Ethiopian authorities have made a move in respect of a former binomo intelligence chief widely reported to have superintended over systemic rights abuse during his tenure.
Getachew Assefa was fired by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed in 2018 as part of a housecleaning of regime officials mentioned in cases of rights abuse.
The BBC Amharic service quoted the Attorney General as telling parliament on Tuesday that the Tigray regional state was shielding Assefa from arrest......full text
I believe I resonate the feelings of millions of Ethiopians in my expressions of gratitude to the Almighty first and to all of the young Ethiopians who, through their blood, sweat and tears, managed to liberate Ethiopia from the iron clutches of ethnic apartheid.
I also believe millions of Ethiopians share my expressions of gratitude to you and The Team for toiling behind the scenes for years to root out ethnic hate, religious bigotry and social division in Ethiopia.
.....full text
In these heady times , Amdom also put to shame so many cowardly and servile TPLF apologists who have been defending and making excuses for the TPLF’s corrupt, dictatorial and oppressive rule in Ethiopia over the past 27 years......full text
So, what Ethiopia needs today to institutionalize the rule of law binomo demo is a professional judiciary with the constitutional power of judicial review that is ready, willing and able to take on the executive and legislative branches when they exceed their constitutional powers......full text
Thank God almighty, the 27-year nightmare of captivity in the bloody and corrupt hands of the Tigrean People’s Liberation Front is over.
t.......full text
Debretsion and his doppelgänger (evil twin) Getachew “Motor Mouth” Reda, who will spill the beans with a few shots of qatikala, are now mounting a disinformation campaign that Tigreans are being persecuted because corrupt TPLF thugs are brought to justice.Getachew “Motor Mouth” Reda Where were Tweedledee Debretsion and Tweedledum Getachew when their bogus anti-terrorism law was being used to arrest, jail and torture hundreds of thousands of Ethiopians over the past 27 years? Debretsion and Getachew were apologists for untold crimes against humanity committed in Ethiopia by the Thugtatorship of the Tigran Peoples Liberation Front.......full text
Last week, TPLF thugs and others were being rounded up and lassoed like wild horses in California to be brought to the bar of justice.
In January 2012, I warned the TPLF thugs to beware and change their evil ways. “Justice will also arrive like a slow, chugging and delayed train for those who have committed crimes against humanity and war crimes in Ethiopia.”......full text
The TPLF thugs, like the Nazi thugs, also believed they were the law and will rule for 100 years. They too must be held to account for the untold crimes against humanity they have committed on the people of Ethiopia.......full text
I offer PM Abiy my highest respect and admiration. He was the binomo trading personification of grace under fire. He was literally under fire, but he did not flinch or wince. He maintained his cool and composure certain in his knowledge that in the end good always triumphs over evil......full text
June 12, 2018
By Jillian Kestler-D'Amours Aljazeera / February 20, 2018
It has been a tumultuous week in Ethiopian politics after the country's prime minister abruptly resigned and the ruling coalition declared a six-month state of emergency as it seeks to contain mass anti-government protests......full text
Make no mistake about it!
The peaceful struggle for political change in Ethiopia is now in its final and terminal phase.
On February 16, 2018, the Thugtatorship of the Tigrean Peoples� Liberation Front (T-TPLF) declared a war of the people of Ethiopia for the third time since October 2016 by declaring a state of emergency. That is the T-TPLF�s response to the Ethiopian people�s peaceful demands for change......full text
Regardless of whether we agree or disagree with the brutal and barbaric Tigray People�s Liberation Front (TPLF) that does not even have an ounce of respect for the Ethiopian Orthodox church or for the Muslim religion or for the lives of children, harnessing the enormous potential of the Abbay River (Blue Nile) for the betterment of the Ethiopian people is a fundamental and non-negotiable national right. Sadly, this sovereign right that has been asserted by generations of Ethiopian leaders might be at risk because Ethiopia does not have a patriotic, representative and competent national defense or security force. Its internal ethnic and religious division favors its adversaries. Ethiopians must wake up before it is too late. They must bridge minor differences; unite and defend the country from internal and external adversaries.....full text
Like a spider, the TPLF regime has spun out of itself a predatory web of rhetorical devices, ideological conceits, codes of ethnic domination, and simulations of state institutions and practices in which it has ensnared Ethiopian national life for nearly three decades now. It is a paradox: the Woyane network of partisan-tribal dictatorship is morally and culturally repugnant to the Ethiopian people, including patriotic intellectuals, yet it has not been met with effective resistance in organized ideas and principles involving the nation�s dissenting educated class......full text
The Ethiopian Borders Affairs Committee (EBAC) condemns the heinous crimes against humanity committed by the Tigray People�s Liberation Front (TPLF) and its mercenaries on innocent civilians, including children as young as 9 years old in the town of Woldiya in the Amhara region. Such crimes against humanity have no parallel in Ethiopia�s long and distinguished history. Those murdered under the direction of the TPLF were celebrating Epiphany, one of the holiest events in the country. The nine-year-old child atop of a car was simply celebrating and watching the ceremony and had done nothing to provoke anyone......full text
The government of Ethiopia is a closed, opaque and authoritarian organization, which jails and harasses local journalists and bloggers and denies foreign journalists access to report on protests that have wracked the country in recent years or on a severe hunger emergency caused by the worst drought in half a century.
