Many Hands Sowed Seeds of Africa's Failure

San Francisco Chronicle -- With precious few exceptions, postcolonial African countries tanked: sometimes politically, sometimes economically, sometimes socially, sometimes - - horribly and spectacularly -- all three at once. Not only did the center fail to hold, but the windows blew out, the walls caved in, and the roof collapsed.

If promise went begging, what promise was there to begin with, asks Martin Meredith in this thoroughgoing yet easy-to-imbibe (if not easy-to- stomach) history of the continent since the end of World War II.

Well, there were natural resources to be thankful for: gold and diamonds and oil, plus an entire alphabet of minerals and agricultural goods that were in world demand. Many countries had decent reserves of foreign capital. The political atmosphere was vibrant with all manner of ideological debate. Art, music and literature were experiencing a strong revival.

And, never to be sniffed at, the weather was friendly for a couple of decades. The rains came when the rains were supposed to come. A few regions went luckless, it is true, but nature is not expected to deal an equal hand.

But wait, writes Meredith; as a garden of possibilities, Africa was not the healthiest. Its ground had not been nourished but mauled by the colonial powers that staked their claim to the continent at the end of the 19th century. Areas of interest were demarcated without regard to the diverse and independent groups of Africans living there. People with no common history, customs, language or religion were forced into colonial units. Antagonisms and latent hostilities between groups were ignored.

Thus the modern states of Africa, a geopolitics of ignorance and presumption, with 10,000 African polities amalgamated into 40 European colonies and protectorates. It was a firestorm just waiting for a match.

The period of decolonization was far from clean. Meredith describes how European powers sought at the very least to keep a foot in the door to maintain vested interests, like Britain, or left only after being pushed out, screaming and kicking, like Portugal. Whichever, the imprint they left behind was of authoritarian regimes that came on the heels of the feudal power exercised by earlier, local chiefs. "Traditions of autocratic governance, paternalism and dirigism were embedded in the institutions the new leaders inherited."

The result was the emergence of one-party states, and even more to the point, of Big Men. The Big Man will be the bugbear Meredith finds squatting upon every rotting African country, and he has plenty of material to back his assertion that "Africa has suffered grievously at the hands of its big men and its ruling elites. Their preoccupation, above all, has been to hold power for the purpose of self-enrichment."

Big Men come in a wide array, from Gamal Nasser and Julius Nyerere, more interested in destiny and power politics than in getting rich quick; to mercurial tin-pot tyrants such as Francisco Nguema of Equatorial Guinea; to brand names like Idi Amin and Joseph Mobutu, a far larger group of repressive, violent, stratospherically greedy despots (so rapacious they sometimes can't pay their army, let alone repair roads or build schools, which is a sure way to cook their own goose).

Certainly, they were aided and abetted by Cold War machinations, yet the Big Men would persist after the Soviet Union fell apart and the United States lost any rationale for supporting someone like Mobutu. The few instances of effective government, such as South Africa's emergence as a democratic state with a modern constitution, or Botswana's enduring multiparty government and sound economic management, make the continuing preponderance of demagogic Big Men particularly galling. The faces can change with alarming celerity (or last grotesquely for decades), but not the behavior.

Meredith doesn't lay every African ill at the Big Man's door. Foreign intervention, from Che Guevara in the Congo to the French in Bokassa's Central African Republic and the Soviets in Ethiopia, to the United States in Somalia, has been unproductive when not catastrophic. Well-intended avenues of economic development -- industrialization, import substitution -- proved ill fitting. The dream of African socialism "was little more than a potpourri of vague and romantic ideas lacking all coherence and subject to varying interpretations." States that accepted IMF/World Bank support staggered under debt service. Nor did the Big Man unleash AIDS (though he turns a blind eye) or have much say about the weather; drought has been one of Africa's grimmest reapers.

Though today an independent scholar, Meredith was one of those now-too- rare journalists who knew his beat intimately, having lived on and off (mostly on) in Africa for 40 years, informing a keen and humane mind with all things African. It shows here in the depth and fluid familiarity of his narrative, light on its feet for so wildly complex a picture. Meredith isn't afraid of venturing an opinion, but what he dines on are basic realities: who did what when, and the consequences. These he spreads before his readers, for them to draw their own, now also informed, conclusions.

Previous Post: Sowing the Seeds of Famine in Ethiopia

Ethiopia to Discuss Historic Obelisk Re-erection with UNESCO

People's Daily -- An Ethiopian delegation left for France on Wednesday to discuss ways of re-erecting the historic Axum obelisk with the United Nations.

The Axum obelisk, weighing 160 tons and standing 24 meters high, is around 1,700 years old and has become a symbol of the Ethiopian people's identity. In 1937, the invaders of fascist Italy dismantled and took it on the orders of Benito Mussolini. Italy returned the monument to the northern ancient town of Axum in April.

The delegation, led by Minister of Culture Teshome Toga, left for the headquarters of UNESCO to discuss studies conducted by Ethiopia and the organization concerning the re-erection of the obelisk as well as to set a timeframe for the re-erection.

He said the delegation will return with a specific timetable for the archeological studies and other necessary preparations.

"The re-erection of the obelisk should be done safely," he said, adding that Ethiopia has been jointly working with UNESCO on the re-erection site.

In addition to efforts exerted for the return of its heritage, Ethiopia has conducted archeological, basement studies as well as other preparations needed for the re-erection of the obelisk, according to the minister.

Teshome said the government believes that it would be useful to engage the company that transported the obelisk from Rome and the consultant company in the re-erection process.

He said the Italian government will cover the cost needed for the re-erection of the obelisk.

Following the signing of two agreements by Italy and Ethiopia, in 1956 and 1997, Ethiopia formed a national committee for the return of the obelisk.

Ethiopia is one of the oldest continuous civilizations in the world. The first known civilization in Ethiopia was that of the mighty Aksumite Kingdom.

Having established itself in 1,000 BC, in northern Ethiopia, it eventually spread over all of northern and even central Ethiopia. The ancient city of Axum, which was started by the Aksumites, was Ethiopia's first capital city.

Previous Post: Land of Queen of Sheba Shows Much and Hides Much

The Hard Choices Confronting Ethiopia

Network of Ethiopian Scholars (NES)

Scandinavian Chapter
Press Release
July 30, 2005

How to deal with regime Defiance of Vote and Voice: The Hard Choices Confronting Ethiopia

Sudan Tribune -- Amartya Sen when making the case for democracy as a universal value suggests three characteristics of the democratic process. The first is, an intrinsic value, in the form of social and political participation in decision-making. He says that to be barred from such participation is a major deprivation. Second: he sees an instrumental value in democracy, as it offers people a hearing and helps direct political attention to their claims and needs. This is done through communicating people’s demands effectively to political leaders. Third: he posits that democracy has a constructive value, where its necessary dialogue allows citizens to learn from each other and thus helps society to develop. The constructive impact of democracy depends on the quality of dialogue that citizens engage in among themselves and with the agencies of the state, and together form society’s values.

Nobel Prize winning Economist, Amartya Sen, Paraphrasing his thoughts on people’s entitlement to democracy

“By stealing votes through sheer violence, the ruling party has declared war not only on the opposition but also on the Ethiopian people.”

Dr. Merara Gudina, President of UEDF

1. The Significance of Democracy

The struggle for democracy is on in earnest. Democracy as A. Sen puts it is central to enhancing a society’s learning and development. In Ethiopia the regime understands or misunderstands the country and democracy only with instrumental reason. Even its instrumentalist understanding is not consistent. For example, it brags that it stands for the right, claims or needs of self-determining communities without allowing the very same communities from realising these claims. It claims it has solved the problem of nationalities by imposing its rule; but during this election it kept beaming films of the Rwanda genocide trying to frighten communities that they face danger. It was particularly cynical in the way it used the Ethiopian people from Tigray. It tried to frighten them as if they were endangered when in fact it is only the ruling elite that was in danger. The regime has no understanding of democracy as intrinsic and constructive values and senses. It prefers to rely on violence and foreign aid and not on the intrinsic and constructive values of democracy to mobilise the nation’s mental, human, physical and natural power to be equal to the task of unleashing the intellectual and physical energy to eradicate poverty. When the democratic forces threaten to sweep it out of its power, it declares war by resorting as Dr. Merara Gudina frankly puts it without mincing his words to stealing and declaring war on the opposition and the people. We in the NES believe that the struggle for democracy must be pursued without compromise, as we believe that the regime’s strategy and plan for the country will not remove poverty and national humiliation. The nation cannot afford to be forced to live in a state of humiliation by a ruling elite that has de-sensitised itself that begging is a normal state of affairs. We say the people have come out, they have voted, they have expressed their voice and they deserve not to live with a regime that has violated their trust, lied, stolen and abused their votes, in addition to intimidating and killing members of the public and the opposition parties. No one has the right to say to the people stay abused, not least Meles and his die-hard cronies. Meles has no moral authority or right to say to the people and the opposition parties accept our theft, live with it or else you cannot enjoy the heat of the fire, we will burn you. The people and the opposition parties must call his bluff and demand that he accepts with humility to undertake along with the people and the opposition a national reconciliation perspective of governance during the next five years.

