Senate should not confirm Gayle Smith – Alemayehu G. Mariam

May 12, 2015

by Alemayehu G. Mariam (This article originally appeared in the The Hill)

President Obama visited Ghana in 2009 and told Parliament, “History is on the side of brave Africans.”  He warned Africa’s strongmen, “History is not with those who use coups or change Constitutions to stay in power.” He declared to the world, “Africa doesn’t need strongmen, it needs strong institutions.”

Obama has tapped Gayle Smith to run the U.S. Agency for International Development. African strongmen will be very pleased by the news; but she is the wrong choice for the job.

El-Sisi: Ethiopia’s Friend in Need, Indeed!

May 10, 2015

by Alemayehu G. Mariam

A friend in need is a friend in deed, indeed!

Last week, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi stunned the world by rescuing more than two dozen abducted Ethiopians marked for beheadings in Libya by the ruthless self-styled terrorist group known as “Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant” (ISIL) (also known as “Islamic State of Iraq and (Syria) al-Sham (ISIS)”).

Ahram Online, Al-Ahram’s English-language website, announced, “The Egyptian army freed the Ethiopian workers who arrived at Cairo airport on Thursday morning,

5 Practical Recommendations for U.S. Policy on Ethiopia: Freedom House

Photo: The United States Embassy in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

May 12, 2015

by Vukasin Petrovic | Director of Africa Programs

Ethiopia, one of the United States’ closest partners in Africa, is also one of the continent’s least democratic countries. According to Freedom House’s Freedom in the World 2015 report, Ethiopia ranks 43 out of 49 countries in sub-Saharan Africa in terms of the political rights and civil liberties enjoyed by its citizens.

The government, led by the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) since the early 1990s, has routinely marginalized or eliminated any group or individual it considers a threat to its authority,

Ethiopia: Growth, poverty, torture and arbitrary killing, all in one package

May 13, 2015

by Ephrem Madebo

On her recent trip to Ethiopia, Wendy Sherman, President Obama’s Under Secretary for Political Affairs said: Ethiopia is one of the fastest growing economies on the African continent. Ethiopia is a democracy. Two weeks ago, Marie Harf, Acting Spokesperson of the State Department said that, the speech made by Wendy Sherman in Addis Ababa fully reflects the U.S. Government’s positions on these issues. Evidently, diplomacy is the patriotic art of lying for one’s country, but Wendy Sherman’s double lie in just one statement is neither patriotic nor artistic, it’s a barefaced lie that exposed her true face.