According to Human Rights Watch, Ethiopia uses spyware and malware to monitor and hack Ethiopian activists and critics abroad. It reports that security agents pursue and abduct opposition figures who flee to neighboring countries, taking them back to Ethiopia to be jailed
.......full text
Ethiopians are used to �deaf ear and blind eye� with regard to the international community in general and Ethiopian regime �strategic allies,� especially the United States and the European Union with regard to gross human rights violations in Ethiopia. Even under the worst of conditions, including massacres of innocent civilians by Ethiopian federal and security forces, these friends continue to issue innocuous and timid statements. It is time to change......full text
It is with a great deal of anger, frustration and dismay that we write this letter to you urging your government to take a firm stand with regard to Sudanese aggression against Ethiopia; and against the annexation of territories that do not belong to the Sudan. The people of Ethiopia have the right to know why your government allows incursions into Ethiopian territory; why Ethiopia�s armed forces are unable to defend the country�s territorial integrity and sovereignty and why Ethiopian citizens are being assaulted by the Sudanese and displaced from their lands.......full text
By Ethiopian Border Affairs Committee / December 21, 2017
As you know, the Constitutive Act of the African Union that the Sudan signed along with other member countries underscores a fundamental principle that each member country must respect at all times. �Conscious of the fact that the scourge of conflicts in Africa constitutes a major impediment to the socio-economic development of the continent and of the need to promote peace, security and stability as a prerequisite for the implementation of our development and integration agenda.� ......full text
...He argues that the country, under a state of emergency after violent anti-government protests last year, is slipping backwards.Africa,� he says, �but, because of our government, our country is divided.� The album is a call for unity and the rehabilitation of Ethiopia�s glorious past. �This younger generation is in a dilemma about their history,� he continues. �I feel a responsibility to teach them about the good things from their history. They should be proud of their achievements.�......full text
Author�s Note: The ruling Thugtatorship of the Tigrean People�s Liberation Front (T-TPLF) in Ethiopia is said to be on the verge of passing a �law� protecting �Oromia�s special interest in Addis Ababa� and �giving Oromia extensive rights in the capital city� (hereinafter the T-TPLF Masters� Addis Ababa Plan B). It is a trial balloon �leaked out� by the T-TPLF to gauge public reaction (hoping the Ethiopian public will be blinded, hoodwinked and bogged down in recrimination about what name to give the capital) while they implement their diabolical Addis Ababa Master Plan B in broad daylight......full text
The �Ethiopian Railway Line� opened in October 2016 with all the bells and whistles. Today it is derailed and teeters on the edge of financial disaster.
The T-TPLF (Thugtatorship of the Tigrean People�s Liberation Front) last week announced that the �Ethiopian Railway Corporation� (�ERC�) is drowning in an ocean of debt.......full text
The T-TPLF (Thugtatorship of the Tigrean People�s Liberation Front) is out in full force once again on its annual panhadling circuit.
In January 2016, the T-TPLF was out peddling for food aid and blaming the West for being ungenerous.
For the past one-quarter century, the T-TPLF has been panhandling in the name of the Ethiopian people.......full text
On October 30, 2016, I had the opportunity to express my genuine views concerning the welcome formation of the �Ethiopian National Movement (ENM).� I said at the time that this is a great start with enormous potential to do the right thing. Its potential resides in sending the right signals at the right time. Equally, ENM is embedded in the organizers willingness and readiness to reach out, embrace and empower others to join. It is not an end. It is a beginning. In my estimation, this formation paves the way for an inclusive or All-Stakeholders Conference that Ethiopia desperately needs.......full text
The authoritarian regime of the TPLF/EPRDF has exerted increasing repression, violence, imprisonment, infringements of every kind of liberty and freedom of expression, the closure of political space, the hijacking of institutions and now with a state of emergency declared, the regime has built a wall of isolation around the country.......full text
As I have argued in Parts I and II, the T-TPLF today operates a kinder and gentler black apartheid system in Ethiopia. In its essential attributes and consequences, there is little difference between the minority white apartheid system of South Africa and the T-TPLF apartheid system in Ethiopia.......full text...full text
In my commentary last week, I sought to provide an explanation on what the T-TPLF wants and do now that it has declared a �state of emergency� for itself. (Ethiopians have been under a T-TPLF state of emergency for the last 25 years! Ho-hum!)......full text...full text
When a government takes a deliberate and dangerous step to segregate itself and its ethnic base from the rest, the implications are far bigger, deeper and more dangerous than the State of Emergency the TPLF dominated government declared on October 9, 2016. This segregation confirms what the majority of the Ethiopian people have been saying for the past quarter century. ......full text
THEY know what they want, and do NOW!