2. The Current Situation

We are at the stage where the NEB has announced an election result awarding nearly two-thirds of the seats to the ruling party. Prior to doing that it pre-empted the demand for a nation-wide re-run by limiting the seats to be re-run to 15 or 20 that included the seats of the information minister and the chief of defence, and a few other top officials to be finalised by August 21,2005. All along the opposition parties found the investigation process blatantly unacceptable and deceptive, having pronounced the entire “ investigation process a complete failure.” (EUDF-CUD 19 July 2005 Joint Statement). In their July 27,2005 joint statement, they have called for a re-run of the election in all the seats where complaints have been lodged.

Though the NEB has not declared finally the full results of this election, regime and NEB have worked hand in gloves to make sure that the announcement of the final result has no bearing on their episodic announcements that the ruling party should carry on as if it has a ready and sown up election result in its favour ever since the election has been reported by the opposition to have been misdirected by the forcible intervention of the military and the militia. It is indeed strange how NEB’s supposed investigation was converted into yet another support to the ruling party by the NEB having undermined or even trashed the numerous reported cases showing this or that election irregularity made by the opposition parties. Some of the opposition parties have reported witnesses killed, and NEB officials switching roles as advocates and witnesses for the ruling party in these investigations. According to the opposition parties, the protestations they made on numerous occasions by them have fallen on NEB’s deaf ears. It looks more and more that the opposition has been manoeuvred to a corner where the ruling party wants and forces the opposition parties to withdraw from the process of the subsequent post-election result. It is to their credit that the opposition parties have firmly withstood all the intimidations and harassment and stayed the course as part of their commitment to use all peaceful means to achieve a democratic and liberated Ethiopia from the yoke of their current oppressors. We think they should turn every possible gain as a launch pad for intensifying the struggle for democracy, and every unfavourable and forced situation into a site for contestation to imbed intrinsic, instrumental and constructive citizen democratic engagement to mobilize the nation to solve all the key problems it has confronted. It is not aid, it is not debt, and it is not grants that come in and go out that will solve the country’s problems. It is democracy that mobilizes the nation’s vital energy to define a better future from the least able and least advantaged. The ruling elite begs from the outside and sees democratic presentation as a tactic to entice donor funding, much as a prostitute entices its victim by appearing enticing. The struggle for democracy is not to be taken lightly. It is fundamental to the way a society wishes to approach all its key problems. We cannot pull ourselves from poverty without a total and capability enhancing democratic mobilisation of all the citizens of the country. We must leave no doors closed and avenues unravelled to realize fully a democratic transition in our country. The nation is close to it thanks to the free votes of the people, but also far from it due largely to ruling elite myopia and lack of historical and moral imagination.

We, in the NES, put the main responsibility on the regime for its widespread violence, intimidation, state of emergency, media control to misrepresent and abuse the opposition and their elected leaders, and its loyal and partisan NEB. It is abundantly clear that the regime has used force, intimidation, monopoly of information and above all the NEB too to direct the election process to go against the voice and choices of the people. These grave actions are not isolated incidents. They reflect the core behaviour of the ruling party that has been born in violence, grown in violence, and used any treacherous means to come and stay in power. The ruling party only understands the language that it alone is entitled to propose and dispose and anyone else must accept and submit to its diktat. Those that refuse to submit to its dictations and power are defined paradoxically as pursuing goals that contravene the rule of law, the constitution, the stability and the democracy it brags about so much of having bestowed as a gift to the people.

All major responsibility for what has gone wrong in this election lands principally and firmly on the footstep of the regime. The combination of violence, intimidation and sporadic killing, heavy and ominous military presence in the main cities even after the emergency law has lapsed with uncontrollable and a daily barrage of media attacks against the opposition without a right of reply, and the unscrupulous and shameless rigging by the NEB has worked to change the election tide in favour of the regime. We have known all along, whether the final result is declared, known or not, under NEB’s management the outcome in favour of the ruling regime is beyond doubt. This outcome was to be expected when the regime violated the rule of law, declared a state of emergency and killed students. But there is a big price that the regime will pay in front of the judgment of history and the people of Ethiopia and the rest of the world who genuinely stand for human rights, democracy, honesty and integrity inside and outside Ethiopia. The alternative choice of realising a democratic transition has been severely aborted, and there is no doubt that the people have been robbed on broad day light despite protests inside and outside the country. NES believes it is critical that the struggle to genuinely ‘de-dectatorize’ the country’s present and future must accelerate, and all the democratic forces must unite and coordinate their varied struggles to make sure the democratic birth comes sooner rather than late.

3. The Choices and Implications

The nearly two-thirds seats to the ruling party is likely to embolden the Meles regime to maintain its double face of repression and authoritarian rule at home and using a public relations stunt to keep the wider world believing that the country is undergoing a democratic experiment.

Given the outcome of the election that has been rigged to favour the ruling party, the opposition and the people have to prepare to struggle without flinching and steadfastly by peacefully building on the gains they have achieved and trying to deepen and broaden the achievements scored already in order to re-gain the democratic initiative, and unlike the ruling party, go for embedding and making a national reconciliation inclusion of all the significant actors in order to prepare the ground to solve the country’s major problems. The ruling party has shown by its actions, intentions and policies that it will not voluntarily accept to enter into a national reconciliation social contract. The people, the opposition, civil society and those from the international community from the wider world outside who genuinely are keen to see Ethiopia achieve a free and fair democratic transition must intensify their struggles to create national reconciliation. Given the people and the opposition are engaged in peaceful struggle, NES strongly suggests that they should not be pushed by the riggings, tricks and attacks of the rulers to be tempted to not build on the gains they have scored. They should preserve the gains and turn every gain as an arena of struggle. All peaceful forms of struggles inside and outside should be employed to bring pressure on the ruling party that it cannot get away with rigging the election result, and bring it to accept the strategic demand that the nation pass through a period of national reconciliation. We expect the people, the opposition parties, civil society and genuine friends of the people of Ethiopia from the international community who would like to see democracy implanted in the country to struggle with justice, and without fear and favour and speak peacefully and clearly truth to power.

The two choices bear thus starkly different consequences. The ruling party would use the outcome from its violence, riggings and the deliberate mismanagement from the national election board to extend its authoritarian dictatorship with democratic façade. The people and the opposition will build on the gains they have scored to turn every gain as an arena of struggle to realise the elusive dream of scoring a historic achievement for the first time ever in the nation’s long life: democratic transition that prepares a national reconciliation condition to prepare the nation’s total energy to eradicate the chief source of its humiliation: conflict and poverty. The political situation is evolving fast into a new level of contestation. Until the regime accepts the principle of peaceful democratic transition and national reconciliation, the people and the opposition parties must use every legal and peaceful arena to intensify the struggle. There is no alternative to such a struggle unless the regime accepts it is right, necessary and desirable that Ethiopia achieve democratic transition by stopping from indulging in threats, deception and mounting attacks and smears against the opposition parties.

4. Resolutely Oppose Regime Actions to Undermine Opposition Gains

The regime has used NEB to employ the strategy of continued stalemate and the endless procrastinations, delays, and probing and suggestive announcement of episodic partial results always crafting carefully to make the ruling party ahead of the counts, and finally inching to an election result of a nearly two-third majority to the ruling group to obviate the need for a final declaration of results. There is no need for surprise or ceremony as the ruling party has orchestrated the crafting of its slow majority by nudging the NEB to do its bidding. Finally the regime and NEB working with lip and teeth oneness have managed to pull the rug under the feet of the opposition parties. Under the cover of a stalemate and the NEB-led investigations, the regime has been busy using the time to undermine the opposition parties. The opposition parties in their July 27 statement have admitted that it is not the free vote of the people that won the day, it is the force of the regime that won out in the end. It is violence, intimidation; even killing that changed the tide against them. Even in the areas of the opposition parties’ unchallenged victory, the regime is busy to disable them from effectively undertaking the administration of the areas like Addis Ababa.

The election situation did not deter the ruling group from carrying out measures that have bearing on how the next five years would be run. For the regime it has been business as usual and continues to be so. Its parliament went into recess after having continued to strip off Addis Ababa by reducing its budget, by moving authority on transport upwards to the federal system, providing permission for the headquarters of a regional administration to be transferred to the nation’s capital, reducing drastically taxes and generally trying to create a minimal and skeletal structure that will make it difficult for the winning opposition parties to run the affairs of the country’s premier capital city. The regime has withdrawn its federal subsidy to Addis Ababa literally forcing the new administration to find financial resources to run the city elsewhere. If the city administration has no finance, how can it pay for municipal workers? If it is forced to make workers redundant, the city administration will be forced into conflict from day one of its putative take over. It is not fair that the regime imposes such a situation on the new administration. It is the most unwelcoming welcome one can imagine, as it is also essentially a mean and demeaning action at the same time. It is indeed strange that the regime can do this and leave the new municipal administration with zero cent contribution from the Government!!

We suspect similar actions are probably being taken elsewhere in the regions since the ruling party seems to follow a vindictive policy that can litter the ground with spikes for the opposition takeover. As a reluctant loser, the regime does not wish to relinquish power even in Addis Ababa at a time when it has lost and, when the most prudent thing to do is not to mobilise a rubber stamping parliament to carry on with a logic of business as usual but to include the winners and negotiate an orderly transfer.

