, baby, burn

Don't Worry, Be Happy

And now for something completely different

16 Days

While we were gone... they're letting anyone write books now?

An now for something really interesting:

Hello? EPRDF? This is how you do it.