The T-TPLF has declared a �state of emergency� and unleashed a reign of terror on Ethiopia. But what do they want, and do now?
What the T-TPLF wants to do NOW is use every trick in the book to remain in power for another 25 years and do business as usual!.......full text...full text
The EPRDF�s governing ideology, �revolutionary democracy��a curious concoction of Marxist, Maoist, and ethno-regionalist thought�demands Soviet-style submission to the Tigray-dominated state. It calls for communal collective participation and democratic centralism.......full text
Did the T-TPLF just pull off a publicity stunt by declaring a �state of emergency�?
Or was it a big distress signal the T-TPLF sent out, �Save Our Souls/Save Our Ship�?
I enjoy T-TPLF scams, disinformation, hypes and con games.
I really do. I even grudgingly admire them T-TPLF dudes on how they use their weapons of mass distraction. Ain�t they slicker than a can of grease?......full text
My contention in this paper is simple and straightforward. Despite the challenges Ethiopia faces, we have failed to unite on the fundamental principles of Ethiopia as an independent, free and sovereign country; and expressing the notion that we are Ethiopians first. My other identities as an Ethiopian from Gondar, an Amhara by virtue of ethnic affinity imposed on me by the TPLF/EPRDF constitution, an Orthodox Christian by faith, a political economist by profession, a human rights activist and writer by vocation etc. are all a given. No one can deny me these identities and rights regardless of his or her power. The identity that has defined all my life is being accepted as an individual from a proud and independent country called Ethiopia. It is this country that I do not wish to lose........full text
I cry for the hundreds of victims of the October 2, 2016 Irreecha Festival Massacres in Ethiopia.
I also cry out for freedom, democracy and human rights in Ethiopia......full text
The people of Ethiopia have spoken loud and clear. The TPLF/EPRDF ethnic-elite dictatorship commandeered by the TPLF that kills with impunity and plunders with gusto must go. When a regime carries-out murders, maiming and wounding, massive jailing and enforced disappearances of tens of thousands of innocent people instead of listening and responding to their legitimate demands for justice, freedom, genuine equality, inclusion and democracy, it is time for it to go for good. Otherwise, the consequences for Ethiopia and its 102 million citizens will be unimaginable. By all criteria, Ethiopia is a failing state and will soon join the likes of Syria, South Sudan and others. We must do all we can to avert this scenario.......full text
Not only do they invariably support an oppressive and brutal regime, but also influence how its taxpayers perceive it by carefully and systematically influencing almost all American and British mainstream media.......full text
As months of protest and civil unrest hurl Ethiopia into a severe political crisis, a new report from the Oakland Institute debunks the myth that the country is the new �African Lion.� Miracle or Mirage? Manufacturing Hunger and Poverty in Ethiopia exposes how authoritarian development schemes have perpetuated cycles of poverty, food insecurity, and marginalized the country�s most vulnerable citizens.
Miracle or Mirage? offers lessons from the deadly impact of sugar and cotton plantations in the Awash Valley in the Afar Region, established in the 1950s. The projects drastically reduced land and water availability for people and cattle, undermined food security, destroyed key drought coping mechanisms, and stirred up violent conflicts between different groups over the remaining resources.......full text
There is every sign that Ethiopia is plunging into a crisis whose scale, intensity, and multiple and interdependent drivers are unprecedented since the founding of the regime in 1991......full text
August 2016
By Sally Hayden and Tristan Martin / August 26, 2016
When marathon silver medalist Feyisa Lilesa crossed the finish line at the Rio Olympics, he crossed his arms above his head in an "X", a sign of protest against the Ethiopian government's treatment of his people, the ethnic Oromo. ......full text
It is no longer defensible for the U.S. and other Western countries to provide financial, intelligence, military, diplomatic and logistics support to the TPLF dominated government unless the TPLF is ready and willing to embrace an inclusive government now......full text
In the political realm, news of unrest and protests is suppressed. During a weekend of demonstrations on Aug. 6 and 7, the Internet was cut, making it difficult to find out what happened.
Human rights organizations, opposition parties and media tried to piece together the toll from the deadly demonstrations, which according to Amnesty International may have been up to 100.