In addition, the regime has been busy changing the parliamentary rules expecting possible opposition party representation. It has changed the rules on the regulation for presenting motions from 20 members of parliament to 50 + 1. There are also new rules that will make it difficult for opposition members to conduct debate without worrying that the regime supporters will accuse them of violating disciplinary procedures. All the regime moves seem to discourage the invitation and welcome for the opposition parliamentarians to participate. In fact, it appears to dissuade them to go for a boycott of parliament and even leave the municipal administration. It looks expectations of smooth and civilised transfer will not be easy given the ostrich- mentality by the regime as if nothing has changed and the opposition victory is inconsequential.

On the wider country level, the regime also behaves as if nothing has changed and its rule will continue. The regime says it has lifted the state of emergency, but the military presence in major cities is visible and intimidating of citizens in carrying out their daily lives.

It looks that the regime seems to have neither the intention nor the patience to accommodate the opposition with its substantial backing from the people. This action by the regime is increasing the hostile mood against it by the population. It seems oblivious to the signs of the silence anger and sorrow of the people who feel cheated by the regime of their voices and votes. The media ridicules routinely the opposition rather than showing a willingness to invite them to work with the regime. This hostile approach and attitude by the regime against the opposition is so ingrained in the mentality of regime elements that it would be hard to see them enter seriously into any negotiation for national reconciliation. Though we called for the latter we recognise unfortunately for the country that the ruling party is not prepared to accept national reconciliation. We have no illusion about the regime which has a swollen ego relying on its military prowess and boasting of its friendship with Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair for pausing itself as their allay in the war on terror unless the latter were to put pressure on Meles to behave in the larger good of the country. NES thinks that this arrogance, intolerant mentality, attitude, habit and routine that are entrenched in the way the regime conducts itself is the biggest obstacle to change.

5. NEB is responsible for the electoral mess

Just like the regime, the national election board has been universally reviled by all the opposition parties for behaving with 100 % loyalty to the regime. Opposition parties believe that the election that they won has been stolen from them thanks to the unscrupulous behaviour of the national election board. Its methods of announcement of results have been regime- favouring and partisan. The NEB has already announced a number of times, and revised a few times the partial results. The number of seats it is investigating has also been changing. The investigation has turned out to serve the regime’s need to recall more of most of the de-selected cadres than trying laying to rest the credibility of the election process by doing justice by preserving the integrity of the election process.

Meanwhile the opposition parties with a united voice have declared the investigation a complete failure. The regime has read this declaration of investigation failure by the opposition parties as showing “violent tendencies” by them. The regime has declared that the “joint statement was nothing but an official declaration of their intent to switch from legal and democratic path to that of violence means.”(July 23, 2005). What NEB did by botching up the investigations is open the opposition parties to ruling party attacks where the regime deliberately misrepresents and reads the peaceful as violent, the legal, as illegal, the constitutional as the un-constitutional, and the democratic as anti-democratic. The regime will try to frighten and intimidate the people and the opposition parties to accept gross injustice and to live by the edict of the NEB. It has been thus a foregone conclusion for a long time now that the NEB will approve and award the required two-thirds majority to the ruling party on a delayed silver platter. It has done that now for all intents and purposes. By engineering such an action, it has not only betrayed the Ethiopian people, but also democracy, and the opportunity for Ethiopia to have a vibrant parliament where democratic public debate matters and laws are made after a thorough scrutiny and argument by a properly functioning parliament. If the ruling party is in a position to ignore opposition views because of its two-thirds majority that has been ill-gotten under heavy rigging, what kind of docile parliament can the NEB feel proud of engineering by its rigging handiwork?

The people who voted for the opposition parties are entitled to oppose peacefully against the regime and the NEB. The main responsibility for any impending national crises lies in the ruling party and the NEB and the lip and teeth alliance that they have forged that made it impossible for the fresh air of democracy to breathe through the veins and arteries of our old, dictatorially crippled nation.

6. Country-wide election re-runs to stave off election crises?

Given the strong protest by the opposition parties that the investigations are a failure, the most sensible option to follow would be either to undertake a nation-wide re-election or invite the parties, the people and civil society to forestall national crises by creating national reconciliation. If the regime continues to be frightened by any popular demonstration that happened like the pre-election demonstration, the alternative is for the regime to go for national reconciliation and not retreat from it. At the moment what people know is wide scale rigging, and the subservience of the NEB to the regime, any outcome that favours the regime would be seen at best with mistrust or with strong opposition. Any peaceful protest is likely to be confronted by threat or actual military action by Meles and regime elements that have much to lose by any threat to their position and the status quo.

One way to renew trust on the election is to go once more for the nation wide re- runs of the national election. The July 27 statement by the opposition parties calls for a re-run of a new election. If the election re-run is accepted by the regime, it will be more or less a nation-wide re-election given the seats range 300. The re-run will probably cost the same amount of energy as the 3rd national election itself. The problem is how it would be possible to clear election we think it should be a country- wide re-run and not just on the seats where alleged irregularities have occurred. According to the opposition, the NEB and the regime have undertaken a completely flawed investigation. At the same time they are against countrywide re-election. The NEB has announced 20 seats to undergo fresh re-election and most of these appear tailored to bring back loyal members of the regime. Given the charge against the NEB, the best option should have been not to carry out such an incremental, arbitrary and selected re-election, but a new re-election with observers to be fielded all over the country and minimize the risk of rigging once again. Such a limited re-run appears to show disregard of opposition demand that full revalidation of the election process be mounted.

If for any reason nation-wide re-election cannot be agreed by regime and opposition, we shall continue to suggest the alternative that can bring back possibly peoples’ trust, and that is nothing else but the implementation of a national reconciliation conception of governance in Ethiopia. It is either a nation wide re-runs or a commitment to create an all-inclusive national reconciliation approach to Ethiopia’s democracy, freedom, peace and stability.

7. National Reconciliation Strategy: the commonsense alternative to put behind the endless cycle of violence and dictatorship

We in the NES have been advocating (see Press Release 8)- to turn the problems created by the NEB and the regime in allowing the voting, but not being able to count it and also in not being able to investigating properly all other allegations of irregularities, and now releasing figures awarding a near two third majority to the ruling group- into the opportunities for national reconciliation. We think that the country’s troubled history merits a period of at least five years to sort out the modalities that will permit the normal implementation of democratic competition by parties. This period where opposition parties have shown strong popular backing, and the parties backing the regime also have support can result in creating the necessary condition for joining together to form a national reconciliation government. The important thing is for all the parties to accept in principle a minimum condition that is, a national reconciliation conception or perspective to the country’s major problems. Each of the parties can bring in a national reconciliation conception to all their existing perhaps contrasting plans. We expect that all those parties that accept national reconciliation will also have people in them who are strongly in favour and those that may be lukewarm to the idea for one reason or another. The best way to overcome party sectarian interests is to build a cross-party unity on the shared principle of going together to carry out national reconciliation conceptions of the nation’s principal direction. All the enthusiasts of national reconciliation from across all the parties should be given the opportunity to bring about a national reconciliation development and milestone in the country. Granted, the parties might have diametrically opposed positions on many issues, but as long as they are prepared to take national reconciliation perspective and conception as a strategic necessity at this stage of the country’s political history that will bring about broad healing of the nation and prepare the country to enter into a productive and predictable democratic era, there is an excellent basis for them to work together and even agree to form a government of national concord to steer the national reconciliation process. A national reconciliation perspective, conception and framing of the major problems of the country that have defied resolution to date is critical to induce in all the programmes, policy and behaviour of all old and new political parties in Ethiopia. It is also important that all the parties take extra care to nominate their authoritative (not authoritarian, please!) members willing to implement sincerely and with integrity a national reconciliation conception of democratic governance, and pursue the realisation of their party sectional-interest through the perspective and prism of fulfilling enduring national reconciliation. If that happens, it will not be difficult to create an environment conducive for negotiation, reflection, argument, reason and logic to move even an agreed national reconciliation agenda forward.

We think the opposition parties will not create problems, but the ruling party will. The ruling party has been insistent that they got power through sacrifice and even if the people choose other parties, their sacrifice has priority over the verdict and voice of the people. The ruling party thus shuns national reconciliation deriving entitlement to rule not from the consent of the governed but from the abstract, and indeed, what has now been sold to the public and donors as a self-serving fact of sacrifice. It is highly instrumental to commensurate staying in power by the quantum of sacrifice made when the ruling party and others were busy to come to power and impose a policy set that has now been rejected by the democratic expression and voice of the people. It is critical that people who are committed to national reconciliation from the parties are nominated and given freedom to carry out the agreed tasks for the five- year period. The main issue is the realisation of the national reconciliation conception of Ethiopia’s problems and trying to address them imbued with that spirit. So the main issue is to embed in the environment the letter and spirit of national reconciliation. The formation of the government of national reconciliation is mainly an instrument. What would remain enduring is tackling the nation’s intractable problems with a conception of national reconciliation. Parties must enter into the process not because they want to valorise positions, but to translate a concept and lay a foundation for a predictable democratic governance system that will endure the test of time. NES strongly believes, as we argued in our release on Ethiopia’s Future for the Next Five Years: Seize the moment and seize the time, that this option is the best and necessary route to take, if not the sufficient route to solve our problems. It will certainly assist to forestall a national crises based on an outcome in favour of the ruling party that the people profoundly and disdainfully mistrust. The only way to change a possible danger of national crises into an opportunity is for all the parties to agree a national reconciliation strategy and bring together forward all the forces from the opposition parties that strongly back such a strategy to precipitate and route a national reconciliation implantation in Ethiopian soil. If all the parties that agree to national reconciliation create a common front, others that wish to stay outside will be drawn sooner or later provided the momentum for national reconciliation deepens. NES thinks this is the best option and appeals to all the parties, and especially to the ruling party to grasp the critical historical political moment and act to create a new history, new possibility and new cradle -democracy in the comprehensive sense of a universal value and sense for societal learning and transformation.