The United Nations has called for international observers to carry out an investigation in the affected regions, which the government has strongly rejected even as it has dismissed estimates of casualties without providing any of its own......full text
August 2016
No people [in the world] will remain smothered, meaning oppressed, for ages. It is [a] universal [truth]. No people, to the extent that they are people [human beings] and [as evident] in world history will not remain [like an inanimate object] in one place, they will not stay put in one place as one [an oppressor] may want them. When they [people] become very bitter, they explode. This is a universal truth......full text
In the face of the repression, the protests slowly quieted in Oromia, only to erupt last month in the neighboring region of Amhara, the historical ethnic center of the Ethiopian state and home to spectacular rock-cut churches and medieval castles that attract tourists......full text
Nearly 100 people were killed in the weekend's protests in Ethiopia as demonstrators clashed with security forces in different parts of the country, Amnesty International says........full text
Ethiopia's government normally keeps a tight grip on the country but has been unable to prevent a wave of protests in recent months. There has not been anything on this scale in the last 25 years........full text
At least six people have been reported killed over two days of protests in Ethiopia while dozens were arrested in the capital, Addis Ababa.A source told Al Jazeera that four people were killed on Saturday in the northern Gondar region, in addition to two people killed in the area on Friday. Located 700km north of Addis Ababa, Gondar is a region dominated by the ethnic Amharas. .......full text
Several people are feared dead in clashes in north-western Ethiopia between police and anti-government protesters, amid a wave of unrest.......full text
The obituary and epitaph for the Thugtatorship of the Tigrean Liberation Front (T-TPLF) was written last year by Bereket Simon, the former �communication minister� and longtime sidekick of the late criminal mastermind of the T-TPLF, Meles Zenawi and Addisu Legesse, �deputy prime minister� to Meles and �deputy chairman� of the T-TPLF front organization called the �Ethiopian Peoples� Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF)�.......full text
The Ethiopian government is now faced with unprecedented rebellion from the Oromo ethnic group, consisting 35% of the Ethiopia�s population, which it disingenuously claims is inspired by terrorism. The immediate pretext is the Addis Ababa Master Plan encroaching and displacing Oromo farmers, but this masks a deeper grievance which has been brewing for at least two decades under this regime, and for over a century under successive highland Ethiopian rulers. In the following, I will try to provide some context and offer some analysis of the danger Ethiopia and the region are facing.......full text
December 2015
In December 2015, there is only one question that is uppermost in the mind of every Ethiopian: Will the Thugtatorship of the Tigrean People�s Liberation Front (T-TPLF) kill, massacre, slaughter, murder and unleash a campaign of bloodbath and bloodshed to cling to power in Ethiopia?
......full text
The first question a person asks you when in Addis Ababa these days is: do you have any information about the famine? Do you think the authorities are hiding the reality from us? Once more, millions of Ethiopians are facing an acute food shortage. Once more, foreign donors are called upon for a dramatic and urgent increase of relief aid. Does it mean that the same age old malediction is repeating itself, again and again, with the same deathly tribute?.......full text
(Nairobi) � Ethiopian security forces have killed dozens of protesters since November 12, 2015, in Oromia regional state, Human Rights Watch said today, based on reports from the region. The security forces should stop using excessive lethal force against protesters.
�The Ethiopian government�s response to the Oromia protests has resulted in scores dead and a rapidly rising risk of greater bloodshed,� said Leslie Lefkow, deputy Africa director at Human Rights Watch. �The government�s labelling of largely peaceful protesters as �terrorists� and deploying military forces is a very dangerous escalation of this volatile situation.�.......full text
In October each year the Bretton Woods Institutions, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund created in 1944 to reconstruct worn-torn Europe and the rest hold their meetings alternating between Washington and other countries. These meetings discuss and define global monetary and development policies that affect and often bind the global community regardless of economic and political status......full text
In my commentary last week, (Remembering the Great Ethiopia Famine of 1984, Part I), I reviewed various commentaries I had written over the years challenging the fabricated and false claims of the Tigrean Peoples Liberation Front (TPLF) ......full text
The lesson for Ethiopia is therefore not to emulate the economic growth model of the CPC. Any serious combating to uproot corruption must start with the arrest of the Mother of corruption in Ethiopia. To that end, one should follow the recent two examples:-......full text
By William Davison, Bloomberg News / October 27, 2014
Ethiopia�s government illegally detained at least 5,000 members of the country�s most populous ethnic group, the Oromo, over the past four years as it seeks to crush political dissent, Amnesty International said.......full text
Three decades after images that shocked the world, country has become darling of the global development community � and the scourge of the human rights lobby With an Einsteinian shock of hair and a wise man�s beard, Mulugeta Tesfakiros, just off a flight from Washington, settled into an office of glass walls and vibrant artworks in Addis Ababa.