8. The Way Forward

During and around the polling day of May 15, 2005, the opposition parties were confident and certain that they have won the election. The opposition parties said that the ruling party was alarmed by the way the opposition parties emerged victorious. They said that the ruling party engaged in a three- pronged strategy to stop and reverse the snow bowling opposition momentum and gains even before polling day by declaring a state of emergency, tightening information and media control, moving threatening armed militia in the rural areas, and deploying the national election board openly to undertake a partisan policy and implement the regime’s moves of re-gaining the initiative to win this election hands down or with a majority that will not threaten the regime to pass as law any policy that Meles wishes to push. This has generated a confidence crisis in the way the election has been handled, and the Government bears the main responsibility, and is in fact in the dock for the gross mismanagement of this election.

• Rather than showing humility and try to work with the opposition parties, the Government and the NEB have botched the investigation of the 300 or so irregularities reported as cases by all the parties. The credibility of the NEB’s announcement awarding nearly a two-thirds majority to the ruling party is in tatters in the eyes of the Ethiopian people. The Ethiopian people will see any move or temptation to accept this result as a betrayal of the people, the country and democracy. Any acceptance based on fear of intimidation will not go well with the people. The people who will feel betrayed will not forgive aggressive threats by Meles. Meles must understand that the opposition parties will not trade their credibility to rescue his skin and applaud a rigged election that they must denounce instead. Any small concession like media use will not suffice to quench the peoples demand to realise democratic values in their country and national affairs.

• The most impudent activities carried out by the regime is related to how it has rigged the parliament to make any opposition to function with a vibrant public debate of issues that is central to the claims and needs of the people. The parliament must remove all the draconian regulations that the lame duck parliament passed before opposition groups can remotely contemplate functioning in it. The regime has to withdraw all the silly rules that it forced its rubber-stamping parliament to enact before the new parliament can reasonably have a chance to convene. It is thus up to the regime to remove all the laws that have been passed to push the opposition parties to boycott parliament. The onus lies entirely on the Meles regime.

• The same is true with the administration of Addis Ababa municipality. Nearly most authorities including policing the city have been removed and accumulated in Meles’s hands. What will the new opposition administration do if there is nothing to carry out administration with? Again the Meles regime must take huge responsibility for trying to complicate vindictively opposition party take over of the capital city. The opposition parties must demand that their gains must not be stolen by the regime and continue to struggle that the regime bring back the ex ante the situation and return, financial, transport, police, security and other functions to the city administration as it used to be. This has to be honoured. If the regime does not oblige, the struggle for democracy must continue to make sure the city is governed with resources and authority during the next five years not with hostile central authority breathing over the neck of the new administration officials.

• There are two viable alternatives: a re-run of the election to restore trust and credibility in the election process with hopefully water tight and much more scrutiny this time to make sure the election is not only free but it is also fair. This option is open and the opposition parties demand to realise it is just and legitimate. We hope the international community will stand firmly on the side of justice, the side of human rights and the side of democracy. Only then can it be said that it is standing on the side of the Ethiopian people.

• We in NES prefer an agreement of all the parties to diffuse the situation by entering into a national reconciliation grand social contract by making sure that representation is not dominated and threatened by the ruling party. We think this national reconciliation strategy will be the best response to the current challenges and hard choices confronting our country. We trust this alternative will save the country, win back the trust of the people and will provide an honourable and non-humiliating way out for all the parties engaged in this struggle to shape and articulate Ethiopia’s future.

• We call on the Meles regime not to threaten, not to blackmail, not to brag, not to humiliate, but to understand the importance of working together with the opposition parties that have shown genuine popular backing. We call the regime to stretch its arms and welcome the opposition parties, the people, civil society and patriotic individuals to formulate a concerted national reconciliation conception of the country’s problems and set the foundation together and erect the values of democracy and governance in Ethiopia. If the Meles regime fails, not only does it fail the country, the people and democracy, but also its own credibility and its own opportunities to attain maturity and stature in the eyes of history. We hope it will defeat its own sense of defeat, that a national reconciliation Government that includes its views along with others, is not possible now. A national reconciliation government is right, necessary, desirable and possible, and it is high time that the regime lives up to the sacred task of reaching for this larger good to avoid the country entering an uncertain period.

• We urge the opposition parties to remain united and through this epochal struggle develop and test their mettle to learn how to work together, overcome all sorts of problems and obstacles and stick to principles and carry forward the mandate that has been entrusted to them by the vote and voice of the people.

• We call the international community to continue to put maximum pressure on the Meles regime to hear sense and go for the diffusion of an impending crises rather than enflaming opposition and popular passion by its constant threats and eventualities. It is critical that the international community do not see both opposition parties and the regime as equally wrong or right. The regime has to carry the main burden of guilt for the way the election has been mishandled, for the unconstitutional state of emergency, for the killing, for botching up the investigations and riggings. The opposition did not do all these things. The opposition parties are not guilty. The kind of symmetry proposition that diplomats try to apply because it looks diplomatic to present it that way is not fair. The international community must call a spade, a spade, a human rights violator, a human rights violator. We urge the international community, USA, UK, EU, AU and others to put maximum pressure on the Meles regime to listen to reason and accept either a re-run of the election or a national reconciliation government in order to restore the trust of the people. Meles has to do this not for anybody else, but for the sake of the country and the people. We trust the international community will stand on the side of the people, democracy and history. It will be hypocritical to admit the irregularities and put pressure on the opposition to live with and accept regime wrong doing. The international community must stand on the side of truth and fairness and should not send signal that vote and voice tampering by the regime can be tolerated.

• Finally, the last word goes for the Ethiopian people. Never in the country’s recorded history have you shown so much courage for democracy as on May 15, 2005. You are right to struggle against those who would like to deprive the historic moment created by your collective imagination. You are right to back those who support the moment and show reverence to your greatness. We call upon you to remain steadfast and prevail over the politicians to carry out the will you have so magnificently displayed on May 15, 2005 and continue the struggle for substantive democracy that encapsulates learning and development as values to guide Ethiopian society and future.

We all play different roles from inside and outside the country, all who have chosen to struggle for substantive democracy in Ethiopia. We think different types of conversations, seminars, teachings, conferences, symposia and other activities should continue to clarify and consolidate a shared view on the issues that matter to country, people and nation.

Professor Mammo Muchie, Chair of NES-Scandinavian Chapter Berhanu G. Balcha, Vice- Chair of NES-Scandinavian Chapter Tekola Worku, Secretary of NES-Scandinavian Chapter

Contact address:
- Fibigerstraede 2
- 9220- Aalborg East
- Denmark
- Tel. + 45 96 359 813 or +45 96 358 331
- Fax + 45 98 153 298
- Cell: +45 3112 5507
- Email: mammo@ihis.aau.dk or berhanu@ihis.aau.dk or tekola.worku@bromma.stockholm.se

Disturbing Look at African Nation Used as Pawn

The Plain Dealer -- The battle-weary British Army captain barely looks at the old Eritrean woman standing on the dusty road. It is 1941, and she is thanking him for driving the Italian fascists from her country. "I didn't do it for you, [expletive]," he snaps. And crisply marches away.

In her striking and disturbing new book, "I Didn't Do It for You," journalist Michela Wrong tells us that this nasty encounter has become a popular story among Eritreans. Although it might not have actually happened, it has achieved the status of a parable -- a revealing story about how Eritreans perceive the outsiders who have used the country like a geopolitical Game Boy.

Tiny Eritrea, at 45,000 square miles just slightly larger than Ohio, gets its name from the conflation of the Latin words for Red Sea, whose waters form the country's northeastern boundary. To the south is Ethiopia. Eritrea was once part of this neighbor and often has been at war with it.

Wrong writes with the authority born of comprehensive research and multiple visits to the region. She also writes with attitude. Her previous book, "In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz" (2001), dealt with the plundering of the Congo and indicted outsiders for causing its perpetual poverty and violence.

In her new work, she pins the tail of culpability on many of the same donkeys. The Italians colonized Eritrea in the late 19th century and deeply imprinted their culture on the clay of the country. Wrong calls the capital city, Asmara, "the city that time forgot" because it features Art Deco and other design touches of Mussolini's reign.

America's interest and presence began in World War II. When the United States recognized that a high Eritrean plateau provided one of the world's great sites for electronic eavesdropping, the American military erected Kagnew Station, complete with movie theater, bowling alley, swimming pool, craft shop. And more.