......full text
The United States Attorney�s Office has obtained an arrest warrant in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia for the Ethiopian embassy gunman, Solomon Tadess Gebre Silasse. The security attache, who dramatically shot at peaceful protesters at the Ethiopian embassy, fled to Ethiopia to escape prosecution......full text
(Let me state at the outset that I am addressing my commentary here in relevant parts personally to President Obama because he voluntarily injected himself in Ethiopia�s electoral politics by specifically commenting that he �knows something about� it. In light of his extraordinary declaration, I want to hold him accountable by demanding to know what he publicly declared he �knows about that� election. I also want to share with him the �something� I �know� about elections in that country.)......full text
In my September 7 commentary, DIFRET: The Abduction of a Film in Ethiopia, I expressed my outrage over the aborted Ethiopian premiere of the film DIFRET. That film, based on a �true story� of Aberash Bekele, tells the dramatic story of a teenage victim of the inhuman and barbaric practice of �telefa� or �marriage by abduction/abduction of child brides� in certain parts of Ethiopia......full text
Recently, a well-known correspondent for one of the major American media outlets stationed in Ethiopia sent me an email grousing about my article urging boycott of Coca Cola in Ethiopia. He wrote, �I�m sorry to be blunt, but I don�t understand the thrust of this article [on boycotting Coca Cola]. ......full text
They are hidden in plain view. They have been hiding in plain view in the U.S. for over 30 years. They have been hiding in plain view in the U.S. for just three years.......full text
The Ethnic Federalism practiced in Ethiopia is non-consequential to Ethiopia�s past or present social or political evolutions. Considering the unending external attempts to control Ethiopia, logics guide us to the footprints of Ethiopia�s worst enemies who designed and prescribed Ethnic Federalism also known, rather negatively as �Kilil-Governance� (???? ????) for the purposes of controlling the rich resources of the nation......full text
Under the brutal rule of the TPLF, courts are key instruments of repression. This is not an allegation. It is rather a well-documented and substantiated fact widely known across the world......full text
�Making predictions is hard. Especially about the future�, said the famous American baseball player, Lawrence �Yogi� Berra facetiously. Likewise, predicting whether there is light at the end of the tunnel in 2050 and beyond is hard. ......full text
The secrecy-obsessed regime in Ethiopia has a huge creepy dragnet of secret electronic surveillance programs to sniff out the deeply-buried secrets of the people of Ethiopia. They spend sleepless nights interrogating themselves about what the people could do to them. Who do they talk to secretly? What do they secretly say about them? Do the people secretly despise them as much as they think they do? (That�s an open secret.) Are the people secretly planning to overthrow them? Who are the secret conspirators? Where are they? In Ethiopia?......full text
(Berlin, March 25, 2014) � The Ethiopian government is using foreign technology to bolster its widespread telecom surveillance of opposition activists and journalists both in Ethiopia and abroad, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today.
The 100-page report, ��They Know Everything We Do�: Telecom and Internet Surveillance in Ethiopia,� details the technologies the Ethiopian government has acquired from several countries and uses to facilitate surveillance of perceived political opponents inside the country and among the diaspora. The government�s surveillance practices violate the rights to freedom of expression, association, and access to information. The government�s monopoly over all mobile and Internet services through its sole, state-owned telecom operator, Ethio Telecom, facilitates abuse of surveillance powers.......full text
The fundamental premise of this commentary is that only genuine commitment to FREEDOM and human rights of all citizens would assure Ethiopians sustainable and equitable growth and improvements in their lives. In turn, it is the institutionalization of these norms through free and fair elections that will establish a firm foundation for lasting peace and national reconciliation--singularly the most critical governance gaps in Ethiopia......full text
I must confess that I take a bit of perverse pleasure in getting full vindication for my long held view that the regime in Ethiopia runs a kangaroo court system. For years, I have been saying that there is no rule of law in Ethiopia and that the courts are kangaroo courts puppet-mastered by the political bosses of the �Tigray People�s Liberation Front�. .....full text
Mesay Mekonnen was at his desk, at a news service based in Northern Virginia, when gibberish suddenly exploded across his computer screen one day in December. A sophisticated cyber�attack was underway ......full text
One Mursi man told Survival International, �We are waiting to die. We are crying. When the government collects people into one village there will be no place for crops, and my children will be hungry and have no food.�
The Ethiopian government has not consulted any indigenous communities over its aggressive plantation plans in the Omo Valley, and very few were consulted over the construction of the Gibe III dam.
......full text
The problem of �food shortages�, �food insecurity�, or whatever euphemism one chooses to use, in Ethiopia cannot be solved by food handouts. After corruption, panhandling is the lifeline of the regime in Ethiopia today.....full text
In his article, Time to Bring Back Eritrea from the Cold, Ambassador Herman Cohen initiated an important discourse ensued by voluminous reactions from fellow Ethiopians outlining their serious concerns and proposing alternative solutions to the one advanced by Cohen. With admiration and greatest respect to all discussants, I will throw in few points to the interactively splendid dialogue already enriched by substantive arguments. Should any of my suggestions make this vivid conversation redundant, I shall readily ask for forgiveness......full text
We, the undersigned representatives of various Ethiopian political parties, civic organizations and professional associations, have the honor to bring to your attention our strong protest against the secret border deal that the dictatorial governments of Ethiopia and the Sudan have recently been hatching.......full text
I do not subscribe to the contentious view that there is no growth in Ethiopia. There was in fact growth under the Imperial regime and under the Dergue. The current ruling party tried to diminish the contributions of previous regimes solely for a political reason......full text
By Professor Alemayehu G Mariam / December 29, 2013
In January 2013, I proclaimed, �2013 shall be the Year of Ethiopia�s Cheetah Generation.� I promised �to make my full contribution to uplift and support Ethiopia�s youth and to challenge them to rise up to newer heights.� They rose to greater heights......full text
The Doha Conference on Africa in November 2013, tried to understand and create consensus on the governance alternative that enables countries create a foundation for sustainable and equitable development. Although presentations and discussions lacked lacked depth and breadth in comparing a pool of countries within and outside Africa, there was no contest that good and representative governance is deemed central in achieving sustainability with
equity.......full text
By Professor Alemayehu G Mariam / December 22, 2013
In the days leading up to my speech at the first Semayawi (Blue) Party town hall meeting in Arlington, VA, just outside of Washington, D.C., on December 15, I was peppered with all sorts of questions. The one recurrent question revolved around my unreserved support for Semayawi Party after so many years of staying neutral and unaligned with any Ethiopian political party or group.......full text
I would like to start writing this piece with this quote attributed to Sir Isaac Newton in his own right as one of the giants in mathematics and classical physics: �If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants.� ......full text
By Professor Alemayehu G Mariam / December 15, 2013
December 15, 2013. It is the saddest day of the year for me. Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela was finally interred with state honors in Qunu, a small rural village in South Africa's Eastern Cape Province. He spent the �happiest days� of his life there as a shepherd......full text
The indisputable Great Statesman Nelson Mandela glorified Ethiopia in these immortal words in 1961 at a conference in Addis Ababa: �Ethiopia has always held a special place in my own imagination and the prospect of visiting attracted me more strongly than a trip to France, England and America combined......full text
In Ethiopia we have a habit , I am not sure if I can call it a culture, of going through an agonizing massive problem and forgetting about it once we get the feeling that we are through it. We simply hope the problem will go away and not come back again......full text
This series is intended to raise awareness among Ethiopians and others with keen interest in African-Arab relations and the dynamics that are shaping political, social, cultural, economic, trade, investment and religious relations between the Arab world and Sub-Saharan Africa......full text
�Things come apart so easily when they have been held together with lies.� Is what comes to mind when we see the behavior of the Ethiopian government and its response to the Ethiopian tragedy taking place in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia......full text
By Professor Alemayehu G Mariam / November 30, 2013
The ongoing human rights abuses of Ethiopian migrant workers in Saudi Arabia have triggered massive expressions of outrage against the regimes in Riyadh and Addis Ababa and unprecedented outpouring of concern and support in Diaspora Ethiopian communities.........full text
The obnoxious shocking news of the spate of barbaric attacks, murders, gang raping, and humiliation inflicted on Ethiopians in Saudi Arabia has opened a floodgate of outrage, fury and revulsion on an unprecedented scale by fellow citizens at home and in the Diaspora against the perpetrators of the heinous crimes. This is a deep rooted contempt and hatred of Ethiopia by Arab slave traders......full text
By Professor Alemayehu G Mariam / November 24, 2013
Over the past decade, hundreds of thousands of Ethiopians have voted with their feet to escape one of the most ruthless and brutal dictatorships in Africa. According to Ethiopia's �Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs�, approximately 200,000 women sought employment abroad in 2012, the vast majority of them in the Middle East. Many of these workers believed they were jumping out of the fire of dictatorship in Ethiopia, but found themselves smack in the middle of the Saudi Arabian frying pan......full text
Whilst thousands of its nationals are detained, beaten, killed and raped, the Ethiopian government hangs its negligent head in silence in Addis Ababa, does not act to protect or swiftly repatriate their nationals, and criminalises those protesting in Addis Ababa against the Saudi actions......full text
By Professor Alemayehu G Mariam / November 17, 2013
For the past few years, there has been systematic persecution of Ethiopians living, working and seeking refuge in Saudi Arabia. Even Ethiopians practicing their faith in the complete privacy of their homes have faced criminal prosecution and deportation. In 2011, according to a Human Rights Watch report, Saudi police arrested �thirty five Ethiopian Christians for �illicit mingling,�� while the �Ethiopians gathered to pray together during the advent of Christmas, in the private home of one of the Ethiopians.� ......full text
By Professor Alemayehu G Mariam / November 11, 2013
I am compelled to write this commentary on the constitutional �liberty of movement� of Ethiopian citizens for two reasons. First, for quite some time I have been concerned about and very critical of the regime�s policy of forced displacement or internal deportation .....full text
In the face of evidence, the UK and US continue to deny systematic human rights abuses are occurring in the Lower Omo as thousands are displaced for an irrigation scheme. ......full text
By Professor Alemayehu G Mariam / November 3, 2013
I continue to offer commentaries on corruption in Ethiopia to keep public attention sharply focused on the structural nature of the issue. In the past few months, the ruling regime has been grandstanding its �anti-corruption� efforts by corralling a few officials of the �Revenue and Custom�s Authority� and businessmen on charges of corruption......full text