Some of Wrong's most disgusting discoveries involve U. S. military personnel stationed at Kagnew. Some of the men tested -- and then shattered -- the outer boundaries of sexual, alcoholic and scatological behavior. These pages add some grubby, unpleasant brush strokes to the sordid portrait of the Ugly American.

Wrong shows how the Cold War crippled Africa's social and economic development. Both the United States and the Soviets supported brutal regimes whose single virtue was a willingness to align themselves with Washington or Moscow. If genocide or rape or environmental destruction ensued, each side seemed to decide, well, at least the country didn't go communist -- or imperialist.

Wrong views recent events with surpassing sadness. In the mid-1990s, just when it appeared that Eritrea might emerge from the morass, it joined rival Ethiopia in a ruinous arms race and went to war once again with its southern neighbor. It took the Organization of African Unity and the United Nations to stop it.

"The Eritrea I visit these days is not the country I knew," she writes. Civil liberties have vanished; the economy barely functions; people are afraid -- of their leadership, of one another.

It is easy for Americans not to think about Africa. But as this courageous writer shows us, when we look at Africa, we are peering not through a window but into a mirror.

Prime Minister Meets Opposition Leaders

Reuters AlertNet -- Ethiopia's political leaders have held their first ever face-to-face talks aimed at ending the deepening crisis over disputed legislative polls, an official said on Friday.

Prime Minister Meles Zenawi met the opposition leaders to try and end the deadlock over who won the 15 May election, in which 25 million people turned out to vote.

It is also the first time the three major political parties have met since dozens of protesters were reportedly gunned down by security forces during demonstrations over alleged fraud. The three parties are Meles' ruling Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front, and the two largest opposition parties, the Coalition for Unity and Democracy, and the United Ethiopian Democratic Front.

Tim Clarke, the head of the European Commission delegation in Ethiopia, who helped broker the talks said it was breakthrough.

"But there is a barb in the tail," he added. "The opposition were told by the prime minister that they have to make a choice in the coming days on whether they are in or out of the process and face the consequences."

Opposition leaders have rejected the 435 declared seats and are insisting that complaints be re-examined or elections re-held in 299 disputed constituencies across the country.

The prime minister called on the two main opposition parties to stay in the election process and not to pull out and boycott parliament in protest.

During the talks, an agreement was reached on allowing opposition parties access to state media and curbing "hate speech" in press coverage of the elections.

The country's third elections, which European observers declared as the freest the country has ever held, descended into bitter accusations after allegations of fraud surfaced.

Opposition leaders were placed under house arrest and post-election protests culminated in at least 40 deaths and thousands of arrests around the country.

Election violence has also hit eastern Ethiopia where a series of bomb attacks killed five. Government officials said the attacks were linked to the delayed 21 August ballot, where 23 seats will be up for grabs.

Elections are also being repeated in at least 15 constituencies on that day.

With 435 seats so far announced, the ruling coalition and allied parties are just 11 seats short of a parliamentary majority.

Atlanta Ethiopian Immigrant Ordered Out of U.S.

WSBTV.com -- An Ethiopian immigrant accused of torturing and killing dissidents in a military dictatorship in his native country during the 1970s has been ordered deported from the United States, but will remain here while he appeals the decision, the government said Friday.

Kelbessa Negewo, 54, was arrested in January in an Atlanta suburb and has remained in federal custody since then.

Following a hearing this week, an immigration judge on Tuesday ordered Negewo deported to Ethiopia. However, because he is appealing the decision, the deportation is on hold until the matter is resolved, said Sue Brown, a spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Negewo faces life in prison in his former homeland, where in 2002 he was convicted in absentia of human rights violations including torture and 13 killings. He was also the target of a civil case in the early 1990s.

Negewo fled to the United States in 1988 and eventually became a U.S. citizen. He renounced his citizenship last October after the government moved to strip him of it, and that opened the door for the arrest and deportation proceedings.

The U.S. government has said no federal charges are planned against him.

Officials allege that during the 1970s, Negewo was part of a military dictatorship that ruled Ethiopia. They say that in his role as chairman of a special government unit, he was responsible for having numerous civilians -- mostly students -- incarcerated, tortured and executed by firing squad.

Homeland security officials say Negewo lied about his human rights violations to obtain U.S. citizenship.

Negewo's wife told The Associated Press following her husband's arrest in January that she doesn't believe he killed anyone.

Mix it up with African-Inspired Spicing

Herald.com -- Emeril may have his ''Essence,'' but North Africans knew how to kick it up a notch long before superstar chef Lagasse did. Today's home cooks can roam the grocery store aisles and create their own repertory of spice mixes to give a boost to ordinary meals -- whether by replicating foreign dishes or inventing their own.

Conquest and trade in the seventh century brought unfamiliar and wondrous South Asian spices to Morocco and Tunisia -- cumin, turmeric and nutmeg among them. When the culture of the invading Muslim crusaders was superimposed upon that of native Berbers and others, the food could only get better.

Spice blends often were born out of the need to preserve meats at a time when refrigeration wasn't even a dream. Centuries later, practical concerns have faded. The mixed spices have become essential to the dishes they enhance -- and to national identity. You can't think ''curry'' without India, ''jerk'' without Jamaica or ''mole'' without Mexico.

The flavors of Ethiopia are potent -- made more so by the addition of berbere, a blend of spices that adds fire, smokiness and a hint of sweetness conveyed by spices most American cooks save for baked apples and pumpkin pie.

Berbere is used as a powder or a paste with spiced clarified butter as the binder. It's the principal seasoning in Ethiopia's national dish, doro wat, a spicy chicken stew. The smoldering mix combines small amounts of coriander, fenugreek, ginger, cloves, cinnamon and allspice with a lot of paprika and cayenne. The spices are toasted first, which develops their flavors even more.

In her scholarly volume, The Peppers, Cracklings, and Knots of Wool Cookbook (State University of New York Press, $19.50), Diane M. Spivey notes the link between the origins of many spices and their eventual destinations: Berbere, she says, ``can certainly be compared to the spice blends sambaar podi, or other masalas, prepared in India.''

Try adding some to a favorite chicken stew and see what happens. Or put a little in some canned cannelini or kidney beans.

Harissa is both an essential ingredient and a condiment that blazes through the cuisines of Tunisia. The red-hot chile paste is flavored with cumin, caraway and coriander. Cooks who add more than ¼ teaspoon to their stew pots (unless cooking for a crowd) do so at their peril.

Though also used in Algeria and Morocco, harissa is to Tunisia what salsa and ketchup are to the United States -- beloved and ubiquitous. It is added to stews and relishes, soups and lamb sausage.

Supermarkets and ethnic groceries carry ''Indian,'' ''Mexican,'' ''Thai'' and other spice blends packaged in bottles or tubes that have been on the shelf for who knows how long. Though he peddles his own line, Emeril knows that nothing surpasses a homemade spice mix or he wouldn't put recipes for his Essence of Emeril blends in his cookbooks.

There are as many versions of berbere and harissa as there are home cooks in North Africa. There, too, spice vendors sell their own proprietary mixes, while home cooks make their own blends and pass them down in the family. Follow their example, the better to adjust the flavor and heat level to your own taste.

Harissa is used on its North African home turf to season a variety of dishes. Definitely try it in couscous, but don't be afraid to use it in pasta sauces. (They do in Tunisia, which is just across the Mediterranean from Italy.) Put some in chicken salad or potato salad. Spread a little on bread when you're making a sandwich.

Invention is the key -- but watch the heat!

Nancy Ancrum writes biweekly about the culinary legacy of the African diaspora.

SPICE MIX

BERBERE

Stir half a tablespoon -- or to taste -- of berbere into fish and seafood dishes, meat stews and canned beans.

• 1 ½ teaspoons ground ginger

• ¾ teaspoon each ground coriander, fenugreek, cardamom and nutmeg

• ½ teaspoon each ground cloves, cinnamon and allspice

• ¼ a small onion, finely chopped

• 1 stick ( ½ cup) butter, softened

• 1/3 cup cayenne

• 1/3 cup paprika

• 1 ½ teaspoons freshly ground pepper

• 3 tablespoons salt

Toast the first eight ingredients (ginger through allspice) together in a saucepan over low heat. Shake and stir constantly for a few minutes until the mixture becomes fragrant.

Combine the toasted spices, onion and butter in a blender or food processor. Process until the mixture is a smooth paste.

Combine the cayenne, paprika, pepper and salt in the same saucepan and toast over low heat, stirring and shaking the pan, for 10 minutes. Stir into the spice paste. Thin if necessary with water, adding a tablespoon at a time, until the desired consistency is reached. Cool completely and store, covered, in the refrigerator for up to three months. Makes about 1 cup.

Source: Adapted from The Peppers, Cracklings, and Knots of Wool Cookbook by Diane M. Spivey (SUNY Press, $19.50).

Note: Nutritional content in amounts used is negligible.