During this interview, Sebhat brushed aside in his effort to deceive the hard truth of the past and present political events of Ethiopia. His outright denial of reality and his annoying gut during the entire interview period would drive listeners crazy. He spent his time trying to convince listeners that things are not really worse as they seem......full text
The regime in Ethiopia is called the TPLF/EPRdf. But in reality its make up and essence have been TPLF/EPLF. The propaganda about Eritrea as an enemy is a convenient ploy to attack Ethiopians......full text
The prevailing assumption, which originates from the ideologues of ethnic politics, is that identity politics is a direct consequence of social inequalities resulting from the political or/and economic marginalization of groups of people defined by linguistic, racial, cultural, or religious particularisms......full text
The Ethiopian Constitution guarantees, �Persons arrested have the right to remain silent. Persons arrested shall not be compelled to make confessions or admissions which could be used in evidence against them......full text
No politics is ever born new as the politics of tomorrow is the projection of what we have on our hands today. It is only that as a society the wisdom we deploy in handling our political moves makes the outcome of the projection to take a desirable course or a catastrophic one. ......full text
Great African leaders have dreams. The rest have nightmares.Recently, African leaders, at least those at the helm of the African Union and their flunkies, have been reporting endlessly recurring ghastly nightmares of Lady Justice �race hunting� them with scales in one hand and a sword in the other......full text
The African Union�s threatened �mass treaty-cide� (a phrase I am compelled to coin to describe the bizarre threatened walkout on the Rome Statute) fizzled out. Those who predicted the �extraordinary summit� on the �AU�s relation with the International Criminal Court� (ICC) would end in a big bang were pleasantly amused to see it wrap up with a whimper about �undertaking consultation with members of the UN Security Council�......full text
Hailemariam Desalegn, the titular prime minister of Ethiopia, says the International Criminal Court (ICC) is on African safari. In May 2013,according to the BBC, Desalegn said, �African leaders were concerned that out of those indicted by the ICC, 99% are Africans.....full text
They speak of democracy, but act violently to suppress dissenting voices and control the people through the inculcation of fear: they ignore human rights and trample on the people, they are a tyrannical wolf in democratic sheep�s clothing, causing suffering and misery to thousands of people throughout Ethiopia......full text
When I wrote a commentary on the plight of the imprisoned 32-year old Ethiopian journalist Reeyot Alemu last April, I titled it �The Audacity of Evil in Ethiopia.� At the time, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) had sent a letter to the �Minister of Justice� of the ruling regime in Ethiopia pleading medical care for Reeyot.....full text
New York -- Ethiopian Women�s Human Rights Alliance (EWHRA) released a report on Thursday that was submitted to the Universal Periodic Review (UPR), a United Nations (UN) mechanism aimed at reviewing the human rights record of UN member countries. EWHRA�s Report details the egregious violation of human rights committed by the Ethiopian government in contravention of its obligations under numerous international human rights treaties......full text
For the past one-half decade, Ethiopia has been awash with talk of renaissance. There has been a lot of windbagging about a �Renaissance Dam� over the Blue Nile. Our ears nearly fell off listening to the endless gab about an �economic renaissance� with �11 percent� plus annual growth. There has also been much talk of a political and social renaissance complete with slogans of �ethnic federalism�, multiculturalism, pluralism and other �isms� (excluding neoliberalism). Of course, all of it is talk! That is exactly what I am talking about. How come there is no talk about a renaissance for Ethiopia�s youth?.....full text
In my commentary last week, �Interpreting and Living MLK�s Dream�, I discussed, among other things, Dr. Martin Luther King�s (MLK) philosophy of nonviolent social change. MLK argued that the �crucial political and moral question of our time� is the �need for man to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to oppression and violence.�......full text
Amnesty International is concerned that the rights to freedom of expression, association and assembly are once again under attack in Ethiopia. Two political opposition parties have reported to Amnesty International the arrests of many of their members in various locations around the country in recent weeks, in relation to efforts to hold peaceful protests......full text
By Patrick Griffith ,Freedom Now / September 4, 2013
On Wednesday 17 July 2013, members of the European Parliament�s Sub-committee on Human Rights visited Ethiopia and urged the government to release journalists and opposition activists imprisoned under the country�s Anti-Terrorism Proclamation No. 652/2009 (Anti-Terror Proclamation). The visit is an important reminder that despite widely hailed progress on poverty reduction, the Ethiopian government continues to punish free expression in violation of international law.......full text
It has been a year since long time Ethiopian ruler Meles Zenawi died of unestablished causes in a Belgian hospital somewhere between June and August of 2012. The Government hasn�t come out clearly about the cause of his death......full text
On August 28, 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered a speech for the ages from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. A quarter of a million people stood in rapt attention and listened to that speech. It was the crowning moment of the March on Washington for jobs and freedom........full text
In the evening of Saturday August 31, Semayawi Party headquarters around Ginfle, Addis Ababa, was buzzing like a bee hive as nearly one hundred party activists and organizers were busy making posters, writing slogans, stacking flags and other paraphernalia needed for a colorful rally. ......full text
Talking about corruption in the Ethiopian �justice sector� is like talking about truth in Orwell's 1984 Ministry of Truth (�Minitrue�). The purpose of Minitrue is to create and maintain the illusion that the Party is absolute, all knowing, all-powerful and infallible......full text
In his 1981 farewell speech, President Jimmy Carter said, �America did not invent human rights. In a very real sense, it is the other way round. Human rights invented America.�......full text
The Tigray People�s Liberation Front (TPLF) has quietly removed the late dictator�s widow Azeb Mesfin from the helm of EFFORT as Chief Executive Officer a few months after her husband�s demise, it emerged......full text
August 3,2013
Robert Mugabe, the senile octogenarian and the only president since Zimbabwe gained independence in 1980, �won� for the seventh time by 61 percent of the vote . His Zimbabwe African National Union � Patriotic Front (ZANU�PF) clinched a supermajority in parliament that will allow it to change the constitution.......full text
To many people land is much more than a resource or corporate commodity to be bought, developed and sold for a profit. Identity, cultural history and livelihood are all connected to �place�. The erosion of traditional values and morality (including respect for human rights and environmental responsibility) are some of the many negative effects of the global neo-liberal economic model, with its focus on short-term gain and material benefit. The commercialization of everything and everybody has become the destructive goal of multinationals and corporate-driven governments......full text
At a time when patriotic Ethiopians like Eskinder Nega are languishing in Gulag-style prisons for exercising their rights to express their opinions, those of us living beyond Woyane�s reach are blessed with the freedom to read books that stimulate the mind......full text
In June 1966, Senator Robert Kennedy (RFK) visited South Africa and delivered a speech at the University of Cape Town on the occasion of the annual Day of Affirmation organized by the National Union of South African Students
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Exactly a year ago, ESAT declared the death of Meles Zenawi. That was the most important breaking news in the last two decades. TPLF went into frenzy to bury the news under a barrage of counter-propaganda.......full text
Two new reports published this month say sustainable development in Ethiopia is impossible without a specific focus on human rights. The reports say donor countries should bear responsibility for ensuring their aid money is not used to fuel abuse......full text
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia � I AM jailed, with around 200 other inmates, in a wide hall that looks like a warehouse. For all of us, there are only three toilets. Most of the inmates sleep on the floor, which has never been swept. About 1,000 prisoners share the small open space here at Kaliti Prison. One can guess our fate if a communicable disease breaks out......full text
Part one of this series presented the Egyptian position on the Nile in a manner suggesting that, on its part, Ethiopian society must, equally, overcomes its internal governance gridlock that emanates from a cruel and repressive government leadership......full text
It has come to my attention that my brief Facebook comment regarding a few controversial statements made by Jawar Mohammed has been posted on ECADF�s website as an article. I had no intention of writing a series piece on the issue. Quite obviously, there is a big difference between a well-thought out lengthy commentary and a brief message in a particular context......full text
That is exactly what I feel like now. Who died and left me with this burden is not clear to me but believe me I feel like I am all alone and it is up to me to carry the flag and sing the national anthem. This business of being an Ethiopian has never been easy but you would think with experience and practice I have gotten the hang of it. I am afraid I am hopeless in that department. I still feel the burden. ......full text
In the construction sector, Ethiopia exhibits most of the classic warning signs of corruption risk, including instances of poor-quality construction, inflated unit output costs, and delays in implementation......full text
...He argues that the country, under a state of emergency after violent anti-government protests last year, is slipping backwards.Africa,� he says, �but, because of our government, our country is divided.� The album is a call for unity and the rehabilitation of Ethiopia�s glorious past. �This younger generation is in a dilemma about their history,� he continues. �I feel a responsibility to teach them about the good things from their history. They should be proud of their achievements.�...
As months of protest and civil unrest hurl Ethiopia into a severe political crisis, a new report from the Oakland Institute debunks the myth that the country is the new �African Lion.� Miracle or Mirage? Manufacturing Hunger and Poverty in Ethiopia exposes how authoritarian development schemes have perpetuated cycles of poverty, food insecurity, and marginalized the country�s most vulnerable citizens.
Miracle or Mirage? offers lessons from the deadly impact of sugar and cotton plantations in the Awash Valley in the Afar Region, established in the 1950s. The projects drastically reduced land and water availability for people and cattle, undermined food security, destroyed key drought coping mechanisms, and stirred up violent conflicts between different groups over the remaining resources....
When marathon silver medalist Feyisa Lilesa crossed the finish line at the Rio Olympics, he crossed his arms above his head in an "X", a sign of protest against the Ethiopian government's treatment of his people, the ethnic Oromo. ...
Nearly 100 people were killed in the weekend's protests in Ethiopia as demonstrators clashed with security forces in different parts of the country, Amnesty International says.....
(Nairobi) � Ethiopian security forces have killed dozens of protesters since November 12, 2015, in Oromia regional state, Human Rights Watch said today, based on reports from the region. The security forces should stop using excessive lethal force against protesters.
�The Ethiopian government�s response to the Oromia protests has resulted in scores dead and a rapidly rising risk of greater bloodshed,� said Leslie Lefkow, deputy Africa director at Human Rights Watch. �The government�s labelling of largely peaceful protesters as �terrorists� and deploying military forces is a very dangerous escalation of this volatile situation.�....