Dishes at Sunlight, including this vegetarian combination, are served on a spongy, tangy bread known as "injera." (photo courtesty: baltimore sun.com)

Violence in Ethiopia's East Draws Attention to Somalis' Plight

Terrorist attacks in eastern Ethiopia this week have drawn attention to the plight of ethnic Somalis living in Ethiopia's Ogaden region, where opposition groups have accused Ethiopia's government of massive human rights abuses over the last decade, including hundreds of killings and disappearances.

So far, no one has claimed responsibility for a series of grenade attacks that killed five people and injured 31 others Sunday in the eastern Ethiopian town of Jijiga.

Authorities there say the violence was politically motivated, coming just two weeks before voters in the region cast their ballots in Ethiopia's parliamentary election, in which most of the country voted in May.

But the killings have focused international attention on the plight of those living in Ogaden, an arid region roughly the size of Britain. Most of the four million people are Somalis. The region is important seasonal grazing land for cattle, goats and camels migrating from Somalia.

In the late 1970s, Somalia and Ethiopia went to war over Ogaden. Somalia claimed Ogaden belonged to it and that the colonial boundaries ignored centuries-old migration patterns of Somalis into what is now part of Ethiopia.

Somalia lost the war, but that didn't restore calm in Ogaden. There are several Ethiopian opposition groups operating in the area, including the Ogaden National Liberation Front, or ONLF. Another group, al-Ittihad, an Islamist organization linked to al-Qaida, according to experts, has petered out over the last decade.

Matt Bryden, Horn of Africa director for the International Crisis Group, says the ONLF might have its share of grievances with Ethiopia's government, but it was unlikely behind the attack.

"The ONLF has been fighting for a number of years for self-determination of the Somali people within Ethiopia," he said. "They have operated mainly far to the southeast of Jijiga, and their attacks have, for the most part, focused on Ethiopian armed forces, and occasionally ambushes on civilian trucks and humanitarian personnel."

Ogaden has seen an increase of activity in recent months. The United States military is conducting training exercises in the region as part of the U.S.-led war on terror in the Horn of Africa.

Also, the Malaysian oil company, Petronas, just sealed a four-year deal with Ethiopia's government to explore for oil in the Ogaden region. The deal angered ONLF leaders, who vowed to block the government's attempts to profit from Ogaden's potential oil wealth.

Still, Mr. Bryden says he doubts the oil deal is linked to the recent violence.

"I would be surprised simply because there would be no point for the ONLF to throw grenades into bars in Jijiga," he said. "They would be much more likely to make their displeasure known in the area where the drilling is supposed to take place. So, at the moment I'd say it's too early to draw a link between the two."

Meanwhile, people in the Ogaden region are preparing for the August 15 elections to fill 23 seats in Ethiopia's 547-member parliament. Several opposition groups, already claiming massive voting fraud, have recently staged violent protests in the capital, Addis Ababa.

Did You Know?
While still in high school, Ossie Davis had dreamed about joining Ethiopia's struggle against Mussolini, although he confessed he was not sure where Ethiopia was.

In 1935, Benito Mussolini's Italy used mustard gas in Ethiopia and Libya.

Yemeni Entrepreneurs Desire to Invest in Ethiopia

allAfrica.com -- The free market economic policy of Ethiopia, which envisages mutual trade and investment relations among countries, has attracted the attention of Yemeni entrepreneurs, Head of a Yemeni delegation said.

Head of the visiting Yemeni delegation, Sheik Mohamed Omer Ba-Mashmoos said the new economic policy of the Ethiopian government would help to forge sustainable and dependable economic ties between Ethiopia and Yemen.

The official made the statement yesterday at the joint meeting of the Ethio-Yemen trade and investment relations here in Addis Ababa.

Hence, Yemeni entrepreneurs are desirous to invest in Ethiopia especially in the fields of petroleum, agriculture, and processing of leather, Ba-Mashmoos said.

More than 50 businesspersons will be visiting Ethiopia soon with a view to sharing experiences as well as forging trade relations among Ethiopian counterparts.

He said, the age-old historical and cultural relations as well as the geographical proximity of the two countries would further strengthen the ongoing Ethio-Yemen trade and investment cooperation.

The governments of Ethiopia and Yemen should coordinate efforts and resources toward ensuring economic development and bringing about social progress among the peoples of the two sisterly countries.

According to the official, about 20,000-25,000 Yemeni nationals are living in Ethiopia at present.

Commissioner of the Ethiopian Investment Commission (EIC) Abi Wolde-Meskel said on his part that the Ethiopian government has put in place free market economy and devised a suitable investment policy in a bid to encourage trade and investment in the country.

Commissioner Abi said the government has designed various incentives to local and foreign entrepreneurs with a view to encouraging investors to come to Ethiopia.

He said, the government encourages foreign investors who are willing to invest in Ethiopia in agricultural, industrial, and other socio-economic sectors.

The 18-member Yemeni delegation would hold discussions with the business community and visit the various business establishments during the coming four days.

Yemeni Ambassador to Ethiopia Amin Alyousfi and Ethiopian Ambassador to Yemen, Abdi Dolal were in attendance at the meeting.

Previous Post: Yemen PM Quits Qat Chewing

Ethiopian Opposition CUD Leader Says Party Infiltrated by "Spy"

Sudan Tribune -- One top opposition Coalition for Unity and Democracy (CUD), leader has said that a paper called Efitin had been publishing word by word all CUD Council meetings, discussions and this shows that some non-CUD members of the council are spying against the organization.

The 16-man CUD Council, which comprises four members each from the All Ethiopian Unity Party (AEUP), Ethiopia Democratic Unity Party-Medhin, Ethiopia Democratic League (EDL) and Rainbow Ethiopian Movement for Democracy and Justice (REMDJ) had been meeting continuously, specially following the 15 May elections, and discussing various current issues.

The senior CUD leader said everything discussed in every meeting had been published almost word by word by the newspaper called Eftin to show that there is divisions within the coalition. The leader said that although it is not surprising to see different views being expressed with in the coalition, he was dismayed to see the [paper] giving more attention on the different views expressed with in the coalition and also of trying to create divisions within the party.

Adding, the leader said although the report is not being recorded on tape, he said that he read what every member of the council talked during their meetings.

He said the ruling coalition Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front EPRDF) will not stop planting a spy fearing that the coalition is conspiring to overthrow the government.

The leader said although the coalition does not have secrets hidden from the public, the coalition is investigating how the information was illegally going out, and soon the necessary action will be taken on those found leaking the information.

Eftin was launched a month ago and the general manager is called, Zerihun Teshome. He is an ardent supporter of the EPRDF.

Ethiopia a 'Man-made Disaster'

News24.com -- A government study made public on Thursday has condemned a much-heralded $200m a year aid programme aimed at ending perennial hunger in Ethiopia for failing to meet its targets and causing "a man-made disaster".

In January, Ethiopia started a programme to get five million people who annually face severe food shortages out of dependency on emergency food aid. It is funded and much heralded by donors including Britain, the European Commission, the United States and the World Bank.

Inadequate implementation

As of the end of May, only 11% of cash and 44% of food had reached people in need, said the study by the government's emergency nutrition co-ordination unit.

"The inadequate implementation of the productive safety net programme is resulting in a man-made disaster in many areas of the country," the study said.

The study said in one region of the country where the programme is being implemented some 700 000 "poorest of the poor" have been excluded and do not get any kind of aid at all.

Mulugeta Debalkew, an official of the agriculture ministry charged with implementing the programme, played down the study, but acknowledged there had been some delays.

"There are minor problems, but the government and donor community are devising certain strategies to cope with the delays," he said.

Ethiopians are "chronically hungry"

Mulugeta said some of the delays were caused by the fact the programme was new and local officials were not handing out food or cash to families.

Irrespective of how good harvests are in Ethiopia, about five million people, who the United Nations describes as chronically hungry, live in the country's northern highlands.

Under the programme they are given food or cash in return for doing public works like building roads and in this way they are expected to have consistent food or money they can live and plan on instead of waiting for emergency food aid that is usually limited.

The emergency nutrition co-ordination unit's study was presented to government officials and aid organisations on Tuesday.

On the same day, the European Union said it would augment its funding for the program by $72m over two years.

A Young Heroine Pays the Ultimate Sacrifice

Ethiopian Review -- Her name is Shi Bire Desalegn. She is the first person to be killed when Meles Zenawi unleashed his forces following a peaceful protest by Addis Ababa University (AAU) students on June 6. She was shot and killed by EPRDF troops as she and her friends tried to block the road in Kotebe that leads to the Sendafa torture camp.

She helped escape several AAU students from torture by helping them jump from the trucks that were taking them to Sendafa. She didn't have any weapon. But that didn't stop the EPRDF troops from shooting her to death.

Because of Shi Bire actions, some AAU students escaped torture. But because of the action and inaction of others, thousands went through unspeakable brutality in the hands of the EPRDF security forces under the direct orders of Meles Zenawi. Thirty days later, Meles Zenawi was standing next to President Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair at the G8 meeting in Scotland, looking proud of his barbaric actions.

Ethiopian Review spoke with Shi Bire's mother, Wzr. Ayelech Birkneh. She is devastated by her daughter's sudden death. As the bread winner of the family, the 21-year old Shi Bire was supporting her mother and six teenage siblings. The father passed away, leaving only a 50 birr monthly pension.

Shi Bire could not continue her education, because there was nobody else to support the family. Her income was not enough to support the whole family even though she worked hard. The only choice she had to generate enough income was to go to a foreign country looking for a job.

People in Shi Bire's neighborhood appreciate what she did and died for. They think she is a heroine and a role model. They talk about her with a great deal of pride. She stood up for the students who only demanded respect for the people's vote. She paid the ultimate sacrifice trying to save others.

RP exports Hybrid Rice Seeds to Madagascar, to Play Agri Role

Manila Bulletin -- Henry Lim Bon Liong, SLAC chairman, said SLAC has been shipping SL-8H hybrid rice seeds to Madagascar since last year and is now considering to put up a plant there upon its government’s invitation.

"The minister of ministers of Madagascar came here last year and inspected our research station in Sta. Cruz and processing plant in Davao Oriental. They’re very impressed and wanted to import more. But cost becomes more expensive with volume, so they’re inviting us to set up a plant there," said Lim in an interview.

SLAC has started to ship 20 to 50 sacks (of 50 kilos each) of seeds but is now exporting 700 to 800 sacks. With Madagascar’s intent to buy about 100,000 sacks good for 100,000 hectares, cost of air freight becomes more prohibitive. Shipping these by vessel takes a longer three weeks to one month which is compelling Madagascar to invite investors to rather propagate the seeds there.

Madagascar has already tested the hybrid seeds which has been turning a good yield there as much as this could raise by 50 to 100 percent yield locally from three metric tons (MT) per hectare.

Lim said the Madagascar export market is very attractive as good quality seeds’ price ranges from $2 to $2.50 per kilo while SLAC may earn just $1.20 per kilo from the local farm if it fails to collect from farmers.

The attractiveness of the Madagascar market is particularly shaped by WB’s $200 million financing for its agricultural development.

"World Bank eyes Madagascar as the food basket of Africa. Madagascar has only 20 million population, but it has a land area double that of the Philiippines and may later plan to export rice to South Africa. With the hunger in Kenya and Ethiopia, it has a huge market," he said.

While SLAC wants to focus on the Philippines which is planning an expansion on hybrid rice area to 500,000 hectares next year, SLAC is also considering to put up a plant in Madagascar.

"We’re entertaining it, but we have not decided yet because we also have to put people there. By the end of the year, we’ll see. If the (Philippine) government does not support us, we might move our entire plant there. Madagascar has the support of the World Bank and has tested our seed for several seasons," he said.

SLAC is sending a business mission to Madagscar in September.

"They’re giving us importance there. We should be proud that the Filipino variety is now halfway around the globe. And Madagascar has no civil war, no peace and order problems, the president is very supportive. Some tell me people there leave their houses with doors open," he said.

SLAC, Philippines’ biggest hybrid rice seed producer taking up some 100,000 of 230,000 hectares in 2004 or about 50 percent, has come across this export opportunity as it has always been invited to worldwide forum on hybrid rice and increased rice productivity.

Madagascar, once a French colony but regained independence in the 1960s, is world’s fourth largest island (587,040 square kilometers) and is strategically located along the Mozambique Channel.

After abandoning socialist policies in the 1990s, WB and International Monetary Fund led its privatization and liberalization. It had real gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate of 5.5 percent in 2004 of which agriculture accounts for onefourth. It plants coffee, vanilla, sugarcane, cloves, cocoa, cassava, beans, banana, and peanuts.

It has experienced apparel boom owing to a duty-free access to the US.

Other booms...

MADAGASCAR, the movie

Ethiopia: Amnesty Concerned Over Pilots

Reuters AlertNet -- Two of three Ethiopian pilots who allegedly defected to neighboring Djibouti may have been forcibly returned against their will, Amnesty International (AI) said on Friday.

"Amnesty fears that they may have been forcibly returned without having had their asylum claims assessed in a fair and satisfactory procedure in accordance with international refugee law and standards," the organization said.

AI was concerned that the two pilots could be at risk of further torture or ill-treatment and prolonged detention without charge or trial, or a military trial that might fall short of international fair trial standards, in which they might be sentenced to death for desertion.

The Ethiopian defence ministry said they had no information on the fate of the three pilots, who reportedly flew their Ethiopian military helicopter to neighbouring Djibouti around 10 June.

In a statement Amnesty urged the Ethiopian authorities to reveal the whereabouts of the pilots and allow them immediate access to relatives, lawyers and any medical treatment they may require. AI also called for an investigation to establish whether the pilots had been "forcibly returned" to Ethiopia, in breach of international conventions.

The UN refugee agency (UNHCR) has issued an appeal to see the men. UNHCR recently sent a letter to Djibouti's Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Mahamoud Ali Youssouf, expressing its concern over the fate of the three Ethiopians.

A separate group of eight Ethiopian air force personnel defected while training in Belarus in early June. UNHCR said they were now being processed under the Belarussian asylum system.

Malaysian State Firm to Explore for Oil in Western Ethiopia

RedNova News -- Text of report in English by Ethiopian news agency ENA website

Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said his government would provide the necessary assistance to the Malaysian corporation of Petronas in its petroleum exploration and development activities in Ethiopia.

The prime minister made the remark during an audience at his office with president and chief executive of Petronas Corporation, Tan Sri Dato Sri Mohammad Hassen Marican on Monday [25 July].

According to Minister of Mines Ambassador Mohamoud Dirir, who attended the discussions, Petronas had signed an agreement to engage in petroleum exploration and development in Ethiopia in 2003. A joint study conducted by the ministry and the corporation over the past two years has led the latter to enter into the next phase of exploration, according to Ambassador Mohamoud.

According to Ambassador Mohamoud, the corporation would begin drilling of oil wells in Gambella Regional State [western Ethiopia] next year.

President and chief executive of Petronas, Sri Mohammad Hassen Marican, told Prime Minister Meles that the survey conducted by the corporation over the past two years were successful. Sri Mohammad Hassen has commended the cooperation of the Ministry of Mines as well as the regional governments, which he said, has helped the corporation to successfully undertake its projects.

Established in August 1974, Petronas is Malaysia's national petroleum corporation wholly-owned by the government. Since its incorporation, Petronas has grown to be an integrated international oil and gas company with business interests in 35 countries, according to information obtained from its official web site.

As at the end of March 2004, the Petronas Group comprised 93 wholly-owned subsidiaries, 19 partly-owned outfits and 55 associated companies.

Miss Ethiopia, Supergeek

Wired -- There was a time when Atetegeb Tesfaye Worku was content to be perhaps the best-looking network engineer on the Horn of Africa. But this May afternoon Miss Ethiopia is one of 81 beauty queens rehearsing in Bangkok for the 54th Miss Universe competition. The telecast, coproduced by NBC and Donald Trump, will later be viewed by hundreds of millions of people around the world.

Backstage, the contestants - or delegates, as they are officially known - chatter in dozens of languages. Worku, 24, is talking about her job installing computer networks. She's a willowy 5'9" with long black hair, a blinding smile, and excellent posture. She's dressed in what seems to be the unofficial casual uniform for contestants - blue jeans, midriff-baring T-shirt, and white pin-striped blazer. In 2001, she earned a diploma in computer science in Addis Ababa. "After college, I was accepted into a program organized by the United Nations Commission for Africa," she says in lilting English. "Part of that training was Cisco networking."

A nation of 73 million, Ethiopia has only 435,000 phone lines (plus 97,800 mobile phones). IT workers are few; budding supermodel IT workers fewer. That was one of the challenges Worku faced in the two years she spent as a manager for Nex-Wave Ethiopia, a startup in Addis Ababa launched by some friends. "When I'd go in for a job - like working on systems for pharmacies or for schools - they would ask me, 'Are you sure you can really do that?'" she says. "But then I could, and they were surprised. You just have to keep on breaking the boundaries."

Worku also helped with an effort to bring Internet access to 1 million Ethiopian women. That program turned out to be less than successful. The state-owned telephone company is the country's only Internet provider, and it has a reputation for inefficiency. This summer the US is planning to assist in the partial liberalization of the country's telecom market. Will that make a difference? Worku refuses to be drawn into debate. She says only that Internet access is increasing.

Like many Miss Universe delegates, she wants to improve the lives of others. (This year's winner, Miss Canada, is devoting herself to combatting HIV and AIDS.) "If we can produce more computer specialists in Ethiopia, then we can do what Singapore and India are doing," Worku says, moments before she is called away to rejoin the other contestants for a rehearsal of the swimsuit procession. "The more connectivity you have in a country, the more development you have."

Rwandair Express Acquires New Aircraft

The East African -- Rwanda’s national carrier Rwandair Express, has moved to stave off imminent collapse by acquiring newer aircraft that are more fuel-efficient and serve its routes better.

The airline, which has been operating a single 140 seat MD 82 on all its four routes, this month introduced a 36-seat Dash 8-200 to augment its thin but essential services to Entebbe and Bujumbura. The aircraft has been taken on a short-term lease from Ethiopia-based Midroc Corporation and will be replaced as soon as a more appropriate aircraft has been secured.

Rwandair acting chief executive officer Pierre Claver Kabera said although the lease on the 23-year-old MD82 had been extended by six months to January 2006, they expect to have acquired a Boeing 737-300 to operate trunk routes such as Nairobi and Johannesburg by then. The carrier is also looking for an Embraer 120 to replace the Dash-8 in a few months' time. The carrier, which considers services to Entebbe obligatory, offers four flights a week to Entebbe but business has been difficult because of passenger numbers that are more suited for a small aircraft.

Its regional network was expanded last September, with the launch of services to Bujumbura and Kilimanjaro and addition of a fourth frequency to Entebbe but the operations have been loss-making because the 140 seat MD82, which is too big for the routes, was being used. Mr Kabera says that while the aircraft was acquired on the strength of a good trade-off between payload and range, especially on routes to Johannesburg and Nairobi, which generate a significant amount of cargo, it was now being abandoned in favour of the smaller but more fuel-efficient B737-300.

Business has been weak on the Johannesburg route because the market did not quite take to the MD82, which many saw as inherently unsafe because of its advanced age. Like the MD82, all the planned acquisitions will be wet leased because "Rwanda lacks the tooling and mechanics to maintain types such as the Embraer and Boeing 737 in the country."

Ethiopia's Struggle for Democracy

Daily Times -- To restore calm before a recount can be held, confidence-building measures are needed. The military must be taken off the streets. The ban on public demonstrations must be lifted. Those in jail must be released or given a fair trial

When we in Ethiopia’s political opposition agreed to participate in the election that
the government called in June, we were under no illusion that the process would be faultless. After all, Ethiopia has never known democracy. The dictatorship of Mengistu Haile Mariam was Africa’s most blood-curdling Marxist regime, and was replaced by today’s ruling EPRDF, whose “Revolutionary Democracy” is but a more subtle variation on the same theme.

So we knew that there would be problems with the election, that voting would not be clean in the way Western countries take for granted. Yet we nonetheless believed that the opposition, led by the Coalition for Unity and Democracy (CUD), would have room to manoeuvre and campaign, owing to the government’s desire for international legitimacy. So we decided to test the waters and push for a real political opening and a genuinely competitive vote. Many Ethiopians appear to have agreed with this strategy.

The government did make some media available and engaged in more than 10 live televised debates. So, at least at first, there seemed to have been some intention on the government’s part to open up the process — if not completely, then somewhat.

Now, however, it appears that the authorities wanted only a small, managed opening, on the assumption that they could control the outcome.

About a month before the election, the government began to shut down the political space it had opened. Its election campaign took on a vilifying tone, charging that the opposition was bent on destroying ethnic groups through genocide. Indeed, it called the opposition “interahamwe,” invoking the memory of the Hutu militia that slaughtered 800,000 Rwandan Tutsis in 1994. The government also began to harass opposition parties, especially in rural areas.

This was unpleasant, but tolerable. So we continued campaigning. But things became nastier a week before the vote. Attendance at an official pro-government rally in the capital, Addis Ababa, was dwarfed by our rally the following day, when millions of demonstrators peacefully demanded change and showed their support for us. At that point, the government realised that its democratic opening was slipping out of its control.

Two days before the vote, our poll watchers and supporters were searched, arrested, and given one-day trials, with most sentenced to one or two months in jail. We feared that the voting would take place without the presence of our poll watchers. So we gave a press conference — all the opposition parties together — the day before the vote, demanding that the government release our party workers and allow people to vote freely.

Although the government met neither of these demands, the early results clearly showed that the opposition was gaining a large number of seats. It became obvious that we were winning in many constituencies and that we had won in Addis Ababa, as well as in most of the major cities and the rural areas.

What was surprising was the magnitude of the victory. In Addis Ababa, top government officials, including the ministers of education and capacity building, lost, as did the speaker of the House of People’s Representatives. In rural constituencies, opposition candidates defeated such EPRDF heavyweights as the ministers of defence, information, and infrastructure, along with the presidents of the two largest regions, Oromia and Amhara.

The government wasted little time in responding: the next day, it declared itself the winner, with not even half of the constituencies reporting their results.

No surprise, then, that the public erupted in anger. When university students protested, the police moved in, killing one. In demonstrations the following day, 36 more people were killed. Soon after, our office workers were detained, and Hailu Shawel, Chairman of the CUD, and senior CUD official Lidetu Ayalew were put under house arrest. One hundred staff members were taken from our head office in Addis Ababa alone, and many more from regional offices. Up to 6,000 people were jailed — CUD members and even ordinary citizens.

My fear is that the will of Ethiopia’s people will be stifled by government hard-liners. Doubts about the authenticity of the final results will create a danger of instability. Everyone — the government, the opposition, and the public — must commit themselves to a peaceful resolution.

To restore calm before a recount can be held, confidence-building measures are needed. The military must be taken off the streets. The ban on public demonstrations must be lifted. Those in jail must be released or given a fair trial. Those held simply because they do not support the government must be freed and allowed to participate in the democratic process. The government-controlled media must be open to diverse opinions; in particular, opposition access must be guaranteed.

Equally important, the international community must send observers — and thus a clear signal to the government that any attempt to maintain power by force or intimidation is unacceptable. The world must keep watching, just as it watched in Georgia, Ukraine, Lebanon, and Palestine.

For the first time in our ancient history, we Ethiopians have voted our conscience. Our people have played their part with courage and discipline. They deserve the opportunity to build a genuine democratic political system. That is their only guarantee to live in peace and to achieve prosperity. —DT-PS

Dr Berhanu Nega is a member of the Executive Committee and Chairman of the 2005 election campaign of the Coalition for Unity and Democracy, Ethiopia’s main opposition party. He was formerly the President of the Ethiopian Economic Association

A Disgraceful Brawl in Ethiopian Embassy

Ethiomedia.com -- On Friday July 22, 2005, Ethiopian Embassy in Washington, DC was swamped by the State Department secret service officials because of a brawl that was started by one of the embassy's security guards named Solomon Tadesse. Solomon battered and beat an Ethiopian artist, who was set to exhibit his art works in the embassy's compound on Monday, July 25, 2005. According to eye witnesses, many art works of the artist were destroyed and ripped by this particular security guard.

The reason for the artist's assault was his art works mock and make fun of EPRDF fighters and the government. However, the embassy itself gave a green light to the artist few weeks ago to exhibit his art works in the embassy's compound. Many distinguished guests and the representative of DC mayor Anthony Williams were invited at the exhibition that was due to open on Monday July 25th.

After Solomon slapped and assault the artist, the state department secret service officials came to the embassy and demanded to see him and take the appropriate action. However, the embassy hid Solomon in one of the offices, and was very reluctant to let the secret service agents to talk to him. At the end, by the firm insistence of the secret service officials, Solomon came out from the office, where he was hidden and gave his account of the situation through an interpreter.

The embassy canceled the exhibition, and the artist was forced to present his art work elsewhere. However, the artist may have a plan to show to his invited high profile guests the art works that were ripped and destroyed by the employee of the embassy, Solomon Tadesse. This situation exposes the Ethiopian government, that tells the world that it has a policy of respecting people's rights of self-_expression.

Ethiopians around the world should encourage the artist to use all legal means at his disposal to have the Ethiopian government and Ethiopian embassy pay damages for the destroyed works of art and the thuggish behavior of the guard.

Previous Post: Teddy Afro's Music Banned from State Media in Ethiopia

Student Sending Books to Ethiopia

Alem Astatike is selecting books to send to her native Ethiopia. The books have been donated by Indiana Tech, where she is studying for a master’s degree in engineering management.

FortWayne.com -- A small, hot storage space on the Indiana Tech campus probably wouldn’t be a place anyone would want to spend much time, but graduate student Alem Astatike sees it as a treasure.

Between studying to get a master’s degree in engineering management and working full time, Astatike is trying to send old books stored there to her native Ethiopia.

The 32-year-old was born in Addis Ababa, the nation’s capital. She was sent to live with relatives in the U.S. in the 10th grade, arriving in Fort Wayne with her brother so the siblings could receive a better education.

She went home for a couple of weeks at the end of last year and decided to drop in on her old principal at the Assai school. During the visit, Astatike and other former students toured Assai and saw a high school had been added to the school grounds. Plans are also in the works to build a college there.

Although the facility itself is bigger, something that hasn’t grown is its collection of books.

“(The principal) told us that they need books,” said Astatike. “In the library, I didn’t see a lot of books like we have here (in America).”

Upon her return to the U.S., Astatike asked her admissions counselor at Indiana Tech if the school had any to donate. The counselor referred her to Josi Campbell, coordinator of the Campus Books and Print Center.

Older editions of books, or those no longer used by professors, are sent to the school’s overflow section.

They weren’t being used otherwise, so Campbell packed up three boxes to send to Ethiopia. There are more available, and Campbell said Astatike can have as many as she needs.

For decades, the illiteracy rate in Ethiopia was among the highest in the world, and the country’s education system mirrored that of Britain. Women weren’t encouraged to excel academically.

In the mid-1970s, the government worked to combat illiteracy through a campaign in which “reading books for beginners” were distributed nationwide. In 2000, about 47 percent of adult Ethiopian men and 31 percent of adult Ethiopian women were literate, according to statistics compiled by UNICEF.

Astatike said education has definitely improved in her native country, but said only students who have at least a 3.5 grade-point average are considered for university admission.